The Bravo Read Free Page A

though light and active, gave every indication of strength.
His step was firm, assured, and even; his carriage erect and easy, and
his whole mien was strongly characterized by a self-possession that
could scarcely escape observation; and yet his attire was that of an
inferior class. A doublet of common velvet, a dark Montero cap, such as
was then much used in the southern countries of Europe, with other
vestments of a similar fashion, composed his dress. The face was
melancholy rather than sombre, and its perfect repose accorded well with
the striking calmness of the body. The lineaments of the former,
however, were bold and even noble, exhibiting that strong and manly
outline which is so characteristic of the finer class of the Italian
countenance. Out of this striking array of features gleamed an eye that
was full of brilliancy, meaning, and passion.
    As the stranger passed, his glittering organs rolled over the persons of
the gondolier and his companion, but the look, though searching, was
entirely without interest. 'Twas the wandering but wary glance, which
men who have much reason to distrust, habitually cast on a multitude. It
turned with the same jealous keenness on the face of the next it
encountered, and by the time the steady and well balanced form was lost
in the crowd, that quick and glowing eye had gleamed, in the same rapid
and uneasy manner, on twenty others.
    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."
    "Two sequins!" rejoined the Calabrian, enforcing his meaning by a
significant grimace.
    "Santa Madonna! Thou forgettest, Stefano, that not even the confessor
has any trouble with a job in which he has been employed. Not a caratano
less than a hundred will buy a stroke of his art. Your blows, for two
sequins, leave a man leisure to tell tales, or even to say his prayers
half the time."
    "Jacopo!" ejaculated the other, with an emphasis which seemed to be a
sort of summing up of all his aversion and horror.
    The gondolier shrugged his shoulders with quite as much meaning as a man
born on the shores of the Baltic could have conveyed by words; but he
too appeared to think the matter exhausted.
    "Stefano Milano," he added, after a moment of pause, 'there are things
in Venice which he who would eat his maccaroni in peace, would do well
to forget. Let thy errand in port be what it may, thou art in good
season to witness the regatta which will be given by the state itself
to-morrow."
    "Hast thou an oar for that race?"
    "Giorgio's, or mine, under the patronage of San Teodoro. The prize will
be a silver gondola to him who is lucky or skilful