ver find you. That is the one place
where they will not look for you."

The mate put his head down through the small hatch overhead.

"I do not like the look of a boat that has just put off from Saint
George's," he said.

Aristarchi sprang to his feet.

"Pick him up and drop him into the porter's skiff," he said. "I am sick
of dancing with the fellow in my arms."

With incredible ease Aristarchi took Zorzi round the waist, mounted the
cabin table and passed him up through the hatch to the mate, who had
already brought him to the Jacob's ladder at the stern before Pasquale
could get there by the ordinary way.

"Quick, man!" said the mate, as the old sailor climbed over the rail.

At the same time he slipped the bight of short rope round Zorzi's body
under his arms and got a turn round the rail with both parts, so as to
lower him easily. Zorzi helped himself as well as he could, and in a few
moments he was lying in the bottom of the skiff, covered with a piece of
sacking which the mate threw down, the rope ladder was hauled up and
disappeared, and when Pasquale glanced back as he rowed slowly away, the
mate was leaning over the taffrail in an attitude of easy unconcern.

The old porter had smuggled more than one bale of rich goods ashore in
his young days, for a captain who had a dislike of the customs, and he
knew that his chance of safety lay not in speed, but in showing a cool
indifference. He might have dropped down the Giudecca at a good rate,
for the tide was fair, but he preferred a direction that would take him
right across the course of the boat which the mate had seen coming, as
if he were on his way to the Lido.

The officer of the Ten, with four men in plain brown coats and leathern
belts, sat in the stern of the eight-oared launch that swept swiftly
past the skiff towards the vessels at anchor. Pasquale rested on his oar
a moment and turned to look, with an air of interest that would have
disarmed any suspicions the officer might have entertained. But he had
none, and did not bestow a second glance on the little craft with its
shabby oarsman. Then Pasquale began to row again, with a long even
stroke that had no air of haste about it, but which kept the skiff at a
good speed. When he saw that he was out of hearing of other boats, and
heading for the Lido, he began to tell what he intended to do next, in a
low monotonous tone, glancing down now and then at Zorzi's face that
cautiously peered at him ou