Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 342, April, 1844

"Cospetto! Signor!" he exclaimed, "have you lost your senses, that you run thus into the very jaws of those devil's messengers? To one like myself flight would certainly avail little; but, with a Proveditore for your father, you may arrange matters if you only take time before you become their prisoner. Quick, then, to the palazzo! Don't you see old Contarini's head stuck out of his window? He is telling them you are not there. They have doubtless been to your father's palace, and will not be likely to return thither at present."

While the faithful fellow's tongue was thus wagging, his arms were not idle. Intimately acquainted, as became his calling, with the numerous windings and intricacies of the Venetian canals, he threaded them with unhesitating confidence; and, favoured by the darkness of the night, succeeded in getting Antonio unobserved through a back entrance of his father's palace.

The first impulse of the terrified youth on finding himself thus in at least temporary security, was to destroy the picture of the mysterious old woman, which, if found by the agents of the Inquisition, might bear false but fatal witness against him. With pallid cheek, and still trembling with alarm, he was hurrying to his chamber to execute his intention, when he encountered his father, who advanced to meet him, and, grasping his arm, fixed upon him for some moments his stern and searching gaze.

"The picture, father!" exclaimed the terror-stricken Antonio. "For the love of Heaven, stay me not! Let me destroy that fatal picture!"

Regardless of his son's agitation and terror, the Proveditore half led, half forced him to a seat in a part of the room, when the red blaze from the larch logs that were crackling on the hearth, lit up the young man's features.

"What means this, Antonio?" he said; "what has befallen during my absence at Gradiska? The familiars of the Inquisition have been seeking you here—you, the last person whose name I should expect to hear in such mouths. Alarm me it did not; for well I know that you are too scant of energy and settled purpose to be mixed up in conspiracies against the state."

Antonio was still too much preoccupied by his terror to understand, or at any rate to heed, the severity of his father's remark. Collecting his scattered thoughts, he proceeded to narrate all that had occurred to him, not only on that day, but since his first meeting with the incognita near the church of San Moyses, on the very same spot whither he had conveyed her in his gondola but a short hour ago.

"Let me destroy the painting, father!" he concluded; "it may be found, and used as testimony against me."

The Proveditore had listened with a smile, that was at once contemptuous and sorrowful, to his son's narrative, and to the confession of his weakness and disobedience to the injunctions of his aged teacher. When he had finished speaking, there was a minute's silence, broken at last by the elder Marcello.

"I have long been convinced," he said, "that Contarini would never succeed in making of you a painter fit to rank with those old and illustrious masters of whom Venice is so justly proud. But I had not thought so poorly of you, Antonio, as to believe that you would want courage to defend an object, for the attainment of which you scrupled not to disobey your venerable instructor. What the kind entreaties and remonstrances of Contarini could not induce you to abandon, you are ready to annihilate on the very first symptom of danger. Oh, Venice!" exclaimed the Proveditore, his fine countenance assuming an expression of extreme bitterness, as he gazed mournfully at the portraits of his ancestors, including more than one Doge, which were suspended round the walls of the apartment—"Venice! thou art indeed degenerate, when peril so remote can blanch the cheek of thy patrician youth."

He strode twice up and down the hall, then returning to his son, bade him fetch the picture which he was so desirous of destroying. Antonio, downcast and abashed by these reproaches, which, however, were insufficient to awaken nobler aspirations in his weak and irresolute nature, hurried to his chamber, and presently returned with a roll of canvass in his hand, which he unfolded and spread before the Proveditore—then, dreading to encounter his father's ridicule, he shrunk back out of the firelight. But the effect produced upon Marcello by the portrait of the old woman, was very different from that anticipated by his son. Scarcely had he cast his eyes upon the unearthly visage, when he started back with an exclamation of horror and astonishment.

"By all the saints, Antonio," cried he in an altered voice, "that is a fearful portrait! Alas, poor wretch! thou art long since in thy grave," continued he, addressing the picture, and with looks and tones strangely at variance with his usually stern and imperturbable deportment. "The worms have preyed on thee, and thou art as dust and ashes. Why, then, dost thou rise from the dead to fright me with that ghastly visage?"

