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And through Piero's agents, established under threats as terrible as those of the Ten themselves, had come the news which, from time to time, he unfolded to her; while the same secret agent brought perhaps a rumor which the gastaldo grande confided to the Ten, wherewith some convent plotting was unmasked, or other news so greatly to the keeping of the peace of the Serene Republic, that Piero might have bought therewith propitiation for all those sins against it, of which the government was happily in ignorance.
"And may she make thee wiser; for, by thine inventory, which it doth not harm thee to rehearse, thou hast a good memory." "Eccellenza, there is more, if you be not weary. There is the government tax; it takes long to gather ask the gastaldo! There are the soldiers for the navy; how many good men does that leave for the traghetto service?
The journey had been long and wearisome; all day they had been slowly toiling against the tide; and long since Piero had summoned to his aid a trusted gondolier who had been ordered to follow them at a little distance, and who, at a sign from the gastaldo, had silently left his bark to drift and taken his place at the other end of the gondola in which the fugitives were making their way to Padua.
"Messer Gastaldo," Antonio answered with reluctance, "by signs which be but trifles to relate, by a word dropped in Padua, and not for mine ear, one of them I know not which hath, perchance, affair with a master mightier than thou."
He made the usual gesture which indicated the Three of that terrible Inquisition whose name was better left unsaid a sign much used in Venice where the very walls had ears. It was a blow to Piero, but he wasted no words. "They then both are apart from this and all my counsel. It shall be for thee alone, Antonio." "So safer, Messer Gastaldo. I listen and forget, save as it shall serve thee."
Venice at present formed a federative state, united by the memory of a common origin and the sense of a common interest; the arrengo, which met at Heraclia, the parent capital, at irregular intervals to deliberate on matters of public concern, was too numerous and too schismatical to exercise immediate control over the nation; and each island was consequently governed, after the abolition of the primeval consulate, in the name of the people, by a gastaldo or tribune, whose power, nominally limited, was virtually absolute.
Had not the Lady of the Giustiniani offered to guarantee the funds necessary for the assessments of the state, when Piero, doubtful of their resources, would have declined the position of gastaldo grande, cumbered as it was with the uncomfortable requirement that the chief should be personally responsible for all dues and taxes levied upon the traghetti?
In the old acts of Venice this functionary is styled Gastaldo di traghetto. The members have to contribute something yearly to the guild. This payment varies upon different stations, according to the greater or less amount of the tax levied by the municipality on the traghetto. The highest subscription I have heard of is twenty-five francs; the lowest, seven.
"Eccellenza, we are enough," the bancalo answered fearlessly, and with a significant pause, "to prove the will of the people as well Nicolotti as Castellani. And to escort our Gastaldo Grande with honor, since it hath pleased your excellencies to receive him as a guest in the Ducal Palace."
judgment of Gastaldo, but sent deputies to Turin, to remonstrate; in a few days a solemn fast was proclaimed; the ministers excommunicated every individual who should sell his lands in the disputed territory; the natives of the valleys under the dominion of the king of France met those of the valleys belonging to the duke of Savoy; both bound themselves by oath to stand by each other in their common defence; and messengers were despatched to solicit aid and advice from the church of Geneva and the Protestant cantons of Switzerland.
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