Beadle's Pocket Library No. 84

This 1885 Beadle and Adams weekly serializes Frederick Whittaker's "The Dumb Page: The Doge's Daughter," a Venetian romantic adventure. Don Lorenzo Bellario, a wealthy Spanish nobleman famous in Venice for dueling and seduction, leaves a ball at the Foscari palace in his gondola, accompanied by his disguised companion Annetta—revealed to be a young woman posing as a mute page. Though she warns him via a writing tablet of danger, Lorenzo insists on visiting Julia Dandolo, the Doge's daughter, whom he courts despite threats from Julia's cousin Countess Estella Milleroni. Lorenzo serenades Julia from his gondola with a romantic song; she appears on her balcony but fears discovery. When oars sound nearby, Julia urges his escape, but Lorenzo refuses to leave without her. A second gondola suddenly rams his boat, and armed masked men ambush him, subduing the cavalier with a cloak thrown over his head as the chapter ends.