'Yes!' roared the Tartar. 'Ten thousand ducats! And if I do not find the money in the house, you two must find it in yours! Do you understand?'
'Yes!' roared the Tartar. 'Ten thousand ducats! And if I do not find the money in the house, you two must find it in yours! Do you understand?'
They understood, for his voice was like thunder, and he had risen too, and towered above them with his full glass in one hand and Omobono's keys in the other. Then, being already tolerably drunk, he solemnly raised the keys to his lips, thinking that he held the glass in that hand, and rolled his eyes terribly at the two merchants; and he set the glass down with an emphatic gesture, as if it had been the bunch of keys, and it broke to pieces, and the yellow wine splashed out across the table and ran down and streamed upon the mosaic floor.
A terrific Tartar oath announced that he had realised his mistake, and as he at once made up his mind that the Venetians were responsible for it, his next action was to hurl the foot of the broken glass at Polo's head; and he instantly seized the empty silver flagon and flung it at Cornèr's face. The lighter weapon missed its aim and broke to atoms against the opposite wall, but the jug struck Cornèr full on the bridge of his thin nose with awful effect, and he fell to the floor and lay there, a moaning, bleeding heap.
Polo looked neither at his wife nor at his daughter, but fled through the open door at the top of his not very great speed. His wife fainted outright, and in real earnest now, and with a final croak rolled gently from her chair, without hurting herself at all. Omobono flattened his lean body against the wall, trembling in every joint, and gibbering with fear; and Tocktamish, seeing that he had so satisfactorily cleared the field, proceeded to address his attentions to Giustina, who hadnot fainted, but was really much too frightened to rise from her seat or try to escape.
The Tartar drew his chair nearer to hers, and suddenly smiled, as if he had done nothing unusual, and was only anxious to make himself agreeable. He had been drinking since early morning, but he would be good for at least another gallon of wine before it made him senseless. He addressed Giustina in the poetic language of his native country.
'Come, pet parrot of my soul!' he began, coaxingly. 'Fill me a cup and let me hear your ravishing voice! Tocktamish has cleared the house as the thunderstorm clears the hot air from the valley! Drink, my pretty nightingale, and the golden wine shall warm your speech in your little throat, as the morning sunshine melts the icicles in my beard when I have been hunting all night in winter! Drink, my fawn, my spring lamb, my soft wood-pigeon, my white bunny rabbit! Drink, sweet one!'
The Tartar's similes were in hopeless confusion, possibly because he translated them into Greek, but he was convinced that he was eloquent, and he was undeniably as strong as a bear. He had filled a fresh glass and was evidently anxious to make Giustina drink out of it before him, for he held it to her lips with his left hand while his right tried to take her round the waist and draw her to his knee.
But this was much more than she was prepared to submit to. In the fairy story, Beast was less enterprising in the presence of Beauty, and collapsed intoobedience at the mere lifting of her finger. Giustina was a big creature, usually sleepy and not inclined to move quickly; but she was capable of exerting considerable strength in an emergency. The instant she felt Tocktamish's hand at her waist, she rose with a quick, serpentine motion that unwound her, as it were, from his encircling hold, and almost before he knew that she was on her feet she had fled from the room and slammed the door behind her.
Tocktamish tried to follow her, but he stumbled successively over the still unconscious dame and the still moaning Cornèr, so that when he reached the door at last his purpose had undergone a change, and, as he thought, an improvement. Women never ran out of the house into the street, he argued; therefore Giustina was now upstairs and would stay there; hence it would be wiser to finish the peacock and anything else he could lay hands on before going to pay her a visit. For Tocktamish found the food and the wine to his liking, and such as were not to be had every day, even by a Tartar officer with plenty of money in his wallet. He was tolerably steady still, as he made his way back towards his seat.
His eye fell on Omobono, flattened against the wall and still in a palsy of fear; for all that has been told since Cornèr had fallen and Polo had run away had occupied barely two minutes.
Tocktamish suddenly felt lonely, and the little secretary amused him. He took him by the collar and whirled him into Giustina's vacant chair at the table.
'You may keep me company, while I finish my dinner,' he explained. 'I cannot eat alone—it disturbs my digestion.'
He roared with laughter, and slapped Omobono on the back playfully. The little man felt as if he had been struck between the shoulders by a large ham, and the breath was almost knocked out of his body; and he wondered how in the world his tight hose had survived the strain of his sitting down so suddenly.
'You look starved,' observed the Tartar, in a tone of concern, after observing his face attentively. 'What you want is food and drink, man!'
With a sudden impulse of hospitality he began to heap up food on Giustina's unused plate, with a fine indifference to gastronomy, or possibly with a tipsy sense of humour. He piled up bits of roast peacock, little salt fish, olives, salad, raisins, dried figs, candied strawberries, and honey cake, till he could put no more on the plate, which he then set before Omobono.
'Eat that,' he said. 'It will do you good.'
Then he addressed himself to the peacock again, with a good will.
Omobono would have got up and slipped away, if he had dared. Next to his bodily fear, he was oppressed by the terrible impropriety of sitting at his master's table, where the guests should have been. This seemed to him a dreadful thing.
'Really, sir,' he began, 'if you will allow me I would rather——'
'Do not talk. Eat!'
Tocktamish set the example by tearing the meat off a peacock's leg with his teeth.
