“We don’t want it any more,” answered Beppo, “and if they find it, they’ll think we fell out and were drowned. Then they won’t look for us.”
“Oh, Beppo,” said Beppina, “what a wonderful boy you are!”
“I’ve been planning this a long time,” Beppo answered, with a little of his old swagger; “but we aren’t out of our troubles yet.”
They crept along the dock on their hands and knees until they came to one of the largest flat-bottomed boats in the fleet. Here Beppo paused, and, after carefully examining to be sure it was the one he was looking for, he helped Beppina aboard, and climbed in after her. There was a pile of empty baskets and boxes at one end of the boat, and behind these the children hid themselves to wait for dawn. For a long time they crouched there, listening to the thumping of their own hearts, and the lap-lap-lapping of the water, and at last, completely exhausted with fatigue and fright, curled up on the floor of the boat and fell sound asleep.
Chapter Nine.
The Escape.
Beppo awoke next morning in the early dawn, and, forgetting where he was, stretched his cramped legs. In doing so he kicked over a basket, which fell on Beppina. Beppina instantly sat up, and, blinking with sleep, said quite loudly, “Where are we?” She might well ask, for there, directly in front of her, pulling stoutly at a pair of oars, sat a short, thick-set man with brown skin and rings in his ears. The level rays of the sun, just rising over Venice, shone full upon his weather-beaten face and astonished eyes, as he gazed at the apparition before him. Just then Beppo’s head appeared beside his sister’s, and the man, overcome with astonishment, “caught a crab” and splashed both children with water before he burst into speech.