"None, father, but the necessity of maintaining the severity of the laws, which make them senators and you a prisoner."
"Nay, boy, I have known worthy gentlemen of the Senate! There was the late Signor Tiepolo, who did me much favor in my youth. But for this false accusation, I might now have been one of the most thriving of my craft in Venice."
"Father, we will pray for the soul of the Tiepolo."
"Is the senator dead?"
"So says a gorgeous tomb in the church of the Redentore."
"We must all die at last," whispered the old man, crossing himself. "Doge as well as patrician—patrician as well as gondolier,—Jaco—"
"Father!" exclaimed the Bravo, so suddenly as to interrupt the coming word; then kneeling by the pallet of the prisoner, he whispered in his ear, "thou forgettest there is reason why thou should'st not call me by that name. I have told thee often if thus called my visits must stop."
The prisoner looked bewildered, for the failing of nature rendered that obscure which was once so evident to his mind. After gazing long at his son, his eye wandered between him and the wall, and he smiled childishly.
"Wilt thou look, good boy, if the spider is come back?"
Jacopo groaned, but he rose to comply.