Chapter 17

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XVII

It was over at last, and Zorzi stood alone by the table, for Marietta would not let him go with her to the door. She could not trust herself before Pasquale, even in the gloom. He stood by the table, leaning on it heavily with one hand, and trying to realise all that had come into his lonely life within the half hour, and all that might happen to him before morning. The glorious and triumphant certainty which first love brings to every man when it is first returned, still swelled his heart and filled the air he breathed, so that while breathing deep, he could not breathe enough. In such a mood all dangers dwindled, all obstacles sank out of sight as shadows sink at dawn. And yet the parting had hurt him, as if his body had been wrenched in the middle by some resistless force.

Women feel parting differently. Shall we men ever understand them? To a man, first love is a victory, to a girl it is a sweet wonder, and a joy, and a tender longing, all in one. And when partings come, as come they must in life until death brings the last, it is always the man who leaves, and the woman who is left, even though in plain fact it be the man that stays behind; and we men feel a little contemptuous pity for one who seems to cry out after the woman he loves, asking why she has left him, and beseeching her to come back to him, but our compassion for the woman in like case is always sincere. In such small things there are the great mysteries of that prime difference, which neither man nor woman can ever fully understand, but which, if not understood a little, is the cause of much miserable misunderstanding in life.

Zorzi had to face the future at once, for it was upon him, and the old life was over, perhaps never to come again. He stood still, where he was, for any useless movement was an effort, and he tried to collect his thoughts and determine just what he should do, and how it was to be done. His eye fell on the piece of gold Giovanni had paid for the beaker. In the morning, if he drew the iron tray further down the annealing oven, the glass would be ready to be taken out, and Giovanni could take it if he pleased, for he knew whose it was. But starvation itself could not have induced Zorzi to take the money now. He turned from it with contempt. All he needed was enough to buy bread for a week, and mere bread cost little. That little he had, and it must suffice. Besides that he would make a bundle small enough to be easily carried. His chief difficulty would be in rowing the skiff. To use the single oar at all it was almost indispensable to stand, and to stand chiefly on the right foot, since the single rowlock, as in every Venetian boat, was on the starboard side and could not be shifted to port. He fancied that in some way he could manage to sit on the thwart, and use the oar as a paddle. In any case he must get away, since flight was the wisest course, and since he had promised Marietta that he would go. His reflections had occupied scarce half a minute.

He began to walk towards the small room where he slept, and where he kept his few possessions. He had taken two steps from the table, when he stopped short, turned round and listened.

He heard the sound of light footsteps, running along the path and coming nearer. In another moment Marietta was at the window, her face deadly white, her eyes wide with fear.

"They are there!" she cried wildly. "They have come to-night! Hide yourself quickly! Pasquale will keep them out as long as he can."

She had found Pasquale stoutly refusing to open the door. Outside stood a lieutenant of the archers with half-a-dozen men, demanding admittance in the name of the Governor. Pasquale answered that they might get in by force if they could, but that he had no orders to open the door to them. The lieutenant was in doubt whether his warrant authorised him to break in or not.

Zorzi knew that Marietta was in even more danger than he. The situation was desperate and the time short. She was still at the window, looking in.

"You know your way to the main furnace rooms," Zorzi said quickly, but with great coolness. "Run in there, and stand still in the dark till everything is quiet. Then slip out and get home as quickly as possible."

"But you? What will become of you?" asked Marietta in an agony of anxiety.

"If they do not take me at once, they will search all the buildings and will find you," answered Zorzi. "I will go and meet them, while you are hiding."

He opened the door beside the window and put his crutch forward upon the path. At the same moment the sound of a tremendous blow echoed down the dark corridor. The moon was low but had not set and there was still light in the garden.

"Quickly!" Zorzi exclaimed. "They are breaking down the door."

But Marietta clung to him almost savagely, when he tried to push her in the direction of the main furnace rooms on the other side of the garden.

"I will not leave you," she cried. "They shall take me with you, wherever you are going!"

She grasped his hand with both her hands, and then, as he moved, she slipped her arm round him. At the street door the pounding blows succeeded each other in quick succession, but apparently without effect.

Zorzi saw that he must make her understand her extreme danger. He took hold of her wrist with a quiet strength that recalled her to herself, and there was a tone of command in his voice when he spoke.

