them
up, war broke out between the rival Republics. In two engagements at
sea, the Venetians were defeated; but in a third they were victorious,
and forever sullied the banner of St. Mark, which flew from their
Admiral's mast-head, by causing nearly five thousand prisoners of war
to be drowned. Fired by a desire for immediate revenge upon their foe,
the Genoese hurried a mighty fleet to sea, and ravaged the Italian
coast up to the very doors of Venice itself. Several other
engagements followed, in most of which the Venetians were defeated;
and then there were twenty years of peace before another conflict.

Finally war broke out afresh. Angry and vindictive, the Genoese bore
down upon the Venetian coast in numerous lumbering galleys,
determined--this time--to reach Venice itself, and to sack this rich
and populous city. With little difficulty they captured Chioggia, a
seaport, a populous city and the key to the lagoons which led to the
heart of the capital. They advanced to the very outskirts of Venice,
and their cries of joyous vindictiveness sounded strangely near to the
now terrified inhabitants, who, rallying around their old generals and
city fathers, were determined to fight to the last ditch.

As winter came, the victoriously aggressive Genoese retreated to
Chioggia, withdrawing their fleet into the safe harbor to await the
spring; leaving only two or three galleys to cruise before the
entrance, in case the now angered Venetians should attack. But they
were to be rudely awakened from their fancied seclusion.

"Lead us on, O Pisani," the Venetians had cried in the broad market
space of their beloved city. "We must and will drive these invaders
into their own country. Never have we received before such insults.
On! On! to Chioggia."

So, silent and vengeful, the Venetian fleet stole out to sea on the
evening of December twenty-first. There were thirty-four galleys,
sixty smaller armed vessels, and hundreds of flat-bottomed boats.
Pisani was in the rear, towing two heavy, old hulks, laden with
stones, to sink in the entrance of the harbor and bottle up the fleet,
even as the Americans were to sink the _Merrimac_ in the Harbor of
Santiago, many years afterwards.

The Genoese were unready. The cruisers, on duty as sentinels, were not
where they should have been, and so the gallant Pisani scuttled the
hulks across the harbor entrance and caught the bold marauders like
rats in a trap. The fleet of the enemy was par