“Hast thou aught more to urge, Antonio?” asked the judge, with the wily design of unmasking the fisherman’s entire soul.

“Is it not enough, Signore, that I urge my years, my poverty, my scars, and my love for the boy?  I know ye not, but though ye are hid behind the folds of your robes and masks, still must ye be men.  There may be among ye a father, or perhaps some one who hath a still more sacred charge, the child of a dead son.  To him I speak.  In vain ye talk of justice when the weight of your power falls on them least able to bear it; and though ye may delude yourselves, the meanest gondolier of the canal knows—­”

He was stopped from uttering more by his companion, who rudely placed a hand on his mouth.

“Why hast thou presumed to stop the complaints of Antonio?” sternly demanded the judge.

“It was not decent, illustrious senators, to listen to such disrespect in so noble a presence,” Jacopo answered, bending reverently as he spoke.  “This old fisherman, dread Signori, is warmed by love for his offspring, and he will utter that which, in his cooler moments, he will repent.”

“St. Mark fears not the truth!  If he has more to say, let him declare it.”

But the excited Antonio began to reflect.  The flush which had ascended to his weather-beaten cheek disappeared, and his naked breast ceased to heave.  He stood like one rebuked, more by his discretion than his conscience, with a calmer eye, and a face that exhibited the composure of his years, and the respect of his condition.

“If I have offended, great patricians,” he said, more mildly, “I pray you to forget the zeal of an ignorant old man, whose feelings are master of his breeding, and who knows less how to render the truth agreeable to noble ears, than to utter it.”

“Thou mayest depart.”

The armed attendants advanced, and obedient to a sign from the secretary, they led Antonio and his companion through the door by which they had entered.  The other officials of the place followed, and the secret judges were left by themselves in the chamber of doom.

CHAPTER XIII.

“Oh! the days that we have seen.” 
Shelton.

A pause like that which accompanies self-contemplation, and perhaps conscious distrust of purpose, succeeded.  Then the Three arose together, and began to lay aside the instruments of their disguise.  When the masks were removed, they exposed the grave visages of men in the decline of life, athwart which worldly cares and worldly passions had drawn those deep lines, which no subsequent ease or resignation can erase.  During the process of unrobing neither spoke, for the affair on which they had just been employed, caused novel and disagreeable sensations to them all.  When they were delivered from their superfluous garments and their masks, however, they drew near the table, and each sought that relief for his limbs and person which was natural to the long restraint he had undergone.