The face of a boy in the street catches his eye.  He seems to see in it some likeness to a dead friend.  He begins to think, and at last remembers a hospital ward in Venice: 

      ’Twas an April day,
   The year Napoleon’s troops took Venice—­say
   The twenty-fifth of April.  All alone
   Walking the ward, I heard a sick man moan,
   In tones so piteous, as his heart would break: 
   ‘Lost, lost, and lost again—­for Venice’ sake!’
   I turned.  There lay a man no longer young,
   Wasted with fever.  I had marked, none hung
   About his bed, as friends, with tenderness,
   And, when the priest went by, he spared to bless,
   Glancing perplexed—­perhaps mere sullenness. 
   I stopped and questioned:  ‘What is lost, my friend?’
   ’My soul is lost, and now draws near the end. 
   My soul is surely lost.  Send me no priest! 
   They sing and solemnise the marriage feast
   Of man’s salvation in the house of love,
   And I in Hell, and God in Heaven above,
   And Venice safe and fair on earth between—­
   No love of mine—­mere service—­for my Queen.’

He was a seaman, and the tale he tells the doctor before he dies is strange and not a little terrible.  Wild rage against a foster-brother who had bitterly wronged him, and who was one of the ten rulers over Venice, drives him to make a mad oath that on the day when he does anything for his country’s good he will give his soul to Satan.  That night he sails for Dalmatia, and as he is keeping the watch, he sees a phantom boat with seven fiends sailing to Venice: 

   I heard the fiends’ shrill cry:  ‘For Venice’ good! 
   Rival thine ancient foe in gratitude,
   Then come and make thy home with us in Hell!’
   I knew it must be so.  I knew the spell
   Of Satan on my soul.  I felt the power
   Granted by God to serve Him one last hour,
   Then fall for ever as the curse had wrought. 
   I climbed aloft.  My brain had grown one thought,
   One hope, one purpose.  And I heard the hiss
   Of raging disappointment, loth to miss
   Its prey—­I heard the lapping of the flame,
   That through the blanched figures went and came,
   Darting in frenzy to the devils’ yell. 
   I set that cross on high, and cried:  ’To Hell
   My soul for ever, and my deed to God! 
   Once Venice guarded safe, let this vile clod
   Drift where fate will.’ 
         And then (the hideous laugh
   Of fiends in full possession, keen to quaff
   The wine of one new soul not weak with tears,
   Pealing like ruinous thunder in mine ears)
   I fell, and heard no more.  The pale day broke
   Through lazar-windows, when once more I woke,
   Remembering I might no more dare to pray.