Marietta Part 49

"Do not stay too long!" laughed Loredan. "If you do, we shall come and get you, and then we shall know the colour of the lady's hair."

Contarini laughed as he went to the door, opened it and stealthily set the key in the lock on the outside.

"I shall lock you in while I am gone!" he cried. "You are far too inquisitive!"

Laughing gaily he turned the key on the whole company, and he heard their answering laughter as he went away, for they accepted the jest, and continued playing.

He entered the large room upstairs, just as Aristarchi had finished tying up the heavy bundle in the inner chamber. Arisa heard the well-known footstep, and placed one hand over Aristarchi's mouth, lest he should speak, while the other pointed to the curtained door. The Greek held his breath.

"Arisa! Arisa!" Contarini called out. "Bring me a light, sweetest!"

Without hesitation Arisa took the lighted candle, and making a gesture of warning to Aristarchi went quickly to the other room. The Greek crept towards the door, the big veins standing out like knots on his rugged temples, his great hands opened wide, with the tips of the fingers a little turned in. He was like a wrestler ready to get his hold with a spring.

"I want some more money," Contarini was saying, in explanation. "They said they would follow me if I stayed too long, so I have locked them in! I think I shall keep them waiting a while. What do you say, love?"

He laughed again, aloud, and on the other side of the curtain Aristarchi grinned from ear to ear and noiselessly loosened the black sash he wore round his waist. For once in his life, as Zorzi would have said, he had not a coil of rope at hand when he needed it, but the sash was strong and would serve the purpose. He pushed the curtain aside, a very little, in order to see before springing.

Contarini stood half turned away from the door, clasping Arisa to his breast and kissing her hair. The next moment he was sprawling on the floor, face downwards, and Arisa was pressing one of the soft cushions from the divan upon his head to smother his cries, while Aristarchi bound his hands firmly together behind him with one end of the long sash, and in spite of his desperate struggle got a turn with the rest round both his feet, drew them back as far as he could and hitched the end twice. Jacopo was now perfectly helpless, but he was not yet dumb. Aristarchi had brought his tools with him, in the bosom of his doublet.

Kneeling on Contarini's shoulders he took out a small iron instrument, shaped exactly like a pear, but which by a screw, placed where the stem would be, could be made to open out in four parts that spread like the petals of a flower. Arisa looked on with savage interest, for she believed that it was some horrible instrument of torture; and indeed it was the iron gag, the 'pear of anguish,' which the torturers used in those days, to silence those whom they called their patients.

Holding the instrument closed, Aristarchi pushed his hand under the cushion. He knew that Contarini's mouth would be open, as he must be half suffocated and gasping for breath. In an instant the iron pear had slipped between his teeth and had opened its relentless leaves, obedient to the screw.

"Take the pillow away," said Aristarchi quietly. "We can say good-bye to your old acquaintance now, but he will have to content himself with nodding his head in a friendly way."

He turned the helpless man upon his side, for owing to the position of his heels and hands Contarini could not lie on his back. Then Aristarchi set the candle on the floor near his face and looked at him and indulged himself in a low laugh. Contarini's face was deep red with rage and suffocation, and his beautiful brown eyes were starting from their sockets with a terror which increased when he saw far the first time the man with whom he had to deal, or rather who was about to deal with him, and most probably without mercy. Then he caught sight of Arisa, smiling at him, but not as she had been wont to smile. Aristarchi spoke at last, in an easy, rea.s.suring tone.

"My friend," he said, "I am not going to hurt you any more. You may think it strange, but I really shall not kill you. Arisa and I have loved each other for a long time, and since she has lived here, I have come to her almost every night. I know your house almost as well as you do, and you have kindly told me that your friends are all looked in. We shall therefore not have the trouble of leaving by the window, since we can go out by the front door, where my boat will be waiting for us. You will never see us again."

Contarini's eyes rolled wildly, and still Arisa smiled.

"You have made him suffer," she said. "He loved me."

