"If none will acquaint me with your wants, I must command you to retire, and while my parental heart grieves----"
"Giustizia!" repeated the hidden member of the crowd.
"Name thy wants, that we may know them."
"Highness! deign to look at this!"
One bolder than the rest had turned the body of Antonio to the moon, in a manner to expose the ghastly features, and, as he spoke, he pointed towards the spectacle he had prepared. The prince started at the unexpected sight, and, slowly descending the steps, closely accompanied by his companions and his guards, he paused over the body.
"Has the a.s.sa.s.sin done this?" he asked, after looking at the dead fisherman, and crossing himself. "What could the end of one like this profit a Bravo? Haply the unfortunate man hath fallen in a broil of his cla.s.s?"
"Neither, ill.u.s.trious Doge! we fear that Antonio has suffered for the displeasure of St. Mark!"
"Antonio! Is this the hardy fisherman who would have taught us how to rule in the state regatta!"
"Eccellenza, it is," returned the simple laborer of the Lagunes, "and a better hand with a net, or a truer friend in need, never rowed a gondola to or from the Lido. Diavolo! It would have done your highness pleasure to have seen the poor old Christian among us, on a saint"s day, taking the lead in our little ceremonies, and teaching us the manner in which our fathers used to do credit to the craft!"
"Or to have been with us, ill.u.s.trious Doge," cried another, for, the ice once broken, the tongues of a mob soon grow bold, "in a merry-making on the Lido, when old Antonio was always the foremost in the laugh, and the discreetest in knowing when to be grave."
The Doge began to have a dawning of the truth, and he cast a glance aside to examine the countenance of the unknown inquisitor.
"It is far easier to understand the merits of the unfortunate man, than the manner of his death," he said, finding no explanation in the drilled members of the face he had scrutinized. "Will any of your party explain the facts?"
The princ.i.p.al speaker among the fishermen willingly took on himself the office, and, in the desultory manner of one of his habits, he acquainted the Doge with the circ.u.mstances connected with the finding of the body.
When he had done, the prince again asked explanations, with his eye, from the senator at his side, for he was ignorant whether the policy of the state required an example, or simply a death."
"I see nothing in this, your highness," observed he of the council, "but the chances of a fisherman. The unhappy old man has come to his end by accident, and it would be charity to have a few ma.s.ses said for his soul."
"n.o.ble senator!" exclaimed the fisherman, doubtingly, "St. Mark was offended!"
"Rumor tells many idle tales of the pleasure and displeasure of St.
Mark, If we are to believe all that the wit of men can devise, in affairs of this nature, the criminals are not drowned in the Lagunes, but in the Ca.n.a.le Orfano."
"True, eccellenza, and we are forbidden to cast our nets there, on pain of sleeping with the eels at its bottom."
"So much greater reason for believing that this old man hath died by accident. Is there mark of violence on his body? for though the state could scarcely occupy itself with such as he, some other might. Hath the condition of the body been looked to?"
"Eccellenza, it was enough to cast one of his years into the centre of the Lagunes. The stoutest arm in Venice could not save him."
"There may have been violence in some quarrel, and the proper authority should be vigilant. Here is a Carmelite! Father, do you know aught of this?"
The monk endeavored to answer, but his voice failed. He stared wildly about him, for the whole scene resembled some frightful picture of the imagination, and then folding his arms on his bosom, he appeared to resume his prayers.
"Thou dost not answer, Friar?" observed the Doge, who had been as effectually deceived, by the natural and indifferent manner of the inquisitor, as any other of his auditors. "Where didst thou find this body?"
Father Anselmo briefly explained the manner in which he had been pressed into the service of the fishermen.
At the elbow of the prince there stood a young patrician, who, at the moment, filled no other office in the state than such as belonged to his birth. Deceived, like the others, by the manner of the only one who knew the real cause of Antonio"s death, he felt a humane and praiseworthy desire to make sure that no foul play had been exercised towards the victim.
"I have heard of this Antonio," said this person, who was called the Senator Soranzo, and who was gifted by nature with feelings that, in any other form of government, would have made him a philanthropist, "and of his success in the regatta. Was it not said that Jacopo, the Bravo, was his compet.i.tor?"
A low, meaning, and common murmur ran through the throng.
"A man of his reputed pa.s.sions and ferocity may well have sought to revenge defeat by violence!"
A second and a louder murmur denoted the effect this suggestion had produced.
