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The font has a bowl and base of variegated marble, like that used at Veglia, very flat in shape and unmoulded, supported by three amorini, carved in Istrian stone, who stand round the supporting stem. The plan of the building is cruciform, the arms of the cross being semicircular niches which have shell-heads. The wall above them has Gothic tracery, on the eastern side pierced to give light.

It was afternoon when Marcello's galley cane in sight of the white cliffs of Cherso, and shortly afterwards entered the channel, running between that island and Veglia.

The masses of dark clouds in the western horizon were becoming momentarily more threatening, and various signs of an approaching storm made the captain of the galley especially anxious to get, before nightfall, into the nearest harbour, which was that of Pesca, at the southern extremity of the island of Veglia.

The sunset was superb, the glow of the sky reflected in the sea, with Cherso dark against it and the shores of Veglia laid out below us, showing Ponte and the Convent of Cassione, and Veglia beyond almost hidden in trees.

Then breaking furiously through the line of Venetian ships, stationed between Veglia and the mainland, and which were totally unprepared for this sudden and daring manoeuvre, they disappeared amidst the shoals and in the small creeks and inlets of the Dalmatian islands belonging to the republic, where the ponderous Venetian galleys would vainly attempt to follow them.

It was on a mild evening of early spring, and a few days after the incidents recorded in the preceding chapter, that a group of wild-looking figures was assembled on the Dalmatian shore, opposite the island of Veglia.

It is there that the veglia, or evening rendezvous of lovers, the serenades and balls and feste, of which one hears so much in the popular minstrelsy, take place. Of course it would not be difficult to paint the darker shades of this picture. Autumn comes, when the contadini of Lucca and Siena and Pistoja go forth to work in the unwholesome marshes of the Maremma, or of Corsica and Sardinia.

From 1126 the islands of the Quarnero belonged to Venice, but the peace of Zara in 1358 ceded Dalmatia to Hungary and Veglia with it; and, when Ladislas sold Dalmatia to Venice in 1409, Veglia was excluded, being formally ceded by the last Count Giovanni in 1480.

Altogether a fearsome crew to have to do with! Segna belonged to the Counts Frangipani, whose eyrie was fixed at Castel Muschio on the island of Veglia. It is near the northern end above a wide bay on the sea side of a broken plateau, partly crowned with fortress-walls, in front of which a few houses sparkle white in the sun.

They then passed on to Ancona and Adria, and as they returned captured a whole Venetian squadron. In 876 the Slavs of Croatia and Dalmatia raided the Istrian coast towns, but were defeated at Grado. He gave the tribute from the Roman cities of Dalmatia to the Croats and Narentans, so that Spalato, Zara, Traù, Arbe, and the Byzantine cities of Veglia and Ossero had to pay tribute to the Croats.