Neither the gondolier nor the mariner of Calabria spoke until their
riveted gaze after the retiring figure became useless. Then the former
simply ejaculated, with a strong respiration--
"Jacopo!"
His companion raised three of his fingers, with an occult meaning,
towards the palace of the doges.
"Do they let him take the air, even in San Marco?" he asked, in
unfeigned surprise.
"It is not easy, caro amico, to make water run up stream, or to stop the
downward current. It is said that most of the senators would sooner lose
their hopes of the horned bonnet, than lose him. Jacopo! He knows more
family secrets than the good Priore of San Marco himself, and he, poor
man, is half his time in the confessional."
"Aye, they are afraid to put him in an iron jacket, lest awkward secrets
should be squeezed out."
"Corpo di Bacco! there would be little peace in Venice, if the Council
of Three should take it into their heads to loosen the tongue of yonder
man in that rude manner."
"But they say, Gino, that thy Council of Three has a fashion of feeding
the fishes of the Lagunes, which might throw the suspicion of his death
on some unhappy Ancona-man, were the body ever to come up again."
"Well, no need of bawling it aloud, as if thou wert hailing a Sicilian
through thy trumpet, though the fact should be so. To say the truth,
there are few men in business who are thought to have more custom than
he who has just gone up the piazzetta.
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