THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 James J. McBride 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Margaret McBride
 
 V-*" 
 
 
 6 1* 
 
 IJr^ 
 
 te^T 
 
 \ * u> 
 
 SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE PHANTOM ARMY 
 
 BEING THE STORY OF A MAN AND A 
 MYSTERY 
 
 Crovin Sva, Buckram, Price 6s. 
 
 QUEEN OF THE JESTERS 
 
 AND HER STRANGE ADVENTURES IN 
 OLD PARIS 
 
 With Eight Full-page Illustrations by 
 
 H. PlFFARD 
 
 Crown %vo, Cloth, Price y. 6d.
 
 "He uttered a low moan, which became a resounding shriek 
 as he felt the shining steel cut his flesh." 
 
 Frontispiece. ]
 
 SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 THE STORY OF FRA GIOVANNI, THE SOLDIER-MONK 
 OF VENICE; AND OF OTHERS IN THE 
 
 "SILENT CITY" 
 
 BY 
 
 MAX PEMBERTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "KRONSTADT," "THE GARDEN OF SWORDS," ETC. ETC. 
 
 " When Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles." 
 
 BVRON. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 C. ARTHUR PEARSON LIMITED 
 HENRIETTA STREET W.C. 
 
 1899
 
 PR 
 
 G03I 
 
 P36 1*1 
 
 AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 
 
 I WOULD take this opportunity of saying that, 
 in two instances at least, the central idea of 
 these stories is to be found in the history of 
 Venice in the more dramatic years of the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Few of 
 those who remember Mr. Horatio F. Brown's 
 delightful Venetian Studies will fail to recog- 
 nise the alchemist Marcantonio Bragadino in my 
 sketch of the charlatan Zuane de Franza. It 
 is to be doubted if there is, in the whole story 
 of chicanery, a more remarkable figure than 
 that of Bragadino, whose ultimate exposure was 
 in a measure due to the powerful sermons 
 preached against him by Fra Paolo Sarpi. 
 It has been my hope in these sketches to 
 portray in Fra Giovanni, the Capuchin monk, 
 something of that connection of idea which 
 permitted a priest to wield so great an influence
 
 AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 
 
 in a Republic which by no means loved priests. 
 Nor do I think that the measure of authority 
 here permitted to Fra Giovanni would have 
 been denied to the great friar who won religious 
 liberty for the Venetians. 
 
 For the story " A Miracle of Bells," the 
 Spanish Conspiracy is my authority. It is 
 curious that a church figured so often in the 
 narratives of such plottings as these. The 
 student will remember that a document hidden 
 in a faldstool of the church of the Frari be- 
 trayed the Giambattista Bragadin to the police. 
 
 Elsewhere, for knowledge of the zanni of 
 Venice, I am indebted to the widely-known 
 memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi. 
 
 MAX PEMBERTON. 
 
 LONDON, 1899.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE RISEN DEAD . . 9 
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS . -49 
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS ... 9 1 
 
 "THE WOLF OF CISMON" . . 133 
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE . 17? 
 
 GOLDEN ASHES ... .217 
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE RAVEN . 257 
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA . . . -295
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " He uttered a low moan, which became a resounding shriek as 
 
 he felt the shining steel cut his flesh "... Frontispiece 
 " He began to peer into the shadows " .... Page 23 
 ' ' A gondola was approaching them " . . . . 31 
 " The body of Andrea, Lord of Pisa, lay upon the marble pave- 
 ment " 43 
 
 ' ' You are the friend of the friendless, Excellency " . . 55 
 
 1 ' Oh, my master oh, for Heaven's sake what is it that I see ?" 63 
 
 " He was left alone in the drunkard's pulpit " ... 87 
 " Old Nicolo could have sworn that he heard a sound as of the 
 
 pattering of little feet "....... 93 
 
 " They took a parchment from the tomb, and began to scrutinise 
 
 it closely" 107 
 
 " The man heard her cry, and strode to the place where she lay " 113 
 "The masked executioner stepped forward and touched the 
 
 condemned " 147 
 
 1 ' Leopardi saw a vision surpassing any he had looked upon in 
 
 all his life" 157 
 
 " ' Great God !' he said ; ' the dead come to life, then ' " . 163 
 
 " Old Barbarino, the clown, was busy painting a mask " . 181 
 
 " He was in one of the dungeons of the palace, he knew well " 207 
 
 " ' Come out !' he cried again and again " 223 
 
 " ' My lords,' said he, ' I have come here at your bidding ' " . 233 
 "So startling was the crash that he dropped the bag he was 
 
 carrying" .......... 249 
 
 1 ' The unknown laid a hand upon the hilt of his dagger " . 263 
 
 " The lacqueys on the stairs were talking in low whispers " . 277 
 
 " They swarmed up as an army to the loot " . . . 281 
 
 " I saw it, signori ; I heard the death-bell ringing " . . 297 
 
 ' ' He watched her boat earnestly " 309 
 
 " She saw the figure of the Lord of Carmagnola as he drew his 
 
 sword " . . . . . ,_ . , . 327
 
 Signers of the Night 
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 I. 
 
 THE sun was setting on the second day of 
 June, in the year 1701, when Pietro Falier, 
 the Captain of the Police of Venice, quitted 
 his office in the Piazzetta of St. Mark and 
 set out, alone, for the Palace of Fra Gio- 
 vanni, the Capuchin friar, who lived over on 
 the Island of the Guidecca. 
 
 " I shall return in an hour," he said to 
 his subordinate as he stepped into the black 
 gondola which every Venetian knew so well. 
 "If any has need of me, I am at the house 
 of Fra Giovanni." 
 
 The subordinate saluted, and returned 
 slowly toward the Ducal palace. He was 
 thinking that his Captain went overmuch just 
 then to the house of that strange friar who 
 
 9
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 had come to Venice so mysteriously, and so 
 mysteriously had won the favour of the re- 
 public. 
 
 "Saint John!" he muttered to himself, 
 " that we should dance attendance on a shaven 
 crown we, who were the masters of the city 
 a year ago ! What is the Captain thinking 
 of? Are we all women then, or have 
 women plucked our brains that it should be 
 Fr& Giovanni this and Fra Giovanni that, 
 and your tongue snapped off if you so much 
 as put a question. To the devil with all 
 friars, say I." 
 
 The good fellow stopped a moment in his 
 walk to lay the flat of his sword across the 
 shoulders of a mountebank, who had dared 
 to remain seated at the door of his booth 
 while so great a person passed. Then he 
 returned to his office, and whispered in the 
 ear of his colleague the assurance that the 
 Captain was gone again to the island of the 
 Jews, and that his business was with the friar. 
 
 "And look you, Michele," said he, "it is 
 neither to you nor to me that he comes nowa- 
 days. Not a whisper of it, as I live, except 
 to this friar, whom I could crush between 
 my fingers as a glass ball out of Murano." 
 
 JO
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 His colleague shook his head. 
 
 " There have been many," said he, " who 
 have tried to crush Frk Giovanni. They 
 grin between the bars of dungeons, my friend 
 at least, those who have heads left to 
 grin with. Be warned of me, and make 
 an ally of the man who has made an ally of 
 Venice. The Captain knows well what he 
 is doing. If he has gone to the priest's 
 house now, it is that the priest may win 
 rewards for us again, as he has won them 
 already a hundred times." 
 
 He spoke earnestly, though, in truth, his 
 guess was not a good one. The Captain of 
 the Police had not gone to the island of 
 the Guidecca to ask a service of the friar ; 
 he had gone, as he thought, to save the 
 friar's life. At the moment when his sub- 
 ordinates were wagging their heads together, 
 he himself stood in the priest's house, before 
 the very table at which Fra Giovanni sat 
 busy with his papers and his books. 
 
 " I implore you to listen to me, Prince ! " 
 he had just exclaimed very earnestly, as he 
 repeated the news for the second time, and 
 stood clamorous for the answer to his 
 question.
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 The friar, who was dressed in the simple 
 habit of the Capuchins, and who wore his 
 cowl over his head so that only his shining 
 black eyes could be seen, put down his pen 
 when he heard himself addressed as " Prince." 
 
 "Captain," he said sharply, "who is this 
 person you come here to warn? You speak 
 of him as ' Prince.' It is some other then, 
 and not myself?" 
 
 The Captain bit his lip. He was one of 
 the four in Venice who knew something of 
 Fra Giovanni's past. 
 
 " Your excellency's pardon," he exclaimed 
 very humbly; "were we not alone, you 
 would find me more discreet. I know well 
 that the Prince of Iseo is dead in Venice 
 at least. But to Fra Giovanni, his near 
 kinsman, I say beware, for there are those 
 here who have sworn he shall not live to 
 say Mass again." 
 
 For an instant a strange light came into 
 the priest's eyes. But he gave no other 
 sign either of surprise or of alarm. 
 
 " They have sworn it you know their 
 names then, Captain ? " 
 
 " The police do not concern themselves 
 with names, excellency." 
 
 12
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 "Which means that you do not know their 
 names, Captain ? " 
 
 Pietro Falier sighed. This friar never 
 failed to humble him, he thought. If it were 
 not for the honours which the monk had ob- 
 tained for the police since he began his work 
 in Venice, the Captain said that he would 
 not lift a hand to save him from the meanest 
 bravo in Italy. 
 
 " You do not know their names, Captain 
 confess, confess," continued the priest, rais- 
 ing his hand in a bantering gesture ; " you 
 come to me with some gossip of the bed- 
 chamber, your ears have been open in the 
 market-place, and this tittle-tattle is your 
 purchase confess, confess." 
 
 The Captain flushed as he would have done 
 before no other in all Venice. 
 
 " I do not know their names, excellency," 
 he stammered ; "it is gossip from the bravo 's 
 kitchen. They say that you are to die before 
 Mass to-morrow. I implore you not to leave 
 this house to-night We shall know how to 
 do the rest if you will but remain indoors." 
 
 It was an earnest entreaty, but it fell upon 
 deaf ears. The priest answered by taking a 
 sheet of paper and beginning to write upon it. 
 
 13
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 " I am indebted to you, Signor Falier," 
 said he quietly, "and you know that I am 
 not the man to forget my obligations. None 
 the less, I fear that I must disregard your 
 warning, for I have an appointment in the 
 market to-night, and my word is not so easily 
 broken. Let me reassure you a little. The 
 news that you bring to me, and for which T 
 am your debtor, was known to me three days 
 ago. Here upon this paper I have written 
 down the name of the woman and of her 
 confederates who have hired the bravo 
 Rocca to kill me to-night in the shadow of 
 the church of San Salvatore. You will read 
 that paper and the woman's name when you 
 have my permission." 
 
 Falier stepped back dumb with amazement. 
 
 " The woman's name, excellency," he re- 
 peated, so soon as his surprise permitted him 
 to speak, " you know her, then ? " 
 
 " Certainly, or how could I write it upon 
 the paper ? " 
 
 " But you will give that paper to me, here 
 and now. Think, excellency, if she is your 
 enemy, she is the enemy also of Venice. 
 What forbids that we arrest her at once ? 
 You may not be alive at dawn ! "
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 " In which case," exclaimed the priest 
 satirically, "the Signori of the Night would 
 be well able to answer for the safety of the 
 city. Is it not so, Captain ? " 
 
 Falier stammered an excuse. 
 
 " We have not your eyes, excellency ; we 
 cannot work miracles but at least we can 
 try to protect you from the hand of the 
 assassin. Name this woman to me, and she 
 shall not live when midnight strikes." 
 
 Fra Giovanni rose from his chair and put 
 his hand gently upon the other's shoulder. 
 
 " Signor Falier/' said he, " if I told you 
 this woman's name here and now as you ask, 
 the feast of Corpus Christi might find a new 
 Doge in Venice." 
 
 " You say, excellency ? " 
 
 " That the city is in danger as never she 
 was before in her history." 
 
 " And your own life ? " 
 
 " Shall be given for Venice if necessary. 
 Listen to this you seek to be of service to 
 me. Have you any plan ? " 
 
 " No plan but that which posts guards at 
 your door and keeps you within these 
 walls " 
 
 " That the enemies of Venice may do 
 15
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 their work. Is that your reason, Signer 
 Falier ? " 
 
 " I have no other reason, excellency, but 
 your own safety and that of the city." 
 
 " I am sure of it, Captain, and being sure 
 I am putting my life in your hands to- 
 night " 
 
 " To-night ; we are to follow you to the 
 Merceria then ? " 
 
 " Not at all say rather that you are to 
 return to the palace and to keep these things 
 so secret that even the Council has no word 
 of them. But, at ten o'clock, take twenty of 
 your best men and let your boat lie in the 
 shadow of the church of San Luca until I 
 have need of you. You understand, Captain 
 Falier?" 
 
 Falier nodded his head and replied vaguely. 
 Truth to tell he understood very little beyond 
 this that the friar had been before him once 
 more, and that he could but follow as a child 
 trustingly. And the city was in danger! 
 His heart beat quick when he heard the 
 words. 
 
 " Excellency," he stammered, " the boat 
 shall be there at ten o'clock in the shadow 
 of the church of San Luca. But first ' 
 
 16
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 " No," said the priest quickly, " we have 
 done with our firstly and your gondola waits 
 I think, signore ! " 
 
 II. 
 
 The bells of the Chapel of St. Mark 
 were striking the hour of eight o'clock, when 
 Fra Giovanni stepped from his gondola, and 
 crossed the great square towards that labyrinth 
 of narrow streets and winding alleys they call 
 the Merceria. 
 
 The piazza, itself was then ablaze with the 
 light of countless lamps ; dainty lanterns, 
 coloured as the rainbow, swayed to the soft 
 breeze between the arches of the colonnade. 
 Nobles were seated at the doors of the 
 splendid cafes ; the music of stringed instru- 
 ments mingled with the louder, sweeter music 
 of the bells ; women, whose jewels were as 
 sprays of flame, many hued and dazzling, 
 hung timidly upon the arms of lovers ; 
 gallants swaggered* in* costly velvets and silks 
 which were the spoil of the generous East ; 
 
 I 7 B
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 even cassocked priests and monks in their 
 sombre habits passed to and fro amidst that 
 glittering throng, come out to herald the 
 glory of a summer's night. 
 
 And clear and round, lifting themselves up 
 through the blue haze to the silent world of 
 stars above, were the domes and cupolas of 
 the great chapel itself the chapel which, 
 through seven centuries, had been the city's 
 witness to the God who had made her great, 
 and who would uphold her still before the 
 nations. 
 
 The priest passed through the crowd swiftly, 
 seeming to look neither to the right nor to 
 the left. The brown habit of the Capuchins 
 was his dress, and his cowl was drawn 
 so well over his head that only his eyes 
 were visible those eyes which stand out so 
 strangely in the many portraits which are still 
 the proud possession of Venice. Though he 
 knew well that an assassin waited for him in 
 the purlieus of the church of San Salvatore, 
 his step was quick and brisk ; he walked as a 
 man who goes willingly to a rendezvous, and 
 anticipates its climax with pleasure. When 
 he had left the great square with its blaze of 
 
 lanterns, and its babel of tongues, and had 
 
 18
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 begun to thread the narrow streets by which 
 he would reach the bridge of Rialto, a smile 
 played for a moment about his determined 
 mouth, and he drew his capuce still closer 
 over his ears. 
 
 " So it is Rocca whom they send Rocca, 
 the poltroon ! Surely there is the hand of 
 God in this." 
 
 He raised his eyes for a moment to the 
 starlit heaven, and then continued his brisk 
 walk. His way lay through winding alleys ; 
 over bridges so narrow that two men could 
 not pass abreast ; through passages where 
 rogues lurked ; and repulsive faces were 
 thrust grinning into his own. But he knew 
 the city as one who had lived there all his 
 life ; and for the others, the thieves and scum 
 of Venice, he had no thought. Not until he 
 came out before the church of Santa Maria 
 Formosa did he once halt or look behind 
 him. The mystery of the night was a joy to 
 him. Even in the shadow of the church, his 
 rest was but for a moment ; and, as he 
 rested, the meaning smile hovered again 
 upon his wan face. 
 
 " The play begins," he muttered, while he 
 loosened slightly the girdle of his habit, and 
 
 19
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 thrust his right hand inside it, " the God of 
 Venice give me courage." 
 
 A man was following him now he was 
 sure of it. He had seen him as he turned 
 to cross the bridge which would set him on 
 the way to the church of San Salvatore a 
 short, squat man, masked and dressed from 
 head to foot in black. Quick as the move- 
 ments of the fellow were, dexterous his dives 
 into porches and the patches of shadow which 
 the eaves cast, the priest's trained eye fol- 
 lowed his every turn, numbered, as it were, 
 the very steps he took. And the smile upon 
 Fra Giovanni's face was fitful no more. He 
 walked as a man who has a great jest for 
 his company. 
 
 " Rocca the fool, and alone! They pay 
 me a poor compliment, those new friends of 
 mine ; but we shall repay, and the debt will 
 be heavy." 
 
 He withdrew his hand from his habit, 
 where it had rested upon the hilt of a dag- 
 ger, for he knew that he had no need of 
 any weapon. His gait was quick and care- 
 less ; he stopped often to peer into some 
 windowless shop where a sickly lamp burned 
 before the picture of a saint ; and wares, 
 
 20
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 which had not tempted a dead generation, 
 appealed unavailingly to a living one. The 
 idea that his very merriment might cost 
 him his life never entered his head. He 
 played with the assassin as a cat with a 
 mouse, now tempting him to approach, now 
 turning suddenly, and sending him helter- 
 skelter into the door of a shop or the shadow 
 of a bridge. He was sure of his man, and 
 that certainty was a delight to him. 
 
 "If it had been any other but Rocca the 
 clown ! " he said to himself, his thoughts ever 
 upon the jest ; " surely we shall know what 
 to say to him." 
 
 He had come almost to the Church of San 
 Salvatore by this time. His walk had carried 
 him out to the bank of a narrow, winding 
 canal, at whose quays once splendid gondolas 
 were rotting in neglect. It seemed to him 
 that here was the place where his tactics 
 might well be changed and the role of the 
 hunted put aside for that of the hunter. 
 Quick to act, he stepped suddenly behind 
 one of the great wooden piles driven into 
 the quay for the warping of barges. The 
 bravOy who did not perceive that he had been 
 detected, and who could not account for the 
 
 21
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 sudden disappearance of his prey, came 
 straight on, his cloak wrapped about his 
 face, his naked sword in his hand. The 
 wage would be earned easily that night, he 
 was telling himself. No one would miss a 
 beggarly monk and he, Rocca, must live. 
 A single blow, struck to the right side of 
 the back, and then and then 
 
 This pleasant anticipation was cut short 
 abruptly by the total disappearance of the 
 man whose death was a preliminary to the 
 wage he anticipated so greedily. Mystified 
 beyond measure, he let his cloak fall back 
 again, and began to peer into the shadows as 
 though some miracle had been wrought and 
 the priest carried suddenly from earth to that 
 heaven whither he had meant to send him so 
 unceremoniously. 
 
 " Blood of Paul," he exclaimed angrily, 
 turning about and about again, "am I losing 
 my eyes ? A plague upon the place and the 
 shadows." 
 
 He stamped his foot impotently ; and was 
 about to run back by the way he had come 
 when a voice spoke in the shadows ; and at the 
 sound of the voice, the sword fell from the 
 man's hand and he reeled back as from a blow. 
 
 22
 
 " He began to peer into the shadows." 
 Page Z3-]
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 " Rocca ZiCB.ni, the Prince is waiting for 
 you." 
 
 The assassin staggered against the door of 
 a house, and stood there as one paralysed. , 
 He had heard those words once before in 
 the dungeons of Naples. They had been 
 spoken by the Inquisitors who came to Italy 
 with one of the Spanish princes. Instantly 
 he recalled the scene where first he had 
 listened to them the dungeon draped in 
 black ; the white hot irons which had seared 
 his flesh ; the rack which had maimed his 
 limbs, the masked men who had tortured 
 him. 
 
 "Great God," he moaned, "not that not 
 that " 
 
 The priest stepped from the shadows and 
 stood in a place where the feeble light of an 
 oil lamp could fall upon his face. The laugh 
 hovered still about his lips. He regarded 
 the trembling man with a contempt he would 
 not conceal. 
 
 " Upon my word, Signor Rocca," he ex- 
 claimed, "this is a poor welcome to an old 
 friend." 
 
 The bravo, who had fallen on his knees, 
 for he believed that a trick had again de- 
 
 25
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 livered him into the hands of his enemies, 
 looked up at the words, and stared at the 
 monk as at an apparition. 
 
 "Holy Virgin!" he cried, "it is the 
 Prince of Iseo." 
 
 The priest continued in the jester's tone : 
 
 "As you say, old comrade, the Prince of 
 Iseo. Glory to God for the good fortune 
 which puts you in my path to-night. Oh, 
 you are very glad to see me, Signor Rocca, 
 I'll swear to that. What, the fellow whom 
 my hands snatched from the rack in the 
 house of the Duke of Naples has he no 
 word for me ? And he carries his naked 
 sword in his hand ; he has the face of a 
 woman and his knees tremble. What means 
 this?" 
 
 He had seemed to speak in jest, but while 
 the cowed man was still kneeling before him, 
 he, of a sudden, struck the sword aside, and, 
 stooping, he gripped the bravo by the throat 
 and dragged him from the shelter of the 
 porch to the water's edge. As iron were the 
 relentless hands ; the man's eyes started from 
 his head, the very breath seemed to be 
 crushed out of him in the grip of the terrible 
 
 priest. 
 
 26
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 " Signer Rocca, what means this ? " the 
 friar repeated. " A naked sword in your 
 hand and sweat upon your brow. Oh ! oh ! 
 a tale, indeed ! Shall I read it to you, or 
 shall I raise my voice and fetch those who 
 will read it for me those who have the 
 irons heated, and the boot so made for 
 your leg that no last in Italy shall better 
 it. Speak, rascal, shall I read you the 
 tale?" 
 
 " Mercy, Prince, for the love of God." 
 
 The priest released the pressure of his 
 hands and let the other sink at his feet. 
 
 " Who sent you, rogue ? " he asked. 
 "Who pays your wage?" 
 
 " I dare not tell you, excellency." 
 
 " Dare not ! you dare not you, whom a 
 word will put to torture greater than any you 
 have dreamed of in your worst agonies ; you 
 dare not." 
 
 " Excellency, the Countess of Treviso I 
 am her servant." 
 
 " And the man who sent her to the 
 work his name?" 
 
 " Andrea, Count of Pisa, excellency." 
 
 The priest stepped back as one whose 
 
 curiosity was entirely satisfied. 
 
 27
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 "Ah! I thought so. And the price they 
 paid you, knave?" 
 
 " Forty silver ducats, excellency." 
 
 "Ho, ho ! so that is the price of a friar 
 in Venice." 
 
 The bravo sought to join in the jest. 
 
 " Had they known it was the Prince of Iseo, 
 it had been a hundred thousand, excellency." 
 
 Fra Giovanni did not listen to him. His 
 quick brain was solving a strange problem 
 the problem of the price that these people, 
 in their turn, should pay to Venice. When 
 he had solved it, he turned to the cringing 
 figure at his feet. 
 
 " Signer Rocca," he said, " do you know 
 of what I am thinking ? " 
 
 " Of mercy, excellency ; of mercy for one 
 who has not deserved it." 
 
 " But who can deserve it ? " 
 
 " Excellency, hearken to me. I swear by 
 all the saints " 
 
 "In whose name you blaspheme, rascal. 
 Have I not heard your oath in Naples when 
 the irons seared your flesh ? Shall I listen 
 again when the fire is being made ready, 
 and there is burning coal beneath the bed 
 
 you will lie upon to-night, Signer Rocca ? " 
 
 28
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 " Oh ! for God's sake, excellency ! " 
 
 " Not so ; for the sake of Venice, rather." 
 
 " I will be your slave I swear it on the 
 cross I will give my life 
 
 " Your precious life, Signor Rocca ! nay, 
 what a profligate you are ! " 
 
 Fra Giovanni's tone, perhaps, betrayed him. 
 The trembling man began to take heart a little. 
 
 "Prove me, excellency," he whined; "prove 
 me here and now." 
 
 The friar made a pretence of debating it. 
 After a little spell of silence he bade the 
 other rise. 
 
 " Come," he said, " your legs catch cold, 
 my friend, and will burn slowly. Stretch 
 them here upon the Campo while I ask you 
 some questions. And remember, for every 
 lie you tell me there shall be another wedge 
 in the boot you are about to wear. You 
 understand that, signore ? " 
 
 " Excellency, the man that could lie to the 
 Prince of Iseo has yet to be born." 
 
 It was a compliment spoken from the very 
 heart ; but the priest ignored it. 
 
 "Let us not speak of others, but of you 
 and your friends. And, firstly, of the woman 
 
 who sent you. She is now " 
 
 29
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 "In the Palazzo Pisani waiting news of 
 you." 
 
 "You were to carry that news to her?" 
 
 " And to receive my wage, excellency. 
 But I did not know what work it was holy 
 God, I would not have come for " 
 
 Fra Giovanni cut him short with a gesture 
 of impatience. 
 
 "Tell me," he exclaimed, "the Count of 
 Pisa, is he not the woman's lover ? " 
 
 "They say so, signore." 
 
 " And he is at her house to-night ? " 
 
 The man shook his head. 
 
 " Before Heaven, I do not know, excel- 
 lency. An hour ago, he sat at a cafe" in the 
 great square." 
 
 "And the woman was she alone when 
 you left her?" 
 
 " There were three with her to sup." 
 
 The priest nodded his head. 
 
 "It is good!" he said; "we shall even 
 presume to sup with her." 
 
 " To sup with her but they will kill you, 
 excellency ! " 
 
 " Ho, ho see how this assassin is con- 
 cerned for my life." 
 
 " Certainly I am. Have you not given 
 30
 
 " A gondola was approaching them." 
 
 Page y -I
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 me mine twice? I implore you not to go to 
 the house ' 
 
 He would have said more, but the splash 
 of an oar in the narrow canal by which they 
 walked cut short his entreaties. A gondola 
 was approaching them ; the cry of the 
 gondolier, awakening echoes beneath the 
 eaves of the old houses, gave to Fra Giovanni 
 that inspiration he had been seeking now for 
 some minutes. 
 
 " Rocca Zicani," he exclaimed, standing 
 suddenly as the warning cry, " Stale" be- 
 came more distinct, " I am going to put 
 your professions to the proof." 
 
 " Excellency, I will do anything " 
 
 " Then, if you would wake to-morrow with 
 a head upon your shoulders, enter that 
 gondola, and go back to those who sent you. 
 Demand your wage of them " 
 
 " But, excellency " 
 
 " Demand your wage of them," persisted 
 the priest sternly, " and say that the man 
 who was their enemy lies dead before the 
 church of San Salvatore. You understand 
 me?" 
 
 A curious look came into the bravo s eyes. 
 
 " Saint John," he cried, " that I should 
 
 33
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 have followed such a one as you, excel- 
 lency ! " 
 
 But the priest continued warningly : 
 
 "As you obey, so hope for the mercy of 
 Venice. You deal with those who know 
 how to reward their friends and to punish 
 their enemies. Betray us, and I swear that 
 no death in all Italy shall be such a death 
 as you will die at dawn to-morrow." 
 
 He raised his voice, and summoned the 
 gondolier to the steps of the quay. The 
 bravo threw himself down upon the velvet 
 cushions with the threat still ringing in his 
 ears. 
 
 " Excellency," he said, " I understand. 
 They shall hear that you are dead." 
 
 III. 
 
 Fra Giovanni stepped from his gondola, 
 and stood at the door of the Palazzo Pisani 
 exactly at a quarter to ten o'clock. Thirty 
 minutes had passed since he had talked with 
 the bravo, Rocca, and had put him to the 
 
 34
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 proof. The time was enough, he said ; the 
 tale would have been told, the glad news of 
 his own death already enjoyed by those who 
 would have killed him. 
 
 Other men, perhaps, standing there upon 
 the threshold of so daring an emprise, 
 would have known some temptation of fear 
 or hesitation in such a fateful moment ; but 
 the great Capuchin friar neither paused nor 
 hesitated. That strange confidence in his 
 own mission, his belief that God had called 
 him to the protection of Venice, perchance 
 even a personal conceit in his own skill as a 
 swordsman, sent him hurrying to the work. 
 It was a draught of life to him to see men 
 tremble at his word ; the knowledge which 
 treachery poured into his ear was a study 
 finer than that of all the manuscripts in all the 
 libraries of Italy. And he knew that he was 
 going to the Palazzo Pisani to humble one of 
 the greatest in the city to bring the sons 
 of Princes on their knees before him. 
 
 There were many lights in the upper 
 storeys of the great house, but the ground 
 floor, with its barred windows and cell-like 
 chambers, was unlighted. The priest saw 
 horrid faces grinning through the bars ; the 
 
 35
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 faces of fugitives, fleeing the justice of 
 Venice, outcasts of the city, murderers. But 
 these outcasts, in their turn, were silent 
 when they saw who came to the house, and 
 they spoke of the strange guest in muted 
 exclamations of surprise and wonder. 
 
 " Blood of Paul do you see that ? It is 
 the Capuchin himself and alone. Surely 
 there will be work to do anon." 
 
 " Ay, but does he come alone ! Saint John, 
 I would sooner slit a hundred throats than 
 have his shadow fall on me. Was it not he 
 that hanged Orso and the twelve! A curse 
 upon the day he came to Venice." 
 
 So they talked in whispers, but the priest 
 had passed already into the great hall of the 
 palace and was speaking to a lacquey there. 
 
 "My friend," he said, " I come in the 
 name of the Signori. If you would not hear 
 from them to-morrow, announce me to none." 
 
 The lacquey drew back, quailing before 
 the threat. 
 
 " Excellency," he exclaimed, "I am but a 
 servant " 
 
 "And shall find a better place as you serve 
 Venice faithfully." 
 
 He passed on with noiseless steps, mount- 
 
 36
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 ing the splendid marble staircase upon which 
 the masterpieces of Titian and of Paolo 
 Veronese looked down. At the head of the 
 stairs, there was a painted door, which he 
 had but to open to find himself face to face 
 with those who were still telling each other 
 that he was dead. 
 
 For an instant, perhaps, a sense of the 
 danger of his mission possessed him. He 
 knew well that one false step, one word 
 undeliberated, would be paid for with his 
 own blood. But even in the face of this 
 reckoning he did not hesitate. He was there 
 to save Venice from her enemies ; the God 
 of Venice would protect him. And so with- 
 out word or warning, he opened the door 
 and stood, bold and unflinching, before those 
 he had come to accuse. 
 
 There were four at table, and one was a 
 woman. The priest knew her well. She 
 had been called the most beautiful woman in 
 Venice Catherine, Countess of Treviso. Still 
 young, with a face which spoke of ambition 
 and of love, her white neck glittered with 
 the jewels it carried, her dress of blue velvet 
 was such a dress as only a noblewoman of 
 Venice could wear. A queenly figure, the 
 
 37 c
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 friar said, yet one he would so humble pre- 
 sently that never should she hold up her 
 head again. 
 
