The porter kept his word, and took good care of Zorzi. When the night boys had come, he carried him into the inner room and put him to bed like a child. Zorzi asked him to tell the boys to wake him at the watches, as they had done on the previous night, and Pasquale humoured him, but when he went away he wisely forgot to give the message, and the lads, who knew that he had been hurt, supposed that he was not to be disturbed. It was broad daylight when he awoke and saw Pasquale standing beside him.
"Are the boys gone already?" he asked, almost as he opened his eyes.
"No, they are all asleep in a corner," answered the porter.
"Asleep!" cried Zorzi, in sudden anxiety. "Wake them, Pasquale, and see whether the sand-glass has been turned and is running, and whether the fire is burning. The young good-for-nothings!"
"I will wake them," answered Pasquale. "I supposed that they were allowed to sleep after daylight."
A moment later Zorzi heard him apostrophising the three lads with his usual vigour of language. Judging from the sounds that accompanied the words he was encouraging their movements by other means also. Presently one of the three set up a howl.
"Oh, you sons of snails and codfish, I will teach you!" growled Pasquale; and he proceeded to teach them, till they were all three howling at once.
Zorzi knew that they deserved a beating, but he was naturally tender-hearted.
"Pasquale!" he called out. "Let them alone! Let them make up the fire!"
Pasquale came back, and the yells subsided.
"I have knocked their empty heads together," he observed. "They will not sleep for a week. Yes, the sand-glass has run out, but the fire is not very low. I will bring you water, and when you are dressed I will carry you out into the laboratory."
The boys did not dare to go away till they had made up the fire. Then they took themselves off, and as Pasquale let them out he treated them to a final expression of his opinion. The tallest of the three was bleeding from his nose, which had been brought into violent conjunction with the skull of one of his companions. When the door was shut, and they had gone a few steps along the footway, he stopped the others.
"We are glass-blowers' sons," he said, "and we have been beaten by that swine of a porter. Let us be revenged on him. Even Zorzi would not have dared to touch us, because he is a foreigner."
"We can do nothing," answered the smallest boy disconsolately. "If I tell my father that we went to sleep, he will say that the porter served us right, and I shall get another beating."
"You are cowards," said the first speaker. "But I am wounded," he continued proudly, pointing to his nose. "I will go to the master and ask redress. I will sit down before the door and wait for him."
"Do what you please," returned the others. "We will go home."
"You have no spirit of honour in you," said the tall boy contemptuously.
He turned his back on them in disdain, crossed the bridge and sat down under the covered way in front of Beroviero's house. He smeared the blood over his face till he really looked as if he might be badly hurt, and he kept up a low, tremulous moaning. His nose really hurt him, and as he was extremely sorry for himself some real tears came into his eyes now and then. He waited a long time. The front door was opened and two men came out with brooms and began to sweep. When they saw him they were for making him go away, but he cried out that he was waiting for the Signor Giovanni, to show him how a free glass-blower's son had been treated by a dog of a foreigner and a swine of a porter over there in the glass-house. Then the servants let him stay, for they feared the porter and hated Zorzi for being a Dalmatian.
At last Giovanni came out, and the boy at once uttered a particularly effective moan. Giovanni stopped and looked at him, and he gulped and sobbed vigorously.
"Get up and go away at once!" said Giovanni, much disgusted by the sight of the blood.
"I will not go till you hear me, sir," answered the boy dramatically. "I am a free glass-blower's son and I have been beaten like this by the porter of the glass-house! This is the way we are treated, though we work to learn the art as our fathers worked before us."
"You probably went to sleep, you little wretch," observed Giovanni. "Get out of my way, and go home!"
"Justice, sir! Justice!" moaned the boy, dropping himself on his knees.
"Nonsense! Go away!" Giovanni pushed him aside, and began to walk on.
The boy sprang up and followed him, and running beside him as Giovanni tried to get away, touched the skirt of his coat respectfully, and then kissed the back of his own hand.
"If you will listen to me, sir," he said in a low voice, "I will tell you something you wish to know."
Giovanni stopped short and looked at him with curiosity.
"I will tell you of something the master did on the Sunday night before he went on his journey," continued the lad. "I am one of the night boys in the laboratory, and I saw with my eyes while the others were asleep, for we had been told to wait till we were called."
Giovanni looked about, to see whether any one was within hearing. They were still in the covered footway above which the first story of the house was built, but were near the end, and the shutters of the lower windows were closed.
"Tell me what you saw," said Giovanni, "but do not speak loud."
At this moment the other two boys came running up with noisy lamentations. With the wisdom of their kind they had patiently watched to see whether their companion would get a hearing of the master, and judging that he had been successful at last, they came to enjoy the fruit of his efforts.
"We also have been beaten!" they wailed, but they bore no outward and visible signs of ill-treatment on them.
The elder boy turned upon them with righteous fury, and to their unspeakable surprise began to drive them away with kicks and blows. They could not stand against him, and after a brief resistance, they turned and ran at full speed. The victor came back to Giovanni's side.
"They are cowardly fellows," he said, with disdain. "They are ignorant boys. What do you expect? But they will not come back."
"Go on with your story," said Giovanni impatiently, "but speak low."
"It was on Sunday night, sir. The master came to talk with Zorzi in the laboratory. I was in the garden, at the entrance of the other passage. When the door opened there was not much light, and the master was wrapped in his cloak, and he turned a little, and went in sideways, so I knew that he had something under his arm, for the door is narrow."
"He was probably bringing over some valuable materials," said Giovanni.
"I believe he was bringing the great book," said the boy confidently, but almost in a whisper.
"What great book?"
The lad looked at Giovanni with an expression of cunning on his face, as much as to say that he was not to be deceived by such a transparent pretence of ignorance.
"He was afraid to leave it in his house," he said, "lest you should find it and learn how to make the gold as he does. So he took it over to the laboratory at night."
Giovanni began to understand, though it was the first time he had heard that the boys, like the common people, suspected Angelo Beroviero of being an alchemist. It was clear that the boy meant the book that contained the priceless secrets for glass-making which Giovanni and his brother had so long coveted. His interest increased.
"After all," he said, "you saw nothing distinctly. My father went in and shut the door, I suppose."
"Yes," answered the boy. "But after a long time the door opened again."
He stopped, resolved to be questioned, in order that his information should seem more valuable. The instinct of small boys is often as diabolically keen as that of a grown woman.
"Go on!" said Giovanni, more and more interested. "The door opened again, you say? Then my father came out—"
"No, sir. Zorzi came out into the light that fell from the door. The master was inside."
"Well, what did Zorzi do? Be quick!"
"He brought out a shovel full of earth, sir, and he carefully scattered it about over the flower-bed, and then he went back, and presently he came out with the shovel again, and more earth; and so three times. They had buried the great book somewhere in the laboratory."
