'Yes; but just listen now,' and Cecco half arose, and in his fear spoke in a low voice. 'Something terrible now happened. When I told the boys that the holy man had been hidden underneath the bacon, they burst out laughing. I tried to hush them, but they only laughed the louder. Giacomo was lying on his stomach in the bows, and Pietro sat with his legs dangling outside the boat, and they both laughed so that it could be heard far out over the sea.' 'But, Cecco, surely two children may be allowed to laugh.' 'But don't you understand that is where they have perished to-day--on the very spot? Or can you understand why they should have lost their lives on that spot?' Now they all began to talk to him and comfort him. It was his grief which made him lose his senses. This was not like San Marco. He would not revenge himself upon two children. Was it not natural that when a boat was caught in a storm this would happen on the open sea and not in the harbour? Surely his sons had not lived in enmity with San Marco. They had heard them shout, '_Eviva San Marco!_' as eagerly as all the others, and had he not protected them to this very day. He had never, during the years that had passed, shown any sign of being angry with them. 'But, Cecco,' they said, 'you will bring misfortune upon us with your talk about San Marco. You, who are an old man and a wise man, should know better than to raise his anger against the Venetians. What are we without him?' Cecco sat and looked at them bewildered. 'Then you don't believe it?' 'No one in his senses would believe such a thing.' It looked as if they had succeeded in quieting him. 'I will also try not to believe it,' he said. He rose and walked towards the door. 'It would be too cruel, would it not?' he said. 'They were too handsome and too brave for anyone to hate them; I will not believe it.' He went home, and in the narrow street outside his door he met an old woman, one of his neighbours. 'They are reading a Mass in the cathedral for the souls of the dead,' she said to Cecco, and hurried away. She was afraid of him; he looked so strange. Cecco took his boat and made his way through the small canals down to Riva degli Schiavoni. There was a wide view from there; he looked towards Lido and the sea. Yes, it was a hard wind, but not a storm by any means; there were hardly any waves. And his sons had perished in weather like this! It was inconceivable. He fastened his boat, and went across the Piazetta and the Market Place into San Marco. There were many people in the church, and they were all kneeling and praying in great fear; for it is much more terrible for the Venetians, you know, than any other people when there is a disaster at sea. They do not get their living from vineyards or fields, but they are all, everyone of them, dependent on the sea. Whenever the sea rose against any one of them they were all afraid, and hurried to San Marco to pray to him for protection.