and our prisoner is none other than Dansowich himself. But we must
have proof of that from his own confession; and this portrait may help
to extort it."

Whilst uttering these broken sentences, which were totally
incomprehensible to the bewildered Antonio, the Proveditore had donned
his mantle, and placed his plumed cap upon his head.

"No, Antonio," said he, "we will not destroy this picture, hideous
though it be. It may prove the means of rendering weighty service to
the republic."

And with these words, inexplicable to his son, the Proveditore left
the apartment; and, taking with him the mysterious portrait, hastened
to the prison were the Uzcoque leader was immured.

The pirate chief was a man of large and athletic frame, of strong
feelings, and great intellectual capabilities. His brow was large,
open, and commanding; his countenance, bronzed with long exposure to
the elements, and scarred with wounds, was repulsive, but by no means
ignoble; his hair and beard had long been silvered over by time and
calamity; but his vast bodily strength was unimpaired, and when roused
into furious resentment, his manly chest emitted a volume of sound
that awed every listener. Upon a larger stage, and under circumstances
more favourable to the fair development of his natural powers and
dispositions, the pirate Dansowich would have become one of the most
distinguished and admirable men of his time. Placed by the accident of
birth upon the frontiers of Christian Europe, and cherishing from
early youth a belief that the highest interests of the human race were
involved in the struggle between the Crescent and the Cross, he had