Chapter 6 SUNSET FROM THE TOWER OF SAN GIORGIO

"It is not a good plan to leave the square from the steps in front of the two great columns," Rafael explained, as he went toward the landing-place opposite the Doge's palace, where he always moored his boat.

"Why is it not a good plan?" asked Edith.

"Because it might later make us run into a mud-bank," he answered merrily. "Whenever any one is executed in Venice, it has to be done between those two columns, and that has made the spot most unlucky. People used to gamble there before it was the place for executions, but now, of course, no one thinks of such a thing."

"I should hope not," said Mrs. Sprague, "nor anywhere else."

"The only Doge that was ever beheaded, landed between those columns," continued Rafael, "and since then there are people who would not dare to use the steps, for fear it might bring them ill-luck."

"I am going to get into your boat from those very steps," said Edith, walking toward them.

Her mother, who was already seated in the boat, looked troubled. "He may be right, Edith," she called to her daughter. "You know that I am afraid of the water, and you promised not to take any chances if I would bring you to Italy."

But Edith insisted that she should get into the boat from the steps, or not at all. "There is no danger," she said. "These Italians are too superstitious. See how they are always closing one hand and pointing down two of its fingers to ward off the evil eye. I am going to show Rafael how foolish all these notions are."

The boy looked at her in anger. He had sometimes closed his own hand in the way Edith described, when he met old Beppo, the brown monk from one of the islands in the lagoon; and had often gone out of his way to meet the hunchback, Tonio, because it is well-known in Venice that the sight of a hunchback brings good luck.

Now, when he heard Edith speak so contemptuously of his cherished beliefs, he felt a flame of resentment. Standing quietly in his boat, he said, "Signorina, we go not from those landing-steps in my boat."

Edith saw that he meant what he said. "I am sorry that I hurt your feelings," she said, with a pretty air of penitence; "but if you will kindly take me from these steps, I will make a gift to the patron saint of the fishermen, if we find a shrine at the Lido."

Rafael melted at once. "It is not that I was afraid," he told her, as she stepped into the boat from the unlucky steps, "but I cannot have the ways of my country ridiculed."

Then he pushed off from the landing, and the two great columns rose above their heads in stately fashion.

Edith looked from the winged lion on the top of one to the crocodile and the figure of St. Theodore on the other. "There are many stone lions in the city," she said, "but I have seen only one crocodile. Why is that?"

"The lion is the symbol of St. Mark," replied Rafael, "and must guard the city, because St. Mark is our patron saint. St. Theodore, who stands on the crocodile, was our first patron saint, before the body of St. Mark was brought to Venice and placed in the little church which once stood where you now see the cathedral."

"Is it the St. Mark who wrote one of the books of the New Testament?" asked Mrs. Sprague.

"Yes, Signora," replied Rafael.

"We have been into the cathedral many times," said Edith. "Mother knows every picture and statue inside and out of it."

"It is one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the whole world," said her mother. "Some one has called it a jewel-box, because it contains so many magnificent gems, precious stones, and golden mosaics; and it seems so to me. Now that I have seen it, I am ready to leave Venice."

"Oh, Mother," exclaimed the girl, "we haven't begun to see all that I want to! I must buy some more Venetian glass, and a lantern, and some flags and banners. I mean to make my room at home look like a bit of Venice."

Rafael looked pleased. "Our people were making beautiful things in glass two hundred years before Christopher Columbus found his way to your country," he said. He had no wish to seem boastful to these people of a younger nation, so he tried to say it courteously.

But Edith was impolite enough to say, "The men and women in your city seem to do nothing now but make glass, and carve wood, and weave lace. In so many hundred years they might have learned a good many new things, it seems to me."

The boy flushed. "Venice is old, it is true," he answered, "but Italy is still young." Then he threw back his head and laughed with the happy laugh of boyhood. "Viva l'Italia!" he cried joyously. "She will soon be the greatest country in the world."

