It was not far now. With infinite caution he threaded the dark canals,
thanking fortune for the faint starlight that showed him the turnings.
Here and there a small oil lamp burned before the image of a saint; from
a narrow lane on one side, the light streamed across the water, and with
it came sounds of ringing glasses, and the tinkling of a lute, and
laughing voices; then it was dark again as his skiff shot by, and he
made haste, for he wished not to be seen.
Presently, and somewhat to his surprise, he saw a gondola before him in
a narrow place, rowed slowly by a man who seemed to be in black like
himself. He did not try to pass it, but kept a little astern, trying not
to attract attention and hoping that it would turn aside into another
canal. But it went steadily on before him, turning wherever he must
turn, till it stopped where he was to stop, at the water-gate of the
house of the Agnus Dei. Instantly he brought to in the shadow, with the
instinctive caution of every one who is used to the water. Gondolas were
few in those days and belonged only to the rich, who had just begun to
use them as a means of getting about quickly, much more convenient than
horses or mules; for when riding a man often had to go far out of his
way to reach a bridge, and there were many canals that had no bridle
path at all and where the wooden houses were built straight down into
the water as the stone ones are to-day.
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