dirty cloth in his turban, and which clean. It was a sore sight to a Christian, Stefano, to see the right thus borne upon by an mfidel."

And thy feet warmed with the thought of the bastinado, caro

mio ?"

I have run too often barefoot over our Calabrian mountains, to tingle at the sole with every fancy of that sort."

If

Every man has his weak spot, and I know thine to be dread of a Turk's arm. Thy native hills have their soft as well as their hard ground, but it is said the Tunisian chooses a board knotty as his own heart, when he amuses himself with the wailings of a Christian.” "Well, the happiest of us all must take such as fortune brings. my soles are to be shod with blows, the honest priest of Sant' Agata will be cheated of a penitent. I have bargained with the good curato, that all such accidental calamities shall go in the general account of penance. But how fares the world of Venice? and what dost thou among the canals at this season? To keep the flowers of thy jacket from wilting ?"

To-day as yesterday, and to-morrow will be as to-day. I row the gondola from the Rialto to the Giudecca; from San Giorgio to San Marco; from San Marco to the Lido, and from the Lido home. There are no Tunis-men by the way, to chill the heart or warm the feet."

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Enough of friendship. And is there nothing stirring in the republic?-no young noble drowned, nor any Jew hanged?"

Nothing of that much interest-except the calamity which befell Pietro. Thou rememberest Pietrillo? he who crossed into Dalmatia with thee once, as a supernumerary, the time he was suspected of having aided the young Frenchman in running away with a senator's daughter?"

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Do I remember the last famine? The rogue did nothing but eat maccaroni, and swallow the lachrymæ christi, which the Dalmatian count had on freight."

Poverino! His gondola has been run down by an Ancona man, who passed over the boat, as if it were a senator stepping on a fly"

So much for little fish coming into deep water."

The honest fellow was crossing the Giudecca, with a stranger who had occasion to say his prayers at the Redentore, when the brig hit him in the canopy, and broke up the gondola as if it had been a bubble left by the Bucentaur."

"The padrone should have been too generous to complain of Pietro's clumsiness, since it met with its own punishment."

"Madre di Dio! He went to sea that hour, or he might be feeding the fishes of the Lagunes! There is not a gondolier in Venice who did not feel the wrong at his heart; and we know how to obtain justice for an insult, as well as our masters."

Well, a gondola is mortal, as well as a felucca, and both have their time; better die by the prow of a brig, than fall into the

gripe of a Turk. How is thy young master, Gino? and is he likely to obtain his claims of the senate ?"

:

"He cools himself in the Giudecca in the morning and if thou wouldst know what he does at evening, thou hast only to look among the nobles in the Broglio."

As the gondolier spoke, he glanced an eye aside, at a grou of patrician rank, who paced the gloomy arcades which supportea the superior walls of the Doge's palace, a spot sacred, at times, to the uses of the privileged.

"I am no stranger to the habit thy Venetian nobles have of com ing to that low colonnade at this hour, but I never before heard of their preferring the waters of the Giudecca for their baths." "Were even the Doge to throw himself out of a gondola, he must sink or swim, like a meaner Christian."

'Acqua dell' Adriatico! Was the young ducca going to the Redentore, too, to say his prayers?"

"He was coming back after having-but what matters it in what canal a young noble sighs away the night! We happened to be near when the Ancona-man performed his feat: while Giorgio and I were boiling with rage at the awkwardness of the stranger, my master, who never had much taste or knowledge in gondolas, went into the water to save the young lady from sharing the fate of her uncle."

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'Diavolo! This is the first syllable thou hast uttered concerning any young lady, or of the death of her uncle!"

"Thou wert thinking of thy Tunis-man, and hast forgotten. I must have told thee how near the beautiful signora was to sharing the fate of the gondola, and how the loss of the Roman marchese weighs, in addition, on the soul of the padrone."

Santo Padre! That a Christian should die the death of a hunted dog by the carelessness of a gondolier!"

"It may have been lucky for the Ancona-man that it so fell out, for they say the Roman was one of influence enough to make a senator cross the Brige of Sighs, at need."

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The devil take all careless watermen, say I! And what became of the awkward rogue ?"

I tell thee he went outside the Lido, that very hour, or-" 66 Pietrello ?"

"He was brought up by the oar of Giorgio, for both of us were active in saving the cushions and other valuables.”"

Couldst thou do nothing for the poor Roman? Ill luck may follow that brig on account of his death!"