"But the laboratory is paved," objected Giovanni, to gain time, for he was thinking.
"There is earth under the stones, sir. I remember seeing it last year when the masons put down several new slabs. The great book is somewhere under the floor of the laboratory. I must have stepped over it in feeding the fire last night, and that is why the devils that guard it inspired the porter to beat me this morning. It was the devils that sent us to sleep, for fear that we should find it."
"I daresay," said Giovanni with much gravity, for he thought it better that the boy should be kept in awe of an object that possessed such immense value. "You should be careful in future, or ill may befall you."
"Is it true, sir, that I have told you something you wished to know?"
"I am glad to know that the great book is safe," answered Giovanni ambiguously.
"Zorzi knows where it is," suggested, the boy in a tone meant to convey the suspicion that Zorzi might use his knowledge.
"Yes—yes," repeated Giovanni thoughtfully, "and he is ill. He ought to be brought over to the house until he is better."
"Then the furnace could be allowed to get out, sir, could it not?"
"Yes. The weather is growing warm, as it is. Yes—the furnace may be put out now." Giovanni hardly knew that he was speaking aloud. "Zorzi will get well much sooner if he is in a good room in the house. I will see to it."
The boy stood still beside him, waiting patiently for some reward.
"Are we to come as usual to-night, sir, or will there be no fire?" he asked.
"Go and ask at the usual time. I have not decided yet. There—you are a good boy. If you hold your tongue there will be more."
Giovanni offered the lad a piece of money, but he would not take it.
"We are glass-blowers' sons, sir, we are not poor people," he said with theatrical pride, for he would have taken the coin without remark if he had not felt that he possessed a secret of great value, which might place Giovanni in his power before long.
Giovanni was surprised.
"What do you want, then?" he asked.
"I am old enough to be an apprentice, sir."
"Very well," answered Giovanni. "You shall be an apprentice. But hold your tongue about what you saw. You told me everything, did you?"
"Yes, sir. And I thank you for your kindness, sir. If I can help you, sir—" he stopped.
"Help me!" exclaimed Giovanni. "I do not work at the furnaces! Wash your face and come by and by to my glass-house, and you shall have an apprentice's place."
"I shall serve you well, sir. You shall see that I am grateful," answered the boy.
He touched Giovanni's sleeve and kissed his own hand, and ran back to the steps before the front door. There he knelt down, leaning over the water, and washed his face in the canal, well pleased with the price he had got for his bruising.
Giovanni did not look at him, but turned to go on, past the corner of the house, in deep thought. From the narrow line into which the back door opened, Marietta and Nella emerged at the same moment. Nella had made sure that Giovanni had gone out, but she could not foresee that he would stop a long time to talk with the boy in the covered footway. She ran against him, as he passed the corner, for she was walking on Marietta's left side. The young girl's face was covered, but she knew that Giovanni must recognise her instantly, by her cloak, and because Nella was with her.
"Where are you going?" he asked sharply.
"To church, sir, to church," answered Nella in great perturbation. "The young lady is going to confession."
"Ah, very good, very good!" exclaimed Giovanni, who was very attentive to religious forms. "By all means go to confession, my sister. You cannot be too conscientious in the performance of your duties."
But Marietta laughed a little under her veil.
"I had not the least intention of going to confession this morning," she said. "Nella said so because you frightened her."
"What? What is this?" Giovanni looked from one to the other. "Then where are you going?"
"To the glass-house," answered Marietta with perfect coolness.
"You are not going to the laboratory? Zorzi is living there alone. You cannot go there."
"I am not afraid of Zorzi. In the first place, I wish to know how he is. Secondly, this is the hour for making the tests, and as he cannot stand he cannot try the glass alone."
Giovanni was amazed at her assurance, and immediately assumed a grave and authoritative manner befitting the eldest brother who represented the head of the house.
"I cannot allow you to go," he said. "It is most unbecoming. Our father would be shocked. Go back at once, and never think of going to the laboratory while Zorzi is there. Do you hear?"
"Yes. Come, Nella," she added, taking her serving-woman by the arm.
Before Giovanni realised what she was going to do, she was walking quickly across the wooden bridge towards the glass-house, holding Nella's sleeve, to keep her from lagging, and Nella trotted beside her mistress like a frightened lamb, led by a string. Giovanni did not attempt to follow at first, for he was utterly nonplussed by his sister's behaviour. He rarely knew what to do when any one openly defied him. He stood still, staring after the two, and saw Marietta tap upon the door of the glass-house. It opened almost immediately and they disappeared within.
As soon as they were out of sight, his anger broke out, and he made a few quick steps on the bridge. Then he stopped, for he was afraid to make a scandal. That at least was what he said to himself, but the fact was that he was afraid to face his sister, who was infinitely braver and cooler than he. Besides, he reflected that he could not now prevent her from going to the laboratory, since she was already there, and that it would be very undignified to make a scene before Zorzi, who was only a servant after all. This last consideration consoled him greatly. In the eyes of the law, and therefore in Giovanni's, Zorzi was a hired servant. Now, socially speaking, a servant was not a man; and since Zorzi was not a man, and Marietta was therefore gone with one servant to a place, belonging to her father, where there was another servant, to go thither and forcibly bring her back would either be absurd, or else it would mean that Zorzi had acquired a new social rank, which was absurd also. There is no such consolation to a born coward as a logical reason for not doing what he is afraid to do.
But Giovanni promised himself that he would make his sister pay dearly for having defied him, and as he had also made up his mind to have Zorzi removed to the house, on pretence of curing his hurt, but in reality in order to search for the precious manuscripts, it would be impossible for Marietta to commit the same piece of folly a second time. But she should pay for the affront she had put upon him.
He accordingly came back to the footway and walked along toward his own glass-house; and the boy, who had finished washing his face, smoothed his hair with his wet fingers and followed him, having seen and understood all that had happened.
Marietta sent Pasquale on, to tell Zorzi that she was coming, and when she reached the laboratory he was sitting in the master's big chair, with his foot on a stool before him. His face was pale and drawn from the suffering of the past twenty-four hours, and from time to time he was still in great pain. As Marietta entered, he looked up with a grateful smile.
"You seem glad to see us after all," she said. "Yet you protested that I should not come to-day!"
"I cannot help it," he answered.
"Ah, but if you had been with us just now!" Nella began, still frightened.
But Marietta would not let her go on.
"Hold your tongue, Nella," she said, with a little laugh. "You should know better than to trouble a sick man's fancy with such stories."
Nella understood that Zorzi was not to know, and she began examining the foot, to make sure that the bandages had not been displaced during the night.
"To-morrow I will change them," she said. "It is not like a scald. The glass has burned you like red-hot iron, and the wound will heal quickly."
"If you will tell me which crucible to try," said Marietta, "I will make the tests for you. Then we can move the table to your side and you can prepare the new ingredients according to the writing."
