Authors: James Fenimore Cooper
"I would she did the same by me!"
"With thee, Sirrah, my ward might be required to forget, rather than
invent. Hast thou bethought thee of turning the eyes of the council on
the danger which besets their heiress?"
"I have."
"And the means?"
"The plainest and the most certain—the lion's mouth."
"Ha! that, indeed, is a bold adventure."
"And, like all bold adventures, it is the more likely to succeed. For
once, fortune hath not been a niggard with me. I have given them the
Neapolitan's signet by way of proof."
"Giacomo! dost thou know the hazard of thy temerity? I hope there is no
clue left in the handwriting, or by any other means taken to obtain the
ring?"
"Father, though I may have overlooked thy instruction in less weighty
matters, not an admonition which touches the policy of Venice hath been
forgotten. The Neapolitan stands accused, and if thy council is
faithful, he will be a suspected, if not a banished man."
"That the Council of Three will perform its trust is beyond dispute. I
would I were as certain that thy indiscreet zeal may not lead to some
unpleasant exposure!"
The shameless son stared at the father a moment in doubt, and then he
passed into the more private parts of the palace, like one too much
accustomed to double-dealing, to lend it a second, or a serious thought.
The senator remained. His silent walk was now manifestly disturbed by
great uneasiness; and he frequently passed a hand across his brow, as if
he mused in pain. While thus occupied, a figure stole through the long
suite of ante-chambers, and stopped near the door of the room he
occupied. The intruder was aged; his face was tawny by exposure, and
his hair thinned and whitened by time. His dress was that of a
fisherman, being both scanty and of the meanest materials. Still there
was a naturally noble and frank intelligence in his bold eye and
prominent features, while the bare arms and naked legs exhibited a
muscle and proportion which proved that nature was rather at a stand
than in the decline. He had been many moments dangling his cap, in
habitual but unembarrassed respect, before his presence was observed.
"Ha! thou here, Antonio!" exclaimed the senator, when their eyes met.
"Why this visit?"
"Signore, my heart is heavy."
"Hath the calendar no saint—the fisherman no patron? I suppose the
sirocco hath been tossing the waters of the bay, and thy nets are empty.
Hold! thou art my foster-brother, and thou must not want."
The fisherman drew back with dignity, refusing the gift, simply, but
decidedly, by the act.
"Signore, we have lived from childhood to old age since we drew our milk
from the same breast; in all that time have you ever known me a beggar?"
"Thou art not wont to ask these boons, Antonio, it is true; but age
conquers our pride with our strength. If it be not sequins that thou
seekest, what would'st thou?"
"There are other wants than those of the body, Signore, and other
sufferings besides hunger."
The countenance of the senator lowered. He cast a sharp glance at his
foster-brother, and ere he answered he closed the door which
communicated with the outer chamber.
"Thy words forebode disaffection, as of wont. Thou art accustomed to
comment on measures and interests that are beyond thy limited reason,
and thou knowest that thy opinions have already drawn displeasure on
thee. The ignorant and the low are, to the state, as children, whose
duty it is to obey, and not to cavil. Thy errand?"
"I am not the man you think me, Signore. I am used to poverty and want,
and little satisfies my wishes. The senate is my master, and as such I
honor it; but a fisherman hath his feelings as well as the Doge!"
"Again! These feelings of thine, Antonio, are most exacting. Thou namest
them on all occasions, as if they were the engrossing concerns of life."
"Signore, are they not to me? Though I think mostly of my own concerns,
still I can have a thought for the distress of those I honor. When the
beautiful and youthful lady, your eccellenza's daughter, was called away
to the company of the saints, I felt the blow as if it had been the
death of my own child; and it has pleased God, as you very well know,
Signore, not to leave me unacquainted with the anguish of such a loss."
"Thou art a good fellow, Antonio," returned the senator, covertly
removing the moisture from his eyes; "an honest and a proud man, for thy
condition!"