'You need it,' he added, with his mouth very full.
The poor secretary looked at the curiously mixed mess which his tormentor had set before him, and he felt very uncomfortable at the mere idea of tasting the stuff. Then he glanced at the Tartar and saw the latter's bloodshot eye rolling at him hideously, while the shark-like teeth picked a leg bone, and terror chilled his heart again. What would happen if he refused to eat? Tocktamish dropped the bone and filled two glasses.
'To Messer Carlo Zeno!' he cried, setting the wine to his lips.
Omobono thought a little wine might steady his nerves; and, moreover, he could not well refuse to drink his master's health.
'Good!' laughed Tocktamish. 'If you cannot eat, you can drink!'
Just then Cornèr groaned piteously, where he lay in a heap on the floor. His nose was much hurt, but he was even more badly frightened. The Tartar was not pleased.
'If that man is dead, take him out and bury him!' he cried, turning on Omobono. 'If he is alive, kick him and tell him to hold his tongue! He disturbs us at our dinner.'
Omobono thought he saw a chance of escaping, and rose, as if to obey. But the Tartar's long arm reached him instantly and he was forced back into his seat.
'I thought you meant me to take him away,' he feebly explained.
'I was speaking to the slaves,' said Tocktamish gravely, though there was no servant or slave within hearing.
The unfortunate merchant, who was not at all unconscious, and had probably groaned with a vague idea of exciting compassion, now held his peace, for he did not desire to be kicked, still less to be taken out and buried. The Tartar seemed satisfied by the silence that followed. After another glass he rose to his feet and took Omobono by the arm; considering his potations he was still wonderfully steady on his legs.
'Where is the strong box?' he asked, dragging the secretary towards the door opposite to the one through which Giustina had gone out.
'There is no money in the house,' cried Omobono, in renewed terror. 'I swear to you that there is no money!'
'Very well,' answered the Tartar, who had taken the keys from the table. 'Show me the empty box.'
'There is no strong box, sir,' answered the secretary, resolving to control his fear and die in defending his master's property.
The difficulty was to carry out this noble resolution. Tocktamish grabbed him by both arms and held him in the vice of his grasp.
'Little man,' he said gravely. 'There is a box, and I will find the box, and I will put you into the box, and I will throw the box into the water. Then you will know that it is not good to lie to Tocktamish. Now show me where it is.'
Omobono shrank to something like half his natural size in his shame and fear, and led the way to the counting-house. Once only he stopped, and made a gallant attempt to be brave, and tried to repeat his queer little prayer, as he did on all the great occasions of his life.
'O Lord, grant wealth and honour to the Most Serene Republic,' he began, and though he realised that in his present situation this request was not much to the point, he would have gone on to ask for victory over the Genoese, on general principles.
But at that moment he felt something as sharp as a pin sticking into him just where his hose would naturally have been most tight, and where, in fact, the strain that pulled them up was most severe; in that part of the human body, in short, which, as most of us have known since childhood is peculiarly sensitive to pain. There was no answer to such an argumenta posteriori; the little man's head went down, his shoulders went up, and he trotted on; and though he could not be put off from finishing his prayer he had reached the door of the counting-house when he was only just beginning to pray that he might have strength to resist curiosity, a request even more out of place, just then, than a petition for the destruction of the Genoese. A moment later he and Tocktamish entered the room, and the Tartar shut the door behind him.
Neither of the two had heard two little bare feet following them softly at a distance; but when the door was shut Lucilla ran nimbly up to it and quickly drew the great old iron bolt which had been left where it hadonce been useful, at a time when the disposition of the house had been different. Lucilla knew that all the windows within had heavy gratings, and that neither Omobono nor his captor could get out.
Giustina had fled upstairs, as women generally do to save themselves from any immediate danger. They are born with the idea that when a house has more than one story the upper one is set apart for them and their children, as indeed it always was in the Middle Ages, and they feel sure that there must be other women there who will help them, or defend them, or hide them. For it is a curious fact that whereas women distrust each other profoundly where the one man of their affections is concerned, they rely on each other as a whole body, banded together to resist and get the better of the male sex, in a way that would do credit to any army in an enemy's country. Therefore Giustina went upstairs, quite certain of finding other women.
Now there was but one door on the upper landing, and that was Zoë's, and it was open; and just outside it Lucilla was hiding in the curtain, listening to the strange sounds that came up from below; but when Giustina ran in without seeing her, the little slave stayed outside and slipped downstairs noiselessly, listened again at the dining-room door, watched the Tartar and the secretary from a place of safety, and then ran nimbly after them on purpose to lock them in, as she did, for she was a clever little slave and remembered the bolt.
Meanwhile Giustina rushed on like a whirlwind till she fell panting on the divan beside Zoë, hardly seeingher at all, and staring at the door, through which she expected every moment to see the burly Tartar enter in pursuit; so that Yulia, who guessed the danger, ran and shut it of her own accord.
Then Giustina drew a long breath and looked round, and she met Zoë's eyes scrutinising her face with a look she never forgot.
'That monster!' she exclaimed, by way of explanation and apology.
Zoë had heard nothing, for the house was solidly built, and she had not the least idea who had frightened Giustina. It occurred to her that Gorlias might be in the house, and that on being seen by the Venetians it had suited him to terrify them in order to get out again without being questioned.
