These scars were got in one of the proudest days of St.Mark, and in the foremost of all the galleys that fought among the Greek Islands.

The father of my boy wept over me then, as I have since wept over his own son--yes--I might be ashamed to own it among men, but if the truth must be spoken, the loss of the boy has drawn bitter tears from me in the darkness of night, and in the solitude of the Lagunes.

I lay many weeks, Signori, less a man than a corpse, and when I got back again to my nets and my toil, I did not withhold my son from the call of the Republic.

He went in my place to meet the infidel--a service from which he never came back.

This was the duty of men who had grown in experience, and who were not to be deluded into wickedness by the evil company of the galleys.