"She from whom we both drew our first nourishment, Signore, often told
me, that next to my own kin, it was my duty to love the noble race she
had helped to support. I make no merit of natural feeling, which is a
gift from Heaven, and the greater is the reason that the state should
not deal lightly with such affections."
"Once more the state! Name thy errand."
"Your eccellenza knows the history of my humble life. I need not tell
you, Signore, of the sons which God, by the intercession of the Virgin
and blessed St. Anthony, was pleased to bestow on me, or of the manner
in which he hath seen proper to take them one by one away."
"Thou hast known sorrow, poor Antonio; I well remember thou hast
suffered, too."
"Signore, I have. The deaths of five manly and honest sons is a blow to
bring a groan from a rock. But I have known how to bless God, and be
thankful!"
"Worthy fisherman, the Doge himself might envy this resignation. It is
often easier to endure the loss than the life of a child, Antonio!"
"Signore, no boy of mine ever caused me grief, but the hour in which he
died. And even then"—the old man turned aside to conceal the working of
his features—"I struggled to remember from how much pain, and toil, and
suffering they were removed to enjoy a more blessed state."
The lip of the Signer Gradenigo quivered, and he moved to and fro with a
quicker step.
"I think, Antonio," he said, "I think, honest Antonio, I had masses said
for the souls of them all?"
"Signore, you had; St. Anthony remember the kindness in your own
extremity! I was wrong in saying that the youths never gave me sorrow
but in dying, for there is a pain the rich cannot know, in being too
poor to buy a prayer for a dead child!"
"Wilt thou have more masses? Son of thine shall never want a voice with
the saints, for the ease of his soul!"
"I thank you, eccellenza, but I have faith in what has been done, and,
more than all, in the mercy of God. My errand now is in behalf of the
living."
The sympathy of the senator was suddenly checked, and he already
listened with a doubting and suspicious air.
"Thy errand?" he simply repeated.
"Is to beg your interest, Signore, to obtain the release of my grandson
from the galleys. They have seized the lad in his fourteenth year, and
condemned him to the wars with the Infidels, without thought of his
tender years, without thought of evil example, without thought of my age
and loneliness, and without justice; for his father died in the last
battle given to the Turk."
As he ceased, the fisherman riveted his look on the marble countenance
of his auditor, wistfully endeavoring to trace the effect of his words.
But all there was cold, unanswering, and void of human sympathy. The
soulless, practised, and specious reasoning of the state, had long since
deadened all feeling in the senator on any subject that touched an
interest so vital as the maritime power of the Republic. He saw the
hazard of innovation in the slightest approach to interests so delicate,
and his mind was drilled by policy into an apathy that no charity could
disturb, when there was question of the right of St. Mark to the
services of his people.
"I would thou hadst come to beg masses, or gold, or aught but this,
Antonio!" he answered, after a moment of delay. "Thou hast had the
company of the boy, if I remember, from his birth, already."
"Signore, I have had that satisfaction, for he was an orphan born; and I
would wish to have it until the child is fit to go into the world armed
with an honesty and faith that shall keep him from harm. Were my own
brave son here, he would ask no other fortune for the lad than such
counsel and aid as a poor man has a right to bestow on his own flesh and
blood."
"He fareth no worse than others; and thou knowest that the Republic hath
need of every arm."
"Eccellenza, I saw the Signor Giacomo land from his gondola, as I
entered the palace."
"Out upon thee, fellow! dost thou make no distinction between the son of
a fisherman, one trained to the oar and toil, and the heir of an ancient
house? Go to, presuming man, and remember thy condition, and the
difference that God hath made between our children."
"Mine never gave me sorrow but the hour in which they died," said the
fisherman, uttering a severe but mild reproof.
The Signor Gradenigo felt the sting of this retort, which in no degree
aided the cause of his indiscreet foster-brother. After pacing the room
in agitation for some time, he so far conquered his resentment as to
answer more mildly, as became his rank.
