These men, it is true, exist for you no longer; but their place is
supplied by him, whose name is affixed to this paper, and who will
stand by his employers with body and with soul. I laugh at the
vigilance of the Venetian police; I laugh at the crafty and insolent
Florentine, whose hand has dragged his brethren to the rack. Let
those who need me, seek me; they will find me everywhere! Let those
who seek me with the design of delivering me up to the law, despair
and tremble; they will find me nowhere, but _I_ shall find THEM, and
that when they least expect me! Venetians, you understand me! Woe
to the man who shall attempt to discover me; his life and death
depend upon my pleasure. This comes from the Venetian Bravo,
ABELLINO."
"A hundred sequins," exclaimed the incensed Doge, on reading the
paper, "a hundred sequins to him who discovers this monster
Abellino, and a thousand to him who delivers him up to justice."
But in vain did spies ransack every lurking place in Venice; no
Abellino was to be found. In vain did the luxurious, the
avaricious, and the hungry stretch their wits to the utmost, incited
by the tempting promise of a thousand sequins. Abellino's prudence
set all their ingenuity at defiance.
But not the less did every one assert that he had recognised
Abellino, sometimes in one disguise, and sometimes in another, as an
old man, a gondolier, a woman, or a monk. Everybody had seen him
somewhere; but, unluckily, nobody could tell where he was to be seen
again.
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