 As for the others, the men who had 
 cloaked conspiracy with a woman's smile, he 
 would know how to deal with them. Indeed, 
 when he scanned their faces and began to 
 remember the circumstances under which he 
 had met them before, his courage was 
 strengthened, and he forgot that he had ever 
 reasoned with it. 
 
 He stood in the shadows ; but the four, 
 close in talk, and thinking that a lacquey 
 had entered the room, did not observe him. 
 They were laughing merrily at some jest, 
 and filling the long goblets with the golden 
 wine of Cyprus, when at last he strode out 
 into the light and spoke to them. His 
 heart beat quickly ; he knew that this might 
 be the hour of his death, yet never had 
 his voice been more sonorous or more sure. 
 
 "Countess," he exclaimed, as he stepped 
 boldly to the table and confronted them, 
 " I bring you a message from Andrea, the 
 lord of Pisa!" 
 
 He had expected that the woman would 
 
 cry out, or that the men would leap to their 
 
 38
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 feet and draw their swords ; but the supreme 
 moment passed and no one spoke. A 
 curious silence reigned in the place. From 
 without there floated up the gay notes of a 
 gondolier's carol. The splash of oars was 
 heard, and the low murmur of voices. But 
 within the room you could have counted the 
 tick of a watch almost the beating of a 
 man's heart. And the woman was the first 
 to find her tongue. She had looked at the 
 friar as she would have looked at the risen 
 dead ; but, suddenly, with an effort which 
 brought back the blood to her cheeks, she 
 rose from her seat and began to speak. 
 
 "Who are you?" she asked, "and why do 
 you come to this house ? " 
 
 Fra Giovanni advanced to the table so 
 that they could see his face. 
 
 " Signora," he said, " the reason of my 
 coming to this house I have already told 
 you. As to your other question, I am the 
 Capuchin friar, Giovanni, whom you desired 
 your servant Rocca to kill at the Church of 
 San Salvatore an hour ago." 
 
 The woman sank back into the chair; the 
 blood left her face ; she would have swooned had 
 not curiosity proved stronger than her terror. 
 
 39
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 " The judgment of God ! " she cried. 
 
 Again, for a spell, there was silence in the 
 room. The priest stood at the end of the 
 table telling himself that he must hold these 
 four in talk until the bells of San Luca struck 
 ten o'clock, or pay for failure with his life. 
 The men, in their turn, were asking them- 
 selves if he were alone. 
 
 " You are the Capuchin friar, Giovanni," 
 exclaimed one of them presently, taking 
 courage of the silence; "what then is your 
 message from the Count of Pisa ? " 
 
 " My message, signore, is this that at ten 
 o'clock to-night, the Count of Pisa will have 
 ceased to live." 
 
 A strange cry, terrible in its pathos, 
 escaped the woman's lips. All had risen to 
 their feet again. The swords of the three 
 leaped from their scabbards. The instant of 
 the priest's death seemed at hand. But he 
 stood, resolute, before them. 
 
 "At ten o'clock," he repeated sternly, "the 
 Count of Pisa will have ceased to live. That 
 is his message, signori, to one in this house. 
 And to you, the Marquis of Cittadella, there 
 is another message." 
 
 He turned to one of the three who had 
 40
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 begun to rail at him, and raised his hand as 
 in warning. So great was the curiosity to 
 hear his words that the swords were lowered 
 again, and again there could be heard the 
 ticking of a clock in the great room. 
 
 " For me a message ! Surely I am 
 favoured, signore." 
 
 " Of that you shall be the judge, since, at 
 dawn to-morrow, your head will lie on the 
 marble slab between the columns of the 
 Piazzetta." 
 
 They greeted him with shouts of ridicule. 
 
 "A prophet a prophet!" 
 
 " A prophet indeed," he answered quietly, 
 "who has yet a word to speak to you, 
 Andrea Foscari." 
 
 "To me!" exclaimed the man addressed, 
 who was older than the others, and who wore 
 the stola of the nobility. 
 
 " Ay, to you, who are about to become a 
 fugitive from the justice of Venice. Mid- 
 night shall see you hunted in the hills, my 
 lord ; no house shall dare to shelter you ; no 
 hand shall give you bread. When you return 
 to the city you would have betrayed, the 
 very children shall mock you for a beggar." 
 
 Foscari answered with an oath, and drew 
 41
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 back. The third of the men, a youth who 
 wore a suit of white velvet, and whose vest 
 was ablaze with gold and jewels, now ad- 
 vanced jestingly. 
 
 "And for me, most excellent friar?" 
 
 " For you, Gian Mocenigo, a pardon in the 
 name of that Prince of Venice whose house 
 you have dishonoured." 
 
 Again they replied to him with angry 
 gibes. 
 
 " A proof a proof we will put you to 
 the proof, friar here and now, or, by 
 God, a prophet shall pay with his life." 
 
 He saw that they were driven to the last 
 point. While the woman stood as a figure of 
 stone at the table, the three advanced 
 towards him and drove him back before their 
 threatening swords. The new silence was 
 the silence of his death anticipated. He 
 thought that his last word was spoken in 
 vain. Ten o'clock would never strike, he 
 said. Yet even as hope seemed to fail him, 
 and he told himself that the end had come, 
 the bells of the city began to strike the 
 hour, and the glorious music of their echoes 
 floated over the sleeping waters. 
 
 " A proof, you ask me for a proof, sig- 
 42
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 nori," he exclaimed triumphantly. " Surely, 
 the proof lies in yonder room, where all the 
 world may see it." 
 
 He pointed to a door opening in the wall 
 of mirrors, and giving access to a smaller 
 chamber. Curiosity drove the men thither. 
 They threw open the door ; they entered the 
 room ; they reeled back drunk with their own 
 terror. 
 
 For the body of Andrea, lord of Pisa, lay, 
 still warm, upon the marble pavement of the 
 chamber, and the dagger with which he had 
 been stabbed was yet in his heart. 
 
 "A proof have I not given you a proof?" 
 the priest cried again, while the woman's 
 terrible cry rang through the house, and the 
 three stood close together, as men upon 
 whom a judgment has fallen. 
 
 "Man or devil who are you?" they 
 asked in hushed whispers. 
 
 He answered them by letting his monk's 
 robe slip from his shoulders. As the robe 
 fell, they beheld a figure clad in crimson 
 velvet, and corselet of burnished gold ; the 
 figure of a man whose superb limbs had been 
 the envy of the swordsmen of Italy ; whose 
 face, lighted now with a sense of power and 
 
 45
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 of victory, was a face for which women had 
 given their lives. 
 
 " It is the Prince of Iseo," they cried, and, 
 saying it, fled from the house of doom. 
 
 At that hour, those whose gondolas were 
 passing -the Palazzo Pisani observed a strange 
 spectacle. A priest stood upon the balcony 
 of the house holding a silver lamp in his 
 hand ; and as he waited, a boat emerged 
 from the shadows about the church of San 
 Luca, and came swiftly towards him. 
 
 " The Signori of the Night," the loiterers 
 exclaimed in hushed whispers, and went on 
 their way quickly. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Very early next morning, a rumour of 
 strange events, which had happened in Venice 
 during the hours of darkness, drew a great 
 throng of the people to the square before the 
 ducal palace. 
 
 " Have you not heard it," man cried to 
 man ; " the Palazzo Pisani lacks a mistress 
 to-day ? The police make their toilet in 
 the boudoir of my lady. And they say that 
 the lord of Pisa is dead." 
 
 " Worse than that, my friends," a gondolier 
 
 protested, " Andrea Foscari crossed to 
 
 4 6
 
 THE RISEN DEAD 
 
 Maestre last night, and the dogs are even 
 now on his heels." 
 
 " Your news grows stale," croaked a hag 
 who was passing; "go to the Piazzetta and 
 you shall see the head of one who prayed 
 before the altar ten minutes ago." 
 
 They trooped off eager for the spectacle. 
 When they reached the Piazzetta, the hag 
 was justified. The head of a man lay bleed- 
 ing upon the marble slab between the 
 columns. It was the head of the Marquis of 
 Cittadella. 
 
 In the palace of the police, meanwhile, 
 Pietro Falier, the Captain, was busy with his 
 complaints. 
 
 "The lord of Pisa is dead," he said, "the 
 woman has gone to the Convent of Murano ; 
 there is a head between the columns ; Andrea 
 Foscari will die of hunger in the hills yet 
 Gian Mocenigo goes free. Who is this friar 
 that he shall have the gift of life or death 
 in Venice ? " 
 
 His subordinate answered: 
 
 " This friar, Captain, is one whom Venice, 
 surely, will make the greatest of her nobles 
 to-day." 
 
 47
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 I. 
 
 ON the morning of the feast of the Ascen- 
 sion, in the year 1702, Scavezzo, the fat 
 Canon of St. Mark's, stood before the booth 
 of old Barbarino, the clown, and rated its 
 owner soundly. 
 
 " What ! " he cried ; " to mock a Canon of 
 the Ducal House, to hold him up to the 
 ridicule of the people, to ape his sermons 
 and his gestures. Out on you for a rogue 
 who shall be whipped before dawn to- 
 morrow ! " 
 
 It was obvious to the densest person that 
 the good churchman was exceedingly angry. 
 What with his loud and penetrating voice, 
 the menace of his gold-topped staff, and the 
 meek and humble attitude of old Barbarino, 
 
 49
 
 all the people on the Piazzetta came running 
 up to the booth ; some to take the part of the 
 clown ; some to show their loyalty, for reasons 
 of profit, to the colossal and unwieldy church- 
 man. Even gondoliers left their boats at the 
 neighbouring quay to learn the cause of the 
 clamour ; while over yonder, at the cafes, on 
 the Piazza, gallants and great dames ceased 
 their chatter to listen to the brawl. 
 
 " Excellency," said the clown, bowing 
 humbly before the Canon's wrath, " I beg 
 you to listen to me. I hope that I know 
 who I am. If I am little and you are 
 
 big- 
 
 The crowd roared with merriment at the 
 unhappy slip. As for the fat preacher, he 
 positively shook with anger. 
 
 " How ! You insult me, rogue ! here at 
 the door of my own church ! But I must 
 teach you a lesson. I must show you that 
 there is still justice in Venice for her 
 churchmen. Wait until the whip falls upon 
 your shoulders ; you shall tell me then if I 
 am big or no." 
 
 The poor clown, terrified by his threats, 
 wrung his hands in despair. 
 
 " Oh ! a thousand pardons, excellency ! " 
 50
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 he exclaimed. " I am sorry for my words. 
 I should have said that you are " 
 
 " Enormous," cried someone in the mob. 
 
 The Canon strode from the booth and 
 shook his stick at them. 
 
 "To-morrow," he said dramatically, "to- 
 morrow not one stone of this house shall 
 remain upon another." 
 
 The crowd roared anew at the sally. Venice 
 was never a great respecter of her priests, 
 arid Venice loved old Barbarino, the clown 
 principally, perhaps, for the sake of his 
 daughter Nina, the prettiest dancing girl in 
 all the city. 
 
 " By Bacchus ! " cried a merry gondolier. 
 " Not one stone upon another, eh, and the 
 house built of wood ? A miracle, your ex- 
 cellency, a miracle ! " 
 
 " Do not disturb his excellency's thoughts," 
 chimed in a second; "he is about to give us 
 his blessing." 
 
 " Not at all," said a third. " His excellency 
 is not very well to-day. Was it not a black 
 fast yesterday, my friends, and did not the 
 good Canon keep it on three capons and a 
 boar's head ? A plague on you for slanderers 
 of a holy man ! " 
 
 51
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 But Scavezzo, the fat Canon, was already 
 out of hearing. Bristling with anger, his 
 vanity sore wounded, he had gone at once to 
 the police, and had laid his complaint before 
 them. They obeyed him promptly. 
 
 Within an hour there came to old Barbarino 
 the intimation that, at dawn to-morrow, he 
 and his must leave the city. 
 
 In vain the old man pleaded with the 
 Chief of the Police that for ten years he 
 had been as much a part of Venice as the 
 Patriarch himself; in vain he recalled the 
 honours which great men had heaped on his 
 head, the licence they had permitted him. 
 No word of his was allowed to prevail above 
 that of so mighty a personage as a Canon 
 of St. Mark's. At dawn to-morrow he must 
 
 go- 
 Never was there assembled in any booth 
 
 a company of clowns so melancholy as those 
 gathered in the booth of old Barbarino that 
 afternoon. Punchinello, Columbine, Harle- 
 quin tears were upon the cheeks of them 
 all. To quit Venice their home ; to wander 
 as beggars on the high road of Italy! Not 
 to know whence their bread would come or 
 
 straw for their pillows ! And all this for a 
 
 52
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 word against a beggarly canon whom Venice 
 could well spare, ay, and a dozen of their 
 kind. No surprise, then, that the feast of 
 the Ascension, the great feast, meant nothing 
 to the clowns. Their day was done others 
 would enjoy their triumphs and eat their 
 bread. 
 
 Little Nina, the dancing girl, listened to 
 these doleful complaints, but did not share 
 them. She loved Venice, though she was 
 but sixteen years old, loved the city as well 
 as those who beat and starved her and 
 robbed her of the scudi that her talent earned. 
 She had a good wit of her own, too, and 
 when old Barbarino returned from the palace 
 with tears in his eyes, she nodded her pretty 
 head cunningly, and crept from the booth 
 unheeded and unobserved. 
 
 Half-an-hour later, she had crossed the 
 canal in her own little gondola and had 
 reached the house of one who, in all but 
 name, was then the first man in Venice 
 Fra Giovanni, the Capuchin friar, whose pity 
 for children was as the pity of the Master 
 who sent him to the work. 
 
 There were many waiting to speak to the 
 great priest, noble women and senators and 
 
 53
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 even the captains of the police, but when he 
 came out from his library and saw the 
 clown's daughter waiting timidly in his ante- 
 room, he beckoned to her before them all 
 and at once asked her for her news. 
 
 "Well," he said, shutting the door of the 
 library upon a great dame who would have 
 thrust her way in with the young girl, "and 
 what is little Nina's trouble to-day ? " 
 
 " Oh, excellency," she cried, holding his 
 hand in both of hers, "we have no longer 
 a home in Venice we are to leave at dawn. 
 God help us we shall have to beg our 
 bread ! " 
 
 Fra Giovanni sat in his big chair, and 
 stroked her pretty hair. 
 
 " They beat you and starve you and yet 
 you speak of begging your bread. Would 
 that be so great a hardship, little Nina!" 
 
 " Excellency," she said simply, " I love 
 Venice ; it is the only home I have ever 
 known. And for my father's sake oh, I 
 know that you will help us. It was yester- 
 day the day of fast. My father preached 
 to the people, and the people said he was 
 Scavezzo, the Canon of St. Mark's. Oh, 
 excellency, if you could have heard them 
 
 54
 
 ,' 
 
 "You are the friend of the friendless, Excellency." 
 
 Page 55.]
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 laugh. And now we are to be punished ; 
 the police say so ; we are to sleep in our 
 booth no more and all because the Canon 
 is fat, excellency, oh, so fat, and my father 
 wore a sack at his girth and you know " 
 
 She stopped for very want of breath. A 
 curious smile spread over the face of the 
 friar. He continued to stroke her hair in 
 silence. Her heart beat quick for she knew 
 that he would help her. 
 
 " So it is Scavezzo, the Canon, who com- 
 plains, Nina. The people laughed, you say?" 
 
 " You could not hear yourself speak, ex- 
 cellency. Oh, they do not love Scavezzo ; 
 they would not wish us to leave them. And 
 Venice is so dear to us you will not send 
 us away, excellency ? " 
 
 Fra Giovanni shook his head doubtingly. 
 
 "Who am I, Nina, that the police should 
 listen to me ? " 
 
 "You are the friend of the friendless, ex- 
 cellency." 
 
 "And you think that the Canon will hear me?" 
 
 She bowed her head for she could not 
 answer him. 
 
 " What shall I do if you will not help me, 
 excellency," she exclaimed. 
 
 57 r>
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 He did not answer her for a little while. 
 Some scheme seemed running in his mind. 
 When he spoke again, the smile was still 
 upon his face. 
 
 " Come," he said cheerily, " we must dry 
 up those tears. Tell me, would your father 
 be at his booth if I went there now ? " 
 
 "He would say that God sent you, excel- 
 lency." 
 
 Again the priest seemed lost in thought. 
 But it was not to be hidden from her that 
 his thoughts amused him. 
 
 "Well," he said, rising from his chair pre- 
 sently, "we are going to see your father, 
 Nina. And while we go, you will be on 
 your way to Murano. You know the church 
 of San Pietro there?" 
 
 " As I know your house, excellency ! " 
 
 " And the home of Michael, the wood- 
 carver you have been there, Nina ? " 
 
 She thought upon it a little and then 
 answered : 
 
 "Michael, the wood-carver but, excel- 
 lency, he is as fat as Scavezzo himself; you 
 could not tell one from the other." 
 
 A great light burst upon her. She began 
 
 to clap her hands joyfully. 
 
 58
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 "Oh, excellency," she cried, "you are 
 going to save us then ! " 
 
 " Before vespers to-morrow, little Nina, 
 Scavezzo, the Canon, shall ask pardon of you 
 on his knees." 
 
 She kissed his hand rapturously ; but the 
 priest drew his cowl about his face and, re- 
 gardless of those who waited for him, set out 
 upon his way to the booth of Barbarino, 
 the clown. 
 
 II. 
 
 Scavezzo, the fat Canon of St. Mark's, 
 kept the feast of the Ascension right well. 
 All day long there had been the clash of 
 silver bells from the steeples of Venice, the 
 thunder of cannon from her forts. Measureless 
 processions had passed through the square 
 before the great church on their way to 
 witness the wedding of the Adriatic. Nobles 
 in splendid robes of silk and velvet, deacons 
 bearing tapers, captains of the city in scarlet, 
 chancellors, equerries, beautiful women glit- 
 
 59
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 tering in jewels, the Doge himself in ermine 
 and blue and cloth of gold all these, in 
 gondolas decked out with gaudy draperies 
 and weighed down with flowers, had gone 
 out once more to wed that sea which Venice 
 had ruled so long. 
 
 And when night fell, and there was music 
 of fifes and the strings were tuned in every 
 house, and the city put on a dazzling 
 raiment of countless lanterns, the people had 
 their turn, and hurried in their thousands to 
 welcome the people's procession upon the 
 Piazza. to assist in a masquerade surpassing 
 anything known in all the history of carnival. 
 
 Scavezzo, the fat Canon, was supping 
 when this second procession emerged from 
 the church ; but his faithful servant, Giacomo, 
 stood at the window of the presbytery, and 
 gave him constant news of it. Not for such 
 a trifle as the most splendid pageant in all 
 Europe would Scavezzo turn from a grinning 
 boar's head or a goblet filled to the brim 
 with the luscious wine of Cyprus. Proces- 
 sions he had taken part in those all day. 
 And that takpoulet his mouth watered at the 
 steaming odour of it. A fig for the people 
 
 and their pleasures when a canon supped. 
 
 60
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 " They are coming, you say, Giacomo ; 
 then who carries the cross before them ? " 
 
 " Gabrino, the clerk he walks like a 
 prince, my master. And there are a hun- 
 dred priests behind him. Body of Mark, 
 there is cloth of gold enough down yonder 
 to hang the walls of a city. Hark to the 
 roll of the drums. It is like thunder in the 
 hills." 
 
 Scavezzo took a large piece of meat upon his 
 fork, and surveyed it with great satisfaction. 
 
 " And behind the priests who walk behind 
 the priests, Giacomo?" 
 
 " Two hundred and fifty with torches, 
 your excellency. It is night, made day. 
 The eyes are blinded with the fire. And 
 lanterns, Saint Paul, who shall count the 
 lanterns I see ? " 
 
 Scavezzo ate the dainty morsel and 
 smacked his lips in token of his satisfaction. 
 
 "It is good!" he sighed; and then, "there 
 will be the women of the city, too, Giacomo." 
 
 Giacomo leered pleasantly. 
 
 " They have come down from Paradise, 
 excellency ; never were such women seen. 
 Your reverence does well to turn your eyes 
 away." 
 
 61
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 The fat Canon groaned inaudibly ; he 
 emptied his goblet at a draught. 
 
 " Let us not speak of them, Giacomo. Let 
 us remember to mortify " 
 
 His platitude, doubtlessly good, was cut 
 short by a new exclamation from the old 
 servant at the window. 
 
 "Ho! ho!" he said, "here come the 
 clowns ! I see Barbarino the fool, and little 
 Nina the dancing girl. And there is harle- 
 quin legs of a thousand devils, I can hear 
 the laughter now. Were there ever such 
 fellows in all the world, and faithful servants 
 of Holy Church, too, your excellency ! " 
 
 Scavezzo, recalled suddenly to a memory 
 of the morning, ground his teeth. 
 
 " To-morrow," he said to himself, " to- 
 morrow there will be one booth the less in 
 Venice." 
 
 But Giacomo continued, unconscious of his 
 master's anger : 
 
 " A plague upon the banners which hide 
 them from my sight, excellency, for there is 
 II Magnifico himself, and the Doctor in his 
 Bologna gown, and the lovers at the play. 
 Saint John, if all the love in Venice were 
 
 made like that ! But I must not ask your 
 
 62
 
 "Oh, my master oh, for Heaven's sake what is it that I see?" 
 Page 63.]
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 reverence to be an authority on such a 
 point." 
 
 He continued to grin and to leer as the 
 love play went on in the vast square below. 
 Scavezzo, meanwhile, had brought his supper 
 to an abrupt conclusion. The memory of the 
 clowns was as vinegar upon his meat. He 
 said that he would wake to-morrow to hear 
 that Barbarino and his daughter, Nina, had 
 gone, bag and baggage, to the mainland. 
 And with this happy assurance to give him 
 peace, he called to Giacomo to bring his coffee. 
 
 " You are growing deaf in your old age, 
 Giacomo. Coffee, my friend, coffee." 
 
 To his infinite surprise, the old man at the 
 window did not answer a single word. 
 Rather he stood as one petrified, now look- 
 ing to the square below, now at his master. 
 His face was contorted strangely. Some 
 horrible apparition appeared to have so 
 affected his visage that his eyes stood out 
 like eyes of glass, and the veins of his fore- 
 head were full to bursting. 
 
 " Oh, my master oh, for Heaven's sake 
 what is it that I see ? " 
 
 The fat Canon leant back in his chair and 
 surveyed his servant with contempt. 
 
 65
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 " Giacomo," he said, "how often have I 
 told you that your stomach is too old for the 
 red wine of Vicenza ? " 
 
 The rebuke fell upon deaf ears. The old 
 servant remained indifferent alike to his 
 master's question and to his scorn. He stood 
 at the window drunk indeed, but drunk with 
 terror. 
 
 "How!" he cried, with a terrible laugh, 
 " two masters one here and one there. Oh, 
 saints and angels defend us!" 
 
 Scavezzo raised himself with an effort from 
 his chair. 
 
 "Giacomo," he exclaimed, "you are cer- 
 tainly drunk. To-morrow you shall fast on 
 bread and water, and then your eyesight will 
 be better. Meanwhile, we will see 
 
 The threat was checked abruptly upon the 
 Canon's lips. He, too, was at the window 
 now ; he looked down upon the piazza below ; 
 he heard the merry music ; he saw the count- 
 less lights, the gay dresses, the tremendous 
 throng of masqueraders ; above all, he saw 
 himself! 
 
 Scavezzo rocked upon his heels as a man 
 struck suddenly with dizziness. He wondered 
 no longer that Giacomo had not answered 
 
 66
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 him. He, the Canon of St. Mark's Chapel ; 
 he, the great preacher ; he, the admired 
 ecclesiastic upon whom the women of Venice 
 fawned, was he drunk also, was he in his 
 room or out there on the piazza. ; had some 
 cunning drug in his wine made him see 
 double ? The very room seemed to swim 
 before him. He gasped for breath and un- 
 loosed his cassock at the throat. 
 
 "I am Scavezzo," he cried hoarsely; "who, 
 in God's name, then, is that other ? " 
 
 Old Giacomo crossed himself devoutly. 
 
 "My master," he exclaimed, "we are be- 
 witched. A woman stood at the altar this 
 morning and she had the evil eye. That is 
 why I see you in the square down yonder, 
 when in reality you are at supper in this 
 room. And look you sit upon a golden 
 chair, there is a fool's cap on your head, 
 you have a flagon in your hand, a woman 
 that I should say it a woman sits upon 
 your knee oh, excellency, was ever such a 
 thing heard of since the blessed saint came 
 to Venice." 
 
 But it was Scavezzo's turn to be deaf 
 now. The ringing shouts of the masquera- 
 
 ders in the square moved him to a frenzy 
 
 67
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 such as he had never known. One thing 
 only was clear to him, and it was this, that 
 out there, on the piazza, seated upon a chair 
 of gold, which strong arms carried, and 
 mumming that the people might laugh, was 
 his double, his other self, a man so like him 
 in face and feature, and in vast unwieldy 
 bulk, that his own father might have been 
 perplexed to say which was which. 
 
 How the man came there, what devilry 
 prompted him to wear the cassock and bands 
 of a Canon of St. Mark's, the terrified ecclesi- 
 astic dare not ask himself. He had but one 
 idea he must stop the procession at any cost, 
 he must expose an impostor, he must go out 
 and cry to the people : " Here is the true 
 Scavezzo ; here is the Canon to whose pulpit 
 you come ! " 
 
 The idea quickened his laborious step as 
 never it had been quickened before. Deft 
 were the fat fingers which buttoned up his 
 purple cape. Heavy was his breathing as he 
 put on his great hat with the broad brim, 
 and shuffled into the shoes with the silver 
 buckles, and grasped his staff, and repeated 
 to his stupefied servant the assurance that 
 
 justice should be done. 
 
 68
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 " To-morrow, Giacomo, to-morrow he shall 
 know the whip and the iron. What ! to hold 
 me up before the people with a flagon in 
 my hand and a fool's cap on my head! 
 God's law ! the police shall have a word to 
 say about that ! " 
 
 Giacomo, trembling still, sought to hold 
 him back. 
 
 "My master," he implored, "you will not 
 go among them to-night. Hark to those 
 cries they are like the cries of wild beasts. 
 If you value your life " 
 
 Scavezzo did not heed him. His hand 
 shook with passion. Giacomo said afterwards 
 that he descended his staircase with steps 
 which made the house quake. He must 
 stop the procession ! He must pull the 
 buffoon, who was his other self, from the 
 throne whereon the clowns had placed him ! 
 Never must Venice be left to believe that a 
 Canon of St. Mark's had so disgraced him- 
 self. The mere determination gave him a 
 nerve of iron. A man of quick temper, his 
 mind dwelt lovingly upon the punishment 
 to-morrow should bring upon the miscreants 
 who had mocked him. They should be 
 
 burnt with irons, he said ; and so saying, he 
 
 69
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 opened the door of the presbytery and 
 passed into the great square. 
 
 For some minutes the dazzling lights, the 
 roar of voices, the wail of fifes, the rolling 
 of drums, made him feel as one tossed 
 suddenly into an angry sea. Everywhere 
 about him masqueraders were moving. 
 Strange figures with hideous visages, pretty 
 women on the arms of lovers, jesters, monks, 
 sailors, priests, mingled headlong in that 
 tremendous throng. Nevertheless, one cry 
 prevailed loud above all others. It was the 
 welcome of the mob to the man in the 
 golden chair to the man the people believed 
 to be Scavezzo, the Canon of St. Mark's. 
 
 " Viva, viva ! Long life to our father 
 Scavezzo ! Another flagon for his hand, 
 another cap for his head. Viva, viva ! a 
 Canon of canons ! And yon is Dorimene on 
 his lap oh, viva, viva ! " 
 
 Scavezzo heard the cries, and they were 
 as blows upon his ears. He began to hasten 
 with all the speed he could command towards 
 the Piazzetta, and as he ran, a man, masked 
 in red and wearing a scarlet dress, followed 
 close upon his steps, and at length made 
 bold to touch him on the arm.
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 " What think you of this sight, my father," 
 cried the stranger, "a holy Canon of St. 
 Mark's masquerading like a juggler from 
 Normandy. Was ever such a thing known 
 in Venice ? " 
 
 Scavezzo turned to the stranger eagerly. 
 
 " My friend," he said, "a very great wrong 
 has been done this night. I am Scavezzo, 
 the true Canon of the Ducal chapel. Who 
 that fellow may be, I cannot tell you. Help 
 me, I pray, to speak to the people." 
 
 The man in the red mask, thus addressed, 
 surveyed the trembling ecclesiastic as one 
 who has heard a fairy story. 
 
 " The devil," said he ; " when I come to 
 look at you, my father, there is truth in your 
 words. You are a kinsman, perhaps, and the 
 disgrace of your famous relative wounds you. 
 I approve your charity. Let us go together 
 and protest before this astounding canon, 
 who, upon my word, is little credit to 
 Venice." 
 
 The Canon wrung his hands ; his grief 
 was pitiable to see. 
 
 "Oh," he said, "that I should not be 
 myself, that there should be two of us am 
 I going mad ? " 
 
 71
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 The stranger answered him by linking 
 arms with him and leading him deeper into 
 the whirling throng. 
 
 " Come along, then," he cried encourag- 
 ingly. "It is not you who are mad, my 
 friend, but that dolt of a relative of yours 
 who certainly must have lost his wits. I 
 wonder that the police do not interfere. Hark 
 to his jests. Did ever such words fall from 
 the lips of a churchman before ? And, as I 
 live he is eating a capon as big as himself. 
 Shame on the rogue to forget his office so." 
 
 A tremendous shout of laughter from the 
 people bore testimony to the truth of the 
 masked man's word. Scavezzo, as short as 
 he was fat, made painful efforts to stand 
 upon the tips of his toes ; but so great was 
 the press about him that he could see 
 nothing. 
 
 " Oh," he wailed, " what an infamy I 
 that have a woman's appetite ! " 
 
 The stranger.' laughed until the tears came 
 into his merry eyes. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! They have handed him 
 a second capon as big as an eagle. He is 
 putting it in the sack at his girth. You can 
 
 see him swelling, father. And now, by the 
 
 72
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 barrel of Bacchus, he sits down upon his 
 chair the chair flies into a hundred pieces, 
 and the Canon's heels are in the air. Oh, 
 shame, shame I laugh like a girl." 
 
 Scavezzo clenched his hands until the long 
 nails penetrated the flesh. 
 
 " My friends," he roared, seeking to make 
 his voice heard above the tumult, " do not 
 look at him here is the true Scavezzo. 
 Come and see him for yourself come and 
 touch him. That fellow there is an impostor. 
 Do not hear him. Listen to me, I implore you." 
 
 He might as well have spoken to the 
 walls of the arsenal. The mob was in a 
 frenzy of delight now. 
 
 " Viva, viva ! " it was screaming ; " Scav- 
 ezzo dances for us. Oh, the great Scavezzo ! 
 To-morrow there will be ten thousand about 
 his pulpit. Oh, the holy man, the wonder ! " 
 
 The fervid cries were drowned in the 
 hoarse shouts of laughter with which the 
 new performance was greeted. The false 
 Canon of St. Mark's was dancing before the 
 people. There was no doubt at all about 
 it. The thunder of his feet upon the throne 
 which carried him was as the roll of some 
 tremendous drum. The true Canon, obtain- 
 
 73
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 ing a moment's glimpse of the spectacle, 
 nearly fainted at it. 
 
