The Royal Pawn of Venice. Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
exclamations that they were missing a golden moment.
"Pace! Yes, they are coming: she is there—the Regina. Every one of you shall see—every one. Pazienza! Some one will hold the bimbo who sleeps? Then I could lift Tonino and Maria. Mille Grazie!"
A dozen sympathetic arms had instantly offered in response to this appeal, for the good-natured Venetian crowd adored festas—they also—and it would be a pity of pities that the bambini should miss it, and this one was like heaven!
"Ah, but she is beautiful, the bride—beautiful as an angel: and young—young like my Teresina! And to be a queen—Santa Maria!—she who was like the other daughters of the nobili on the Canal Grande! Ah, but life is wonderful for them—the nobili—but Messer San Marco is gentile to make this festa for Venice!" The recollection of their own little part in the festa came with a patient sigh.
"It is our Caro Maestro Giovanni Bellini who hath fashioned it all they say—the garlands, the barges—the costumes—he talked with their Excellencies, the Signoria."
The rumor went round, for the Maestro was the honest pride of Venice.
"It is he, verily, who hath painted our Blessed Lady for the barca of the Lady Caterina; for Madonna Fiorenza is almost a saint—and devote——! She hath the heart of a carità within her."
"They come now from the palazzo of the Cornaro," cried the little peasant-mother eagerly. "Hearest thou, my bimbo?" She moved the restless hands to and fro, the round eyes following the motion. "Clap thy hands for the Regina—thou too, give thy greeting; thou wilt remember it when thou art old. May the holy Madonna bless her!"
The shouts to which Caterina landed were deafening: the children screamed for very ecstasy.
The lagoon, from the Riva far out toward the islands was a dense mass of floating craft of the poorer sort, for below the Piazza there had been no restriction, and the waters were crowded with islanders—old people grateful for this nearness to the pageant, with a chance of separation from the standing, jostling crowd, and proud of lending the color of their pennons and painted sails for their share of the glory of the day. If one could see nothing, it was good to be there to hear the shouting—one would understand the better when Tonio should be taking his bit of supper and free to talk—for he was no good to his old mother now, with watching the tacking and the people. And one might as well be dead as to stay far off in Burano on a day like this! Cielo, but the bells and the shouting were divine! It made one young again.
"A king, thou sayest? Who is the king that the child is going to marry? What is he like, Tonio? I cannot see so far."
"Not there? Holy Mother, but it is a strange wedding! There would have been the gossip of all the islands to answer if there hadn't been two to a wedding when I was young. But the Signori Nobili must have everything after their own new fashions. And to miss his own sposalizio! San Marco is not good to him—he'll never see another half so fine. Is she so young as they say—like Maria, there?"
"Ah, to be Signori just for to-day!" sighed the little peasant-mother in the crowd, as the dazzling cortège passed out of sight into the golden glooms of San Marco. "To go with the nobili into the Duomo where one may behold the Pala d'Oro and the wonderful golden candlesticks which the Serenissimo hath given—to see the Serenissimo take her for the Daughter of the Republic—wonder of wonders! And then to the Palazzo Ducale for the Betrothal—Pazienza, one must wait; they will come again later, my bambini. Ah, but the beauty of it!" For the brave little woman was weary, and there was nothing like enthusiasm for keeping up one's courage, "and Heaven alone knew where Zorzi was with the barca!"
The crowd relaxed and grew restless, losing some of the gaiety of its temper when a weary neighbor settled back a little too roughly on a fellow-shoulder, or the babies who had been put down on the ground to rest lost the last sweet morsels they had been munching and clamored in vain for more—too much excited by the unusual noises and happenings to deign to notice the brothers of the next size who were busily turning somersaults in their behalf.
But it would not be long before the procession came again; for the last of the sumptuous nobles who made this holiday for the people had disappeared under the portico of San Marco.
The bells were chiming now in soft low undertones, a very ripple of sound—like the breath of the summer-breeze upon the sea—stilling the shrill voices of the people in the Piazza, calming the exuberance of their motions. For it was a signal. They knew that within the Duomo, before the great altar where slept their patron-saint, ablaze now with lights and the marvel of the Pala d'Oro which was not for the sight of the eyes save on days of a festa like this, the child of the Cornaro was waiting to be made the Daughter of Venice.
And now—for the bells were silent—in the magnificent storied chamber of the Gran Consiglio, where so many momentous questions of state had been discussed, in the presence of the Serenissimo, the Signoria, the Senate and the Forty Noble Matrons, a new leaf was to be added to the story of the Republic, and thither the feeble old Doge led the Daughter of Venice with the brilliant assemblage who had witnessed the ceremony of the Adoption in the Duomo.
Caterina had moved through the splendid pageant of the morning as in a dream, still too much a child to comprehend the responsibilities it portended—too much in awe of the distinguished company assembled to do her honor to be conscious of any feeling but unwonted timidity. But the tottering footsteps of the old man who held her hand as he led her through the Porta della Carta into the Ducal Palace, awoke her inborn sense of pity, and it was she who upheld him with her strong, young, vital clasp, recovering her own perfect poise in the act of giving help.
The Ambassador Mastachelli was waiting with his suite, and the signing of the parchment which bore the seals of Venice and of Cyprus was the trifle of a moment. A circlet of rubies—the sign of the promise—had been consecrated by the saintly Patriarch, Lorenzo Giustiniani, and the Lady Fiorenza took comfort from the look in his noble face as he bent over Caterina to give the benediction. She would seek his aid in the training of the young betrothed for her life on that distant island.
But now—at last—the hour was the people's once more, for the Serenissimo stood on the balcony above the portal of San Marco, between the great golden horses, with the Daughter of Venice beside him—the sunlight irradiating her white robes and beautiful, girlish face.
"Caterina—Regina—Figlia di Venezia—Nostra Venezia!" A great cry rent the air; it came from thousands of hearts and thrilled her own to its core, and the first, great emotion of her young life swept through her, transforming and wholly possessing her.
A mist swam before her and her heart throbbed as if it would break: she dimly saw innumerable faces leaning to her from roofs and balconies and windows, and below in the great Piazza, the dense mass of the people with faces offering love and homage, lifting their children to clap their tiny hands for her—it was wonderful—beautiful—had the Madonna, indeed, given her so much!
The mist cleared before her eyes and each face, to the remotest corners of the Piazza stood out individualized, while a sudden great love of humanity was born within her. "She would pray to make her people happy—she would be something to the poor and suffering ones of her distant land of Cyprus—the Holy Mother would teach her——"
It was the supreme moment that does not come to all, yet when it comes holds the making or the marring of a life—as the lightning gleams for an instant only through a rift of cloud, awe-inspiring and too luminous to be forgotten. To Caterina, on the verge of womanhood, it came with the force of a prophetic vision, giving her sight of the tie between a queen and her people—it was like the strong mother-love of a great woman—all-embracing; the splendor of the pageant, the personal homage had no longer part in the exaltation of that great moment—it was the real beneath it all that stirred her soul. She lost herself in the emotion, seeking only for expression; she opened her arms wide to them as if she would embrace them all, turning on every side to smile her heart out to them—tossing kisses to the children who clapped their eager hands for her—scattering sunshine with