ter leaving Venice, Pisani had accomplished his object,
and had shut out the Genoese galleys from the sea.

But the work had been terrible, and the losses great. The soldiers were
on half rations. The cold was piercing. They were engaged night and day
with the enemy, and were continually wet through, and the labour was
tremendous.

A fort had already been begun on the southern shore of the port of
Brondolo, facing the convent, which Doria had transformed into a
citadel. The new work was christened the Lova, and the heaviest guns in
the Venetian arsenal were planted there. One of these, named the
Trevisan, discharged stones of a hundred and ninety-five pounds in
weight, and the Victory was little smaller. But the science of
artillery was then in its youth, and these guns could only be
discharged once in twenty-four hours.

But, on the 29th, the Venetians could do no more, and officers,
soldiers, and sailors united in the demand that they should return to
Venice. Even Pisani felt that the enterprise was beyond him, and that
his men, exhausted by cold, hunger, and their incessant exertions,
could no longer resist the overwhelming odds brought against him.
Still, he maintained a brave front, and once again his cheery words,
and unfeigned good temper, and the example set them by the aged doge,
had their effect; but the soldiers required a pledge that, if Zeno
should not be signalled in sight by New Year's Day, he would raise the
siege. If Pisani and the doge would pledge themselves to this, the
people agreed to maintain the struggle for the intervening forty-eight
hours.

The pledge was given, and the fight continued. Thus, the fate of Venice
hung in the balance. If Zeno arrived, not only would she be saved, but
she had it in her power to inflict upon Genoa a terrible blow. Should
Zeno still tarry, not only would the siege be raised, and the Genoese
be at liberty to remove the dams which the Venetians had placed, at
such a cost of suffering and blood; but there would be nothing left for
Venice but to accept the terms, however onerous, her triumphant foes
might dictate, terms which would certainly strip her of all her
possessions, and probably involve even her independence.

Never, from her first foundation, had Venice been in such terrible
risk. Her very existence trembled in the balance. The 30th passed as
the days preceding it. There was but little fighting, for the Genoese
knew how terrible were the straits to which