"Thou seest the impossibility of deception. I am acquainted with so much of thy movements as to render it impossible that thou should'st lead me far astray. Thou art not wont to visit thy cousin; but as thou entered the canals this evening----"
A shout on the water caused Don Camillo to pause. On looking out he saw a dense body of boats sweeping towards the town as if they were all impelled by a single set of oars. A thousand voices were speaking at once, and occasionally a general and doleful cry proclaimed that the floating multitude, which came on, was moved by a common feeling. The singularity of the spectacle, and the fact that his own gondola lay directly in the route of the fleet, which was composed of several hundred boats, drove the examination of the girl, momentarily, from the thoughts of the noble.
"What have we here, Jacopo?" he demanded, in an under-tone, of the gondolier who steered his own barge.
"They are fishermen, Signore, and by the manner in which they come down towards the canals, I doubt they are bent on some disturbance. There has been discontent among them since the refusal of the Doge to liberate the boy of their companion from the galleys."
Curiosity induced the people of Don Camillo to linger a minute, and then they perceived the necessity of pulling out of the course of the floating mass, which came on like a torrent, the men sweeping their boats with that desperate stroke which is so often seen among the Italian oarsmen. A menacing hail, with a command to remain, admonished Don Camillo of the necessity of downright flight, or of obedience. He chose the latter, as the least likely to interfere with his own plans.
"Who art thou?" demanded one, who had assumed the character of a leader. "If men of the Lagunes and Christians, join your friends, and away with us to St. Mark for justice!"
"What means this tumult?" asked Don Camillo, whose dress effectually concealed his rank, a disguise that he completed by adopting the Venetian dialect. "Why are you here in these numbers, friends?"
"Behold!"
Don Camillo turned, and he beheld the withered features and glaring eyes of old Antonio, fixed in death. The explanation was made by a hundred voices, accompanied by oaths so bitter, and denunciations so deep, that had not Don Camillo been prepared by the tale of Jacopo, he would have found great difficulty in understanding what he heard.
In dragging the Lagunes for fish, the body of Antonio had been found, and the result was, first, a consultation on the probable means of his death, and then a collection of the men of his calling, and finally the scene described.