Fabio becomes our leader!" There was a pause. At length the pirate-chief addressed his brethren. "Ye have spoken! ye threaten, too! This power, of which ye speak, is precious in your eyes. I value it not a zecchino; and wert thou to depose me to-morrow, I should be the master of ye in another month, did it please me to command a people so capricious. But think not, though I speak to ye in this fashion, that I deny your demand. I but speak thus to show ye that I fear you not. I will do as ye desire; but did not your own wishes square evenly with mine own, I should bide the issue of this struggle, though it were with knife to knife." "It matters not how thou feelest, or what movest thee, Pietro, so that thou dost as we demand. Thou wilt lead us to this spoil?" "I will." "It is enough. It will prove to thy people that they are still the masters of the Lagune--that they are not sold to Venice." "Leave me now." The brethren took their departure. When they had gone, the chief spoke in brief soliloquy, thus: "Verily, there is the hand of fate in this. Methinks I see the history once more, even as I beheld it in the magic liquor of the Spanish Gipsy. Why thought I not of this before, dreaming vainly like an idiot boy, as much in love with his music as himself, who hopes by the tinkle of his guitar to win his beauty from the palace of her noble sire, to the obscure retreats of his gondola. These brethren shall not vex me. They are but the creatures of a fate!" CHAPTER V. Let us now return to Olivolo, to the altar-place of the church of San Pietro di Castella, and resume the progress of that strangely mingled ceremonial--mixed sunshine and sadness--which was broken by the passionate conduct of Giovanni Gradenigo. We left the poor, crushed Francesca, in a state of unconsciousness, in the arms of her sympathizing kindred. For a brief space the impression was a painful one upon the hearts of the vast assembly; but as the deep organ rolled its ascending anthems, the emotion subsided. The people had assembled for pleasure and an agreeable spectacle; and though sympathizing, for a moment, with the pathetic fortunes of the sundered lovers, quite as earnestly as it is possible for mere lookers-on to do, they were not to be disappointed in the objects for which they came. The various shows of the assemblage--the dresses, the jewels, the dignitaries, and the beauties--were quite enough to divert the feelings of a populace, at all times notorious for its levities, from a scene which, however impressive at first, was becoming a little tedious. Sympathies are very good and proper things; but the world seldom suffers them to occupy too much of its time. Our Venetians did not pretend to be any more humane than the rest of the great family; and the moment that Francesca had fainted, and Giovanni had disappeared, the multitude began to express their impatience of any further delay by all the means in their possession. There was no longer a motive to resist