'You are Giustina Polo,' she said. 'I am Arethusa, Messer Carlo Zeno's slave. Will you tell me what has happened?'
Giustina had now recovered herself enough to see that this Arethusa was very lovely, and she momentarily forgot the danger she had escaped.
'You are his slave!' she repeated slowly, and still breathing hard. 'Ah—I begin to understand.'
'So do I,' Zoë answered, looking at the handsome, heavy face, the dyed hair, and marble hands.
There was something like relief in her tone, now that she had examined her rival well.
'When did Carlo buy you?' asked Giustina, growing coldly insolent as she recovered her breath and realised her social superiority.
'I think it was just five weeks ago,' Zoë answered simply. 'But it seems as if I had always been here.'
'I have no doubt,' said Giustina. 'Five weeks! Yes, I understand now.'
Then a fancied sound waked her fear of pursuit again, and her eyes turned quickly towards the door. Yulia was standing beside it, listening with her ear to the crack; she shook her head as she met Giustina's anxious glance. There was nothing; no one was coming.
'You had better tell me what has happened,' Zoë said. 'You met some one who frightened you,' she suggested.
Giustina saw that Zoë was in complete ignorance of the Tartar's visit, and she told what she had seen and heard downstairs. As she went on, explaining that Tocktamish demanded ten thousand ducats in Zeno's name, Zoë's expression grew more anxious, for she gathered the truth from the broken and exaggerated narrative. After failing in his attempt to free Johannes, Zeno had fallen into the hands of the soldiers he had won over to the revolution; they demanded an enormous ransom, and if it was not forthcoming they would give him up to Andronicus.
It was bad enough, yet it was better than it might have been, for it meant that Zeno was still alive and safe, and would not be hurt so long as his captors could be made to wait for the money they asked.
'Ten thousand ducats!' Zoë repeated. 'It is more than can ever be got together!'
'My father could pay twice as much if he pleased,'answered the rich merchant's daughter, vain of his immense wealth. 'But I hardly think he will give anything,' she added slowly, while she watched Zoë's face to see what effect the statement might have.
'Messer Carlo has many friends,' Zoë answered quietly. 'But if he is alive it is very probable that he may come home without paying any ransom at all. And if he does, he will certainly repay the soldiers for the trick they have played him.'
'You do not seem anxious about him,' said Giustina, deceived and surprised by her assumed calmness.
'Are you?' Zoë asked.
At that moment Yulia opened the door, for she had been listening from within and had heard her companion's bare feet on the pavement outside. Lucilla slipped in, almost dancing with delight at her last feat, and looking like a queer little sprite escaped from a fairy tale.
'I have locked them up in the counting-house, Kokóna!' she cried. 'The Tartar giant and the secretary! They are quite safe!'
She laughed gleefully and Yulia laughed too. Giustina suddenly recollected her mother, who had fainted in the dining-room. As for her father, her knowledge of his character told her that since there had been danger he was certainly in a place of safety. She did not care what became of Marin Cornèr, whom she detested because he had once dared to ask for her hand, though he was a widower of fifty. But her mother was entitled to some consideration after all, if only for having broughtinto the world such a wonderful creature as Giustina really believed herself to be. Yet in her heart the young woman felt a secret resentment against her for having grown so enormously fat; since it very often happens that as daughters grow older they grow more and more like their mothers, and Giustina was aware that she herself was already rather heavy for her age. It would be a terrible thing to be a fat woman at thirty, and it would be her mother's fault if she were. Many daughters are familiar with this argument, though they may cry out and rail at the story-teller in the bazaar who has betrayed it to the young men.
Giustina rose with much dignity now that she was fully reassured as to the safety of the house. Zoë was questioning Lucilla, who could hardly answer without breaking into laughter at the idea of having imprisoned Omobono and the terrible Tartar. The little secretary had never been unkind to any one in his life, but once or twice, when the master had been out and he had been on his dignity, he had found the slave-girls loitering on the stairs and had threatened them with the master's displeasure and with a consequent condign punishment if they were ever again caught doing nothing outside their mistress's apartment; and it was therefore delightful to know that he was shut up with Tocktamish, in terror of his life, and that his tremendous dignity was all gone to pieces in his fright.
'You are a clever girl,' said Zoë. 'I only hope the door is strong.'
'I called the servants and the slaves before I cameupstairs,' Lucilla answered. 'I left them piling up furniture against the door. A giant could not get out now.'
'Poor Omobono!' Zoë exclaimed. 'How frightened he must be.'
Giustina meanwhile prepared to go away, settling and smoothing the folds of her gown, and pressing her hair on one side and the other. Yulia brought her a mirror and held it up, and watched the young lady's complacent smile as she looked at her own reflection. When she had finished she barely nodded to Zoë, as she might have done to a slave who had served her, and she went out in an exceedingly stately and leisurely manner, quite sure that she had impressed Zoë with her immeasurable superiority. She was much surprised and displeased because Zoë did not rise and remain respectfully standing while she went out, and she promised herself to remember this also against the beautiful favourite when she herself should be Carlo Zeno's wife.
