Carlotta laughed, and picked the monkey off of Giovanni's mother just as she had picked Beppo off of her son a few moments before.

The children, left to themselves, stared about at their new quarters, while Giovanni stared at them. The room was large, bare, dilapidated, and dirty. On the floor were some old mattresses filled with corn-husks, which were evidently used as beds. There was a wooden table with some soiled dishes standing on it, and, beyond this and a few chairs, there was no furniture except two pots of geraniums on the window-sill. A door opened into a smaller room beyond, and through it they could see a stove, with a kettle standing on the floor beside it.

Giovanni had evidently made up his mind that any one who could "lick"

him must indeed be a hero, for, having finished his critical survey of the Twins, he said affably, "My father is a gondolier. What's yours?"

"A Marchese," said Beppo.

"Holy Madonna!" gasped the boy. "Doesn't he do any work?"

"No," said Beppo. "He just goes to Rome to help the King."

Carlotta overheard them. "Don't you ever say that again, you wicked little liar!" she cried fiercely. "If you do, I'll cut off your tongue." She turned again to the other woman.

"Do they look like the children of a Marchese? I ask you," she said.

"They were lost, and I have taken care of them out of charity! They sing and dance to pay for their keep, but it's little enough they bring in at best! Old Ugolone is dead, and Luigi has stayed behind to dispose of the van and the donkeys. With the money he gets for them he'll buy a boat and pick up a living on the ca.n.a.ls. We shall go no more on tours about the country. It does not pay. There are as many soldi to be found in Venice as anywhere, and with the organ and Carina we shall get along, even with two extra mouths to feed!"

Giovanni's mother winked her eye and nodded a great many times.

"Si, si," she said. "There will be many tourists in Venice this summer, and it is not to believe the way Americans throw money about. Mario says their pockets are lined with gold!"

Sick with terror, the children turned away from Carlotta and looked out of the windows.

"See me," said Giovanni. He wanted to do something to make himself admired after his recent humiliation, so he doubled himself across the sill of the open window and leaned far out over the ca.n.a.l which flowed directly beneath. "Look!" he cried, waving his legs at the peril of taking a header into the water.

His mother seized him. "Madonna mia," she screamed, "that boy would rather drown than not," and, giving him a smart spank, she jerked him back into the room by a leg. Giovanni rubbed the spot and grinned sheepishly, as his mother followed up the punishment by a flow of speech which sounded to the Twins much like the chattering of the monkey. "Get along with you!" she said finally, giving him a shove.

"Come," said Carlotta to the Twins when this little scene was over.

"Soldi grow only in the street," and, picking up the organ, she led the way down the stairs.

The children were glad to follow, for they preferred the streets to such a dwelling, and Giovanni, thinking it advisable to remain out of his mother's sight for a while, followed them, carrying the monkey in his arms.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

THREE WEEKS DRIFT BY.

All the rest of that day, and for many days after, the children followed Carlotta through the maze of streets, dancing and singing in the piazzas and the market-place, or anywhere else where crowds were gathered.

Giovanni, having nothing else to do, went with them much of the time, and added his talents to the exhibition. He could turn "cart-wheels"

until he looked like a real whirling wheel with only four spokes, and he could walk on his hands. He was glad to display these accomplishments, for he liked being away from home, he liked Carina, and best of all he liked the Twins. The three became quite friendly, and Carlotta, seeing this, smiled her sly smile, and winked knowingly at Giovanni's mother, as though to say: "You see, they are getting used to their new way of living. Soon they will forget their old home, and I shall have no more trouble with them."

Little by little the children came to know Venice better than they had known Florence, which is not saying much, since in Florence they had so completely lost themselves. They could go from Giovanni's house to the Rialto, the largest of the three bridges which span the Grand Ca.n.a.l, and find their way through the maze of streets to the beautiful Piazza of San Marco. They liked best to go there, not only because it is the most beautiful spot in Venice, not even because it is said to be the finest piazza in the world, but also because the flocks of pigeons flying about in clouds, and lighting upon their shoulders, made them think of their own little garden in Florence.

Carlotta liked the piazza because it was the best place in Venice to gather in the soldi. There were always tourists in the square, walking about with guide-books in their hands, and reading pa.s.sages about its history aloud to one another. Indeed, there was no end to the wonderful things in that famous square. There was the Church of San Marco itself, with its beautiful mosaics and the four splendid bronze horses over the entrance. There was the magnificent Ducal Palace, packed full of thrilling stories of past splendour; and, back of it, spanning the ca.n.a.l, the "Bridge of Sighs," which led from the palace to a dark prison on the other side. On the day she first saw that, Beppina shed tears, thinking of all the unhappy prisoners who had pa.s.sed over the bridge never to return. She knew how prisoners felt.

Giovanni tried to comfort her. "Don't you fret about them," he said.

"They're as dead as they can be, all of 'em, and in purgatory or a worse place, and you can't get 'em out no matter how hard you pray. Come on; let's go look at the clock."

Beppina knew that Carlotta would be angry if they lingered, but still she crossed herself and murmured a hurried "Our Father" for the poor prisoners, on the chance of its helping them, before she ran back to Beppo and Giovanni. She found them standing before the great clock-tower which rose above a high gateway over the street. It was almost noon, and a crowd had gathered to see the clock strike the hour.

There was always a group waiting there on the hour, for this was no ordinary clock. The children watched with breathless interest as two bronze giants on the platform high above their heads suddenly lifted their arms and struck a huge bell twelve times, then relapsed into bronze statues again. Giovanni told the Twins that at Christmas-time the Three Wise Men came out of the clock and bowed before the Madonna and Child. The Twins thought this could be nothing else than a miracle, but Giovanni, who was wise beyond his years, said it was just works in the clock's insides. "It's no more a miracle than a stomach-ache inside of you," he explained.