Pasquale had left them, seeing that he was not wanted.
"I fear it is of little use," answered Zorzi, despondently. "Of course, the master is very wise, but it seems to me that he has added so much, from time to time, to the original mixture, and so much has been taken away, as to make it all very uncertain."
"I daresay," assented Marietta. "For some time I have thought so. But we must carry out his wishes to the letter, else he will always believe that the experiments might have succeeded if he had stayed here."
"Of course," said Zorzi. "We should make tests of all three crucibles to-day, if it is only to make more room for the things that are to be put in."
"Where is the copper ladle?" asked Marietta. "I do not see it in its place."
"I have none—I had forgotten. Your brother came here yesterday morning, and wanted to try the glass himself in spite of me. I knocked the ladle out of his hand and it fell through into the crucible."
"That was like you," said Marietta. "I am glad you did it."
"Heaven knows what has happened to the thing," Zorzi answered. "It has been there since yesterday morning. For all I know, it may have melted by this time. It may affect the glass, too."
"Where can I get another?" asked Marietta, anxious to begin.
Zorzi made an instinctive motion to rise. It hurt him badly and he bit his lip.
"I forgot," he said. "Pasquale can get another ladle from the main glass-house."
"Go and call Pasquale, Nella," said Marietta at once. "Ask him to get a copper ladle."
Nella went out into the garden, leaving the two together. Marietta was standing between the chair and the furnace, two or three steps from Zorzi. It was very hot in the big room, for the window was still shut.
"Tell me how you really feel," Marietta said, almost at once.
Every woman who loves a man and is anxious about him is sure that if she can be alone with him for a moment, he will tell her the truth about his condition. The experience of thousands of years has not taught women that if there is one person in the world from whom a man will try to conceal his ills and aches, it is the woman he loves, because he would rather suffer everything than give her pain.
"I feel perfectly well," said Zorzi.
"Indeed you are not!" answered Marietta, energetically. "If you were perfectly well you would be on your feet, doing your work yourself. Why will you not tell me?"
"I mean, I have no pain," said Zorzi.
"You had great pain just now, when you tried to move," retorted Marietta. "You know it. Why do you try to deceive me? Do you think I cannot see it in your face?"
"It is nothing. It comes now and then, and goes away again almost at once."
Marietta had come close to him while she was speaking. One hand hung by her side within his reach. He longed to take it, with such a longing as he had never felt for anything in his life; he resisted with all the strength he had left. But he remembered that he had held her hand in his yesterday, and the memory was a force in itself, outside of him, drawing him in spite of himself, lifting his arm when he commanded it to lie still. His eyes could not take themselves from the beautiful white fingers, so delicately curved as they hung down, so softly shaded to pale rose colour at their tapering tips. She stood quite still, looking down at his bent head.
"You would not refuse my friendship, now," she said, in a low voice, so low that when she had spoken she doubted whether he could have understood.
He took her hand then, for he had no resistance left, and she let him take it, and did not blush. He held it in both his own and silently drew it to him, till he was pressing it to his heart as he had never hoped to do.
"You are too good to me," he said, scarcely knowing that he pronounced the words.
Nella passed the window, coming back from her errand. Instantly Marietta drew her hand away, and when the serving-woman entered she was speaking to Zorzi in the most natural tone in the world.
"Is the testing plate quite clean?" she asked, and she was already beside it.
Zorzi looked at her with amazement. She had almost been seen with her hand in his, a catastrophe which he supposed would have entailed the most serious consequences; yet there she was, perfectly unconcerned and not even faintly blushing, and she had at once pretended that they had been talking about the glass.
"Yes—I believe it is clean," he answered, almost hesitating. "I cleaned it yesterday morning."
Nella had brought the copper ladle. There were always several in the glass-works for making tests. Marietta took it and went to the furnace, while Nella watched her, in great fear lest she should burn herself. But the young girl was in no danger, for she had spent half her life in the laboratory and the garden, watching her father. She wrapped the wet cloth round her hand and held the ladle by the end.
"We will begin with the one on the right," she said, thrusting the instrument through the aperture.
Bringing it out with some glass in it, she supported it with both hands as she went quickly to the iron table, and she instantly poured out the stuff and began to watch it.
"It is just what you had the other day," she said, as the glass rapidly cooled.
Zorzi was seated high enough to look over the table.
"Another failure," he said. "It is always the same. We have scarcely had any variation in the tint in the last week."
"That is not your fault," answered Marietta. "We will try the next."
As if she had been at the work all her life, she chilled the ladle and chipped off the small adhering bits of glass from it, and slipped the last test from the table, carrying it to the refuse jar with tongs. Once more she wrapped the damp cloth round her hand and went to the furnace. The middle crucible was to be tried next. Nella, looking on with nervous anxiety, was in a profuse perspiration.
"I believe that is the one into which the ladle fell," said Zorzi. "Yes, I am quite sure of it."
Marietta took the specimen and poured it out, set down the ladle on the brick work, and watched the cooling glass, expecting to see what she had often seen before. But her face changed, in a look of wonder and delight.
"Zorzi!" she exclaimed. "Look! Look! See what a colour!"
"I cannot see well," he answered, straining his neck. "Wait a minute!" he cried, as Marietta took the tongs. "I see now! We have got it! I believe we have got it! Oh, if I could only walk!"
"Patience—you shall see it. It is almost cool. It is quite stiff now."
She took the little flat cake up with the tongs, very carefully, and held it before his eyes. The light fell through it from the window, and her head was close to his, as they both looked at it together.
"I never dreamed of such a colour," said Zorzi, his face flushing with excitement.
"There never was such a colour before," answered Marietta. "It is like the juice of a ripe pomegranate that has just been cut, only there is more light in it."
"It is like a great ruby—the rubies that the jewellers call 'pigeon's blood.'"
"My father always said it should be blood-red," said Marietta. "But I thought he meant something different, something more scarlet."
"I thought so, too. What they call pigeon's blood is not the colour of blood at all. It is more like pomegranates, as you said at first. But this is a marvellous thing. The master will be pleased."
Nella came and looked too, convinced that the glass had in some way turned out more beautiful by the magic of her mistress's touch.
"It is a miracle!" cried the woman of the people. "Some saint must have made this."
The glass glowed like a gem and seemed to give out light of its own. As Zorzi and Marietta looked, its rich glow spread over their faces. It was that rare glass which, from old cathedral windows, casts such a deep stain upon the pavement that one would believe the marble itself must be dyed with unchanging color.
"We have found it together," said Marietta.
Zorzi looked from the glass to her face, close by his, and their eyes met for a moment in the strange glow and it was as if they knew each other in another world.
"Do not let the red light fall on your faces," said Nella, crossing herself. "It is too much like blood—good health to you," she added quickly for fear of evil.
Marietta lowered her hand and turned the piece of glass sideways, to see how it would look.
