ming hissing
monsters, threatening to engulf everything. The gondolas and _barcas_
were driven in all directions like scattered feathers. The Bucentaur,
unable to resist the storm owing to its flat bottom, was yawing from
side to side. Instead of the jubilant notes of trumpets and cornets,
there was heard through the storm the anxious cries of those in
distress.

Antonio gazed upon the scene like one stupefied, without sense and
motion. But then there came a rattling of chains immediately in front
of him; he looked down, and saw a little canoe, which was chained to
the wall, and was being tossed up and down by the waves; and a thought
entered his mind like a flash of lightning. He leaped into the canoe,
unfastened it, seized the oar which he found in it, and pushed out
boldly and confidently into the sea, directly towards the Bucentaur.
The nearer he came to it the more distinctly could he hear shouts for
help. "Here, here, come here--save the Doge, save the Doge." It is well
known that little fisher-canoes are safer and better to manage in the
Lagune when it is stormy than are larger boats; and accordingly these
little craft were hastening from all sides to the rescue of Marino
Falieri's invaluable person. But it is an invariable principle in life
that the Eternal Power reserves every bold deed as a brilliant success
to the one specially chosen for it, and hence all others have all their
pains for nothing. And as on this occasion it was poor Antonio who was
destined to achieve the rescue of the newly elected Doge, he alone
succeeded in working his way on to the Bucentaur in his little
insignificant fisher-canoe. Old Marino Falieri, familiar with such
dangers, stepped firmly, without a moment's hesitation, from the
sumptuous but treacherous Bucentaur into poor Antonio's little craft,
which, gliding smoothly over the raging waves like a dolphin, brought
him in a few minutes to St. Mark's Square. The old man, his clothing
saturated with wet, and with large drops of sea-spray in his grey
beard, was conducted into the church, where the nobles with blanched
faces concluded the ceremonies connected with the Doge's public entry.
But the people, as well as the seignory, confounded by this unfortunate
_contretemps_, to which was also added the fact that the Doge, in the
hurry and confusion, had been led between the two columns where common
malefactors were generally executed, grew silent in the midst of their
triumph, and thus