Jacopo had not ceased to watch the interview with the utmost intentness of his faculties. Favored by position, he could see without being distinctly visible. He saw the Carmelite pronouncing the absolution, and he witnessed the approach of the larger boat. He heard a plunge heavier than that of falling oars, and he saw the gondola of Antonio towing away empty. The crew of the Republic had scarcely swept the Lagunes with their oar-blades before his own stirred the water.
"Jacopo!—Jacopo!" came fearfully and faintly to his ears.
The voice was known, and the occasion thoroughly understood. The cry of distress was succeeded by the rush of the water, as it piled before the beak of the Bravo's gondola. The sound of the parted element was like the sighing of a breeze. Ripples and bubbles were left behind, as the driven scud floats past the stars, and all those muscles which had once before that day been so finely developed in the race of the gondoliers, were now expanded, seemingly in twofold volumes. Energy and skill were in every stroke, and the dark spot came down the streak of light, like the swallow touching the water with its wing.
"Hither, Jacopo—thou steerest wide!"
The beak of the gondola turned, and the glaring eye of the Bravo caught a glimpse of the fisherman's head.
"Quickly, good Jacopo,—I fail!"
The murmuring of the water again drowned the stifled words. The efforts of the oar were frenzied, and at each stroke the light gondola appeared to rise from its element.
"Jacopo—hither—dear Jacopo!"
"The mother of God aid thee, fisherman!—I come."
"Jacopo—the boy!—the boy!"