he mainland behind, but occasionally a ship, laden with provisions
from Egypt or Syria, managed to evade the Genoese galleys. These
precarious supplies, however, availed but little for the wants of the
starving city, eked out though they were by the exertions of the
sailors, who occasionally sailed across the lagoon, landed on the
mainland, and cut off the supplies sent from Padua and elsewhere to the
Genoese camp.

The price of provisions was so enormous, that the bulk of the people
were famishing, and even in the houses of the wealthy the pressure was
great. The nobility, however, did their utmost for their starving
countrymen, and the words of Pietro Mocenigo, speaking in the name of
the doge to the popular assembly, were literally carried into effect.

"Let all," he said, "who are pressed by hunger, go to the dwellings of
the patricians. There you will find friends and brothers, who will
divide with you their last crust."

So desperate, indeed, did the position become, that a motion was made
by some members of the council for emigrating from the lagoons, and
founding a new home in Candia or Negropont; but this proposal was at
once negatived, and the Venetians declared that, sooner than abandon
their city, they would bury themselves under her ruins.

So October and November passed. Carlo Zeno had not yet arrived, but by
some letters which had been captured with a convoy of provisions, it
was learned that he had been achieving the most triumphant success, had
swept the seas from Genoa to Constantinople, had captured a Genoese
galleon valued at three hundred thousand ducats, and was at Candia.

This intelligence revived the hopes of Venice, and on the 16th of
November Luigi Moroceni was despatched to order him, in the name of the
government, peremptorily to hasten to the rescue of Venice. Almost at
the same time, Giovanni Barberigo, with his light craft, surprised and
captured three of the enemy's vessels, killing many of the sailors, and
taking a hundred and fifty prisoners. The success was not in itself
important, but it raised the hopes of the Venetians, as being the first
time they had taken the offensive. Pisani himself had endeavoured to
reconnoitre the position of the enemy, but had each time been sharply
repulsed, losing ten boats and thirty men upon one occasion, when the
doge's nephew, Antonio Gradenigo, was also killed by the enemy; but in
spite of this, he advised government to make a great effort to re