"What shall we do with it?" she asked. "It must not be left any longer in the crucible."
"No. It ought to be taken out at once. Such a colour must be kept for church windows. If I were able to stand, I would make most of it into cylinders and cut them while hot. There are men who can do it, in the glass-house. But the master does not want them here."
"We had better let the fires go out," said Marietta. "It will cool in the crucible as it is."
"I would give anything to have that crucible empty, or an empty one in the place," answered Zorzi. "This is a great discovery, but it is not exactly what the master expected. I have an idea of my own, which I should like to try."
"Then we must empty the crucible. There is no other way. The glass will keep its colour, whatever shape we give it. Is there much of it?"
"There may be twenty or thirty pounds' weight," answered Zorzi. "No one can tell."
Nell listened in mute surprise. She had never seen Marietta with old Beroviero, and she was amazed to hear her young mistress talking about the processes of glass-making, about crucibles and cylinders and ingredients as familiarly as of domestic things. She suddenly began to imagine that old Beroviero, who was probably a magician and an alchemist, had taught his daughter the same dangerous knowledge, and she felt a sort of awe before the two young people who knew such a vast deal which she herself could never know.
She asked herself what was to become of this wonderful girl, half woman and half enchantress, who brought the colour of the saints' blood out of the white flames, and understood as much as men did of the art which was almost all made up of secrets. What would happen when she was the wife of Jacopo Contarini, shut up in a splendid Venetian palace where there were no glass furnaces to amuse her? At first she would grow pale, thought Nella, but by and by would weave spells in her chamber which would bring all Venice to her will, and turn it all to gold and precious stones and red glass, and the people to fairies subject to her will, her husband, the Council of Ten, even the Doge himself.
Nella roused herself, and passed her hand over her eyes, as if she were waking from a dream. And indeed she had been dreaming, for she had looked too long into the wonderful depths of the new colour, and it had dazed her wits.
On that day Marietta felt once more the full belief that Zorzi loved her; but the certainty did not fill her with happiness as on that first afternoon when she had seen him stoop to pick up the rose she had dropped. The time that had seemed so very distant had come indeed; instead of years, a week had scarcely passed, and it was not by letting a flower fall in his path that she had told him her love, as she had meant to do. She had done much more. She had let him take her hand and press it to his heart, and she would have left it there if Nella had not passed the window; she had wished him to take it, she had let it hang by her side in the hope that he would be bold enough to do so, and she had thrilled with delight at his touch; she had drawn back her hand when the woman came, and she had put on a look of innocent indifference that would have deceived one of the Council's own spies. Could any language have been more plain?
It was very strange, she thought, that she should all at once have gone so far, that she should have felt such undreamt joy at the moment and then, when it was hers, a part of her life which nothing could ever undo nor take from her, it was stranger still that the remembrance of this wonderful joy should make her suddenly sad and thoughtful, that she should lie awake at night, wishing that it had never been, and tormenting herself with the idea that she had done an almost irretrievable wrong. At the very moment when the coming day was breaking upon her heart's twilight, a wall of darkness arose between her and the future.
Much that is very good and true in the world is built upon the fanciful fears of evil that warn girls' hearts of harm. There are dangers that cannot be exaggerated, because the value of what they threaten cannot be reckoned too great, so long as human goodness rests on the dangerous quicksands of human nature.
Marietta had not realised what it meant to be betrothed to Jacopo Contarini, until she had let her hand linger in Zorzi's. But after that, one hour had not passed before she felt that she was living between two alternatives that seemed almost equally terrible, and of which she must choose the one or the other within two months. She must either marry Contarini and never see Zorzi again, or she must refuse to be married and face the tremendous consequences of her unheard-of wilfulness, her father's anger, the just resentment of all the Contarini family, the humiliation which her brothers would heap upon her, because, in the code of those days, she would have brought shame on them and theirs. In those times such results were very real and inevitable when a girl's formal promise of marriage was broken, though she herself might never have been consulted.
It was no wonder that Marietta was sleepless at night, and spent long hours of the day sitting listless by her window without so much as threading a score of beads from the little basket that stood beside her. Nella came and went often, looked at her, and shook her head with a wise smile.
"It is the thought of marriage," said the woman of the people to herself. "She pines and grows pale now, because she is thinking that she must leave her father's house so soon, and she is afraid to go among strangers. But she will be happy by and by, like the swallows in spring."
Nella remembered how frightened she herself had been when she was betrothed to her departed Vito, and she was thereby much comforted as to Marietta's condition. But she said nothing, after Marietta had coldly repelled her first attempt to talk of the marriage, though she forgave her mistress's frigid order to be silent, telling herself that no right-minded young girl could possibly be natural and sweet tempered under the circumstances. She was more than compensated for what might have seemed harshness, by something that looked very much like a concession. Marietta had not gone back to the laboratory since the discovery of the new glass, and a week had passed since then.
Nella went every other day and did all that was necessary for Zorzi's recovery. Each time she came he asked her about Marietta, in a rather formal tone, as was becoming when he spoke of his master's daughter, but hoping that Nella might have some message to deliver, and he was more and more disappointed as he realised that Marietta did not mean to send him any. She had gone away on that morning with a sort of intimation that she would come back every day, but Nella did not so much as hint that she ever meant to come back at all.
Zorzi went about on crutches, swinging his helpless foot as he walked, for it still hurt him when he put it to the ground. He was pale and thin, both from pain and from living shut up almost all day in the close atmosphere of the laboratory. For a change, he began to come out into the little garden, sometimes walking up and down on his crutches for a few minutes, and then sitting down to rest on the bench under the plane-tree, where Marietta had so often sat. Pasquale came and talked with him sometimes, but Zorzi never went to the porter's lodge.
He felt that if he got as far as that he should inevitably open the door and look up at Marietta's window, and he would not do it, for he was hurt by her apparent indifference, after having allowed him to hold her hand in his. She had not even asked through Nella what had become of the beautiful glass. What he pretended to say to himself was that it would be very wrong to go and stand outside the glass-house, where the porter would certainly see him, and where he might be seen by any one else, staring at the window of his master's daughter's room on the other side of the canal. But what he really felt was that Marietta had treated him capriciously and that if he had a particle of self-respect he must show her that he did not care. For if Marietta was very like other carefully brought up girls of her age, Zorzi was nothing more than a boy where love was concerned, and like many boys who have struggled for existence in a more or less corrupt world, he had heard much more of the faithlessness and caprices of women in general than of the sensitiveness and delicate timidity of innocent young girls.
