"
And after that had come freedom of breath, with the Te Deum, without
which no ceremonial was ever complete in Venice, chanted by all those
full-throated gondoliers--a jubilant chorus of men's voices, ringing the
more heartily through the church for those unwonted hours of repression.
But when the doors had at last been thrown wide to the sunshine and the
babel of life which rose from the eager, thronging populace who had no
right of entrance on this solemn occasion--men who had no vote, women
and children who had all their lives been Nicolotti of the Nicolotti--a
Venetian must indeed have been stolid to feel no thrill of pride as the
procession, with great pomp, passed out of the church to a chorus of
bells and cannon and shouts of the people, proclaiming him their chosen
chief.
Piero Salin was a splendid specimen of the people--tall,
broad-shouldered, gifted by nature and trained by wind and wave to the
very perfection of his craft; positive, nonchalant, and masterful;
affable when not thwarted; of fewer words than most Venetians; an adept
at all the intricacies of gondolier intrigue, and fitted by intimate
knowledge to circumvent the _tosi_.
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