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Ferdinando is immense and untiring, with a stentorian voice in which to announce his approach around the corners of canals; and his acquaintanceship with every soul in Venice makes a voyage with him an amusing experience. And he often sings and is always good-humoured. All gondoliers are not so. A gondolier with a grudge can be a most dismal companion, for he talks to himself.
He had in fact done everything to assure the success of his scheme, except the one thing which was the most necessary of all. He had allowed himself to speak of it in the hearing of the gondolier who hated him, and who lost no time in making use of the information.
I had nothing to fear, for it was almost impossible that anyone could recognize me in the church which was attended only by the people of Muran. After hearing two or three masses, I used to take a gondola, the gondolier of which could not feel any curiosity about me.
"And what that business was thou didst not learn, good Stefano?" "How should I, Master Roderigo, when the gondolier scarce left time for greeting; but Annina " "Annina!" "The same. Thou knowest Annina, old Tomaso's daughter; for she danced in the very set in which I detected thy countenance!
"But," sez he firmly, "I will be a gondolier, I'm bound on't. And," sez he, "I want one of them gorgeous silk dresses that they wear. I'd love to appear in a red and yeller suit, Samantha, or a green and purple, or a blue and maroon, with a pink sash made of thin glitterin' silk, but I spoze that you will break that up in a minute.
"I mean that he would have examined more carefully into the truth of the rumor which accused the sister of the Strozzi of having a liaison with a gondolier; of having fled with him to Padua, and of having been caught and brought hack to Venice, while her patrician lover was sent to the galleys."
Happily, there was no one to be misled, for Pietro, with all his advantages, had not yet mastered a word of English. The only feature of the situation intelligible to him, was, that Kenwick, too, discarded his pipe at this juncture, and the gondolier was, accordingly, obliged to stow away his own half-finished cigarette, 4th quality, in the cavernous recesses of the stern.
He certainly discovered the gondolier; but from him he could learn nothing, save that the ladies had disembarked on the island of Murano, where they entered two sedan chairs which were waiting for them. He supposed them to be English because they spoke a foreign language, and had paid him in gold. He did not even know their guide, but believed him to be a glass manufacturer from Murano.
"But if, as I hope, the gondola stops at the steps, most likely they will return to it in time. So we will row in to the bank a hundred yards farther up the canal and wait." The persons who had been seen in the gondola had disappeared when they came abreast of it, and the gondolier had seated himself in the boat, with the evident intention of waiting.
One of the more faithful is the island of San Clemente, on which the old convent church is yet standing, empty and forlorn within, but without all draped in glossy ivy. After I had learned to row in the gondolier fashion, I voyaged much in the lagoon with my boat, and often stopped at this church.
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