"As I was lifting your daughters into my gondola, in a very hasty and unceremonious way--for the resistance of your servitors was all but overcome, and there was no time to be lost--she held so tightly to their robes that they were rent in her hands." Signor Polani struck a gong.
"Let a gondola be manned instantly," he said, "and let six of you take arms and go in search of our boat.

Let another man at once summon a leech, for some of those on board are, I fear, grievously wounded, if not killed." But there was no occasion to carry out the order concerning the boat, for before it was ready to start the missing gondola arrived at the steps, rowed by the remaining gondolier.

The duenna was lifted out sobbing hysterically, and the bodies of the two retainers were then landed.

One was dead; the other expired a few minutes after being brought ashore.
"You did not observe anything particular about the gondola, Maria, or you, Giulia ?" "No, father, I saw no mark or escutcheon upon it, though they might have been there without my noticing them.

I was too frightened to see anything; it came so suddenly upon us." "It was, as far as I noticed, a plain black gondola," Francis said.
"The men concerned in the affair were all dressed in dark clothes, without any distinguishing badges." "How was it you came to interfere in the fray, young gentleman?
Few of our people would have done so, holding it to be a dangerous thing, for a man to mix himself up in a quarrel in which he had no concern." "I should probably have mixed myself up in it, in any case, when I heard the cry of women," Francis replied; "but, in truth, I recognized the signoras as their gondola passed mine, and knew them to be cousins of my friend Matteo Giustiniani.