Volume II Part 55 (1/2)

This truly heroic action was known all over the town, and it was Murray hi me as his witness

This fa herself eaten away by an internal disease, proive a hundred louis to a doctor named Lucchesi, who by dint of reement that she was not to pay the aforesaid sum till Lucchesi had offered with her an a done his business as well as he could wished to be paid without sub to the conditions of the treaty, but Ancilla held her ground, and the land, where all agree, Ancilla would have won her case, but at Venice she lost it

The judge, in giving sentence, said a condition, criree in wisdom, especially in this instance

Two , my friend M Memmo, afterwards procurator, asked ht of the conversation, what should co, the a out of it M Me with a foreign auilty of treason to the state), and ran in hot haste from Ancilla's room, I after hi his distress, burst into a laugh, and passed on I got directly into M Meondola, and ent forthwith to M Cavalli, secretary to the State Inquisitors M Memmo could have taken no better course to avoid the troublesoht have had, and he was very glad that I ith him to testify to his innocence and to the harmlessness of the occurrence

M Cavalli received M Memmo with a smile, and told hi any time M Memmo, much astonished at this reception, told hi, and the secretary replied with a grave air that he had no doubt as to the truth of his story, as the circumstances were in perfect correspondence hat he knew of the matter

We came away extremely puzzled at the secretary's reply, and discussed the subject for some time, but then we came to the conclusion that M

Cavalli could have had no positive knowledge of the matter before we came, and that he only spoke as he did from the instinct of an Inquisitor, who likes it to be understood that nothing is hid from him for a moment

After the death of Ancilla, Mr Murray re about like a butterfly, he had, one after another, the prettiest girls in Venice This good-natured Epicurean set out for Constantinople two years later, and was for twenty years the ambassador of the Court of St James at the Sublime Porte He returned to Venice in 1778 with the intention of ending his days there, far froht days before the completion of his quarantine

At play fortune continued to favour me; my commerce with M---- M---- could not be discovered now that I was my oaterman; and the nuns ere in the secret were too deeply involved not to keep it I led them a merry life, but I foresaw that as soon as M de Bernis decided to let M---- M---- know that he would not return to Venice, he would recall his people, and we should then have the casino no longer I knew, besides, that when the rough season came on it would be ies

The first Monday in October, when the theatres are opened and et my boat, and thence to Muran for hts were now long enough for us to have a an excellent supper, and then devoted ourselves to the worshi+p of Love and Sleep Suddenly, in the midst of a moment of ecstasy, I heard a noise in the direction of the canal, which aroused my suspicions, and I rushed to theWhat wasway to ive theh to return hter was all the reply theywhat I said they continued their course What was I to do? I dared not cry, ”Stop thief!” and not being endued with the power of walking on the water dry-footed, I could not give chase to the robbers I was in the utns of terror, for she did not see how I could re nothat I had still two hours to get the indispensable boat, should it cost me a hundred sequins I should have been in no perplexity if I had been able to take one, but the gondoliers would infallibly make proclamation over the whole of Muran that they had taken a nun to such a convent, and all would have been lost

The only way, then, that was open to me was either to buy a boat or to steal one I put er in my pocket, took some money, and with an oar on my shoulder set out

The robbers had filed the chain of my boat with a silent file; this I could not do, and I could only reckon on having the good luck to find a boat e I saw boats and to spare, but there were people on the quay, and I would not risk taking one Seeing a tavern open at the end of the quay I ran like a madman, and asked if there were any boatmen there; the drawer told me there were two, but that they were drunk I cahty sous?”

”I,” and ”I”; and they began to quarrel as to who should go I quieted the forty sous to the more drunken of the two, and I went out with the other

As soon as ere on our way, I said,

”You are too drunk to take ive it you back to-morrow”

”I don't know you”

”I will deposit ten sequins, but your boat is not worth that Who will be your surety?”

He took me back to the tavern, and the draent bail for hi furnished it with a second oar and two poles he went away, chuckling at having lad to have had the worst of it I had been an hour away, and on entering the casino found ony, but as soon as she saw hter came back on hers I took her to the convent, and then went to St Francis, where the keeper of the boathouse looked as if he thought me a fool, when I told him that I had trucked away my boat for the one I had withand to bed, for these annoyances had been too much for me

About this time my destiny made me acquainted with a nobleman called Mark Antony Zorzi, averses in the Venetian dialect Zorzi, as very fond of the play, and desired to offer a sacrifice to Thalia, wrote a co; but having persuaded hih the conspiracies of the Abbe Chiari, rote for the Theatre of St Angelo, he declared open war against all the abbe's plays

I felt no reluctance whatever to visit M Zorzi, for he possessed an excellent cook and a char wife He knew that I did not care for Chiari as an author, and M Zorzi had in his pay people ithout pity, rhyme, or reason, hissed all the coht My part was to criticise theerel then much in fashi+on, and Zorzi took care to distribute my lucubrations far and wide These manoeuvres made me a powerful enemy in the person of M Condul all the appearance of being in high favour with Madaent court This M

Condul a large share in the St Angelo Theatre, the failure of the abbe's pieces was a loss to him, as the boxes had to be let at a very low rent, and all overned by interested motives