"Signore, he did. Holy Maria have pity on his early fate, and listen to my prayers! So good a child and so brave a man can have no great need of masses for his soul, or his death would have been doubly grievous to me, since I am too poor to buy them."
"Thou hast a grandson?"
"I had one, noble senator; I hope he still lives."
"He is not with thee in thy labors on the Lagunes?"
"San Teodoro grant that he were! he is taken, Signore, with many more of tender years, into the galleys, whence may our Lady give him a save deliverance! If your eccellenza has an opportunity to speak with the general of the galleys, or with any other who may have authority in such a matter, on my knees I pray you to speak in behalf of the child, who is a good and pious lad, that seldom casts a line into the water without an ave or a prayer to St. Anthony, and who has never given me uneasiness, until he fell into the grip of St. Mark."
"Rise—this is not the affair in which I have to question thee. Thou hast this day spoken of thy prayer to our most illustrious prince, the Doge?"
"I have prayed his highness to give the boy liberty."
"And this thou hast done openly, and with little deference to the high dignity and sacred character of the chief of the Republic?"
"I did it like a father and a man. If but half what they say of the justice and kindness of the state were true, his highness would have heard me as a father and a man."
A slight movement among the fearful Three caused the secretary to pause; when he saw, however, that his superiors chose to maintain their silence, he continued—