me to pay for his lodging draweth
nigh. Holo, Messer Principino! Give you good-day, Lord of Lusignan! Ho,
below there here is tribute for you."
And down upon the head of a certain sad-faced, seedy-looking young
fellow in the piazza, or square, beneath, descended a rattling shower of
bonbons, thrown by the hand of the speaker, a brown-faced Venetian lad
of sixteen.
But little Catarina Cornaro, just freed from the imprisonment of her
convent-school at Padua, felt her heart go out in pity towards this
homeless young prince, who just now seemed to be the butt for all the
riot and teasing of the boys of the Great Republic.
"Nay, nay, my Giorgio," she said to her brother; "'t is neither fair nor
wise so to beset one in dire distress. The good sisters of our school
have often told us that 't is better to be a beggar than a dullard; and
sure yon prince, as you do say he is, looketh to be no dolt. But ah, see
there!" she cried, leaning far over the gayly draped balcony; "see, he
can well use his fists, can he not! Nay, though, 't is a shame so
to beset him, say I. Why should our lads so misuse a stranger and a
prince?"
It was the Feast Day of St. Mark, one of the jolliest of the old-time
holidays of Venice, that wonderful City of the Sea, whose patron and
guardian St. Mark, the apostle, was supposed to be. Gondolas, rich with
draperies of every hue that completely concealed their frames of sombre
black, shot in and out, and up and down all the water-streets of the
beautiful city; while towering palace and humbler dwelling alike were
gay with gorgeous hangings and fluttering streamers.
In noticeable contrast with all the brilliant costumes and laughing
faces around him was the lad who just now seemed in so dire a strait.
He had paused to watch one of the passing pageants from the steps of the
Palazzo Cornaro, quite near the spot where, a century later, the famous
bridge known as the Rialto spanned the Street of the Nobles, or Grand
Canal--one of the most notable spots in the history of Venice the
Wonderful.
The lad was indeed a prince, the representative of a lordly house that
for more than five hundred years had been strong and powerful, first
as barons of France, and later as rulers of the Crusaders' kingdom
of Jerusalem and the barbaric but wealthy island of Cyprus. But poor
Giacomo, or James, of Lusignan, royal prince though he was, had been
banished from his father's court in Cyprus. He had dared rebel
against
|