“Thou should’st have said, also, and thy old breast is scarred.  Before thy birth, Jacopo, I went against the infidel, and my blood was shed, like water, for the state.  But they have forgotten it, while there are rich marbles raised in the churches, which speak of what the nobles did, who came unharmed from the same wars.”

“I have heard my father say as much,” returned the Bravo, gloomily, and speaking in an altered voice.  “He, too, bled in that war; but that is forgotten.”

The fisherman glanced a look around, and perceiving that several groups were conversing near, in the square, he signed to his companion to follow him, and walked towards the quays.

“Thy father,” he said, as they moved slowly on together, “was my comrade and my friend.  I am old, Jacopo, and poor; my days are passed in toil, on the Lagunes, and my nights in gaining strength to meet the labor of the morrow; but it hath grieved me to hear that the son of one I much loved, and with whom I have so often shared good and evil, fair and foul, hath taken to a life like that which men say is thine.  The gold that is the price of blood was never yet blessed to him that gave or him that received.”

The Bravo listened in silence, though his companion, who, at another moment, and under other emotions, would have avoided him as one shrinks from contagion, saw, on looking mournfully up into his face, that the muscles were slightly agitated, and that a paleness crossed his cheeks, which the light of the moon rendered ghastly.

“Thou hast suffered poverty to tempt thee into grievous sin, Jacopo; but it is never too late to call on the saints for aid, and to lay aside the stiletto.  It is not profitable for a man to be known in Venice as thy fellow, but the friend of thy father will not abandon one who shows a penitent spirit.  Lay aside thy stiletto, and come with me to the Lagunes.  Thou wilt find labor less burdensome than guilt, and though thou never canst be to me like the boy they have taken, for he was innocent as the lamb! thou wilt still be the son of an ancient comrade, and a stricken spirit.  Come with me then to the Lagunes, for poverty and misery like mine cannot meet with more contempt, even for being thy companion.”

“What is it men say, that thou treatest me thus?” demanded Jacopo, in a low, struggling voice.

“I would they said untruth!  But few die by violence, in Venice, that thy name is not uttered.”

“And would they suffer one thus marked to go openly on the canals, or to be at large in the great square of San Marco?”

“We never know the reasons of the senate.  Some say thy time is not yet come, while others think thou art too powerful for judgment.”

“Thou dost equal credit to the justice and the activity of the inquisition.  But should I go with thee to-night, wilt thou be more discreet in speech among thy fellows of the Lido, and the islands?”

“When the heart hath its load, the tongue will strive to lighten it.  I would do anything to turn the child of my friend from his evil ways, but forget my own.  Thou art used to deal with the patricians, Jacopo; would there be possibility for one, clad in this dress, and with a face blackened by the sun, to come to speak with the Doge?”