ed to
press her further.

After the solemn mass in the Duomo, the magnificent chords of a jubilant
Te-Deum filled the Piazza with harmonies--it was the music of a Triumph
indeed:--the soldiers, the knights, the high functionaries of State, the
priests and chanting choirs were all there; but the central figure under
the golden baldachino, upheld by the barons of the realm and surrounded
with royal honors, was not the Conqueror--but the victim--the prey--the
sacrifice. It was rather they--the leaders of this pageant, in their
crimson robes of office with the shadow of the banner of San Marco above
them, who rode proudly, sure of the honors and emoluments that awaited
them when Venice should echo to them the Roman cry of victory--"_Io
Triumphe!_"

And now the Queen pronounced the speech that Venice had decreed,
wherein she claimed the love that her simple people had lavished upon
her--

"_For Venice--to whom we have freely yielded our right._"

The words were strange upon her lips, and she spoke them stonily, as if
she knew not that they had a meaning; and thus tortured from her, it may
well be questioned whether the Recording Angel ever noted them in his
book--yet they were her answer to the _popolo_ who thronged about her
with tears and blessings, as she journeyed from city to city to repeat
the mournful ceremony of farewell; and the people heard them with sobs
and groans.

In every city, as one for whom life had died and speech had lost its
soul--she uttered these words which Venice had decreed; in every city
she looked on mutely from under her royal canopy--she who was so
powerless--while the flag of the island of Cyprus was supplanted by the
banner of San Marco, and the sculptured marble tablet with the winged
lions guarding its triumphant inscription, was placed as a record of a
kingdom too weak to rule.

FRAN. DE PRIULI VENETAE CLASS.
IMPER. DIVI MARCI VESS.
CYPRI FELICITER ERECTUM EST.
NO. MCCCCLXXXVIII. 28 FEBRU.

How dreary the passage across those wide waters to the shores of the
smiling Adriatic for the desolate woman who had left them in the first
flush of her youth, with hopes as brilliant as the skies of Venice, and
with a promise as fair--to return to them lonely, despoiled,
heart-broken, craving rest! The gray light of the storm-clouds by the
banks of the Lido and the moan of the rising winds which threatened to
engulf the Bucentoro and the fleet of attendant barges coming in