"Viva Venice!" cried Edith, but Rafael was drawing his boat alongside a flight of steps, and did not hear her.

"Where is that lame crab of a steamer?" he muttered, looking off into the lagoon.

"What are we going to do?" questioned Mrs. Sprague anxiously.

"We must go to the Lido in the steamer," answered the boy. "It is too far for me to row there and back before sunset; and it will cost but a small sum to buy round-trip tickets for the three of us. That will take us all to the casino by the tram-car, and pay for our bath in the salt-water."

"Pay for our bath!" repeated Edith. "Surely we may go into the water without paying for it."

"Not if you wish to go in from the bathing-house at the casino," Rafael replied; "and it is forbidden by law to take away even one pailful of the water without paying a tax. There is a tax on salt in our country, and it is feared that we may get the least bit of salt from the water."

"I never heard of such a thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Sprague.

"It is very hard," said the boy; "but what can one do? A tax is a tax, and must be paid."

"But it would not be so, if I could get hold of an oar of the government," he added with a laugh, as he held the boat steady with his own oar while his passengers landed.

The little steamer was just drawing up to the pier from its trip across the lagoon. This lagoon is a wide stretch of water, deep only in those places where the ship-channels are kept constantly dredged. When the tide is low, the city shows that it is built upon mud-banks. Twice daily the waters move away from the lagoon, leaving the flats covered with floating seaweed. The returning tide, flowing from the Adriatic through several openings in the long narrow sand-bars, called lidi, covers the seaweed and mud-flats, and forms the lagoon.

The little steamer carried Rafael and his passengers to the Lido in a quarter of an hour, giving them time for a bath in the salt water, and a cup of tea at the casino; and also a moment at the little church dedicated to the patron saint of the fishermen, where Edith left a coin as she had promised to do.

Then they returned across the water to the church of San Giorgio for a view of the sunset, the sight in Venice which artists love most. It was the most wonderful sunset that Edith had ever seen. The low sun gave out a glory of color, and waves of golden light flooded the city, crowning every tower and dome with a great radiance.

"So much gold makes it seem like the Heavenly City," Edith said softly.

To the north lay the white-crowned Alps, to the east the blue Adriatic; and Edith never forgot the glory of that hour.

A fisher's boat swung slowly through the Lido port, and moved toward its mooring-place at a group of rose-tinged piles. In just such a boat Columbus must have sailed when he was a boy. The rounded prow was decorated with a flying goddess blowing a trumpet; on the masthead there was perched a weathercock and a little figure of a hump-backed man, like the one hidden away in St. Mark's. A great sail, painted deep red, caught the sea-breeze and carried the boat slowly over the shimmering, rose-colored water.

Edith drew a long breath of the salt air, and clasped her hands with delight at the picture.

Some workmen, driving piles to mark the ship channel, were chanting an old song,-one that has been sung for centuries by the pile-drivers of Venice,-and Rafael translated the words for her, as the men raised the heavy wooden hammer:-

"Up with it well,

Up to the top;

Up with it well,

Up to the summit!"

Each line of the Italian words ended with a long "e-e-e," or an "o-o-o," and the American girl laughed at the strange song.

"It is just the time and place to paint a picture, or write a poem about the Venetian sunset," she said.

"It is so different here from what I had imagined it to be," she added. "I used to wonder what kept the sea from dashing against the walls of the houses, and beating down the doors."

"Then you knew nothing about the lidi which hold back the sea?" questioned the boy.

"No," replied the girl. "People who have been here speak only about the Grand Canal, and the Piazza of St. Mark, and the Bridge of Sighs."

She pointed out to her mother the long wharf which stretched along the opposite bank of the lagoon, and their hotel, which was farther up the canal. "There is plenty of space on the pavement near our hotel to spread a sail," she said, "and I thought there was never a spot to set foot in all the city, except in the squares."

The sight of the hotel reminded Mrs. Sprague of home. "We must go back and see if there are any letters," she said suddenly, and turned to go down the spiral staircase.

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