Marietta Part 37

"What did you say?" he asked.

"I said open the door at once!" answered Giovanni. "Can you not recognise the officers of the law when you see them?"

"No," grunted Pasquale, "I have never seen much of them. Did you say I was to open the door?"

"Yes!" cried Giovanni angrily, for he wished to show his zeal before the officer. "Blockhead!" he added with emphasis, as Pasquale disappeared again and was presumably out of hearing.

They all heard him dragging the furniture away again, the box-bed and the table and the old chair.

Zorzi came up as Pasquale was clearing the stuff away.

"They want you," said the old sailor, seeing him and hearing him at the same time. "What have you been doing now? Where is the young lady?"

"In the main furnace room," whispered Zorzi. "Do not let them go there whatever they do."

Pasquale gave vent to his feelings in a low voice, as he dragged the last things back and began to unbar the door. Zorzi leaned against the wall, for his lameness prevented him from helping. At last the door was opened, and he saw the figures of the men outside against the light. He went forward as quickly as he could, pus.h.i.+ng past Pasquale to get out. He stood on the threshold, leaning on his crutch.

"I am Zorzi," he said quietly.

"Zorzi the Dalmatian, called the Ballarin?" asked the lieutenant.

"Yes, yes!" cried Giovanni, anxious to hasten matters, "They call him the dancer because he is lame. This is that foreign liar, that thief, that a.s.sa.s.sin! Take him quickly!"

The archers, who in the changes of time had become halberdiers, had dropped the bundle of spears they had made for a battering-ram. Two of them took Zorzi by the arms roughly, and prepared to drag him along with them. He made no resistance, but objected quietly.

"I can walk better, if you do not hold me," he said. "I cannot run away, as you see."

"Let him walk between you," ordered the officer. "Good night, sir," he said to Giovanni.

Two of the men lifted the bundle of halberds and began to carry it between them, trying to undo the straps as they walked, for they could not stay behind. Giovanni saluted the officer and stood aside for the party to pa.s.s. The two men who had looked on had separated, and one had already gone forward and disappeared beyond the bridge. The other lingered, apparently still interested in the proceedings. Pasquale, dumb with rage at last, stood in the doorway.

"Let me pa.s.s," said Giovanni, as soon as the archers had gone on a few steps, surrounding Zorzi.

With a growl, Pasquale came out and stood on the pavement a moment, and Giovanni went in. Instantly, the man who had lingered made a step towards the porter, whispered something in his ear, and then made off as fast as he could in the direction taken by the archers. Pasquale looked after him in surprise, only half understanding the meaning of what he had said. Then he went in, but left the door ajar. The people who had been looking out of the windows of Beroviero's house had disappeared, when they had seen that Giovanni was on the footway. All was silent now; only, far off, the tramp of the archers could still be heard.

They could not go very fast, with Zorzi in their midst, but the two men who were busy unfastening the bundle of halberds lagged in the rear, talking in a low voice. They did not notice quick footsteps behind them, but they heard a low whistle, answered instantly by another, just as the main party was nearing the corner by the church of San Piero. That was the last the two loiterers remembered, for at the next instant they lay in a heap upon the halberds, which had fallen upon the pavement with a tremendous clatter. A couple of well-delivered blows with a stout stick had thoroughly stunned them almost at the same instant. It would be some time before they recovered their senses.

While the man who had whispered to Pasquale was doing effectual work in the rear, his companion was boldly attacking the main party in front. As the lieutenant stopped short and turned his head when the halberds dropped, a blow under the jaw from a fist like a sledge hammer almost lifted him off his feet and sent him reeling till he fell senseless, half-a-dozen paces away. Before the two archers who were guarding Zorzi could defend themselves, unarmed as they were, another blow had felled one of them. The second, springing forward, was caught up like a child by his terrible a.s.sailant and whirled through the air, to fall with a noisy splash into the shallow waters of the ca.n.a.l. The other companion attacked the remaining two from behind with his club and knocked one of them down. The last sprang to one side and ran on a few steps as fast as he could. But swifter feet followed him, and in an instant iron fingers were clutching his throat and squeezing his breath out. He struggled a moment, and then sank down. His captor deliberately knocked him on the head with his fist, and he rolled over like a stone.

Utterly bewildered, Zorzi stood still, where he had stopped. Never in his life had he dreamed that two men could dispose of seven, in something like half a minute, with nothing but a stick for a weapon between them. But he had seen it with his eyes, and he was not surprised when he felt himself lifted from his feet, with his crutch beside him, and carried along the footway at a sharp run, in the direction of the gla.s.s-house. His reason told him that he had been rescued and was being quickly conveyed to a place of safety, but he could not help distrusting the means that accomplished the end, for he had unconsciously watched the two men in what could hardly be called a fight, though he could not see their faces, and a more murderous pair of ruffians he had never seen. Men not well used to such deeds could not have done them at all, thought Zorzi, as he was borne along, his breath almost shaken out of him by the strong man's movements.

All was quiet, as they pa.s.sed the gla.s.s-house, and no one was looking out, for Giovanni's wife feared him far too much to seem to be spying upon his doings, and the servants were discreet. Only Nella, hiding behind the flowers in Marietta's window, and supposing that Marietta was with her sister-in-law, was watching the door of the gla.s.s-house to see when Giovanni would come out. She now heard the steps of the two men, running down the footway. The rescue had taken place too far away for her to hear anything but a splash in the ca.n.a.l. She saw that one of the men was carrying what seemed to be the body of a man. She instinctively crossed herself, as they ran on towards the end of the ca.n.a.l, and when she could see them no longer in the shadow, she drew back into the room, momentarily forgetting Giovanni, and already running over in her head the wonderful conversation she was going to have with her mistress as soon as the young girl came back to her room.

