There was some compensation for me --
coming, like all compensation, a long while
after the loss -- in the spectacle of a funeral
procession on the Grand Canal, which had
a singular and imposing solemnity only pos-
sible to the place. It was the funeral of an
Austrian general, whose coffin, mounted on
a sable catafalco, was borne upon the mid-
dle boat of three that moved abreast. The
barges on either sides bristled with the bay-
onets of soldiery, but the dead man was
alone in his boat, except for one strange
figure that stood at the head of the coffin,
and rested its glittering hand upon the black
fall of the drapery. This was a man clad
cap-a-pie in a perfect suit of gleaming mail,
with his visor down, and his shoulders swept
by the heavy raven plumes of his helm. As
at times be moved from side to side, and
glanced upward at the old palaces, sad in
the yellow morning light, he put out of sight,
for me, everything else upon the canal, and
seemed the ghost of some crusader come back
to Venice, in wonder if this city, lying dead
under the hoofs of the Croat, were indeed
that same haughty Lady of the Sea who had
once sent her blind old Doge to beat down
the pride of an empire and disdain its
crown.

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