Arethusa Part 37

He either forgot that he was supposed to be speaking to a slave who had no more claim to be called 'Excellency' than he had himself, and less, if anything; or else he had made up his mind that this beautiful Arethusa whom he had to-day seen for the first time, was not a slave at all, but a great lady in disguise.

'You are never frightened, are you, Vito?' she asked with a smile.

'I?' Vito grinned. 'Am I of iron, or of stone? Or am I perhaps a lion?

When there is fear I am afraid.'

'But the master is never frightened,' suggested Zoe. 'Is he of stone, then?'

'Oh, he!' Vito laughed now, and shrugged his shoulders. 'Would you compare me with the master? Then compare copper with gold. The master is the master, and that is enough, but I am only a sailor man in his service. If there is fighting, I fight while I see that I am the stronger, but when I see that I may die I run away. We are all thus.'

'But surely you would not run away and leave Messer Carlo to be killed, would you?'

'No,' Vito answered quite simply. 'That would be another affair. It would be shame to go home alive if the master were killed. When one must die, one must, as G.o.d wills. It may be for the master, it may be for Venice. But for myself, I ask you? Why should I die for nothing? I run away. It is more sensible.'

'You need not risk being killed if you do what I am going to ask,' Zoe said, for after talking with the man she liked his honest face, and thought none the less of him for his frankness. 'It is a very simple matter.'

'What is it, Excellency?'

'You need not call me that, Vito,' answered Zoe. 'I want you to row me at sunset to the landing which is nearest to the palace gate. It must be the dirty little one on this side of the Amena tower, is it not?'

'That is it. But without the master's orders----'

Vito looked at her doubtfully, for he had been reminded that she considered herself a slave, and it occurred to him that she meant to escape in Zeno's absence.

'Messer Carlo would wish me to go, if he were here,' said Zoe quietly, and not at all as if she were insisting, for she saw what was the matter.

'I have no doubt it is as you say,' Vito answered. 'But I have no orders.'

'There is a message from the master to some one in the palace,' Zoe explained. 'No one but I can deliver it.'

'That is easily said,' observed Vito bluntly. 'There are no orders.'

Zoe felt the blood rising to her forehead at the man's rudeness and distrust of her, but she controlled herself, for much depended on obtaining what she wished.

'It is not a message,' she said; 'it is a letter.'

'Where is it?' asked Vito incredulously.

'I will show it to you,' Zoe answered, but she first turned to the maids, who waited at the end of the room. 'Go and prepare me the bath,' she said.

The two disappeared, though they did not believe that their mistress really wished to bathe again so soon. When they were gone, she stooped and took the letter from her shoe, unfolded it, and spread it out for Vito to see. The effect it made upon him was instantaneous; he looked at it carefully, and took a corner of it between his thumb and finger.

'This is the paper on which the master writes,' he said, as if convinced.

It did not occur to him that the slave Arethusa could write at all, nor any one else in the house except Omobono; and as for the latter, if he had written anything he must have done so under Zeno's orders.

Writing of any sort commanded his profound and almost superst.i.tious respect.

'This is certainly a letter from the master,' he said, satisfied at last, after what he considered a thoroughly conscientious inspection.

'And he wishes me to deliver it,' Zoe said. 'If I am to do that, you must be good enough to take me to the landing in the boat. There is no other way.'

'I could take the letter myself,' Vito suggested.

'No. Only a woman will be allowed to pa.s.s, where this must go.'

Vito began to understand, and nodded his head wisely.

'It is for Handsome John,' he said, with conviction, and fixing his eyes on Zoe's. 'It is for the other Emperor, whom the master wishes to set free.'

'Yes--since you have guessed it,' Zoe answered. 'Will you take me now?'

'You will take one of your slaves with you, as you do when you go out in the boat with the secretary, I suppose?'

Vito still felt a little hesitation.

'No. I must go alone with you. And I myself shall be dressed like a slave, and I shall have a basket of things to carry on my head to the wife of the gaoler.'

'I see,' said Vito, who really loved adventure for its own sake, and was much less inclined to run away from danger than he represented.

'Did you say you wished to go at sunset?'

'Yes.'

'I shall be ready. But it will be better to take an old boat, and I will put on ragged clothes, to look like a hired boatman.'

'Yes; that will be better.'

