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No one paused to look at Zuan Venier when he came into a room, though there was not one of his friends who would not have gone to him in danger or difficulty, without so much as thinking of Contarini as a possible helper in trouble.
Though the Italian states used to fight each other, an individual Italian, especially when he was a sailor, always felt at liberty to seek his fortune in any one of them, or wherever he found his chance most tempting. So the Genoese Giovanni became the Venetian Zuan without any patriotic wrench. Nor was even the vastly greater change to plain John Cabot so very startling.
It turned out to be much easier to carry out his plan than he had expected. "My name is Zuan Venier," he said, in answer to Pasquale's gruff inquiry. Pasquale eyed him a moment through the bars, and immediately understood that he was not a person to be kicked into the canal or received with other similar amenities.
Accordingly, Fortune's favorites of all countries have long, even from the old Roman times downward, thickly studded the district with their villas and gardens and palaces and parks. But the possession of a villa on one of the Italian lakes implies that the happy owner is nothing very much less than a millionaire. And it has been reserved for these quite latter days to find the means of placing within the reach of the many all the delights which were heretofore the exclusive privilege of the few. In no instance has this been done with so complete a measure of success as at Varese. The hotel is situated about a mile from the little town. Its gardens look down on the lake, the intervening slope being covered with forest. To the left, as one stands at the garden-front of the house, looking toward the lake, are the hills in the midst of which the Lake of Lugano nestles, and on the right, beyond the Lago Maggiore, is a view of Monte Rosa with its eternal snows, perhaps the finest to be found anywhere. I have seen Monte Rosa and its chain very finely from the top of the pass called the Col di Tenda, between Turin and Nice, but I think the view from the terrace in front of this house is finer. Immediately at the back of the house we have the hills mountains they would be called in any other part of Europe of which Monte Generoso, now covered with snow, though with a hotel on the top, is the most conspicuous. The country more immediately around us is a district of rolling hills, partly vineyard, but in a larger degree wooded, and here and there diversified by the well-cared-for gardens of some large villa. Our outlook, it will be admitted, is pleasant enough. The house I am speaking of, now known under the style and title of the "Excelsior Hotel," was recently a magnificent villa of the Morosini family at Venice. The name will not be new to any who have visited Venice; for the traveler, even if his tastes did not lead him to take any heed of such matters, will not have been allowed by the ciceroni to overlook the tombs of the doges of that family in the grand old church of the beheaded Saint John, San Giovanni decollata, or "San Zuan Degol
When Zorzi had said the last word, Venier grasped his hand, at the same time taking off the mask he wore, and he looked into the young man's face. "I am Zuan Venier," he said, his indolent manner returning as he spoke. "I am Jacopo Contarini," said the master of the house, offering his hand next.
"I have so much! My father left me a little purse of gold that I shall never need." "I would not take your father's money," answered Zorzi. "But have no fear. If I go at all, I shall do well enough. Besides, there is a man in Venice " He stopped short, not wishing to speak of Zuan Venier. "You must not make any condition," she answered, not heeding the unfinished sentence. "You must go at once."
The guard at the Porta San Zuan let them go unheeded; one ragamuffin more or less made no odds. The heart of the new-born Silvestro gave a great bound as they cleared the gate, and she saw before her the straight white road with its border of silver stems and the spreading tent-roof of golden green.
Only Zuan Venier, a compassionate smile on his face, knelt beside Contarini and carefully withdrew the iron gag from his mouth. At the same instant Aristarchi's hatchet chopped through the hawser by which his vessel was riding, and he took the helm himself to steer her out through the narrow channel before the wind.
Among other men stirred by the news of Columbus's first voyage there was one walking the streets of Bristol in 1496 who was fired to a similar enterprise a man of Venice, in boyhood named Zuan Caboto, but now known in England, where he has some time been settled, as Captain John Cabot.
Most of them were glad that he was not there, for he was not of their own order, and his presence caused a certain restraint in their talk. Besides, he was poor, and did not play at dice. "He works with Angelo Beroviero, does he not?" asked Zuan Venier in a tone of weary indifference. "Yes," answered Contarini with a laugh. "He is in the service of my future father-in-law."
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