Venetian Marco Polo himself, wide-eyed and eager, toiling across burning wastes to the Great Khan of far-off Cathay, was not more imbued with the very spirit of adventure than were St. Hilary and I that April afternoon, as we set forth on our little voyage of discovery in a prosaic gondola.

We had lunched at the Grundewald. We rose with a certain deliberation, and walked toward the Molo. The band was thundering out a Strauss waltz. The Piazza was filled with its usual laughing, chattering crowd, eating and drinking at the hundreds of round little tables that overflowed a quarter of the square.

I could not help thinking what a sensation I should cause if the great throng was suddenly to be stilled, while from the balcony up there by the four bronze horses I cried aloud for all the square to hear that we two adventurers of the twentieth century were about to lay bare one of the mysteries of Venice–that we were to bring forth to the light of day a marvelous treasure 201that had been hid for nearly half a thousand years. How they would howl me into a shamed silence with their jeers and laughter! And supposing that I could tell them the very hiding-place, would one of all those hundreds, even the poorest, take the trouble to go and see? Would the hunchbacked bootblack in the Arcade there, gnarled and twisted with the cold of winter and the heat of summer? Would the Jewish shopkeepers, the antiquarian in the library, the tourists, who had come three thousand miles to feast their eyes on wonders? Not the most visionary would stir in his seat. Only St. Hilary and I, it appeared, in the whole world were absolute fools this afternoon.

“E dove?” demanded the gondolier, after we had taken our seats.

“Canalazzo,” I cried, “e presto, molto, molto presto.”

“Si, si, signore,” he cried with enthusiasm, scenting a generous tip.

The sun, just dipping behind the dome of the Salute, blazed fiercely, but the awning of our gondola was thrown back. Swiftly we swept down the sun-kissed stream, cleaving the lake of gold. The great palaces on either side, ablaze with riotous color, seemed as unreal as a painted picture. What had we to do with this mysterious 202Venice, this enchantress of the seas, holding herself aloof in melancholy disdain? Like curious savages, we were to prowl in her very holy of holies. We were to despoil her of her last glorious treasure, that she had guarded so jealously these hundreds of years.

The fantasy burst as a bubble in thin air. Behind us raced a boatful of trippers, the two oarsmen exerting every effort to urge on their craft to the railway station. There were the English père de famille; the comfortable mamma with a chick on either side. And about them were piled high bandboxes and shawls, portmanteaus and carryalls. It was the twentieth century after all. It was quite fitting that we should be seeking to reap where we had not sown.

We passed the Grand Hotel. Mrs. Gordon, Jacqueline, and the duke were seated on the balcony. I raised my hat mechanically. The duke returned the greeting with a flourish. Mrs. Gordon was suddenly interested in the customs-house opposite. Jacqueline smiled, but her greeting would have been as cordial to the concierge of her hotel. My face burned. I wished to tell St. Hilary to continue the search without me, and yet I hesitated. Even now, one nod to the gondolier and I could be landed at the steps; but I 203hesitated, and in five seconds we had passed. Before I had wholly recovered my presence of mind we were at the Rio di Bocca.

Our gondolier uttered his weird cry of warning. The gondola turned the corner sharply. We were in cool depths. The smell of damp mortar, that indefinable moist smell of the canaletti of Venice smote our nostrils. We skirted an old wall, bulging outward with decrepitude; a narrow quay, bathed in sunlight; the barred windows of a palace, blackness and gloom within. A barge of bricks was poled slowly past us, then a funeral catafalque. A hotel omnibus just escaped collision. I saw it all, but I saw it all unheeding. Three years of selfish ease and irresponsibility had left me incapable of quick decision at this critical moment. And now another opportunity to become reconciled to Jacqueline had passed. I had raised one more barrier between us.

St. Hilary shouted sharply to the gondolier. We came to a sudden stop.

We were at the sixtieth palace, and its fa?ade was as bare as the sheet of an unsigned hotel register.

“So again we have come on a fool’s errand,” he groaned.

The gondolier leaned forward and touched my 204sleeve. He had observed our perplexity. He pointed to a palace we had just passed.

“Ecco, Signori, the House of the Angel! It is not this one. It is the third back.”

“The third back?” I repeated mechanically. I let my glance follow his outstretched finger. With a twist of the oar he had turned the gondola again toward the Grand Canal.

“Behold, Signore, the House of the Angel. Up there, in the niche over the door.”

