Marietta Part 48

His large wallet was so full of gold that he could hardly draw the strong silken strings together and tie them.

"A friend's house!" laughed Loredan, who had lost somewhat less than the others. "It would give us much delight to know the colour of the lady's hair!"

To this Contarini answered only by a smile, which was not devoid of satisfaction.

"Take care!" said Foscari, gloomily contemplating the bare table before him, over which so much of his good gold had slipped away. "Take care! Luck at play, mischance in love, says the proverb."

"Oh! In that case I congratulate you, my dear friend!" returned Contarini gaily.

The others laughed at the retort, and the party broke up, though all did not go at once. Venier went out alone, while two or three walked with Contarini to his gondola. The rest stayed behind in the shop and made old Hossein unroll his choicest carpets and show them his most precious embroideries, though he protested that it was already much too dark to appreciate such choice things. But they did not wish to be seen coming away in a body, for such playing was very strictly forbidden, and the spies of the Ten were everywhere.

Contarini dismissed his gondola at the house of the Agnus Dei, and was admitted by the trusted servant who had once taken a message to Zorzi. He found Arisa waiting for him in her favourite place by the open window, and the glow of the setting sun made little fires in her golden hair. She could tell by his face that he had been fortunate at play, and her smile was very soft and winning. As he sank down beside her in the luxurious silence of satisfaction, her fingers were stealthily trying the weight of his laden wallet. She could not lift it with one hand. She smiled again, as she thought how easily Aristarchi would carry the money in his teeth, well tied and knotted in a kerchief, when he slipped down the silk rope from her window, though it would be much wiser to exchange it for pearls and diamonds which Contarini might see and admire, and which she could easily take with her in her final flight.

He trusted her, too, in his careless way, and that night, when he was ready to go down and admit his companions, he would empty most of the gold into a little coffer in which he often left the key, taking but just enough to play with, and almost sure of winning more.

She was very gentle on that evening, when the sun had gone down, and they sat in the deepening dusk, and she spoke sadly of not seeing him for several hours. It would be so lonely, she said, and since he could play in the daytime, why should he give up half of one precious night to those tiresome dice? He laughed indolently, pleased that she should not even suspect the real object of the meetings.

By and by, when it was an hour after dark, and they had eaten of delicate things which a silent old woman brought them on small silver platters, Contarini went down to let in his guests, and Arisa was alone, as usual on such evenings. For a long time she lay quite still among the cushions, in the dark, for Jacopo had taken the light with him. She loved to be in darkness, as she always told him, and for very good reasons, and she had so accustomed herself to it as to see almost as well as Aristarchi himself, for whom she was waiting.

At last she heard the expected signal of his coming, the soft and repeated splashing of an oar in the water just below the window. In a moment she was in the inner room, to receive him in her straining arms, longing to be half crushed to death in his. But to-night, even as he held her in the first embrace of meeting, she felt that something had happened, and that there was a change in him. She drew him to the little light that burned in her chamber before the image, and looked into his face, terrified at the thought of what she might see there. He smiled at her and raised his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows as if to ask if she really distrusted him.

"Yes," he said, nodding his big head slowly, "something has happened. You are quick at guessing. We are going to-night. There is moonlight and the tide will serve in two or three hours. Get ready what you need and put together the jewels and the money."

"To-night!" cried Arisa, very much surprised. "To-night? Do you really mean it?"

"Yes. I am in earnest. Michael has emptied my house of all my belongings to-day and has taken the keys back to the owner. We have plenty of time, for I suppose those overgrown boys are playing at dice downstairs, and I think I shall take leave of Contarini in person."

"You are capable of anything!" laughed Arisa. "I should like to see you tear him into little strips, so that every shred should keep alive to be tortured!"

"How amiable! What gentle thoughts you have! Indeed, you women are sweet creatures!"

With her small white hand she jestingly pretended to box his huge ears.

"You would be well paid if I refused to go with you," she said with a low laugh. "But I should like to know why you have decided so suddenly. What is the matter? What is to become of all our plans, and of Contarini's marriage? Tell me quickly!"

"I have had a visit from an officer of the Ten to-day," he said. "The Ten send me greeting, as it were, and their service, and kindly invite me to leave Venice within twenty-four hours. As the Ten are the only persons in Venice for whom I have the smallest respect, I shall show it by accepting their invitation."

"But why? What have you done?"

"Of course it is not a serious matter to give a sound beating to an officer of justice and six of his men," answered Aristarchi, "but it is not the custom here, and they suspect me of having done it. To tell the truth, I think I am hardly treated. I have sent Zorzi back to Murano, and if the Ten have the sense to look for him where he has been living for five years, they will find him at once, at work in that stifling furnace-room. But I fancy that is too simple for them."

He told her how Pasquale had come in the morning, and how the officer who had been in pursuit of him had searched the ship for Zorzi in vain. The order to leave Venice had come an hour later. The anchors were now up, and the vessel was riding to a kedge by a light hawser, well out in the channel. As soon as Arisa could be brought on board Aristarchi meant to make sail, for the strong offsh.o.r.e breeze would blow all night.

"We may as well leave nothing behind," said Aristarchi coolly. "Michael will wait for us below, in one of the ship's boats. There is room for all Contarini's possessions, if we could only get at them."

"Would it not be better to be content with what we have already, and to go at once?" asked Arisa rather timidly.