"Antonio," he said, "thy disposition and boldness are not strangers to
me; if thou would'st have masses for the dead, or gold for the living,
they are thine; but in asking for my interest with the general of the
galleys, thou askest that which, at a moment so critical, could not be
yielded to the son of the Doge, were the Doge—"
"A fisherman," continued Antonio, observing that he hesitated—"Signore,
adieu; I would not part in anger with my foster-brother, and I pray the
saints to bless you and your house. May you never know the grief of
losing a child by a fate far worse than death—that of destruction by
vice."
As Antonio ceased, he made his reverence and departed by the way he had
entered. He retired unnoticed, for the senator averted his eyes with a
secret consciousness of the force of what the other in his simplicity
had uttered; and it was some time before the latter knew he was alone.
Another step, however, soon diverted his attention. The door re-opened,
and a menial appeared. He announced that one without sought a private
audience.
"Let him enter," answered the ready senator, smoothing his features to
the customary cautious and distrustful expression.
The servant withdrew, when one masked and wearing a cloak quickly
entered the room. When the latter instrument of disguise was thrown upon
an arm, and the visor was removed, the form and face of the dreaded
Jacopo became visible.
"Caesar himself has work, and our oppression
Exceeds what we expected."
SHAKESPEARE.
"Didst thou note him that left me?" eagerly demanded the Signer
Gradenigo.
"I did."
"Enough so to recognise form and countenance?"
"'Twas a fisherman of the Lagunes, named Antonio."
The senator dropped the extended limb, and regarded the Bravo with a
look in which surprise and admiration were equally blended. He resumed
his course up and down the room, while his companion stood waiting his
pleasure in an attitude so calm as to be dignified. A few minutes were
wasted in this abstraction.
"Thou art quick of sight, Jacopo!" continued the patrician, breaking the
pause—"Hast thou had dealings with the man?"
"Never."
"Thou art certain it is—"
"Your eccellenza's foster-brother."
"I did not inquire into thy knowledge of his infancy and origin, but of
his present state," returned the Signor Gradenigo, turning away to
conceal his countenance from the glowing eye of Jacopo—"Has he been
named to thee by any in authority?"
"He has not—my mission does not lie with fishermen."
"Duty may lead us into still humbler society, young man. They who are
charged with the grievous burden of the state, must not consider the
quality of the load they carry. In what manner hath this Antonio come to
thy knowledge?"
"I have known him as one esteemed by his fellows—a man skilful in his
craft, and long practised in the mystery of the Lagunes."
"He is a defrauder of the revenue, thou would'st be understood to say?"
"I would not. He toils too late and early to have other means of support
than labor."
"Thou knowest, Jacopo, the severity of our laws in matters that concern
the public moneys?"
"I know that the judgment of St. Mark, Signore, is never light when its
own interest is touched."
"Thou art not required to utter opinions beyond the present question.
This man hath a habit of courting the goodwill of his associates, and of
making his voice heard concerning affairs of which none but his
superiors may discreetly judge."
"Signore, he is old, and the tongue grows loose with years."
"This is not the character of Antonio. Nature hath not treated him
unkindly; had his birth and education been equal to his mind, the senate
might have been glad to listen—at it is, I fear he speaks in a sense to
endanger his own interests."
"Surely, if he speaks to offend the ear of St. Mark."
There was a quick suspicious glance from the senator to the Bravo, as if
to read the true meaning of the latter's words. Finding, however, the
same expression of self-possession in the quiet features he scrutinized,
the latter continued as if distrust had not been awakened.
"If, as thou sayest, he so speaks as to injure the Republic, his years
have not brought discretion. I love the man, Jacopo, for it is usual to
regard, with some partiality, those who have drawn nourishment from the
same breast with ourselves."
"Signore, it is."
"And feeling this weakness in his favor, I would have him admonished to
be prudent. Thou art acquainted, doubtless, with his opinions concerning
the recent necessity of the state, to command the services of all the
youths on the Lagunes in her fleets?"
"I know that the press has taken from him the boy who toiled in his
company."