"Go at once," he said. "It will be worse for both of us if you are found here. They will hang me for stealing the master's daughter as well as his secrets. Go, dear love, go! Good-bye!"

He kissed her once, and then gently pushed her from him. She understood that she must obey, and that if he spoke of his own danger it was for the sake of her good name. With a gesture of despair she turned and left him, crossed the patch of light without looking back, and disappeared into the shadows beyond. She was safe now, for he would go and meet the archers, opening the door to give himself up. Using his crutch he swung himself along into the dark corridor without another moment's hesitation.

But matters did not turn out as he expected. When the force came down the footway from the dilution of San Piero, Giovanni was still talking to his wife about household economies and censuring what he called the reckless extravagance of his father's housekeeping. As he talked, he heard the even tread of a number of marching men. He sprang to his feet and went to the window, for he guessed who was coming, though he could not imagine why the Governor had not waited till the next day, as had been agreed. He could not know that on leaving him Jacopo Contarini had seen his father and had told him of Zorzi's misdeeds; and that the Governor had supped with old Contarini, who was an uncompromising champion of the law, besides being one of the Ten and therefore the Governor's superior in office; and that Contarini had advised that Zorzi should be taken on that same night, as he might be warned of his danger and find means to escape. Moreover, Contarini offered a trusty and swift oarsman to take the order to Murano, and the Governor wrote it on the supper table, between two draughts of Greek wine, which he drank from a goblet made by Angelo Beroviero himself in the days when he still worked at the art.

In half an hour the warrant was in the hands of the officer, who immediately called out half-a-dozen of his men and marched them down to the glass-house.

Giovanni saw them stop and knock at the door, and he heard Pasquale's gruff inquiry.

"In the Governor's name, open at once!" said the officer.

"Any one can say that," answered the porter. "In the devil's name go home and go to bed! Is this carnival time, to go masquerading by the light of the moon and waking up honest people?"

"Silence!" roared the lieutenant. "Open the door, or it will be the worse for you."

"It will be the worse for you, if the Signor Giovanni hears this disturbance," answered Pasquale, who could see Giovanni at the window opposite in the moonlight. "Either get orders from him, or go home and leave me in holy peace, you band of braying jackasses, you mob of blobber-lipped Barbary apes, you pack of doltish, droiling, doddered joltheads! Be off!"

This eloquence, combined with Pasquale's assured manner, caused the lieutenant to hesitate before breaking down the door, an operation for which he had not been prepared, and for which he had brought no engines of battery.

"Can you get in?" he inquired of his men, without deigning to answer the porter's invectives. "If not, let one of you go for a sledge hammer. Try it with the butts of your halberds against the lock, one, two, three and all at once."

"Oh, break down the door!" cried Pasquale derisively. "It is of oak and iron, and it cost good money, and you shall pay for it, you lubberly ours."

But the men pounded away with a good will.

"Open the door!" cried Giovanni from the opposite window, at the top of his lungs.

The sight of the destruction of property for which he might have to account to his father was very painful to him. But he could not make himself heard in the terrific din, or else Pasquale suspected the truth and pretended that he could not hear. The porter had seen Marietta a moment in the gloom, and he knew that she had gone back to warn Zorzi. He hoped to give them both time to hide themselves, and he now retired from the grating and began to strengthen the door, first by putting two more heavy oak bars in their places across it near the top and bottom, and further by bringing the scanty furniture from his lodge and piling it up against the panels.

Meanwhile the pounding continued at a great rate, and Giovanni thought it better to go down and interfere in person, since he could not make himself heard. The servants were all roused by this time, and many heads were looking out of upper windows, not only from Beroviero's house, but from the houses higher up, beyond the wooden bridge. Two men who were walking up the footway from the opposite direction stopped at a little distance and looked on, their hoods drawn over their eyes.

Giovanni came out hurriedly and crossed the bridge. He laid his hand on the lieutenant's shoulder anxiously and spoke close to his ear, for the pounding was deafening. The six men had strapped their halberds firmly together in a solid bundle with their belts, and standing three on each side they swung the whole mass of wood and iron like a battering ram, in regular time.

"Stop them, sir! Stop them, pray!" cried Giovanni. "I will have the door opened for you."

