The sailor, his fears calmed by the presence of three such holy ones, proceeded to carry out the Evangelist’s further instructions without hesitation, and rowed out into the tempest that was lashing the seas into a screaming fury. On they went, the waves, though mountain high, doing them no harm, until they seemed to be enclosed in caverns of water; and then, in an instant, they were surrounded by legions of devils, howling and whooping and leaping about in the air.
But these latter were not left long to triumph in the success of their wickedness. Any one of the three saints would, probably, have been strong enough to disperse them, but the combination was irresistible and, after a brief resistance, they were exorcised and sent packing. Then St. Mark held out a ring to the sailor, telling him to take it to the “Procuratori,” who would give him five ducats; and, before the man had time to recover his breath and voice his gratitude at the splendid reward, he found himself alone in the boat.
A Wicked Son—Becomes Doge—His Marriage—Ambitions—Venice a Huge Conspiracy—The Palace Surrounded—His Fate—Venetian Ideals—Story of a Feud of the Tenth Century—Opened with an Assassination—Murderer Upheld by the Emperor—Venice Attacked—A Civil War in Venice—Uprising of the Citizens—Another Doge—Building of St. Mark’s—The Doge and the French Abbot—The Doge Become a Monk—A Story of Marion Crawford’s.
The son of that Doge who rowed after the corsairs and helped to recover the brides, wrote a fiery and bloody chapter in the history of Venice—and died in the writing. He began early in life to plot against his father, who, feeling the weight of age and responsibility pressing hard upon him, allowed his son to sit beside him and help him in the business of ruling the State.
No sooner did the former feel the sceptre in his hands than he began to plot against the parent who had permitted him to handle it, until he was caught in the act, and only rescued from the mob who sought to kill him in the nick of time. His father then sent him into exile.
Human nature is a bundle of contradictions bound together with cords of training and pushed along by an intermittent moral energy, which we call conscience. An individual under given circumstances will attempt, at least, to guide his actions by some sort of reasoning; but place that individual in a crowd that is fired with excitement, in the same circumstances, and five times out of seven that individual will cease to reason at all. He will be caught up in the whirlwind of the mob’s emotions and do things that will make him blush ever after to think about.