Arethusa Part 25

'Every moment is precious,' he said. 'If we are discovered from outside the tower the game is up, and we shall be caught like rats in a trap. I have a basket at the end of this rope in which you will be quite safe from falling, if that is what makes you hesitate. Fear nothing. We are two good men, I and my companion below.'

'You are a good man indeed, to have risked your life in climbing here,' answered Johannes.

He made a few steps, bending his still handsome head in thought. He limped slightly in his walk, and he was said to have only four toes on his left foot.

Zeno at once continued hauling up the rope, but a moment later the Emperor stopped close beside him.

'It is of no use,' he said; 'I cannot go with you.'

Zeno was thunderstruck, and stood still with the rope in his two hands.

'You will not go?' he repeated, almost stupidly. 'You will not be free, now that everything is ready?'

'I cannot. Go down your rope before there is an alarm. Take G.o.d's blessing for your generous courage, and my heartfelt thanks. I am ashamed that I should have nothing else to offer you. I cannot go.'

'But why? Why?'

Carlo Zeno could not remember that he had ever been so much surprised in his life, and so are they who gather round the story-teller and listen to his tale. But it is a true one; and many years afterwards one of Carlo Zeno's grandsons, the good old Bishop of Belluno, wrote it down as he had heard it from his grandsire's lips. Moreover it is history. The imprisoned Emperor Johannes refused to leave his prison, after Zeno had risked life and limb to prepare a revolution, and had scaled the tower alone.

'Andronicus has my little son in the palace,' said the prisoner; 'if I escape he will put out the child's eyes with boiling vinegar, and perhaps mutilate him or kill him by inches. Save him first, then I will go with you.'

There was something very n.o.ble in the prisoner's tone, and in the turn of his handsome head as he spoke. Zeno could not help respecting him, yet he was profoundly disappointed. He tried one argument.

'If you will come at once,' he said, 'I promise you that we shall hold the palace before daybreak, and the little prince will be as free as you.'

Johannes shook his head sadly.

'The guards will kill him instantly,' he said; 'the more certainly if they see that they must fight for their lives.'

'In short, your Majesty is resolved? You will not come with me?'

'I cannot.' The Emperor turned away, and covered his face with his hands, more as if trying to concentrate his thoughts than as if in despair. 'No, I cannot,' he repeated presently. 'Save the boy first,'

he repeated, dropping his hands and turning to Zeno again, 'then I will go with you.'

Zeno was silent for a moment, and then spoke in a determined tone.

'Hear me, sire,' he said. 'A man does not run such risks twice, except for his own blood. You must either come with me at once, or give up the idea that I shall ever help you to escape. The boy may be in danger, but so are you yourself, and your life is worth more to this unhappy Empire than his. To-night, to-morrow, at any moment, your son Andronicus may send the executioner here, and there will be an end of you and of many hopes. You must risk your younger boy's life for your cause. I see no other way.'

'The other way is this; I will stay here and risk my own. I would rather die ten deaths than let my child be tortured, blinded, and murdered.'

'Very well,' answered Zeno; 'then I must go.'

He let the knotted rope go over the sill again till it was all out, and he sat astride the window mullion ready to begin the descent.

'Cast off the rope when I whistle,' he said, 'and let it down by the line, and the line after it by the twine.'

He spoke to the big woman, who was the wife of the keeper, himself a trusted captain of veterans. She nodded by way of answer.

'For the last time,' Zeno said, looking towards Johannes, 'will you come with me? There is still time.'

The Emperor looked prematurely old in the faint light, and his figure was bent as he rested with one hand on the heavy table. His voice was weak too, as if he were very tired after some great effort.

'For the last time, no,' he answered. 'I am sorry. I thank you with all my heart----'

Zeno did not wait for more, and his head disappeared below the window almost before the prisoner had spoken the last words. Five minutes had not elapsed since he had reached the chamber.

