. Scarcely was the ladder applied,
when the first gush of flame from the warehouses brought a deafening
peal from the alarm-bell; and at the same moment, the masked and armed
familiars of the Venetian police, rising as it seemed out of the very
earth, surrounded the ladder, and a fierce conflict began. Even the
watchfulness and precautions of the Inquisition, however, were to a
certain extent overmatched by Uzcoque cunning and foresight. Had it
not been necessary to ring the alarm bell on account of the fire, the
police, who were far the most numerous, and who each moment received
an accession to their numbers, could scarcely have failed to capture
some of their opponents, and thus have ascertained to a certainty what
the promoters and the object of this audacious attempt really were.
But before they could accomplish this, the small piazza where the
conflict was going on was thronged with the populace, half intoxicated
with the excitement of the scarcely less serious fight they had been
witnessing and sharing in. In the crush and confusion that ensued,
familiars and Uzcoques were separated; and the latter, mingling with
the crowd, and no longer distinguishable from the cloaked and masked
figures that surrounded them, easily succeeded in effecting their
escape.

When Antonio, who was pushed hither and thither by the mob, was able
to extricate himself sufficiently to get another view of the window,
the invalid nobleman, delivered from his assailants, had retired into
his apartment, while the ladder, now deserted by the Uzcoques, had
been cut and thrown down. Desirous of escaping from this scene of
confusion, the young painter was making his way towards the quay,
close to which his gondola was waiting, when his heart suddenly leaped
within him at the sight of a muffled figure that passed near him, and
in which he thought he recognized the mysterious old woman who had of
late occupied so much of his thoughts. She was followed by a number of
the rabble, who pressed upon her with oaths and curses, asserting that
she was one of the party which had attacked the palace of the
Malipieri.

"I saw her holding the ladder," exclaimed one fellow.

"Nay, she was climbing up it herself," cried a second.

"Strike the foul witch dead!" shouted a score of voices.

The old woman's life was in the greatest peril, when a strange and
unaccountable, but at the same time irresistible impulse, moved
Antonio to go to her rescue. He was forci