ce.
A small purse of gold made the matter easy: the captain of the boat
secreted him, and in four days he was safely back in Saint Mark's
giving thanks to God for his deliverance.

No, I didn't say Gian was a rogue--I only told you what others say. I
am only a poor gondolier--why should I trouble myself about what great
folks do? I simply tell you what I hear--it may be so, and it may not.
God knows! There is that Pascale Salvini--he has a rival studio--and
when that Genoese, Christoforo Colombo, was here and made his
stopping-place at Bellini's studio, Pascale told every one that
Colombo was a lunatic, and Bellini another, for encouraging him to
show his foolish maps and charts. Now, they do say that Colombo has
discovered a new world, and Italians are feeling troubled in
conscience because they did not fit him out with ships instead of
forcing him to go to Spain.

No, I didn't say Bellini was a hypocrite--Pascale's pupils say so, and
once they followed him over to Murano--three barca-loads and my gondola
beside. You see it was like this: Twice a week just after sundown, we
used to see Gian Bellini untie his boat from the landing there behind
the Doge's palace, turn the prow, and beat out for Murano, with no
companion but that deaf old caretaker. Twice a week, Tuesdays and
Fridays--always at just the same hour, regardless of the weather--we
would see the old hunchback light the lamps, and in a few moments the
Master would appear, tuck up his black robe, step into the boat, take
the oar and away they would go. It was always to Murano, and always to
the same landing--one of our gondoliers had followed them several
times, just out of curiosity.

Finally it came to the ears of Pascale that Gian took this regular
trip to Murano. "It is a rendezvous," said Pascale. "It is worse than
that: an orgy among those lacemakers and the rogues of the glassworks.
Oh, to think that Gian should stoop to such things at his age--his
pretended asceticism is but a mask--and at his age!"

The Pascale students took it up, and once came in collision with that
Tiziano of Cadore, who they say broke a boat-hook over the head of one
of them who had spoken ill of the Master.

But this did not silence the talk, and one dark night, when the air
was full of flying mist, one of Pascale's students came to me and told
me that he wanted me to take a party over to Murano. The weather was
so bad that I refused to go--the wind blew in gusts, sheet light