The Island of Enchantment by Justus Miles Forman
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THE DOGE SAT ALONE IN A GREAT CARVEN CHAIR]
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THE ISLAND OF ENCHANTMENT
BY JUSTUS MILES FORMAN
ILLUSTRATED BY HOWARD PYLE
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS * MCMV
Copyright, 1905, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._ Published September, 1905.
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Contents
PAGE
I. YOUNG ZUAN GRADENIGO 1
II. THE WOMAN OF ABOMINATION 59
Illustrations
"THE DOGE SAT ALONE IN A GREAT CARVEN CHAIR" _Frontispiece_
HE LAID THE MANTLE OVER THE GIRL'S SHOULDERS _Facing p._ 32
"HE LAY AWHILE, CONSCIOUS OF GREAT COMFORT" _Facing p._ 60
SHE HUNG DROOPING IN THE GREAT CHAIR OF STATE _Facing p._ 98
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The Island of Enchantment
I
Young Zuan Gradenigo
Evil tidings have their own trick of spreading abroad. You cannotbury them. The news which had come secretly to Venice was known fromthe Giudecca to Madonna dell'Orto in two hours. Before noon it was inMurano.
Young Zuan Gradenigo, making his way on foot from the crowded Merceriainto the Piazza di San Marco, ran upon his friend, the young Germancaptain, whom men called Il Lupo--his name was W?lfart--and learned,what almost every other man in the city already knew, how Lewis ofHungary, taking excuse of a merchant ship looted in Venetian waters,was on his way to a second invasion, and had given over the Dalmatiantowns to the ban of Bosnia to ravage.
The two men were still eagerly discussing the matter and its probableoutcome, half an hour later, standing beside one of the gayly paintedbooths which, at this time--the spring of 1355--were clustered aboutthe foot of the great Campanile, when a servant in the livery of thedoge touched young Zuan's arm and, in a low tone, gave him a message.
Gradenigo turned back to the German.
"My uncle wishes to see me at once in the palace," he said. "If you arenot pressed, go to my house and wait for me there. I may have importantnews for you." Then, with a parting wave of the hand, he went quicklyacross the Piazzetta and under the gateway to the right of St. Mark's.
At the head of the great stair two men were awaiting him, and they ledhim at once through a narrow passage with secret sliding-doors to aninner cabinet of the private apartments of the newly elected doge, hisuncle, Giovanni Gradenigo.
The doge sat alone in a great carven chair before a table which waslittered with papers and with maps and with writing-materials. From ahigh window at one side colored beams of light slanted down and restedin crimson and blue splashes upon the dark oak of the table and whatlay there, and upon the rich velvet of the doge's robe, and upon hispeculiar cap of office. He was not a very old man, but he was far fromstrong. Indeed, even at this time he was slowly wasting away with thedisease which carried him off a year later, but as he sat there, bowedbefore the table, he looked old and very worn and tired. His face hadno color at all. It was like a dead man's face--cold and damp.
And yet, although he was ill and seemed quite unfit for labors orduties of any sort, he was in reality an unusually keen and shrewdman, capable of unremitting toil. There burned somewhere within theshrunken, pallid body an astonishingly fierce flame of life. He hadbeen elected to office hard upon the Faliero catastrophe partly becausehis name was one of the very greatest in Venice--two others of hishouse had worn the cap and ring within the century past--but chieflybecause his sympathies were as remote as possible from the liberalviews of the poor old man who had preceded him. He was patricianbefore all else, and fiercely tenacious of patrician rights--fiercelyproud of his name and possessions.
He did not move as his nephew entered the room, only his pale eyes roseslowly to the young man's face and as slowly dropped again to the tablebefore him. Young Zuan pulled forward one of the heavy, uncomfortablechairs of carved wood and sat down in it. He was wondering very busilywhat his uncle wanted of him, but he knew the old man too well to askquestions. Besides that, it would not have been respectful.
Presently the pale eyes rose again.
"You have--heard?" asked the doge, in his thin voice.
Young Zuan nodded.
"It is all over Venice," he said. "That Angevin devil Lewis is comingwestward again, and, to begin with, has set his friend the ban on Zaraand Spalato. He chose his time well, God knows!" He paused a moment asif in expectation of comment, but old Giovanni's face was a death-mask,immobile, and he went on: "As Il Lupo, the German captain, said to mea quarter of an hour ago, 'Venice is a very sick man--poison within,wounds without.' We shall lose Dalmatia."
Old Giovanni nodded once or twice, and for a moment he closed his paleeyes, sitting quite motionless in his great chair. It was as if heceased even to breathe. Then, quite suddenly, the eyes snapped openand a swift flame of rage seemed to leap up in the old man, amazing inits unexpectedness. A momentary patch of crimson glowed upon each ofthe gray cheeks.
"That dog may have Dalmatia," he cried, "but, by God and by my ring ofoffice! I'm damned if he shall have Arbe! I won't give up Arbe! I wantto die there!"
Now Arbe needs a very brief word of comment. It was, and is, one of thenorthern Dalmatian islands--a tiny island, claw-fashioned, ten mileslong, perhaps, not more than a mile wide at its thickest. It is hemmedabout by greater isles--Veglia to the north, Cherso and Lussin Grandeto the west, Pago to the south. Eastward the high, bare, rocky rampartof the Croatian hills rises sheer from the sea, almost throwing itsshadow over the island that nestles under it. The northern expanse ofArbe is wooded, but at the extremity of one south-stretching claw sitsa city in miniature.
It was at this time, and had been for more than a century, a summerresort for several of the great Venetian families, who had built therevillas and campanili and churches as beautiful as anything beside theGrand Canal, though no more beautiful than those of the true, native,Arbesan families, such as the De Dominis and Nemira and Zudeneghi.As a witness that I do not lie, you may see the ruins of them evennow--magnificent ruins, dwelt in by a horde of fishermen. And amongthese great families, by far the foremost had been the Gradenigo.There were three Gradenigo villas, cloistered and courtyarded, whichwere magnificent enough to be called palaces; a Gradenigo had, earlyin the thirteenth century, built the highest and finest of the fourcampanili--it still stands; a Gradenigo had been several times countof the island. Hence, as you see, Arbe was peculiarly a Gradenigopride. It was the apple of their eye. Hence also you will comprehendold Giovanni's sudden flare of rage. His withered heart was wrung withfear. He saw, I have no doubt, hideous visions of the ban's barbariansslaying, looting, wielding torch and hammer in his fairy-land.
Young Zuan looked up with new concern.
"A-ah!" he said, half under his breath. "Arbe!--I had not thought ofArbe." His tone took on a shade of doubt.
"Is it likely," he wondered, aloud, "that the ban will go
"And what," snarled old Giovanni, "is that mongrel Bosnian but avandal? 'Likely,' say you? It is more than that. The dog has sworn totake Arbe and give it to that Magyar strumpet of his, Yaga. He knowsnothing would hurt me more. He went about Zara, a week ago, boastingopenly of what he meant to do--so the word comes."
Young Zuan flushed red and cursed under his breath.
"That is beyond bearing!" he said. "That woman in Arbe? That shameless,thieving wanton who stole away Natalia Volutich?"
The doge nodded, licking his blue lips. "The same," he said. "The ban'sYaga would appear to have a grudge against the house of Gradenigo."
About a year before this time, for the sake of cementing a closer unionbetween the two republics, a marriage had been arranged between youngZuan Gradenigo and the