Morning came, and with it horror, dread, and doubt—to the unhappy Giulio at least: his cousin and adviser, Count Stephano, was a villain too hardened to feel compunction at having murdered a woman whose life was an obstacle to the accomplishment of any purpose of his. Morning came, and rumour with her thousand venomed tongues had poisoned the ears of all Venice with the hideous tidings. The church Della Salute was hung with black, the bells of San Marco tolled a knell, and the banner bearing the winged lion of the Republic hung half hoisted on the ramparts of the ducal palace. That night a gondola cleft the bright waters of the Canal di Giudeca, conveying the terrified and guilty fugitives from Venice: gold strengthened anew the arms of the sturdy gondolieri, as they tore on through the foaming sea. Meanwhile, an enraged mob had given the palaces of Counts Della Torre and Strazoldi to the flames; a lurid light from these blazing piles shone on the domes and spires of Venice, on the long lines of magnificent edifices, and the canals that wind between them. As the hum of the multitude died away on the night wind and the fugitives saw the city grow dim and vanish behind the northern islets of the Lagune, their guilty hearts beat less fearfully. Liomazar received them, and the heads of their fleet Barbary horses were turned towards the Austrian frontier: that day they rode sixty miles without drawing bridle. They forced their horses to swim the Piove and Livenza, even though the deep broad currents of these rivers were unusually swollen by floods rushing down from the mountains of the Tyrol, laden with shattered pines and terrible with rolling stones and falling rocks. But on—on! was the cry; for fierce pursuers were behind. Fifty cavaliers, the flower of the young nobles, with a squadron of the Dalmatian guard, followed them with headlong speed. Belgrade and Latisana opened their gates to these guilty ones; but they were still forced to fly, goading on their sinking steeds with spur and poniard. Lucretia and the countess her mother were faint with fatigue; the horses were failing fast, and the mountains of Carinthia were yet far distant; while the passing breeze brought to their ears the blast of a trumpet: its sound was their knell, for their pursuers kept on their track like Calabrian bloodhounds. [Transcriber’s note: this page (186) is referenced in Volume 3.] Finding it impossible to cross the frontier, they threw themselves into the tower of Fana, a baronial hold of Count Giulio, near Gradiska, one of the strongest garrison towns in Austrian Friuli. On this impregnable castle, perched on a rock overhanging the fertile valley watered by the Isonza, Giulio hoisted his standard; but his half Sclavonian, half German vassals mustered unwillingly beneath it, when they found a siege was to be endured: the cavaliers from Venice, having invested it on every side, resolved to exterminate this infamous family.