338 VENICE IN DESPAIR. 



grew grave and sad as they told of the horrors of the 

 voyage ; of the long long nights off the stormy Cape 

 when the wind roared, and the spray lashed through 

 the rigging, and the waves foamed over the hulwarks, 

 and the stones that were their cannon-shot crashed from 

 side to side, and the ships like live creatures groaned 

 and creaked, and hour after hour, the sailors were forced 

 to labour at the pumps till their bones ached, and their 

 hands were numbed by cold. They told of treacherous 

 pilots in the Mozambique, who plotted to run their 

 ships ashore ; and of the Indian pirates, the gipsies of 

 the sea, who sent their spies on board. They told of 

 that new and horrible disease which, when they had 

 been long at sea, made their bodies turn putrid and 

 the teeth drop from their jaws. And as they told of 

 those things, and named the souls who had died at sea, 

 there rose a cry of lamentation, and widows in new 

 garments fled weeping from the crowd. 



That night, the Venetian ambassador sat down and 

 wrote to his masters that he had seen vessels enter 

 Lisbon harbour laden with spices and with India drugs. 

 His next letter informed them that a strong fleet was 

 being prepared, and that Vasco da Gama intended to 

 conquer India. . The Venetians saw that they were 

 ruined. They wrote to their ally, the Sultan of Egypt, 

 and implored him to bestir himself. They gave him 

 artillery to send to the India princes. They offered 

 to open the Suez canal at their own expense, that 

 their ships might arrive in the Indian ocean before 

 the Portuguese. On the other hand, came the ter- 

 rible Albuquerque, who told the Sultan to beware, 

 or he would destroy Mecca and Medina, and turn the 

 Nile into the Red Sea. The Indian Ocean became a 

 Portuguese lake. There was scarcely a town upon its 



