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?"
"Go to; take thy golden chain and oar, and depart among thy fellows in
triumph. Gladden thy heart at a victory, on which thou could'st not, in
reason, have counted, and leave the interests of the state to those that
are wiser than thee, and more fitted to sustain its cares.
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