But at a sign from Zoë, Lucilla followed her downstairs since there was no one else to escort her; and a few minutes later Yulia saw the little party come out upon the landing below. The fat lady in green silk was in a very limp condition, the embroidered roses seemed to droop and wither, and she was helped by three of Zeno's men; Marin Cornèr was holding a large napkin to his injured nose, so that he could not see where he put his feet and had to be helped by the door porter. As for Sebastian Polo, his wife and daughter well knewthat he was by this time safe at home, and was probably recovering his lost courage by beating his slaves.
'They are gone,' said Yulia, when the boat had shoved off at last.
Zoë rose then, and went slowly to the window. She stood there a few moments looking after the skiff, and in spite of her deep anxiety a faint smile played round her tender mouth as she thought of her meeting with Giustina; but it vanished almost at once. Her own situation was critical and perhaps dangerous.
She knew that although she was a slave she was the only person in the house who could exercise any authority now that Omobono was locked up in the counting-house, and that it would be impossible to let him out without liberating Tocktamish at the same time, which was not to be thought of. If the Tartar got out now he would probably murder the first person he met, and every one else whom he found in his way; indeed, Zoë thought it not impossible that he was already murdering Omobono out of sheer rage.
'Come,' she said to Lucilla. 'We must go downstairs and see what can be done.'
Neither Tocktamish nor his victim knew that Lucilla had slipped the bolt after them, for Omobono was too terrified to hear anything but the Tartar's voice, and the latter was just in that state of intoxication in which a man perceives nothing that is not closely connected with the idea that possesses him for the time being; it is a state of mind familiar to those whose business it is to catch men, or to cheat them.
The strong box stood against the wall at the farther end of the room, and close to the high desk at which Omobono usually worked. When he came to it the secretary stood still, and Tocktamish bent down and began to fumble with the keys.
The box had three locks, each having a hasp that closed with a strong spring when the lid was shut down, and each requiring a separate key. It was a large chest, completely covered with sheet-iron and heavily bound with iron straps, the whole being kept bright by daily polishing.
Tocktamish could not make the keys fit, and desisted with an oath.
'Open it!' he commanded, seizing the trembling secretary by the collar and forcing him to his knees before the chest.
It would have been death to disobey, in the Tartar's present mood. Omobono put each key into the lock to which it belonged, turned each three times, and the middle one a fourth time, which had the effect of drawing back all the springs at once; at the same time he raised the heavy lid a little with one hand, and then opened it with both.
Tocktamish began to throw the contents out on the floor with eager haste, seizing upon the money-bags first; but these were not many, nor were they very heavy, for the young merchant's capital was invested in many enterprises and was rarely lying idle, and as for spare cash he had taken out a goodly sum within the past two days to be given away to the guards at the palace. The Tartar soon saw that there were not a thousand gold ducats in the chest, and there was but a little silver. The rest of the contents consisted of accounts, papers, and parchments, many of which represented wealth, but could not be turned into gold by a thief. Tocktamish had an ignorant barbarian's primitive idea of riches, and being profoundly disappointed he at once became furiously angry.
'Where is the treasure?' he roared, and his face grew purple.
He shook Omobono like a rat, as he repeated his question again and again. The wretched secretary felt that his hour was indeed come, and though he tried to speak and protest he really made no sound. Then Tocktamish remembered his own words.
'I said I would drown you in the box!' he cried.'And by the sun and moon, full and new, I will! I will, by the vine, the wine, and the drinkers, you rat, you miserable Italian flea, you skinny little bag of bones!'
Thereupon he hove up Omobono sideways by one arm and one leg and dropped him, fainting, into the empty money-chest, of which he instantly shut the lid. It closed with a loud snap as the three springs simultaneously fell into the slots in the three hasps. At the same moment Omobono lost consciousness; his last impression had been that he was killed and was to wake up in purgatory, and he had made one wild attempt to say a prayer when Tocktamish whirled him off his feet, but he could only remember the last words—
'... strength to resist curiosity.'
Then everything was dark, the big locks snapped above his head and he knew nothing more. Having successfully accomplished this brave feat, the tipsy giant gravely sat down on the chest to think, for he had already forgotten that he had meant to throw it into the Golden Horn, and besides, even in his condition, he knew very well that four men could hardly have moved such a weight. As he sat he stooped down and drew the scattered contents of the chest towards him, and picked the small bags from the heaps of documents. Then it occurred to him that it would be more convenient to put all the coin into one sack which he could fasten to his belt. It would not be a very heavy weight, and it was not possible to cram all the bags into his wallet. A thousand gold ducats only weighed about twenty pounds, by goldsmiths' weight.
When he had put all together in a soft leathern sack which he found empty, he got upon his feet, with the idea of going back to rifle the house since he had not found what he expected in the safe. It was familiar work to him, for after he had left Greece he had been a robber before he had turned respectable by taking service with the Emperor. He kicked the strong box before he went away.
'Good-bye, little man!' he laughed.
But there was no answer, and at the idea that Omobono was such a fragile creature as to have died of fright, he laughed louder and slapped his huge thigh with his hand. It seemed quite inexpressibly funny to him that any one should actually die of fear, of all disorders in the world.