"Eccellenza, Jacopo deals in the stiletto!" observed the half-credulous but still doubting fisherman.
"That is as may be necessary. A man of his art and character may have recourse to other means to gratify his malice. Do you not agree with me, Signore?"
The Senator Soranzo put this question, in perfect good faith, to the unknown member of the secret council. The latter appeared struck with the probability of the truth of his companion"s conjecture, but contented himself with a simple acknowledgment to that effect, by bowing.
"Jacopo! Jacopo!" hoa.r.s.ely repeated voice after voice in the crowd--"Jacopo has done this! The best gondolier in Venice has been beaten by an old fisherman, and nothing but blood could wipe out the disgrace!"
"It shall be inquired into, my children, and strict justice done," said the Doge, preparing to depart. "Officers, give money for ma.s.ses, that the soul of the unhappy man be not the sufferer. Reverend Carmelite, I commend the body to thy care, and thou canst do no better service than to pa.s.s the night in prayer by its side."
A thousand caps were waved in commendation of this gracious command, and the whole throng stood in silent respect, as the prince, followed by his retinue, retired as he had approached, through the long, vaulted gallery above.
A secret order of the Inquisition prevented the appearance of the Dalmatians.
A few minutes later and all was prepared. A bier and canopy were brought out of the adjoining cathedral, and the corpse was placed upon the former. Father Anselmo then headed the procession, which pa.s.sed through the princ.i.p.al gate of the palace into the square, chanting the usual service. The Piazzetta and the piazza were still empty. Here and there, indeed, a curious face, belonging to some agent of the police, or to some observer more firm than common, looked out from beneath the arches of the porticoes on the movements of the mob, though none ventured to come within its influence.
But the fishermen were no longer bent on violence. With the fickleness of men little influenced by reflection, and subject to sudden and violent emotions, a temperament which, the effect of a selfish system, is commonly tortured into the reason why it should never be improved, they had abandoned all idea of revenge on the agents of the police, and had turned their thoughts to the religious services, which, being commanded by the prince himself, were so flattering to their cla.s.s.
It is true that a few of the sterner natures among them mingled menaces against the Bravo with their prayers for the dead, but these had no other effect on the matter in hand, than is commonly produced by the by-players on the princ.i.p.al action of the piece.
The great portal of the venerable church was thrown open, and the solemn chant was heard issuing, in responses, from among the quaint columns and vaulted roofs within. The body of the lowly and sacrificed Antonio was borne beneath that arch which sustains the precious relics of Grecian art, and deposited in the nave. Candles glimmered before the altar and around the ghastly person of the dead, throughout the night; and the cathedral of St. Mark was pregnant with all the imposing ceremonials of the Catholic ritual, until the day once more appeared.
Priest succeeded priest, in repeating the ma.s.ses, while the attentive throng listened, as if each of its members felt that his own honor and importance were elevated by this concession to one of their number. In the square the maskers gradually reappeared, though the alarm had been too sudden and violent, to admit a speedy return to the levity which ordinarily was witnessed in that spot, between the setting and the rising of the sun.
CHAPTER XXIII.
""Tis of a lady in her earliest youth, The very last of that ill.u.s.trious race."
ROGERS.
When the fishermen landed on the quay, they deserted the gondola of the state to a man. Donna Violetta and her governess heard the tumultuous departure of their singular captors with alarm, for they were nearly in entire ignorance of the motive which had deprived them of the protection of Father Anselmo, and which had so unexpectedly made them actors in the extraordinary scene. The monk had simply explained that his offices were required in behalf of the dead, but the apprehension of exciting unnecessary terror prevented him from adding that they were in the power of a mob. Donna Florinda, however, had ascertained sufficient, by looking from the windows of the canopy and from the cries of those around her, to get a glimmering of the truth. Under the circ.u.mstances, she saw that the most prudent course was to keep themselves as much as possible from observation. But when the profound stillness that succeeded the landing of the rioters announced that they were alone, both she and her charge had an intuitive perception of the favorable chance which fortune had so strangely thrown in their way.
"They are gone!" whispered Donna Florinda, holding her breath in attention, as soon as she had spoken.
"And the police will be soon here to seek us!"
No further explanation pa.s.sed, for Venice was a town in which even the young and innocent were taught caution. Donna Florinda stole another look without.
"They have disappeared, Heaven knows where! Let us go!"