"'"Do not drive me frantic!" Antonio cried.
"'"What? what?" she went on. "I am always thinking of you, my Tonino! So, this morning, as I was bargaining in the pillared passage of the Palace, the people were murmuring about the misfortune which had befallen the beautiful Dogaressa. I asked and asked, and then a great uncouth, red-looking fellow, who was leaning against one of the pillars, chewing a lemon, said: 'Why, a little young scorpion tried his teeth on the little finger of her left hand, and, you see, that got into her blood a bit. But Signer Dottore Giovanni Baseggio went up to her a few minutes ago; he will have the little hand off by this time finger and all.' And just as the big fellow was saying this a great scream sounded from the broad staircase, and a little, very little gentleman came rolling down it like a ball, impelled by the kicks of the guards, right in amongst our feet, crying and lamenting. The people gathered round him, laughing loud. He struggled and stamped with his legs, unable to rise; but the big red fellow ran and lifted the little doctor, took him in his arms, and made off with him as hard as he could (he still shrieking and howling) to the canal, where he put him in his gondola, and rowed away with him. What I thought had happened was, that when Signor Baseggio was going to put his knife into the pretty little hand, the Doge had had him kicked downstairs. But I thought something else besides. 'Quick! quick!' I thought; as quick as I could off home, make my salve, and be off with it in my hand to the Palace. When I got there with it, old Falieri was just coming down. He flashed out at me with 'What is this old hag doing here?' I made a curtsey deep, deep down to the ground as well as I could, and said I had a medicine which would cure the beautiful Dogaressa very speedily. When the old fellow heard that, he gazed steadfastly at me with most terrible eyes, and stroked his grey beard smooth. Then he seized me by the shoulders, and dragged me up to her chamber in such a way that I nearly fell down all my length on the floor of it. Ah, Tonino! there lay the pretty young creature stretched on her couch, pale as a corpse, sighing and groaning with pain, and gently complaining, "Ah! I am certain I am poisoned through and through!" But I set to work in a moment and took off the stupid doctor's useless plaster. Oh, heaven! the beautiful delicate hand! swollen, red as blood! Well, well! my ointment cooled it--eased the pain. 'That is very comforting!' the little dove whispered. 'A thousand zecchini are yours if you save the Dogaressa,' old Falieri cried, as he left the room. When I had been sitting there for three hours, with the little hand in mine, stroking and nursing it, the little soul awoke from a slumber into which she had fallen, and felt no further pain. When I had put on a fresh bandage, she looked at me with eyes sparkling with gladness. Then I said:
"'"Ah, gracious Lady Dogaressa! you once saved a boy's life, when you killed a serpent which was going to strike him while he was sleeping."
"'"Tonino! you should have seen how her pale cheeks glowed red, as if a beam of the evening sun had shone in upon them--how her eyes flashed with sparkling fire."
"'"'Ah! yes! old woman,' she cried. 'I was only a child, at my father's place in the country. Ah! he was a dear, beautiful boy! Oh, how I think of him still! It seems to me as if nothing happy had ever come into my lot since that day.'
"'"Then I spoke of you; told her that you were in Venice that your heart is still full of all the love and blissfulness of that moment, and that you risked your life on Giovedi Grasso merely to look into the eyes of your guardian angel, and put the flowers into her hand."
"'"'Tonino! Tonino!' she cried, enthusiastically; 'I knew it! I knew it! I felt it! When he pressed his lips on my hand, when he called me by my name--I did not know what it was that pierced my heart so strangely. Perhaps it was happiness--but it was pain too. Bring him here to me, the beautiful boy.'
"'When the old woman said this, Antonio threw himself on his knees, and cried out like one bereft of his senses:
"'"Oh, Lord of Heaven! only let me not perish now, now, in my terrible destiny, until I have seen her and pressed her to my heart." He implored her to take him to the Dogaressa the very next day. But she strongly advised him against this, inasmuch as old Falieri went to see her almost hourly.
"'Many days had elapsed. The Dogaressa was almost completely cured by the old woman, but it was still impossible to take Antonio to see her. The old woman comforted him as well as she could, always repeating how she spoke with the Dogaressa of him whose life she had saved, and who loved her so fervently. Antonio, tortured by a thousand torments of longing, passed his time as best he might, in gondolas, and in wandering about the Piazzas. His steps always led him, involuntarily, towards the Ducal Palace. One day, by the bridge at the back of it, he came upon Pietro, leaning on a gaily painted oar near a gondola, which was dancing on the waves, made fast to a pillar. It was a small gondola, but beautifully carved and ornamented, and flying the Venetian standard almost as if it had been the Bucentoro.