He had fastened the leathern sack securely to his belt, and he went to the door to let himself out. When he found it fastened he looked at it curiously, and scratched his big head, trying to remember whether he had locked it after him or not, for he recollected that he had shut it lest any one should come upon him suddenly. But there was no key in the lock on the inside. He might have dropped it, or slipped it into his wallet, and he began to look for it, going round and round the room and kicking the papers and account-books hither and thither. It was not to be seen, and the windows were heavily grated; but he did not doubt his strength to break the door down. That was a mere trifle after all.
He shook it violently, struck it, kicked it, and shookit again, but to his stupefaction it would not budge an inch. The servants had pushed a heavy marble table against it, and had piled up half a ton of furniture; he might as well have tried to break through the wall. Then it occurred to him that Omobono might have taken the key. He would open the box, though it was a pity to disturb a dead man in such an excellent coffin.
But the box could not be opened any more than the door, for the springs had snapped, and he did not understand the complicated locks. He tried again and again, but failed each time. Perhaps the secretary was not dead after all. Tocktamish would speak to him, and ask him how to open the safe.
'Little man,' he said, 'I will let you out if you will tell me how to use the keys.' But the little man did not answer. If he was alive and heard, he had no desire to be let out while his tormentor was in the house. At the thought that he could perhaps hear, but would not speak, Tocktamish went into a paroxysm of fury.
He seized the high stool that stood beside the desk and swung it with terrific force, bringing it down on the strong box, so that it flew into splinters with an appalling din. He raged, he foamed at the mouth, he bawled and yelled, and he smashed one piece of furniture after another on the heavy iron without producing the smallest impression on it, and without getting the least answer from Omobono, who was still half-unconscious, happily for his nerves, and was dreaming that he had taken refuge in a baker's oven during a terrible thunderstorm.
The stool was reduced to kindling wood, two largechairs had followed it, and Tocktamish was in the act of heaving up the desk itself, sending inkstand, pens, and papers flying to the four corners of the room, and determined to crack the strong box with one tremendous blow, when a musical voice spoke gently through the window nearest to him. Zoë and her maids were there, and the whole household of men-servants and slaves were behind them. The three girls were standing on the broad stone seat that ran round the outside of the house in the Italian way, and they could easily look through the bars. In her haste Zoë had not veiled herself, and when the Tartar caught sight of her beautiful face at the window, the effect on his susceptible sentiments was instantaneous. The vision was a hundred times more lovely than the handsome Giustina who had escaped him. He had never seen any one like Zoë as she stood outside in the quiet afternoon sunshine. For a moment or two he was almost sober; the desk fell from his hands upon the iron chest, and was not even broken, and Tocktamish's hands hung down by his sides while he stared in stupid wonder.
Zoë was glad that there were iron bars between him and her, for she had never seen a human being more like a raging wild beast. She had looked anxiously for Omobono, but as there was no trace of him nor of any blood, she at once decided that he had been able to get out by some secret way, after Lucilla had barred the door.
'Where is Messer Carlo?' were the words which arrested Tocktamish in the act of smashing the desk.
He stood gazing at Zoë stupidly, and as he did not answer she repeated her question, watching him quietly so that he should understand that he was completely in her power. When he heard her voice again he made a sort of instinctive attempt to smooth himself, as the peacock spreads his tail before the female; he pulled out his immense moustaches, drew his shaggy beard through his two hands, settled his fur papakh on his head, and smiled complacently as he approached the window, prepared, in his own estimation, to win the heart of any woman in Constantinople. The exercise of breaking up the furniture had probably done him good, for he walked quite steadily, with his eyes wide open and his big head a little on one side.
'Messer Carlo is quite safe and very well,' he answered when he was near the grating. 'He has sent me to get him a little money, which he greatly needs.'
'You have a singular way of executing his commission,' observed Zoë, looking at the splinters of the smashed furniture.
Tocktamish felt that the havoc round him must be explained.
'I have been killing the rats,' he said. 'It is extraordinary how many rats and mice get into counting-houses!'
'Where is Messer Carlo?' Zoë asked a third time.
'Sweet woolly ewe-lamb of heaven,' said Tocktamish, leaning on the window-sill and bringing his face close to the bars, 'if you will only give me one little kiss, I will tell you where Carlo is!'
Zoë stepped to one side along the stone seat on which she stood, for she saw that he was going to slip one of his hands through the grating to catch her; and even with the bars between them he looked as if he could twist one of her arms off if she resisted him. Indeed, she was hardly out of his reach in time. He laughed rather vacantly as he grasped the air. The grating projected several inches beyond the window, like the end of a cage, as the gratings generally do in old Italian houses; and though Zoë was on one side, Tocktamish could still look at her.
'If you will come inside, I will tell you what you wish to know, my little dove,' he said with an engaging leer, for he did not really believe that any woman could resist him.
'Thank you,' Zoë answered. 'I will not come in, but I will warn you. If you will not tell me where Messer Carlo is, I shall have you shot with the master's crossbow, like a mad dog.'
'Shall I get the bow?' asked the voice of Carlo's man, the Venetian gondolier, who was an excellent shot, and had won a prize at the Lido.
But Tocktamish laughed scornfully.
'Your crossbow cannot shoot through the shutters,' he said, for they were very heavy ones, at least three inches thick. 'Besides,' he added, 'I can sit on the floor under the window, and you will not even see me.'
'If we cannot shoot you, we can starve you,' retorted Zoë.
'Little ewe-lamb,' said the Tartar, 'the heart ofTocktamish is fluttering for you like a moth in a lamp. For one kiss you shall have anything you ask!'