I raised my eyes dully. I had no idea what the man was talking about. The palace at whose steps we had halted was a magnificent structure of the fourteenth century, so beautiful that in any other city than Venice it would have been worth a pilgrimage to see. Over the doorway was a triangular niche, a kind of shrine. A half figure of an angel was carved in the niche, and a kneeling child looked quaintly up into the angel’s face. The gondolier pointed to the shrine reverently.

“The angel is to drive away the evil spirits, Signore. The evil spirit of a pig once dwelt in this beautiful palace. I assure the Signore that I am telling him the truth, though there are many hundreds of years since the evil soul of the pig was conjured away by the angel and the little child. The house is now sweet and clean of all 205evil, and is called the House of the Angel. But look, Signore, you can see the unclean pigs that were carved in the wall by the wicked builder. Before they were broken, the house was called the House of the Pigs.”

We looked upward.

The house had a frieze made of a capriciously carved array of pigs. The posture of each two of the creatures was the same: the one recumbent, the other erect. The heads and the feet and most of the bodies had been stricken off.

“It is very simple,” cried St. Hilary exultingly. “Our husks of corn have simply become the bodies of pigs. We have found the second landmark.”

He held the photograph of the background of the second hour before me. That background, it will be remembered, was a hanging, and on this hanging a decorative scheme that we had supposed to be husks of corn.

I forgot my folly in passing Jacqueline, and her cold greeting. Here was proof indisputable that we were really on the track of the casket at last.

“But why,” queried St. Hilary, knitting his forehead in perplexity, “should it be the fifty-seventh palace, and not the sixtieth?”

I opened the Bible, and again read the story. 206I saw our mistake immediately. In our haste to test this new theory of mine we had not read the narrative with sufficient care.

“There is another verse that we have omitted to read. It follows immediately after.” I read it aloud:

And within three days they could not declare the riddle.

“You observe the expression ‘within.’ That is to say, we were not to look for the sixtieth palace, but for the fifty-seventh, or the third within sixty.”

“Ah, that is quite clear,” cried St. Hilary with a sigh of relief. “And now for the next landmark. Read your passage of the second hour again.”

And there went forth a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, whose height was six cubits and a span.

“Six cubits and a span,” he mused. “What the deuce are the six cubits and a span?”

“Let us look around.” I motioned to the gondolier to rest on his oars.

We drifted slowly past the House of the Angel. The next house was a warehouse–an ugly four-story building, set some five paces back. The upper stories projected over the lowest story, and were supported by pillars.

207“There are six of those pillars, and there is a door. Can that be your cubits and a span?”

I shook my head. “Those pillars are of wood. This warehouse could not have been built when the goldsmith made his casket.”

“True; and it would be a senseless proceeding to lead us past the fifty-seventh palace, only to land us at the fifty-eighth.”

“But look, St. Hilary, we have been so close to the forest that we have failed to see the trees. Do you observe those circular windows just over our heads? There are just six of them. As for the span, isn’t a span half a cubit? The top of that squat door let into the wall there is semi-circular in shape; the semi-circle, the exact counterpart of the upper part of the windows. Nothing could be more clear.”

“My only fear is that it is too clear to be true,” he said anxiously.

“We shall soon determine that.”

I stood upright on the seat of the gondola, and, reaching forward, pulled a rusty bell that hung beside the low door. Our gondola, at a sign from me, had been rowed up stream once more.

In response to my vigorous summons a servant appeared at the main door of the House of the Angel.

208“What may the Signori desire?” he inquired.

“We are architects,” lied St. Hilary glibly. “We are very desirous to see your garden. We understand that it is a very curious old garden.”

The servant in the shabby livery shook his head.

“The Signori Inglesi are mistaken,” he answered politely. “The interesting garden belongs to the House of the Camel just behind this palazzina. Our garden has only artichokes and asparagus and beans and things.”

“The House of the Camel!” I exclaimed involuntarily.

St. Hilary pinched my arm for silence. “But there is a passage through your garden that leads to the garden of the other house, is there not?”

He jingled insinuatingly some loose coins in his pocket.

“Ah, yes, Signore, that is true. A long, long time ago, a great nobleman, dwelt in this house, and his daughter lived in the house behind. He had a gate made in the wall that divides the two gardens. The gate is still there.”

“Excellent! And you will lead us into the garden of the House of the Camel by that gate?”

Without further parley, St. Hilary leaped lightly ashore. I followed his example, and tossed our fare to the gondolier.

209“Thoughtful of you to send off that chap. We can’t be too careful,” remarked St. Hilary as we followed the servant in the shabby livery into the............