382 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



taken to subdue it, the alarm-bell kept clanging on ; 

 and Antonio soon perceived that there must be some 

 other point of danger to which it was intended to 

 turn the attention of the people. Gazing about for 

 some indication of its source, he saw several gondolas 

 hurrying towards the Grand Canal, on which most of 

 the palaces of the nobles were situated, and he ordered 

 Jacopo to steer in the same direction. 



On reaching the palazzo of the Malipieri family, 

 a strange scene presented itself to him. The open 

 space between the side of the palace and the adjacent 

 church of San Samuele was crowded with men en- 

 gaged in a furious and sanguinary conflict. At one of 

 the windows of the palace, a tall man in a flowing 

 white robe, with a naked sabre in one hand and a 

 musquetoon in the other, which, from the smoke still 

 issuing from its muzzle, had apparently just been dis- 

 charged, stood defending himself desperately against 

 a band of fierce and bearded ruffians, who swarmed 

 up a rope - ladder fixed below the window. The 

 person making so gallant a defence was the Senator 

 Malipiero; the assailants were Uzcoques from the 

 fortress of Segna. 



The arrival of the Proveditore Marcello at Gra- 

 diska, and his subsequent recognition of his jewels 

 at the ball, having destroyed Strasolda's hopes of 

 obtaining her father's liberation through the inter- 

 vention of the archducal counsellors, the high-spirited 

 maiden resolved to execute a plan she had herself de- 



