Marietta Part 47

"If they catch me," answered Pasquale, "they will heave me overboard. I am not worth salting. But they need not catch either of us. Once in the laboratory at Murano, they will never find you. That is the one place where they will not look for you."

The mate put his head down through the small hatch overhead.

"I do not like the look of a boat that has just put off from Saint George's," he said.

Aristarchi sprang to his feet.

"Pick him up and drop him into the porter's skiff," he said. "I am sick of dancing with the fellow in my arms."

With incredible ease Aristarchi took Zorzi round the waist, mounted the cabin table and pa.s.sed him up through the hatch to the mate, who had already brought him to the Jacob's ladder at the stern before Pasquale could get there by the ordinary way.

"Quick, man!" said the mate, as the old sailor climbed over the rail.

At the same time he slipped the bight of short rope round Zorzi's body under his arms and got a turn round the rail with both parts, so as to lower him easily. Zorzi helped himself as well as he could, and in a few moments he was lying in the bottom of the skiff, covered with a piece of sacking which the mate threw down, the rope ladder was hauled up and disappeared, and when Pasquale glanced back as he rowed slowly away, the mate was leaning over the taffrail in an att.i.tude of easy unconcern.

The old porter had smuggled more than one bale of rich goods ash.o.r.e in his young days, for a captain who had a dislike of the customs, and he knew that his chance of safety lay not in speed, but in showing a cool indifference. He might have dropped down the Giudecca at a good rate, for the tide was fair, but he preferred a direction that would take him right across the course of the boat which the mate had seen coming, as if he were on his way to the Lido.

The officer of the Ten, with four men in plain brown coats and leathern belts, sat in the stern of the eight-oared launch that swept swiftly past the skiff towards the vessels at anchor. Pasquale rested on his oar a moment and turned to look, with an air of interest that would have disarmed any suspicions the officer might have entertained. But he had none, and did not bestow a second glance on the little craft with its shabby oarsman. Then Pasquale began to row again, with a long even stroke that had no air of haste about it, but which kept the skiff at a good speed. When he saw that he was out of hearing of other boats, and heading for the Lido, he began to tell what he intended to do next, in a low monotonous tone, glancing down now and then at Zorzi's face that cautiously peered at him out from the folds of the sackcloth.

"I will tell you when to cover yourself," he said, speaking at the horizon. "We shall have to spend the day under one of the islands. I have some bread and cheese and water, and there are onions. When it is night I will just slip into our ca.n.a.l at Murano, and you can sleep in the laboratory, as if you had never left it."

"If they find me there, they cannot say that I am hiding," said Zorzi with a low laugh.

"Lie low," said Pasquale softly. "There is a boat coming."

For ten minutes neither spoke, and Zorzi lay quite still, covering his face. When the danger was past Pasquale began to talk again, and told him all he himself knew of what had happened, which was not much, but which included the a.s.surance that the master was for him, and had turned against Giovanni.

"As for me," said Zorzi, by and by, when they were moored to a stake, far out in the lagoon, "I was whirled from place to place by those two men, till I did not know where I was. When they first carried me off, they made me lie in the bottom of their boat as I am lying now, and they took me to a house somewhere near the Baker's Bridge. Do you know the house of the Agnus Dei?"

Pasquale grunted.

"It was not far from that," Zorzi continued. "Aristarchi lives there. The mate went back to the ship, I suppose, and Aristarchi's servant gave us supper. Then we slept quietly till morning and I stayed there all day, but Aristarchi thought it would not be safe to keep me in his house the next night-that was last night. He said he feared that a certain lady had guessed where I was. He is a mysterious individual, this Greek! So I was taken somewhere else in the bottom of a boat, after dark. I do not know where it was, but I think it must have been the garret of some tavern where they play dice. After midnight I heard a great commotion below me, and presently Aristarchi appeared at the window with a rope. He always seems to have a coil of rope within reach! He tied me to him-it was like being tied to a wild horse-and he got us safely down from the window to the boat again, and the mate was in it, and they took me to the ship faster than I was ever rowed in my life. You know the rest."