"Is the face known to you, father?" the astonished Antonio ventured to exclaim.

"Known to me! Ay, too well! That wrinkled skin, that unearthly complexion, those deep-set eyes glowing like burning coals. Just so did she glare upon me as she swung from the tree, the blood driven into her features by the agonizing pressure of the halter. 'Tis the very look that has haunted me for years, and caused me many bitter moments of remorse; though, God knows, the deed was lawful and justifiable, done in the execution of my duty to the republic. And yet she lives," he continued musingly. "How could she have been saved? True, she had not been hanging long when we left the place. Some of her people, doubtless, were concealed hard by, and cut her down ere life had entirely fled. But, ha! 'tis a clue this to the perpetrators of to-day's outrage, for she was with them. Uzcoques, then they must have been! Said you not, Antonio, that she came from the house of the Capitano when first you saw her, and that to-day you left her there?"

"At her own special desire, father," replied Antonio.

"Then is the chain of evidence almost complete," continued the Proveditore. "It must have been herself. And now—this attack on the Malipieri palace. What was its object? A hostage?—Ay, I see it all, 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 embraced the glorious cause with that enthusiastic and fiery zeal which raises men into heroes and martyrs. Too soon, however, were these lofty aspirations checked and blighted by the anti-Christian policy of trading Venice, the bad faith of Austria towards the Uzcoque race, and the extortions of her counsellors. Cursing in the bitterness of his heart, not only Turks, Austrians, and Venetians, but all mankind, he no longer opposed the piratical tendencies of his neglected people, and eventually headed many of their marauding expeditions.

It was nearly midnight when Dansowich was awakened from a deep but troubled slumber by a grating noise at the door of his dungeon. Anxiety of mind, and still more, the effect of confinement in an impure and stifling atmosphere, upon one accustomed to the breezes of the Adriatic and the free air of the mountains, had impaired his health, and his sleep was broken by harassing and painful dreams. In that from which he now awoke, with the sweat of anguish on his brow, he had fancied himself before the tribunal of the Inquisition. The rack was shown to him, and they bade him choose between confession and torture. He then thought he heard his name repeated several times in tones deep and sepulchral. Starting up in alarm, he saw the door of his prison open, and give admittance to a man muffled in a black cloak, who walked up to the foot of his bed of damp straw, and threw the rays of a dark lantern full into his dazzled eyes.

The traces of recent and strong emotion, visible at that moment on the pirate's countenance, did not escape the Proveditore, who attributed them, and rightly, to an artifice he had practised. Previously to entering the dungeon, he had caused the name of Nicolo Dansowich to be repeated several times in a deep hollow voice. Aware of the superstitious credulity of the Uzcoques, the wily Venetian had devised this stratagem as one likely to produce a startling effect upon the prisoner, and to forward the end he proposed to obtain by his visit. He now seated himself upon a wooden bench, the only piece of furniture in the dungeon, and addressed the captive in a mild and conciliating tone.

"You should keep better watch over your dreams," said he, "if you wish our tribunals to remain in ignorance of your secrets."

"My dreams!" repeated the Uzcoque, somewhat startled by the ominous coincidence between Marcello's words and the visions that had broken his slumber.

"Ay, friend, your dreams! The jailers are watchful, and little passes in these prisons without coming to their knowledge. More than once have they heard you revealing in your sleep that which, during your waking hours, you so strenuously deny.—'Enough! Enough!' you cried. 'I will confess all. I am Nicolo Dansowich.'"

While Marcello was speaking, the old Uzcoque had had time to collect his thoughts, and call to mind the numerous snares and devices by which the Venetian tribunals obtained confessions from their prisoners. With an intuitive keenness of perception, he in a moment saw through the Proveditore's stratagem, and resolved to defeat it. A contemptuous smile played over his features, and, shaking his head incredulously, he answered the Venetian—

"The watchful jailers you speak of have doubtless been cheering their vigils with the wine flask," said he. "Their draughts must have been deep, to make them hear that which was never spoken."

