worth taking, and you may have the
chance of seeing the inside of a Genoese prison before you return."

After a visit to the School of Arms, the two friends were rowed to
Signor Polani's. The merchant himself was out, but they were at once
shown up to the room where the girls were sitting.

"My dear cousins," Matteo said as he entered, "I am delighted to see
you back safe and well. All Venice is talking of your return. You are
the heroines of the day. You do not know what an excitement there has
been over your adventure."

"The sooner people get to talk about something else the better,
Matteo," Maria said, "for we shall have to be prisoners all day till
something else occupies their attention. We have not the least desire
to be pointed at, whenever we go out, as the maidens who were carried
away. If the Venetians were so interested in us, they had much better
have set about discovering where we were hidden away before."

"But everyone did try, I can assure you, Maria. Every place has been
ransacked, high and low. Every gondolier has been questioned and cross
questioned as to his doings on that day. Every fishing village has been
visited. Never was such a search, I do believe. But who could have
thought of your being hidden away all the time at San Nicolo! As for
me, I have spent most of my time in a gondola, going out and staring up
at every house I passed, in hopes of seeing a handkerchief waved from a
casement. And so has Francisco; he has been just as busy in the search
as anyone, I can assure you."

"Francisco is different," Maria said, not observing the signs Francis
was making for her to be silent. "Francisco has got eyes in his head,
and a brain in his skull, which is more, it seems, than any of the
Venetians have; and had he not brought father to our hiding place,
there we should have remained until Ruggiero Mocenigo came and carried
us away."

"Francisco brought your father the news!" Matteo exclaimed in
astonishment. "Why, was it he who found you out, after all?"

"Did you not know that, Matteo? Of course it was Francisco! As I told
you, he has got brains; and if it had not been for him, we should
certainly never have been rescued. Giulia and I owe him
everything--don't we, Giulia?"

"Forgive me for not telling you, Matteo," Francis said to his
astonished friend; "but Signor Polani, and my father, both impressed
upon me so strongly that I should keep silent as to my share in the
business, that I tho