hey may be watching your house now,
and if, in an hour or two, they see all is quiet, they will no doubt
retire with the belief that all danger is at an end. Then, in the
morning, I would embark the men in two or three gondolas, but I would
not start from your own steps, for no doubt your house is watched. Let
the men go out singly, and embark at a distance from here, and not at
the same place. Once out upon the lagoon, they should row quietly
towards San Nicolo, keeping a considerable distance apart, the men
lying down in the bottom as the boats approach the island, so that if
anyone is on watch he will have no suspicion.

"As I am the only one that knows the position of the hut, I will be
with you in the first gondola. We will not land near the hut, but pass
by, and land at the other end of the island. The other gondolas will
slowly follow us, and land at the same spot. Then three or four men can
go along by the sea face, with orders to watch any boats hauled up upon
the shore there, and stop any party making down towards them. The rest
of us will walk straight to the hut, and, as it lies among sand hills,
I hope we shall be able to get quite close to it before our approach is
discovered."

"An excellent plan, Francisco, though I am so impatient that the night
will seem endless to me; but certainly your plan is the best. Even if
the house is watched, and you were seen to enter, if all remains
perfectly quiet they will naturally suppose that the news you brought
was not considered of sufficient importance to lead to any action. You
will, of course, remain here till morning?"

"I cannot do that, sir, though I will return the first thing. There is,
lying on my table, a paper with the particulars and names of the
persons I saw meet in this hut, and a request to my father that, if I
do not return in the morning, he will at once lay this before the
council. I place it there every day when I go out, in order that, if I
should be seized and carried off by Mocenigo's people, I should have
some means of forcing them to let me go.

"Although I know absolutely nothing of the nature of the conspiracy,
they will not know how much I am aware of, or what particulars I may
have given in the document; and as I could name to them those present,
and among them is the envoy of the King of Hungary, now in the city,
they would hardly dare harm me, when they knew that if they did so this
affair would be brought before the council."

"I