The Bravo, James Fenimore Cooper [best book reader .txt] 📗

cover the bottom round about with all my nets in the hope of drawing up the ring. When his highness cast the jewel, I dropped a buoy to mark the spot--Signore, this is all--my accomplice was St. Anthony."

"For doing this you had a motive?"

"Holy Mother of God! Was it not sufficient to get back my boy from the gripe of the galleys?" exclaimed Antonio, with an energy and a simplicity that are often found to be in the same character. "I thought that if the Doge and the senate were willing to cause pictures to be painted, and honors to be given to one poor fisherman for the ring, they might be glad to reward another, by releasing a lad who can be of no great service to the Republic, but who is all to his parent."

"Thy petition to his Highness, thy strife in the regatta, and thy search for the ring, had the same object?"

"To me, Signore, life has but one."

There was a slight but suppressed movement among the council.

"When thy request was refused by his Highness as ill-timed--"

"Ah! eccellenza, when one has a white head and a failing arm, he cannot stop to look for the proper moment in such a cause!" interrupted the fisherman, with a gleam of that impetuosity which forms the true base of Italian character.

"When thy request was denied, and thou hadst refused the reward of the victor, thou went among thy fellows and fed their ears with complaints of the injustice of St. Mark, and of the senate's tyranny?"

"Signore, no. I went away sad and heart-broken, for I had not thought the Doge and nobles would have refused a successful gondolier so light a boon."

"And this thou didst not hesitate to proclaim among the fishermen and idlers of the Lido?"

"Eccellenza, it was not needed--my fellows knew my unhappiness, and tongues were not wanting to tell the worst."

"There was a tumult, with thee at its head, and sedition was uttered, with much vain-boasting of what the fleet of the Lagunes could perform against the fleet of the Republic."

"There is little difference, Signore, between the two, except that the men of the one go in gondolas with nets, and the men of the other are in the galleys of the state. Why should brothers seek each other's blood?"

The movement among the judges was more manifest than ever. They whispered together, and a paper containing a few lines rapidly written in pencil, was put into the hands of the examining secretary.

"Thou didst address thy fellows, and spoke openly of thy fancied wrongs; thou didst comment on the laws which require the services of the citizens, when the Republic is compelled to send forth a fleet against its enemies."

"It is not easy to be silent, Signore, when the heart is full."

"And there was a consultation among thee of coming to the palace in a body, and of asking the discharge of thy grandson from the Doge, in the name of the rabble of the Lido."

"Signore, there were some generous enough to make the offer, but others were of advice it would be well to reflect before they took so bold a measure."

"And thou--what was thine own counsel on that point?"

"Eccellenza, I am old, and though unused to be thus questioned by illustrious senators, I had seen enough of the manner in which St. Mark governs, to believe a few unarmed fishermen and gondoliers would not be listened to with--"

"Ha! Did the gondoliers become of thy party? I should have believed them jealous, and displeased with the triumph of one who was not of their body."

"A gondolier is a man, and though they had the feelings of human nature on being beaten, they had also the feelings of human nature when they heard that a father was robbed of his son--Signore," continued Antonio, with great earnestness and a singular simplicity, "there will be great discontent on the canals, if the galleys sail with the boy aboard them!"

"Such is thy opinion; were the gondoliers on the Lido numerous?"

"When the sports ended, eccellenza, they came over by hundreds, and I will do the generous fellows the justice to say, that they had forgotten their want of luck in the love of justice. Diamine! these gondoliers are not so bad a class as some pretend, but they are men like ourselves, and can feel for a Christian as well as another."

The secretary paused, for his task was done; and a deep silence pervaded the gloomy apartment. After a short pause one of the three resumed--

"Antonio Vecchio," he said, "thou hast served thyself in these said galleys, to which thou now seemest so averse--and served bravely, as I learn?"

"Signore, I have done my duty by St. Mark. I played my part against the infidel, but it was after my beard was grown, and at an age when I had learnt to know good from evil. There is no duty more cheerfully performed by us all, than to defend the islands and the Lagunes against the enemy."

"And all the Republic's dominions.--Thou canst make no distinctions between any of the rights of the state."

"There is wisdom granted to the great, which God has denied the poor and the weak, Signore. To me it does not seem clear that Venice, a city built on a few islands, hath any more right to carry her rule into Crete or Candia, than the Turk hath to come here."