Suddenly there was silence as the officer caught one of his men by the arm and bade them all wait.

"Who are you, sir?" he inquired.

"I am Giovanni Beroviero," answered Giovanni, sure that his name would inspire respect.

The officer took off his cap politely and then replaced it. The two men who were looking on nudged each other.

"I have a warrant to arrest a certain Zorzi," began the lieutenant.

"I know! It is quite right, and he is within," answered Giovanni. "Pasquale!" he called, standing on tiptoe under the grating. "Pasquale! Open the door at once for these gentlemen."

"Gentlemen!" echoed one of the men softly, with a low laugh and digging his elbow into his companion's side.

No one else spoke for a moment. Then Pasquale looked through the grating.

"What did you say?" he asked.

"I said open the door at once!" answered Giovanni. "Can you not recognise the officers of the law when you see them?"

"No," grunted Pasquale, "I have never seen much of them. Did you say I was to open the door?"

"Yes!" cried Giovanni angrily, for he wished to show his zeal before the officer. "Blockhead!" he added with emphasis, as Pasquale disappeared again and was presumably out of hearing.

They all heard him dragging the furniture away again, the box-bed and the table and the old chair.

Zorzi came up as Pasquale was clearing the stuff away.

"They want you," said the old sailor, seeing him and hearing him at the same time. "What have you been doing now? Where is the young lady?"

"In the main furnace room," whispered Zorzi. "Do not let them go there whatever they do."

Pasquale gave vent to his feelings in a low voice, as he dragged the last things back and began to unbar the door. Zorzi leaned against the wall, for his lameness prevented him from helping. At last the door was opened, and he saw the figures of the men outside against the light. He went forward as quickly as he could, pushing past Pasquale to get out. He stood on the threshold, leaning on his crutch.

"I am Zorzi," he said quietly.

"Zorzi the Dalmatian, called the Ballarin?" asked the lieutenant.

"Yes, yes!" cried Giovanni, anxious to hasten matters, "They call him the dancer because he is lame. This is that foreign liar, that thief, that assassin! Take him quickly!"

The archers, who in the changes of time had become halberdiers, had dropped the bundle of spears they had made for a battering-ram. Two of them took Zorzi by the arms roughly, and prepared to drag him along with them. He made no resistance, but objected quietly.

"I can walk better, if you do not hold me," he said. "I cannot run away, as you see."

"Let him walk between you," ordered the officer. "Good night, sir," he said to Giovanni.

Two of the men lifted the bundle of halberds and began to carry it between them, trying to undo the straps as they walked, for they could not stay behind. Giovanni saluted the officer and stood aside for the party to pass. The two men who had looked on had separated, and one had already gone forward and disappeared beyond the bridge. The other lingered, apparently still interested in the proceedings. Pasquale, dumb with rage at last, stood in the doorway.

"Let me pass," said Giovanni, as soon as the archers had gone on a few steps, surrounding Zorzi.

With a growl, Pasquale came out and stood on the pavement a moment, and Giovanni went in. Instantly, the man who had lingered made a step towards the porter, whispered something in his ear, and then made off as fast as he could in the direction taken by the archers. Pasquale looked after him in surprise, only half understanding the meaning of what he had said. Then he went in, but left the door ajar. The people who had been looking out of the windows of Beroviero's house had disappeared, when they had seen that Giovanni was on the footway. All was silent now; only, far off, the tramp of the archers could still be heard.

They could not go very fast, with Zorzi in their midst, but the two men who were busy unfastening the bundle of halberds lagged in the rear, talking in a low voice. They did not notice quick footsteps behind them, but they heard a low whistle, answered instantly by another, just as the main party was nearing the corner by the church of San Piero. That was the last the two loiterers remembered, for at the next instant they lay in a heap upon the halberds, which had fallen upon the pavement with a tremendous clatter. A couple of well-delivered blows with a stout stick had thoroughly stunned them almost at the same instant. It would be some time before they recovered their senses.

