Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine | Page 5

distance, halted to look on, and thus
prevented others from getting away. Antonio was amongst the number
whose escape was thus impeded. His gondolier lay at the bottom of the
boat, stunned by a blow from a stone; he himself was bruised and
wounded by the missiles that fell in all directions.
The tumult was at its height when suddenly a sound was heard that had
a truly magical effect upon the rioters, for such they might now be
termed. The alarm-bell of St Mark's rang out its awful peal. In an
instant the yells of defiance were hushed; the arm that was already
drawn back to deal a blow fell harmless by its owner's side, the storm
of missiles ceased, the contending factions parted, and left the combat
undecided. The habit of obedience and the intimation of some danger to
the city, stilled in an instant the rage of party feeling, and combatants
and spectators alike hurried away in the direction of St Mark's place,
the usual point of rendezvous on such occasions.
Jacopo had now recovered his senses, and Antonio's gondola was one
of the first which reached the square in front of the cathedral. Thence
the young painter at once discovered the cause of the alarm. Smoke and
flame were issuing from some buildings on the opposite island of San
Giorgio Maggiore, where the greater part of the merchants' warehouses
were situated. Thither the crowd of gondolas now steered, and Antonio
found himself carried along with the stream. But although the fire was
already beginning to subside before the prompt measures taken to
subdue it, the alarm-bell kept clanging on; and Antonio soon perceived
that there must be some other point of danger to which it was intended
to turn the attention of the people. Gazing about for some indication of
its source, he saw several gondolas hurrying towards the grand canal,
on which most of the palaces of the nobles were situated, and he
ordered Jacopo to steer in the same direction.
On reaching the palazzo of the Malipieri family, a strange scene
presented itself to him. The open space between the side of the palace

and the adjacent church of San Samuele, was crowded with men
engaged in a furious and sanguinary conflict. At one of the windows of
the palace, a tall man in a flowing white robe, with a naked sabre in one
hand and a musquetoon in the other, which, from the smoke still
issuing from its muzzle, had apparently just been discharged, stood
defending himself desperately against a band of fierce and bearded
ruffians, who swarmed up a rope ladder fixed below the window. The
person making so gallant a defence was the Senator Malipiero; the
assailants were Uzcoques from the fortress of Segna.
The arrival of the Proveditore Marcello at Gradiska, and his subsequent
recognition of his jewels at the ball, having destroyed Strasolda's hopes
of obtaining her father's liberation through the intervention of the
archducal counsellors, the high-spirited maiden resolved to execute a
plan she had herself devised, and which, although in the highest degree
rash and hazardous, might still succeed if favoured by circumstances
and conducted with skill and decision. This was to seize upon the
person of a Venetian of note, in order to exchange him for the
Uzcoques then languishing in the dungeons of the republic.
The Venetians were not yet aware that the much-dreaded woivode
Dansowich was among their prisoners. The time chosen by the
Uzcoques for their expeditions and surprises was usually the night; and
this, added to the custom of mask-wearing, was the cause that the
features of Dansowich were unknown to his captors. Nevertheless the
striking countenance and lofty bearing of the chieftain, and of one or
two of those who were taken prisoners with him, raised suspicions that
they were persons of mark--suspicions which were not dissipated by
their reiterated denial of being any thing more than common Uzcoques.
It was this doubt which saved their lives; for their captors, instead of
hanging them at once at the yard-arm of the galleys, which was the
usual manner of disposing of Segnarese prisoners, took them to Venice,
and placed them at the disposal of the senate. All subsequent threats
and promises proved ineffectual to extort from the pirates an
acknowledgment of superior rank; and the Venetian authorities would
perhaps have ended in believing the account they gave of themselves,
had not the urgent applications made by the Austrian Envoy and the
Capitano of Fiume, for the release of the Uzcoques, given their
suspicions new strength. The object of the Venetians was, if they could

ascertain that there was a chief among the prisoners, to obtain from him,
by torture or otherwise, confessions which might enable them to prove
to the Archduke the encouragement afforded