 " Oh, for the love of God," he cried to 
 the stranger at his side, " help me and save 
 me, signore. Who am I, where am I ? Is 
 it another that speaks to you or Scavezzo 
 the Canon ? Oh, in the name of charity ! " 
 
 The stranger gripped his arm yet tighter. 
 
 " Come," he said, " this wanton exhibition 
 has unhinged your mind, father. We will 
 go to the police, and see if they permit such 
 disgraceful sights in their city. A Canon 
 dancing in a booth like a common harlequin. 
 What an example for the people ! " 
 
 He spoke with a fine assumption of anger, 
 and Scavezzo, in his turn, permitted himself 
 to be dragged through the outer ranks of 
 the delighted crowd ; but his cassock was 
 torn as he went, and he groaned often. 
 
 " I have never danced in all my life," he 
 protested piteously ; " God did not make me 
 to dance. It is true that I drank a little red 
 wine with my meat, but a flagon like that, 
 as big as the dome of a church, it is mon- 
 strous, it is cruel, sig-nore ! " 
 
 o 
 
 The stranger dragged him on, regardless 
 of his distress. 
 
 74
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 "Courage," he said, "we are going to the 
 police. Trust them to right a wrong, father. 
 To-morrow all Venice shall hear that Scavezzo, 
 the Canon, is in the dungeons of the palace." 
 
 The Canon laughed ironically, hysterically. 
 
 "I am another then," he exclaimed; "this 
 morning I was Scavezzo, but Scavezzo is 
 dead. He dances on a barrel, and there is a 
 fool's cap on his head. And to-morrow, the 
 dungeon ! God help me, the dungeon ! " 
 
 The man in the mask pretended not to 
 hear him. He had helped the fat Canon 
 across the square, and should have turned to 
 the right to find the offices of the police ; 
 but instead of that, he turned to the left, and 
 plunged at once into that maze of narrow 
 streets they call the Merceria. There, at a 
 little wine shop, above which was the sign of 
 a Turk's head, he stopped as though a new 
 idea had come to him. 
 
 " Father," he said, " I am thinking that we 
 are in no fit state to present ourselves to the 
 Captain of the Police just now. Enter here, 
 where they will give us a glass of wine, and 
 even a needle for your cassock. When the 
 wine is drunk, we can go across to the 
 palace and tell our tale." 
 
 75 E
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 Scavezzo assented willingly. He could still 
 hear the frenzied shouts ringing across the 
 piazza. A ribald chorus, a haunting, vulgar 
 lilt had been taken up by the people, and 
 its echoes floated across the sleeping lagoon, 
 and were heard by the distant islanders. 
 
 " Oh," he said, " hark to that. The fellow 
 is teaching them to sing a ribald song against 
 our Lord, the Pope. I know it well, 
 signore." 
 
 The stranger dragged him into the shop. 
 
 " I fear your kinsman will hang after all," 
 he said grimly. " Drink a glass of wine, 
 father, and then to the police." 
 
 Scavezzo obeyed him as a child. He 
 scarce knew who he was or where he was. 
 The little wine shop would have been in 
 darkness but for the scanty rays of light 
 emitted by an old brass lamp burning before 
 an image. He could not see the face of the 
 hag who came out to serve him. His hand 
 trembled as he lifted the glass to his lips, 
 and no sooner had he put it down than the 
 drug which it contained began to act, and he 
 fell senseless into the arms of the man who 
 had brought him to the shop. 
 
 " Quick," said the unknown, as other 
 76
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 masked men came to his assistance, "he 
 must wake at Murano in the house of 
 Michael, the wood-carver." 
 
 Ill 
 
 The sun had been shining hotly upon the 
 island of Murano for many hours when 
 Scavezzo, the Canon, awoke from his heavy 
 sleep. It had been a troubled sleep bringing 
 him curious dreams ; and chiefly a dream in 
 which he saw himself preaching to a congre- 
 gation of clowns, and must, in spite of him- 
 self, make jokes for their amusement. When 
 he awoke at last with throbbing temples and 
 burning face, he called loudly for Giacomo, 
 his servant, and began to fear that he would 
 be late for mass. 
 
 " Giacomo, Giacomo do you not hear me ? 
 Water, rascal, and my cassock quick ! " 
 
 Now, the Canon's eyes were hardly opened 
 when he said this ; and what was his as- 
 tonishment, a moment later, to find himself, 
 not in his own presbytery as he thought, but 
 
 77
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 lying upon a low wooden bed in a long 
 narrow room which he had never seen be- 
 fore, and whose very furniture was of a kind 
 to awe him. Everywhere strange, inanimate 
 figures gaped at him here a monster, half 
 man, half dragon ; there a figure of a cen- 
 taur ; here, a scene from purgatory richly 
 carved in wood ; there, a fantastic group of 
 demons designed for the staircase of some 
 rich merchant an odd assortment, in truth, 
 which, seen in the dim light of the room, 
 might well have startled one of stronger 
 nerves than Scavezzo, the Canon. And to 
 say that the Canon was merely startled 
 would be to misrepresent his story alto- 
 gether. For minutes together he glared at 
 the hideous, grinning, voiceless things, as at 
 an army of spectres risen from the ground 
 before him. 
 
 " Oh," he said, " wake up, Scavezzo wake 
 up. This is your dream ; you are sleeping 
 still, and that rogue of a Giacomo has for- 
 gotten to call you. You will be late for 
 
 Mass, Scavezzo, and what will the Patriarch 
 
 } " 
 say r 
 
 He laughed a little nervously as he spoke, 
 
 and sat bolt upright in his bed. His mind 
 
 78
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 was strangely confused ; but gradually it 
 began to bring back to him the mysterious 
 doings of last night. A procession around 
 the Piazza ! yes, he remembered that. And 
 afterwards, supper, and a man in a scarlet 
 mask, and a great throng of masqueraders, 
 and someone singing ribald songs about the 
 Pope. 
 
 Round and round in his head the strange 
 figures of thought went, until, in a moment 
 of quaking terror, the figures fell into line 
 and the whole scene was played over again 
 for him. In that instant he remembered all 
 the false Scavezzo, the man on the golden 
 chair, the fool's cap, the flagon the ringing 
 cheers of the mob, his own overwhelming, 
 imperishable disgrace. 
 
 " Great God ! " he cried, " it was true, 
 then. I did not dream it. There was 
 another Scavezzo in the square. He did 
 dance that the people might laugh. And 
 now, holy patron, where am I now ? What 
 has brought me to this place? In whose 
 house am I ? " 
 
 He waddled to the door, for he had slept 
 in his clothes ; and opened it with uncertain 
 hands. The sun's rays streamed into the 
 
 79
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 room and half-blinded him ; but when his 
 eyes mastered the light he could see a great 
 expanse of water, and in the distance the 
 golden domes of Venice and of his own 
 church. He knew then that the low house 
 stood upon the quay of some island, and 
 that he was alone in it. It was a glorious 
 day, and many a gondolier went by singing 
 a merry song. One of them, resting upon 
 his oar, spoke to the Canon, and the words 
 were the strangest Scavezzo had ever heard. 
 
 " How ! Michael, and who brought you 
 home from carnival ? " cried the man. 
 
 Scavezzo drew himself up proudly. 
 
 " Impudent fellow," he said, " do you not 
 see to whom you are talking ? " 
 
 The man roared with laughter. 
 
 "Behold!" said he, ".am I not talking to 
 Michael, the wood-carver, who came home last 
 night with his heels where his head should 
 have been ? Shame on him for a guzzling 
 rogue that has forgotten the name he bears." 
 
 The Canon shook his fist at him, and 
 turned angrily from the water's edge. He 
 had not thought of the clothes he wore, but 
 now he looked at them, and perceived to 
 his astonishment that he was arrayed no
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 more in spotless, violet cassock and shoes 
 with the silver buckles. These had given 
 place to a suit of coarse brown cloth, with 
 boots such as only the common workmen 
 buy. Moreover, a leather belt was about his 
 waist, and in this belt a workman's knife was 
 sheathed. For quite a long time the Canon 
 stood at the door of the house, shaking his head, 
 as one who is perplexed beyond understanding. 
 
 " I wear a suit of brown clothes, and wake 
 in a house I have never seen," he said, con- 
 tinuing to nod his head mechanically. " A 
 boatman calls me Michael, and insults me. . I 
 am upon the island of Murano, and I can 
 see my home across the water. Has some- 
 one robbed me of my senses, then ? Do I 
 sleep still ? Am I gone mad in a night ? I 
 will believe no such thing. I will be- 
 lieve " 
 
 The voices of children, who ran up sud- 
 denly to the place where he stood, cut short 
 the expression of his will. As a rule, he 
 was, like other fat men, benevolent and well 
 disposed to the little ones ; and when these 
 children came up to him, he greeted them 
 very kindly. 
 
 "My children," he asked, "do you know 
 
 81
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 whose house this is, and where the owner 
 may be found?" 
 
 Their response was a merry shout ; they 
 went scampering away, crying to one another : 
 " Here is old Michael, the wood-carver, drunk 
 with wine ! Oh, come and see, come and see ! " 
 
 Scavezzo suppressed the evil words that 
 came even to his lips. He looked down 
 again at his poor brown clothes, up again at 
 the house wherein he had slept. 
 
 " I am bewitched," he murmured ; " this is 
 the reward of my sins Heaven pity me. I 
 am no longer myself, I am someone else, 
 Scavezzo is dead. He is Michael, the wood- 
 carver ! Oh ! cursed day." 
 
 Muttering thus, with dizzy head and weak 
 limbs, he began to stagger rather than to 
 walk along the quay towards the great 
 church of the island. The priest there would 
 know him, he thought ; perchance would lend 
 him a cassock, and find a gondolier to take 
 him home. The possibility gave him some 
 little hope ; but he had not gone very far 
 before the children, who had cried out upon 
 him, came running back again, and brought 
 with them others, shrewish women and idle 
 
 men, who had come to see the unusual 
 
 82
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 spectacle of a drunken wood-carver. These 
 gave him hard words and many a push ; and 
 presently a crowd began to gather, and to 
 jeer at him. 
 
 " Ho, ho, thou art drunk still, old Michael 
 have a care, rogue, or they will put thee 
 in the pillory." 
 
 " Shame on him, for a lazy rascal that lets 
 his children starve, and beats his good wife ! " 
 
 " Ay, thou dost well to speak of his wife. 
 Wait until she comes back from Torcello. A 
 right good arm has Antonina, and well she 
 knows how to use it." 
 
 The suggestion was the fast infamy. At 
 the word " wife " old Scavezzo raised his arms 
 as though to beat off the devils who tor- 
 mented him. 
 
 " Wife ! " he roared. " You speak to me of 
 a wife ! Do you not know then who I am ? 
 Do you not see that I am Scavezzo, the 
 Canon of St. Mark's ? Scoffers, I will have 
 you whipped I will have you 
 
 Anger choked his utterance. He stumbled 
 on blindly towards the church. The crowd 
 increased and began to hoot him, until his 
 ears rang with the clamour and the din. 
 
 "Oh! come and see, come and see! Here 
 83
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 is a wood-carver whom the bottle has made a 
 Canon ! Oh ! come and see ! " 
 
 But above this cry was another, and it was 
 more ominous. 
 
 " To the pillory with him, and learn there 
 what sort of a Canon he is." 
 
 New-comers took up the new word, and it 
 was repeated with loud shouts of joy. Some 
 laid hands upon the Canon's arm, some 
 pushed, some pulled him. His piteous appeals 
 for mercy fell upon ears that wished to be 
 deaf. The louder he protested that he was 
 Scavezzo, the wilder were the cries : " A wood- 
 carver that has gone mad oh ! come and see ! " 
 
 On they dragged him, past the church 
 which was to have been his sanctuary, away 
 from the water and the ships, onward to the 
 open square of the island, even to the pil- 
 lory, where ready hands strapped his arms, 
 and readier urchins prepared their ammunition. 
 
 "A leek for thy stomach, old Michael." 
 
 " An apple for thy head." 
 
 "Water to wash the wine out of thee, old 
 man." 
 
 "A stinking fish to remind thee of Lent." 
 
 "The half of an egg to keep up thy 
 
 strength." 
 
 84
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 " A dead dog, old Michael, to whom thou 
 mayest preach." 
 
 So the delighted mob roared as it gathered 
 round the pillory and began to amuse itself. 
 
 Savage cries of delight accompanied the 
 bombardment. The square of the island was 
 filled by a vast throng which hooted inces- 
 santly, and always invited others to come and 
 see the wood-carver of whom good wine had 
 made a Canon. Even in distant Venice the 
 clamour was heard, and the report believed 
 that Murano was in arms. As for Scavezzo 
 himself, he had the mind neither to think 
 nor to protest any more. The ultimate 
 humiliation had overtaken him. Whatever 
 the years might have in store for him, this 
 must remain, that he, the darling Canon of 
 the women of Venice, had stood in a pillory 
 on the island of Murano. He could have 
 prayed to God that the earth would open 
 and swallow him up. 
 
 Throughout that long afternoon, the man 
 who had sworn to banish the clowns from 
 Venice, was the mock and the sport of the 
 islanders. Yet strange it was that no serious 
 hurt befell him : and still more strange that at 
 sunset the crowd seemed to melt away as 
 
 85
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 if by magic, and he was left alone in that 
 drunkard's pulpit. Very hungry, weak and 
 bowed down with shame, he began to think 
 that Heaven had willed his death. The 
 darkest hour of his life seemed at hand when 
 he heard a voice in the square below him, 
 and opening his eyes quickly, beheld no 
 other than Barbarino, the clown, and with 
 him, his pretty daughter, Nina. 
 
 To Scavezzo, the sight was as a vision 
 from Heaven. 
 
 "Oh, glory to God this night," he cried pite- 
 ously, "here, at last, are those who know me." 
 
 Old Barbarino pretended to hear the voice 
 and to be amazed at the sound of it. 
 
 " Hark," cried he, standing suddenly before 
 the pillory, " I could have sworn that I 
 heard the voice of his excellency, Scavezzo, 
 at whose word we are to be banished from 
 Venice to-day. Yet when I look up, I see a 
 common rogue standing in the pillory as any 
 drunkard of the city." 
 
 He made as though to pass on ; but the trem- 
 bling Canon implored him with tears in his eyes. 
 
 " For the love of God, one moment," he 
 wailed. " I am not what I appear to be I 
 
 am Scavezzo ; oh, Heaven help me, I speak 
 
 86
 
 "He was left alone in the drunkard's pulpit."
 
 A SERMON FOR CLOWNS 
 
 the truth to you. Yesterday I was your 
 enemy, to-day I will be your friend. I swear 
 it on the Cross I ask it on my knees- 
 Old Barbarino seemed to hesitate, but little 
 Nina said : 
 
 "How can he be Scavezzo, father ; and if 
 ,he is, why should we help him since there is 
 a new Canon called Scavezzo across yonder, 
 and he will not take our home from us?" 
 
 "A new Canon," roared Scavezzo, "another 
 in my place oh, devils all, you tell me that ? " 
 "Ay, indeed," answered old Barbarino, 
 " Scavezzo, the Canon, is over there all 
 right, as every woman in Venice, who heard 
 him preach this morning, will swear." 
 
 Scavezzo listened no more. He opened 
 his lips no sound came out. His head 
 drooped forward. He had fainted. 
 
 IV 
 
 At noon next day in his own house, 
 whither the clowns carried him, they told 
 
 Scavezzo the story of the jest. 
 
 89
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 " Ah," said Giacomo, his servant, " nothing 
 but a pilgrimage to Rome will blot this out, 
 my master. To think of it, that they should 
 dress up this wood-carver with their powders 
 and their paints until, had he stepped into 
 your pulpit, your own mother would not have 
 discovered him." 
 
 " But he did not step into my pulpit, 
 Giacomo oh, tell me that he did not ? " 
 
 Giacomo's eyes twinkled. 
 
 " You must ask Fra Giovanni about that," 
 he said ; " perchance old Barbarino has a 
 bad memory, excellency a clown's way of 
 speaking, you understand, which implied, 
 as I live, that you should preach to clowns." 
 
 Scavezzo sighed. 
 
 " It is a long way to Rome, Giacomo," he 
 expostulated ; " nevertheless " 
 
 " Nevertheless, Venice has a longer memory, 
 my master. The city loves her clowns- 
 ay, better than any Canon that ever wore 
 the purple." 
 
 Scavezzo shook his head sadly. 
 
 "Ay," he said, "that is a lesson I do not 
 need to learn, Giacomo." 
 
 90
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 I 
 
 LAY- BROTHER NICOLO watched the last of the 
 beggars quit the aisles of the great church, 
 and then bestirred himself to close it for the 
 night. One by one he put out the tapers, 
 which still cast their wan light upon the 
 marble pavements. East and west he went 
 to lock the gates of the porches. Silently 
 and swiftly he drew the heavy leathern cur- 
 tains which shut his brethren, the Servite 
 fathers, from the merry life of the world 
 upon the waters ; swiftly, too, he covered the 
 altars, and carried the great golden crucifix 
 to the sacristy. For supper, hot and savoury 
 and steaming, was already filling the re- 
 fectory with delicious odours, and lay-brother 
 Nicolo was very hungry. 
 
 91
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 One last look round, a moment's pause to 
 light the lantern which showed him the way 
 to the door of the sacristy, completed his 
 uncongenial task. Clear as his conscience was, 
 he did not wish to linger in the darkened 
 church when the people had left it and the 
 outer gate was closed. By and by he would 
 live with the saints but until that day came 
 he preferred the chatter of his brethren in 
 refectory and in cloister. 
 
 And there were such queer sights and 
 sounds in that lonely fane when all the tapers 
 were out and the dim red lamps cast shadows 
 before the altars, and the very effigies of 
 dead martyrs seemed reanimated and living. 
 
 On this particular evening of March old 
 Nicolo could have sworn that he heard a 
 sound, as of the pattering of little feet, at the 
 very moment when he was about to close the 
 last of the doors and to hurry to the odorous 
 stew awaiting him. Truth to tell, he held 
 his lantern high, and listened intently while 
 some seconds passed ; but the sound was not 
 repeated, and, eager to be reassured, the 
 trembling monk turned the heavy key in the 
 lock and fled that holy place of spirits and 
 
 of shadows. 
 
 92
 
 "Old Nicolo could have sworn that he heard a sound 
 as of the pattering of little feet." 
 
 Page 93.]
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 " What a thing to imagine," he said to 
 himself, as he crossed the cloister and drew 
 his hood about his ears, for the wind blew 
 cold upon Venice from the mountains. 
 " Surely I am growing old, and will be the 
 better for a cup of wine. A child at night- 
 fall in the church of the Servites ! As well 
 seek an honest man in the booths of Rialto." 
 
 Now, this surmise was well enough in an 
 ordinary way, but it chanced to be ill-chosen 
 on that memorable evening. Indeed, at the 
 very moment when the good friar laughed 
 at his delusions, and helped himself plenti- 
 fully to the savoury dish, little Nina, the 
 daughter of old Barbarino the clown, was 
 smiling through her tears in the church he 
 had left. 
 
 She told herself that there, at any rate, 
 none would molest her until day came. She 
 it was who had watched the lay-brother as 
 he put out those tapers one by one ; she 
 who had prayed to all the saints and angels 
 that she might lie the night in the warm 
 church, and that none might discover her. 
 No home was hers in all that glittering city 
 of waters ; no hand stretched out to give her 
 aught but blows. Her father, Barbarino the 
 
 95 *'
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 fool, begrudged her the very shelter of 
 the booth he clowned in over there on 
 the Piazza by the great church of St. 
 Mark. 
 
 She had no memory nor name of the 
 mother whose child she was. Nina, the 
 people called her as she capered in the dress 
 of Columbine Nina the fairy; Nina of the 
 black eyes ; Nina the dancing girl. 
 
 She would repeat the words to herself, as 
 she lay, hungry and alone, in whatever 
 shelter the unbefriending night might give 
 her; she would ask if the years to come 
 had nothing but such empty praise for her 
 reward. She had lived through sixteen sum- 
 mers ; yet a summer of life was unknown to 
 her. Nina of the black eyes, the people 
 said, for the people did not see the tears 
 upon the cheek nor know the loneliness in 
 the heart of the child. 
 
 Fra Nicolo closed the church, and Nina 
 dried up her tears. She had no fear of the 
 shadows. The twinkling lamps before the 
 altars were for her lanterns to guide the feet 
 of angels. In the darkness, the Christ came 
 down to her from the Cross ; the saints from 
 
 the pictures. Or she would love to tell her- 
 
 96
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 self that this great building was a palace of 
 which she was the mistress. 
 
 She would people it in her imagination 
 with the nobles of Venice ; with princes in 
 habits of silver ; with fair women, whose 
 jewels shone as the jewels upon the altar of 
 the Virgin ; with young girls, whose beauty 
 her own should surpass. Music she heard in 
 fancy and the words of lovers ; but always 
 the words of one whose image was before 
 her day and night, Christoforo, Count of 
 Carmagnola, that reckless lord of the city, 
 whos'e wealth was the envy of Venice, whose 
 beauty was her admiration. 
 
 Little Nina had touched his cloak once as 
 he passed to his gondola from the Palace. 
 His image had been with her sleeping or 
 waking since that day ; there was a world of 
 happiness in the foolish dreams which 
 brought him to her side. She told herself, 
 girlishly, that she would love him to her 
 life's end, though never might she speak to 
 him nor hear his voice. 
 
 Nina slept a young girl's sleep ; a sleep 
 of sweet dreams and of troubles forgotten. 
 Cold as the great church was, nevertheless 
 she could rest therein and forget the booth 
 
 97
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 where her father clowned to please the 
 people, and she was beaten when the money 
 bag was empty. Usually, her dreams would 
 last until day came and old Fra Nicolo lit 
 the candles for the first Mass ; but on this 
 night of March, in the year 1701, the voice 
 of the storm and the moaning of the wind 
 broke in upon her slumbers so that eleven 
 o'clock had hardly been struck by the great 
 bell above her head when she opened her 
 eyes and began to ask herself where she 
 was. 
 
 For the first time in all her life a terrible 
 fear of the darkness took possession of her. 
 She started to her feet, with her dreams still 
 clinging to her eyes, and peered into the 
 shadows of the church. A sense of loneli- 
 ness and of dread, in no way to be ex- 
 plained, made her limbs tremble. She fell 
 upon her knees before the great altar, and 
 prayed as she had never prayed before. 
 
 " Lord God, I know that I am not alone." 
 
 The strange prayer was as a salve to her 
 fears. She rose up from the steps of the 
 altar, and began to laugh at herself. 
 
 " Who is there that would harm the 
 
 clown's daughter?" she asked herself. "Who 
 
 98
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 is there that would come to the Church of 
 the Servites when Venice sleeps? Ola, I am 
 a ninny to be frightened by my dreams." 
 
 The argument was good, but not altogether 
 satisfying. It suggested, after all, that 
 some other outcast might have done as she 
 had done, and found a sanctuary from the 
 bitter wind in the aisles of the Servite 
 church. The mere contemplation of such a 
 possibility quickened her heart and muted 
 her tongue. She stood listening intently for 
 any strange sound in the building. She 
 feared to raise a hand, almost to breathe. 
 Yet no sound, such as she listened for, was 
 to be heard. Only the wind sighing beneath 
 the eaves ; only the waters lapping the marble 
 steps before the porch of the monastery. 
 
 She said, for the second time, that she 
 was a baby to think of such things ; and so 
 returned to the dark chapel, and tried to 
 sleep once more. The visions began to come 
 again, the dreams to weave the smiles about 
 her lips, when a sound within the church 
 once more brought her to her feet and sent 
 the blood rushing to her head. It was the 
 sound of a key grating in the lock of the 
 sacristy door. 
 
 99
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 Nina started to her feet and ran from the 
 chapel to the great nave of the church. She 
 was not quite sure yet that she had not 
 dreamed the thing. She began to argue 
 with herself again, asking who would come 
 to the monastery when Venice slept. A 
 repetition of the sound froze the argument 
 upon her lips. No longer was there any 
 opportunity to doubt. 
 
 She heard the door of the sacristy creak 
 upon its hinges. She heard the whisper of 
 voices, the muted tread of men who crossed 
 the marble pavement of the ambulatory, and 
 were coming to the nave of the church. 
 She knew that she was no longer alone, and, 
 stricken by a terror which surpassed any 
 terror she had imagined, she ran back to the 
 chapel and lay, all huddled up and shivering, 
 in the shadow of the oaken screen that 
 divided the transept from the church. 
 
 " Who is it ? Who can come at such an 
 hour?" she asked herself helplessly, and be- 
 wildered. The idea that the monks them- 
 selves had heard of her hiding-place and 
 were there to punish her was her first 
 thought ; but it ceased to help her when she 
 remembered that they would not come in 
 
 100
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 darkness with muted steps. And if not the 
 monks, who then ? She dared not to think 
 out an answer to her own question. 
 
 Child that she was, she had heard of 
 those dangers of plot and counterplot, which 
 then threatened her own city and the prince 
 of her own city. She had heard of men 
 who were awake to conspiracies when others 
 slept ; who hid themselves in the vaults and 
 the cellars by night, yet were the ornaments 
 of Venice by day. 
 
 Instinctively she guessed that such men as 
 these had invaded her hiding-place. They 
 had obtained possession of the keys of the 
 church, she thought, and were there to speak 
 of things which, whispered even in the 
 shadows outside, might set the heads of 
 those who whispered them between the pil- 
 lars of St. Mark. And if her guess was 
 right, what hope or chance of life had she. 
 They would kill her, she said, kill her and 
 cast her body into the lagoon. Her crime 
 would be that she had seen their faces, had 
 known their meeting-place. 
 
 This affrighting thought sent her back still 
 farther into the great patch of shadow which 
 the screen cast upon the pavement of the 
 
 101
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 chapel. She feared even that the men would 
 hear the beating of her heart. The creak of 
 the sacristy door as it shut gently upon its 
 hinges was like ice upon her limbs. She 
 counted the muted footsteps, and saw that 
 they were very near to her. She could dis- 
 tinguish the whisper of voices and hear the 
 question of one and the answer of another. 
 
 The men were searching the church, then, 
 they would find her presently, they would 
 drag her out, they would but she had not 
 the courage to imagine more, and a heavy 
 sob broke from her, though she knew that 
 discovery was but a little removed from 
 death. Then she heard the sound of voices. 
 
 " Is it you, Count?" 
 
 "It is I, Orso." 
 
 " You heard nothing ? " 
 
 " I heard the wind under the eaves." 
 
 " Is Paolo there?" 
 
 " He is at my side." 
 
 " Then it was not he holy God, what a 
 thought ! " 
 
 "You said, Orso?" 
 
 " That I heard a sound as of someone 
 sobbing." 
 
 " Pah, it was the wine you drank. Thrust 
 
 102
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 your sword in that confessional, and then 
 tell me who sobs." 
 
 Nina heard the man obey. She could pic- 
 ture him thrusting his shining blade into the 
 dark recesses about the pillars of the nave. 
 He would come, by and by, to the chapel 
 where she lay, and that sword would tell her 
 story. 
 
 "Well, do you find anything?" 
 
 " Dust I find that, Count, and the books 
 of the priest. Saint John, what a fright I 
 had." 
 
 The man thus called Count laughed softly. 
 
 " Who would be in the Church of the 
 Servites at this hour ? " he asked. 
 
 " The police, perhaps ; they are every- 
 where." 
 
 The other made a gesture of impatience. 
 
 " It is time to end this nonsense," said he. 
 " Uncover your lantern, and let us see what 
 that can show us. Paolo will stand at the 
 door of the sacristy meanwhile. If there is 
 any friar out of bed at this hour, we shall 
 know how to talk to him. And I will trouble 
 you to take off my shoes, my friend ; they 
 groan like a sick man ! " 
 
 With these words, the men left their place 
 103
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 by the pulpit, and began to walk very silently 
 and quickly towards the great western door. 
 Nina counted their footsteps, and as the 
 sounds died away, she took courage, and 
 peered over the low screen of the chapel 
 wherein she had slept. There was moonlight 
 at this time, for the wind had lifted the low 
 clouds of evening, and the painted windows 
 took shape again, showing glorious visions 
 of saints and angels. 
 
 The child could see two of the men quite 
 clearly as they passed in and out of the side 
 chapels ; but the apparition was fitful, for the 
 shadows were deep and many, and she was 
 too fearful to leave her hiding-place for long. 
 Rather, she drew back' into the darkness 
 again, and prayed with all her heart that 
 someone would come to the church. 
 
 "They will kill me," she thought, "and no 
 one will know. I shall never see the stars 
 again." The footsteps were very near just 
 then. She could hear the low voices of the 
 men again. 
 
 " Where are your friars now, my friend ? " 
 
 "There is yet the Chapel, Count." 
 
 "Ha! You have the knees of a woman. 
 
 Cast a light again." 
 
 104
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 Nina was crouching then almost under the 
 bench built into the screen. Though her 
 face was hidden in her ragged black cloak, 
 nevertheless she saw the flashing rays of the 
 lantern, and expected every moment that a 
 hand would touch her shoulder. She did 
 not know that her rags, black and sombre, 
 matched the shadows so well that even the 
 lantern did not betray her. When, at last, 
 she heard the receding footsteps, and began 
 to believe that she was undiscovered, it 
 seemed to her that a miracle had been 
 wrought. God had saved her, then and for 
 what? The answer came as some voice of 
 the night. That she, in her turn, might save 
 Venice. 
 
 The voice made her tremble, but it was no 
 longer with an emotion of fear. Her natur- 
 ally quick brain, trained to readiness by her 
 vagrant life, grasped in an instant the truth 
 of that which she saw. These men, what 
 were they doing in the Church of the 
 Servites, why did they speak in whispers, 
 why did they bare their feet ? There could 
 be but one reason they were the enemies 
 of Venice. 
 
 Nina had heard the strange tales then told 
 105
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 in the city, of discontent among the nobles, 
 of an appointed day when there would be a 
 new Doge and a new Venice. She had 
 heard that there were spies everywhere, that 
 every man was watched, that no man was 
 discovered. What the police had been un- 
 able to do, she, the child, had done she had 
 tracked the enemies of the city to their 
 hiding-place. The assurance thrilled her as 
 with a thrill of new pleasure. She, Nina the 
 waif, must save Venice. 
 
 All fear for herself was gone now. Quickly 
 she drew off her torn shoes and stood up, 
 forgetting the cold of the flags and the bare 
 feet which trod them. She must alarm the 
 monastery, she said to herself. She remem- 
 bered that the police were accustomed to 
 guard the narrow water way by which the 
 church stood. Their boats, perchance, would 
 even at that moment be near the bridge 
 which the men must cross when their 
 strange work was done. If she could but 
 whisper a word which would bring the police 
 to her side! 
 
 Shivering with the cold, nevertheless with 
 brain burning, she crept a little way from her 
 
 hiding-place. The three men, masked, and 
 
 1 06
 
 "They took a parchment from the tomb, and began 
 to scrutinise it closely." 
 