"Subterfuge will avail you nothing," replied Marcello. "Your sleeping confessions, although you may now wish to retract them, are yet sufficient grounds for the tribunal to go upon, and the most excruciating tortures will be used, if needful, to procure their waking confirmation. Reflect, Dansowich," continued the Proveditore in a persuasive and gentle tone, "on the position in which you now find yourself. Your life is forfeited; and, if you persist in your denials, you will never leave this dungeon but for the rack or scaffold. On the other hand, the senate respects you as a brave and honourable, although misguided man, and would gladly see you turn from the error of your ways. Now is the time to ensure yourself a tranquil and respected old age. Hearken to the proposals I am empowered to make you. The Signoria offers you life, freedom, and a captainship in the island of Candia, on the sole condition, on your part, of disclosing the intrigues and perfidy of the council at Gradiska, and furnishing us, as you are assuredly able to do, with documents by which we may prove to the Archduke the treachery of his ministers. Again, I say—Reflect! or rather hesitate not, but decide at once between a prosperous and honourable life, and a death of degradation and anguish."

Neither the threats nor the temptations held out by the Proveditore seemed to have the smallest effect upon the Uzcoque.

"You are mistaken," replied he calmly. "I am not Dansowich, nor have I any knowledge of the intrigues at Gradiska. I could not therefore, if I wished it, buy my life by the treachery demanded of me; and if the woivodes of Segna think as I do, they will let themselves be hewn in 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 our coast; and the fate of robbers and murderers awaited our people if they had the mishap to fall into your hands. You reduced us at last to despair. Each valiant deed performed against the Turk was recompensed by you with new persecutions, till at last you converted into deadly enemies those who would willingly have been your friends and fast allies. Thank yourselves, then, for the foe you have raised up. Your own cowardice and greed have engendered the hydra which now preys upon your heart's blood."

The Proveditore remarked with satisfaction, not unmingled with surprise, that the old pirate, who had hitherto replied to all interrogatories with a degree of cold reserve and cunning which had baffled his examiners, was becoming visibly excited, and losing his power of self-control. This was favourable to the meditated stratagem of the Venetian, who now, in pursuance of the scheme he had combined, gave the conversation another direction.

"I an willing to acknowledge," said he, "that the republic has at times dealt somewhat hardly with your people. But which is in fact the worst foe, he who openly attacks you, or he who makes you his tool to sow discord amongst Christians, and to excite the Turks against Venice, while under pretence of protection he squeezes from you the booty obtained at the price of your blood?"

"And who does that?" demanded the Uzcoque.

"Who! Need you ask the question? What do you give for the shelter you receive from Austria? At what price do you inhabit the town and castle of Segna?"

"At none that I am aware of," replied Dansowich fiercely. "We dwell there, in virtue of our compact with the Emperor, as soldiers of the Archduke, bound to defend the post confided to us against the aggressions of the infidel. As soldiers we have our pay, as mariners we have our lawful booty."

"Pay and booty!" repeated the Proveditore scornfully. "Whence comes, then, your manifest misery and poverty? Whence comes it that you turn robbers, if in the pay of Austria? No, Dansowich, you will not deceive us by such flimsy pretexts! Your gains, lawful and unlawful, are wrested from you by the archducal counsellors, in whose hands you are mere puppets. 'Twas they who prompted you to tell the Turks that you were in league with Venice; that the republic encouraged your misdeeds, and shared the profits of your aggressions on the subjects of the Porte. They it was who caused the documents to be prepared, with forged seals and signatures of the illustrious Signoria, which were to serve as proofs of your lying assertions. Deny this, if you can."

The beard and mustache of the old Uzcoque appeared to curl and bristle with fury at the insulting imputations of the Proveditore. For a moment he seemed about to fly at his interlocutor; his fingers clutched and tore the straw upon which he was sitting; and his fetters clanked as his whole frame shook with rage. After a brief pause, and by a strong effort, he restrained himself, and replied calmly to the taunting accusation of the Venetian.

