You saved my daughters once, and although I know there is no reason why it should be so, still, I feel a sort of belief that you may, somehow, be instrumental in their again being brought back to me." "I will do my best, sir, you may depend upon it," Francis said earnestly.

"Were they my own sisters, I could not feel more strongly interested in their behalf." Francis spent the next week almost entirely in his gondola.

Starting soon after daybreak with Giuseppi, he would row across to the villages on the mainland, and make inquiries of all sorts there; or would visit the little groups of fishermen's huts, built here and there on posts among the shallows.

He would scan every house as he passed it, with the vague hope that a face might appear at the window, or a hand be waved for assistance.

But, during all that time, he had found nothing which seemed to offer the slightest clue, nor were the inquiries set on foot by Signor Polani more successful.