Vito went away, delighted with the prospect before him. He was too young and too true a Venetian not to look forward with pleasure to rowing the beautiful Arethusa up the Golden Horn, though he was only a servant and she was the master's most treasured possession. He felt, too, some manly pride in the thought of possibly protecting her, for he meant to follow her ash.o.r.e and look on from a distance, to see whether she got safely into the tower, and he would wait until she came out. The master would expect that much of him, at least.

As yet, neither Vito nor any member of the household, except Zoe, knew that Zeno was a prisoner, held for ransom. It had pleased him to go out of his house during the previous night, and some important business detained him; that was all. When he was at leisure he would come home. The men-servants who had waited on the guests and had heard Tocktamish's words, to the effect that Zeno had sent him for money, looked upon the statement as a clumsy trick which the half-drunken robber was trying to play in Zeno's absence, and as nothing more. But they had been far too badly frightened to stay and listen, as has been seen. To Vito, who was, nevertheless, by far the best of them, it had been a matter of utter indifference whether the Tartar cut the throats of the four guests or not, compared with the urgent necessity of keeping out of his reach. If the master had been present another side of their character would have come into play, but as he was absent they had thought of their own safety first.

CHAPTER XVIII

The sun had set, and the wide court of Blachernae was filled with purple light to the wall tops, like a wine-vat full to the brim; and everything that was in the glow took colour from it, as silver does in claret, the polished trappings of the guards' uniforms, the creamy marble steps of the palace, the white Tunisian charger of the officer who rode in just then, and the swallows that circled round and round the courtyard. The world moved in that short deep dream that comes just when the sun has slipped away to rest, when the light is everywhere at once, so that things cast no shadows on the ground, because they glow from within, as in fairyland, or perhaps in heaven.

The officer rode in on his charger, and after him entered a girl slave, dressed in coa.r.s.e blue cotton, and carrying on her head a small round basket, which was covered with a clean white cloth. The four corners of the napkin hung down, and one of them would have flapped across her face if she had not held it between her teeth to keep it down. It partly hid her features, and her head was tied up in a blue cotton kerchief pa.s.sed twice round and knotted upon her forehead. She limped a little as she walked. What could be seen of her face was pale and quiet, and had a rather fixed look.

She was walking boldly through the gate, without slackening her pace, when one of the two sentinels stopped her, and asked where she was going. She stood still, and one hand steadied the basket on her head, while the other pointed to the Amena tower.

'My mistress sends some fine wheat bread and cream cheese to the wife of the captain who keeps the tower,' said Zoe, affecting the mincing accent very common with female slaves and Greek ladies' maids.

The second sentinel, returning on his short beat, now came up and stood on her other side. He was a big Bulgarian, and he lifted one corner of the cloth and looked down into the basket, merely for the sake of detaining the girl. He saw the wheaten loaves and the cream cheese neatly disposed on a second napkin, and the cheese was nested in green leaves to keep it fresh. Both the soldiers at once thought of tasting it with the points of their daggers, but at that moment the officer of the watch strolled out of the guard-house, a magnificent young man in scarlet and gold. The two sentinels at once turned their backs on the cheese and Zoe, and marched away in opposite directions on their beats, leaving her standing in the middle. The officer was far too high and mighty a person to look at a slave-girl or her basket, and Zoe therefore went on without turning her head, taking it for granted that she was now free to enter. In her baggy blue cotton clothes, and with her face almost covered by the napkin, there was nothing about her to attract attention, unless it were her slightly limping gait; and she instinctively made an effort to walk evenly, for she could not help feeling ashamed of being suddenly lame, as perfectly sound and healthy people do. But she realised that the folded letter was in the wrong shoe and increased her lameness, whereas if she had carried it in the other it might have made walking easier.

She went from under the great gate into the liquid purple light in the court, and it was pleasant to be in it. But then again it made her think of yesterday, when she had sat in her window at sunset, not dreaming of all that was to happen to her in one night and one day. It made her think of the man she loved so dearly, imprisoned somewhere under the great city, starving and thirsting no doubt, and face to face with thoughts of death; and it was to save him that she was crossing the courtyard of Blachernae disguised as a household slave. It was because there was no other way; and if Gorlias Pietrogliant failed her, or came too late, the end would overtake her in a few hours, or perhaps quite suddenly, which would be more merciful. She knew what she was doing, and she did not deceive herself. They would put out her eyes first; but that would be the least of the cruel things they would do to her, if Gorlias failed.