There were many other gondolas moving silently along here, there, everywhere. On this great thoroughfare there was no rumble and roar of traffic. It was a street of soft silence, as Venice is the City of Silence.
“In a short time, boys,” said the old professor, in a modulated voice, that seemed softened by the influence of his surroundings, “you shall see Venice at her best, for the moon will rise round and full. When you have seen Venice by moonlight, you may truthfully say you have beheld the most beautiful spectacle this world can show you.”
“She ain’t so almighty bad by sunlight,” observed Buckhart.
“Ah, but time has worked its ravages upon her,” sighed Zenas sadly. “Once even the dazzling sun of midday could show no flaw in her beauty, but now it reveals the fact that, although she is still charming, her face is pathetically wrinkled. Ah! those splendid days of old—those days of her magnificence and grandeur—gone, gone forever!”
In truth, Zenas was profoundly moved as he thought of the past greatness and present state of this City of the Sea.
Still Dick remained silent. He was watching the sunset. Between him and the western sky seemed falling a shower of powdered gold, and yet this wonderful, golden light was perfectly transparent. Beneath the balconies and in the narrower canals the shadows were growing deeper. Just then Dick thought that, no matter what disaster, what suffering, what sorrow might come to him in life, just to be there in Venice that night at sunset was joy and pleasure and reward enough to overbalance all else.
“Pard, are you dreaming?”
Dick turned his eyes toward the loyal Texan without moving his head.
“Yes, yes—dreaming,” he murmured.
“Of what?”