“I see nothing in this, your highness,” observed he of the council, “but the chances of a fisherman.  The unhappy old man has come to his end by accident, and it would be charity to have a few masses said for his soul.”

“Noble senator!” exclaimed the fisherman, doubtingly, “St. Mark was offended!”

“Rumor tells many idle tales of the pleasure and displeasure of St. Mark, If we are to believe all that the wit of men can devise, in affairs of this nature, the criminals are not drowned in the Lagunes, but in the Canale Orfano.”

“True, eccellenza, and we are forbidden to cast our nets there, on pain of sleeping with the eels at its bottom.”

“So much greater reason for believing that this old man hath died by accident.  Is there mark of violence on his body? for though the state could scarcely occupy itself with such as he, some other might.  Hath the condition of the body been looked to?”

“Eccellenza, it was enough to cast one of his years into the centre of the Lagunes.  The stoutest arm in Venice could not save him.”

“There may have been violence in some quarrel, and the proper authority should be vigilant.  Here is a Carmelite!  Father, do you know aught of this?”

The monk endeavored to answer, but his voice failed.  He stared wildly about him, for the whole scene resembled some frightful picture of the imagination, and then folding his arms on his bosom, he appeared to resume his prayers.

“Thou dost not answer, Friar?” observed the Doge, who had been as effectually deceived, by the natural and indifferent manner of the inquisitor, as any other of his auditors.  “Where didst thou find this body?”

Father Anselmo briefly explained the manner in which he had been pressed into the service of the fishermen.

At the elbow of the prince there stood a young patrician, who, at the moment, filled no other office in the state than such as belonged to his birth.  Deceived, like the others, by the manner of the only one who knew the real cause of Antonio’s death, he felt a humane and praiseworthy desire to make sure that no foul play had been exercised towards the victim.

“I have heard of this Antonio,” said this person, who was called the Senator Soranzo, and who was gifted by nature with feelings that, in any other form of government, would have made him a philanthropist, “and of his success in the regatta.  Was it not said that Jacopo, the Bravo, was his competitor?”

A low, meaning, and common murmur ran through the throng.

“A man of his reputed passions and ferocity may well have sought to revenge defeat by violence!”

A second and a louder murmur denoted the effect this suggestion had produced.

“Eccellenza, Jacopo deals in the stiletto!” observed the half-credulous but still doubting fisherman.

“That is as may be necessary.  A man of his art and character may have recourse to other means to gratify his malice.  Do you not agree with me, Signore?”