Marietta was his perfect ideal, the most exquisite, the most beautiful and the most lovable creature ever endowed with form and sent into the world by the powers of good. He believed all this in his heart, with the certainty of absolute knowledge. But he was quite incapable of discerning the motives of her conduct towards him, and when he tried to understand them, it was not his heart that felt, but his reason that argued, having very little knowledge and no experience at all to help it; and since his erring reason demonstrated something that offended his self-esteem, his heart was hurt and nursed a foolish, small resentment against what he truly loved better than life itself. At one time or another most very young men in love have found themselves in that condition, and have tormented themselves to the verge of fever and distraction over imaginary hurts and wrongs. Was there ever a true lyric poet who did not at least once in his early days believe himself the victim of a heartless woman? And though long afterwards fate may have brought him face to face with the tragedy of unhappy love, fierce with passion and terrible with violent death, can he ever quite forget the fancied sufferings of first youth, the stab of a thoughtless girl's first unkind word, the sickening chill he felt under her first cold look? And what would first love be, if young men and maidens came to it with all the reason and cool self-judgment that long living brings?
Zorzi sought consolation in his art, and as soon as he could stand and move about with his crutches he threw his whole pent-up energy into his work. The accidental discovery of the red glass had unexpectedly given him an empty crucible with which to make an experiment of his own, and while the materials were fusing he attempted to obtain the new colour in the other two, by dropping pieces of copper into each regardless of the master's instructions. To his inexpressible disappointment he completely failed in this, and the glass he produced was of the commonest tint.
Then he grew reckless; he removed the two crucibles that had contained what had been made according to Beroviero's theories until he had added the copper, and he began afresh according to his own belief.
On that very morning Giovanni Beroviero made a second visit to the laboratory. He came, he said, to make sure that Zorzi was recovering from his hurt, and Zorzi knew from Nella that Giovanni had made inquiries about him. He put on an air of sympathy when he saw the crutches.
"You will soon throw them aside," he said, "but I am sorry that you should have to use them at all."
When he entered, Zorzi was introducing a new mixture, carefully powdered, into one of the glass-pots with a small iron shovel. It was clear that he must put it all in at once, and he excused himself for going on with his work. Giovanni looked at the large quantity of the mixed ingredients with an experienced eye, and at once made up his mind that the crucible must have been quite empty. Zorzi was therefore beginning to make some kind of glass on his own account. It followed almost logically, according to Giovanni's view of men, fairly founded on a knowledge of himself, that Zorzi was experimenting with the secrets of Paolo Godi, which he and old Beroviero had buried together somewhere in that very room. Now, ever since the boy had told his story, Giovanni had been revolving plans for getting the manuscript into his possession during a few days, in order to copy it. A new scheme now suggested itself, and it looked so attractive that he at once attempted to carry it out.
"It seems a pity," he said, "that a great artist like yourself should spend time on fruitless experiments. You might be making very beautiful things, which would sell for a high price."
Without desisting from his occupation Zorzi glanced at his visitor, whose manner towards him had so entirely changed within a little more than a week. With a waif's quick instinct he guessed that Giovanni wanted something of him, but the generous instinct of the brave man towards the coward made him accept what seemed to be meant for an advance after a quarrel. It had never occurred to Zorzi to blame Giovanni for the accident in the glass-house, and it would have been very unjust to do so.
"I can blow glass tolerably, sir," Zorzi answered. "But none of you great furnace owners would dare to employ me, in the face of the law. Besides, I am your father's man. I owe everything I know to his kindness."
"I do not see what that has to do with it," returned Giovanni; "it does not diminish your merit, nor affect the truth of what I was saying. You might be doing better things. Any one can weigh out sand and kelp-ashes, and shovel them into a crucible!"
"Do you mean that the master might employ me for other work?" asked Zorzi, smiling at the disdainful description of what he was doing.
"My father—or some one else," answered Giovanni. "And besides your astonishing skill, I fancy that you possess much valuable knowledge of glass-making. You cannot have worked for my father so many years without learning some of the things he has taken great pains to hide from his own sons."
He spoke the last words in a somewhat bitter tone, quite willing to let Zorzi know that he felt himself injured.
"If I have learned anything of that sort by looking on and helping, when I have been trusted, it is not mine to use elsewhere," said Zorzi, rather proudly.
"That is a fine moral sentiment, my dear young friend, and does you credit," replied Giovanni sententiously. "It is impossible not to respect a man who carries a fortune in his head and refuses to profit by it out of a delicate sense of honour."
"I should have very little respect for a man who betrayed his master's secrets," said Zorzi.
"You know them then?" inquired the other with unusual blandness.
"I did not say so." Zorzi looked at him coldly.
"Oh no! Even to admit it might not be discreet. But apart from Paolo Godi's secrets, which my father has left sealed in my care—"
At this astounding falsehood Zorzi started and looked at Giovanni in unfeigned surprise.
"—but which nothing would induce me to examine," continued Giovanni with perfect coolness, "there must be many others of my father's own, which you have learned by watching him. I respect you for your discretion. Why did you start and look at me when I said that the manuscript was in my keeping?"
The question was well put, suddenly and without warning, and Zorzi was momentarily embarrassed to find an answer. Giovanni judged that his surprise proved the truth of the boy's story, and his embarrassment now added certainty to the proof. But Zorzi rarely lost his self-possession when he had a secret to keep.
"If I seemed astonished," he said, "it may have been because you had just given me the impression that the master did not trust you, and I know how careful he is of the manuscript."
"You know more than that, my friend," said Giovanni in a playful tone.
Zorzi had now filled the crucible and was replacing the clay rings which narrow the aperture of the 'bocca.' He plastered more wet clay upon them, and it pleased Giovanni to see how well he knew every detail of the art, from the simplest to the most difficult operations.
"Would anything you can think of induce you to leave my father?" Giovanni asked, as he had received no answer to his last remark. "Of course, I do not mean to speak of mere money, though few people quite despise it."
"That may be understood in more than one way," answered Zorzi cautiously. "In the first place, do you mean that if I left the master, it would be to go to another master, or to set up as a master myself?"
"Let us say that you might go to another glass-house for a fixed time, with the promise of then having a furnace of your own. How does that strike you?"
"No one can give such a promise and keep it," said Zorzi, scraping the wet clay from his hands with a blunt knife.
"But suppose that some one could," insisted Giovanni.
"What is the use of supposing the impossible?" Zorzi shrugged his shoulders and went on scraping.
"Nothing is impossible in the Republic, except what the Ten are resolved to hinder. And that is really impossible."
"The Ten will not make new laws nor repeal old ones for the benefit of an unknown Dalmatian."
"Perhaps not," answered Giovanni. "But on the other hand there is no very great penalty if you set up a furnace of your own. If you are discovered, your furnace will be put out, and you may have to pay a fine. It is no great matter. It is a civil offence, not a criminal one."
"What is it that you wish of me?" asked Zorzi with sudden directness. "You are a busy man. You have not come here to pass a morning in idle conversation with your father's assistant. You want something of me, sir. Speak out plainly. If I can do what you wish, I will do it. If I cannot, I will tell you so, frankly."
