Marietta Part 27

"Gold? Well-possibly," admitted Giovanni with caution. "But of course I was exaggerating. Ten thousand gold pounds would be too much, of course. Say, five thousand."

"I thought you were richer than that," said Zorzi coolly.

"Do you mean that five thousand would not be enough to pay for the ma.n.u.script?" asked Giovanni.

"The profits of gla.s.s-making are very large when one possesses a valuable secret," said Zorzi. "Five thousand-" He paused, as though in doubt, or as if making a mental calculation. Giovanni fell into the trap.

"I would give six," he said, lowering his voice to a still more confidential tone, and watching his companion eagerly.

"For six thousand gold lires," said Zorzi, smiling, "I am quite sure that you could hire a ruffian to break in and cut the throat of the man who has charge of the ma.n.u.script."

Giovanni's face fell, but he quickly a.s.sumed an expression of righteous indignation.

"How can you dare to suggest that I would employ such means to rob my father?" he cried.

"If it were your intention to rob your father, sir, I cannot see that it would matter greatly what means you employed. But I was only jesting, as you were when you said that you had the ma.n.u.script. I did not expect that you would take literally what I said."

"I see, I see," answered Giovanni, accepting the means of escape Zorzi offered him. "You were paying me back in my own coin! Well, well! It served me right, after all. You have a ready wit."

"I thought that if my conversation were not as instructive as you had hoped, I could at least try to make it amusing-light, gay, witty! I trust you will not take it ill."

"Not I!" Giovanni tried to laugh. "But what a wonderful thing is this human imagination of ours! Now, as I talked of the secrets, I forgot that they were my father's, they seemed almost within my grasp, I was ready to count out the gold, to count out six thousand gold lires. Think of that!"

"They are worth it," said Zorzi quietly.

"You should know best," answered the other. "There is no such gla.s.s as my father's for lightness and strength. If he had a dozen workmen like you, my brother and I should be ruined in trying to compete with him. I watched you very closely the other day, and I watched the others, too. By the bye, my friend, was that really an accident, or does the man owe you some grudge? I never saw such a thing happen before!"

"It was an accident, of course," replied Zorzi without hesitation.

"If you knew that the man had injured you intentionally, you should have justice at once," said Giovanni. "As it is, I have no doubt that my father will turn him out without mercy."

"I hope not." Zorzi would say nothing more.

Giovanni rose to go away. He stood still a moment in thought, and then smiled suddenly as if recollecting himself.

"The imagination is an extraordinary thing!" he said, going back to the past conversation. "At this very moment I was thinking again that I was actually paying out the money-six thousand lires in gold! I must be mad!"

"No," said Zorzi. "I think not."

Giovanni turned away, shaking his head and still smiling. To tell the truth, though he knew Zorzi's character, he had not believed that any one could refuse such a bribe, and he was trying to account for the Dalmatian's integrity by reckoning up the expectations the young man must have, to set against such a large sum of ready money. He could only find one solution to the problem: Zorzi was already in full possession of the secrets, and would therefore not sell them at any price, because he hoped before long to set up for himself and make his own fortune by them. If this were true, and he could not see how it could be otherwise, he and his brother would be cheated of their heritage when their father died.

It was clear that something must be done to hinder Zorzi from carrying out his scheme. After all, Zorzi's own jesting proposal, that a ruffian should be employed to cut his throat, was not to be rejected. It was a simple plan, direct and conclusive. It might not be possible to find the ma.n.u.script after all, but the only man who knew its contents would be removed, and Beroviero's sons would inherit what should come to them by right. Against this project there was the danger that the murderer might some day betray the truth, under torture, or might come back again and again, and demand more money; but the killing of a man who was not even a Venetian, who was an interloper, who could be proved to have abused his master's confidence, when he should be no longer alive to defend himself, did not strike Giovanni as a very serious matter, and as for any one ever forcing him to pay money which he did not wish to pay, he knew that to be a feat beyond the ability of an ordinary person.

One other course suggested itself at once. He could forestall Zorzi by writing to his father and telling him what he sincerely believed to be the truth. He knew the old man well, and was sure that if once persuaded that Zorzi had betrayed him by using the ma.n.u.script, he would be merciless. The difficulty would lie in making Beroviero believe anything against his favourite. Yet in Giovanni's estimation the proofs were overwhelming. Besides, he had another weapon with which to rouse his father's anger against the Dalmatian. Since Marietta had defied him and had gone to see Zorzi in the laboratory, he had not found what he considered a convenient opportunity of speaking to her on the subject; that is to say, he had lacked the moral courage to do so at all. But it would need no courage to complain of her conduct to their father, and though Beroviero's anger might fall chiefly upon Marietta, a portion of it would take effect against Zorzi. It would be one more force acting in the direction of his ruin.

