“Is not this he who urged us with importunity concerning a youth that is gone into the service of the state?” exclaimed the Prince, across whose countenance passed that expression of habitual reserve which so often concealed the feelings of the man.

“The same,” returned a cold voice, which the ear of Antonio well knew came from the Signor Gradenigo.

“Pity for thy ignorance, fisherman, represses our anger.  Receive thy chain, and depart.”

Antonio’s eye did not waver.  He kneeled with an air of profound respect, and folding his hands on his bosom, he said—­

“Misery has made me bold, dread Prince!  What I say comes from a heavy heart rather than from a licentious tongue, and I pray your royal ear to listen with indulgence.”

“Speak briefly, for the sports are delayed.”

“Mighty Doge! riches and poverty have caused a difference in our fortunes, which knowledge and ignorance have made wider.  I am rude in my discourse, and little suited to this illustrious company.  But, Signore, God hath given to the fisherman the same feelings, and the same love for his offspring, as he has given to a prince.  Did I place dependence only on the aid of my poor learning, I should now be dumb, but there is a strength within that gives me courage to speak to the first and noblest in Venice in behalf of my child!”

“Thou canst not impeach the senate’s justice, old man, or utter aught in truth against the known impartiality of the laws?”

“Sovrano mio! deign to listen, and you shall hear.  I am what your eyes behold—­a man, poor, laborious, and drawing near to the hour when he shall be called to the side of the blessed St. Anthony of Rimini, and stand in a presence even greater than this.  I am not vain enough to think that my humble name is to be found among those of the patricians who have served the Republic in her wars—­that is an honor which none but the great, and the noble, and the happy, can claim; but if the little I have done for my country is not in the Golden Book, it is written here,” as Antonio spoke, he pointed to the scars on his half-naked form; “these are signs of the enmity of the Turk, and I now offer them as so many petitions to the bounty of the senate.”

“Thou speakest vaguely.  What is thy will?”

“Justice, mighty Prince.  They have forced the only vigorous branch from the dying trunk—­they have lopped the withering stem of its most promising shoot—­they have exposed the sole companion of my labors and pleasures, the child to whom I have looked to close my eyes, when it shall please God to call me away, untaught, and young in lessons of honesty and virtue, a boy in principle as in years, to all the temptation, and sin, and dangerous companionship of the galleys!”

“Is this all?  I had thought thy gondola in the decay, or thy right to use the Lagunes in question!”

“Is this all?” repeated Antonio, looking around him in bitter melancholy.  “Doge of Venice, it is more than one, old, heart-stricken, and bereaved, can bear?”