s.

The tumult was at its height when suddenly a sound was heard that had
a truly magical effect upon the rioters, for such they might now be
termed. The alarm-bell of St Mark's rang out its awful peal. In an
instant the yells of defiance were hushed; the arm that was already
drawn back to deal a blow fell harmless by its owner's side, the storm
of missiles ceased, the contending factions parted, and left the
combat undecided. The habit of obedience and the intimation of some
danger to the city, stilled in an instant the rage of party feeling,
and combatants and spectators alike hurried away in the direction of
St Mark's place, the usual point of rendezvous on such occasions.

Jacopo had now recovered his senses, and Antonio's gondola was one of
the first which reached the square in front of the cathedral. Thence
the young painter at once discovered the cause of the alarm. Smoke and
flame were issuing from some buildings on the opposite island of San
Giorgio Maggiore, where the greater part of the merchants' warehouses
were situated. Thither the crowd of gondolas now steered, and Antonio
found himself carried along with the stream. But although the fire was
already beginning to subside before the prompt measures taken to
subdue it, the alarm-bell kept clanging on; and Antonio soon perceived
that there must be some other point of danger to which it was intended
to turn the attention of the people. Gazing about for some indication
of its source, he saw several gondolas hurrying towards the grand
canal, on which most of the palaces of the nobles were situated, and
he ordered Jacopo to steer in the same direction.

On reaching the palazzo of the Malipieri family, a strange scene
presented itself to him. The open space between the side of the palace
and the adjacent church of San Samuele, was crowded with men engaged
in a furious and sanguinary conflict. At one of the windows of the
palace, a tall man in a flowing white robe, with a naked sabre in one
hand and a musquetoon in the other, which, from the smoke still
issuing from its muzzle, had apparently just been discharged, stood
defending himself desperately against a band of fierce and bearded
ruffians, who swarmed up a rope ladder fixed below the window. The
person making so gallant a defence was the Senator Malipiero; the
assailants were Uzcoques from the fortress of Segna.

The arrival of the Proveditore Marcello at Gradiska, and his
subsequent recognition of his j