But a few words suffice for such as these who have caught only some vague hint of the Holy Father’s displeasure, and are reassured by the open church and the promise of Mass and benediction.

It is those others who make trouble; they come, from time to time,—­by twos and threes, never alone,—­and read for themselves, with lowering brows, but ask no questions.  And sometimes, if they watch too silently, the courteous friar who has graciously interpreted the message which is above the heads of the crowd, exchanges a glance of intelligence with some gay young signor who belongs to the great army of secret service—­as revealed to the friar on guard by the password of the day; and the sullen-browed group is courteously accosted by the young noble—­“Excuse me, signori, you are strangers in Venice; a gondola is waiting to conduct you to the palace.”

They will be tried as secret agents of the enemy.  But resistance is rare, for an escort of guards pours out from the doorways and calles, if a stiletto but gleam in the sunlight; and no secret agent may cope with Venice in promptness of self-defense and ingenuity of prevention.

It is interesting in the campo in these early days, before the effect of the government’s measures for coercing the opinions of the populace is fully declared.

“I am a good Catholic, most reverend father; I keep the mariegole; every year I go to confession,” protests some sturdy gondolier, who has been made anxious by his womenfolk.  “And many a fare I pay to light the traghetto of San Nicolo; with an ave for the favor of the Blessed Mother to confound the scoundrel Castellani, who threw a good Nicolotto over the Ponte Senza Parapetti, in the last fight; and it cost us oil enough to light Venice for a year—­faith of San Nicolo!—­to keep them from winning at our regatta—­maledetti!”

For even those gondoliers who kept the mariegole were not precisely angels, and the part of their creed which they religiously upheld was a deathless antagonism to the rival faction which won more lamps and pretty gifts for the patron madonnas of the various traghetti than any other article of their faith.

To a few, chiefly women with devout, sad faces—­watchers, perchance, beside beds over which the shadow of death is creeping—­the padre tells compassionately of consoling, helpful words that are preached daily in the great deserted church of I Gesuiti; for in this parish, more than others, there are difficulties, since it had been the centre of the disaffection.  But now its doors are ceaselessly open for a refuge; no service is omitted, no sacrament denied; and daily, before vespers, the people may listen to a few simple words from Fra Paolo.  Thither, in these early days of the struggle, the crowd flocks, drawn partly by curiosity to hear a man of whom it is whispered that he has just been individually put under the greater excommunication by the Holy Inquisition, because of his attitude in this quarrel.