Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Next Page
OCR
ye
VOLUME V.—NUMBER 15.-
a
‘ NS
SS
[Drawn and engraved expressly for The Weekly Novelette.]
[Entered according to Act of Congress,in the Clerk’s Office of
the District Court of Massachusetts.)
THE VENETIAN BUCCANEER:
The Prophet of the Bohmer Wald.
A TALE OF THE TIME OF JOSEPH It.
BY SYLVANUS COBB, Jn.
[conrINvED.]
CHAPTER XI.
THE VENETIAN BUCCANEER.
From the dark labyrinths of the mountain forests
and thé overhanging crags, take we our readers to the
city of Venice, where the art of-man- has bound to-
gether more than threescore isles, and raised from the
Adriatic a glittering pile, whose beauties stand as yet
unrivalled in the world of golden architecture. The
sun has just sent its first morning rays to start the
slumbering queen into life, and as they come streamin
from the flashing horizon, the tall spires and polishe
towers catch them upon their magic surfaces, and ten
thousand glittering jewels seem blazing from their over-
looking heights upon the more humble tenements be-
neath. The domes of St. Mark seem like five distinct
orbs of molten fire, as they receive the day-king’s first
salute, and reflect his golden gifts upon the sleeping
waters of the numerous canals—but now sleeping no
longer, for as the flashing rays come smiling over their
shadowed surfaces, they awake to the beauties around
them, and. once more resound with the morning call
and merry song of the gondolier.
hat morning sun shines alike upon all. The God
of nature and of humanity sends his gifts of light and
life upon all his children, “ upon the evil and upon the
good, upon the just and upon the unjust;” but the
THE BATTERING. RAM.
cheer of those blessings cannot light up the bosom of
the wicked, nor can the rays of the morning sun find a
thankful resting-place in the heart of him whose deeds
are darkness. ‘The man who possesses nd¥ the con-
sciousness of rectitude in his soul, and who has no real
conceptions of virtue in his composition, may indeed
receive the forms of Heaven’s best gifts, but they find no
answering chord in his soul, and he experiences not
that good which they are capable of bestowing. The
sun may shine, and the rain may fall, but still the heart
remains dark, and the conscience still sears and crackles
beneath the fire of evil.
Just as the noble city put on the aspect we have
described, a small skiff, propelled by a single man,
made its way through the richly ornamented gondolas
that lay moored on either side of the large canal which
runs through the centre of Venice, and at length drew
up to the shore just below the Rialto, where the oars-
man made fast his boat and stepped out upon the
marble steps. He was a young man, not more than
two-and-twenty, and though habited in the garb of a
seaman, and bearing upon his face the influence of ex-
posure to the burning sun and searching storm, yet he
was decidedly handsome, and an innate spirit of pride
flashed from his dark eyes; even while he seemed to
shun the gaze of the passers-by. As he walked up from
the shore and wended his way along between the un-
seemly booths and hucksters’ shops which are allowed
to disfigure the vast marble pile that forms the Rialto,
a close observer of human nature might have seen that
the youth’s mind and his present situation, whatever it
might have. been, were at variance with each other.
here was an independent, noble feeling reflected from
the form and features, but at the same time his move-
ments and his constrained actions betrayed a conscience
ill at ease with itself.
He passed along through several thoroughfares, with-
out coming in contact with any one, save occasionally
a gondolier wending his way to the canal, till at length
he reached the vicinity of J! Frontica di Tedeschi, that
vast fabric where the German merchants store their
goods, and where others of the same nation “ most do.
congregate.”” Here he walked up and down for some
fifteen minutes, humming fragmenta of light airs, and
ever and anon cagting his eyes about as if watching for
{See page 280.)
the fappearance’ of some one. At length his desire
seemed gratified, for as his ove rested upon the form of
a man who had just turned the angle of a small bridge
over against the Frontica, his countenance brightened
up, and he started forward to meet him, exclaiming as
he did so:
“Ah, Bambazilla—”
“Hush !”’ whispered the new comer, laying his hand
gently upon the shoulder of the youth, “ speak not that
name so loudly. I would not have the walls, even,
hear it here.”
“Your pardon, father ; I did not think of the danger
to yourself.”
“And to you, too, my son.”
“Yes, yes—you speak truly,” replied the: youth,
while he cast his eyes to the ground to hide the peculiar
blush that mantled his face, and kicked the small peb-
bles about with his feet. ‘ Yes, I know wo are both in
danger, and—”
“Why do you hesitate, Walter?” asked the elder
man, as he noticed the faltering accents of his son.
“ Are your old fears coming over you again 1”
“ Qld fears, father? Be they old or young, they are
constantly haunting me, and I cannot drive them off,
Is thero ‘any need that we should continue longer in
this mode of life ?”’
“Yes, boy, there is.”
“ And what is it ?” carefully asked the young man,
as he cast a furtive glance at the face of his companion,
“ What is it 2”; reiterated the father, over whose dark
features a flush of resentment was beginning to mani-
fest itself. ‘What is it? Why, what are we to
live on ?” ¥
“ You have already enough for your own support
through life; and I can certainly, in this wide world,
find some means of obtaining an honest livelihood.”
“ And what is an honest livelihood ?” asked amba-
zilla, as he cast a soarching look at the fair countenance
ot his son. :
“Tt is that which is earned by honest labor,” replied
the youth, looking his father full in the face,
«Ha, ha; you haye yet to learn the nature and ex-
tent of Aanesé labor,” laughingly returned his father, as
hg tried to thraw off the angry feelings which had been
called up by tho conversation, ‘ But come, we can