While the man who had whispered to Pasquale was doing effectual work in the rear, his companion was boldly attacking the main party in front. As the lieutenant stopped short and turned his head when the halberds dropped, a blow under the jaw from a fist like a sledge hammer almost lifted him off his feet and sent him reeling till he fell senseless, half-a-dozen paces away. Before the two archers who were guarding Zorzi could defend themselves, unarmed as they were, another blow had felled one of them. The second, springing forward, was caught up like a child by his terrible assailant and whirled through the air, to fall with a noisy splash into the shallow waters of the canal. The other companion attacked the remaining two from behind with his club and knocked one of them down. The last sprang to one side and ran on a few steps as fast as he could. But swifter feet followed him, and in an instant iron fingers were clutching his throat and squeezing his breath out. He struggled a moment, and then sank down. His captor deliberately knocked him on the head with his fist, and he rolled over like a stone.

Utterly bewildered, Zorzi stood still, where he had stopped. Never in his life had he dreamed that two men could dispose of seven, in something like half a minute, with nothing but a stick for a weapon between them. But he had seen it with his eyes, and he was not surprised when he felt himself lifted from his feet, with his crutch beside him, and carried along the footway at a sharp run, in the direction of the glass-house. His reason told him that he had been rescued and was being quickly conveyed to a place of safety, but he could not help distrusting the means that accomplished the end, for he had unconsciously watched the two men in what could hardly be called a fight, though he could not see their faces, and a more murderous pair of ruffians he had never seen. Men not well used to such deeds could not have done them at all, thought Zorzi, as he was borne along, his breath almost shaken out of him by the strong man's movements.

All was quiet, as they passed the glass-house, and no one was looking out, for Giovanni's wife feared him far too much to seem to be spying upon his doings, and the servants were discreet. Only Nella, hiding behind the flowers in Marietta's window, and supposing that Marietta was with her sister-in-law, was watching the door of the glass-house to see when Giovanni would come out. She now heard the steps of the two men, running down the footway. The rescue had taken place too far away for her to hear anything but a splash in the canal. She saw that one of the men was carrying what seemed to be the body of a man. She instinctively crossed herself, as they ran on towards the end of the canal, and when she could see them no longer in the shadow, she drew back into the room, momentarily forgetting Giovanni, and already running over in her head the wonderful conversation she was going to have with her mistress as soon as the young girl came back to her room.

Pasquale, meanwhile, withdrew his feet from the old leathern slippers he wore, and noiselessly stole down the corridor and along the garden path, to find out what Giovanni was doing. When he came to the laboratory, he saw that the window was now shut, as well as the door, and that Giovanni had set the lamp on the floor behind the further end of the annealing oven. Its bright light shot upwards to the dark ceiling, leaving the front of the laboratory almost in the dark. Pasquale listened and he heard the sharp tapping of a hammer on stone. He understood at once that Giovanni had shut himself in to search for something, and would therefore be busy some time.

Without noise he crossed the garden to the entrance of the main furnace room and went into the passage.

"Come out quickly!" he whispered, as his seaman's eyes made out Marietta's figure in a gloom that would have been total darkness to a landsman; and he took hold of the girl's arm to lead her away.

"Your brother is in the laboratory, and will not come out," he whispered. "By this time Zorzi may be safe."

"Safe!" She spoke the word aloud, in her relief.

"Hush, for heaven's sake. The door is open. You can get home now without being seen. Make no noise."

She followed him quickly. They had to cross the patch of dim light in the garden, and she glanced at the closed window of the laboratory. It had all happened as Zorzi had foreseen, and Giovanni was already searching for the manuscript. The only thing she could not understand was that Zorzi should have escaped the archers. Even as she crossed the garden, the two man were passing the door, bearing Zorzi he knew not where, but away from the nearest danger. A moment later she was on the footway, hurrying towards the bridge. Pasquale stood watching her, to be sure that she was safe, and he glanced up at the windows, too, fearing lest some one might still be looking out.

But chance had saved Marietta this time. She carefully barred the side door after she had gone in, and groped her way up the dark stairs. On the landing there was light from below, and she paused for breath, her bosom heaving as she leaned a moment on the balustrade. She passed one hand over her brows, as if to bring herself back to present consciousness, and then went quickly on.

"Safe," she repeated under her breath as she went, "safe, safe, safe!"

It was to give herself courage, for she could hardly believe it, though she knew that Pasquale would not deceive her and must have some strong good reason for what he said. There had not been time to question him.

