s shed,
like water, for the state. But they have forgotten it, while there are
rich marbles raised in the churches, which speak of what the nobles did,
who came unharmed from the same wars."

"I have heard my father say as much," returned the Bravo, gloomily, and
speaking in an altered voice. "He, too, bled in that war; but that is
forgotten."

The fisherman glanced a look around, and perceiving that several groups
were conversing near, in the square, he signed to his companion to
follow him, and walked towards the quays.

"Thy father," he said, as they moved slowly on together, "was my comrade
and my friend. I am old, Jacopo, and poor; my days are passed in toil,
on the Lagunes, and my nights in gaining strength to meet the labor of
the morrow; but it hath grieved me to hear that the son of one I much
loved, and with whom I have so often shared good and evil, fair and
foul, hath taken to a life like that which men say is thine. The gold
that is the price of blood was never yet blessed to him that gave or him
that received."

The Bravo listened in silence, though his companion, who, at another
moment, and under other emotions, would have avoided him as one shrinks
from contagion, saw, on looking mournfully up into his face, that the
muscles were slightly agitated, and that a paleness crossed his cheeks,
which the light of the moon rendered ghastly.

"Thou hast suffered poverty to tempt thee into grievous sin, Jacopo; but
it is never too late to call on the saints for aid, and to lay aside the
stiletto. It is not profitable for a man to be known in Venice as thy
fellow, but the friend of thy father will not abandon one who shows a
penitent spirit. Lay aside thy stiletto, and come with me to the
Lagunes. Thou wilt find labor less burdensome than guilt, and though
thou never canst be to me like the boy they have taken, for he was
innocent as the lamb! thou wilt still be the son of an ancient comrade,
and a stricken spirit. Come with me then to the Lagunes, for poverty and
misery like mine cannot meet with more contempt, even for being thy
companion."

"What is it men say, that thou treatest me thus?" demanded Jacopo, in a
low, struggling voice.

"I would they said untruth! But few die by violence, in Venice, that thy
name is not uttered."

"And would they suffer one thus marked to go openly on the canals, or
to be at large in the great square of San Marco?"

"We never know the reasons of the senate. Some say th