Giovanni was a little disconcerted by this speech. Excepting where money was concerned directly, his intelligence was of the sort that easily wastes its energy in futile cunning. He had not meant to reach the point for a long time, if he had expected to reach it at all at a first attempt.
"I like your straightforwardness," he said evasively. "But I do not think your conversation idle. On the contrary, I find it highly instructive."
"Indeed?" Zorzi laughed. "You do me much honour, sir! What have you learned from me this morning?"
"What I wished to know," answered Giovanni with a change of tone, and looking at him keenly.
Zorzi returned the glance, and the two men faced each other in silence for a moment. Zorzi knew what Giovanni meant, as soon as the other had spoken. The quick movement of surprise, which was the only indiscretion of which Zorzi had been guilty, would have betrayed to any one that he knew where the manuscript was, even if it were not in his immediate keeping. His instinct was to take the offensive and accuse his visitor of having laid a trap for him, but his caution prevailed.
"Whatever you may think that you have learned from me," he said, "remember that I have told you nothing."
"Is it here, in this room?" asked Giovanni, not heeding his last speech, and hoping to surprise him again.
But he was prepared now, and his face did not change as he replied.
"I cannot answer any questions," he said.
"You and my father hid it together," returned Giovanni. "When you had buried it under the stones in this room, you carried the earth out with a shovel and scattered it about on a flower-bed. You took out three shovelfuls of earth in that way. You see, I know everything. What is the use of trying to hide your secret from me?"
Zorzi was now convinced that Giovanni himself had been lurking in the garden.
"Sir," he said, with ill-concealed contempt for a man capable of such spy's work, "if you have more to say of the same nature, pray say it to your father, when he comes back."
"You misunderstand me," returned Giovanni with sudden mildness. "I had no intention of offending you. I only meant to warn you that you were watched on that night. The person who informed me has no doubt told many others also. It would have been very ill for you, if my father had returned to find that his secret was public property, and if you had been unable to explain that you had not betrayed him. I have given you a weapon of defence. You may call upon me to repeat what I have said, when you speak with him."
"I am obliged to you, sir," said Zorzi coldly. "I shall not need to disturb you."
"You are not wise," returned Giovanni gravely. "If I were curious—fortunately for you I am not!—I would send for a mason and have some of the stones of the pavement turned over before me. A mason would soon find the one you moved by trying them all with his hammer."
"Yes," said Zorzi. "If this were a room in your own glass-house, you could do that. But it is not."
"I am in charge of all that belongs to my father, during his absence," answered Giovanni.
"Yes," said Zorzi again. "Including Paolo Godi's manuscript, as you told me," he added.
"You understand very well why I said that," Giovanni answered, with visible annoyance.
"I only know that you said it," was the retort. "And as I cannot suppose that you did not know what you were saying, still less that you intentionally told an untruth, I really cannot see why you should suggest bringing a mason here to search for what must be in your own keeping."
Zorzi spoke with a quiet smile, for he felt that he had the best of it. Be was surprised when Giovanni broke into a peal of rather affected laughter.
"You are hard to catch!" he cried, and laughed again. "You did not really suppose that I was in earnest? Why, every one knows that you have the manuscript here."
"Then I suppose you spoke ironically," suggested Zorzi.
"Of course, of course! A mere jest! If I had known that you would take it so literally—" he stopped short.
"Pray excuse me, sir. It is the first time I have ever heard you say anything playful."
"Indeed! The fact is, my dear Zorzi, I never knew you well enough to jest with you, till to-day. Paolo Godi's secrets in my keeping? I wish they were! Oh, not that anything would induce me to break the seals. I told you that. But I wish they were in my possession. I tell you, I would pay down half my fortune to have them, for they would bring me back four times as much within the year. Half my fortune! And I am not poor, Zorzi."
"Half your fortune?" repeated Zorzi. "That is a large sum, I imagine. Pray, sir, how much might half your fortune be, in round numbers? Ten thousand silver lires?"
"Silver!" sneered Giovanni contemptuously.
"Gold, then?" suggested Zorzi, drawing him on.
"Gold? Well—possibly," admitted Giovanni with caution. "But of course I was exaggerating. Ten thousand gold pounds would be too much, of course. Say, five thousand."
"I thought you were richer than that," said Zorzi coolly.
"Do you mean that five thousand would not be enough to pay for the manuscript?" asked Giovanni.
"The profits of glass-making are very large when one possesses a valuable secret," said Zorzi. "Five thousand—" He paused, as though in doubt, or as if making a mental calculation. Giovanni fell into the trap.
"I would give six," he said, lowering his voice to a still more confidential tone, and watching his companion eagerly.
"For six thousand gold lires," said Zorzi, smiling, "I am quite sure that you could hire a ruffian to break in and cut the throat of the man who has charge of the manuscript."
Giovanni's face fell, but he quickly assumed an expression of righteous indignation.
"How can you dare to suggest that I would employ such means to rob my father?" he cried.
"If it were your intention to rob your father, sir, I cannot see that it would matter greatly what means you employed. But I was only jesting, as you were when you said that you had the manuscript. I did not expect that you would take literally what I said."
"I see, I see," answered Giovanni, accepting the means of escape Zorzi offered him. "You were paying me back in my own coin! Well, well! It served me right, after all. You have a ready wit."
"I thought that if my conversation were not as instructive as you had hoped, I could at least try to make it amusing—light, gay, witty! I trust you will not take it ill."
"Not I!" Giovanni tried to laugh. "But what a wonderful thing is this human imagination of ours! Now, as I talked of the secrets, I forgot that they were my father's, they seemed almost within my grasp, I was ready to count out the gold, to count out six thousand gold lires. Think of that!"
"They are worth it," said Zorzi quietly.
"You should know best," answered the other. "There is no such glass as my father's for lightness and strength. If he had a dozen workmen like you, my brother and I should be ruined in trying to compete with him. I watched you very closely the other day, and I watched the others, too. By the bye, my friend, was that really an accident, or does the man owe you some grudge? I never saw such a thing happen before!"
"It was an accident, of course," replied Zorzi without hesitation.
"If you knew that the man had injured you intentionally, you should have justice at once," said Giovanni. "As it is, I have no doubt that my father will turn him out without mercy."
"I hope not." Zorzi would say nothing more.
Giovanni rose to go away. He stood still a moment in thought, and then smiled suddenly as if recollecting himself.
"The imagination is an extraordinary thing!" he said, going back to the past conversation. "At this very moment I was thinking again that I was actually paying out the money—six thousand lires in gold! I must be mad!"
"No," said Zorzi. "I think not."
