Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine | Page 6

by his counsellors to the
piracies of the Segnarese. They accordingly delayed, by every possible
pretext, giving an answer to the archducal ambassador, doing their
utmost meanwhile to find out the real quality of the prisoners. This,
Strasolda was most anxious that they should not discover; and her
anxiety was scarcely less to prevent the captivity of their leader from
becoming known among the pirates themselves. His daughter's
entreaties, and his own better nature, had frequently caused Dansowich
to check his followers in the atrocities they were too apt to commit. In
consequence of this interference, Strasolda suspected her father to be
more feared than liked by Jurissa Caiduch and some others of the
inferior woivodes or officers; and she apprehended that, if she confided
her plan to them, they would be more likely to thwart than to aid her in
it. The crews of the two boats which had been engaged in the skirmish
with the Venetian galleys when Dansowich was captured, and the men
composing the garrison of the castle on the evening of that fatal
occurrence, were therefore all whose assistance she could reckon upon.
Some of those were her relatives, and the others tried and trusty
adherents. They alone knew of their leader's captivity, his absence
having been accounted for to the mass of Uzcoques dwelling in the
town of Segna, by a pretended journey to Gradiska; and being too few
in number to attack a Venetian galley, the sole plan that seemed to offer
a chance of success to this handful of faithful followers, was the
hazardous one devised by Strasolda. Of this, they did not hesitate to
attempt the execution.
With the utmost cunning and audacity did the Uzcoques enter Venice
on the day appointed for the Battle of the Bridge, singly, and by twos
and threes, variously disguised, and mingled with the country people
and inhabitants of the islands who were hastening to the festival.
Watching their opportunity when the fight was at the fiercest, one party
mixed with the combatants, exciting and urging them on, and doing all
in their power to increase the confusion; others set fire to the
warehouses on the island of San Giorgio, in order to draw the public
attention in that direction; while the third and most numerous division,
favoured by the deepening twilight and the deserted state of that part of

the city, succeeded in fixing a rope ladder to the window of the
Malipieri palace, the chief of which noble house was, as they had
previously ascertained, lying sick in bed in a side-chamber, attended
only by a few domestics.
But there were two things which Strasolda and the Uzcoques had
forgotten to include in their calculations. These were, first, the slavish
obedience of the Venetian populace to the call of their superiors--an
obedience to which they were accustomed to sacrifice every feeling and
passion; secondly, the Argus eyes and omnipresent vigilance of the
Secret Tribunal. Scarcely was the ladder applied, when the first gush of
flame from the warehouses brought a deafening peal from the
alarm-bell; and at the same moment, the masked and armed familiars of
the Venetian police, rising as it seemed out of the very earth,
surrounded the ladder, and a fierce conflict began. Even the
watchfulness and precautions of the Inquisition, however, were to a
certain extent overmatched by Uzcoque cunning and foresight. Had it
not been necessary to ring the alarm bell on account of the fire, the
police, who were far the most numerous, and who each moment
received an accession to their numbers, could scarcely have failed to
capture some of their opponents, and thus have ascertained to a
certainty what the promoters and the object of this audacious attempt
really were. But before they could accomplish this, the small piazza
where the conflict was going on was thronged with the populace, half
intoxicated with the excitement of the scarcely less serious fight they
had been witnessing and sharing in. In the crush and confusion that
ensued, familiars and Uzcoques were separated; and the latter, mingling
with the crowd, and no longer distinguishable from the cloaked and
masked figures that surrounded them, easily succeeded in effecting
their escape.
When Antonio, who was pushed hither and thither by the mob, was
able to extricate himself sufficiently to get another view of the window,
the invalid nobleman, delivered from his assailants, had retired into his
apartment, while the ladder, now deserted by the Uzcoques, had been
cut and thrown down. Desirous of escaping from this scene of
confusion, the young painter was making his way towards the quay,
close to which his gondola was waiting, when his heart suddenly leaped
within him at the sight of a muffled figure that passed near him, and in

which he thought he recognized the