ey
made both glasses they sent home only one. Marco Manin was at table
when it arrived, and he took it in his hand at once, and after
admiring its exquisite workmanship--you see, all these old Venetians
had the art-feeling strongly developed--he told a servant to fill it
to the brim with Cyprus wine. But as he raised the flowing cup to his
lips it shivered in his grasp and the wine was spilt on the marble
floor. He drew his sword and slew the servant who had sought to betray
him, and rushing into the street he found himself face to face with
the enemy whom he knew to have instigated the attempt. They crossed
swords at once, but before Marco Manin could have a fair fight for his
life he was stabbed in the back by a glass stiletto, the hilt of which
was broken off short in the wound."

"Where was his brother all this time?" was the first question with
which John Manning broke the thread of his friend's story.

"He had been to see the yellow-haired beauty, and he came back just in
time to meet his brother's lifeless body as it was carried into their
desolate home. Holding his dead brother's hand as he had often held it
living, he promised his brother to avenge his death without delay and
at any cost. Then he prepared at once for flight. He knew that Venice
would be too hot to hold him when the deed was done; and besides, he
felt that without his brother life in Venice would be intolerable. So
he made ready for flight. Twenty-four hours to a minute after Marco
Manin's death the body of the hireling assassin was sinking to the
bottom of the Grand Canal, while the man who had paid for the murder
lay dead on the same spot with the point of a glass stiletto in his
heart! And when they wanted to send him the other goblet, there was no
one to send it to: Giovanni Manin had disappeared."

"Where had he gone?" queried John Manning.

"That's what I asked the _abbate_, and he said he didn't know for
sure, but that in those days Venice had a sizable trade with the Low
Countries, and there was a tradition that Giovanni Manin had gone to
the Netherlands."

"To Holland?" asked John Manning with unwonted interest.

"Yes, to Amsterdam or to Rotterdam or to some one of those --dam
towns, as we used to call them in our geography class."

"It was to Amsterdam," said Manning, speaking as one who had certain
information.

"How do you know that?" asked Larry. "Even the _abbate_ said it was
only a tradition that he had gone to Holland a