Those of his guild, however, those who knew and loved Luigi, had no such misgivings as to the outcome. They lost no sleep over his expected defeat. As their champion stepped from his gondola this beautiful September morning, laying his oar along its side, and mounted the marble steps of the landing opposite the Caffè Veneta Marina, those who got close enough to note his superb condition only added to their wagers. Six feet and an inch, straight, with willowy arms strengthened by steel cords tied in knots above the elbows, hauled taut along the wrists and anchored in the hands--grips of steel, these hands, with thumbs and forefingers strong as the jaws of a vice (he wields and guides his oar with these); waist like a woman's, the ribs outlined through the cross-barred boating shirt; back and stomach in-curved, laced and clamped by a red sash; thighs and calves of lapped leather; shoulders a beam of wood--square, hard, unyielding; neck an upward sweep tanned to a ruddy brown, ending in a mass of black hair, curly as a dog's and as strong and glistening. And his face! Stop some morning before the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, and look up into the face of the great Colleoni as he sits bestride his bronze horse, and ask the noble soldier to doff his helmet. Then follow the firm lines of the mouth, the wide brow, strong nose, and iron chin. Add to this a skin bronzed to copper by the sun, a pair of laughing eyes, and an out-pointed mustache, and you have Luigi. And the air of the man! Only gondoliers, of all serving-men, have this humble fearlessness of manner--a manner which combines the dignity of the patrician with the humility of the servant. It is their calling which marks the difference. Small as is the gondola among all water craft, the gondolier is yet its master, free to come and free to go. The wide stretch of the sea is his--not another's: a sea hemmed about by the palaces of ancestors who for ten centuries dominated the globe. * * * * * * * But Luigi is still standing on the marble steps of the landing opposite the Caffè Veneta Marina this lovely September day, doffing his cap to the admiring throng, just as Colleoni would have doffed his, and with equal grace. Not the red cap of his guild--that has been laid aside for two centuries--but his wide straw hat, with his colors wound about it. As he made his way slowly through the crowd toward the caffè, an old woman who had been waiting for him--wrinkled, gray-haired, a black shawl about her head held tight to the chin by her skinny fingers, her eyes peering from its folds--stepped in front of him. She lived near his home and was godmother to one of his children. "Luigi Zanaletto!" she cried, catching him by the wrist. "Yes, good mother." "That idiot Marco told my Amalia last night that you will lose the race. He has been to the Pietà and will bet all his money on Francesco." "And why not, good mother? Why do you worry?"