 Page 107.]
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 wearing black cloaks of prodigious length, 
 stood at that moment in a little chapel on 
 the opposite side of the nave. Taking 
 courage of the fact that the chapel had no 
 windows, they had kindled the tapers set 
 before a picture of St. Augustine, and 
 were kneeling there in an effort, as the girl 
 saw, to raise a great slab of marble which 
 covered one of the altar tombs. When they 
 had lifted it, they took a parchment from the 
 tomb and began to scrutinise it closely, one 
 of them holding up a taper that they might 
 decipher the writing more readily. 
 
 Nina said to herself, as she watched them, 
 that this must be the instant of her flight. 
 Swiftly, as a shadow in the moonlight, she 
 darted across the nave and sought a new 
 hiding-place in the ambulatory. Panting for 
 breath, with hands pressed upon her beating 
 heart, she listened as a deer that is hunted. 
 But the men were still absorbed in the paper. 
 She could see that one of them held an ink- 
 horn, and that another was writing. She 
 took courage and ran on to the door of the 
 sacristy. The moment of deliverance was at 
 hand. 
 
 The door had been closed but the key 
 109
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 was still in the lock. The girl's hand was 
 already upon the door when she remembered 
 that its creaking, when the others opened it, 
 had awakened her earlier in the night. She 
 perceived that it would not be possible again 
 to turn the key without discovery. The 
 danger was one she had not anticipated. 
 She knew that the moments were precious, 
 as never moments had been in all her life. 
 She must save Venice she, Nina, the 
 daughter of Barbarino, the clown. They would 
 kill her if they knew and yet, she must 
 save Venice. 
 
 Hours seemed to pa'ss while she stood 
 trembling at the door in a fear of indecision 
 and of anxiety. Once, the man who held 
 the inkhorn for the other to write, let the 
 scabbard of his sword jar upon the marble 
 pavement, and she started back at the sound 
 and could scarcely forbear to cry out. For 
 quite a long time after that, she leant against 
 a pillar of the chancel, afraid to raise a hand, 
 or even to turn her head. 
 
 When her courage came, and she made a 
 movement as though to reach the door again, 
 the miracle of the night happened. A bell, 
 the sanctus bell above the chancel arch, rang 
 
 HO
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 out clearly in the silence one sweet, linger- 
 ing note which echoed over the sleeping 
 waters, and brought the three men to their 
 feet as at the voice of a judgment of 
 Heaven. 
 
 "Ha! do you hear that, Count?" 
 " Have I no ears? Put out the light." 
 " You have the paper, Count ? " 
 " I have my sword. To the door, and 
 every man for himself." 
 
 Nina heard the threat, but cared not at all 
 now. She had found a way. Crouching 
 against the pillar of the chancel, she had 
 trodden unwittingly upon the rope of the 
 sanctus bell, and thus alarmed the monastery. 
 And, once the way was shown to her, she 
 followed it readily. Falling upon her knees, 
 for she thought that death was very near to 
 her, she took the rope in her hands, and 
 clanged the bell incessantly. The noise of it 
 was no longer that of a note sweet and 
 sonorous. It jarred upon the ear as a dirge. 
 It brought lights to the windows of the 
 neighbouring houses. Men cried out to men 
 that the church was on fire. Other bells 
 began to ring above all, the voices of the 
 guard were heard. Venice was saved, she
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 said. The work was for others now. The 
 men would kill her, but Venice would 
 remember. 
 
 There was a great noise outside the church 
 at this time ; the patter of steps, the flash 
 of lanterns, cries and answering cries. The 
 three men stood all together in a great circle 
 of moonlight cast upon the pavement of the 
 nave. Their swords were drawn, they turned 
 about and again about as though the danger 
 lurked in every shadow. But their irresolu- 
 tion was not enduring. Two of them, stricken 
 by terror of the unseen, ran boldly to the 
 sacristy door and passed through it. The 
 third followed with slower steps ; and when 
 he came to the chancel arch, he stood an 
 instant with the moonbeams falling full upon 
 his face. 
 
 Nina, who saw him thus for the first time, 
 knew in that moment why they had called 
 him Count. She looked upon the lord of 
 Carmagnola himself upon him of whom she 
 had dreamed through many a weary night of 
 cold and hunger. Her lover, as she, the 
 dancing girl, had called him, stood before her 
 on the threshold of death, she said. And 
 she had killed him! In five minutes, in ten, 
 
 112
 
 "The man heard her cry, and strode to the place where she lay." 
 
 Page 113.]
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 the police would come ! Anguish beyond any 
 of fear or of physical suffering almost stilled 
 her heart. She knelt upon the pavement 
 and no longer were her tears held back. 
 
 The man heard her cry and strode to the 
 place where she lay with the moonlight 
 giving golden threads to her hair. He thought 
 that he had found the spy who betrayed him. 
 He drew his dagger, telling himself that one 
 other at least should die that night. But 
 when the white beams showed him a young 
 girl's face looking up pitifully into his own, 
 he thrust the weapon in its sheath again, and 
 stood regarding her with silent astonishment. 
 
 " Child," he asked sternly, " who are you, 
 and why are you here ? " 
 
 " I am Nina, the daughter of Barbarino," 
 she said, between her sobs. 
 
 " What does Nina, the daughter of Bar- 
 barino, do alone in a church at midnight?" 
 
 " Oh, excellency, the cold and the hunger 
 drove me " 
 
 " A beggar's tale," was his answer, as he 
 stooped, and seized her by the hands, drag- 
 ging her out that the soft light might show 
 him her face clearly. " Who sent you to 
 
 this place?" 
 
 115 G
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 She thought that he was about to kill her 
 and she cringed before the blow she feared. 
 
 " God sent me," she answered at last, " to 
 save Venice." 
 
 He laughed scornfully. 
 
 "What did they pay you, girl? Tell the 
 truth do you hear? Whose servant are 
 you?" 
 
 " The servant of poverty, excellency the 
 servant of hunger. Oh, believe me, I have 
 not eaten bread since yesterday at dawn. 
 And I came here because the wind is bitter, 
 and my feet are bare. Then I saw the light, 
 and I heard your voice. God help me, I 
 did not know that it was you." 
 
 She buried her face in her hands, while the 
 Count of Carmagnola stood regarding her 
 with a new amazement. He had hardly seen 
 a more beautiful face in all Venice. The 
 girl, he thought, was like one of the children 
 in the picture above the high altar. He 
 asked himself how he could have lived in the 
 city for three years, and have passed her by. 
 And a pretty face could always win upon his 
 generosity. 
 
 " Come," he said, as if in an inspiration, 
 " you say that you did not know. Prove 
 
 116
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 your words to me. The police are at the 
 gate, as you hear. Show me a door by 
 which I may escape them, and I will believe 
 your story." 
 
 The appeal awakened her from the trance 
 of fear and grief. All her love for Venice 
 was forgotten in a moment. She would save 
 the man her dreams had given to her for a 
 lover. Yet how? She could hear the cries 
 without ; she could see the flash of lanterns ; 
 she knew that the police would come to the 
 church before many minutes had passed ; she 
 feared that all the gates were already 
 watched. What hope was there then ? 
 
 " Lord Count," she cried in the second 
 inspiration of the night, "there was a way, 
 but I know not if it be a way still. Yet, if 
 you will follow " 
 
 She stood up and faced him. He listened 
 and heard voices in the sacristy ; he could 
 see the flickering rays of a lantern ; he knew 
 that the police were at the very gates. 
 
 " Child," he said very quietly, " show me 
 your way, for it is the only one." 
 
 Nina waited for no other command, but 
 stretched out her hand and thrust it into that 
 
 of the man. 
 
 117
 
 " Come, excellency," she said eagerly, 
 " the door is behind the great organ." 
 
 With this she crossed the nave and 
 mounted the winding staircase by which the 
 organ loft was reached. She remembered 
 that her nights in the church had shown to 
 her a wicket-gate in the wall behind the 
 organ, and once she had unbarred that gate 
 and passed out, to find herself upon the leads 
 of the monastery. From these she had gone 
 on until she came to an old stone staircase, 
 at the foot of which flowed one of the 
 narrowest waterways in all Venice. That 
 staircase should save the man's life, she said. 1 
 
 " The door is here, excellency. Let your 
 hands feel for the bolt ; we are safe if we 
 can but lift it." 
 
 The man stopped to reckon with his 
 chances no more. One backward glance 
 showed him the floor of the church below 
 the dancing lanterns and the figures of those 
 who held them. He unbarred the door 
 swiftly, and followed the girl through it to 
 the broad leads of the monastery. Venice 
 lay beneath ; Venice awakened. The bells 
 of many churches were ringing. A panic of 
 
 night become day had begun to seize upon 
 
 118
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 the city. The fugitives could see the boats of 
 the police at the steps of the southern porch. 
 A great crowd had gathered from all the 
 neighbouring houses ; men shouted to men 
 that an enemy was in the palace, and that 
 the Doge was killed. Women stood at the 
 windows of the lighted houses. 
 
 Carmagnola watched the scene while he 
 could have counted ten. For the first time 
 he began to believe in the possibility of ulti- 
 mate escape. This waif of Venice with the 
 black eyes and the little soft hand ; this 
 dancing girl, who had stumbled so fatefully 
 upon the nest of his schemes, would enable 
 him after all to pursue these schemes. 
 
 That the others had been taken he did 
 not believe. And if they had, with what could 
 the police charge them ? This child, who 
 now held his hand so timidly, would not 
 betray him. He read her face truly. She 
 was not the first woman in Venice who had 
 trembled at his touch. A kiss upon her lips, 
 he argued, would silence her for ever. There 
 was no other that he feared or thought of in 
 all the city. 
 
 " Your way is a good one, little Nina," he 
 
 said lightly, turning from the scene about the 
 
 119
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 church door to her who had saved him ; " we 
 will cheat them yet. Show me your stair- 
 case, and I will say that I have no better 
 friend in all the city." 
 
 Her face flushed with pride and pleasure. 
 The touch of his hand had made her heart 
 leap. She walked as one in sleep she, 
 Nina, the dancing girl, side by side with him 
 of whom she had dreamed through many a 
 long night of hunger and of cold. 
 
 " My lord," she said, " I am not worthy to 
 be your friend. Here is the water and my 
 work is done." 
 
 She had brought him, as she promised, to 
 the bank of a little canal which wound its 
 dark way amid gaunt and gloomy houses and 
 the homes of the poor. Here the silence of 
 the night was unbroken no sound but that 
 of bells ringing musically in the distance 
 came to them over the lapping waters. The 
 Count told himself that the peril was passed. 
 To-morrow would find him in his own house 
 again. 
 
 " My little guide," he said, standing a 
 moment irresolute as at the parting of the 
 ways, " where shall I look at dawn for Nina, 
 the daughter of Barbarino the clown ? " 
 
 120
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 The question tempted her ; but her wits 
 were keener than his in that hour of peril. 
 
 "Excellency," she said, drawing back, "you 
 will not look for me in Venice. God forbid 
 have you forgotten the paper ? " 
 
 A cry burst from his lips he caught her 
 by the wrist almost fiercely. 
 
 " The paper what do you know of that 
 why do you speak of it?" 
 
 " Because those who now read it will not 
 be your friends, my lord." 
 
 Carmagnola loosed her hands. She could 
 see the diamond button, which clasped the 
 lace about his throat, rise and fall quickly 
 with his heavy breathing. The house of 
 cards he had built was scattered by her 
 words as by a great wind. The paper the 
 parchment which could send a hundred in 
 Venice to the scaffold, in whose hands was 
 that now ? 
 
 "Great God!" he cried aloud, "it lies 
 upon the altar tomb." 
 
 Nina drew back trembling before his 
 anger. 
 
 "My lord," she stammered, "the others 
 
 He stopped her with a bitter laugh, 
 
 121
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 " The others the others ! Paolo the fool, 
 and Orso the woman what have I to do with 
 them, when to-morrow there will be no house 
 in Venice so large that I may find a home 
 in it, no cellar so dark that it will hide me." 
 
 She took courage of his distress. 
 
 " Lord Count," she pleaded, " there is one 
 who could yet save you from your enemies." 
 
 He answered her with a sneer. 
 
 "A new Christ here in Venice, child. 
 One who works miracles ? " 
 
 " I speak of a priest, my lord." 
 
 "Of a priest?" 
 
 " Of Fra Giovanni of him they call the 
 soldier monk." 
 
 He looked at her and ceased to laugh. 
 
 "Take me to your priest," he said. 
 
 II 
 
 It wanted an hour to dawn on the second 
 day of March, in the year 1703, when little 
 Nina, followed quickly by the Count of 
 Carmagnola, stepped from a gondola which 
 
 122
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 had carried them from Rialto to the island 
 of the Jews, and rang at the great bell be- 
 fore Fra Giovanni's gloomy palace. 
 
 " Fra Giovanni will save you, my lord," 
 she had said again and again during those 
 anxious moments of flight; "there is none so 
 powerful as he. I shall ask him, and he will 
 help you. He is my friend." 
 
 Carmagnola listened to her indifferently. 
 He had no coherent thought. The work he 
 had planned so diligently for weary months, 
 the house of conspiracy he had built so labori- 
 ously had been cast down, not by Doge or 
 Senate, or by any spy but by this dancing 
 girl, sent, God knew whence, to the Church 
 of the Servites to save the city and its 
 people. Never was there a destiny so ironic. 
 He could have laughed aloud to think that 
 he and those with him had turned like 
 frightened women from the voice of a child. 
 And yet, he said, that child had sent a 
 hundred brave men to the scaffold. His own 
 life what would it be worth to him hence- 
 forth ? At dawn every gate must be shut 
 against him ; every cellar would be searched. 
 What house would harbour him what hand 
 
 befriend him ? 
 
 123
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 "Your priest lives here, little Nina?" he 
 asked, as she rang the bell, and stood shiver- 
 ing with the cold of morning. 
 
 " He is coming now, excellency ; I hear 
 his footsteps. He will listen to me, because 
 he is my friend." 
 
 Carmagnola shrugged his shoulders. It 
 was grotesque, he said to himself, that he 
 should have followed this dancing girl at all. 
 The homage that she paid to her friar galled 
 his pride. 
 
 " Pah," he said ; " what can a friar do when 
 the police are not your friends? Neverthe- 
 less " 
 
 She would have answered him, but the 
 door of the palace opened as he spoke, and 
 the Friar himself stood before them. He 
 held a taper in his hand ; his capuce was 
 drawn about his ears. The meagre face, 
 seen in that wan light, was such a face as 
 the old painters gave to their saints. The 
 keen, black eyes seemed to cut with their 
 glance. Neither pity nor love could be read 
 in the deep lines of that strange countenance. 
 
 " What does the Lord of Carmagnola seek 
 of me ? " he asked, holding the taper up that 
 
 the light might fall on the other's face. 
 
 124
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 Carmagnola suppressed an exclamation. 
 His name, then, despite his mask, was 
 known to the other. 
 
 " I seek sanctuary," he said curtly. 
 
 Nina knelt upon the flags and took the 
 Friar's hand. 
 
 " Father," she cried, "you are my friend ; you 
 will save the Lord Count from his enemies." 
 
 The priest answered her sternly. 
 
 "What have you to do with such things?" 
 he asked. 
 
 She had no word for him, but continued 
 to kneel at his feet. When he had looked 
 at them both again, he turned to the Count. 
 
 " I will save you from Venice," he said in 
 a low voice. " Enter." 
 
 "And this child?" 
 
 " Let her go to her home." 
 
 " But she has saved my life." 
 
 " Venice will reward her." 
 
 Carmagnola hesitated during a moment of 
 irresolution. Then, with deft fingers, he un- 
 clasped the great brooch of diamonds from 
 his pourpoint, and pinned it upon the ragged 
 cloak of the kneeling girl. 
 
 " Little Nina," he said, as he bent and 
 
 kissed her, " I shall remember." 
 
 125
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 The priest, who watched the scene with 
 some contempt, did not hide his impatience. 
 
 "Signore," he exclaimed, "the night grows 
 old, and at dawn " 
 
 He turned and entered the house with 
 Carmagnola at his heels. In a great bare 
 room upon the first floor he lit a second 
 taper and set it on a bureau. Then he 
 finished the sentence he had begun on the 
 steps without. 
 
 " At dawn, my lord, Venice will reckon 
 with her enemies." 
 
 Carmagnola laughed. 
 
 "What does a priest know of the enemies 
 of Venice?" 
 
 "If he should know their names?" 
 
 "The name of one ?" 
 
 " Of all, signore." 
 
 The Friar stood like an avenging figure, 
 holding the taper in his hand, and searching 
 the other's face with eyes of steel. 
 
 "Of all, signore," he repeated, in a voice 
 which struck terror to him who heard it. 
 
 Carmagnola put up a hand, upon which 
 many jewels glistened, to the clasp of his 
 toga. His cloak was loosed to show a dress 
 
 of crimson velvet beneath, and the long stola, 
 
 126
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 the emblem of his nobility. He breathed 
 quickly as a baited animal in a moment of 
 respite. 
 
 "I am come to the house of a spy, then!" 
 he cried fiercely. 
 
 " Say rather to the house of one sent for 
 the salvation of this city, as he was sent ten 
 years ago to save Florence from you and 
 your dupes, my lord." 
 
 The Count took a step forward and peered 
 into the face of the other. 
 
 "In God's name, who are you?" he asked. 
 
 "I am he whom they call the soldier 
 monk," replied the priest quietly, "and I was 
 in the Church of the Servites two hours ago." 
 
 "You in the church!" 
 
 The priest did not notice the interruption. 
 
 " I was in the church, signore. Shall I 
 tell you the names of those who were there 
 with me? Shall I tell you that one of them, 
 a man walking blindly in his own conceit, 
 thinking that he and his unhappy creatures 
 can prevail above the good of Venice, wrote 
 down the names of those creatures upon a 
 parchment? Shall I show you that parch- 
 ment, my lord it is here in my breast, for I 
 
 picked it up when it fell from your hands? 
 
 127
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 Shall I tell you that to-day at dawn the 
 Councillors will read it as I have read it? 
 Is that what you have come here to learn, 
 you whom they call the Lord of Carmag- 
 nola?" 
 
 Carmagnola reeled back before the damning 
 accusation. 
 
 " Who are you, in God's name ? " he asked 
 again. 
 
 The priest held up the taper and loosed 
 his friar's habit. 
 
 " Look at me again, Lord Count," he 
 whispered. 
 
 The Count recovered himself, and peered 
 into the face so close to his own. 
 
 " I do not know you," he stammered. 
 
 " Again, again, Lord Count the swords- 
 man of Iseo, you have forgotten him who 
 gave you your life, and is here to-night to 
 give it you again." 
 
 He stood awaiting his answer ; but Car- 
 magnola's memory had gone back ten years 
 to a day when, in a garden of Florence, he 
 had stood face to face with the first swords- 
 man in all Italy, and, his weapon being struck 
 from his hand, that swordsman had given him 
 
 his life. 
 
 128
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 " I know you," he cried at last in a hoarse 
 voice, "you are the Prince of Iseo.'' 
 
 "As you say, the Prince of Iseo." 
 
 " And once more you offer me my life ? " 
 
 "It is the reward of her who would have 
 saved Venice to-night." 
 
 "There are conditions, of course?" 
 
 The priest smiled. 
 
 " When Venice forgives, there are always 
 conditions, Lord Count." 
 
 " And you are able to speak in the name 
 of Venice." 
 
 " I am able to speak in the name of Venice." 
 
 " Then what do you ask of me ? " 
 
 The priest raised his hand and pointed to 
 the jewels upon the breast of the other. 
 
 " That you strip those jewels from you, 
 and give them to the poor ; that you leave 
 Venice at dawn and never look upon her 
 spires again ; that neither you nor your 
 children's children shall dwell in the house 
 you have built ; that Italy shall know you no 
 more that as a beggar you shall go out, and 
 as a beggar you shall live. Those are the 
 conditions, Lord Count." 
 
 Carmagnola heard him as one who hears 
 
 sentence of death. 
 
 129
 
 " And if I do not accept them ? " 
 
 The priest answered him by leading him to 
 the balcony of the house, and pointing across 
 . the water to the great Piazza, of St. Mark. 
 Dawn was breaking, and the domes of the 
 church were already capped with the golden 
 light of the new day. 
 
 " Look yonder, my lord," he said grimly, 
 "listen to those cries. They are the shouts 
 of the people who tell each other that two 
 of the enemies of Venice are enemies no 
 more." 
 
 The Count trembled. 
 
 " You mean " 
 
 " That the two who were with you in 
 the Church of the Servites last night hang 
 head downwards between the columns of the 
 Piazza." 
 
 Carmagnola staggered back into the room. 
 
 " I will save the honour of my name," he 
 cried. 
 
 * * * * # 
 
 There was a great procession around the 
 Piazza of St. Mark after sundown that day. 
 The bells of the city rang joyously ; bright 
 fires were lit on all the open places ; candles 
 
 were set in the windows of every house. 
 
 130
 
 A MIRACLE OF BELLS 
 
 In the great church itself the priests sang a 
 Te Deum, and countless lights burned before 
 the altars, and thanksgiving was offered for 
 the safety of Venice and the death of her 
 enemies. Outside in the square a vast 
 throng swarmed about one whom stalwart 
 arms held up, about a dancing girl whom 
 they had crowned with flowers and carried, 
 as often they carried images, high above 
 the people on a golden throne. 
 
 "Viva, Nina, the daughter of Barbarino!" 
 
 " Viva ! Viva ! the Queen of Venice ! " 
 
 " She has saved our city. A miracle of 
 the bells was sent. Viva ! Viva ! " 
 
 But little Nina, thus snatched in a moment 
 from want and penury and cold and hunger, 
 did not heed the cries nor the gifts which 
 were poured upon her. 
 
 " She weeps," a woman said. 
 
 " It is for joy," they answered her. 
 
 But one in Venice knew that she wept 
 for the man. 
 
 She had saved him as she promised ; but 
 she would see him no more.
 
 "THE WOLF OF CISMON' 
 
 I 
 
 LEOPARDI, the bandit, was to die. Venice 
 heard the news, incredulously, on the second 
 day of March, in the year 1704. Through- 
 out the city no other name was on the 
 people's lips. " He dies at sunset." The 
 very gondoliers took up the cry and repeated 
 it mockingly, as they sent their black boats 
 merrily across the dancing waters of the 
 lagoon. Men gathered together near the 
 ducal palace and discussed the story in muted 
 whispers. Women stopped their gondolas 
 beneath the Bridge of Sighs, and showed 
 each other, morbidly, the wall of the dun- 
 geon behind which the " Wolf of Cismon " 
 lay. For Leopardi had been the handsomest, 
 the most daring bandit that ever ruled the 
 mountains above Vicenza. 
 
 133
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 Leopard! was to die. Men shook their 
 heads doubtingly ; the more knowing among 
 them scoffed openly at the news. 
 
 "He has ten lives, comrades ; I will believe 
 your story when I see his body. There is 
 no rope in Italy which will strangle Leopard i 
 of Cismon. Besides, has not the great friar 
 promised him ? " 
 
 " Pah, what can our father Giovanni do 
 when the Three have willed it ? They say 
 that Leopardi is to die at sunset, and his 
 body is to be cast into the lagoon. The 
 friar interceded for him, but he was not 
 listened to, my friends. It is a black day 
 for him to take a second place in the 
 Council." 
 
 A girl, who had overheard the boatmen's 
 talk, chimed in with her defending word. 
 
 "Believe it not," she said; "let Mocenigo, 
 who condemned him, look to himself. I 
 would sooner wear the shoes of Leopardi of 
 the mountains than the golden slippers of the 
 Pope. God send such a man to the altar 
 with me." 
 
 She spoke as though the " Wolf of 
 Cismon" had been her own lover ; and many 
 a woman in Venice uttered a secret prayer
 
 "THE WOLF OF QSMON" 
 
 that day for the robber upon whom the iron 
 hand of justice at length had fallen. For 
 ten years Leopardi had been the terror of 
 the mountain towns from Iseo to Mestre. 
 In all her lists of bandits, Italy had never 
 known one bolder or more beloved by the 
 common people. 
 
 " The Wolf of Cismon " they called him 
 in the mountains. "The Devil of the Hills" 
 was the title the police of Venice gave to 
 him. And these police had him caged at 
 last in the dungeons of the ducal palace. He 
 had sworn a rash oath that he would steal 
 the gold chain from the neck of Mocenigo, 
 the judge, and he had kept his word. But 
 he had forgotten to reckon with the police. 
 
 They arrested him at the house of one of 
 his kinsmen in Torcello, and promised him 
 a short shrift. By some means, none knew 
 how, he had earned the friendship of the 
 priest, Giovanni, who had interceded with the 
 Council for him. But Venice could not par- 
 don a rogue who had robbed one of her 
 senators ; and the decree went out that he 
 was to be strangled by the executioner, and 
 his body to be cast into the lagoon. In spite 
 of this, there were plenty in the city to de-
 
 clare that Leopardi would cheat the execu- 
 tioner even yet aye, would cheat the very 
 devil with a rope in his hand. 
 
 "We will believe it when he is dead," 
 they cried. 
 
 But others said : 
 
 " He is to die at sunset." 
 
 II 
 
 Leopardi, the bandit, was sleeping on his 
 bed of straw when Pietro, the gaoler, awoke 
 him. They said in the prison that he had 
 done little but sleep and eat since the 
 Supreme Court condemned him. In his wak- 
 ing hours he sang the strophes of Tasso, or 
 amused his captors with wondrous stories of 
 the great women who had been his patrons 
 of the villages he had raided, and the treasure 
 he had stored up. A merrier prisoner had 
 never been caged in the dungeons of the 
 palace. 
 
 His tuneful voice could quicken his gaolers' 
 
 steps as they went down to the cells, or up 
 
 136
 
 "THE WOLF OF dSMON" 
 
 again to the blessed light of day. His 
 laughter was infectious, and not to be re- 
 sisted. The very guards learnt to love him, 
 and to smuggle in the presents which his 
 friends in the city carried every day to the 
 door of the prison. "A pity, indeed, that 
 such as he must die," was the saying in every 
 mouth. 
 
 Pietro, the gaoler, touched his prisoner 
 upon the shoulder, and Leopardi sat up at 
 once. He still wore the suit of grey velvet 
 in which they had arrested him ; and his 
 magnificent black cloak, with the trimming of 
 bear skin, served well for a blanket. Though 
 there was but the pitiful light of a lantern in 
 the cell, it could not hide altogether the 
 superb figure and the pleasing face of the 
 bandit. 
 
 There were few handsomer men in all 
 Italy, as the people said ; few with such 
 well-shaped limbs, or such a fine carriage, 
 or such irresistible, merry eyes. Peril had not 
 warred with that figure, nor danger put out 
 the light of jest which had showed the ruler 
 of the mountains so good a way to riches and 
 to victory. Standing, as it seemed, on the 
 
 very threshold of death, he could yet greet 
 
 137
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 as a friend the very man who came to tell 
 him that the end was at hand. 
 
 " Behold ! it is thou, Pietro. There is 
 news then ? " 
 
 Pietro hung his head. 
 
 "There is very bad news, my friend." 
 
 Leopardi rubbed his eyes as though the 
 garish light troubled them : then he dusted 
 the straw from his fine clothes. 
 
 "Body of a Canon!" he cried. "I am 
 devoured, Pietro devoured ! You hear that ! 
 Then tell his excellency, your master, that 
 if he would not shake himself here every 
 morning " 
 
 Pietro raised his hands as though against 
 a blasphemy. 
 
 " Hush, hush ! " he said. " You are speak- 
 ing of the Serene Prince, Leopardi." 
 
 Leopardi laughed lightly. 
 
 " The news, the news what of the news, 
 Pietro?" he exclaimed, as he adjusted the 
 dirty lace about his throat, and felt for 
 the sword which should have been at his 
 side. 
 
 Pietro hung his head again. 
 
 " The priest is here," he said humbly. 
 
 "How, the priest?" 
 138
 
 "THE WOLF OF OSMOND 
 
 "As I say. He comes to tell you that it 
 is to-day." 
 
 " To-day ! What is to-day ? Would you 
 have it to-morrow, Pietro?" 
 
 " Do not jest, I beg of you, comrade. 
 The priest who comes will tell you of the 
 day." 
 
 Leopardi looked at the goaler in a dazed 
 way for a moment. Then he laughed until 
 the cell rang again. 
 
 " Ho, ho ! " he said ; " it needs a priest 
 for that. There is no one else in Venice 
 with the courage. Saint John ! When your 
 Doge comes to Cismon, Pietro, I will show 
 him a like courtesy. I will send him a 
 Bishop to say that he shall hang at dawn." 
 
 Pietro shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Ah!" he exclaimed. "When that day 
 comes, Leopardi, there will be horses on the 
 Canallazzo." 
 
 The bandit slapped him on the back with 
 a great hand which shook every bone in old 
 Pietro's body. 
 
 "Barrel of Bacchus!" said he; "what news 
 I shall have for your ear when the sun sets 
 again, Pietro ! Bring in your priest. I would 
 prefer a flask of Armagnac, but, since your 
 
 139
 
 master plays the host so scurvily, we will 
 even be content with this flask of divinity 
 which, I'll wager, shall be as dry as the lips 
 of a councillor's wife. The priest, the priest, 
 Pietro ! Am I a heretic that you delay so ? " 
 
 He thrust the other from the cell, and 
 stood for a moment with his hands twitching 
 curiously, and a drooping of the curves of 
 the mouth, which spoke of nerves at high 
 tension and of effort to conceal the emotion 
 he felt. But when, presently, an old friar 
 came shuffling into the place, the smile was 
 on his face again, the laughter in his eyes. 
 
 " Your blessing, brother," he asked, drop- 
 ping on his knee with an air of great 
 humility. 
 
 The priest raised his fingers and blessed 
 him. 
 
 " My son," he said, " open your heart to 
 me for you are to die in an hour." 
 
 Leopardi sighed, but did not rise from his 
 knees. 
 
 "Oh," he exclaimed, "God give me a 
 good memory, for there is much on my soul, 
 brother." 
 
 The friar seated himself upon the wooden 
 
 stool, the single ornament of the cell, and 
 
 140
 
 "THE WOLF OF CISMON" 
 
 bent his ear to listen. Leopardi, meanwhile, 
 curled himself up in the straw and began to 
 pick at the ears of it. 
 
 " Brother," said he, " yours is a mission of 
 charity. If you would do me a service, the 
 last I shall ever ask of you, I beg you re- 
 member that there is one in Cismon dear to 
 me beyond all that have been my friends. I 
 speak of little Beatrice, the daughter of 
 Gianotti, the vintner. You will tell her how 
 I died, brother?" 
 
 The priest nodded his head. 
 
 "I will not forget her," he said, "yet think 
 rather of your sins, my son, for assuredly 
 
 Leopardi cut him short. 
 
 " It is of my sins I am thinking, brother. 
 Help me to that, I beseech you. There is 
 in the mountain town of Valdagno a young 
 woman whose memory can fill my eyes with 
 tears. I speak of little Marietta, the daughter 
 of Colleoni, the miller." 
 