All he knew himself was that a man whose face he could not see had whispered to him that Zorzi was in no danger. But he had recognised the other man who had gone up the footway first, in spite of his short cloak and hood, and he felt well assured that Charalambos Aristarchi could throw the officer and his six men into the canal without anybody's help, if he chose, though why the Greek ruffian was suddenly inspired to interfere on Zorzi's behalf was a mystery past his comprehension.

Marietta entered her room, and Nella, who had been revelling in the coming conversation, was suddenly very busy, stirring the drink of lime flowers which Marietta had ordered. She was so sure that her mistress had been all the time in the house, and so anxious not to have it thought that she could possibly have been idle, even for a moment, that she looked intently into the cup and stirred the contents in a most conscientious manner. Marietta turned from her almost immediately and began to undo the braids of hair, that Nella might comb it out and plait it again for the night. Nella immediately began to talk, and to tell all that she had seen from the window, with many other things which she had not seen.

"But of course you were looking out, too," she said presently. "They were all at the windows for some time."

"No," Marietta answered. "I was not looking out."

"Well, it was to-night, and not to-morrow, you see. Do you think the Governor is stupid? If he had waited till to-morrow, we should have told Zorzi. Poor Zorzi! I saw them taking him away, loaded with chains."

"In chains!" cried Marietta, starting painfully.

"I could not see the chains," continued Nella apologetically, "but I am sure they were there. It was too dark to see. Poor Zorzi! Poor Zorzi! By this time he is in the prison under the Governor's house, and he wishes that he had never been born. A little straw, a little water! That is all he has."

Marietta moved in her chair, as if something hurt her, but she knew that it would be unwise to stop the woman's talk. Besides, Nella was evidently sorry for Zorzi, though she thought his arrest very interesting. She went on for a long time, combing more and more slowly, after the manner of talkative maids, when they fear that their work may be finished before their story. But for Pasquale's reassuring words, Marietta felt that she must have gone mad. Zorzi was safe, somewhere, and he was not in the Governor's prison, on the straw. She told herself so again and again as Nella went on.

"There is one thing I did not tell you," said the latter, with a sudden increase of vigour at the thought.

"I think you have told me enough, Nella," said Marietta wearily. "I am very tired."

"You cannot go to bed till I have plaited your hair," answered Nella mercilessly, but at the same time laying down the comb. "Just before you came in, I was looking out of the window. It was just an accident, for I was very busy with your things, of course. Well, as I was saying, in passing I happened to glance out of the window, and I saw--guess what I saw, my pretty lady!"

Marietta trembled, thinking that Nella had seen her, and perhaps recognised her, and was about to bring her garrulous tale to a dramatic climax by telling her so.

"Perhaps you saw a woman," she suggested desperately.

"A woman indeed!" cried Nella. "That must be a nice woman who would be seen in the street at such a time of night, and the Governor's archers there, too! Woman? I would not look at such a woman, I tell you! No. What I saw was this, since you cannot guess. There came two big men, running fast, and they were carrying a dead body between them! Eh! They were at no good, I tell you. One could see that."

Marietta could bear no more, now. She bent her head and bit her finger to keep herself from crying out.

"If you will not be still, how in the world am I to plait your hair?" asked Nella querulously.

"Do it quickly, please," Marietta succeeded in saying. "I am so very tired to-night."

Her head bent still further forward.

"Indeed," said Nella, much annoyed that her tale should not have been received with more interest, "you seem to be half asleep already."

But Nella was much too truly attached to her mistress not to feel some anxiety when she saw her white face and noticed how uncertainly she walked. Nella had her in bed at last, however, and gave her more of the soothing drink, smoothed the cool pillow under her head, looked round the room to see that all was in order before going away, then took the lamp and at last went out.

"Good night, my pretty lady," said Nella cheerfully from the door, "good rest and pleasant dreams!"

She was gone at last, and she would not come back before morning.

Marietta sat up in bed in the dark and pressed her hands to her temples in utter despair.

"I shall go mad! I shall go mad!" she whispered to herself.

She remembered that she had left her light silk mantle in the laboratory, on the great chair. _

Read next: Chapter 18

Read previous: Chapter 16

Table of content of Marietta: A Maid of Venice


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book