"No," replied Aristarchi. "I am going to say good-bye to your old friend in my own way."

"Do you mean to kill him?" asked Arisa in a whisper, though it was quite safe for them to talk in natural tones. "I could go behind him and throw something over his head."

Aristarchi grinned, and pressed her beautiful head to his breast, caressing her with his rough hands.

"You are as bloodthirsty as a little tigress," he said. "No. I do not even mean to hurt him."

"Oh, I hoped you would," answered the Georgian woman. "I have hated him so long. Will you not kill him, just to please me? We could wind him in a sheet with a weight, you know, and drop him into the ca.n.a.l, and no one would ever know. I have often thought of it."

"Have you, my gentle little sweetheart?" Aristarchi chuckled with delight as he stroked her hair. "I am sorry," he continued. "The fact is, I am not a Georgian like you. I have been brought up among people of civilisation, and I have scruples about killing any one. Besides, sweet dove, if we were to kill the son of one of the Council of Ten, the Council would pursue us wherever we went, for Venice is very powerful. But the Ten will not lift a hand to revenge a good-for-nothing young gamester whose slave has run away with her first love! Every one will laugh at Contarini if he tries to get redress. It is better to laugh than to be laughed at, it is better to be laughed at than to cry, it is better to cry one's eyes blind than to be hanged."

Having delivered himself of these opinions Aristarchi began to look about him for whatever might be worth the trouble of carrying off, and Arisa collected all her jewels from the caskets in which they were kept, and little bags of gold coins which she had hidden in different places. She also lit a candle and brought Aristarchi to the small coffer in which Contarini kept ready gold for play, and which was now more than half full.

"The dowry of the gla.s.s-maker's daughter!" observed the Greek as he carried it off.

There were small objects of gold and silver on the tables in the large room, there was a dagger with a jewelled hilt, an illuminated ma.s.s book in a chased silver case.

"You will need it on Sundays at sea," said Aristarchi.

"I cannot read," said the Georgian slave regretfully. "But it will be a consolation to have the missal."

Aristarchi smiled and tossed the book upon the heap of things.

"It would be amusing to pay a visit to those young fools downstairs, and to take all their money and leave them locked up for the night," he said, as if a thought had struck him.

"There are too many of them," answered Arisa, laying her hand anxiously upon his arm. "And they are all armed. Please do nothing so foolish."

"If they are all like Contarini, I do not mind twenty of them or so," laughed Aristarchi. "They must have more than a thousand gold ducats amongst them. That would be worth taking."

"They are not all like Contarini," said Arisa. "There is Zuan Venier, for instance."

"Zuan Venier? Is he one of them? I have heard of him. I should like to see whether he could be frightened, for they say it is impossible."

Aristarchi scratched his head, pushing his s.h.a.ggy hair forward over his forehead, as he tried to think of an effectual scheme for producing the desired result.

"The Ten might pursue us for that, as well as for a murder," said Arisa.

Meanwhile the friends a.s.sembled in the room downstairs had been occupied for a long time in hearing what Zuan Venier had to say to Jacopo Contarini, concerning the latter's treatment of Zorzi. For Venier had kept his word, and as soon as all were present he had boldly spoken his mind, in a tone which his friends were not accustomed to hear. At first Contarini had answered with offended surprise, asking what concern it could be of Venier's whether a miserable gla.s.s-blower were exiled or not, and he appealed to the others, asking whether it would not be far better for them all that such an outsider as Zorzi should be banished from Venice. But Venier retorted that the Dalmatian had taken the same oath as the rest of the company, that he was an honest man, besides being a great artist as his master a.s.severated, and that he had the same right to the protection of each and all of them as Contarini himself. To the latter's astonishment this speech was received with unanimous approbation, and every man present, except Contarini, promised his help and that of his family, so far as he might obtain it.

"I have advised Beroviero," Venier then continued, "if he can find the young artist, to make him go before the Council of Ten of his own free will, taking some of his works with him. And now that this question is settled, I propose to you all that our society cease to have any political or revolutionary aim whatever, for I am of opinion that we are risking our necks for a game at dice and for nothing else, which is childish. The only liberty we are vindicating, so far as I can see, is that of gaming as much as we please, and if we do that, and nothing more, we shall certainly not go between the red columns for it. A fine or a few months of banishment to the mainland would be the worst that could happen. As things are now, we are not only in danger of losing our heads at any moment, which is an affair of merely relative importance, but we may be tempted to make light of a solemn promise, which seems to me a very grave matter."

Thereupon Venier looked round the table, and almost all the men were of his opinion. Contarini flushed angrily, but he knew himself to be in the wrong and though he was no coward, he had not the sort of temper that faces opposition for its own sake. He therefore began to rattle the dice in the box as a hint to all that the discussion was at an end.

But his good fortune seemed gone, and instead of winning at almost every throw, as he had won in the afternoon, he soon found that he had almost exhausted the heap of gold he had laid on the table, and which he had thought more than enough. He staked the remainder with Foscari, who won it at a cast, and laughed.

"You offered us our revenge," said the big man. "We mean to take it!"

But though Contarini was not a good fighter, he was a good gamester, and never allowed himself to be disturbed by ill-luck. He joined in the laugh and rose from the table.

"You must forgive me," he said, "if I leave you for a moment. I must fill my purse before I play again."