Giovanni turned away, shaking his head and still smiling. To tell the truth, though he knew Zorzi's character, he had not believed that any one could refuse such a bribe, and he was trying to account for the Dalmatian's integrity by reckoning up the expectations the young man must have, to set against such a large sum of ready money. He could only find one solution to the problem: Zorzi was already in full possession of the secrets, and would therefore not sell them at any price, because he hoped before long to set up for himself and make his own fortune by them. If this were true, and he could not see how it could be otherwise, he and his brother would be cheated of their heritage when their father died.
It was clear that something must be done to hinder Zorzi from carrying out his scheme. After all, Zorzi's own jesting proposal, that a ruffian should be employed to cut his throat, was not to be rejected. It was a simple plan, direct and conclusive. It might not be possible to find the manuscript after all, but the only man who knew its contents would be removed, and Beroviero's sons would inherit what should come to them by right. Against this project there was the danger that the murderer might some day betray the truth, under torture, or might come back again and again, and demand more money; but the killing of a man who was not even a Venetian, who was an interloper, who could be proved to have abused his master's confidence, when he should be no longer alive to defend himself, did not strike Giovanni as a very serious matter, and as for any one ever forcing him to pay money which he did not wish to pay, he knew that to be a feat beyond the ability of an ordinary person.
One other course suggested itself at once. He could forestall Zorzi by writing to his father and telling him what he sincerely believed to be the truth. He knew the old man well, and was sure that if once persuaded that Zorzi had betrayed him by using the manuscript, he would be merciless. The difficulty would lie in making Beroviero believe anything against his favourite. Yet in Giovanni's estimation the proofs were overwhelming. Besides, he had another weapon with which to rouse his father's anger against the Dalmatian. Since Marietta had defied him and had gone to see Zorzi in the laboratory, he had not found what he considered a convenient opportunity of speaking to her on the subject; that is to say, he had lacked the moral courage to do so at all. But it would need no courage to complain of her conduct to their father, and though Beroviero's anger might fall chiefly upon Marietta, a portion of it would take effect against Zorzi. It would be one more force acting in the direction of his ruin.
Giovanni went away to his own glass-house, meditating all manner of evil to his enemy, and as he reckoned up the chances of success, he began to wonder how he could have been so weak as to offer Zorzi an enormous bribe, instead of proceeding at once to his destruction.
Unconscious of his growing danger, Zorzi fed the fire of the furnace, and then sat down at the table before the window, laid his crutches beside him, and began to write out the details of his own experiments, as the master had done for years. He wrote the rather elaborate characters of the fifteenth century in a small but clear hand, very unlike old Beroviero's. The window was open, and the light breeze blew in, fanning his heated forehead; for the weather was growing hotter and hotter, and the order had been given to let the main furnaces cool after the following Saturday, as the workmen could not bear the heat many days longer. After that, they would set to work in a shed at the back of the glass-house to knead the clay for making new crucibles, and the night boys would enjoy their annual holiday, which consisted in helping the workmen by treading the stiff clay in water for several hours every day.
A man's shadow darkened the window while Zorzi was writing, and he looked up. Pasquale was standing outside.
"There is a pestering fellow at the door," he said, "who will not be satisfied till he has spoken with you. He says he has a message for you from some one in Venice, which he must deliver himself."
"For me?" Zorzi rose in surprise.
Zorzi swung himself along the dark corridor on his crutches after Pasquale, who opened the outer door with his usual deliberation. A little man stood outside in grey hose and a servant's dark coat, gathered in at the waist by a leathern belt. He was clean shaven and his hair was cropped close to his head, which was bare, for he held his black hat in his hand. Zorzi did not like his face. He waited for Zorzi to speak first.
"Have you a message for me?" asked the Dalmatian. "I am Zorzi."
"That is the name, sir," answered the man respectfully. "My master begs the honour and pleasure of your company this evening, as usual."
"Where?" asked Zorzi.
"My master said that you would know the place, sir, having been there before."
"What is your master's name?"
"The Angel," answered the man promptly, keeping his eyes on Zorzi's face.
The latter nodded, and the servant at once made an awkward obeisance preparatory to going away.
"Tell your master," said Zorzi, "that I have hurt my foot and am walking on crutches, so that I cannot come this evening, but that I thank him for his invitation, and send greeting to him and to the other guests."
The man repeated some of the words in a tone hardly audible, evidently committing the message to memory.
"Signor Zorzi—hurt his foot—crutches—thanks—greeting," he mumbled. "Yes, sir," he added in his ordinary voice, "I will say all that. Your servant, sir."
With another awkward bow, he turned away to the right and walked very quickly along the footway. He had left his boat at the entrance to the canal, not knowing exactly where the glass-house was. Zorzi looked after him a moment, then turned himself on his sound foot and set his crutches before him to go in. Pasquale was there, and must have heard what had passed. He shut the door and followed Zorzi back a little way.
"It is no concern of mine," he said roughly. "You may amuse yourself as you please, for you are young, and your host may be the Archangel Michael himself, or the holy Saint Mark, and the house to which you are bidden may be a paradise full of other angels! But I would as soon sit down before the grating and look at the hooded brother, while the executioner slipped the noose over my head to strangle me, as to go to any place on a bidding delivered by a fellow with such a jail-bird's head. It is as round as a bullet and as yellow as cheese. He has eyes like a turtle's and teeth like those of a young shark."
"I am quite of your opinion," said Zorzi, halting at the entrance to the garden.
"Then why did you not kick him into the canal?" inquired the porter, with admirable logic.
"Do I look as if I could kick anything?" asked Zorzi, laughing and glancing at his lame foot.
"And where should I have been?" inquired Pasquale indignantly. "Asleep, perhaps? If you had said 'kick,' I would have kicked. Perhaps I am a statue!"
Zorzi pointed out that it was not usual to answer invitations in that way, even when declining them.
"And who knows what sort of invitation it was?" retorted the old porter discontentedly. "Since when have you friends in Venice who bid you come to their houses at night, like a thief? Honest men, who are friends, say 'Come and eat with me at noon, for to-day we have this, or this'—say, a roast sucking pig, or tripe with garlic. And perhaps you go; and when you have eaten and drunk and it is the cool of the afternoon, you come home. That is what Christians do. Who are they that meet at night? They are thieves, or conspirators, or dice-players, or all three."
Pasquale happened to have been right in two guesses out of three, and Zorzi thought it better to say nothing. There was no fear that the surly old man would tell any one of the message; he had proved himself too good a friend to Zorzi to do anything which could possibly bring him into trouble, and Zorzi was willing to let him think what he pleased, rather than run the smallest risk of betraying the society of which he had been obliged to become a member. But he was curious to know why Contarini kept such a singularly unprepossessing servant, and why, if he chose to keep him, he made use of him to deliver invitations. The fellow had the look of a born criminal; he was just such a man as Zorzi had thought of when he had jestingly proposed to Giovanni to hire a murderer. Indeed, the more Zorzi thought of his face, the more he was inclined to doubt that the man came from Contarini at all.
