security.  Some listened in admiration, for habit had so far mastered dulness, as to have created a species of identity between the state and far more durable things, and they believed that St. Mark had gained a victory, in that decline, which was never exactly intelligible to their apathetic capacities.  But a few, and these were the spirits that accumulated all the national good which was vulgarly and falsely ascribed to the system itself, intuitively comprehended the danger, with a just appreciation of its magnitude, as well as of the means to avoid it.

But the rioters were unequal to any estimate of their own force, and had little aptitude in measuring their accidental advantages.  They acted merely on impulse.  The manner in which their aged companion had triumphed on the preceding day, his cold repulse by the Doge, and the scene of the Lido, which in truth led to the death of Antonio, had prepared their minds for the tumult.  When the body was found, therefore, after the time necessary to collect their forces on the Lagunes, they yielded to passion, and moved away towards the palace of St. Mark, as described, without any other definite object than a simple indulgence of feeling.

On entering the canal, the narrowness of the passage compressed the boats into a mass so dense, as, in a measure, to impede the use of oars, and the progress of the crowd was necessarily slow.  All were anxious to get as near as possible to the body of Antonio, and, like all mobs, they in some degree frustrated their own objects by ill-regulated zeal.  Once or twice the names of offensive senators were shouted, as if the fishermen intended to visit the crimes of the state on its agents; but these cries passed away in the violent breath that was expended.  On reaching the bridge of the Rialto, more than half of the multitude landed, and took the shorter course of the streets to the point of destination, while those in front got on the faster, for being disembarrassed of the pressure in the rear.  As they drew nearer to the port, the boats began to loosen, and to take something of the form of a funeral procession.

It was during this moment of change that a powerfully manned gondola swept, with strong strokes, out of a lateral passage into the Great Canal.  Accident brought it directly in front of the moving phalanx of boats that was coming down the same channel.  Its crew seemed staggered by the extraordinary appearance which met their view, and for an instant its course was undecided.

“A gondola of the Republic!” shouted fifty fishermen.  A single voice added—­“Canale Orfano!”

The bare suspicion of such an errand, as was implied by the latter words, and at that moment, was sufficient to excite the mob.  They raised a cry of denunciation, and some twenty boats made a furious demonstration of pursuit.  The menace, however, was sufficient; for quicker far than the movements of the pursuers, the gondoliers of the Republic dashed towards the shore, and leaping on one of those passages of planks which encircle so many of the palaces of Venice, they disappeared by an alley.