 The priest raised his hands in a gesture of 
 despair. 
 
 "Another!" he exclaimed. 
 
 " Ay, as you say, brother, there is another. 
 She is Susanna, the daughter of Villani of 
 
 Lugo. Hasten to her, I beg of you 
 
 141
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 The friar rose from his seat and turned to 
 the door angrily. 
 
 " You shall die with the jest upon your 
 lips," he exclaimed sternly. " The church 
 has no word for such as you." 
 
 Leopardi made a grimace and ceased to 
 pluck at the straw. 
 
 " Ah," he said, " if you would have listened, 
 I would have told you of the twenty men 
 whose throats we cut at Cittadella. Come 
 again to-morrow, brother, and you shall hear 
 of little Elena " 
 
 " To-morrow," said the priest in a low 
 voice, " to-morrow the police will be looking 
 for your body in the lagoon, my son." 
 
 He quitted the cell, covering his ears with 
 his cowl that they might be deaf to such 
 blasphemies. When he was gone, Leopardi 
 stood up and the smile left his face again. 
 The doubt which had troubled him ten 
 minutes ago returned with new intensity. 
 " How if this friar speaks the truth ? " he 
 asked himself. Of all those he had known 
 and served in Venice, but one remained to be 
 his friend. He thought of another friar, of 
 the great Fra Giovanni, who had promised 
 
 that he should not die. 
 
 142
 
 "THE WOLF OF dSMON" 
 
 " Saint John," he said, " the Capuchin has 
 never lied yet. He will save me even now. 
 It will be time enough to ask myself how 
 when the rope is about my neck." 
 
 Ill 
 
 The death that Leopardi was to die was 
 the death of the rope and the trap. They 
 would strangle him in the corridor of the 
 prison, and afterwards cast his body into the 
 lagoon. Such a sentence had been passed 
 upon the " Wolf of Cismon " by Mocenigo, 
 the President of the Criminal Court ; and 
 such a sentence the executioner of Venice 
 hastened to carry out so soon as the friar 
 had left the cell of the condemned. 
 
 Whatever fear of death troubled Leopardi 
 at the moment when the gaolers came to 
 him, as they thought for the last time, they 
 found him, as ever, indifferent apparently both 
 to their presence and its meaning. And 
 there was not a single servant of the prison 
 who did not regret the errand, or treasure up 
 
 143
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 a genuine sympathy for this " Devil of the 
 Hills," who had ever been the friend of the 
 poor and the friendless. 
 
 " Courage, Leopardi they will not hurt 
 you. A moment with the rope about your 
 neck and after that nothing." 
 
 So spoke Pietro, the gaoler, as he en- 
 deavoured to slip a cord over the hands of 
 the condemned. But Leopardi was too quick 
 for him. 
 
 " One moment, good Pietro," cried he. 
 " What ! you would truss me like a fowl ! 
 Out on you for a scurvy friend. How shall 
 I kiss my hand to the pretty women on the 
 other side of the way if there is a cord upon 
 my wrists ? " 
 
 Pietro sighed. 
 
 " When next you kiss your hand, signore, 
 it will be in purgatory," said he. 
 
 Leopardi pinched his cheek good- 
 humouredly. 
 
 " Then I will make a cool place for thee, 
 old Pietro. Come, a cup of wine in charity. 
 Would you send me up yonder with lips of 
 sand ? Ho, ho, a thirsty saint would never 
 do. Bring in the wine, rascal, and to the 
 
 devil with the rest" 
 
 144
 
 "THE WOLF OF dSMON" 
 
 The old gaoler shook his head sadly ; but 
 he fetched a flask of wine, for this was per- 
 mitted to the condemned. When the bandit 
 had emptied the cup, he professed himself 
 ready. 
 
 " Come," he said, " we will go and look at 
 your peep-show, old Pietro." 
 
 Pietro flung the door of the cell wide 
 open. 
 
 " God have mercy on your soul, Leopardi 
 of Cismon," he said devoutly. 
 
 There were half-a-dozen soldiers in the 
 corridor of the prison, and they stood with 
 drawn swords while the condemned passed 
 from his cell. Leopardi, playing his role to 
 the last, was singing the old proverb : 
 
 Venetia, Venetia, 
 
 Chi non ti vede non ti pretia, 
 
 when he caught sight of them ; but he 
 stopped suddenly as he beheld the shining 
 blades ; and a quick eye would have seen 
 him stagger against the wall. 
 
 " Courage," whispered the gaoler. 
 
 "A true word, old Pietro," he said, re- 
 covering himself by a great effort ; " when 
 last I had the pleasure of seeing these 
 gentlemen in the mountains, it was a word 
 
 MS
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 their officer addressed to them. ' Courage,' 
 he said and he ran, old Pietro. Holy 
 Virgin, how he ran ! Give me but the 
 chance, and I will show thee here and now 
 
 if 
 
 An officer of the guard, appearing suddenly 
 in the corridor, cried '' Silence ! " and the 
 troop presented arms. The condemned man 
 ceased to jest, for he saw the open trap 
 through which his body was to be cast into 
 the waters. There came in that instant 
 the thought that Fra Giovanni had betrayed 
 him after all. He was to die then, he who 
 had been the king of the mountains and the 
 terror of the cities ; he, who had known no 
 other master than his own will ; whose word 
 had been a terrible law this Venice would 
 not spare him. Young in years, the love of 
 his life surged up for a moment and became 
 an agony. He looked round about him wist- 
 fully, as though the priest, who had promised 
 to save him, lurked somewhere in the 
 shadows. He was as brave as any in Italy, 
 but this bitterness of death, after he had told 
 himself that he was not to die, was a torture 
 passing words. 
 
 "He must come," he said to himself, "he 
 146
 
 "The masked executioner stepped forward and 
 touched the condemned."
 
 "THE WOLF OF dSMON" 
 
 has never been known to lie he will not 
 desert me." 
 
 The hope permitted him to remember his 
 courage, in spite of the place and the scene. 
 And it was a scene grim enough to have 
 affrighted even "The Wolf of Cismon." 
 Death seemed written on every wall, on 
 every face. Light of dim lanterns struck the 
 vaulted ceiling, and shone back from the 
 dark water of the canal without. The 
 soldiers themselves were as figures of stone. 
 The air was hot, and breathed the pestilence 
 of dungeons. When the masked executioner 
 stepped forward and touched the condemned, 
 he started as one aroused from a fitful sleep. 
 The priest had deserted him, he said. There 
 could be no pardon now ; no pardon as he 
 stood beneath that rope and looked through 
 the narrow trap-door whereby they would cast 
 out his body presently. He had lived his life. 
 He would never see the mountains again. 
 But, at least, he would die without shame. 
 
 " Signore," said the executioner, as he 
 slipped a cord lightly over the prisoner's 
 ankles and another about his wrists, " I ask 
 your forgiveness." 
 
 The robber watched the operation with 
 149 i
 
 curious eyes. He stifled the horror which 
 gripped at his heart and remembered that he 
 was Leopardi of Cismon. 
 
 " You are forgiven, signore," he said, with 
 the air of a prince. " Do your work quickly, 
 and my friends shall pay you more money 
 than there is in this cursed city." 
 
 " Silence ! " cried the Captain of the Guard. 
 "If you have no prayer to say, hold your 
 tongue, rogue." 
 
 "My prayer, signore, is for Venice, that she 
 may always find soldiers who can run like 
 your excellency." 
 
 It was the last word he spoke in the 
 dungeons of the city. Scarcely had it left 
 his lips when the rope tightened about his 
 neck and he was hauled from his feet up- 
 ward to the roof of the corridor. For long 
 minutes, as it seemed to him, his very heart 
 threatened to burst. Thunderous noises rang 
 in his ears ; his eyes showed him a crimson 
 vision of woeful shapes and forms as the 
 blood went leaping to his brain. He struggled 
 madly to touch with his feet any place that 
 should, if it were but for an instant, release 
 the agonising grip of the cord about his throat. 
 
 Strange voices cried to him as with the greeting 
 
 150
 
 44 THE WOLF OF CISMON" 
 
 of the doomed. He felt himself sinking down, 
 down to some unfathomed abyss far below the 
 earth. Then there was a rush of water in his 
 ears 
 
 "Was he dead?" asked the Captain of the 
 Guard, as the body of the robber fell heavily 
 into the dark water of the canal. " You 
 were quick to-night, Gerardo." 
 
 The executioner answered evasively. 
 
 " When he comes back, Venice will see a 
 miracle, excellency." 
 
 The Captain turned away, glad to leave 
 that place of pestilent odours and of dark- 
 ness. And through all the city there went 
 the word that Leopardi of Cismon was dead. 
 
 IV 
 
 There was a rush of water in Leopardi's 
 ears, the sensation as of a cascade pouring 
 over his very brain. He opened his eyes 
 and beheld strange green lights flashing 
 before him ; he stretched out his arms and 
 the half-tied cords fell from them. A mighty
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 effort, instinctive, the effort of one who had 
 been a swimmer since his childhood, brought 
 him to the surface of the canal ; but the 
 half of his senses were yet lacking, and he 
 sank again, deep down to the very mud and 
 slime in the bed of the waters. 
 
 It was a terrible struggle, a battle with 
 death waged by one whom the finger of 
 death had touched already. Minutes passed 
 and still the drowning man knew nothing of 
 that which was happening to him ; nothing 
 of the circumstances which had sent him 
 down there to the darkness of the river's 
 bed. All that he did was done upon an im- 
 pulse of habit. His agonising struggles to 
 come up again and breathe the cold air of 
 the night were the dictates of his nature 
 crying out for breath. 
 
 When he rose to the surface of the water 
 for the second time, nature gained a little 
 strength and began to befriend him. He 
 saw great buildings above him and lights 
 flashing from those buildings. He heard the 
 voices of men and the splash of oars. 
 Reason returned to him he cried aloud 
 with the joy of life given back, of death 
 
 defeated. 
 
 152
 
 "THE WOLF OF CISMON" 
 
 "Great God I live, I live," he said, "the 
 priest has saved me after all ; I shall see my 
 home again. Heaven give me strength." 
 
 It was all clear to him now, both the plan 
 of his escape and the end of the plan. He 
 knew that the executioner had but half 
 strangled him that he might fight for his life 
 out there in the darkness of the waters. He 
 understood that he must make one supreme 
 effort to cheat Venice and his enemies. He 
 would rule in the mountains again ; would 
 live the old life. Fra Giovanni had been 
 his friend. He vowed that he would repay 
 with an offering such as priest had never 
 dreamed of. 
 
 It was almost dark at this hour, and the 
 lamps were beginning to shine as stars in 
 the windows of the palaces. Leopardi lay 
 with his head thrown back, washed like a 
 dead thing by the ebbing water. Though a 
 great pain hurt his lungs, and noises were 
 still ringing in his brain, he paid no heed to 
 his own condition ; but reflected rather on the 
 peril which still hovered about him. For all 
 that he knew, the police might be already 
 seeking his body. He listened for the splash 
 of oars as a deer listens for the dogs. 
 
 '53
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 Far away, the notes of a guitar rang out 
 musically on the night air. Venice was be- 
 ginning her watch of pleasure. Here and 
 there upon the great Canalazzo a gondola 
 passed, carrying its owner to some fete or 
 carnival. Leopardi said that if he could swim 
 to one of those boats and cast himself upon 
 the mercy of the boatman, he would fear 
 his enemies no more. He took courage of 
 the thought, and striking out with a gentle 
 stroke, he gained the shelter of the prison 
 wall and pulled himself hand over hand by 
 it. A splash, he imagined, would betray him. 
 A new executioner would be found and then ! 
 
 The stones of the wall were rough to his 
 hands ; green slime, revolting and clammy, 
 marked the line of waters. The bandit 
 might have been some vampire creeping away 
 from the prison as he dragged himself to- 
 ward the open lagoon and the place of safety. 
 Often he paused with a little tremor of fear 
 as he thought that he heard the dip of an 
 oar or the whisper of a voice behind him. 
 Then he would snatch a few yards and cast 
 back his head so that the green waves ran 
 almost to his mouth. 
 
 " I will cheat them yet," he muttered, as 
 154
 
 "THE WOLF OF CISMON" 
 
 though in self-encouragement. " When next 
 the Wolf of Cismon barks, let Venice take 
 care of her judges." 
 
 Half-an-hour must have passed in this alter- 
 nation of hope and fear. When, at last, he 
 had crept the whole length of the prison wall 
 and had turned the corner of it, he beheld 
 the great lagoon, the silent sea above which 
 Venice towers. The spectacle was as of 
 some haven of promise to reward him for his 
 hour of suffering. All the courage of his 
 nature, all his reckless contempt of authority 
 and those who stood for authority, returned 
 to him as he gazed across the limpid waters 
 to the distant islands and the remote sea 
 whose breezes gave him life. The good fight 
 was waged then, the battle was done. He 
 beheld a gondola passing to some house of 
 pleasure, and the figure of the boatman was 
 as the figure of a friend sent by destiny to 
 his aid. No longer would he hesitate, but 
 cast himself from the wall and strike 
 boldly for the ship which should be his 
 haven. 
 
 " Signore, for the love of God help a 
 drowning man." 
 
 The gondolier heard him at the first cry.
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 " Who is it who is there ? " he cried, 
 ceasing to dip his oar and letting the long 
 black boat float lazily with the current. 
 Leopardi, notwithstanding the failing light, 
 could see that it was a very handsome gon- 
 dola. It might even belong to one of the 
 nobles of Venice, he thought. And a noble 
 would grant a short shrift to " The Wolf of 
 Cismon." 
 
 " Signore," he said, clutching the gunwale 
 of the boat and breathing heavily, " a thou- 
 sand pardons for the liberty. I am a stranger 
 in this city and have been robbed here. 
 They threw me from the quay yonder. For 
 the love of God let me find a moment's 
 shelter on your boat." 
 
 He thought that the gondolier would 
 answer him ; but before the fellow could 
 speak, the door of the cabin was opened, 
 and Leopardi saw a vision surpassing any he 
 had looked upon in all his life. It was the 
 vision of a young girl clad from head to foot 
 in a robe of gold brocade ; a girl whose dress 
 was a blaze of glittering diamonds ; whose mask, 
 in her agitation, had been turned aside to show 
 him a face so beautiful that he knew, upon 
 the instant, he would never forget it. 
 
 o 
 
 156
 
 
 "Leopardi saw a vision surpassing any he had looked upon 
 
 in all his life." 
 Page 157.]
 
 "THE WOLF OF dSMON" 
 
 " Oh, signorina," he cried, thanking Heaven 
 for such a turn of fortune, "you will not refuse 
 a drowning man. I am the Count of Vicenza, 
 and I have fallen into the hands of my ene- 
 mies. Give me passage to Rialto and I will 
 remember your name until my dying day." 
 
 There was a light in the cabin of the 
 gondola, and it stood so that the rays of the 
 lamp fell full upon the upturned face of the 
 bandit. Whether this face appealed to the 
 girl, or the pleasing voice of the man 
 attracted her, Leopardi could but surmise. 
 But certain it is that she stood quite still ; 
 nor did she protest when he, quick to act 
 upon a resolution, dragged himself out of the 
 water, and sank down exhausted at her feet. 
 
 " Signorina," he said, " I kiss the hand of 
 my benefactress. Believe me, the hour will 
 come when you will not regret this night." 
 
 He touched her hand with his cold lips, 
 but she drew it back at once, and seated her- 
 self again upon the cushions of the cabin. 
 She could see the striking face of the un- 
 known now, with the long fair hair hanging 
 limp over the forehead. Wet and bedraggled 
 and cold as " the Wolf of Cismon " was, the 
 strange fascination the man could exercise
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 upon women was not lost to him. He held 
 the girl, as in the grip of his will, almost 
 from the first word he spoke to her. 
 
 " I will set you down at Rialto, signore," 
 she said quietly ; " meanwhile, I fear that the 
 cold " 
 
 " Not so signorina when I am near you. 
 A man could suffer a great deal of cold to be 
 taken to his home under such circumstances. 
 And I owe. you yet another apology for the 
 water I bring into your boat." 
 
 She laughed, for this strange creature, risen 
 so strangely from the waters, had begun to 
 amuse her. 
 
 "It will save Dominici washing the gon- 
 dola to-morrow, signore." 
 
 Leopardi sighed. He was asking himself 
 which was the shortest way to learn the 
 name of his benefactress. 
 
 " Do not speak of to-morrow, signorina," 
 he said; "to-night will be a memory then. I 
 shall have only the name " 
 
 " The name ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " Exactly the name of my benefactress." 
 
 She toyed with her fan, watching the be- 
 draggled figure curiously. Her corselet shone 
 
 with a blaze of precious stones. He could 
 
 i6p
 
 "THE WOLF OF CISMON" 
 
 see the pretty white throat tuned to her 
 rapid breathing. 
 
 " You do not know my name ? " she asked. 
 
 " I am a stranger in the city, signorina." 
 
 " And you have not heard of Gabriella, of 
 the opera?" 
 
 Leopardi suppressed an exclamation. The 
 name of Gabriella, the singer of Milano, was 
 known from one end of Europe to the other. 
 He could have danced for joy when he 
 heard it. 
 
 "Oh! signorina," he cried, "had you but 
 sung a single note, I would never have asked 
 you the question." 
 
 She was pleased at the compliment, for she 
 believed that some noble uttered it. Neither 
 the straw of the prison nor the water of the 
 canal had ruined altogether the splendid 
 clothes in which Leopardi had been arrested. 
 The gold lace still flashed on his vest ; the 
 fine embroidery was still to be seen upon his 
 coat. He would be some noble of Vicenza 
 come to Venice for the pleasures of Carnival, 
 she thought. It pleased her, being a woman, 
 to think that she was helping a man who 
 obviously had succumbed already to her 
 beauty and her fame. 
 
 161
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 " Lord Count," she said, " I was on my 
 way to the opera of San Samuele. Never- 
 theless, if I might set you down at your own 
 lodging ? " 
 
 The bandit bowed with the grace of a 
 prince. 
 
 " Signorina," he said gaily, "my way is 
 your way. It could not be otherwise. Give 
 me but ten minutes to call at the house of 
 one of my friends where I can make good 
 my misfortunes, and I will even crave leave 
 to follow you to the opera. It is my good 
 luck that Venice has kept this, the greatest of 
 her pleasures, until my last night in the city." 
 
 ''You quit Venice to-morrow?" she asked. 
 
 " At dawn, signorina, I shall be on my 
 way to the mountains." 
 
 He sighed as though to say " you could 
 turn me from that purpose." She, on her 
 part, had long practised all the arts which 
 equip the successful coquette. Many a noble 
 in Venice had laid his fortune at her feet, but 
 this man pleased her as no other had done. 
 
 "Signore," she said, "I will sing to-night as 
 I have never sung before." 
 
 Leopardi answered her by entering the 
 
 cabin and bending once more to kiss her hand. 
 
 162
 
 "Great God!' he said; 'the dead come to life, then.'" 
 
 Page 163.]
 
 "THE WOLF OF dSMON" 
 
 " Signorina," said he, " this night will be 
 my dying memory. We are now at Rialto. 
 In an hour I shall hear your voice at the 
 opera of San Samuele." 
 
 The gondola touched the quay as he spoke. 
 Leopardi looked about him for an instant to 
 see if he were followed ; but observing no 
 others upon the water, he bowed again to the 
 mistress of the boat and darted into the 
 shadows of the narrow streets by the bridge. 
 
 " Gabriella, the singer," he said to himself, 
 as he went. " Saint John but my star 
 shines to-night. Let me once get out of this 
 cursed Venice, and she shall sing to-morrow 
 in the camp at Cismon." 
 
 The idea pleased him. He ran on quickly 
 down a narrow alley, and into a gloomy 
 casino. 
 
 " Quick," he said to the man who 
 challenged him at the door. " A message to 
 Fra Giovanni, the Capuchin monk and for 
 me the best suit in your wardrobe, old Paolo. 
 It is I, Leopardi." 
 
 The man let the lamp fall from his hand 
 with a loud crash. 
 
 " Great God ! " he said ; " the dead come 
 
 to life, then." 
 
 165
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 V. 
 
 The " Wolf of Cismon " quitted the gloomy 
 casino when twenty minutes had passed. 
 Those who had seen the wet and bedraggled 
 man as he entered, would not have recognised 
 him when he passed out. For Leopardi 
 wore the smirched grey coat no longer : no 
 longer lacked a cloak for his back, nor a 
 sword for his hand. Rich breeches and 
 stockings of scarlet showed the fine propor- 
 tions of his limbs. His doublet was of black 
 velvet. The richest lace adorned his throat 
 and wrists. He carried the stola of a Vene- 
 tian prince over his shoulder ; his vest was 
 pinned by a diamond buckle which many a 
 noble might have envied. 
 
 He left the casino furtively. He knew that 
 he could not cheat Venice twice : knew that 
 the police patrolled even that haunt of thieves 
 and outcasts. Narrow passages, winding alleys, 
 carried him to the water's edge. A gondola 
 waited for him ; and the boatman who steered 
 it greeted him as a friend. 
 
 " Leopardi as I live ! Well met, comrade. 
 I am here to take you to Mestre, as the 
 
 master commands." 
 
 1 66
 
 "THE WOLF OF CISMON" 
 
 Leopardi leapt lightly into the boat. 
 
 " Well met, indeed, Beppo, my friend. 
 You have a message for me ? " 
 
 " Who sups with the wolf should breakfast 
 with the birds. That is my message, Leopardi. 
 The master cannot save you a second time." 
 
 Leopardi answered him earnestly. 
 
 " I will remember the name of Fra 
 Giovanni when I have forgotten that of the 
 mother who bore me," said he. 
 
 Old Beppo began to ply his oar, and to 
 steer the black boat toward the Canalazzo. 
 
 "He gave you your life because you have 
 honoured women and Ted the poor, Leopardi. 
 Remember that when you think of him in 
 the mountains. He has been your friend, 
 and has not forgotten his promises. You 
 will be at Mestre before midnight the 
 city thinks you dead, and the road is 
 open." 
 
 The bandit, squatting on the gunwale at 
 old Beppo's feet, sighed as one upon whom 
 deep content has come. 
 
 " Oh ! " he said, " I have something yet to 
 say to this Venice of yours, old Beppo. 
 There is Mocenigo, the judge, too. Give 
 
 thanks this night that you do not wear his 
 
 167
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 shoes. We go to the opera at San Samuele ; 
 there lies a better road than Mestre." 
 
 Beppo ceased to row. 
 
 " To San Samuele ! " he cried. "But you 
 are mad, Leopardi ! The police are there 
 Mocenigo, the judge." 
 
 Leopardi encouraged him with a merry laugh. 
 
 "Barrel of -Bacchus!" said he, "is it not 
 Mocenigo who takes me to the opera. As 
 he judged me, so will I judge him, old 
 Beppo. And the girl I am to marry at 
 dawn is even now waiting for me. Would 
 you keep me from her side, rogue ? " 
 
 Beppo took up his oar. 
 
 "You will hang after all," he retorted. 
 
 VI 
 
 It had been a brilliant night at the opera 
 of San Samuele, for this was the zenith of 
 Carnival, and all the nobles of Venice hurried 
 to the seats of pleasure before the stern hand 
 of Lent should restrain them. In the foyer 
 
 of the theatre the spectacle was such as even 
 
 168
 
 "THE WOLF OF CISMON" 
 
 Venice, grown old in pageantry and display, 
 had rarely known. 
 
 Princes and nobles in dazzling dresses of 
 velvet and of silk ; great dames whose very 
 shoes were powdered with diamonds ; co- 
 cottes, senators, merchants, the prettiest 
 women in the city all these swelled the glit- 
 tering throng which promenaded the vesti- 
 bules of the theatre. The wonders of the 
 jewels, the superb gold and silver ornaments 
 of the brocades, the lights of countless dia- 
 monds, were such as blinded eyes accus- 
 tomed to the wealth of Venice and to the 
 extravagance of her aristocrats. Strangers 
 stood to tell themselves that they had come 
 upon some palace of fables. Women hung 
 upon their lovers' arms, and gave themselves 
 up to the witchery of the hour. The babble 
 of tongues was deafening ; the laughter 
 unceasing. 
 
 A bewildering scene, in truth, it was ; a 
 scene of folly running riot, of love grown 
 hysterical, of that complete abandonment to 
 pleasure which was characteristic of Venice 
 in the first years of the eighteenth century. 
 And this, perhaps, was even more remark- 
 able that, in spite of the spirit of laughter 
 
 169 K
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 and of jest, one name was ever on the 
 tongue of the masqueraders. It was the 
 name of Leopardi of Cismon. 
 
 "He is dead," men said; "we shall re- 
 member his name no more when we cross the 
 mountains. ' The Wolf of Cismon ' barked 
 at Venice, and she has answered him." 
 
 So they spoke, and many paused to con- 
 gratulate Mocenigo, the judge, who had 
 helped the city to reckon so well with the 
 bandit who had mocked her. On his part, 
 until they told him that Leopardi was no 
 more, Mocenigo neither slept nor ate. Im- 
 possible as the bandit's threats had seemed, 
 they frightened this man who had willed his 
 death. Perchance he believed the old 
 women's tales, when they said that the rope 
 had yet to be spun which would strangle 
 Leopardi of the mountains. But when he 
 knew the executioner had done his work, 
 when he knew that the body of the robber 
 had been cast into the lagoon, it was as 
 though a great burden had been lifted from 
 his mind. None laughed louder in that 
 house of laughter. None jested with such 
 relish. 
 
 "The Wolf is dead, my friends," he said 
 170
 
 "THE WOLF OF dSMON" 
 
 boastingly ; " to-morrow the police will have 
 found his body, and it will hang between the 
 columns of the Piazzetta." 
 
 Leopardi, masked closely and moving as 
 a flash of light from place to place in the 
 theatre, heard the words and laughed at 
 them. Never had a reckless adventure ap- 
 pealed to him as this adventure did. His 
 courage rose from minute to minute. He 
 felt that he could look death in the face 
 now and laugh at its menaces. He ventured 
 even to touch the judge upon the shoulder. 
 
 " My lord," he said in a low whisper, 
 " have you heard the news ? " 
 
 Mocenigo turned quickly. 
 
 " Signore," he exclaimed, " the news is that 
 Leopardi of Cismon is dead." 
 
 "Not so," answered the robber; "he has 
 fled the prison and is now in the hills. They 
 await you at the palace, my lord, for this 
 man has threatened that you shall not be 
 living at dawn to-morrow." 
 
 Mocenigo began to tremble in spite of 
 himself. He stared at the masked man as 
 though the sound of his voice were familiar. 
 
 " Who are you that knows the secrets of 
 
 the palace?" he asked. 
 
 171
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 " I am one who is under a great obligation 
 to Mocenigo, the judge, my lord." 
 
 He bowed at the words, and was lost to 
 view instantly in the press of people. The 
 judge stared after him as though his ears had 
 heard a voice of miracles. 
 
 "The man has fled," he muttered; "impos- 
 sible. I have the word of the captain." 
 
 He would not believe it, yet doubting, and 
 with curiosity awakened irresistibly, he passed 
 from the theatre and came out upon the 
 quay, whereby the gondolas waited. A boat- 
 man, who seemed to be looking for him, 
 sprang up at once, and touched him on the 
 arm. 
 
 " My lord," he said, " I am sent from the 
 palace." 
 
 "You!" 
 
 " There was no other near, my lord and 
 the Council waits." 
 
 Mocenigo hesitated no longer. He stepped 
 into the gondola, and it was steered instantly 
 to the shadows. Leopardi, who watched it 
 go, from a place upon the steps, laughed 
 softly and returned to the theatre. 
 
 " One," he said to himself grimly ; and 
 
 then he thought of pretty Gabriella. 
 
 172
 
 "THE WOLF OF CISMON" 
 
 The music had begun again when he re- 
 entered the theatre. He heard the voice of 
 the first singer in all Italy, Gabriella of 
 Milano, and it thrilled him as with an ecstasy 
 of pleasures anticipated. For a little while he 
 listened to it, and then, turning from the 
 corridor, he entered a box, where sat one of 
 the first noblewomen in the city. 
 
 The music had swelled out now to a 
 superb crescendo. Every ear was strained, 
 every eye fascinated. Gabriella held the en- 
 tranced audience as by a power more than 
 human. Yet even as she rose to the sup- 
 reme moment of her triumph, a terrible 
 scream rang out in the theatre, and being 
 repeated again and again, broke the note 
 upon the lips of the singer, and brought the 
 people leaping to their feet. 
 
 " Leopardi of Cismon he is not dead. 
 He is here, here ! " 
 
 A woman uttered the words, a woman 
 standing at the front of her box, and stretch- 
 ing out her arms as though for help against 
 the apparition which terrified her. For a 
 long minute she stood swaying there. Then 
 she swooned and fell ; and in the moment of 
 her fall, a second cry, loud and terrible, from 
 
 173
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 a box upon the opposite side, drew all eyes 
 toward the place, and sent men's swords leap- 
 ing from their scabbards. 
 
 " ' The Wolf of Cismon ' is in the theatre. 
 He is here, here. There are a hundred with 
 him. Save yourselves." 
 
 A young man, white with excitement and 
 passion, roared the words from the front of 
 his box. Five hundred throats took up the 
 cry. Women began to rush into the cor- 
 ridors. Flight a flight where the strong 
 trampled down the weak, where fathers forgot 
 their children, a panic uncontrollable seized 
 upon the people. 
 
 " Leopardi of Cismon is here. God help 
 us all this night. Leopardi is here. He is 
 not dead." 
 
 Louder and louder grew the cries. The 
 screams of women mingled with them. Doors 
 crashed down and barred the narrow corridors. 
 The knife of the bandit might have been at 
 the throat of those who fled from him. Such 
 of the servants of the house as would have 
 reasoned with the terror-stricken people were 
 impotent, for panic prevailed above their 
 appeals. Ever outward towards the crash- 
 ing doors the frenzied mob poured. Jewels
 
 "THE WOLF OF CISMON" 
 
 rained upon the carpets of the vestibule; fine 
 clothes were rent to shreds ; the weak fell 
 swooning; the strong shouted as men pos- 
 sessed : " Leopardi Leopardi is here ! " Their 
 voices were hoarse as they cried the warning. 
 
 Leopardi watched the scene from a balcony 
 on the second floor. A curious smile played 
 upon his handsome face. Those cries were 
 his answer spoken to Venice which had con- 
 demned him. They were sweeter to his ears 
 than the music little Gabriella made. And 
 she she had swooned upon the stage. No 
 sooner did he realise the trouble than he 
 climbed down from pillar to pillar ; and, 
 taking her in his strong arms, carried her 
 swiftly through the players' door to the quay. 
 
 " Signorina," he said, when she opened her 
 eyes, " the police are looking for you be- 
 cause you took Leopardi, the bandit of 
 Cismon, into your gondola and helped him 
 to escape." 
 
 " You you are Leopardi, signore ? " 
 
 " I am Leopardi, signorina, who has come 
 here to save you from the police." 
 
 She shuddered. He held her more closely 
 in his strong embrace. 
 