But in this he was mistaken. The message was genuine, and moreover, so far as Contarini and the society were concerned, the man was perfectly trustworthy. Possibly there were reasons why Contarini chose to employ him, and also why the servant was so consistently faithful to his master. After all, Zorzi reflected, he was certainly ignorant of the fact that the noble young idlers who met at the house of the Agnus Dei were playing at conspiracy and revolution.
But that night, when Contarini's friends were assembled and had counted their members, some one asked what had become of the Murano glass-blower, and whether he was not going to attend their meetings in future; and Contarini answered that Zorzi had hurt his foot and was on crutches, and sent a greeting to the guests. Most of them were glad that he was not there, for he was not of their own order, and his presence caused a certain restraint in their talk. Besides, he was poor, and did not play at dice.
"He works with Angelo Beroviero, does he not?" asked Zuan Venier in a tone of weary indifference.
"Yes," answered Contarini with a laugh. "He is in the service of my future father-in-law."
"To whom may heaven accord a speedy, painless and Christian death!" laughed Foscari in his black beard.
"Not till I am one of his heirs, if you please," returned Contarini. "As soon after the wedding day as you like, for besides her rich dowry, the lady is to have a share of his inheritance."
"Is she very ugly?" asked Loredan. "Poor Jacopo! You have the sympathy of the brethren."
"How does he know?" sneered Mocenigo. "He has never seen her. Besides, why should he care, since she is rich?"
"You are mistaken, for I have seen her," said Contarini, looking down the table. "She is not at all ill-looking, I assure you. The old man was so much afraid that I would not agree to the match that he took her to church so that I might look at her."
"And you did?" asked Mocenigo. "I should never have had the courage. She might have been hideous, and in that case I should have preferred not to find it out till I was married."
"I looked at her with some interest," said Contarini, smiling in a self-satisfied way. "I am bound to say, with all modesty, that she also looked at me," he added, passing his white hand over his thick hair.
"Of course," put in Foscari gravely. "Any woman would, I should think."
"I suppose so," answered Contarini complacently. "It is not my fault if they do."
"Nor your misfortune," added Fosoari, with as much gravity as before.
Zuan Venier had not joined in the banter, which seemed to him to be of the most atrocious taste. He had liked Zorzi and had just made up his mind to go to Murano the next day and find him out.
On that evening there was not so much as a mention of what was supposed to bring them together. Before they had talked a quarter of an hour, some one began to throw dice on the table, playing with his right hand against his left, and in a few moments the real play had begun.
High up in Arisa's room the Georgian woman and Aristarchi heard all that was said, crouching together upon the floor beside the opening the slave had discovered. When the voices were no longer heard except at rare intervals, in short exclamations of satisfaction or disappointment, and only the regular rattling and falling of the dice broke the silence, the pair drew back from the praying-stool.
"They will say nothing more to-night," whispered Arisa. "They will play for hours."
"They had not said a word that could put their necks in danger," answered Aristarchi discontentedly. "Who is this fellow from the glass-house, of whom they were speaking?"
Arisa led him away to a small divan between the open windows. She sat down against the cushions at the back, but he stretched his bulk upon the floor, resting his head against her knee. She softly rubbed his rough hair with the palm of her hand, as she might have caressed a cat, or a tame wild animal. It gave her a pleasant sensation that had a thrill of danger in it, for she always expected that he would turn and set his teeth into her fingers.
She told him the story of the last meeting, and how Zorzi had been made one of the society in order that they might not feel obliged to kill him for their own safety.
"What fools they are!" exclaimed Aristarchi with a low laugh, and turning his head under her hand.
"You would have killed him, of course," said Arisa, "if you had been in their place. I suppose you have killed many people," she added thoughtfully.
"No," he answered, for though he loved her savagely, he did not trust her. "I never killed any one except in fair fight."
Arisa laughed low, for she remembered.
"When I first saw you," she said, "your hands were covered with blood. I think the reason why I liked you was that you seemed so much more terrible than all the others who looked in at my cabin door."
"I am as mild as milk and almonds," said Aristarchi. "I am as timid as a rabbit."
His deep voice was like the purring of a huge cat. Arisa looked down at his head. Then her hands suddenly clasped his throat and she tried to make her fingers meet round it as if she would have strangled him, but it was too big for them. He drew in his chin a little, the iron muscles stiffened themselves, the cords stood out, and though she pressed with all her might she could not hurt him, even a little; but she loved to try.
"I am sure I could strangle Contarini," she said quietly. "He has a throat like a woman's."
"What a murderous creature you are!" purred the Greek, against hex knee. "You are always talking of killing."
"I should like to see you fighting for your life," she answered, "or for me."
"It is the same thing," he said.
"I should like to see it. It would be a splendid sight."
"What if I got the worst of it?" asked Aristarchi, his vast mouth grinning at the idea.
"You?" Arisa laughed contemptuously. "The man is not born who could kill you. I am sure of it."
"One very nearly succeeded, once upon a time," said Aristarchi.
"One man? I do not believe it!"
"He chanced to be an executioner," answered the Greek calmly, "and I had my hands tied behind me."
"Tell me about it."
Arisa bent down eagerly, for she loved to hear of his adventures, though he had his own way of narrating them which always made him out innocent of any evil intention.
"There is nothing to tell. It was in Naples. A woman betrayed me and they bound me in my sleep. In the morning I was condemned to death, thrown into a cart and dragged off to be hanged. I thought it was all over, for the cords were new, so that I could not break them. I tried hard enough! But even if I had broken loose, I could never have fought my way through the crowd alone. The noose was around my neck."
He stopped, as if he had told everything.
"Go on!" said Arisa. "How did you escape? What an adventure!"
"One of my men saved me. He had a little learning, and could pass for a monk when he could get a cowl. He went out before it was daylight that morning, and exchanged clothes with a burly friar whom he met in a quiet place."
"But how did the friar agree to that?" asked Arisa in surprise.
"He had nothing to say. He was dead," answered Aristarchi.
"Do you mean to say that he chanced to find a dead friar lying in the road?" asked the Georgian.
"How should I know? I daresay the monk was alive when he met my man, and happened to die a few minutes afterwards—by mere chance. It was very fortunate, was it not?"
"Yes!" Arisa laughed softly. "But what did he do? Why did he take the trouble to dress the monk in his clothes?"
"In order to receive his dying confession, of course. I thought you would understand! And his dying confession was that he, Michael Pandos, a Greek robber, had killed the man for whose murder I was being hanged that morning. My man came just in time, for as the friar's head was half shaved, as monks' heads are, he had to shave the rest, as they do for coolness in the south, and he had only his knife with which to do it. But no one found that out, for he had been a barber, as he had been a monk and most other things. He looked very well in a cowl, and spoke Neapolitan. I did not know him when he came to the foot of the gallows, howling out that I was innocent."