"Why go so far," said he, "to seek for motives that may be found nearer home? You seem to have forgotten how many times the Archduke has compelled us to make restitution of booty wrested from Venetian subjects. You forget, too, that it was in consequence of your complaints he sent to the cruel Rabbata to control us—Rabbata whom we slew in our wrath, for we are freemen and brook no tyranny. If we are poor individually, it is because we yield up our booty into the hands of our woivodes, to be used for the common good of seven hundred families. No, Signor! if the republic has to complain of us, let her remember the provocations received at her hands, the persecutions which converted a band of heroes into a pirate horde, and which changed our holy zeal against the enemies of the Cross into remorseless hatred of all mankind. As to the forged seals and signatures you talk of, and the deceptions practised on the Turks, if such there were, they were the self-willed act of our woivodes, and in no way instigated by Austria."

"Thou liest, Dansowich!" said the Proveditore sternly. "Did you not proclaim and swear in the public market-place of the Austrian town of Segna, that you were the friends and allies of Venice? This you would never have dared to do, but with the approval and connivance of the archducal government."

The eyes of the pirate sparkled with a strange and significant gleam as the Proveditore recalled the circumstance to his recollection.

"Know ye not," said he with a grim smile, "whom ye have to thank for that good office? 'Twas Dansowich himself, who thereby but half fulfilled his vow of vengeance against the republic. And when did it occur?" he continued with rising fury. "Was it not shortly after the day in which that heartless villain, the Proveditore Marcello, captured the woivode's wife, and hung her, unoffending and defenceless, unshriven and unabsolved, upon a tree on the Dalmatian shore?"

The Uzcoque paused, overcome by the bitter memories he was calling up, and by the fury and hatred they revived in his breast. His eyes were bloodshot, and the foam stood upon his lips as he concluded. The Proveditore smiled. The favourable moment he had been waiting had arrived, the moment when he doubted not that Dansowich would betray himself. Taking Antonio's drawing from under his cloak, he suddenly unrolled and held it before the Uzcoque, in such a manner that the light of the lantern fell full upon the ghastly countenance of the old woman.

"Behold!" said he. "Does that resemble her you speak of?"

The object of the Proveditore was gained, but he had not well calculated all the consequences of his stratagem.

"Fiend of hell!" shouted Dansowich in a voice of thunder, while a sudden light seemed to burst upon him. "'Tis thou who are her murderer!" And bounding forward with a violence that at once freed him from his fetters, which fell clattering on the dungeon floor, he clutched the senator by the throat, and hurled him to the ground before the astonished Venetian had time to make the slightest resistance.

"Art thou still in being?" he muttered, while his teeth gnashed and ground together. "I thought thee long since dead. But, no! 'twas written thou shouldst die by my hand. Be it done to thee as thou didst to the wife of my bosom," continued he, while kneeling on the breast of the Proveditore, and compressing his throat in an iron gripe that threatened to prove as efficacious and nearly as speedy in its operation as the bow-string of the Turk. In vain did Marcello struggle violently to free himself from the crushing pressure of the pirate's fingers. Although a very powerful man, and in the full vigour of his strength, the disadvantage at which he had been taken prevented his being a match for the old Uzcoque, whose sinews were braced by a long life of hardship. Fortunately, however, for the Venetian, the furious shout of Dansowich had been overheard by the guards and jailers, who now rushed into the dungeon, and rescued the half strangled Proveditore from the grasp of his fierce antagonist.

"Do him no hurt!" exclaimed Marcello, so soon as he was able to speak, seeing that the guards were disposed to handle the Uzcoque somewhat roughly; "the secret I have won is well worth the risk. The prisoner is Dansowich, woivode of Segna."

The fetters which the pirate had snapped with such facility, were, upon examination, found to be filed more than half through. The instrument by which this had been effected was sought for and discovered, and the prisoner, having been doubly manacled, was again left to the solitude of his cell. After directing all imaginable vigilance to be used for the safe custody of so important a captive, the Proveditore re-entered his gondola and was conveyed back to his palace.