Yet the horror of those figures
swinging lifeless, with veiled faces, was met in silence by a people
trained to suffer this secret meting out of penalty for transgressions
in which justice and vengeance stood confused.
The ceaseless chains of elections had begotten bribery, corruption, and
strife; the over-weening luxury had fostered unworthy ambitions--it was
a time of much lawlessness. Under the shadow of the embassies infamous
intrigues were planned by bands of idle men, who shrank from no deed of
evil which held its promise of gold; the water-storey of some splendid
palace might be a lurking-place for unprincipled men--spies and
informers by profession--who wore the liveries of noble families whose
secrets they would unhesitatingly consign to that merciless _Bocca del
Leone_, for favor or vengeance of those they secretly served. For
underneath the glitter and the pomp of these latter days of Venice--its
presage of decay--a turbulent mass of malcontents, foreigners
disappointed in intrigue, Venetians shut out from power, grasped and
plotted for its semblance,--sold murder for gold, treason for
gold,--escaping justice by the wiles they so deftly unveiled, or by the
importance of the deposition it was in their power to make.
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