All through the long July day they lay in the fierce sun, shading themselves with the sacking as best they could. But when it was dark at last, Pasquale cast off and headed the skiff for Murano.

CHAPTER XXII

Jacopo Contarini's luck at dice had changed of late, and his friends no longer spoke of losing like him, but of winning as he did, on almost every throw.

"Nevertheless," said the big Foscari to Zuan Venier, "his love affairs seem to prosper! The Georgian is as beautiful as ever, and he is going to marry a rich wife."

It was the afternoon of the day on which Zorzi had left Aristarchi's ship, and the two patricians were lounging in the shady Merceria, where the overhanging balconies of the wooden houses almost met above, and the merchants sat below in the windows of their deep shops, on the little platforms which were at once counters and window-sills. The street smelt of Eastern silks and Spanish leather, and of the Egyptian pastils which the merchants of perfumery continually burnt in order to attract custom.

"I am not qualmish," answered Venier languidly, "yet it sickens me to think of the life Jacopo means to lead. I am sorry for the gla.s.s-maker's daughter."

Foscari laughed carelessly. The idea that a woman should be looked upon as anything more than a slave or an object of prey had never occurred to him. But Venier did not smile.

"Since we speak of gla.s.s-makers," he said, "Jacopo is doing his best to get that unlucky Dalmatian imprisoned and banished. Old Beroviero came to see me this morning and told me a long story about it, which I cannot possibly remember; but it seems to me-you understand!"

He spoke in low tones, for the Merceria was crowded. Foscari, who was one of those who took most seriously the ceremonial of the secret society, while not caring a straw for its political side, looked very grave.

"It is of no use to say that the poor fellow is only a gla.s.s-blower," Venier continued. "There are men besides patricians in the world, and good men, too. I mean to tell Contarini what I think of it to-night."

"I will, too," said Foscari at once.

"And I intend to use all the influence my family has, to obtain a fair hearing for the Dalmatian. I hope you will help me. Amongst us we can reach every one of the Council of Ten, except old Contarini, who has the soul of a school-master and the intelligence of a crab. If I did not like the fellow, I suppose I should let him be hanged several times rather than take so much trouble. Sins of omission are my strongest point. I have always surprised my confessor at Easter by the extraordinary number of things I have left undone."

"I daresay," laughed Foscari, "but I remember that you were not too lazy to save me from drowning when I fell into the Grand Ca.n.a.l in carnival."

"I forgot that the water was so cold," said Venier. "If I had guessed how chilly it was, I should certainly not have pulled you out. There is old Hossein at his window. Let us go in and drink sherbet."

"We shall find Mocenigo and Loredan there," answered Foscari. "They shall promise to help the gla.s.s-blower, too."

They nodded to the Persian merchant, who saluted them by extending his hand towards the ground as if to take up dust, and then bringing it to his forehead. He was very fat, and his pear-shaped face might have been carved out of white cheese. The two young men went in by a small door at the side of the window-counter and disappeared into the interior. At the back of the shop there was a private room with a latticed window that looked out upon a narrow ca.n.a.l. It was one of many places where the young Venetians met in the afternoon to play at dice undisturbed, on pretence of examining Hossein's splendid carpets and Oriental silks. Moreover Hossein's wife, always invisible but ever near, had a marvellous gift for making fruit sherbets, cooled with the snow that was brought down daily from the mountains on the mainland in dripping bales covered with straw matting.

Loredan and Mocenigo were already there, as Foscari had antic.i.p.ated, eating pistachio nuts and sipping sherbet through rice straws out of tall gla.s.ses from Murano. It was a very safe place, for Hossein's knowledge of the Italian language was of a purely commercial character, embracing every numeral and fraction, common or uncommon, and the names of all the hundreds of foreign coins that pa.s.sed current in Venice, together with half-a-dozen necessary phrases; and his invisible but occasionally audible wife understood no Italian at all. Also, Hossein was always willing to lend any young patrician money with which to pay his losses, at the modest rate of seven ducats to be paid every week for the use of each hundred; which one of the youths, who had a turn for arithmetic, had discovered to be only about 364 per cent yearly, whereas Casadio, the Hebrew, had a method of his own by which he managed to get about 580. It was therefore a real economy to frequent Hossein's shop.