'Do you understand that I mean to starve you?' Zoë asked sternly.
'Oh no, my beautiful pink-and-white rabbit! You will not be so hard-hearted! And besides, if you will not let me out and give me a kiss, my men will come presently and burn Carlo's house down, and I shall carry you away! Ha ha! You had not thought of it! But Tocktamish is not caught in the trap like a cub. He is an old wolf, and knows the forest. My men know I am here, and if I do not go back to them within this hour they will come to get me. That was agreed, and I can wait as long as that. Then sixty of them will come, and before night we shall take Carlo to the Emperor and give him up, and tell all we know; and to-morrow morning he will be on a stake in the middle of the Hippodrome, and it will be the third day before he is quite dead! Ha ha! I remember how we watched that old scoundrel Michael Rhangabé! I and my men were on duty at that execution!'
Zoë's cheeks turned ghastly white, and her eyes gleamed dangerously. If there had been a weapon in her hand at that moment she could have aimed well through the grating, and Tocktamish's days would have ended abruptly. But on the other side of the bars the drunken Tartar was laughing at his own skill in frightening her, for he thought she turned pale from fear.
'Can no one silence this brute?' she cried in a tone that trembled with anger.
'It is easily done,' said a voice she knew.
She turned and looked down from the little elevation of the stone seat, and she saw the impassive face of Gorlias Pietrogliant looking up to her.
'Come into the house, Kokóna,' he said, holding up a hand to help her down. 'We will send him a pitcher of Messer Carlo's oldest wine to help him pass an hour before his men come to burn the house down!'
Zoë understood the wisdom of the advice; Tocktamish would drink himself into a stupor in a short time.
'The astrologer is right,' she said to the servants. 'Come in with me, all of you.' She led the way, but Gorlias lingered a moment, stepped upon the stone seat, and spoke to the prisoner in a low voice.
'They will be here in half an hour,' he said. 'Meanwhile I will send you wine to drink. Are you hungry?'
'Hungry?' Tocktamish laughed at the recollection of the peacock. 'I never dined better! But send me some wine, and when we divide, I will have that white-faced girl for my share. The men may have the money here. Tell them so.'
He slapped the well-filled leathern sack at his girdle as he spoke.
'As you please,' Gorlias answered indifferently.
He stepped to the ground again and reached the door in time to enter with the last of the train that followed Zoë. In the dining-hall things had been left as they were when Tocktamish and Omobono went out. The table was in confusion, and flooded with wine that had run down to the floor, and two or three chairs were upset.Gorlias filled a silver pitcher with Chian; but when he turned towards the window Zoë was the only one who saw him empty into the wine the contents of a small vial which he seemed to have had ready in the palm of his hand. He called Carlo's man.
'Take it to him,' he said. 'You can easily pass it through the bars.'
'It is not much wine,' observed the man doubtfully. 'He will drink that at a draught.'
'If he asks for more, fill the pitcher again,' answered Gorlias. 'If he falls asleep, let me know.'
The man went off.
'Clear away all that,' said Zoë to the men-servants who stood looking on. 'The master must not find this confusion when he comes home.'
Her tone and her manner imposed obedience, and besides, they knew that Tocktamish was safe for a while. They began to clear the table at once, and Zoë left the room followed by Gorlias and her two maids, who had been silent witnesses of what had passed.
Upstairs, they left her alone with the astrologer, and disappeared to discuss in whispers the wonderful things that were happening in the house.
'Where is he?' asked Zoë, as soon as the maids were gone.
'He is in a dry cistern near the north wall of the city.'
'Hiding?'
'No—a prisoner. In escaping last night he ran among the soldiers who were to have helped us, andthey held him for a ransom. The Tartar came to extort the money. You know all.'
'At least, he is safe for the present,' Zoë said, but very doubtfully, for she did not half believe what she said.
'No,' Gorlias answered; 'he is not safe for long, and we must get him out. They demand a ransom, but they know well enough that even if they get it they will not dare to let him go free, since he could hang them all by a word.'
'What will they do?'
'If they can get the money they will let him starve to death in the cistern. If they do not, they will give him up to Andronicus for the reward. The Emperor has proclaimed that he will give ten pounds of gold to any one who will bring him Carlo Zeno, dead or alive. That is not enough.'
'The Emperor knows it was he?' asked Zoë with increasing anxiety.
'Yes.'
'How?'
'I do not know. Some one has betrayed us.'
'Us all?'
'I fear so.'
'But you yourself? Do you dare go about?'
'I have many disguises, and they who know the fisherman do not know the astrologer.'
'But if you should be taken?'
'A man cannot change his destiny. But look here. I have something from Johannes already. He has changed his mind; he regrets not having let us takehim out last night, and he sends me this by the captain's wife.'
Gorlias produced a parchment document.
'What is it?'
'The gift of Tenedos to Venice.'
'Ah! If Messer Carlo were only free!'
'Yes—if!' Gorlias shook his head thoughtfully. 'It will not be easy to send an answer to this,' he went on. 'The woman brought it to me at the risk of her life, and said it would be impossible for her to come again. The guard is doubled, and a very different watch will be kept in future. I do not believe that we can bring Johannes out, as we might have done in spite of those fellows last night. Yet I am sure that if Messer Carlo were at liberty he would try. He would at least send word, in answer to this. But the days are over when we used to send letters up and down by a thread—the tower is watched from the river now.'
