Our business now leads us to the cell of Jacopo.  On quitting the presence of the Three, he had been remanded to his gloomy room, where he passed the night like others similarly situated.  With the appearance of the dawn the Bravo had been led before those who ostensibly discharged the duties of his judges.  We say ostensibly, for justice never yet was pure under a system in which the governors have an interest in the least separated from that of the governed; for in all cases which involve the ascendency of the existing authorities, the instinct of self-preservation is as certain to bias their decision as that of life is to cause man to shun danger.  If such is the fact in countries of milder sway, the reader will easily believe in its existence in a state like that of Venice.  As may have been anticipated, those who sat in judgment on Jacopo had their instructions, and the trial that he sustained was rather a concession to appearances than a homage to the laws.  All the records were duly made, witnesses were examined, or said to be examined, and care was had to spread the rumor in the city that the tribunals were at length occupied in deciding on the case of the extraordinary man who had so long been permitted to exercise his bloody profession with impunity even in the centre of the canals.  During the morning the credulous tradesmen were much engaged in recounting to each other the different flagrant deeds that, in the course of the last three or four years, had been imputed to his hand.  One spoke of the body of a stranger that had been found near the gaming-houses frequented by those who visited Venice.  Another recalled the fate of the young noble who had fallen by the assassin’s blow even on the Rialto, and another went into the details of a murder which had deprived a mother of her only son, and the daughter of a patrician of her love.  In this manner, as one after another contributed to the list, a little group, assembled on the quay, enumerated no less than five-and-twenty lives which were believed to have been taken by the hand of Jacopo, without including the vindictive and useless assassination of him whose funeral rites had just been celebrated.  Happily, perhaps, for his peace of mind, the subject of all these rumors and of the maledictions which they drew upon his head, knew nothing of either.  Before his judges he had made no defence whatever, firmly refusing to answer their interrogatories.

“Ye know what I have done, Messires,” he said haughtily.  “And what I have not done, ye know.  As for yourselves, look to your own interests.”

When again in his cell he demanded food, and ate tranquilly, though with moderation.  Every instrument which could possibly be used against his life was then removed, his irons were finally and carefully examined, and he was left to his thoughts.  It was in this situation that the prisoner heard the approach of footsteps to his cell.  The bolts turned, and the door opened.  The form of a priest appeared between him and the day.  The latter, however, held a lamp, which, as the cell was again shut and secured, he placed on the low shelf that held the jug and loaf of the prisoner.