"Before we go," continued the Greek, folding his arms and looking down upon his miserable enemy, "I think it fair to warn you that under the praying-stool in Arisa's room there is an air shaft through which we have heard all your conversation, during these secret meetings of yours. If you try to pursue us, I shall send information to the Ten, which will cut off most of your heads. As they are so empty it might seem to be scarcely worth while to take them, but the Ten know best. I can rely on your discretion. If I were not sure of it I would accede to this dear lady's urgent request and cut you up into small pieces."

Contarini writhed and sputtered, but could make no sound.

"I promised not to hurt you any more, my friend, and I am a man of my word. But I have long admired your hair and beard. You see I was in Saint Mark's when you went there to meet the gla.s.s-maker's daughter, and I have seen you at other times. I should be sorry never to see such a beautiful beard again, so I mean to take it with me, and if you will keep quiet, I shall really not hurt you."

Thereupon he produced from his doublet a bright pair of shears, and knelt down by the wretched man's head. Contarini twisted himself as be might and tried instinctively to draw his head away.

"I have heard that pirates sometimes accidentally cut off a prisoner's ear," said Aristarchi. "If you will not move, I am quite sure that I shall not be so awkward as to do that."

Contarini now lay motionless, and Aristarchi went to work. With the utmost neatness he cropped off the silky hair, so close to Jacopo's skull that it almost looked as if it had been shaved with a razor. In the same way he clipped the splendid beard away, and even the brown eyebrows, till there was not a hair left on Contarini's head or face. Then he contemplated his work, and laughed at the weak jaw and the womanish mouth.

"You look like an ugly woman in man's clothes," he said, by way of consoling his victim.

He rose now, for he feared lest Contarini's friends might break open the door downstairs. He shouldered the heavy bundle with ease, set his blue cap on the back of his head and bade Arisa go with him. She had her mantle ready, but she could not resist casting delighted glances at her late owner's face. Before going, she knelt down one moment by his side, and inclined her face to his, with a very loving gaze. Lower and lower she bent, as if she would give him a parting kiss, till Aristarchi uttered an exclamation. Then she laughed cruelly, and with the back of her hand struck the lips that had so often touched her own.

A few moments later Aristarchi had placed her in his boat, the heavy bundle of spoils lay at her feet, and the craft shot swiftly from the door of the house of the Agnus Dei. For Michael Pandos, the mate, had been waiting under the window, and a stroke of the oars brought him to the steps.

In the closed room where the friends were playing dice, there began to be some astonishment at the time needed by Jacopo to replenish his purse. When more than half an hour had pa.s.sed one pair stopped playing, and then another, until they were all listening for some sound in the silent house. The perfect stillness had something alarming in it, and none of them fully trusted Contarini.

"I think," said Venier with all his habitual indolence, "that it is time to ascertain the colour of the lady's hair. Can you break the lock?"

He spoke to Foscari, who nodded and went to the door with two or three others. In a few seconds it flew open before their combined attack, and they almost lost their balance as they staggered out into the dark hall. The rest brought lights and they all began to go up the stairs together. The first to enter the room was Foscari. Venier, always indifferent, was among the last.

Foscari started at the extraordinary sight of a man in magnificent clothes, lying on one shoulder, with his heels tied up to his hands and his shorn head and face moving slowly from side to side in the bright light of the wax candle that stood on the floor. The other men crowded into the room, but at first no one recognised the master of the house. Then all at once Foscari saw the rings on his fingers.

"It is Contarini," he cried, "and somebody has shaved his head!"

He burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, in which the others joined, till the house rang again, and the banished servants came running down to see what was the matter.

Only Zuan Venier, a compa.s.sionate smile on his face, knelt beside Contarini and carefully withdrew the iron gag from his mouth.

At the same instant Aristarchi's hatchet chopped through the hawser by which his vessel was riding, and he took the helm himself to steer her out through the narrow channel before the wind.