'Can you not get in by a disguise?'
'No. There is not the least chance of gaining admittance at present.'
'I could,' said Zoë confidently. 'I am sure I could! If I went in carrying a basket of linen on my head and dressed like a slave-girl in blue cotton with yellow leathern shoes, I am sure they would let me go to the captain's wife.'
'What if your basket were searched and the letter found?'
'I would put it into my shoe. They would not look for it there.'
'You would run a fearful risk.'
'For him, if it were of any use,' Zoë answered. 'But it will not help him at all, and if anything happened to me he would be sorry. Besides, why should we send a message that pretends to come from Messer Carlo when he himself is a prisoner?'
'This is the case,' Gorlias answered. 'The soldiers will never let him out till they feel safe themselves; and the only way to make them sure that there is no danger is really and truly to bring Johannes out and set him on the throne again. So long as Andronicus reigns and may take vengeance on them, they will keep Messer Carlo a prisoner to give up at any moment, or to starve him to death for their own safety—unless they murder him outright. But I do not believe that any ten of them would dare to set upon him, for they know him well.'
Zoë smiled, for she was proud to love a man whom ten men would not dare to kill.
'Then the only way to save him is to free Johannes?' she said. 'Yes,' she went on, not waiting for an answer, 'I think you are right. Even if we got them their ten thousand ducats they would not let him out as long as Andronicus is at Blachernæ.'
'That is the truth of it,' Gorlias answered. 'Neither more nor less. Messer Carlo's life depends upon it.'
'Then it must be done, come what may. Thank God, I have a life to risk for him!'
'You have two,' said Gorlias quietly. 'You have mine also.'
'You are very loyal to Johannes, even to risking death. Is that what you mean?'
'More than that.'
'For Messer Carlo, then?' Zoë asked. 'You owe him some great debt of gratitude?'
'I never saw him until quite lately,' Gorlias answered. 'You need not know why I am ready to die in this attempt, Kokóna Arethusa.'
Some one knocked at the outer door; Zoë clapped her hands for her maids, and one of them went to the entrance. The voice of Zeno's man spoke from outside.
'The Tartar is fast asleep already,' he said, 'and I can hear the secretary moaning as if he were in great pain; but I cannot see him through the window. He must be somewhere in the room, for it is his voice.'
Zoë made a movement to go towards the door, but Gorlias raised his hand.
'I will see to it,' he said, 'I will have the fellow taken back to his quarters.'
Zoë bit her lip for she knew that it would be cruel and cowardly to hurt even such a ruffian as Tocktamish, while he was helpless under the drug Gorlias had given him. But the words he had spoken rankled deep, and it was not likely that she should forget them.
'Do as you will,' she said.
Half an hour later poor little Omobono was in his bed, and Zeno's man was giving him a warm infusion of marsh-mallows and camomile for his shaken nerves. The money-bags and the papers had been restored to the strong box in the counting-house, and Tocktamish theTartar, sunk in a beatific slumber, was being carried to his quarters in a hired palanquin by four stalwart bearers.
That was the end of the memorable feast in Carlo Zeno's house.
But Zoë sat by the open window, and her heart beat sometimes very fast and sometimes very slow; for she understood that the plight of the man she loved was desperate indeed.
The position of Zeno was quite clear to Zoë now, and a great wave of happiness lifted her and bore her on with it as she realised that she might save his life just when his chances looked most hopeless, and that whether she succeeded or failed her own must certainly be staked for his. Heroism is nearer the surface in women than in most men, and often goes quite as deep.
Zoë had understood very suddenly how matters stood, and that Tocktamish and his men meant to let Zeno perish, simply because he might ruin them all if he regained his liberty; or, if it were found out that he was taken, they intended to hand him over to Andronicus. It was not at all likely that they would set him free even if they got the great ransom they demanded.
But if by any means Johannes could be brought suddenly from his prison, all Constantinople would rise in revolution to set him on the throne, and it would be as dangerous to keep his friend Zeno in confinement as it now seemed rash to his captors to let him out. The first thing to be done was to reach Johannes himself and warn him, and this could only be accomplished by a woman. Gorlias knew the soldiers, and had as much influence with them as any one, perhaps, and whatever could be done from without he would do; yet it was quite certain thatthe men could not be got together again unless Johannes were actually free.
The difficulty lay there. To reach him was one thing, and was within the bounds of possibility; to bring him out would be quite another. But Zoë had confidence in the devotion of the captain's wife, of whom Gorlias had told her, and believed that in such a case two women could do more than ten men.
Yet she saw that it might be fatal to let the imprisoned Emperor know that Zeno was himself a prisoner. To prevent this she conceived the plan of writing a letter in the Venetian's name, accepting on behalf of the Republic the gift of Tenedos, and promising instant help and liberty. Zeno had given his word that he would renew the attempt for the sake of Tenedos, though for nothing else; this condition being accepted, she knew that nothing could hinder him from keeping his word if he were free. She would therefore only be writing for him what he himself would write if he could; and besides, if she needed a more valid excuse, it would be done to save his life.
