their
opponents, would tolerate neither heresy nor coarseness. Every detail of
this world-renowned quarrel was conducted on the part of Venice with an
irreproachable dignity and diplomacy that raised it to the height of a
negotiation of State, and it formed no part of the policy of the
Republic to tolerate any disbelief in her own loyalty; the Venetians
should stand before the world as faithful sons of the Church, bearing
unmerited sentence of excommunication.

Then Rome, to make an end of the brilliant flow of pamphlets from
Sarpi's pen, would have lured him from Venice with flattering promises
of churchly preferment. "Nay," said he, "here lieth my duty; and my work
hath not deserved honest favor from a Pope who interpreteth the law with
other eyes than mine."

Meanwhile the schemes of the enemy were tireless for obtaining secret
influence within Venetian borders. Now it was a barefooted friar to be
watched for at Mantua, coming with powers plenipotentiary from his
Holiness over all the prelates of the rebellious realm; or it might be
this same friar, in lay disguise, still armed with those ghostly and
secret powers, for whom the trusted servants of Venice were to be on
guard. Or there were disaffected brothers, who had left their convents
and were roaming through the land inciting to rebellion, to whom it was
needful to teach the value of quiet, however summary the process. But
Venice, by a broad training in intrigue and cunning, joined to her
mastery of the finer principles of statesmanship, still remained
mistress of the springs of action and wore her outward dignity, and the
disappointments were for her adversaries. But this training was a costly
one, for it put a prize on daring, confused the colors of right, and
invariably laureled success--if it did no more specific harm to the
State.

Piero Salin had been secretly summoned by the Ten and given an
indefinite leave of absence from Venice, together with a large
discretionary power in the direction of his wanderings, with certain
other passes and perquisites which bespoke a curious confidence in one
who had been known for a successful and much dreaded bandit gondolier.
But if the government in its complicated labors had need of tools of
various tempers, it had also the wisdom to discern legitimate uses for
certain wild and lawless spirits when they were, like Piero, full of
daring and resource.

In the days when they had been dwellers under the same roof Pier