Giovanni went away to his own gla.s.s-house, meditating all manner of evil to his enemy, and as he reckoned up the chances of success, he began to wonder how he could have been so weak as to offer Zorzi an enormous bribe, instead of proceeding at once to his destruction.

Unconscious of his growing danger, Zorzi fed the fire of the furnace, and then sat down at the table before the window, laid his crutches beside him, and began to write out the details of his own experiments, as the master had done for years. He wrote the rather elaborate characters of the fifteenth century in a small but clear hand, very unlike old Beroviero's. The window was open, and the light breeze blew in, fanning his heated forehead; for the weather was growing hotter and hotter, and the order had been given to let the main furnaces cool after the following Sat.u.r.day, as the workmen could not bear the heat many days longer. After that, they would set to work in a shed at the back of the gla.s.s-house to knead the clay for making new crucibles, and the night boys would enjoy their annual holiday, which consisted in helping the workmen by treading the stiff clay in water for several hours every day.

A man's shadow darkened the window while Zorzi was writing, and he looked up. Pasquale was standing outside.

"There is a pestering fellow at the door," he said, "who will not be satisfied till he has spoken with you. He says he has a message for you from some one in Venice, which he must deliver himself."

"For me?" Zorzi rose in surprise.

CHAPTER XIII

Zorzi swung himself along the dark corridor on his crutches after Pasquale, who opened the outer door with his usual deliberation. A little man stood outside in grey hose and a servant's dark coat, gathered in at the waist by a leathern belt. He was clean shaven and his hair was cropped close to his head, which was bare, for he held his black hat in his hand. Zorzi did not like his face. He waited for Zorzi to speak first.

"Have you a message for me?" asked the Dalmatian. "I am Zorzi."

"That is the name, sir," answered the man respectfully. "My master begs the honour and pleasure of your company this evening, as usual."

"Where?" asked Zorzi.

"My master said that you would know the place, sir, having been there before."

"What is your master's name?"

"The Angel," answered the man promptly, keeping his eyes on Zorzi's face.

The latter nodded, and the servant at once made an awkward obeisance preparatory to going away.

"Tell your master," said Zorzi, "that I have hurt my foot and am walking on crutches, so that I cannot come this evening, but that I thank him for his invitation, and send greeting to him and to the other guests."

The man repeated some of the words in a tone hardly audible, evidently committing the message to memory.

"Signor Zorzi-hurt his foot-crutches-thanks-greeting," he mumbled. "Yes, sir," he added in his ordinary voice, "I will say all that. Your servant, sir."

With another awkward bow, he turned away to the right and walked very quickly along the footway. He had left his boat at the entrance to the ca.n.a.l, not knowing exactly where the gla.s.s-house was. Zorzi looked after him a moment, then turned himself on his sound foot and set his crutches before him to go in. Pasquale was there, and must have heard what had pa.s.sed. He shut the door and followed Zorzi back a little way.

"It is no concern of mine," he said roughly. "You may amuse yourself as you please, for you are young, and your host may be the Archangel Michael himself, or the holy Saint Mark, and the house to which you are bidden may be a paradise full of other angels! But I would as soon sit down before the grating and look at the hooded brother, while the executioner slipped the noose over my head to strangle me, as to go to any place on a bidding delivered by a fellow with such a jail-bird's head. It is as round as a bullet and as yellow as cheese. He has eyes like a turtle's and teeth like those of a young shark."

"I am quite of your opinion," said Zorzi, halting at the entrance to the garden.

"Then why did you not kick him into the ca.n.a.l?" inquired the porter, with admirable logic.

"Do I look as if I could kick anything?" asked Zorzi, laughing and glancing at his lame foot.

"And where should I have been?" inquired Pasquale indignantly. "Asleep, perhaps? If you had said 'kick,' I would have kicked. Perhaps I am a statue!"

Zorzi pointed out that it was not usual to answer invitations in that way, even when declining them.

"And who knows what sort of invitation it was?" retorted the old porter discontentedly. "Since when have you friends in Venice who bid you come to their houses at night, like a thief? Honest men, who are friends, say 'Come and eat with me at noon, for to-day we have this, or this'-say, a roast sucking pig, or tripe with garlic. And perhaps you go; and when you have eaten and drunk and it is the cool of the afternoon, you come home. That is what Christians do. Who are they that meet at night? They are thieves, or conspirators, or dice-players, or all three."