ad unfolded to
their view. The old woman advised them to flee to Chiozza; thence
Antonio intended to travel in an opposite direction by land towards his
own native country.

His friend, Pietro, procured him a small boat and had it brought to the
bridge behind the Palace. When night came, Annunciata, enveloped in a
thick shawl, crept stealthily down the steps with her lover, attended
by old Margaret, who bore some valuable jewel caskets in her hood. They
reached the bridge unobserved, and unobserved they embarked in their
small craft. Antonio seized the oar, and away they went at a quick and
vigorous rate. The bright moonlight danced along the waves in front of
them like a gladsome messenger of love. They reached the open sea. Then
began a peculiar whistling and howling of the wind far above their
heads; black shadows came trooping up and hung themselves like a dark
veil over the bright face of the moon. The dancing moonshine, the
gladsome messenger of love, sank in the black depths of the sea amongst
its muttering thunders. The storm came on and drove the black piled-up
masses of clouds in front of it with wrathful violence. Up and down
tossed the boat. "O help us! God, help us!" screamed the old woman.
Antonio, no longer master of the oar, clasped his darling Annunciata in
his arms, whilst she, aroused by his fiery kisses, strained him to her
bosom in the intensity of her rapturous affection. "O my Antonio!"--"O
my Annunciata!" they whispered, heedless of the storm which raged and
blustered ever more furiously. Then the sea, the jealous widow of the
beheaded Doge Falieri, stretched up her foaming waves as if they were
giant arms, and seized upon the lovers, and dragged them, along with
the old woman, down, down into her fathomless depths.

As soon as the man in the mantle had thus concluded his narrative, he
jumped up quickly and left the room with strong rapid strides. The
friends followed him with their eyes, silently and very much
astonished; then they went to take another look at the picture. The old
Doge again looked down upon them with a smirk, in his ridiculous finery
and foppish vanity; but when they carefully looked into the Dogess's
face they perceived quite plainly that the shadow of some unknown
pain--a pain of which she only had a foreboding--was throned upon her
lily brow, and that dreamy aspirations of love gleamed from behind her
dark lashes, and hovered around her sweet lips. The Hostile Power
seem