He would make for the water naturally, and jump on board the first gondola he could find, thought his pursuers; but when they reached the quay there was not a gondola to be seen. The gondoliers had all got their fares tonight, and all the gondolas were on the Grand Canal, with flaunting paper lanterns flying at their beaked prows, and coloured fires burning, and mandolines and guitars tinkling and twanging, and “Funicoli, funicola,” echoing from boat to boat.
“We shall have him!” cried the foremost of that yelping pack, and even as he spoke they all heard the sound of a great splash, by the steps yonder, and knew their quarry had taken to the water.
The Venetians, warm with macaroni and wine, and in no humour for an improvised bath under those starlit ripples, pulled up, and began to chatter; then whistled and shouted for gondolas, hopelessly, as to the empty air; and anon, by common consent, ran to the bridge hard by the furthermost corner of the Doge’s Palace, and from that vantage point looked over the water.
It was covered with holiday craft. Far as the eye could see the gaily decked boats were crossing and recrossing the broad reach between the Riva and the island church, and in the midst of them, like a seagirt fortress, rose the dark hulk of the P. and O. steamer, her lights showing bright and high above those fantastical Chinese lanterns, her boilers throbbing, her cables groaning, all prepared for instant departure.
There was a deep-toned blast of the steamer’s whistle, the clamour of the donkey engines suddenly ceased, and the beating of the screw lashed up the water: and, lo, all the gondolas were tossed and swung about like a handful of rose-leaves on a running brook.
“She’s off!” cried one of Vansittart’s pursuers, almost forgetting the chase in the pleasures of watching that big ship getting under way.
“Do you think he could have got on board her?” asked another; “he” meaning their quarry.
“Not he, unless he were a better swimmer than ever I knew.”
He was a better swimmer than anybody among that Venetian’s acquaintance—or, at any rate, he was good enough to swim out to the P. and O. steamer and to get himself on board her before the engines began to beat the water with their first deliberate pulsations. The last boat had left the side of the vessel; the sailors were drawing up the accommodation ladder, as he called to them with a voice of command which they did not question. In three or four minutes he was on deck, and had made his way, dripping as he was, to the captain of the vessel.
He explained himself briefly. He had got into a row—a Carnival frolic only—and wanted to get clear of Venice, and knowing the steamer was to sail for Alexandria that night, had swum out to her at the last moment. He had plenty of money about him, and as for change of clothes, he must do the best he could.
“I hope it wasn’t anything very bad,” said the captain doubtfully, looking at this dripping stranger from top to toe.
“Oh no; a man hit me in a caffè just now, and I hit him.”
The steamer was imperceptibly moving seaward at every steady throb of those ponderous engines, threading her way along the tortuous channel so slowly and cautiously at first that Vansittart wondered if she were ever going to get away. Venice the lamplit, the starlit, the beautiful, glided into the distance, with all her domes and pinnacles, her gondolas and Chinese lanterns, torches and skyrockets, music and laughter. Vansittart’s heart ached as he watched the fairy city fading like a vision of the night. He had loved her so well—spent such happy, light, unthinking days upon those waters, in those labyrinthine streets, laughing and chaffering with the little merchants of the Rialto, following Venetian beauty through the mazy ways and over the innumerable bridges—happy, uncaring. And now he was an escaped murderer, and would never dare to show his face in Venice again. “Good God!” he said to himself, in a stupor of horrified shame, “that I, a gentleman, should have used a knife—like a Colorado miner, or a drunken sweep in Seven Dials!”
II
Afterthoughts
There was nothing but fair weather for the P. and O. steamer Berenice between Venice and Alexandria—fair weather and a calm sea; and John Vansittart had ample leisure in which to think over what he had done, and to live again through all the sensations of his last night in Venice.
He had to live through it all again, and again, in those long days at sea, out of sight of land, with nothing between him and his own dark thoughts but that monotony of cloudless sky and rolling waters. What did it matter whether the boat made eighteen or twenty knots an hour, whether progress were fast or slow? Each day meant an eternity of thought to him who sat apart in his canvas chair, staring blankly eastward, or brooding with bent head, and melancholy eyes fixed on the deck, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, irritated and miserable when some officious fellow-passenger insisted upon plumping down by his side in another deck chair, and talking to him about the weather, or his destination, with futile questionings as to whether this was his first voyage to the East, and all the idle inquisitiveness of the traveller who has nothing to do, and very little to think about.
Captain and steward had been very good to him. The former had asked him no questions after that first inquiry,