"Ill luck follow her, say I, till she lay her bones on some rock that is harder than the heart of her padrone. As for the stranger, we could do no more than offer up a prayer of San Teodoro, since he never rose after the blow. But what has brought thee to Venice, caro mio? for thy ill-fortune with the oranges, in the last voyage, caused thee to denounce the place."

The Calabrian laid a finger on one cheek, and drew the skin

down, in a manner to give a droll expression to his dark, comic eye, while the whole of his really fine Grecian face was charged with an expression of coarse humour.

"Look you, Gino-thy master sometimes calls for his gondola between sunset and morning?".

An owl is not more wakeful than he has been of late. This head of mine has not been on a pillow before the sun has come above the Lido, since the snows melted from Monselice."

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And when the sun of thy master's countenance sets in his own palazzo, thou hastenest off to the bridge of the Rialto, among the jewellers and butchers, to proclaim the manner in which he has passed the night?"

"Diamine! "Twould be the last night I served the Duca di Sant' Agata, were my tongue so limber! The gondolier and the confessor are the two privy-councillors of a noble, Master Stefano, with this small difference-that the last only knows what the sinner wishes to reveal, while the first sometimes knows more. I can find a safer, if not a more honest employment, than to be running about with my master's secrets in the air.

وو

"And I am wiser than to let every Jew broker in San Marco, here, have a peep into my charter-party."

"Nay, old acquaintance, there is some difference between our occupations, after all. A padrone of a felucca cannot, in justice, be compared to the most confidential gondolier of a Neapolitan duke, who has an unsettled right to be admitted to the Council of Three Hundred."

"Just the difference between smooth water and rough-you ruffle the surface of a canal with a lazy oar, while I run the channel of Piombino in a mistral, shoot the Faro of Messina in a white squall, double Santa María de Leuca in a breathing Levanter, and come skimming up the Adriatic, before a sirocco that is hot enough to cook my maccaroni, and which sets the whole sea boiling worse than the caldrons of Scylla."

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Hist!" eagerly interrupted the gondolier, who had indulged, with Italian humour in the controversy for peminence, though without any real feeling, “here comes one who may think, else, we shall have need of his hand to settle the dispute-Eccolo!"

The Calabrian recoiled a pace, in silence, and stood regarding the individual who had caused this ́hurried remark, with a gloomy but steady air. The stranger moved slowly past. His years were under thirty, though the calm gravity of his countenance imparted to it a character of more mature age. The cheeks were bloodless, but they betrayed rather the pallid hue of mental than of bodily disease. The perfect condition of the physical man was suf ficiently exhibited in the muscular fulness of a body which, 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 vet his attire was that of an in

ferior 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, exhibitin that strong and manly outline which is so characteristic of the fines class of the Italian countenance. Out of this striking array o 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 gazes 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."

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Ay, they are afraid to put him an iron jacket, lest awkward secrets should come 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 Threc 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."

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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 ne 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 givet 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 enough to win; and then we shall have the nuptials with the Adriatic."

"Thy nobles had best woo the bride well, for there are heretics who lay claim to her good-will. I met a rover of strange rig and miraculous fleetness, in rounding the headlands of Otranto, who seemed to have half a mind to follow the felucca in her path towards the Lagunes."

"Did the sight warm thee at the soles of thy feet, Gino, dear? "There was not a turbaned head on his deck, but every sea-cap set upon a well-covered poll and a shorn chin. Thy Bucentaur is no longer the bravest craft that floats between Dalmatia and the islands, though her gilding may glitter brightest. There are men beyond the pillars of Hercules who are not satisfied with doing all that can be done on their own coasts, but are pretending to do much of that which can be done on ours.'

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The republic is a little aged, caro, and years need rest. The Joints of the Bucentaur are racked by time and many voyages to the Lido. I have heard my master say, that the leap of the winged lion is not as far as it was, even in his young days.'

"Don Camillo has the reputation of talking boldly of the foundation of this city of piles, when he has the roof of old Sant' Agata safely over his head. Were he to speak more reverently of the horned bonnet, and of the Council of Three, his pretensions to succeed to the rights of his forefathers might seem juster in the eyes of his judges. But distance is a great mellower of colours, and softener of fears. My own opinion of the speed of the felucca, and of the merits of a Turk, undergoes changes of this sort between port and the open sea; and I have known thee, good Gino, forget San Teodoro, and bawl as lustily to San Gennaro, when at Naples, as if thou really fancied thyself in danger from the mountain."

"One must speak to those at hand, in order to be quickest heard," rejoined the gondolier, casting a glance that was partly humorous, and not without superstition, upwards at the image