 " Come," he said ; " the gondola of Gio- 
 J75
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 vanni, the monk, is waiting for me. There 
 will be none to stop that, signorina." 
 
 She left the city with him and was in his 
 camp at Cismon on the dawn of the next day. 
 
 VII 
 
 The story of the escape of Leopardi, the 
 bandit, was believed by none of the common 
 people of Venice, who went next morning 
 to look for his body hanging, as it should 
 have been, between the columns of the 
 Piazzetta. But when they came to the place 
 a great cry of wonder escaped them. 
 
 " God save us," they said ; " there hangs 
 Mocenigo the judge ! " 
 
 It was a true word. The body of the 
 judge swung there, limp and cold, in the 
 wind of morning. And to it was pinned a 
 paper with the words : 
 
 "The answer of Leopardi to the city of 
 Venice." 
 
 176
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 I 
 
 THERE were many lovers for Nina, the 
 daughter of Barbarino, the clown, after that 
 Venice had become her patron ; but none 
 was more persistent nor more abhorrent to 
 her than Alvise, the jeweller. Nina said that 
 his face was like a sheet of old copper which 
 a smith had beaten with a hammer. She 
 used to draw it in chalk upon the walls by 
 which she passed when she went from her 
 father's booth to the convent near the Arsenal. 
 She would imitate his amatory gestures, his 
 hoarse, croaking rhapsodies ; and make the 
 whole school laugh until there was not a dry 
 eye in the room. And yet, in her heart, she 
 was very much afraid of him and of her 
 
 father's greed. She feared that the money- 
 
 177
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 bags of old Alvise would be too much for the 
 covetous eyes of Barbarino, the clown. 
 
 " They will make me marry him. My 
 father will wish it," she declared to Fr 
 Giovanni one day, when the friar came to the 
 convent to see her. But Giovanni laughed at 
 her. 
 
 " You are the daughter of Venice now, 
 Nina mia" he said, " not even the Serene 
 Prince could compel you to marry unless 
 you consent. Go on with your painting and 
 your music, and do not think of anything so 
 foolish." 
 
 She protested with a little shrug of her 
 pretty shoulders. 
 
 " How can I go on when they wait for me 
 at the convent door every day Vittore 
 Capello, and Leopardi, and Lando, the 
 German count, and others. Oh, it is an 
 army, excellency, and I am their general. 
 They follow me to my father's house. They 
 bring me flowers every day, and fruit from 
 Chioggia, and the little chains the goldsmiths 
 make. You cannot understand these things." 
 
 Fra Giovanni shook his head. He was 
 often at the convent of the Cistercian nuns 
 
 since Venice had sent Nina there to be 
 
 178
 
 educated. When he did not come she wrote 
 to him a long letter, full of her own progress, 
 of her joys and sorrows. 
 
 " I can understand anything where little 
 Nina is concerned," he said, amused at her 
 strange naivetd and her manner of speaking ; 
 " it would not surprise me even to hear that 
 Alvise, the jeweller, follows her, too." 
 
 Nina became very serious. 
 
 " Oh," she said, " I do not like to tell you. 
 Yesterday he wrote and asked me to go to 
 Palestrina with him. He said that he would 
 hang a rope of diamonds round my neck if 
 I would answer him. When I left my father's 
 house last night and crossed the bridge 
 by the church of San Francesco, I thought 
 that I saw him standing in the shadow. 
 You cannot mistake Alvise he has the 
 face of a wolf and his eyes are burning 
 coals. I saw him again as I crossed our 
 own bridge, and then I ran. It is not good 
 to remain with the wolves when the sun has 
 set. To-day I laugh at myself last night I 
 was frightened. You will not understand that 
 you, who were never frightened, excellency." 
 
 She was a pretty picture standing there 
 
 in her simple dress of black cloth with white 
 
 179
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 lace at her wrists and neck ; but Fra 
 Giovanni was too much occupied by his own 
 thoughts to pay much heed to her words. 
 Serious as the purpose of his life was, he 
 had always loved a good jest ; and the ex- 
 pression upon his face, as he stood there 
 in the hall of the convent, was one which 
 implied a very good jest indeed. 
 
 " Child," he exclaimed, turning to her 
 earnestly, "if Alvise, the jeweller, should 
 wait for you to-night, stop and speak to him. 
 Promise that you will go to Palestrina with 
 him to-morrow. Do not be afraid I shall 
 be near you." 
 
 He spoke as though it were a matter of 
 very great importance ; and she looked at 
 him for a moment with questioning eyes. 
 Then the truth dawned upon her, and she 
 burst into a merry laugh. 
 
 " Scavezzo," she cried, clapping her hands 
 with a child's joy, "a new Scavezzo, and he 
 is to be punished. I am to go to Palestrina 
 with him. I shall be his wife. Holy Virgin, 
 what a day to dream of!" 
 
 But the friar raised his finger warningly. 
 
 "Wait," he said, "we will laugh to-morrow 
 
 when you return, Nina." 
 
 180
 
 "Old Barbarino, the clown, was busy painting a mask," 
 181.]
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 II 
 
 It was in the afternoon of the same day 
 that Nina paid her customary visit to her 
 old friends, the clowns of the Piazzetta. 
 When she had their news she spoke to them 
 of many things ; but always mysteriously as 
 though she treasured a great secret. 
 
 " I cannot tell you," she exclaimed in 
 answer to their many questions, " you will 
 know to-night, for Fra Giovanni is passing 
 here and he will speak to you." 
 
 Old Barbarino, the clown, who was busy 
 painting a mask against the day when Carni- 
 val should come again, grunted with satis- 
 faction. 
 
 u Ha!" he said, "it is always a good day 
 when Fra Giovanni comes to the booth of 
 Barbarino the clown. What lucky wind 
 brings him here to-night, Nina mia ? " 
 
 "No wind at all, but a wolf's head, father, 
 which, if you scratch it properly, will shed 
 diamonds in your hand." 
 
 Barbarino spilled a great drop of paint 
 upon the mask, and stood with the crimson 
 colour dripping on his own clothes. 
 
 183
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 " Body of seven lightnings ! " said he, " but 
 that is a wolf I would like to meet every 
 day." 
 
 She laughed at his candour, and, the 
 allotted hour passing all too swiftly, she left 
 them at last in their perplexity. They could 
 hear her singing 
 
 " Maridite, maridite, donsela" 
 
 as she turned to the great square, and so 
 towards her school in the convent of the 
 Cistercian nuns. When she was gone, old 
 Barbarino took up his brushes again, and 
 began to wash the paint from the mask and 
 from his own clothes. 
 
 " A plague on the hussy ! " said he, " with 
 her tales of wolves' heads. Who ever heard 
 of a wolf that drove a fox from his hole? 
 Nevertheless, my friends, the friar comes 
 here, and we must be ready against his com- 
 ing. Saint John ! I could drink a flask of 
 Chianti this night ! " 
 
 He smacked his lips in pleasant anticipa- 
 tion and resumed his work. 
 
 Nina, meanwhile, was threading the narrow 
 passages, and crossing the narrow bridges 
 
 which would lead her to the church of San 
 
 184
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 Francesco, and to the place where old Alvise, 
 the jeweller, so often had waited for her. 
 Still singing the people's wedding song, she 
 ran on past the church of San Zaccaria, past 
 the school of San Giorgio, on towards the 
 northern quays of the city and the gardens, 
 where the trees were green and flowers 
 scented the air. Once she stopped to ask 
 herself what she should say to the jeweller if 
 he spoke to her ; but she thought that the 
 occasion would find the words, and so con- 
 tinued her journey ; nor did she pause again 
 until she crossed the bridge by the church of 
 San Francesco and saw the jeweller himself 
 waiting for her, as she had hoped, in the 
 shadow of the western porch. 
 
 He was a little man with shrunken face 
 and eagle eye. In spite of his fine clothes 
 and the diamonds which sparkled upon his 
 vest, he wore a hideous aspect as of some 
 old wolf come out of his lair at sundown. 
 In a general way, little Nina was far too 
 nimble to find herself embarrassed by his 
 amatory designs ; but on this occasion she 
 lagged, as Fra Giovanni had wished, when 
 she came to the bridge ; and though her 
 
 heart beat quick while she counted her 
 
 185
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 strange lover's footsteps, nevertheless she 
 permitted him to come up with her. 
 
 " Signore," she said, stopping suddenly 
 and confronting him, " why do you follow 
 me ? Why do you wish to speak to me ? " 
 
 He bent his withered old body until the 
 very bones seemed to crack. 
 
 " Signorina," he answered, " if you will 
 look in the glass to-night, you will not need 
 to ask me that question again. As for speak- 
 ing to you, it is to tell you of the diamonds 
 in the house of Alvise, the jeweller." 
 
 He put out a lean and shrunken hand and 
 took her firmly by the wrist. No one else 
 that she could see was in the square ; and all 
 the fears that she had imagined came surging 
 back to frighten her. 
 
 " Signore," she cried, feigning a child's 
 laugh, " what have I to do with the dia- 
 monds of Alvise, the jeweller ? " 
 
 He whispered his answer in her ear. 
 
 " To wear them, pretty one ; to wear them 
 perhaps as his wife, who knows ? Oh, he 
 is rich as any in the city. And he is not 
 too old to love you, my dear. What say you, 
 would you see his jewels now ? " 
 
 She looked round about her before she 
 1 86
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 answered him. He thought that her friends 
 were near ; but she still believed herself to 
 be alone with him. 
 
 " Not here, signore," she said ; " to-morrow 
 at Palestrina, as you promised. I shall be 
 in the public garden at three o'clock alone 
 and waiting." 
 
 If an angel had come down from Heaven 
 to speak of his salvation, old Alvise could 
 not have been more surprised. A joy as the 
 joy of youth suffused his shrivelled and 
 hideous face. His eyes shone with a bright 
 light. He tried to draw the girl towards 
 him and to kiss her. But, at the very 
 moment when she began to struggle with 
 him, a young fisherman crossed the square 
 before the church, and stumbled so heavily 
 against the jeweller that he reeled back into 
 the porch as though struck by a blow. 
 
 " A plague upon your clumsy feet, rascal," 
 he roared ; " are you drunk, then, that you 
 walk like that ? " 
 
 The fisherman did not so much as glance 
 at him. Nina herself had looked for a 
 moment into the stranger's face and recog- 
 nised him. He was Gerardo, the servant of 
 
 Fra Giovanni. Someone had been near her 
 
 187 L
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 after all, then ! She took courage at the 
 assurance, and ran on quickly to the convent 
 gate. But Alvise, the jeweller, watched her 
 with the eyes of an animal. 
 
 " To-morrow," he said to himself, " to- 
 morrow she shall see the diamonds but they 
 will be in my ears." 
 
 III. 
 
 It was exactly half-past two o'clock on the 
 following day when old Alvise, of the wolf's 
 head, as the lads in Venice called him, closed 
 his shop in the Merceria and set out to meet 
 little Nina in the seclusion of the public 
 garden at the eastern extremity of the city. 
 Very early that morning he had boxed the 
 ears of the boy who assisted him in the shop 
 and had sent him about his business. Very 
 early, too, he had put on his fine clothes of 
 black satin and scarlet, and had buttoned his 
 costly cape about his shoulders. He had 
 worn those clothes but once before, and that 
 
 was on the feast of the Ascension, when 
 
 1 88
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 Venice wedded the Adriatic. What more 
 fitting than that he should wear them for the 
 second time when he, Alvise, the jeweller, 
 would talk of marriage and of love to 
 one whom they called the Daughter of 
 Venice. 
 
 He had been an amorous old rogue for 
 many a year ; but, skilled as he was in those 
 arts which win upon the love of women, he 
 was troubled on this June day, and his hand 
 trembled as he turned the key in the door 
 of his shop, and set off nimbly toward the 
 public garden. After all, Nina had powerful 
 friends. It would never do for those friends 
 to hear of this intrigue. Even Venice, who 
 had become the child's patron, might be led 
 to interfere on her behalf. 
 
 What that would mean the old man dare 
 not contemplate. He had always been very 
 fearful of the law and the police. He never 
 passed the prisons without a shudder of 
 loathing and of dread. He remembered as 
 he threaded the narrow streets, and looked 
 often to the right and to the left of him, that 
 the real ruler of Venice, Fra Giovanni, went 
 often to the convent to see the clown's 
 
 daughter. The memory put a chain upon 
 
 189
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 his feet ; he was half of a mind to turn 
 back again. 
 
 "Oh! come!" he said to himself, reflecting 
 upon it, as he stood at the door of the 
 church of San Zaccaria, " what have I to 
 fear, after all ? I will tell them I mean to 
 marry her. And she will not have spoken 
 to anyone. She is not such a fool. Trust 
 the pretty jewels to blind her eyes. A 
 clown's daughter ! Odd if the law should 
 prevent me making love to her!" 
 
 His argument revived his drooping cour- 
 age. He hurried on to the public garden, 
 and scarcely had he entered it before he saw 
 little Nina herself, dressed so prettily in a 
 gown of white, with a scarlet hood about 
 her neck and shoulders, that he stood mute 
 in admiration. 
 
 "Well," she said and she found it difficult 
 to control her excitement " it is you, then, 
 and the clocks struck three ten minutes 
 ago." 
 
 He was flattered that she should reproach 
 him for being late ; and he bent his old body 
 in a tremendous bow, while his face was 
 lighted under its skin of parchment with the 
 
 fires of his anticipations. 
 
 190
 
 "THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 " Signorina," he said, " I stopped so often 
 on my way to remind myself of your favours 
 that I forgot the hour and the place." 
 
 He would have kissed her hand, but she 
 snatched it from him, and ran toward the 
 quay where a gondola was moored. 
 
 " Not here," she said, as though by-and-by 
 he might do as he pleased with her; "wait 
 until we are on the water. As you did not 
 come, I called a gondola. Did I not do 
 well, Signer Alvise ? " 
 
 In spite of his haste and his pleasure, old 
 Alvise cast a searching look at her and at 
 the gondola she had called. Suspicion 
 wrestled with him for a moment ; but a man 
 will be blind to many obstacles when he 
 sets out to the pursuit of a woman, and 
 after an instant's hesitation he entered the 
 boat, and sat down beside her. 
 
 If he had not been in such a hurry, 
 perchance the strange troubles of that day 
 of days would never have overtaken him. 
 But his haste was the haste of love, and 
 he did not see that the boatman, who 
 now sent the black gondola dancing across 
 the lagoon, was Gerardo, the servant of 
 
 Fra Giovanni, the same fisherman who 
 
 191
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 had stumbled against him so maliciously 
 last night. 
 
 Unhappily for him, old Alvise was entirely 
 unaware of the identity of the man who 
 rowed him. A sense of rest and silence and 
 sweet content was everywhere. The jeweller 
 pinched himself to be quite sure that he was 
 awake. He could not believe it even yet ; 
 could not believe that he sat in a gondola, 
 and that the prettiest eyes in all Venice 
 were looking into his own laughingly. 
 
 " Ah," he exclaimed, so soon as they were 
 well out on the broad of the lagoon, "so 
 thou hast come to old Alvise at last. I 
 have waited long for this day, little Nina." 
 
 His old eyes shone like reddening coals. 
 He tried to clasp her in his arms and to 
 kiss her ; but she was quick as light, and 
 before his hand had touched her, she stood 
 far from him in the bow of the gondola. 
 
 " Patience, old Alvise," she cried, merrily ; 
 " a little patience and I will talk to thee." 
 
 "Why do you run away from me?" he 
 asked ; " are you not here to be kind to me 
 to-day? Come back and hear what I have 
 to say to you. Come back and see what 
 
 old Alvise has brought for you. ' 
 
 192
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 She came a little way toward the awning 
 and thrust out her hand. 
 
 " Show me the gifts you promised me," 
 she said, tossing her little head with the air 
 of a bravo. 
 
 He looked at her with astonishment in his 
 cunning old eyes. A woman's greed was a 
 familiar thing to him ; but that this mere 
 child should hunger for diamonds as some 
 fine lady of Venice was like a douche upon 
 his ardour. 
 
 " No," he said, " I will show you the jewels 
 when you are here at my side, little Nina." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders as though it 
 were a matter of indifference to her. 
 
 " Oh," she said, " this is how you reward 
 my love. What shall I say to them when I 
 go back? How shall I tell them?" 
 
 There had been a leer of satisfaction on 
 the old man's face until this time, but he 
 leered no more when she had spoken. A 
 sudden suspicion set his heart beating and 
 brought blood to his cheeks. He turned his 
 little red eyes upon her and she saw the 
 light of fear in them. 
 
 " What is that ? What do you say, 
 child ? " he asked sharply. 
 
 193
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 She threw herself down upon the cushion 
 at his side, for she feared his kisses no longer. 
 He had never seen so pretty a thing as the 
 child who lay there resting on her elbows 
 and looking up into his face ; but his fear 
 was greater than his passion. 
 
 " I said that I shall have a poor tale to 
 tell to my father and to Fra Giovanni when 
 I go home to-night." 
 
 " They knew that you were coming to 
 Palestrina with me ? " 
 
 " Certainly they did. Should I hide it 
 from them ? ' I am going to Palestrina with 
 old Alvise, the jeweller,' I said, ' and he will 
 give me diamonds for you.' And now what 
 shall I tell them, Signer Alvise ? " 
 
 The jeweller clenched his hands. He 
 could have struck her in that moment. 
 
 " Home ! " he roared, climbing to his feet 
 with the vigour of a lad, " back to Venice ; 
 do you hear me, out there ? " 
 
 His words were addressed to Gerardo, 
 the gondolier ; and Gerardo answered at 
 once. 
 
 " Certainly, signore but what of the 
 others ? " 
 
 " How, the others ? " 
 194
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 "As I say, excellency, the black gondola. It 
 has been following us for the last ten minutes." 
 
 Had the fellow pronounced a sentence of 
 death, the old jeweller could not have turned 
 paler. Half believing, unwilling to believe, 
 he drew back the curtains of the awning 
 and looked out over the sunlit lagoon. 
 
 " The good God help me," he cried, let- 
 ting the curtain fall again, " there are the 
 police, as he says." 
 
 Nina buried her face in a cushion that he 
 might not see her laughing. When she 
 looked up at him she was very serious, and 
 the great black eyes seemed to pity him. 
 
 "Dear friend," she said, "how sorry I am 
 for you. It must be Fra Giovanni who has 
 told them. They will carry you to the dun- 
 geons and I shall never see you again." 
 
 He did not hear her. He was mumbling 
 to himself as one whose wits had gone at 
 the news. The police the terrible police of 
 Venice were on his heels at last. He said 
 that he might never see the sunshine again. 
 Wild dreams of escape racked him. He 
 drew back the curtain, went forward, and 
 spoke to Gerardo once more. 
 
 " A hundred ducats if you get to Fusina 
 '95
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 before them," he cried ; " I have friends 
 there ; they will save me." 
 
 Gerardo, the gondolier, let the lapping 
 water play upon his oar. He did not appear 
 to be in any hurry at all. 
 
 " It would be possible, excellency," he said 
 slowly; "yet how do I know that you will 
 pay me ? " 
 
 "Devil," cried the miser, "hold that purse; 
 there are two hundred and fifty ducats in it. 
 They are yours if I escape." 
 
 Gerardo held his oar between his knees 
 and began deliberately to untie the leathern 
 purse which the jeweller thrust into his hand. 
 
 " You are a generous man, excellency, and 
 God forbid that I should not deal honestly 
 with you. Let us count the money now that 
 the signorina may be witness." 
 
 Alvise raised his hands to Heaven. The 
 delay found the boat of the police drawing 
 very near to them. The jeweller seemed 
 already to feel the manacles on his wrists. 
 He was no longer conscious that the prettiest 
 girl in Venice sat at his side. 
 
 "Row, row!" he cried. "In pity's name, 
 
 i )) 
 row ! 
 
 Gerardo tied up the purse with great de- 
 196
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 liberation. He took a few powerful strokes, 
 and then stopped suddenly again. 
 
 " Excellency," he exclaimed, "in the matter 
 of this bargain, of its conditions, and its cir- 
 cumstances " 
 
 " Oh, for pity's sake will you not row, 
 fellow ? To Fusina I have friends there. 
 Another hundred ducats." 
 
 Gerardo nodded his head. The long black 
 gondola, with the police for its masters, 
 was within a stone's throw now. The miser, 
 gibbering, and white with terror, watched it 
 as he would have watched an apparition of 
 the night. 
 
 "Oh," he said, "I am lost, lost! A curse 
 on the day. Will you not row, fellow ? Do 
 you not see them ? " 
 
 "If your excellency will be pleased to 
 point the direction " 
 
 It was not to be borne. The driven man, 
 snarling with anger and fear, raised his 
 clenched fist to strike the gondolier. But, 
 before the blow fell, the other boat came up, 
 and the captain of the police was at the 
 jeweller's side. 
 
 "Alvise Falier," said he, "I arrest you in 
 
 the name of the Serene Prince." 
 
 197
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 IV. 
 
 The black gondola, driven by six oars, re- 
 turned to Venice swiftly. Unlike other gon- 
 dolas upon the lagoon in the month of June, 
 it had a felze, or roof for its cabin ; and this 
 cabin shielded the prisoner from the prying 
 eyes of the curious. He sat there dumb and 
 paralysed with terror. The presentiment 
 which had haunted him all his life had come 
 true at last. He, Alvise, the jeweller, had 
 fallen into the clutches of the police. 
 
 There were six of them in his cabin, great 
 fellows, clothed from head to foot in black, 
 and wearing black masks. They did not 
 speak to the prisoner or to each other. They 
 sat as figures carved from ebony. Their 
 silence was more dreadful than their words, 
 old Alvise thought. He could not bring him- 
 self to believe that he had committed any 
 great crime against Venice ; yet this display 
 of the justice of Venice, these forbidding 
 figures, black and voiceless, chilled his very 
 heart. 
 
 " Signori," he pleaded at last, " where are 
 you taking me to ; what have I done to 
 
 merit the displeasure of the Serene Prince ? " 
 
 198
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 The six men bowed towards him as one, 
 but did not answer him, and he shrank back 
 from their silence with his fears made new. 
 When the boat had gone a little way further, 
 the captain, who had arrested him, rose 
 suddenly and clapped a bandage upon his 
 eyes. 
 
 "A thousand excuses, signore," he said as 
 he did so, " but it is in kindness to you that 
 I act." 
 
 It was a simple thing to do, yet if the 
 captain had pricked old Alvise with a sword, 
 he could not have been more fearful. Often 
 had he heard of the unnameable sights in 
 the dungeons of the palace. They were 
 taking him to those dungeons at last ; and 
 they had put a bandage over his eyes in 
 mercy. 
 
 "Oh!" he said, "God help me! You are 
 taking me to the prisons, signori ? " 
 
 The captain answered him very courteously. 
 
 " Not so, Signer Alvise; we are taking you 
 to the house prepared for him who is to be 
 the husband of the Daughter of Venice." 
 
 A new light, the light of a tremendous 
 hope, burst upon old Alvise. 
 
 " How ! '' he said, " Venice wishes me to 
 199
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 marry her then. Oh ! glory be to God for 
 that saying, signore! Surely she shall never 
 find a better husband." 
 
 He sat up as one made strong at the 
 words. He could not see the smiles behind 
 the masks of those who watched him. Nor 
 could he learn anything from the captain's 
 voice when he was answered. 
 
 "Signore," said the captain, "it is the 
 wish of Venice that you marry Nina, the 
 daughter of Barbarino, the clown, after proof 
 has been made of your goodness and of your 
 courage. We are now at the palace where 
 that proof shall be put to the test." 
 Alvise laughed like a boy. 
 "What an idea," he said. "A proof of 
 my goodness, indeed. I will soon tell them 
 all about that, and as for my courage- 
 He did not finish the sentence, for a hand 
 was laid upon his shoulder just then, and he 
 knew that they were leading him from the 
 gondola and up a flight of stone steps into 
 some building. It would be into the hall 
 of the palace, he thought. There were no 
 words to depict his surprise when, on the 
 bandage being snatched from his eyes, he 
 found himself thrust forward into a little room 
 
 200
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 which was the most curious room he had 
 ever seen. 
 
 Twelve feet square, perhaps, by as many 
 in altitude, the room was hung from floor to 
 ceiling in black velvet. Save for the rays 
 of a dim lantern swinging from the black 
 drapery of the ceiling, and for a glow of 
 coal in a furnace, there was not a gleam of 
 light in the place. Indeed, so dark was it 
 that the jeweller rubbed his eyes for many 
 moments before they showed him anything at 
 all in the room. 
 
 When vision returned to him, he saw that 
 the furniture of the apartment was as odd 
 as its drapery. A brazier with live coals 
 glowing ; a pair of ominous pincers, a brand- 
 ing iron, a long flat wooden bench, an iron 
 bowl these were the ornaments of that 
 chamber of mysteries. Old Alvise looked 
 at them for a moment, and then a terror 
 past understanding seized upon him. 
 
 " The God of my fathers help me," he 
 said, " I am in the torture chamber and they 
 will burn me with that iron." 
 
 There was no greater coward in Venice 
 than this copper-faced old rogue ; no, nor any 
 woman more timid. When he was quite sure 
 
 201
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 of the things he saw, he uttered a scream 
 which was heard half across the Piazzetta. 
 At the same moment, one of the velvet 
 curtains behind him was opened quickly and 
 four men passed into the chamber. 
 
 " Signore," the first of them said suavely, 
 "we thought that we heard you call." 
 
 " Oh," he cried, grovelling before them, 
 " take me from this place, signori, take me 
 quickly." 
 
 "Not so," cried the other; "we are here 
 to minister to your pleasures, Signer Alvise, 
 and to further your happiness. As the 
 doctors of Venice, we shall now put you to 
 the proof, and see if the city may safely in- 
 trust her daughter to you." 
 
 The jeweller looked at him with eyes of 
 terror. 
 
 " Oh," he said, " you are a doctor, then ! " 
 
 " As you say, excellency, a doctor of 
 Bologna, and these gentlemen are my col- 
 leagues." 
 
 He pointed to the other three, who were 
 dressed as he was. The hesitating jeweller 
 had never seen such strange robes in all his 
 life. Long gowns of scarlet, with odd figures 
 painted upon them, covered the men's bodies. 
 
 202
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 Sugar-loaf hats of prodigious size bobbed 
 together as the surgeons consulted in low 
 and menacing tones. They were all masked, 
 and they carried strange instruments in their 
 hands. It was impossible to take courage in 
 such a place, and with such men. But old 
 Alvise made a pretence of doing so. 
 
 " Well," he said, " if it is your wish to 
 speak to me, excellencies, I am ready." 
 
 " Not to speak to you, signore," said the 
 first of the surgeons, " but to make an ex- 
 amination of your heart, which, if you please, 
 we would now look at." 
 
 The jeweller tried to laugh merrily. 
 
 "Oh," he said, "this is how the Serene 
 Prince jests with me, then. Whoever heard 
 of a man wearing his heart where a doctor 
 could see it." 
 
 "You will understand that presently, 
 signore. Meanwhile, it is our duty to pro- 
 ceed. Take courage, we shall deal with you 
 as gently as possible." 
 
 He put out his hand, and grasped his 
 prisoner by the shoulder. His three col- 
 leagues pressed round the shivering wretch, 
 and threw him roughly on the bench, 
 
 where they bound him hand and foot, and 
 
 203 M
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 cast a cloth over his eyes. He had half be- 
 lieved, until this moment, that they were 
 jesting with him as they said ; but he remem- 
 bered, while they bound him, how terrible the 
 jests of Venice could be ; and he cried out 
 again with terror when the cloth covered his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Oh," he wailed, " what are you going 
 to do to me ; what have I done that you 
 should punish me ? " 
 
 The surgeon answered him as one who 
 comforts a child. 
 
 "Excellency," he said, "fear nothing. We 
 are the doctors of Venice, and we understand 
 our business. We are now about to operate 
 upon you so that we may see your heart. 
 But we shall pour unguents into your wounds 
 when we have done, and you will feel 
 nothing." 
 
 He lifted the cloth a little, that the quiver- 
 ing wretch might see what was going on. 
 Alvise opened his eyes, which shone as a 
 madman's, and began to stare about him 
 wildly. He knew then that Venice had 
 sentenced him to death ; and was contriving 
 his death in this horrid spirit of' the jest she 
 
 loved so well. All round him the terrible 
 
 204
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 red hats were bobbing. He saw one of the 
 doctors carry in a great instrument of wood, 
 with a twisted handle and a sharp point of 
 steel ; another brought the iron bowl and put 
 it near the torture bench ; a third stirred the 
 coals ; a fourth sharpened a knife ominously. 
 
 " Saints and angels," he moaned, " it is 
 true, then ; they will cut out my heart and 
 cast it into the water. They have done it to 
 many a prisoner. The Mother of God have 
 mercy on me ! That instrument is an auger 
 to pierce my flesh. That bowl is for my 
 blood. Was ever such a punishment heard 
 of?" 
 
 He lay very still ; his lips were blue and 
 trembling. All that went on fascinated him 
 horribly. When the great instrument with 
 the steel point was raised above his breast, 
 and they tore his shirt from his bosom, he 
 howled as a wolf that is wounded. 
 
 " I cannot bear it," he cried, " I cannot 
 bear it. Kill me and make an end, signori. 
 You are devils to torture a man like this." 
 
 One of the doctors, he who carried the 
 bowl, raised his hand deprecatingly. 
 
 "Hush, hush!" he exclaimed, "what folly 
 
 is this? Are we not here to tell Venice of 
 
 205
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 your courage ? Take heart, then, and think 
 upon the day of your marriage. You will 
 suffer a little pain now ; but to-morrow we 
 shall sew up your wounds, and all will be well. 
 Play the man, Signer Alvise, I beg of you." 
 The prisoner's head sank back upon the 
 wooden bench. He tried to speak to them, 
 but no words came from his lips. When the 
 great auger was raised above his body, he 
 uttered a low moan, which became a resound- 
 ing shriek as he felt the shining steel cut 
 his flesh. A moment later, another pain, 
 sharp and unmistakable, in the very centre of 
 his back, told him that the blade had cut 
 through his body. He listened during an in- 
 stant of agony and heard a " drip, drip " into 
 the bowl. He thought that his life's blood 
 was flowing thus ; and with one long-drawn 
 howl of agony, he fainted. 
 
 V. 
 
 It was growing dark in Venice without 
 when Alvise, the jeweller, came back to 
 
 206
 
 "He was in one of the dungeons of the palace, 
 he knew well." 
 
 Page 207.]
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 consciousness. The sun had disappeared be- 
 hind the Western hills, and twilight hovered 
 for a few short minutes upon the city of 
 waters. But the wretched prisoner was mind- 
 ful neither of the hour nor of the place. 
 He opened his eyes in a gloomy cell ; yet 
 could not remember how he had come to 
 that cell. He stared at the bed of straw 
 upon which he lay, at the monstrous bolts 
 and bars of the tremendous door, yet could 
 not gather any thread of circumstance which 
 would help his wandering mind. That he was 
 in one of the dungeons of the palace he knew 
 well. Yet how had he come there how ? 
 
