There had been no unmanly giving way to despair, no pitiful entreaty for aid in their peril.

Venice had relied upon herself, and had come out triumphant.
From every house hung flags and banners, every balcony was hung with tapestry and drapery.

The Grand Canal was closely packed with gondolas, which, for once, disregarded the sumptuary law that enforced black as their only hue, and shone in a mass of colour.

Gaily dressed ladies sat beneath canopies of silk and velvet; flags floated from every boat, and the rowers were dressed in the bright liveries of their employers.

The church bells rang out with a deafening clang, and from roof and balcony, from wharf and river, rang out a mighty shout of welcome and triumph from the crowded mass, as the great state gondola, bearing the doge and the two commanders, made its way, slowly and with difficulty, along the centre of the canal.
Francis was on board one of the gondolas that followed in the wake of that of the doge, and as soon as the grand service in Saint Mark's was over, he slipped off and made his way back to the Palazzo Polani.