'This way,' he hissed. 'It's quicker.'

'But – can't I have a look at the sea?'

'Later. We'll get to it sooner like this, and the soldiers would think it funny if we went any other way.'

The city was beginning to wake up. The bells of St Mark's rang out and women in black shawls, some of them made of lace, were hurrying to church for early mass.

When, after a short walk, they reached the waterfront, Marianne's heart missed a beat and she had a temptation to shut her eyes, hoping and yet fearing to see the proud lines of Jason's brig Sea Witch at anchor in the roads. However much she reasoned with herself, she could not help feeling as guilty as an adulterous wife returning to her husband.

But except for the little fishing boats, flitting out towards the Lido, the shallops laden with vegetables making their way up the Grand Canal, and the big barge which served as a passenger link with the mainland, there was no vessel worthy of the name in the pool. But before Marianne had time to feel disappointment, she caught sight of the tall mastheads of sea-going ships standing up behind the Dogana di Mare, on the other side of the Punta della Salute. The blood rushed to her cheeks and she grasped Zani by the arm.

'I want to go across there,' she said, pointing.

The boy shrugged and glanced at her curiously.

'We are. That's the way to San Trovaso, surely you know that?'

Then, as they made their way to the big gondola that ferried passengers across the Grand Canal, Zani voiced the question which must have been on his mind for some time.

Ever since their parting from the patrol, the young Venetian had been oddly silent. He had walked ahead of Marianne, his hands dug deeply into the pockets of his rather frayed blue canvas trousers, pushing up folds of the still-damp shirt of yellow wool which came down nearly to his knees. There was a stiffness in his attitude which suggested that he was not altogether happy about something.

'Is it true,' he asked, in a small, hard voice, 'that you are lady's maid to that Baroness… thingummy?… Close to Bonaparte's sister?'

'Of course. Does it worry you?'

'A bit. It means that you must be for Bonaparte too. The soldier know that, he—'

Doubt and disappointment were written so clearly on the round brown face that Marianne forbore to add to his trouble.

'My mistress is for – Bonaparte, naturally,' she said gently. 'But for myself, I have no interest in politics. I serve my mistress, that's all.'

'Then where are you from? Not from here, at any rate. You don't know the city and you haven't the accent.'

Marianne's hesitation was scarcely perceptible. It was true that she did not speak with the Venetian accent but her Italian was a pure Tuscan which made her answer come quite naturally.

'I am from Lucca,' she said. It was, after all, not altogether a lie.

The result more than rewarded her. Zani's worried little face broke into a dazzling smile and his hand crept back into Marianne's.

'Oh, that's all right then! You can come to our house. But it's some way yet. You're not too tired?' he added anxiously.

'A bit,' Marianne confessed, conscious that her legs were numb with fatigue. 'Is it much farther?'

'A bit.'

A sleepy ferryman took them across the canal, which was almost deserted at this hour of the morning. It promised to be an exceptionally lovely day. The sky was a soft blue, washed clean by the night's storm, streaked across with flocks of pigeons. The wind off the sea was cool and smelled of salt and seaweed, and Marianne took deep rapturous breaths as they moved slowly on to where la Salute on its point hung like a gigantic seashell in the clear morning air. It was a day made for happiness, and Marianne dared not look ahead to what it might hold for her.

Once on the far side, there were more alleys, more little flying bridges, more half-glimpsed wonders and more prowling cats. The sun rose in a glory of gold and she was reeling with exhaustion by the time they came to a point where two canals met. The wider of the two, lined with tall pink houses with washing drying at their windows, flowed directly into the waters of the harbour. It was spanned by a slender bridge.

'There!' Zani said proudly. That's where I live. San Trovaso! The squero of San Trovaso is the hospital for sick gondolas.'

He was pointing across the water to where, beyond the orange peel and rotting vegetables, lay a number of brown wooden sheds with a dozen or so gondolas drawn up before them, lying on their sides like wounded sharks.

'You live there?'

'No, over there. The last house on the corner of the quay, right at the top.'