 When memory came back to him it was 
 swift and torturing and sudden. He did not 
 think of little Nina, or of his meeting in the 
 garden with her, or of that merry hour upon 
 the lagoon. The lesser facts of the day had 
 vanished from his mind. Only the memory 
 of the doctors of Bologna remained ; the 
 terrible four who had been sent by Venice to 
 punish him. 
 
 With quivering hands he tore open his 
 shirt and saw that his breast was red and 
 slightly scarred. They had let him live after 
 
 all, then these devils of the torture-chamber 
 
 209
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 they had sewn up his wounds as they 
 promised. Yet to what end, he asked ? Was 
 it that they might visit him with new 
 tortures, with refinements of cruelty his mind 
 dare not contemplate ? 
 
 An hour, perhaps, passed in the contem- 
 plation of his hopeless circumstances. It was 
 quite dark by this time and he was very 
 hungry so hungry that he forgot those other 
 fears of torture, and cried loudly that his 
 gaolers should come to him. To his surprise, 
 a man carrying a lantern appeared imme- 
 diately in the cell. Alvise could not imagine 
 whence or how he came, for the door did 
 not open nor did he hear a footstep. Yet 
 there the man stood, and his greeting was 
 that of a servant. 
 
 "Excellency," he said, "you were pleased 
 to call me." 
 
 " Signore," exclaimed the trembling prisoner, 
 "is it the wish of your master that I die of 
 hunger ? " 
 
 " Of hunger, excellency ? What an idea ! 
 Name but the dish you would fancy, and I 
 will bring it on the instant." 
 
 Alvise stared at the fellow in astonishment. 
 
 " Oh," he said, " I will remember your 
 
 210
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 name, signore, if ever I see my home again. 
 Bring me a dish of fowl, and you shall find 
 no more grateful man in Venice." 
 
 The gaoler bowed very politely. 
 
 " The price of a dish of fowl is a hundred 
 golden ducats, signer. Give me your bond 
 now, and I will bring it before the clock 
 strikes again." 
 
 He spoke with assumed carelessness, as 
 though the price named were a trifle which 
 no rich man would think twice about. The 
 jeweller, on his part, sat down upon his bed 
 again and buried his face in his hands. 
 
 "It is of hunger that I am to die, then, 
 after all," he groaned. "A hundred ducats? 
 I have not so much money in all the world." 
 
 The gaoler laughed. 
 
 " Excellency," he said, " you think so now, 
 but when you have been in this place for 
 twenty hours, you will be surprised to find 
 how rich you are. Do not make any mistake. 
 Everything here has its price. For a dish 
 of meat a hundred ducats ; for a pitcher of 
 water two hundred ducats ; for wine and 
 candles and a bed from your own house five 
 hundred ducats. For liberty " 
 
 Old Alvise looked up quickly. 
 
 211
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 " For liberty ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " As I say, excellency, for liberty, a 
 thousand ducats." 
 
 The jeweller stood up. He stretched out 
 a trembling hand for the paper which the 
 other held. 
 
 " Give me your bond that I may sign it," 
 he said. " I will pay the thousand ducats in 
 my own house this night. God be thanked 
 that I should hear your words." 
 
 The gaoler slapped him on the back 
 cheerily. 
 
 " Ha!" he cried. "I knew that we had a 
 man of sense to deal with. Let me hold the 
 lantern, signore, while you set your name to 
 the paper. I have an inkhorn at my wrist, 
 and here is a passable feather." 
 
 He held up the lantern, and the old man 
 wrote, with shaking hand, the promise that 
 he would pay a thousand golden ducats to 
 the holder of the document. 
 
 " Now," he cried, when he had signed it, 
 " I will go with you, signore." 
 
 The gaoler laughed and blew out his 
 lantern. 
 
 " Excellency," he answered, " there is no 
 need to go with me. Your liberty lies 
 
 212
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 beyond these walls. Walk through them 
 and you will find it." 
 
 He disappeared silently, mysteriously as he 
 had come. The frenzied cry of rage and 
 anger which the old man uttered remained 
 unanswered. Alvise stood alone in the cell. 
 He thought that he could hear voices beyond 
 the walls ; even the voices of women. But 
 he knew now that Venice would never let 
 him go. She would cheat him of his fortune 
 and then she would kill him. 
 
 "Your liberty lies beyond these walls. 
 Walk through them and you will find it." 
 
 Desperately he recalled the gaoler's words, 
 and cursed the lips which had uttered them. 
 An army, he said, could not shake the bolts 
 of that tremendous door. And Venice had 
 lied to him by the mouth of this jester. A 
 miser at heart, the thought of the bond he 
 had signed drove him to desperation. He 
 began to pace the cell as a caged beast ; 
 he cried aloud that the man should return to 
 him; he raised his fist and went to beat 
 upon the great wall of stone ; but at the first 
 blow he stood thunderstruck and trembling > 
 nor did he move a hand again until many 
 
 minutes had passed. 
 
 213
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 He had struck a blow at the wall, indeed, 
 yet his hand had fallen upon space. No 
 stone had scarred his flesh ; no jagged edges 
 of the mortar had hurt his fingers when the 
 blow fell. Nevertheless, there was the wall 
 before him ; there, the great door. Moon- 
 light, rippling in the cell, showed him every- 
 thing as no lantern could have done. Dazed 
 and perplexed beyond imagination, he began 
 to think that he was the victim of some 
 supernatural visitation ; and he shrank back 
 to the bed affrighted and with a prayer upon 
 his lips. Were the walls but phantoms then ? 
 Could his gaolers move them at their plea- 
 sure ? He cringed with terror at the possi- 
 bility ; the clock struck the new hour before 
 he moved again. 
 
 It was nearly midnight when he recalled 
 his gaoler's mysterious words for the second 
 time. " Liberty beyond the walls." He re- 
 peated the promise to himself again, and 
 began to reflect upon it a little sanely. 
 What did the fellow mean when he said 
 that the prisoner must walk through the 
 great girdle of stone they had put about 
 him ? Was it altogether a jest ; could there 
 
 be even a grain of truth in it ? Fearful still, 
 
 214
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF VENICE 
 
 expecting he knew not what, he rose at last 
 from his bed and walked for the last time to 
 the great door. A moment later he had 
 fallen headlong through it ; and lay upon the 
 ground stupefied with fear and amazement. 
 
 " Viva, old Alvise. Viva, the lover of 
 Nina. They have bored a hole in him, my 
 friends, to let in some sense. What courage ! 
 What a man ! " 
 
 Alvise heard the cries but knew nothing 
 of their meaning. Timidly he looked up and 
 saw that he was at the very door of the 
 booth wherein lived Barbarino, the clown, 
 and his merry satellites. A miracle, he said ; 
 yet no miracle to the people, gathered upon 
 the Piazzetta to welcome him. For the 
 people knew that the cell of Alvise, the 
 jeweller, had been made of painted cloth. 
 They had waited patiently for him to fling 
 himself against the mock door of it, and so 
 to fall in the street. And now they were 
 rewarded, in a measure heaped up and over- 
 flowing. 
 
 "Viva, old Alvise. Viva, the lover of 
 Nina." 
 
 All were there upon the Piazzetta clowns 
 
 and mock doctors, and harlequins and danc- 
 
 215
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 ing girls. Even the great instrument of 
 torture was held aloft and lighted by the 
 torches the masqueraders carried. The bowl, 
 the terrible bowl they thrust it under the 
 miser's nose, and he regarded it shudderingly. 
 
 It contained the red wine of Burgundy. 
 
 " Viva, Alvise. Viva, the husband of 
 Nina." 
 
 So the people greeted him. But the old 
 man crept off to his home ; and many a 
 month passed before he lifted his head 
 again, or looked upon the face of a woman. 
 
 And little Nina laughed that night as Fra 
 Giovanni had promised her. 
 
 "Oh," she said, "they pricked his chest 
 and pricked his back, and he believed that 
 they had bored a hole in him." 
 
 216
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 I. 
 
 THE heavy key fell from the hand of the 
 alchemist ; he staggered against the door of 
 the bookcase he had opened, and it shut 
 behind him with a crash of glass and a 
 splintering of wood. 
 
 "Who is there, who calls me?" he asked, 
 as he held the taper high above his head 
 and sought to peer into the shadows of the 
 room. He was sure that someone had 
 whispered his name ; yet when he ventured 
 the question, the wind answered him ; the 
 wind and a harmony of voices floating up 
 from the Grand Canal below his balcony. 
 
 It was a long room, the great salon of the 
 Palazzo Balbi which Venice had given to 
 
 this man, Zuane de Franza, that he, in 
 
 217
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 return, might practise his arts therein and 
 make her rich beyond the nations. A single 
 lamp, shaded and placed upon an exquisite 
 cabinet near the long windows, illumined the 
 apartment at the moment when the alchemist 
 heard a whisper of his name. He had 
 believed himself to be alone in the room 
 when he left his writing-table ; it was nearly 
 midnight and his servants were sleeping. 
 Who, then, he asked himself, could have 
 come to his house. Nevertheless, he was 
 sure that someone had called to him from 
 the darkness. 
 
 "Who is it, who asks for me?" he 
 repeated, recovering himself a little, and 
 advancing to the centre of the room. 
 
 Again there was no voice to satisfy him ; 
 only the bells of the city striking midnight 
 in a glorious chord of silver notes, as though 
 celestial singers heralded the morning from 
 a hundred moonlit steeples. The alchemist 
 counted the notes, and his heart quailed 
 while he numbered them. Another day had 
 begun then ! How many yet were to dawn 
 and to die before Venice discovered the 
 impostor she had harboured ? He dare not 
 
 ask himself that question. 
 
 218
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 "Pah!" he said, when the echoes floated 
 away and his limbs were released from the 
 trance which had fallen upon them, " the 
 night is making a fool of me. There was 
 no voice. I dreamed it as I have dreamed 
 many a sight and sound since fortune sent 
 me to Venice. Who could be in this house 
 when midnight strikes ? Who is there with 
 the courage to set foot in the laboratory of 
 Zuane de Franza? Fools all there is not 
 one among them " 
 
 He turned again, with a gesture of con- 
 tempt, to the bookcase for the volume he 
 needed. The taper showed a coarse, white 
 face, with a great height of forehead, and 
 lips thick and sensual as those of an African. 
 In stature short, yet with limbs that would 
 have been no disgrace to a workman at the 
 Arsenal, Zuane de Franza, clothed in his 
 long black gown, with fur at the wrists and 
 throat, was a man who would have been 
 marked in whatever assembly he had been 
 found. And there was no more persuasive 
 tongue in all Venice. " I am sent from God 
 to bring you the gift of gold," he had said 
 to the people and the people, and with the 
 
 people, the Senate, had believed him. 
 
 219
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 He took the book from the shelf and 
 returned to his writing-table. When he had 
 blown out his taper and drawn the lamp 
 closer to his paper, a smile of sensuous 
 content in his employment took possession of 
 him, and he forgot the voice and his own 
 foreboding. 
 
 "Another month and it shall be the end," 
 he muttered ; " one more throw with the dice 
 of life, and it shall be the last. As I came, 
 so will I go. The fools that wait for me 
 shall be left with their folly. The gold they 
 seek shall be the saddle for my horse. My 
 Elixir of Life shall stink in the flasks of 
 Murano or wash the dead they carry to the 
 coffins. Another month a hundred thousand 
 ducats yet from their Treasury and the 
 game is ended. The star of Franza will 
 set, but it will rise again in another city, 
 before another people, who will worship it 
 as this people has done." 
 
 The thought was stimulating as wine upon 
 the palate. He dipped his pen into the 
 great gold inkstand before him and began to 
 write quickly. When he had written ten 
 lines, a memory of the voice he had forgotten 
 came rushing back, and with it all his dread 
 
 220
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 of the night, magnified tenfold, for a shadow 
 fell suddenly across the paper still glistening 
 with the unblotted ink. And it was the 
 shadow of a man's hand ! 
 
 Franza seemed to feel the grip of the 
 hand upon his very heart. 
 
 "Great God," he cried, "who is it? Who 
 is there ? Whom do you seek ? " 
 
 There was no answer. The shadow 
 vanished as it had come, swiftly, inexplicably. 
 Yet the presence of another in the room 
 was no longer to be doubted. The alchemist 
 could hear a sound of breathing, even a 
 footstep in the darkness near him. An 
 assassin was his guest, he thought ; a robber 
 had come to his house, carried there by the 
 wild stories that Venice told of the man 
 who had promised her gold. No other 
 theory was possible. And it was a theory 
 which made good his broken courage. The 
 terror of the unseen could bring sweat to his 
 forehead ; but of anything living he had no 
 fear. 
 
 " Ah," he said, when he had waited a 
 moment, and the unknown had not declared 
 himself, " it is like that, then. You think 
 that old Franza wears petticoats, and will 
 
 221
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 pull out his purse to the first rascal who 
 shows him the blade of a dagger. Not so, 
 my friend, as I am going to teach you." 
 
 He stooped quickly at the words, and took 
 a pistol, ready primed, from the drawer in 
 the bureau at which he had been writing. 
 The idea that he must fight for his life, with 
 some bravo sent to his house to rob him, did 
 not trouble him at all. He would shoot the 
 fellow as he would shoot a wolf, he said. 
 
 "You are saying your prayers, rogue?" 
 he exclaimed, stepping suddenly toward the 
 place where he had heard the sound of 
 breathing. " I conjure you to be quick, or, 
 certainly, you shall say them in purgatory. 
 What ! you would rob old Franza, the friend 
 of Venice ! A thousand devils take your 
 impudence." 
 
 He was bold enough by this time, for his 
 had been a life of adventure ; and many a 
 narrow plank had bridged the gulf of death 
 for him. As he stood there in a bright 
 circle of light, turning to this side or to that 
 in his quest of the robber, he might himself 
 have been some reckless cavalier of the road 
 driven suddenly to scheme for his very 
 liberty. 
 
 222
 
 "'Come out!' he cried again and again." 
 
 Page 223.]
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 "Come out," he cried again and again; 
 "come out, and show yourself, rascal! You 
 would rob old Franza, the alchemist ! He is 
 here, and waiting for you." 
 
 Until this moment, the unknown, whoever 
 he was, kept to the shadows of the room. 
 Franza could hear him moving lightly from 
 place to place ; once he thought that he saw 
 a masked figure standing almost at his elbow. 
 But before he could solve the amazing mystery 
 of the presence, the point of a sword was 
 thrust from the shadows ; and so clever was 
 the hand which held the sword that the blade 
 struck the lock of the pistol, and fired the 
 powder in the pan. 
 
 The report which followed seemed to shake 
 the old house to its very foundations. The 
 lamp upon the table, struck by the slugs, 
 was broken into twenty pieces. A great vase 
 fell with a crash almost at the feet of the 
 alchemist ; thick, sulphurous smoke filled the 
 room ; utter darkness prevailed, and out of 
 the darkness a strange voice spoke. 
 
 "Signer Franza," the voice said, "what 
 sort of a host is that who takes a pistol to 
 welcome his best friends ? " 
 
 The alchemist stood spellbound. The smok- 
 225
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 ing pistol had tumbled from his hand to 
 the floor. He could perceive a pair of bright 
 eyes shining beneath a mask ; he could see 
 the glitter of precious stones upon the vest 
 of the unknown ; he thought that he recog- 
 nised the voice of him who spoke. 
 
 "A friend!" he gasped. "How comes a 
 friend to my house when the bells are strik- 
 ing midnight ? " 
 
 " If he should be here to warn you, signore." 
 
 " To warn me ; what warning, then, do I 
 need ? " 
 
 " The warning of one who is here to tell 
 you that to-day Venice will demand a reckon- 
 ing." 
 
 The alchemist laughed scornfully. 
 
 "How, a reckoning with me, signore?" 
 
 " Certainly, with you who have promised 
 her gold." 
 
 Franza began to grope his way toward his 
 table. He sought to find a gong that he 
 might summon his servants. But the un- 
 known continued quickly : 
 
 " You have promised her gold, signore, and 
 she, in return for that promise, has given 
 you two hundred thousand ducats and this 
 
 palace you live in. Beware how you provoke 
 
 226
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 her ! Beware the dawn, Signer Franza, for 
 you may never see another ! " 
 
 Franza answered him by striking the gong 
 three times. The loud notes brought servants 
 quickly to the room. But when the lamp 
 was lighted again, they found their master 
 alone, with an empty pistol and a broken 
 vase at his feet. He, in his turn, made a 
 poor excuse to them, and dismissed them 
 curtly. 
 
 "To-day the reckoning is to-day," he 
 muttered, when they had left him ; " well, 
 well, let it be so. The same tongue that 
 conquered Padua shall win victory ay, in 
 Venice itself, though a hundred thousand 
 were against me." 
 
 He went to one of the long windows, and 
 opened it to pass to his balcony. It had been 
 a glorious day of October, and Venice slept 
 now while a world of glittering stars watched 
 her slumbers. Below, on the Grand Canal, 
 the long black boat of the Signori of the 
 Night was keeping vigil of the city. Franza 
 shuddered when he saw the boat, and closed 
 the window quickly. 
 
 " It is an omen," he said. 
 
 227
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 II. 
 
 Franza, accustomed to spend the night 
 amidst the jars and phials of his splendid 
 laboratory, slept heavily at six o'clock on the 
 following morning when his valet called him, 
 and, failing to wake him at the first attempt, 
 persisted doggedly in his endeavours. 
 
 " Excellency, wake up, I beg of you ; there 
 is a messenger from the Prince, and he will 
 not be refused." 
 
 The alchemist opened eyes heavy with 
 sleep, and sat up in his bed. 
 
 "Well," he said, "and what did you say, 
 Filippo?" 
 
 " That they have sent for you to go to the 
 palace, and will not listen to me, excellency." 
 
 Franza lay down again. 
 
 " I have yet to learn that I am at their 
 beck and call, Filippo. Let them come again 
 in an hour." 
 
 Filippo, a stolid man who always spoke 
 that which was in his mind, blurted out his 
 news without further parley. 
 
 "Excellency," said he, "the messenger is 
 
 not alone ! " 
 
 228
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 " Not alone, Filippo ? " 
 
 "As I say, excellency. He is not alone." 
 
 " Then who comes with him ? " 
 
 " The police, excellency." 
 
 Franza turned as pale as the sheets upon 
 his bed when he heard the words. In an 
 instant the scenes of the forgotten night were 
 remembered by him. He recalled the visit 
 of the unknown, the mystery of the warning, 
 the omen of the black boat lying motionless 
 beneath his windows. A vague fear of some 
 terrible ordeal, through which he must pass 
 presently, haunted him to the exclusion of all 
 other thoughts. "Beware the dawn!" the 
 strange voice had said. He repeated the 
 words as he dressed himself quickly. Was 
 it true, then, that the day of reckoning had 
 come at last ; the day when he must be 
 questioned and Venice must be answered? 
 He would not believe it. 
 
 " Come," he said at last to his valet, while 
 he endeavoured to assume a bold and care- 
 less manner, " you tell a tale for children. 
 Why should the police be in this house, 
 Filippo ? " 
 
 Filippo answered him bluntly. The time 
 
 for sham civilities was past, he thought. 
 
 229
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 "Excellency," he said, "you know that Fra 
 Giovanni preached yesterday in the church of 
 the Frari?" 
 
 "And if he did ?" 
 
 " It was to warn them against you and 
 your work." 
 
 All the colour left the alchemist's face for 
 the second time that morning. 
 
 " Who is this monk," he cried fiercely, 
 " that would come between me and the work 
 I must do in Venice ? " 
 
 "He is one who has now sent the cap- 
 tain of the police to your house, excellency." 
 
 " Then let it be his affair and mine ; and 
 the sword decide between us." 
 
 He put on his long gown with sable at 
 the neck and wrists of it, and made haste to 
 descend to the great room below. Despite 
 his fear and misgivings, he maintained that 
 majestic and pompous manner which had won 
 him the support of so many dupes ; and he 
 entered his laboratory with the air of a noble. 
 The two men, who waited for him there, rose 
 as he entered, and bowed ceremoniously to 
 him. One was the captain of the Doge's 
 guards ; the other the captain of the police. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said the alchemist very proud- 
 230
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 ly, " I am told that the Serene Prince sends for 
 me." 
 
 The captain of the guard bowed. 
 
 "At once, if you please, signore," said he. 
 
 Franza waved his hand in acquiescence, 
 and turned gaily to Pietro Falier, the captain 
 of the police. 
 
 " Signor Falier," said he, "you will at 
 least drink a cup of wine with me. There is 
 need for haste, indeed, if a man must quit 
 the Palazzo Balbi and know nothing of the 
 wine of Cyprus lying in its cellars. It will 
 not detain us a moment " 
 
 The captain of the police answered him 
 as the other had done. 
 
 "We must go at once, if you please, 
 signore," said he. 
 
 The two stood with soldiers' figures, stiff 
 and square, as men at the drill ; the alchemist 
 could read no message on their immobile faces. 
 Their civility perplexed him. An impatience 
 to learn the worst began to gnaw at his mind. 
 
 "Well," he said, "if it is your wish, 
 signori " 
 
 "It is the wish of Venice, excellency." 
 
 " Then Venice shall be obeyed. I am 
 
 ready, sirs." 
 
 231
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 A plain black gondola carried him swiftly 
 from his house to the Ducal Palace. By 
 here and there the people cheered him, as 
 was their wont. But the cries and plaudits 
 grated on his ears. Why had the Doge sent 
 the police to his house? Why were the 
 honours, with which the Council of Three 
 usually heralded his coming to the Palace, 
 lacking ? 
 
 There were many in the great square of 
 St. Mark when the gondola came up. Clowns 
 ran from their booths to cry " Viva Zuane " ; 
 women, hungry and ragged, blessed the man 
 who had promised bread to the children ; 
 gallants jested with him ; rich dames pressed 
 forward to see the gold maker. 
 
 He was accustomed to such homage the 
 homage of fools to one who had duped 
 them ; but on this morning of October, in 
 the year 1703, he had neither eyes nor ears 
 for it. He must defend himself before the 
 Three ; he must plead for time ; he must 
 declare himself unprepared for the last, the 
 great experiment which should enrich the 
 city beyond her dreams. A man of dogged 
 courage, his spirit returned to him at the 
 
 thought of combat. His eloquence had won 
 
 232
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 a fortune for him in three cities ; it should 
 not lose a fortune for him in Venice. 
 
 And so he entered the Palace with smiling 
 face and ready step. That his coming had 
 been eagerly looked for he had no doubt. 
 He passed the guards at the Giant's Staircase 
 without challenge. Lacqueys conducted him 
 at once to the antechamber of the Council. 
 A minute later he was ushered into the 
 famous Sala dei Capi, and the President 
 of the Three spoke to him. 
 
 It was a strange scene : the exquisite little 
 room with the ceiling by Paolo Veronese ; 
 the aged councillors ; the guards with drawn 
 swords at the door ; the secretary at the 
 table ; the solemnity, the dignity, the meaning 
 of it all. Franza, accustomed to such scenes, 
 bowed to the Three, and began at once to 
 excuse himself. 
 
 " My lords," said he, " I have come here at 
 your bidding, unceremonious though it be." 
 
 The President of the Council silenced him 
 with a motion of his hand. 
 
 " Zuane de Franza," said he, "a year ago 
 you came to Venice with the story that you 
 had discovered the long sought secret of the 
 transmutation of metals. You brought with 
 
 235
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 you water in jars which you called the anima 
 cforo, the spirit of the gold. You demanded 
 money and a home for the purpose of your 
 experiments. That money and that home 
 Venice has found for you. In twelve months, 
 you said, the waters in the jars would fructify. 
 Yesterday the last of those months was 
 ended. You will not be surprised, then, if 
 to-day Venice demands the return for her 
 hospitalities." 
 
 The alchemist heard him with a smile 
 upon his face. 
 
 " My lord," he pleaded, " I cannot com- 
 plain of your words ; nevertheless, before 
 you command me further, I would remind 
 you that if Venice is to reap the reward of 
 my labours, she must be faithful to me, and 
 wish that reward. Possibly it is unknown to 
 you that yesterday, in the Church of the 
 Frari, the Capuchin monk, Giovanni, warned 
 the people against me 
 
 " It is not unknown to us, Signor Franza. 
 We have heard of the affair, and our officers 
 have gone to speak to the priest you name. 
 He has answered that, until your experiments 
 are ended, he will promise to keep a vow of 
 
 silence." 
 
 236
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 Franza shook his head slowly and pulled 
 his long gown over his shoulders. 
 
 "That is well," he said, seeking time to 
 think ; " nevertheless, my lord 
 
 The President of the Three did not permit 
 him to finish his sentence. 
 
 " Nevertheless," he exclaimed, " this is no 
 time for excuses, signore, but fit and proper 
 for the fulfilment of your promises. In a 
 room below you will find the jars of water 
 which you entrusted to our keeping a year 
 ago. Anything else you seek shall be brought 
 to you. But you will understand that Venice 
 asks a hundred thousand golden ducats, 
 and that you must find them for her before 
 the sun has set to-day." 
 
 Franza cried out in amazement : 
 
 "A hundred thousand ducats, my lord! It 
 is impossible." 
 
 " No more, no less, signore. And since the 
 time is short already for your task, I beg you 
 to begin it without any further words." 
 
 He signalled to the guards at the door, 
 and they placed themselves, one on either 
 side of the trembling gold-maker. Franza 
 knew not why, yet all the cunning of his 
 tongue deserted him in that moment He 
 
 o 
 
 237
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 stared wildly at the motionless figures of the 
 Three ; he muttered strange words ; he tried 
 to shake the hands of the guards from his 
 shoulders. Still gabbling incoherent excuses, 
 he was led from the room through other 
 galleries and other halls until at last they 
 brought him to a narrow staircase. 
 
 "Mother of God," he cried, "you are 
 taking me to the dungeons ? " 
 
 " To the dungeons, signore, as you say. 
 Yet you have but to pay Venice a hundred 
 thousand golden ducats, and you are free to 
 go to your home again." 
 
 He did not answer them. They could feel 
 his limbs trembling as they led him across 
 the bridge to the prisons which lay beyond 
 the water. He knew well now that he could 
 dupe Venice no more. This was the day, 
 then, against which the masked man, who 
 came so mysteriously to his house, had warned 
 him. He cursed the folly which had kept 
 him in the city an hour after that warning 
 had been spoken. 
 
 Down and yet down, over steps green 
 with slime and fungus ; into passages where 
 the very air breathed pestilence ; by cells 
 
 whence came the voices of men who had 
 
 238
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 forgotten day and night and the wondrous 
 world of stars ; down and yet down into a 
 filthy dungeon, lighted by a blazing flambeau, 
 they carried him. As one in a dream, he saw 
 the horrid cell, wherein the price must be 
 paid. 
 
 " A hundred thousand golden ducats oh, 
 God help me, it is the half of my fortune." 
 
 But none heard him. When he looked up 
 once more, when he recovered from the para- 
 lysing trance of fear, he was alone with the 
 burning flambeau and the two great jars of 
 water which he had presented to Venice a 
 year ago. Since that day, they had been 
 locked up as sacred treasure in the Mint of 
 the city. The people said that they con- 
 tained the anima d'oro, the spirit of the 
 gold ; but Franza knew better ; he knew they 
 had been filled with water from the well of 
 his house. And here they were in his cell. 
 Never had his own quackery seemed so piti- 
 ful to him. Venice, indeed, was a hard 
 mistress. She would strip the very clothes 
 from his body, he thought. Perchance, she 
 would demand his life. 
 
 He feared death, in truth ; but as yet there 
 
 was no sign that Venice contemplated so ter- 
 
 239
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 rible a punishment. He began to think that 
 he might temporise with her. He would offer 
 ten thousand twenty thousand ducats. They 
 would liberate him, perhaps, for such a pay- 
 ment, and he would fly the city. He would 
 leave that very night ; in Savoy, in France, 
 it might be, he would find new dupes and 
 new rewards. Thinking of these things, he 
 took courage a little, and began to beat upon 
 the door of his cell. 
 
 " Signori, I will give ten thousand ducats 
 for my liberty. It is all my fortune. I 
 swear it before Heaven." 
 
 The echo of his own voice was the re- 
 sponse. Those tremendous walls cast back 
 the words so that he seemed to mock him- 
 self. Without or within, there was no other 
 sound than the drip of the water from one of 
 the great jars from one of those jars which 
 Venice had carried, a year ago, with lighted 
 candles and Host uplifted, to the cellars of 
 the Mint. Franza looked at the jar, and a 
 scornful laugh came to his lips. An instant 
 later, the laugh changed to an exclamation of 
 wonder and surprise. 
 
 " How ! " he cried, " the jar overflows so 
 
 that the water is above my ankles, and yet 
 
 240
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 it remains full to the brim. Am I losing my 
 eyes, then? God! what a thing to imagine!" 
 
 Cold to the marrow with the shock of that 
 discovery, he snatched the flambeau from its 
 iron stick and held it aloft to watch the 
 water in the jar. Not a drop of it seemed 
 to have passed out and yet, the floor be- 
 neath him was running with water above his 
 ankles. Again and again he stooped to touch 
 the lapping stream in the cell, or to mark the 
 jars by which he stood. 
 
 The truth was slow to come, but when it 
 came it was as the sentence of the death that 
 he must die. They would drown him in the 
 cell ! He knew not how or whence the water 
 came ; but he could feel it striking cold and 
 dank upon his legs. Anon, he said, it would 
 climb higher, would touch his knees, his 
 breast, his neck, his chin. He cried aloud 
 with the agony of the thought and dropped 
 the flambeau. It hissed in the rising tide of 
 water and he stood in darkness. 
 
 " Signori, I will pay twenty thousand 
 ducats for my liberty I will sell my gold 
 and silver oh, in the name of mercy, I feel 
 the water at my knees I drown, signori ! " 
 
 With darkness, a dread of death unspeak- 
 241 o
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 able seized upon him. He fell upon his 
 hands and knees and crawled towards the 
 door of the cell, cutting his knuckles as he 
 beat upon the panel, growing hoarse with 
 his terrible cries for help and mercy. He 
 knew now what the justice of Venice was to 
 those who would betray her. There, in that 
 dank cell, with the water creeping inch by 
 inch to his lips, he was to pay the uttermost 
 penalty for the months of pleasure and suc- 
 cess his roguery had earned for him. 
 
 "Signori fifty thousand ducats for my life! 
 I swear on the cross that I have no more. 
 Pity, for Heaven's sake. I am dying here, 
 signori hear me, help me ! " 
 
 He was" weak and faint at this time ; faint 
 from terror and from cold, half suffocated 
 with the foul air which the water drove up 
 towards the roof of the cell. His lungs 
 pained him as though a hot iron seared them. 
 His pulse was quick and weak ; the blood 
 seemed driven to his head ; he stretched out 
 his arms as though to seek pity of the ter- 
 rible walls or to drive the darkness from him. 
 The steady drip of the water was as a knell 
 the tocsin of a death cruel beyond any he 
 
 could have imagined. 
 
 242
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 Once he thought that the flow of it ceased ; 
 and then a delirium of joy began to possess 
 him ; but an instant later he knew that his 
 strained ear had deceived him. Relentless, 
 unmistakable, the tide was rising about him. 
 He plunged his hands in it, and foul things 
 fixed on them. He heard it lapping against 
 the stones, and, in terror uncontrollable, he 
 dashed himself against the unpitying walls, 
 and fell headlong. Any death but that, he 
 prayed. Any death but that of the foul tide 
 and the darkness. God would not permit 
 such cruelty. 
 
