“You must be much honored of the Senate, holy monk,” observed the latter while they proceeded, “to hold so near a trust about the person of one in whom the state takes so great an interest?”

“I feel it as such, my son.  A life of peace and prayer should have made me friends.”

“Men like you, father, merit the esteem they crave.  Are you long of Venice?”

“Since the last conclave.  I came into the Republic as confessor to the late minister from Florence.”

“An honorable trust.  You have been with us then long enough to know that the Republic never forgets a servitor, nor forgives an affront.”

“’Tis an ancient state, and one whose influence still reaches far and near.”

“Have a care of the step.  These marbles are treacherous to an uncertain foot.”

“Mine is too practised in the descent to be unsteady.  I hope I do not now descend these stairs for the last time?”

The minister of the council affected not to understand the question, but he answered as if replying only to the previous observation.

“’Tis truly a venerable state,” he said, “but a little tottering with its years.  All who love liberty, father, must mourn to see so glorious a sway on the decline. Sic transit gloria mundi! You bare-footed Carmelites do well to mortify the flesh in youth, by which you escape the pains of a decreasing power.  One like you can have few wrongs of his younger days to repair?”

“We are none of us without sin,” returned the monk, crossing himself.  “He who would flatter his soul with being perfect lays the additional weight of vanity on his life.”

“Men of my occupation, holy Carmelite, have few opportunities of looking into themselves, and I bless the hour that hath brought me into company so godly.  My gondola waits—­will you enter?”

The monk regarded his companion in distrust, but knowing the uselessness of resistance, he murmured a short prayer and complied.  A strong dash of the oars announced their departure from the steps of the palace.

CHAPTER XV.

  O pescator! dell’ onda
    Fi da lin;
  O pescator! dell’ onda,
    Fi da lin;
  Vien pescar in qua;
  Colla bella tua barca,
  Colla bella se ne va,
  Fi da lin, lin, la—­
                    Venetian boat song.

The moon was at the height.  Its rays fell in a flood on the swelling domes and massive roofs of Venice, while the margin of the town was brilliantly defined by the glittering bay.  The natural and gorgeous setting was more than worthy of that picture of human magnificence; for at that moment, rich as was the Queen of the Adriatic in her works of art, the grandeur of her public monuments, the number and splendor of her palaces, and most else that the ingenuity and ambition of man could attempt, she was but secondary in the glories of the hour.