"
An anxious pause succeeded this reply.
"Thou mayest withdraw, Antonio," said he, who apparently presided in the
dread councils of the Three. "Thou wilt not speak of what has happened,
and thou wilt await the inevitable justice of St. Mark in full
confidence of its execution."
"Thanks, illustrious senator; I will obey your excellency; but my heart
is full, and I would fain say a few words concerning the child, before I
quit this noble company."
"Thou mayest speak--and here thou mayest give free vent to all thy
wishes, or to all thy griefs, if any thou hast. St. Mark has no greater
pleasure than to listen to the wishes of his children."
"I believe they have reviled the Republic in calling its chiefs
heartless, and sold to ambition!" said the old man, with generous
warmth, disregarding the stern rebuke which gleamed in the eye of
Jacopo. "A senator is but a man, and there are fathers and children
among them, as among us of the Lagunes."
"Speak, but refrain from seditious or discreditable discourse," uttered
a secretary, in a half-whisper. "Proceed."
"I have little now to offer, Signori; I am not used to boast of my
services to the state, excellent gentlemen, but there is a time when
human modesty must give way to human nature. These scars were got in one
of the proudest days of St. Mark, and in the foremost of all the galleys
that fought among the Greek Islands. The father of my boy wept over me
then, as I have since wept over his own son--yes--I might be ashamed to
own it among men, but if the truth must be spoken, the loss of the boy
has drawn bitter tears from me in the darkness of night, and in the
solitude of the Lagunes.
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