Still, you know they have sometimes got the better of you, even when the force was equal." The captain grunted.

He could not deny the fact.
"Sometimes our captains don't do their duty," he said.

"They put a lot of young patricians in command of the galleys, men that don't know one end of a ship from the other, and then, of course, we get the worst of it.

But I maintain that, properly fought, a Venetian ship is always more than a match for a Genoese." "I think she generally is, captain, and I hope it will always prove so in the future.

You see, though I am English, I have lived long enough in Venice to feel like a Venetian." "I have never been to England," the captain said, "though a good many Venetian ships go there every year.