Again, three years later, one of the Council of Ten who had condemned Jacopo was assassinated as he was leaving the palace. The evidence which connected Jacopo with this murder was so slight that it is not worth recounting; but suspicion of him was strong enough to cause his arrest, and it is even said that he was tortured, with no result. He was now banished to Candia, where, separated from wife and children, from the refinements that he loved, and without congenial pursuits, he suffered a restlessness so intense that he further criminated himself for the sake of returning to Venice, even though that might mean the rack anew. He wrote a letter to the Duke of Milan, the enemy of Venice, asking his aid with the Seigniory. This letter he managed to have fall into the hands of the Council, never trying to send it to Milan at all. He was also accused of having addressed a letter to the {182} Sultan, imploring him to send a vessel to convey him away secretly. He was now brought to Venice, and before the Council made a full confession, no doubt through fear of the torture-chamber, so near at hand. Some of the Ten favored severity. Loredano even wished him to be beheaded between the Columns, but the mild sentence of a year's imprisonment at Candia was the final result. When this sentence was given, he prayed that he might see his family, all of whom had been rigidly excluded from him and from the court during his trial. His father, mother, wife, and children were permitted to visit him; and when the time for his removal came, he was with them in the Ducal Palace. Even then, after all he had suffered and caused others to suffer, he did not seem to realize that the execution of his sentence was as sure as fate itself. He seemed rather to believe that some one could reverse it all; and naturally that some one seemed to be the Doge, his father, who, alas! knew but too well his utter powerlessness. Amid the sobs and kisses all around him, once more he cried, "Father, I beseech you, make them let me go home!" But the old Doge, in his despair, could only reply, "Jacopo, go; obey the will of the country, and try no more," in saying which no doubt he suffered more than he who heard these fatal words.