In spite of his pretended forgetfulness, Venier remembered every word that Beroviero had told him, and indolently as he talked, his whole nature was roused to defend Zorzi. In his heart he despised Contarini, and hoped that his marriage might never take place, for he was sincerely sorry for Marietta; but it was Jacopo's behaviour towards Zorzi that called forth his wrath, it was the man's disdainful a.s.sumption that because Zorzi was not a patrician, the oath to defend every companion of the society was not binding where he was concerned; it was the insolent certainty that the others should all be glad to be rid of the poor Dalmatian, who after all had not troubled them over-much with his company. On that very evening they were to meet at the house of the Agnus Dei, and Venier was determined to speak his mind. When he chose to exert himself, his influence over his companions was very great, if not supreme.

He soon brought Mocenigo and Loredan to share his opinion and to promise the support of all their many relations in Zorzi's favour, and the four began to play, for lack of anything better to do. Before long others of the society came in, and as each arrived Venier, who only played in order not to seem as unsociable as he generally felt, set down the dice box to gain over a new ally. An hour had pa.s.sed when Contarini himself appeared, even more magnificent than usual, his beautiful waving beard most carefully trimmed and combed as if to show it to its greatest advantage against the purple silk of a surcoat cut in a new fashion and which he was wearing for the first time. His white hands were splendid with jewelled rings, and he wore at his belt a large wallet-purse embroidered in Constantinople before the coming of the Turks and adorned with three enamelled images of saints. Hossein himself ushered him in, as if he were the guest of honour, as the Persian merchant indeed considered him, for none of the others had ever paid him half so many seven weekly ducats for money borrowed in all their lives, as Jacopo had often paid in a single year.

There are men whom no one respects very highly, who are not sincerely trusted, whose honour is not spotless and whose ways are far from straight, but who nevertheless hold a certain ascendancy over others, by mere show and a.s.surance. When Contarini entered a place where many were gathered together, there was almost always a little hush in the talk, followed by a murmur that was pleasant in his ear. No one paused to look at Zuan Venier when he came into a room, though there was not one of his friends who would not have gone to him in danger or difficulty, without so much as thinking of Contarini as a possible helper in trouble. But it was almost impossible not to feel a sort of artistic surprise at Jacopo's extraordinary beauty of face and figure, if not at the splendid garments in which he delighted to array himself.

It was with a slight condescension that he greeted the group of players, some of whom at once made a place for him at the table. They had been ready enough to stand by Venier against him in Zorzi's defence, but unless Venier led the way, there was not one of them who would think of opposing him, or taking him to task for what was very like a betrayal. Venier returned his greeting with some coldness, which Contarini hardly noticed, as his reception by the others had been sufficiently flattering. Then they began to play.

Jacopo won from the first. Foscari bent his heavy eyebrows and tugged at his beard angrily, as he lost one throw after another; the cold sweat stood on Mocenigo's forehead in beads, as he risked more and more, and Loredan's hand trembled when it was his turn to take up the dice box against Contarini; for they played a game in which each threw against all the rest in succession.

"You cannot say that the dice are loaded," laughed Contarini at last, "for they are your own!"

"The delicacy of the thought is only exceeded by the good taste that expresses it," observed Venier.

"You are sarcastic, my friend," answered Jacopo, shaking the dice. "It is your turn with me."

Jacopo threw first. Venier followed him and lost.

"That is my last throw," he said, as he pushed the remains of his small heap of gold across to Contarini. "I have no more money to-day, nor shall I have to-morrow."

"Hossein has plenty," suggested Foscari, who hoped that Contarini's luck would desert him before long.

"At this rate you will need all he has," returned Venier with a careless laugh.

Before long more than one of the players was obliged to call in the ever-complacent Persian merchant, and the heap of gold grew in front of Jacopo, till he could hardly keep it together.

"It is true that you have been losing for years," said Mocenigo, trying to laugh, "but we did not think you would win back all your losses in a day."

"You shall have your revenge to-night," answered Contarini, rising. "I am expected at a friend's house at this hour."