Her learning stood her in good stead now as she carefully penned the answer on stout Paduan paper. She made Zeno thank the Emperor on behalf of the Serene Republic for his generous gift, and say that he was ready, that not a moment should be lost, and that in an hour the sovereign should be restored to his people, or Carlo Zeno would die in the attempt.
This last phrase, as it ran from her pen, seemed to her a little too theatrical to be Zeno's own, but she determinedto let it stand for the sake of the impression it should make on Johannes. Zeno would no more have mentioned such a trifle as the risk of life and limb in anything he meant to do than seamen would stop to talk of danger when ordered to shorten sail in a dangerous gale. Such things are a part of the game. No sailor will spin a yarn about a storm unless he has seen the Flying Dutchman or the Sea Serpent or the Man in the Top; he is in danger half his life. But the average modern soldier, who may be under fire three or four times in his career, repeats the story of his battles to any one who will listen. Zoë did not know whether Johannes had ever seen Zeno's handwriting or not, but that mattered little in those days, when many fine gentlemen could not write their own letters. She folded the sheet neatly in a small square, and placed it in her shoe by way of experiment, to see whether it would stay there while she walked.
She did all this while Gorlias was gone, and before he came back the afternoon was half over, though the spring days were growing long. He told her that the Tartar was safe in his quarters, where he would probably sleep till midnight at the very least, to the infinite rage and disgust of his men. They had expected him to return laden with gold or with the secure promise of it, and he had come back not only empty-handed, but hopelessly drunk; and as they knew him well, but did not know that he had swallowed a dose of opium that would have sent a tiger to sleep, they meditated in gloomy thirst on the quantity of strong wine he must haveabsorbed during an absence which had only lasted two hours. What he had told Zoë of their coming to fetch him if he stayed too long had been a pure invention to frighten her; they did not even know where he had been, for he had merely announced his intention of going out to collect Zeno's ransom from the Venetian merchants, and his reputation for strength and ferocity was such that they had not dreamed of his needing help.
Thus much Gorlias had found out, and he had also ascertained that the men were in a thoroughly bad temper in consequence of the turn affairs had taken, and much more inclined to murder Zeno than to let him out. As for his whereabouts, Gorlias only knew that he was in one of the many dry cisterns, which existed under old Constantinople, and which had never been in use since the crusaders had cut the aqueducts and sacked the city more than a hundred and seventy years earlier. The men who had shut up Zeno knew where he was, but it was very likely that they had not told their comrades. In those last days of the Empire the foreign mercenaries were little better than bands of robbers, half-trained at that, who preyed on the peasant part of the population, obeying their officers only when it was worth the trouble, and not even practising thieves' honour in the division of plunder. Not a day passed then without brawl and bloodshed amongst the soldiery; hardly a night went by without some act of violence and depredation for which they were responsible. They had stolen under Johannes, they robbed under Andronicus; under Johannes restored, they would steal again.And they drank perpetually. If Sultan Amurad had been the man that Mohammed the Conqueror turned out to be, the Turks would have been in possession of Constantinople fully eighty years before they actually stormed it, and with a tenth of the loss.
If Zeno had relied on the eight hundred soldiers who had agreed to make a revolution for Johannes, he had done so because he knew they could be trusted to rise if there was a chance of plundering the palace and of cutting the throats of a few hundred of their divers countrymen who had been preferred before them as a body-guard, and were therefore their sworn enemies. But the instant those delightful prospects disappeared they cared no more who was Emperor than a cur cares who throws him a bone; the existing condition of things was good enough for them, and they would risk nothing to change it, unless change meant wine, women, and loot. Many of them were in reality Mohammedans like Tocktamish, and looked upon all Christians, including their employers, as their lawful prey—as dogs, moreover, and no great fighters at that, but mostly cowardly curs. It was agreeable to live amongst them because one could beat them and drink wine without the disapproval of the greybeards; but as for respecting them, a Tartar like Tocktamish would as soon have thought of fearing them.
Zoë knew all this, and so did Gorlias, and they agreed that unless Johannes could be brought visibly before the soldiers there was little chance of success, and none of saving Zeno. The difficulty lay in the fact that Johanneswas kept in a place even more inaccessible than Zeno's cistern. The whole matter was a vicious circle. He could not be set free unless the troops rose for him; but the troops would not rise unless they saw him in their midst; and if there were no rising Zeno would be starved to death in the well. Gorlias Pietrogliant was a man of resources, but the problem completely baffled him.
He stood silent and in thought at Zoë's window; she sat quite motionless on the great divan, watching him and thinking too. Her knees were drawn up almost to her chin, and her folded hands clasped them while she looked straight at the astrologer's back with unwinking eyes. Neither he nor she knew how long they kept silence; it might have been five minutes, or it might have been half an hour. Time plays queer tricks when people are in great danger or in great distress.
Then Zoë's expression began to change very slowly, as an idea dawned upon her. It was as if she saw something between her and Gorlias, something that took shape by degrees, something new and unexpected that presently grew to be a whole picture, and from a picture became a real scene, full of living people, moving and talking; the tender mouth opened a little as if she were going to speak, and the delicate nostril quivered, the colour spread like dawn in her pale cheeks, and a deep warm light came into her eyes.
When the scene was over and the vision disappeared, she nodded slowly, as if satisfied that in her waking dream she had dreamed true.