CHAPTER XXIII

When Pasquale had let Zorzi in, he crossed the ca.n.a.l again, moored the skiff with lock and chain, and came back by the wooden bridge. Zorzi went on through the corridor and came out into the moonlit garden. It was hard to believe that only forty-eight hours had pa.s.sed since he had left it, but the freshly dug earth told him of Giovanni's search, about which Pasquale had told him, and there was the pleasant certainty that the master had come home and could probably protect him, even against the Ten. Besides this, he felt stronger and more able to move than since he had been injured, and he was sure that he could now walk with only a stick to help him, though he was always to be lame. He had looked up at Marietta's window before leaving the boat, but it was dark, for Pasquale had wished to be sure that no one should see Zorzi and it was long past the young girl's bedtime.

Pasquale came back, and produced some more bread and cheese from his lodge, for both men were hungry. They sat down on the bench under the plane-tree and ate their meagre supper together in silence, for they had talked much during the long day. Then Pasquale bade Zorzi good night and went away, and Zorzi went into the laboratory, where all was dark. But he knew every brick of the furnace and every stone of the pavement under his feet, and in a few minutes he was fast asleep in his own bed, feeling as safe as if the Ten had never existed and as though the Signors of the Night were not searching every purlieu of Venice to take him into custody. And early in the morning he got up, and Pasquale brought him water as of old, and as his hose and doublet had suffered considerably during his adventures, he put on the Sunday ones and came out into the garden to breathe the morning air. Pasquale had no intention of going over to the house to announce Zorzi's return, for he was firmly convinced that the most simple way of keeping a secret was not to tell it, and before long the master would probably come over himself to ask for news.

Beroviero brought Marietta with him, as he often did, and when they were within he naturally stopped to question Pasquale about his search, while Marietta went on to the garden. The porter took a long time to shut the door, and instead of answering Beroviero, shook his ugly head discontentedly, and muttered imprecations on all makers of locks, latches, bolts, bars and other fastenings, living, dead and yet unborn. So it came to pa.s.s that Marietta came upon Zorzi suddenly and alone, when she least expected to meet him.

He was standing by the well-remembered rose-bush, leaning on his stick with one hand and lifting up a trailing branch with the other. But when he heard Marietta's step he let the branch drop again and stood waiting for her with happy eyes. She uttered a little cry, that was almost of fear, and stopped short in her walk, for in the first instant she could have believed that she saw a vision; then she ran forward with outstretched hands, and fell into his arms as he dropped his stick to catch her. As her head touched his shoulder, her heart stopped beating for a moment, she gasped a little, and seemed to choke, and then the tears of joy flowed from her eyes, her pulses stirred again, and all was well. He felt a tremor in his hands and could not speak aloud, but as he held her he bent down and whispered something in her ear; and she smiled through the shower of her happy tears, though he could not see it, for her face was hidden.

Just then Beroviero entered from the corridor, followed by Pasquale, and the two old men stood still together gazing at the young lovers. It was on that very spot that the master, when going upon his journey, had told Zorzi how he wished he were his son. But now he forgot that he had said it, and the angry blood rushed to his forehead.

"How dare you?" he cried, as he made a step to go on towards the pair.

They heard his voice and separated hastily. Marietta's fresh cheek blushed like red roses, and she looked down, as shamefacedly as any country maid, but Zorzi turned white as he stooped to pick up his stick, then stood quite upright and met her father's eyes.

"How dare you, I say?" repeated the old man fiercely.

"I love her, sir," Zorzi answered without fear for himself, but with much apprehension for Marietta.

"And have you forgotten that I love him, father?" asked Marietta, looking up but still blushing. "You know, I told you all the truth, and you were not angry then. At least, you were not so very angry," she added, shyly correcting herself.

"If she has told you, sir," Zorzi began, "let me-"

"You can tell me nothing I do not know," cried Beroviero, "and nothing I wish to hear! Be off! Go to the laboratory and begin work. I will speak with my daughter."

Then Pasquale's voice was heard.