Below, Gorlias had been surprised when he felt the second rope slack in his hand, and when the basket and block, which had been half-way up the wall, began to come down again. The astrologer could only suppose that there was an alarm within the tower, and that Zeno was getting away as fast as he could. The last written message, lowered by the yarn at dusk that evening, had been to say that the Emperor was ready, and that a red light would be shown when the captain was asleep, under the influence of the drug his wife had given him. It could not possibly occur to the astrologer that Johannes would change his mind at the very last moment.

'Take care!' Gorlias whispered quickly to the woman at his elbow, as soon as he was sure of what was happening. 'He is coming down again.'

'Alone?' The anxious inquiry answered his words in the same breath.

'Alone--yes! He is on the rope now, he is coming down, hand under hand.'

The woman slipped down the inclined surface, almost fell, recovered her foothold, and nearly fell again as she sprang into the boat, and threw herself at full length upon the bottom boards. Zeno was half-way down, and before she covered herself with the canvas she glanced up and distinctly saw his dark figure descending through the gloom.

She had scarcely stretched herself out when she was startled by a loud cry, close at hand.

'Phylake! Aho--ho--o! Watch, ho! Watch, ho!'

A boat had shot out of the darkness to the edge of the pier. In an instant three men had sprung ash.o.r.e, and were clambering up the sloping masonry towards Gorlias. The woman stood up in Zeno's skiff, almost upsetting it, and her eyes pierced the gloom to see what was happening.

Gorlias threw himself desperately against the three men, with outstretched arms, hoping to sweep them altogether into the water from a place where they had so little foothold. The woman held her breath.

One of the three men, active as a monkey, dodged past the astrologer, caught the knotted rope, and began climbing it. The other two fell, their feet entangled in the line-rove through the tail-block, and with the strong man's weight behind them they tumbled headlong down the incline. With a heavy splash, and scarcely more than one for all three, Gorlias and his opponents fell into the water.

There was silence then, while the other man climbed higher and higher.

The woman watched in horror. In falling, the men had struck against the stem of the skiff, dragging the painter from the peg. The other boat was not moored at all, and both were now adrift on the sluggish stream. The woman steadied herself, and tried to see.

The man climbed fast, and above him the dark figure moved quickly upwards. But Zeno's pursuer was fresher than he, and as quick as a cat, and gained on him. If he caught him, he might crook his leg round the knotted rope to drag Zeno down and hurl him to the ground.

Still he gained, while the boats began to drift, but still the woman could make out both figures, nearer and nearer to each other. Now there were not ten feet between them.

A faint cry was heard, a heavy thud on the stones, and silence again.

Zeno had cut the rope below him. The woman drew a sharp breath between her closed teeth. There was no noise, now, for the man that had been as active as a cat was dead.

But an instant later one of the other three was out of the water, and on the edge of the pier, panting for breath.

The woman took up one of the oars, and tried to paddle with it. She thought that the man who had come up must be Gorlias, and that the other two were drowned, and she tried to get the boat to the pier again; she had never held an oar in her life, and she was trembling now. High in mid-air Zeno was hanging on what was left of the rope, slowly working his way upwards, fully fifty feet above the base of the tower.

The skiff b.u.mped against the other boat alongside, and the woman began to despair of getting nearer to the land, and tried to shove the empty boat away with her hands. The effect was to push her own skiff towards the pier, for the other was much the heavier of the two. Then, paddling a little, she made a little way. The man ash.o.r.e seemed to be examining the body of the one who had been killed; it lay sprawling on the stones, the head smashed. The living one was not Gorlias; the woman could see his outline now. She was strong, and with the one oar shoved her skiff still farther from the other boat, and nearer to the pier. The man heard her, got upon his feet, and slipped down to the water's edge again.

'Hold out the end of the oar to me,' he said, 'and I will pull the boat in.'

It was not the voice of Gorlias that spoke, and the woman did not obey the instructions it gave. On the contrary she tried to paddle away, lest the man should jump aboard. Strangely enough the skiff seemed to answer at once to her will, as if some unseen power were helping her.

It could not be her unskilled, almost helpless movements of the oar that guided it away.

But the man rose to his feet, on the lowest course of the stones, where there was a ledge, and he sprang forwards, struck the water without putting his head under, and was at the stern of the boat in a few seconds.