Chapter 28

"_There_ the prisoners rest together;
they hear not the voice of the oppressor."
JOB.

The manner in which the Council of Three held its more public meetings,
if aught connected with that mysterious body could be called public, has
already been seen. On the present occasion there were the same robes,
the same disguises, and the same officers of the inquisition, as in the
scene related in a previous chapter. The only change was in the
character of the judges, and in that of the accused. By a peculiar
arrangement of the lamp, too, most of the light was thrown upon the spot
it was intended the prisoner should occupy, while the side of the
apartment on which the inquisitors sat, was left in a dimness that well
accorded with their gloomy and secret duties. Previously to the opening
of the door by which the person to be examined was to appear, there was
audible the clanking of chains, the certain evidence that the affair in
hand was considered serious. The hinges turned, and the Bravo stood in
presence of those unknown men who were to decide on his fate.

As Jacopo had often been before the council, though not as a prisoner,
he betrayed neither surprise nor alarm at the black aspect of all his
eye beheld. His features were composed, though pale, his limbs
immovable, and his mien decent. When the little bustle of his entrance
had subsided, there reigned a stillness in the room.

"Thou art called Jacopo Frontoni?" said the secretary, who acted as the
mouth-piece of the Three, on this occasion.

"I am."

"Thou art the son of a certain Ricardo Frontoni, a man well known as
having been concerned in robbing the Republic's customs, and who is
thought to have been banished to the distant islands, or to be otherwise
punished?"

"Signore--or otherwise punished."

"Thou wert a gondolier in thy youth?"

"I was a gondolier."

"Thy mother is----"

"Dead," said Jacopo, perceiving the other paused to examine his notes.

The depth of the tone in which this word was uttered, caused a silence,
that the secretary did not interrupt, until he had thrown a glance
backwards at the judges.

"She was not accused of thy father's crime?"

"Had she been, Signore, she is long since beyond the power of the
Republic."

"Shortly after thy father fell under the displeasure of the state, thou
quittedst thy business of a gondolier?"

"Signore, I did."

"Thou art accused, Jacopo, of having laid aside the oar for the
stiletto?"

"Signore, I am."

"For several years, the rumors of thy bloody