The moment was approaching; orderlies glided back and forth among the excited people, prescribing their distance; the raft of small craft shifted its position and presently a salute was fired from all the cannon of the arsenal; the Doge, in his great State barge, was near.

The people shouted themselves hoarse when the smoke cleared away and revealed the splendid train of private barges from Venice; there were banners of the Republic and streaming pennons of the nobles; the gondoliers wore the colors of their house, and were welcomed by the people on these days of pageant as a distinct addition to the glories of the festa—­though on other days the barcarioli of the traghetti poured out full vials of contempt upon their sashes of rose and silver and the blazonry of arms upon their silken sleeves.

The gondolas and barges of the people drifted back again, close about the train of magnates from Venice.

“I Giustiniani,” they shouted; “il Marconino!”

There was a movement on one of the splendid barges bearing the colors of the Giustiniani; a little child was caught up and held for a moment high in the air; he waved his tiny hands gleefully—­it was such beautiful play!

“It is the grandson of Messer Girolamo Magagnati, of the Stabilimenti!” they cried from the barges of Murano, surging nearer in the waterway.  “He belongs to us—­to the people!” for the story was well known, and the people of Venice were not less proud than the nobles who ruled them.  “Viva Messer Magagnati!”

The group upon the deck parted and disclosed an old man with bowed head and faltering movements, supported by the young Senator Giustiniani, who gravely recognized their salute; but there was no answering smile upon his face; and Girolamo Magagnati, who had proudly confronted the senators in their Council Chamber when he had declined their proffer of nobility, in this day of triumph scarcely raised his eyes.

The mothers on the barges lifted their little ones in their arms and taught them to call a name—­“Il Marconino!” they ventured, in hesitant, treble tones.

But now the splendid moment was near.  The admiral, in his crimson robes of state, had mounted to his place on the Doge’s barge, and all the floating crowd had fallen into ordered position, in a hush of vibrant suspense, as, with slow majesty and grace, one by one the galleys of Venice came forth in procession from the great basin of the arsenal, sweeping round from the Punta della Motta into the lagoon, and passing the Signoria with a salute.  And now the great bell sounded again from the arsenal tower, and was answered from the Campanile of San Marco, and the suppressed excitement of the eager spectators burst forth in cries of greeting to the Marconino—­just set afloat—­as she came gracefully around in front of the Doge’s barge, full manned and saluting, magnificently equipped, the colors of the Giustiniani waving below the crimson banner of San Marco, with its regnant Lion, and on her prow the beautiful sculptured figure of a little child.