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"I will make a bundle three or four times as big as I want," Giuseppi said, "and then half of them will be dry. I can put my clothes on them and the tinder. I will answer for the fire, but I would rather have been with you in your adventure." "There will be no danger there, Giuseppi, so you need not be anxious about us. It has to be done quietly and secretly, and there will be no fighting.
Has he not done it here in Venice? and is he not sure to do it at sea, where there are Genoese and pirates, and perils of all kinds? "You will take me with you, will you not, Messer Francisco? You will never be so hard hearted as to go away and leave me behind?" "I shall be very glad to have you with me, Giuseppi, if your father will give you leave to go.
Francis spent the next week almost entirely in his gondola. Starting soon after daybreak with Giuseppi, he would row across to the villages on the mainland, and make inquiries of all sorts there; or would visit the little groups of fishermen's huts, built here and there on posts among the shallows.
"Perhaps I had better take the sticks off to the ledge, Messer Francisco, and light my fire on the rock at the end. The water is deep a few yards out, as we found, so you could sail close to the fire and then round behind the rocks without danger." "That will be the best way, Giuseppi; but how will you get the sticks off without wetting them?"
"Captain Lontano, the servants will show you a room where your men can guard the prisoners. You had better remain with them yourself. Let no one, except your own men, enter the room." Giuseppi was on the steps, and Francis stepped up to him and eagerly asked, "What news of the gondola?" "I found her, stove in and full of water, behind the piles close to the steps.
"It does look so, Giuseppi; but it is possible that the transparency of the water deceives us, and that there may be ten or twelve feet of water there. However, that is what we must go down and find out. Now the first thing is to look about, and find some point at which we can get down to the beach." "Well, I will lie down and take a nap till you come back," Matteo said in a tone of resignation.
Francis, who had received before starting a list of houses with whom Signor Polani was in the habit of doing business, at once rowed ashore, Matteo and Giuseppi accompanying him. His business arrangements were soon completed. The harvest had been a good one, and there was an abundance of corn to be had at a cheap rate. In half an hour he arranged for as large a quantity as the Lido would carry.
"I am glad indeed, signor, that I am not to be called, and that this affair of the conspiracy is not to be brought up. I would, with your permission, now return home. Giuseppi took a message to my father from me, the first thing, explaining my absence; and I told him, when we left your house, to go at once to tell him that your daughters had been recovered, and that I should return before long.
He slept but little, however, getting up frequently and going out to ascertain if any sounds indicated the presence of an enemy. Upon one of these occasions he found that the person leaning next to him against the bulwark, and gazing towards the mouth of the harbour, was Giuseppi. "Have you been here long, Giuseppi?" "Since you were out last, Messer Francisco.
In the next place, it is a dangerous matter to have to do with conspiracies, whichever side you are on. The way to live long in Venice is to make no enemies." "Yes, I know that, Giuseppi, and I haven't decided yet what to do in the matter." A quarter of an hour later, their fare returned to the boat.
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