"Then you have your wish," was her muffled answer.
The three bronzed Venetians, a father and two sons, who were working the bragozzo glanced curiously at the pair. They were persuaded that these charterers of their boat were lovers flying from observation, and the unknown tongue did but stimulate guessing.
Cliffe raised himself impatiently.
They were nearing a point where the line of murazzi they had been following—low breakwaters of great strength—swept away from them outward and eastward towards a distant opening. On the other side of the channel was a low line of shore, broadening into the Lido proper, with its scattered houses and churches, and soon lost in the mist as it stretched towards the south.
"Ecco!—il Porto del Lido!" said the older boatman, pointing far away to a line of deeper color beneath a dark and lowering sky.
Kitty bent over the side of the boat staring towards the dim spot he showed her—where was the mouth of the sea.
"Kitty!" said Cliffe's voice beside her, hoarse and hurried—"one word, and I tell these fellows to set their helm for Trieste. This boat will carry us well—and the wind is with us."
She turned and looked him in the face.
"And then?"
"Then? We'll think it out together, Kitty—together!" He bent his lips to her hand, bending so as to conceal the action from the sailors. But she drew her hand away.