These rival captains advanced toward the bows of their boats, with murderous looks, Con la test'alta e con rabbiosa fame.
Si che parea che l'aer ne temesse, and there stamped furiously, and beat the wind with hands of deathful challenge, while I looked on with that noble interest which the enlightened mind always feels in people about to punch each others' heads.
"But the storm burst in words.
"'Figure of a pig!' shrieked the Venetian, 'you have ruined my boat for ever!' "'Thou liest, son of an ugly old dog!' returned the countryman, 'and it was my right to enter the canal first.' "They then, after this exchange of insult, abandoned the main subject of dispute, and took up the quarrel laterally and in detail.

Reciprocally questioning the reputation of all their female relatives to the third and fourth cousins, they defied each other as the offspring of assassins and prostitutes.

As the peace-making tide gradually drifted their boats asunder, their anger rose, and they danced back and forth and hurled opprobrium with a foamy volubility that quite left my powers of comprehension behind.

At last the townsman, executing a _pas seul_ of uncommon violence, stooped and picked up a bit of stone lime, while the countryman, taking shelter at the stern of his boat, there attended the shot.

To my infinite disappointment it was not fired.