There was no time for further revelations on the day this happened, for at that moment Carlotta called them. She was afraid the crowd would disperse before she had coaxed money from their pockets. Every moment that they were not dancing or singing, the children wandered about this magic place, where in every direction they looked there were wonderful stories in bronze, marble, or mosaic. One could stay there a year and not begin to know them all. If it rained, they took refuge under the arcade of the Ducal Palace or in the quiet interior of the Church of San Marco itself. Sometimes they could even step in and pray before the altar. Their prayers were always the same, that the Holy Virgin and Saint Anthony, the special guide of those who were lost, would take care of them and bring them safely again to their Babbo and Mammina and their lovely home.

Many days pa.s.sed in this way, and it was the middle of May before the children ever rode in a boat, for though Giovanni's father had a gondola, it was his business to take pa.s.sengers about Venice just like a cab-driver in our own cities, and he did not use it for pleasure rides for Giovanni and his friends.

Then one afternoon when they returned from singing in the piazza, they found Luigi waiting to show Carlotta the boat which he had bought with the money he received for the donkeys and the van. It was not a gondola, but a _sandalo_, a large row-boat, with a pair of oars, suited to carry either pa.s.sengers or freight.

"The weather is warm now," said Luigi to Carlotta; "the tourists are already lingering on the ca.n.a.ls for pleasure in the evenings, and I believe we should do well to let the children go about with me in the boat to sing."

Though they were weary from dancing and singing all day in the streets, it would be far pleasanter to drift about on the ca.n.a.l in the evening than to spend it tossing about on the husk mattresses in Giovanni's squalid house, and the children listened with eager attention to Carlotta's reply.

"As you like," she said, shrugging her shoulders; and that very evening the plan was carried out. Luigi rowed the boat slowly about on the Grand Ca.n.a.l, and the sweet voices of the children, floating out over the still waters, attracted the gondolas about them, and many soldi were flung to the singers.

As the weather grew warmer, the evenings on the ca.n.a.l grew longer and longer. Sometimes the gondolas would join together in long chains and float about in the moonlight with every one joining in the singing. On festival nights there were Chinese lanterns in every prow, and the boats, flitting about over the water, looked like giant fireflies at play.

In this way three weeks drifted by, and at last it was June, and still the children had made no progress toward freedom.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

BEPPO HAS A PLAN.

One day, when they had just finished a performance in the piazza and were allowed to wander for a few moments by themselves, Beppo drew Beppina to the water's edge, and, looking up at the winged lion of Saint Mark's, said to her, "Do you remember what Carlotta said about having to have a boat, a railroad ticket, or wings to get out of Venice?"

Beppina remembered very well.

"The wings on that lion made me think of it," said Beppo, "and I've thought of something else too. There's another thing you need, and that's brains! I've got those, and I'm going to get out of this water-soaked old place or die in the attempt!"

"Oh, Beppo," breathed Beppina, "how?"

"I've got it all planned," said Beppo.

"I guess Saint Anthony must have put it into your head," sighed Beppina, "for he takes care of all the lost people. Anyway, you haven't thought of anything before."

"I thought of this my own self," said Beppo, rather resentfully.

"Well," said Beppina, clasping her hands, "you think, and I'll pray.

I'm going to begin a novena. I'll pray hard to Saint Anthony every day for nine days, and ask him to please, please guide us! I'm going to begin right now." She crossed herself and began moving her lips in prayer, but got no farther than "Blessed Saint Anthony," when Beppo nudged her with his elbow.

"Stop it!" he whispered, "here comes the old cat." (He meant Carlotta.) "Don't you let her catch you praying to Saint Anthony, or she'll know what we're up to. You can pray like fury, but say your prayers in your heart, and then some night if I wake you up, you just keep as still as a mouse and follow me."

Carlotta reached them just then and ordered them to go with her back to the Cathedral to sing, and all that day there was no chance for Beppo to explain his great idea. Beppina caught him many times with his forehead all snarled up as if he were trying to think how much 9 times 7 was, or something hard like that, but just what he had in mind she could not guess.

That night when they were out in the boat, Beppo asked Luigi if he might try to row it home, and Luigi, being willing to loaf whenever it was possible, said he might. Beppo did so well that night that on the next Luigi allowed him to row as well as sing, and very soon Beppo came to know his way about the Grand Ca.n.a.l better than he knew the multiplication-table--oh, much better!

At last one night, after they had gone to bed, Beppo lay still for a long time, until he was sure that every one else in the room was asleep.

Then he quietly woke Beppina, and the two slid from their mattresses to the floor. Here they waited a moment, for the husks rattled a little, and then, as no one stirred, they moved stealthily to the door, carrying their shoes in their hands. They had slept in their clothes, for they still wore the ones Carlotta had given them, and had not seen their own since the day she had made them change in the van.

They almost suffocated with fright as they opened the door, for it creaked and they feared the monkey would begin to chatter, but Carina was tired, too, and slept as soundly as the rest. In a moment they had quietly closed it behind them, and were feeling their way in the dark, down the stairs and through the pa.s.sage at the bottom to the ca.n.a.l entrance of the house, where Mario and Luigi kept their oars. Beppo had noted carefully when they came in just where Luigi had placed his, and, feeling cautiously along the wall with his hands, was able to locate them in the dark. He gave his shoes to his sister, took down the oars, and managed to get them to the door without knocking anything over or dropping them on the stone floor.