Page:The American Magazine volume LXIV.djvu/553

Rh "Am I not your bought slave?" she asked. " I must obey."

"That is not enough. We are Christian man and maid. You shall go with me in honor to my own people."

"A gentleman of Venice cannot marry a slave," she objected, though she smiled. He laughed, happily, and drew back from her a little.

"A gentleman of Venice may do what seems good in his own eyes, if it be not treason," he said. "I publish the banns of marriage between Messer Carlo Zeno, of Venice, bachelor, and Arethusa "

"Spinster, of the slave-market," sug- gested Zo6, laughing with him. "It is a noble alliance for the great Doge's house, sir!"

"OhI You talk of Doges? Then I will put it in another way, as the priest will say it presently, for I thmk he is waiting down- stairs by this time, and Omobono is teach- ing him his lesson." " How shall you put it ? " "Bianca Giustiniani, wilt thou take this man to be thy wedded husband ? " She was taken by surprise, and for a mo- ment the words would not come. "Wilt thou take this man?" he asked again, but more softly now, and nearer to her lips, though he did not see them; for he thought he saw her soul in her brave brown eyes, and as for her answer, he knew it. Now the rest of Zeno's life, with much of what the story-teller has told here, is extant in very bad Latin, written by one of his grandsons, the good bishop Jacopo Zeno of Bellimo: how he sailed down the Darda- nelles, and made good the Emperor John's gift of Tenedos to the Republic; and how itie Genoese tried hard to take it from him; and how he fought like the hero he was, with a handful of men against a host, and drove them o£F and saved the island; and also how he lived to save Venice herself from them when all seemed lost, and broke their power for ever afterwards; and how he did many other glorious and great things, all after he had taken Bianca Giustiniani to wife.

THE END

THE WANDERERS

BY EMERY POTTLE Let us go home, my dear, let us go home. Where love still speaks the all, familiar tongue To hearts come back, as children come, heart-young, Forgetful of the truant miles they roam. Let us go home, my dear, let us go home, Along the path we've marked with homeward signs, Swimming with amber air poured through the pines And cool with the rich damp of evening loam. Let us go home, my dear, let us go home, Ride laughing to the love we've missed so long. The saddles creak, the horses' breath comes strong. They end the last green lane all white with foam! Let us go home, my dear, let us go home.