"How! Dost thou dare on the Lido to question the claim of the Republic to her conquests? or do the irreverent fishermen dare thus to speak lightly of her glory?"

"Eccellenza, I know little of rights that come by violence. God hath given us the Lagunes, but I know not that he has given us more. This glory of which you speak may sit lightly on the shoulder of a senator, but it weighs heavily on a fisherman's heart."

"Thou speakest, bold man, of that which thou dost not comprehend."

"It is unfortunate, Signore, that the power to understand hath not been given to those who have so much power to suffer."

An anxious pause succeeded this reply.

"Thou mayest withdraw, Antonio," said he, who apparently presided in the dread councils of the Three. "Thou wilt not speak of what has happened, and thou wilt await the inevitable justice of St. Mark in full confidence of its execution."

"Thanks, illustrious senator; I will obey your excellency; but my heart is full, and I would fain say a few words concerning the child, before I quit this noble company."

"Thou mayest speak--and here thou mayest give free vent to all thy wishes, or to all thy griefs, if any thou hast. St. Mark has no greater pleasure than to listen to the wishes of his children."

"I believe they have reviled the Republic in calling its chiefs heartless, and sold to ambition!" said the old man, with generous warmth, disregarding the stern rebuke which gleamed in the eye of Jacopo. "A senator is but a man, and there are fathers and children among them, as among us of the Lagunes."

"Speak, but refrain from seditious or discreditable discourse," uttered a secretary, in a half-whisper. "Proceed."

"I have little now to offer, Signori; I am not used to boast of my services to the state, excellent gentlemen, but there is a time when human modesty must give way to human nature. These scars were got in one of the proudest days of St. Mark, and in the foremost of all the galleys that fought among the Greek Islands. The father of my boy wept over me then, as I have since wept over his own son--yes--I might be ashamed to own it among men, but if the truth must be spoken, the loss of the boy has drawn bitter tears from me in the darkness of night, and in the solitude of the Lagunes. I lay many weeks, Signori, less a man than a corpse, and when I got back again to my nets and my toil, I did not withhold my son from the call of the Republic. He went in my place to meet the infidel--a service from which he never came back. This was the duty of men who had grown in experience, and who were not to be deluded into wickedness by the evil company of the galleys. But this calling of children into the snares of the devil grieves a father, and--I will own the weakness, if such it be--I am not of a courage and pride to send forth my own flesh and blood into the danger and corruption of war and evil society, as in days when the stoutness of the heart was like the stoutness of the limbs. Give me back, then, my boy, till he has seen my old head laid beneath the sands, and until, by the aid of blessed St. Anthony, and such counsels as a poor man can offer, I may give him more steadiness in his love of the right, and until I may have so shaped his life, that he will not be driven about by every pleasant or treacherous wind that may happen to blow upon his bark. Signori, you are rich, and powerful, and honored, and though you may be placed in the way of temptations to do wrongs that are suited to your high names and illustrious fortunes, ye know little of the trials of the poor. What are the temptations of the blessed St. Anthony himself, to those of the evil company of the galleys! And now, Signori, though you may be angry to hear it, I will say, that when an aged man has no other kin on earth, or none so near as to feel the glow of the thin blood of the poor, than one poor boy, St. Mark would do well to remember that even a fisherman of the Lagunes can feel as well as the Doge on his throne. This much I say, illustrious senators, in sorrow, and not in anger; for I would get back the child, and die in peace with my superiors, as with my equals."

"Thou mayest depart," said one of the Three.

"Not yet, Signore, I have still more to say of the men of the Lagunes, who speak with loud voices concerning this dragging of boys into the service of the galleys."

"We will hear their opinions."

"Noble gentlemen, if I were to utter all they have said, word for word, I might do some disfavor to your ears! Man is man, though the Virgin and the saints listen to his aves and prayers from beneath a jacket of serge and a fisherman's cap. But I know too well my duty to the senate to speak so plainly. But, Signori, they say, saving the bluntness of their language, that St. Mark should have ears for the meanest of his people as well as for the richest noble; and that not a hair should fall from the head of a fisherman, without its being counted as if it were a lock from beneath the horned bonnet; and that where God hath not made marks of his displeasure, man should not."

"Do they dare to reason thus?"

"I know not if it be reason, illustrious Signore, but it is what they say, and, eccellenza, it is holy truth. We are poor workmen of the Lagunes, who rise with the day to cast our nets, and return at night to hard beds and harder fare; but with this we might