The vision wavered, faded, reappeared, and finally died upon the night.
Then the wild beams began to play on the canal, following the serenata,
lighting up now the palaces on either hand, now some single gondola,
revealing every figure and gesture of the laughing English or Americans
who filled it, in a hard white flash.
"Oh! listen, Kitty!" said Margaret. "Some one is going to sing 'Che
faro.'"
Miss French was very musical, and she turned in a trance of pleasure
towards the
barca whence came the first bars of the accompaniment.
She did not see meanwhile that Kitty had made a hurried movement, and
was now leaning over the side of the gondola, peering with arrested
breath into the scattered group of boats on their left hand. The
search-light flashed here and there among them. A gondola at the very
edge of the serenata contained one figure beside the gondolier, a man in
a large cloak and slouch hat, sitting very still with folded arms. As
Kitty looked, hearing the beating of her heart, their own boat was
suddenly lit up. The light passed in a second, and while it lasted those
in the flash could see nothing outside it.
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