pieces before they do the bidding of your senators, or concede aught
to the wishes of false and crafty Venice."

"You are a brave man, Dansowich!" resumed the Proveditore, who saw the
necessity of changing his tactics. "You care little for the dangers
and sufferings of this world. But yet--pause and reflect. Your hair is
silvered by time, and even should you escape your present peril, you
will still, ere many years are past, have to render an account to a
higher tribunal than ours. By an upright course you might atone for
the crimes of your youth and manhood, and become the chosen instrument
of Heaven to deliver your fellow-Christians from a cruel scourge and
sore infliction."

"And who has brought the scourge upon you?" demanded the old man in a
raised voice, measuring the Proveditore with a stern and contemptuous
look. "Is it our fault that, whilst we were striving to keep the Turk
from the door of Christendom, you sought every means of thwarting our
efforts by forming treaties with the infidel? You do well to remind me
that my head is grey. I was still a youth when the name of Uzcoque was
a title of honour as it is now a term of reproach--when my people were
looked upon as heroes, by whose valour the Cross was exalted, and the
Crescent bowed down to the dust. Those were the days when, on the
ruins of Spalatro, we swore to live like eagles, amidst barren cliffs
and naked rocks, the better to harass the heathen--the days when the
power of the Moslem quailed and fled before us. And had not your
sordid Venetian traders stepped in, courting the infidel for love of
gain, the Cross would still be worshipped on all the shores of the
Adriatic, and the Uzcoques would still combat for honour and victory
instead of revenge and plunder. But your hand has ever been against
us. Your long galleys were ever ready to sink our barks or blockade