At the head of the Giant's Staircase, where Marino Faliero was beheaded,

and where the Doges were crowned in ancient times, two small slits in the

stone wall were pointed out--two harmless, insignificant orifices that

would never attract a stranger's attention--yet these were the terrible

Lions' Mouths! The heads were gone (knocked off by the French during

their occupation of Venice,) but these were the throats, down which went

the anonymous accusation, thrust in secretly at dead of night by an

enemy, that doomed many an innocent man to walk the Bridge of Sighs and

descend into the dungeon which none entered and hoped to see the sun

again. This was in the old days when the Patricians alone governed

Venice--the common herd had no vote and no voice. There were one

thousand five hundred Patricians; from these, three hundred Senators were

chosen; from the Senators a Doge and a Council of Ten were selected, and

by secret ballot the Ten chose from their own number a Council of Three.

All these were Government spies, then, and every spy was under

surveillance himself--men spoke in whispers in Venice, and no man trusted

his neighbor--not always his own brother. No man knew who the Council of

Three were--not even the Senate, not even the Doge; the members of that

dread tribunal met at night in a chamber to themselves, masked, and robed

from head to foot in scarlet cloaks, and did not even know each other,

unless by voice. It was their duty to judge heinous political crimes,

and from their sentence there was no appeal. A nod to the executioner

was sufficient. The doomed man was marched down a hall and out at a

door-way into the covered Bridge of Sighs, through it and into the

dungeon and unto his death. At no time in his transit was he visible to

any save his conductor. If a man had an enemy in those old days, the

250

The Innocents Abroad