If we go quickly and noiselessly past, they might possibly suspect something, but if we row without an attempt at concealment, they will take us for a fisherman's boat." Soon the dark mass of Genoese ships, with their forests of masts, rose before them.

There were lights in the cabins, and a buzz of talking, laughing, and singing among the crews on board.
"What luck today ?" a sailor asked them as they rowed past, twenty or thirty yards from the side of one of the ships.
"Very poor," Giuseppi replied.

"I think your ships, and the boats lying about, and the firing, have frightened the fish away from this end of the lagoons." It was half a mile before they passed the last of the crowd of vessels.
"Would you like me to land here, signor ?" Philippo said.

"There would be no danger in my doing so.

I can make my way, through the streets, to the house of some of my relatives, and find out from them whether there are any fresh movements among the Genoese.