A masthead sticking up beyond the corner of the house showed where a tall ship lay at anchor. Marianne could not help herself. Her weariness was forgotten as she picked up her skirts and ran with the bewildered Zani hard on her heels. She could not wait to see if Jason was there waiting for her.

It had already occurred to her that he might be late for their meeting and this was the real reason why she had followed Zani so far.

Friendless and penniless, she had nowhere else to go if Jason had not come. Now, suddenly, the possibility seemed to have receded. She was sure he must be there.

She emerged, panting, on to the quay. Sunshine was all about her and there, all at once, on all sides, was a forest of masts. Ships were everywhere: serried ranks of slender prows on one hand and a solid mass of sterncastles with gleaming lanterns on the other. A whole fleet was there, connected to the shore by long dipping planks on which the porters moved up and down under their heavy loads as nimbly as acrobats. There were so many ships that Marianne felt dazed. Her brain reeled.

Orders rang out, mingling with the shrilling of bosuns' whistles and the striking of ships' bells. Music hung in the air, played by an unseen mandoline, and the tune was taken up by a barefoot girl in a striped petticoat carrying a shimmering basketful of fish on her head. The rose-coloured quayside was alive with people going about their business, as noisy and colourful as characters in a Goldoni play, while on board the moored vessels men stripped to the waist were swabbing down the decks with big buckets of clean water.

'What are you doing?' Zani's voice reproached her. 'You've gone past the house. Come in and rest.'

But the impatience of love was stronger than fatigue. At the sight of all those ships, Marianne felt the fever of anticipation stir in her again. Jason was there – not far away! She was certain, she could feel it! So how could she possibly think of going to sleep? Suddenly, all her earlier doubts and hesitations fell away, like so much dead skin. The only thing that mattered was to see him, feel him and touch him.

Resisting all Zani's efforts to detain her, she thrust her way through the busy crowd on the quay, gazing up at the vessels at their moorings, studying the faces of the men and peering at the silhouetted figure of a captain pacing the poop, but nowhere did she see the one she was looking for.

Then, quite suddenly, she saw it. The Sea Witch was there, right out on the Giudecca, several cables' length away from the vessels ranged along the quayside. She was veering gracefully on the calm waters while out ahead the men in the longboats bent manfully to the oars and barefoot sailors swarmed in the shrouds.

Marianne had a brief glimpse of the siren figure at the prow, twin sister to herself.

The sun gleamed on her brasswork and Marianne gazed, fascinated, at the lovely ship, scanning the moving figures on the deck for one she knew would be unmistakable. But the Sea Witch was putting on sail, as a gull spreads its wings, she was swinging round by the head, lifting to the wind, moving out to sea…

Understanding burst on Marianne. A wild cry broke from her:

'No!…No! Don't!…Jason!'

She began to run along the quay, screaming and shouting like a lunatic, hurling herself blindly through the crowd regardless of the knocks she received or of the stares that followed her. Dock hands, market women, sailors and fishermen turned to look after the dishevelled, tear-stained woman running with outstretched arms and uttering heartbroken cries, apparently on the point of casting herself into the sea.

Marianne herself was aware of nothing, she saw and heard nothing, only that the ship was going away from her. The thought was torture. It was as though an invisible thread, woven from her own flesh, had been drawn between her and the American vessel, stretching tighter and tighter, agonizingly, until it tore the heart out of her breast and drowned it in the sea.

A single sentence repeated itself endlessly in her brain, with cruel insistence, like an ironic refrain:

'He didn't wait for me… He didn't wait…'

Jason had sailed across two seas and an ocean for this meeting, yet his patience and his love had not endured beyond five days. He had not sensed that she, whom he claimed to love, was there, close at hand; he had not heard her desperate cries. Now he was going away, sailing out to sea, to the sea that was his other mistress, this time, perhaps, for ever. How could she reach him now, how call him back?

She was gasping for breath and her heart was knocking painfully in her chest, but she ran on, her eyes, blinded with tears, fixed on the ever-widening dazzle of sunlight between ship and shore. It danced before her like an ultimate sign of hope, drawing her like a lover. A few more steps and she would plunge into it…