Pasquale, meanwhile, withdrew his feet from the old leathern slippers he wore, and noiselessly stole down the corridor and along the garden path, to find out what Giovanni was doing. When he came to the laboratory, he saw that the window was now shut, as well as the door, and that Giovanni had set the lamp on the floor behind the further end of the annealing oven. Its bright light shot upwards to the dark ceiling, leaving the front of the laboratory almost in the dark. Pasquale listened and he heard the sharp tapping of a hammer on stone. He understood at once that Giovanni had shut himself in to search for something, and would therefore be busy some time.

Without noise he crossed the garden to the entrance of the main furnace room and went into the pa.s.sage.

"Come out quickly!" he whispered, as his seaman's eyes made out Marietta's figure in a gloom that would have been total darkness to a landsman; and he took hold of the girl's arm to lead her away.

"Your brother is in the laboratory, and will not come out," he whispered. "By this time Zorzi may be safe."

"Safe!" She spoke the word aloud, in her relief.

"Hush, for heaven's sake. The door is open. You can get home now without being seen. Make no noise."

She followed him quickly. They had to cross the patch of dim light in the garden, and she glanced at the closed window of the laboratory. It had all happened as Zorzi had foreseen, and Giovanni was already searching for the ma.n.u.script. The only thing she could not understand was that Zorzi should have escaped the archers. Even as she crossed the garden, the two man were pa.s.sing the door, bearing Zorzi he knew not where, but away from the nearest danger. A moment later she was on the footway, hurrying towards the bridge. Pasquale stood watching her, to be sure that she was safe, and he glanced up at the windows, too, fearing lest some one might still be looking out.

But chance had saved Marietta this time. She carefully barred the side door after she had gone in, and groped her way up the dark stairs. On the landing there was light from below, and she paused for breath, her bosom heaving as she leaned a moment on the bal.u.s.trade. She pa.s.sed one hand over her brows, as if to bring herself back to present consciousness, and then went quickly on.

"Safe," she repeated under her breath as she went, "safe, safe, safe!"

It was to give herself courage, for she could hardly believe it, though she knew that Pasquale would not deceive her and must have some strong good reason for what he said. There had not been time to question him.

All he knew himself was that a man whose face he could not see had whispered to him that Zorzi was in no danger. But he had recognised the other man who had gone up the footway first, in spite of his short cloak and hood, and he felt well a.s.sured that Charalambos Aristarchi could throw the officer and his six men into the ca.n.a.l without anybody's help, if he chose, though why the Greek ruffian was suddenly inspired to interfere on Zorzi's behalf was a mystery past his comprehension.

Marietta entered her room, and Nella, who had been revelling in the coming conversation, was suddenly very busy, stirring the drink of lime flowers which Marietta had ordered. She was so sure that her mistress had been all the time in the house, and so anxious not to have it thought that she could possibly have been idle, even for a moment, that she looked intently into the cup and stirred the contents in a most conscientious manner. Marietta turned from her almost immediately and began to undo the braids of hair, that Nella might comb it out and plait it again for the night. Nella immediately began to talk, and to tell all that she had seen from the window, with many other things which she had not seen.

"But of course you were looking out, too," she said presently. "They were all at the windows for some time."

"No," Marietta answered. "I was not looking out."

"Well, it was to-night, and not to-morrow, you see. Do you think the Governor is stupid? If he had waited till to-morrow, we should have told Zorzi. Poor Zorzi! I saw them taking him away, loaded with chains."

"In chains!" cried Marietta, starting painfully.

"I could not see the chains," continued Nella apologetically, "but I am sure they were there. It was too dark to see. Poor Zorzi! Poor Zorzi! By this time he is in the prison under the Governor's house, and he wishes that he had never been born. A little straw, a little water! That is all he has."

Marietta moved in her chair, as if something hurt her, but she knew that it would be unwise to stop the woman's talk. Besides, Nella was evidently sorry for Zorzi, though she thought his arrest very interesting. She went on for a long time, combing more and more slowly, after the manner of talkative maids, when they fear that their work may be finished before their story. But for Pasquale's rea.s.suring words, Marietta felt that she must have gone mad. Zorzi was safe, somewhere, and he was not in the Governor's prison, on the straw. She told herself so again and again as Nella went on.

"There is one thing I did not tell you," said the latter, with a sudden increase of vigour at the thought.

"I think you have told me enough, Nella," said Marietta wearily. "I am very tired."

"You cannot go to bed till I have plaited your hair," answered Nella mercilessly, but at the same time laying down the comb. "Just before you came in, I was looking out of the window. It was just an accident, for I was very busy with your things, of course. Well, as I was saying, in pa.s.sing I happened to glance out of the window, and I saw-guess what I saw, my pretty lady!"

Marietta trembled, thinking that Nella had seen her, and perhaps recognised her, and was about to bring her garrulous tale to a dramatic climax by telling her so.

"Perhaps you saw a woman," she suggested desperately.

"A woman indeed!" cried Nella. "That must be a nice woman who would be seen in the street at such a time of night, and the Governor's archers there, too! Woman? I would not look at such a woman, I tell you! No. What I saw was this, since you cannot guess. There came two big men, running fast, and they were carrying a dead body between them! Eh! They were at no good, I tell you. One could see that."

Marietta could bear no more, now. She bent her head and bit her finger to keep herself from crying out.

"If you will not be still, how in the world am I to plait your hair?" asked Nella querulously.

"Do it quickly, please," Marietta succeeded in saying. "I am so very tired to-night."

Her head bent still further forward.