"No, beautiful friend. Just wait a moment, and I'll be ready."
Andrea put out the light, bolted the door of his room, listened whether they were all asleep in the house, and then he went back to the window. Smeraldina seemed to be experienced in building these kinds of bridges, for the board was at hand and, in a few moments, the firm path was bridging the chasm, resting evenly and safely on the ledge on both sides, being just barely wide enough to support a man. She stood on the other side, happily waving at him. Swiftly, he climbed onto the ledge, stepped onto the board, assessing the depth with firm eyes, and with a single, calm step, he had reached the window on the other side. She caught him in her arms as he jumped down, and her lips touched his cheek. But he preferred to put on a shy face and to pretend as if the closeness of his girl-friend gave him the feeling of being confined into the bounds of reverence, to which she reacted with some astonishment. The board was pulled back in, the cards and the wine were taken from the cupboard, and a table was pushed in front of the opened window, by which the strange couple took their seats, conversing in confidence. During all of this, the girl kept on wearing the red turban, which had, while she was building the bridge, slanted a bit to the back of her head, and she had pinned Andrea's present, the filigree, daintily to her breast.
She was just helping herself to her second glass of wine and was scolding her guest for drinking so slowly and not really getting into the spirit of it at all, when a bell was forcefully rung inside the house.
"Look," said the girl, getting up and throwing the cards away in anger, "that's my life; I never have a quiet hour! First, she sends me away, saying that she'd want to undress alone tonight, and now she's disturbing me at such a late time. But be patient for just ten minutes, my friend; I'll be back with you right away."
She slipped out, and he seemed to try to get over his loneliness. He stepped to the window and took a keen look at the wall on the other side between his window and the canal. It was not more than about twenty feet high; almost everywhere, the limestone was weathered due to the dampness, and the bare stones were rough enough to enable him to climb up at them, if needs be. Under the maid's room, as he had already noticed on the first evening, some stairs extended down to the water, and there was a small gondola chained to the high pole on the side, so that a second gondola would only barely be able to pass by. All of this visibly satisfied him.
"I wouldn't have been able to arrange it better for my purposes," he mumbled to himself.
Lost in thought, he looked down the canal, flowing between its steep, windowless banks of houses in perfect darkness. Then, he saw a faint shimmer of light at its very end downstream, moving closer, and, after a while, he heard the sound of oars striking the water. A gondola slowly came closer and stopped down below at the stairs. Carefully, the observer above leaned back, to avoid being noticed, but was still able to see with half a glance that a man rose from his seat and stepped onto the stairs. The knocker below sounded with three heavy blows, and soon afterwards, he heard a voice inside the house, asking from behind the door who would wish to enter.
"In the name of the exalted Council of Ten," was the answer, "open up!"
The servant below instantly obeyed, and the waterfront entrance closed again, after the nightly visitor had passed through.
Shortly afterwards, Smeraldina returned to her chamber, excited, without her turban, and with blushed cheeks. "Did you hear this?" she whispered. "Oh God, they'll take our countess away, they'll strangle her, or drown her, and who'll then pay me the six months' wages she owes me?"