proposals I am empowered to make
you. The Signoria offers you life, freedom, and a captainship in the
island of Candia, on the sole condition, on your part, of disclosing
the intrigues and perfidy of the council at Gradiska, and furnishing
us, as you are assuredly able to do, with documents by which we may
prove to the Archduke the treachery of his ministers. Again, I
say--Reflect! or rather hesitate not, but decide at once between a
prosperous and honourable life, and a death of degradation and
anguish."

Neither the threats nor the temptations held out by the Proveditore
seemed to have the smallest effect upon the Uzcoque.

"You are mistaken," replied he calmly. "I am not Dansowich, nor have I
any knowledge of the intrigues at Gradiska. I could not therefore, if
I wished it, buy my life by the treachery demanded of me; and if the
woivodes of Segna think as I do, they will let themselves be hewn in
pieces before they do the bidding of your senators, or concede aught
to the wishes of false and crafty Venice."

"You are a brave man, Dansowich!" resumed the Proveditore, who saw the
necessity of changing his tactics. "You care little for the dangers
and sufferings of this world. But yet--pause and reflect. Your hair is
silvered by time, and even should you escape your present peril, you
will still, ere many years are past, have to render an account to a
higher tribunal than ours. By an upright course you might atone for
the crimes of your youth and manhood, and become the chosen instrument
of Heaven to deliver your fellow-Christians from a cruel scourge and
sore infliction."

"And who has brought the scourge upon you?" demanded the old man in a
raised voice, measuring the Proveditore with a stern and contemptuous
look. "Is it our fault that, whilst we were striving to keep the Turk
from the door of Christendom, you sought every means of thwarting our
efforts by forming treaties with the infidel? You do well to remind me
that my head is grey. I was still a youth when the name of Uzcoque was
a title of honour as it is now a term of reproach--when my people were
looked upon as heroes, by whose valour the Cross was exalted, and the
Crescent bowed down to the dust. Those were the days when, on the
ruins of Spalatro, we swore to live like eagles, amidst barren cliffs
and naked rocks, the better to harass the heathen--the days when the
power of the Moslem quailed and fled before us. And had not your
sordid Venetian traders s