"Thou canst not impeach the senate's justice, old man, or utter aught in truth against the known impartiality of the laws?"
"Sovrano mio! deign to listen, and you shall hear. I am what your eyes behold—a man, poor, laborious, and drawing near to the hour when he shall be called to the side of the blessed St. Anthony of Rimini, and stand in a presence even greater than this. I am not vain enough to think that my humble name is to be found among those of the patricians who have served the Republic in her wars—that is an honor which none but the great, and the noble, and the happy, can claim; but if the little I have done for my country is not in the Golden Book, it is written here," as Antonio spoke, he pointed to the scars on his half-naked form; "these are signs of the enmity of the Turk, and I now offer them as so many petitions to the bounty of the senate."
"Thou speakest vaguely. What is thy will?"
"Justice, mighty Prince. They have forced the only vigorous branch from the dying trunk—they have lopped the withering stem of its most promising shoot—they have exposed the sole companion of my labors and pleasures, the child to whom I have looked to close my eyes, when it shall please God to call me away, untaught, and young in lessons of honesty and virtue, a boy in principle as in years, to all the temptation, and sin, and dangerous companionship of the galleys!"
"Is this all? I had thought thy gondola in the decay, or thy right to use the Lagunes in question!"
"Is this all?" repeated Antonio, looking around him in bitter melancholy. "Doge of Venice, it is more than one, old, heart-stricken, and bereaved, can bear?"
"Go to; take thy golden chain and oar, and depart among thy fellows in triumph. Gladden thy heart at a victory, on which thou could'st not, in reason, have counted, and leave the interests of the state to those that are wiser than thee, and more fitted to sustain its cares."
The fisherman arose with an air of rebuked submission, the result of a long life passed in the habit of political deference; but he did not approach to receive the proffered reward.
"Bend thy head, fisherman, that his Highness may bestow the prize," commanded an officer.
"I ask not for gold, nor any oar, but that which carries me to the Lagunes in the morning, and brings me back into the canals at night. Give me my child, or give me nothing."