But when the doors had at last been thrown wide to the sunshine and the babel of life which rose from the eager, thronging populace who had no right of entrance on this solemn occasion—­men who had no vote, women and children who had all their lives been Nicolotti of the Nicolotti—­a Venetian must indeed have been stolid to feel no thrill of pride as the procession, with great pomp, passed out of the church to a chorus of bells and cannon and shouts of the people, proclaiming him their chosen chief.

Piero Salin was a splendid specimen of the people—­tall, broad-shouldered, gifted by nature and trained by wind and wave to the very perfection of his craft; positive, nonchalant, and masterful; affable when not thwarted; of fewer words than most Venetians; an adept at all the intricacies of gondolier intrigue, and fitted by intimate knowledge to circumvent the tosi.  Moreover, he was in favor with the government, a crowning grace to other qualities not valueless in one of this commanding position.

No wonder that the enthusiasm of the populace was wild enough to bring the frankest delight to his handsome sun-bronzed face as they rushed upon him in a frenzy of appreciation and bore him aloft on their shoulders around the Piazza San Nicolo, almost dizzied with their haste and the smallness of the circle opened to them in the little square by the throng who pressed eagerly around him to grasp his hand—­to wave their banners, to shout themselves hoarse for the Nicolotti, for San Nicolo and San Raffaele, for Piero, gastaldo grande, for Venezia, for San Marco, with “Bravi,” “Felicitazioni,” and every possible childish demonstration of delight.

Should not the Nicolotti—­blessed be the Madonna!—­always overcome the Castellani with Piero at their head, in those party battles on the bridges which had now grown to be as serious a factor in the lives of the gondoliers of Venice as they were disturbing to the citizens at large, and therefore the more to the glory of the combatants?

Was he not their own representative—­elected by the very voice of the people, as in those lost days of their freedom the doges had been?  And did not the rival faction so stand in awe of the new gastaldo that from the moment of his nomination there had been disaffection in their ranks?

And now, as they shouted around him, many a sturdy red cap tossed his badge disdainfully into the throng and snatched a black bonnet from the nearest head to wave it aloft with cries of “the black cap!  The Nicolotti!  Viva San Nicolo!”

And again, when Piero essayed to prove himself equal to his honors, his few words dropped without sound upon the storm of vivas—­“We do not want talking for our gastaldo—­but doing!”