 " A hundred thousand ducats ! I will pay 
 the money ! Quick, signori, light give me 
 light ! The water is choking me ! Oh, for 
 God's sake ! " 
 
 And then, for the first time, Venice listened 
 to him. 
 
 Hardly had he spoken the words when 
 some drain in the floor of the cell opened 
 quickly, and the foul water ran back to the 
 canal from which it had been pumped. The 
 great trap of wood and iron swung upon its 
 hinges. Guards with torches in their hands 
 dragged him from the place to the light 
 above. He came into the sunlight reeling as 
 
 243
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 a drunken man. People said that he had the 
 face of one who had lived a hundred years. 
 
 III. 
 
 That night, at sunset, Zuane de Franza sat 
 alone in the laboratory of his splendid palace 
 upon the Grand Canal. 
 
 An hour ago the messengers of the Three 
 had carried away from his house one hundred 
 thousand ducats in gold. He could still hear 
 the cheers of the people in the gondolas 
 before his door. Their cries : " Viva Franza, 
 who has made the gold ! " were as omens to 
 his ears. The city without, then, believed 
 that he had fulfilled his promise to Venice. 
 PJe had given her gold, the people said, in 
 return for the palctce and the servants and the 
 ducats she had found for him during the year 
 he had been her guest. He cursed the fools 
 who said the thing, and shut himself in his 
 great room. He wished to be alone, that he 
 might take counsel of the night. 
 
 He was very weak and ill at this time, and 
 
 244
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 could scarce drag his weary legs up the great 
 marble staircase of the palace. He shivered 
 with cold, and the strong red wine he poured 
 out for himself would not warm him. All 
 his servants had deserted him directly they 
 saw the boat of the Signori of the Night at 
 the quay of his house. Even Filippo, who 
 had been his companion in many a day of 
 daring and of intrigue, had gone with the 
 poltroons and the cowards who had fed upon 
 his bounty. And he was glad of it. He 
 must be alone, he repeated alone at a 
 moment when he fled Venice, when he sought 
 a new home, and a new country, and new 
 dupes for his cunning tongue to conquer. 
 
 It was very silent in that lonely house, and, 
 as the shadows fell, strange shapes were 
 conjured up of the twilight ; strange figures 
 seemed to stalk the empty rooms. Terror of 
 the morning still haunted the broken man. 
 He feared the things his eyes saw. When iie 
 looked at himself in a great mirror, when he 
 saw that woeful face and the shrunken cheek 
 and the long, dank hair, all the suffering he 
 had endured in the unspeakable cell recurred 
 to him. He drew back from the glass with 
 
 a groan, and lay long upon a couch, quivering 
 
 245
 
 with fear and seeking to beat the phantoms 
 from him. 
 
 Once or twice, as this paroxysm of terror 
 returned, he thought that he heard footsteps 
 in the house ; and he would run wildly to the 
 head of the staircase and cry out for his 
 servant, Filippo. But his voice, cast back in 
 moaning echoes, was his answer. He did not 
 complain that it should be so. The night 
 must find him wakeful. He had his work to 
 do. He would cheat Venice yet Venice and 
 the cursed priest who had stirred up the 
 people against him. 
 
 A hundred thousand ducats had been the 
 price of his freedom. It was the half of the 
 fortune he had accumulated since he began 
 to practise his arts in the city. The rest lay 
 safe and snug in a great iron chest in his 
 laboratory. If he could escape from Venice 
 with that, he would still be a rich man. 
 Other countries would be open to him. In 
 Savoy, in France, he would find new dupes. 
 This was his argument ; but against it stood 
 the haunting question was Venice paid in 
 full ? Would she permit him to flee ? Might 
 not the police-boat be at his door even then ? 
 
 The question sent him hurrying to his bal- 
 246
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 cony. He could make out the gondolas of 
 many who went gaily to the pleasures of the 
 night ; but he did not see the boat of the 
 Signori of the Night ; nor could he espy his 
 own gondola. Filippo had taken it, then ! 
 He, Franza, was a prisoner in his own house. 
 He dare not trust the wreck of his fortune 
 to the first hired barcarole that should chance 
 to pass his door. 
 
 He must hide his money, he said to him- 
 self must hide it from Venice and the 
 Three. 
 
 Fired with this idea, he worked at the 
 execution of it with the energy of ten men. 
 He had no very clear notion of a hiding- 
 place at first ; but, presently, he determined 
 to store his gold in the cellar of the palace, 
 beneath one of the flags of the pavement 
 which he had removed before that day to 
 conceal some of those things which had 
 helped him in his role of quack and seer. 
 
 Full of the excellence of his plan, he lighted 
 lanterns and carried them to the dismal cellar; 
 whose walls reeked of damp, whose level was 
 below that of the water outside. It was heavy 
 work to remove the great square stone which 
 concealed his rude treasure-chamber ; but 
 
 247
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 fear gave him strength, and his very sinews 
 seemed to crack with his efforts. He would 
 cheat Venice yet, he promised himself; he 
 would be revenged on the boasting monk 
 who had denounced him. And so he worked 
 on, and unseen eyes the eyes of those who 
 laughed at his labours watched him as he 
 worked. 
 
 Unseen eyes watched him, yet never once 
 did he suspect that the spies of Venice were 
 in the house. Driven on by a miser's greed, 
 he took the golden ducats in sacks of canvas 
 and carried them from the iron box in his 
 laboratory to the dank and mildewed cellar. 
 
 Once, as he worked, a curious fit of terror 
 seized upon him. A great picture, whose 
 cord had been rotted by age, fell on the 
 staircase just as he was about to descend with 
 his last bag of gold. So startling was the 
 crash, echoing in the lonely house, that he 
 dropped the bag he was carrying and the 
 golden coins went rolling down the stairs. 
 He picked them up with quivering fingers, 
 not unwilling to linger there. For he feared 
 the darkness of the cellar ; it was like a tomb, 
 he thought. All his courage could not bring 
 
 him to face it readily. 
 
 248
 
 ; So startling was the crash that he dropped the bag 
 he was carrying." 
 
 Page 249.]
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 " Pah ! " he said, hesitating upon the brink 
 of the lower steps, "what am I thinking of? 
 I that have been feared in my own house ! 
 Let them come if they choose Jet them do 
 what they will with me. A hundred thousand 
 ducats will pay the bill at many an inn. They 
 shall carry me to France, and I will promise 
 gold to the French King. I will begin again 
 and make good the fortune I have lost. 
 While men's greed remains, there will always 
 be a home for Franza, the gold-maker." 
 
 He stooped again to the bag and went 
 down to the cellar quickly. When he had 
 poured the last of the gold coins into the 
 cavity, a mighty effort forced the stone back 
 to its place, and a low cry of joy escaped him. 
 
 " To-morrow," he said, " to-morrow Filippo 
 will return, and together God, what is that ? " 
 
 The word of triumph ended in broken 
 exclamation. He had hung a lantern upon 
 a hook in the wall of the cellar, and it cast 
 a poor ray of wan light on the pavement 
 beneath which his fortune lay. That which 
 caused him to cry out suddenly was a shadow 
 upon this patch of light. He saw that it was 
 the shadow of a man, and he watched it 
 
 with outstanding eyes, and remembered the 
 
 251
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 warning of yesternight, which he had long 
 forgotten. All his false strength left him 
 in an instant. He sank upon his knees ; 
 he uttered a low moan as of ultimate woe 
 and pain. 
 
 " What is it what do you want with me ? " 
 he asked pitifully. 
 
 Again, as last night, a voice answered him 
 out of the darkness. 
 
 "A hundred thousand ducats, in the name 
 of Venice, signore the hundred thousand 
 you have just hidden beneath that stone." 
 
 Franza groaned aloud ; his hands were out- 
 stretched before him ; he seemed bent to the 
 very earth by this new blow. 
 
 "Who are you that came yesterday as a 
 friend, but to-day are an enemy ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yesterday, I stood for the mercy of 
 Venice, signore ; to-day I stand for its 
 justice." 
 
 " Is it justice that I, who have paid a 
 hundred thousand ducats this morning, shall 
 pay yet again ? " 
 
 " A hundred thousand a day so you 
 promised Venice a year ago, signore. And 
 a new day has come. Hark to the bells, 
 
 they are striking twelve ! " 
 
 252
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 Franza listened to the sweet music floating 
 over the still lagoon. He shuddered as he 
 heard the bells. 
 
 " I will pay the money," he said in a low 
 voice "take it, signore, it is beneath this 
 stone." 
 
 The unknown laughed softly. 
 
 "Not so," he said. "Venice is no bandit, 
 Signer Franza. You shall yourself lift 
 the stone and count the money into my 
 hand." 
 
 " But I am weak, signore all my strength 
 is gone. I am as a child." 
 
 " That is your misfortune, then. It is a 
 very great misfortune indeed, signore, for if 
 you do not pay me that which I am sent to 
 ask here and now, you will not be alive when 
 the clock strikes again." 
 
 Franza breathed heavily. He staggered to 
 his feet, and turned to the place whence the 
 voice came. 
 
 "Who are you that come to torment me? 
 in God's name, speak." 
 
 A man stepped from the shadows. He 
 was clothed from head to foot in scarlet, and 
 wore a scarlet mask. He carried a naked 
 
 sword in his hand. 
 
 253
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 " Signore," said he, " I am the executioner 
 of Venice." 
 
 Franza drew back from the apparition step 
 by step. He covered his eyes to shut it 
 out ; he tried to speak, but could not articulate 
 his words. He knew that the end of his life 
 had come ; but to die there, in that cellar, to 
 die with no prayer upon his lips, to know 
 that his head would roll upon that slime- 
 dewed floor it was a fear of death surpassing 
 all imagination. 
 
 " I cannot die," he moaned, " I cannot die 
 here in this place." 
 
 " Not so," said the other, " you should 
 have asked mercy of him who is the voice 
 of Venice, signore." 
 
 Franza cast himself upon his knees. 
 
 " I ask it," he cried, cringing in the very 
 dirt of the pavement. " I ask it of Giovanni, 
 the lord of Venice." 
 
 " Whom you denounced this morning, and 
 compelled to take a vow of silence ! How 
 shall he pardon you when he may not speak 
 of you to anyone until another day has 
 dawned and set? It is not to be, signore. 
 Prepare for death, for you have not a minute 
 of life!" 
 
 254
 
 GOLDEN ASHES 
 
 He raised his hand, and other figures 
 emerged from the darkness. Men, dressed 
 in red and masked as the executioner was, 
 seized the wretched gold-maker and dragged 
 him from the ground. A block of wood was 
 thrown carelessly to the floor ; they forced 
 the head of their prisoner down to it ; they 
 held him by the arms in an iron grip. His 
 terrible cries fell on ears that might not 
 hear. He waited for the blow, waited to 
 feel the steel cutting through his neck yet 
 no blow fell. 
 
 "Strike," he implored, "in the name of 
 God, strike!" 
 
 But the sword did not fall. Those in- 
 stants of delay, with the shining blade poised 
 above him, were eternities of suffering. A 
 thousand deaths he died, and every one was 
 an agony surpassing the others. 
 
 " Oh ! " he cried, " strike if you are not 
 devils. I will die I will " 
 
 They did not answer him ; and he rolled, 
 fainting, from their arms ; for he had passed 
 the bounds of suffering and of fear. 
 
 255
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 IV. 
 
 Early on the next day, one of the gon- 
 dolas belonging to the police of Venice left 
 the Palazzo Balbi to set down upon the 
 mainland an old man clothed in rags, and 
 thankful for the morsel of bread and the 
 cup of wine which his jailors gave to him. 
 When the boatmen had set him ashore, the 
 unwilling traveller limped with pain along the 
 deserted shore, and as he went, he looked 
 back often toward the blue lagoon, above 
 which the spires and domes of Venice rose 
 gloriously in the morning light. 
 
 " She has repaid," he said, shaking his fist 
 at the distant city, " God knows, she has 
 repaid." 
 
 And so Zuane de Franza, the alchemist, 
 started on his journey towards a new home 
 and a new country. 
 
 256
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE 
 RAVEN 
 
 I. 
 
 AT eventide on the 3rd day of April, in 
 the year 1706, the Palace of Bianca, Marchesa 
 della Scala, was lighted from garret to cellar ; 
 and word soon went round that another of 
 those great feasts, which had been the envy 
 of Italy, was about to be celebrated in her 
 house. Nor was the surmise an incorrect 
 one. Scarcely had the sun gone down behind 
 Chioggia when the loiterers upon the bridge 
 by the Church of Santa Maria Zobenigo 
 began to number the gondolas, and to name 
 the guests they set down at Bianca's door. 
 
 Such a splendour of gold and silver and 
 precious stones, they said, could be seen at 
 no other house in the city. It was a delight 
 to them to hear the distant music, and to 
 
 25?
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 watch the pretty women, and to imagine all 
 the joys of eating and drinking and love- 
 making which the gloomy walls of the palace 
 hid from their eyes. For Bianca was the 
 Queen of Venice in her way a queen to 
 whom even senators had paid homage ; a 
 queen whose wealth seemed inexhaustible ; 
 whose beauty had been the theme of poets 
 even in the distant capitals. 
 
 It was a merry crowd upon the bridge, and 
 the passing minutes added to its numbers. 
 
 Here was a boatman whose day's work 
 was done ; there an honest glass-blower from 
 Murano ; yonder a hussy seeking a lover ; or, 
 again, a well-dressed stranger, who kept his 
 cloak about his face and exchanged words 
 with none. All feasted their eyes on the 
 splendid procession which now passed up the 
 steps of the palace to the throne-room of the 
 woman who had conquered Venice so indis- 
 putably. Wit and scorn and merriment were 
 mingled in the running fire of exclamation 
 with which each new guest was greeted. It 
 was the people's privilege to be critics, and 
 they spared none in their liberty. 
 
 "There goes fat Moriale and his wife with 
 
 him. By Bacchus he will get his ears 
 
 258
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE RAVEN 
 
 boxed right well to-morrow, for the compli- 
 ments he is about to pay the little witch 
 upstairs." 
 
 " Pah as well ask a wine cask to go down 
 on one knee. He dates his writing from the 
 last year he saw his feet. Look rather at 
 old Vittore Capello, who goes up the steps 
 with the toes of a goat. I'll wager a scudo 
 that he will kiss pretty Bianca behind the 
 curtains before he comes down again." 
 
 " Saint John," cried another, " his pockets 
 will be light enough at dawn to-morrow, 
 comrade. Name the rich man that pretty 
 Bianca has not diced out of his money, and 
 I will vow a novena at the Altar of our Lady 
 of Miracles." 
 
 A young boatman, turning away scornfully, 
 expressed a thought which was in the mind 
 of many of those honest citizens. 
 
 " For my part," said he, " I would sooner 
 hang between the columns of St. Mark than 
 call that great lady my mother." 
 
 " Well spoken, Gentile," said a good- 
 humoured innkeeper, who had listened with 
 interest to their talk; "it is an ill day for 
 Venice when she harbours such hawks as 
 
 the Marchesa della Scala." 
 
 259 P
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 "Where is her son," asked another; "why 
 is he silent when his mother's name is in the 
 mouth of every wanton ? I remember the 
 day, signori, when there was no greater 
 house in Venice than that of the Marchese 
 della Scala. The poor fed at his tables ; the 
 Senate listened to his words. And now 
 look you it is a house of devils, and the 
 woman you speak of is their queen." 
 
 " To God be the glory that her son does 
 not know," was the answer of the jeweller, 
 who had just come up. "He is in France, 
 signori, and who shall tell him how the 
 sheep go to the shearing in that great house ? 
 Not I nor the priests she drives from the 
 churches, nor the poor who die on her door- 
 step, nor the merry men she has sent to the 
 dagger and the sea. Let well alone. Some 
 
 day Venice will reckon with her, and then 
 I 
 
 A loud chord of music from the open 
 windows of the palace cut short the satisfac- 
 tion with which these opinions were received. 
 Men pressed to the parapet of the bridge to 
 watch other gondolas as they set down their 
 glittering burdens on the quay of the bril- 
 liantly-lighted house. Young girls exclaimed
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE RAVEN 
 
 with delight as women, whose jewels would 
 have set a new king upon his throne, passed 
 up the steps to the saturnalia awaiting them 
 beyond the threshold ; beggars drew their rags 
 closer about their bodies, while gallants, in 
 breeches of satin, and coats of gold brocade 
 and vests sparkling with diamonds, stood a 
 moment to prepare their compliments to the 
 pretty Bianca. 
 
 In all that little crowd there were but two 
 men who betrayed no further interest in the 
 Palazzo della Scala or in its people. One was 
 the stranger, who had drawn his cloak about 
 his face when first he had come to the 
 bridge ; the other was a cowled friar, who 
 watched the unknown youth rather than the 
 quay to which the eyes of the boatmen were 
 turned. 
 
 The two men quitted the bridge together, 
 crossing it towards the campo before the doors 
 of the church. They had left the echoes of 
 the music and the laughter far behind them 
 before the stranger knew that he was followed ; 
 but so soon as he heard the footsteps of the 
 friar, he turned angrily and demanded his 
 business. 
 
 " Signore," said the friar, throwing back 
 261
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 his capuce that the other might see his face, 
 "my business is with the Marchese della Scala." 
 
 The unknown started and laid a hand upon 
 the hilt of his dagger. 
 
 " The Marchese della Scala," he cried ; 
 "then seek elsewhere, brother, for I know 
 not the name." 
 
 "In the shadow of your mother's house 
 you do well to forget it, my lord ; but here, 
 here where none may listen, you will remem- 
 ber that it was the greatest of the great 
 names of Venice." 
 
 The yputh, for such the unknown was, 
 leant against the door of the church and 
 buried his face in his hands. 
 
 "God help me, signore," he said with a 
 deep sob, " she is my mother." 
 
 For a little while the friar did not speak. 
 His heart was heavy for this handsome, open- 
 faced lad whose father, years ago, had been 
 his own good comrade of the old days at 
 Iseo. When he spoke again, it was almost 
 with the tenderness of a woman. 
 
 "My son," he said, "think not that any 
 idle curiosity brings me to your side to-night. 
 I am here but for one purpose. It is to 
 
 give you back the name you have lost." 
 
 262
 
 "The unknown laid a hand upon the hilt of his dagger." 
 263.]
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE RAVEN 
 
 The young marquis looked up quickly. 
 
 "What miracle gives white wings to the 
 raven, signore answer me that and I will 
 listen to you." 
 
 "A miracle of love, signore the love 
 which sleeps, but which to-morrow will 
 awaken." 
 
 He spoke very earnestly, laying his hand 
 gently on the young man's arm. There was 
 something in the tone of his voice which 
 filled the other with a hope and confidence 
 such as he had not known for many years. 
 
 "Brother," he said, "who are you that 
 you should wish to help me or to remember 
 my name ? " 
 
 The priest answered almost in a whisper. 
 
 " In this city I am known as Fra Gio- 
 vanni," he said, "but your father knew me 
 as the Prince of Iseo, signore." 
 
 The young marquis uttered a cry of 
 wonder. 
 
 " Fra Giovanni ! " he cried, " you are Fra 
 Giovanni ! Surely God has heard my prayer, 
 signore. There is no city so distant that the 
 name of the Master of Venice is not spoken 
 there with love and reverence. If he should 
 
 prove my friend ! " 
 
 265
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 The priest answered by linking his arm in 
 that of the young man and leading him 
 toward the Piazzetta and the Ducal Palace. 
 
 "Marchese," he said, "the feast of the 
 Ascension shall not be here before I say to 
 you, as my Master said to the apostle he 
 loved ' Son, behold thy mother ! ' ' 
 
 II. 
 
 Twenty days had passed and the name of 
 Bianca, Marchesa della Scala, was again 
 upon the tongue of the Venetians. For the 
 feast of St. Mark the Evangelist drew near, 
 and people said that the mistress of Venice 
 would keep it as never feast was kept before. 
 Every great noble of the city, the patriarch 
 who ruled the Church, the president who 
 ruled the judges, the admirals of the fleet, 
 the generals of the armies, the lords of 
 Vicenza, of Padua, of Brescia, of Florence- 
 all these fell under Bianca's spell and pro- 
 mised her support. It would be an orgie 
 
 surpassing words, the common people said. 
 
 266
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE RAVEN 
 
 But others shrugged their shoulders and 
 cried : " Shame on Venice that she should 
 honour one who has made our rich men 
 poor; shame on the woman who has taught 
 our sons that the dice-box is greater than 
 the sword." 
 
 Fra Giovanni heard of these boasts and 
 kept his peace. The whole city was against 
 him, he said ; nevertheless, he gave vague 
 words when people spoke of the Palazzo 
 della Scala, and to one he said : " My son, the 
 feast of St. Mark shall find the Marchesa della 
 Scala beyond the mountains of Vicenza." 
 
 He uttered the threat, nevertheless, and the 
 twentieth day was nearly done before he 
 seemed again to remember the name of the 
 woman or his promise to her son. On the 
 eve of the feast of St. Mark, however, he 
 quitted the island of the Guidecca, where his 
 home was ; and going alone in his gondola, 
 about an hour before the Angelus, he set out 
 for the Palazzo della Scala and knocked boldly 
 at its door. 
 
 The great house was all confusion then. 
 Lacqueys tumbled over lacqueys ; cooks 
 bawled their commands to cooks ; the ante- 
 chambers were loaded with palms and fine 
 
 267
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 glasses and hangings of the richest cloth ; 
 the workmen were building the galleries for 
 the musicians ; gondolas came unceasingly 
 to the quay of the palace with some new 
 burden which should add to the splendour of 
 the feast. But none paid heed to the cowled 
 monk, who stood timidly at the door of the 
 great house. 
 
 " We have no time for such as you," said 
 a lacquey who answered him; "go back to 
 your cell, brother, lest your eyes be tempted 
 by the things you see." 
 
 The priest threw back his cowl. 
 
 " Not so, my friend," he said sternly ; " but 
 do you go up to your mistress and carry my 
 message, or to-morrow might find you with- 
 out a tongue to utter it." 
 
 The lacquey, recognising the speaker, fell 
 on his knees before him. 
 
 " Excellency I did not know you ; I will 
 carry your message if you had but shown 
 me your face before." 
 
 The answer was a gesture of impatience. 
 
 "Tell none that I am here," said the priest 
 sternly ; "to your mistress say that a brother 
 of the Capuchins waits below with news from 
 
 Savoy." 
 
 268
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE RAVEN 
 
 The lacquey hastened up the stairs, glad 
 to prove his diligence. A moment later he 
 returned and began to make his excuses. 
 
 " Excellency," he said, " my mistress will 
 see no one." 
 
 " Go again," said the friar angrily ; "I 
 come from Savoy and bear a message from 
 him who should be the master of this house." 
 
 The lacquey ascended the stairs for the 
 second time ; but Fra Giovanni now followed 
 upon his heels. In a little alcove on the 
 first landing, an alcove where workmen were 
 erecting a booth of flowers, the priest came 
 face to face with Bianca herself. He stood 
 silent for a moment, so great was the fascina- 
 tion of her beauty. He knew that she must 
 be in her fortieth year, yet she had the face 
 and figure of a girl of twenty. 
 
 " Signora," he said, bowing gravely, " I 
 am a brother of the Capuchins, and I come 
 to tell you that your son has need of you 
 in Turin." 
 
 He spoke as though he wished to pay her 
 great homage ; but she turned upon him in 
 one of those sudden bursts of anger which 
 had humbled even the great men of Venice. 
 
 " Has my son no other messenger," she 
 269
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 cried, "that he must send such as you to 
 my house ? Beware, lest my servants whip 
 you from the door, signore." 
 
 The priest did not flinch. 
 
 " Signora," he said gently, "he is your 
 only son, and he is in trouble. It is strange 
 that he should remember his mother's name 
 when other names have been forgotten." 
 
 She raised her hands and clenched them. 
 
 "Oh," she cried, "a mummer in the habit 
 of a priest. A mummer who dares me in 
 my own house 
 
 " Nay, signora, say rather the messenger 
 of God, who comes to warn you that your 
 hour is at hand ; who comes to tell you of 
 the poor who hunger and the sick who die ; 
 who craves mercy of you for one that loves ; 
 who sees light in your house but darkness in 
 the homes of Venice ; who hears the cry of 
 the children and would that you should hear 
 it too. A mummer, indeed, but the play is 
 holy, signora, and the finger of Almighty 
 God has written it." 
 
 He drew his cowl close about his face and 
 turned upon his heel. She watched him with 
 a hand at her throat and anger passing 
 
 words in her heart. 
 
 270
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE RAVEN 
 
 For it seemed, when he was gone, that 
 someone had written upon the wall of the 
 great house the sentence of its doom. 
 
 III. 
 
 The day of days, the Feast of Mark the 
 Evangelist, dawned angrily over Venice. A 
 great blight seemed to fall upon the city ; 
 thunder - clouds hovered about the distant 
 mountains of the mainland, and loomed over 
 the waveless lagoon. Nevertheless, there 
 was a little burst of sunshine at six o'clock 
 in the morning ; and another hour had not 
 passed before men, and women, too, forgot 
 the hour and the day, and thought only of 
 the news, surpassing belief, which spread as 
 a pestilence through all the places where the 
 citizens loved to congregate. 
 
 An acolyte of the great Ducal Chapel, 
 going leisurely to mass at five o'clock in the 
 morning, had been the first to see the thing ; 
 and so greatly had it surprised him that he 
 
 ran quickly to Scavezzo, the fat canon, and 
 
 271
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 blurted it out, regardless of the holy building 
 or of the Mass which was about to begin. 
 
 " Oh, excellency, excellency, someone has 
 written strange things between the columns 
 of the Piazzetta. It is the list of the guests 
 who were to go to-night to the house of the 
 Marchesa della Scala." 
 
 Scavezzo was putting on his vestments 
 when the lad spoke, but he let go the girdle of 
 his alb at the words and crossed himself hastily. 
 
 "What!" he cried, "the names of the 
 guests of pretty Bianca written over the place 
 of execution ! God save us all this day ! " 
 
 Never had he heard such tidings. Unable 
 to restrain his curiosity, he ran quickly across 
 the great square, and so to the Piazzetta, 
 where stand the two columns between which 
 the criminals of Venice perished. A crowd 
 had gathered already about the marble slab 
 whereon they laid the severed heads of the 
 condemned ; and these people discussed with 
 awe and wonder the strange event which the 
 night had brought about. When Scavezzo 
 appeared among them, they hailed him with 
 delight as one who could explain the mystery. 
 
 " Here, my lord, the paper is here. They 
 
 have set it on the slab where runs the blood 
 
 272
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE RAVEN 
 
 of murderers. Look for yourself: it is a list 
 of those who have been invited to-night to 
 the house of the Marchesa della Scala a list 
 of her guests, and sealed with the great seal 
 of the city!" 
 
 Scavezzo stood panting, but he would not 
 touch the paper. 
 
 " My children," he said, " be sure that the 
 police have put that paper where it lies, and 
 that it is not for such hands as ours to touch 
 it, I am sorry for the Marchesa della Scala, 
 for who will go to her house when this is 
 known ? Surely the justice of Venice is very 
 hard that it should thus visit one who, I do 
 not deny it, is a little fond of the dice-box, 
 yet whose banquets are not surpassed in 
 Italy. Be advised of me, my friends, and go 
 to your homes. There is danger in the air 
 to-day, and the wise man will not wish to 
 breathe it." 
 
 He uttered a heavy sigh, for the memory 
 of pretty Bianca's good wines was very dear 
 to him. But the people continued to discuss 
 a discovery so momentous long after he had 
 returned reluctantly to the altar awaiting him. 
 
 " Venice will send a message to Bianca 
 to-day, my friends. Our father Giovanni 
 
 273
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 has spoken at last. We shall hear of her 
 banquets no more. And God help those 
 who go to her house to-night." 
 
 They hurried to their homes, speaking of 
 the thing in whispers. Soon the news spread 
 from house to house, was whispered in palace 
 and in garret ; was muttered in the confessional, 
 and remembered by priests before the altar. 
 Even the patronage of the nobles of Venice 
 had not saved Bianca from the anger of the 
 great friar, men said. What of her banquet 
 now ? they asked. Who would pass her doors 
 when he had read his name written there on 
 that pavement which the blood of the guilty 
 had dyed? 
 
 The news spread from house to house, yet 
 none was so bold that he whispered it in the 
 Palazzo della Scala. Fearing they knew not 
 what vengeance of the police, even the work- 
 men, who came in the morning to finish the 
 task of preparation and display, held their 
 tongues. If the servants of the great house 
 had learnt the tidings, they dared not whisper 
 them to their mistress. Slowly, silently, the 
 work of decoration went on. And in her 
 own room Bianca, dressed as she had never 
 dressed before, told herself that the victory 
 
 274
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE RAVEN 
 
 was already won. " To-night," she said, " to- 
 night Venice shall be at my feet." 
 
 Punctually at a quarter to eight o'clock she 
 entered the great salon upon the first floor, 
 and prepared to receive her guests. Superb 
 as the decorations of the great apartment 
 were, the mistress of it was worthy of her 
 lavish surroundings. A robe of gold brocade 
 fell from her pretty white shoulders to her 
 feet ; her girdle was a girdle of diamonds. 
 The finest pearls from Hungary shone white 
 upon her snow-white throat ; a great diadem 
 of flashing jewels sparkled above her auburn 
 hair. No better shaped hands nor arms 
 had been seen in Venice, the painters said. 
 Hands and arms now glittered with the 
 wealth of the gems they carried. In her 
 deep blue eyes those about her discerned the 
 look of one who had triumphed. A flush 
 was upon her cheeks the flush of victory 
 assured. 
 
 She entered the great ballroom of the 
 palace at a quarter to eight, and one search- 
 ing glance satisfied her that all things were, 
 indeed, well done. In the gallery at the 
 northern end musicians already were seated. 
 
 Banks of white and crimson flowers stood to 
 
 275
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 screen the orchestra. Thousands of candles 
 in glass chandeliers warmed the room to rich 
 colours with their mellow light. Lacqueys 
 in liveries of scarlet and of blue waited at 
 the head of the great marble staircase to 
 announce the first of the guests. Bianca 
 said that the spectacle was worthy of her 
 house. She turned for a moment to see her 
 own figure where a great mirror caught it up ; 
 and a content surpassing any she had known 
 came upon her. 
 
 " I have kept my word," she thought. 
 "Venice shall bear witness to-morrow." 
 
 A quarter of an hour passed in this task 
 of inspection. When she had satisfied her- 
 self that all was well, the great bell of the 
 church of Santa Maria Zobenigo began to 
 strike the hour of eight. She counted the 
 strokes, and a strange sense of uneasiness came 
 to her with the notes. Eight o'clock, and 
 no one in her house ! What dilatory fit had 
 overtaken her guests, she asked ? Even the 
 lacqueys at the door had begun to fidget ; and 
 one of them went to the balcony as though 
 to arrange a curtain, but in reality to look 
 out upon the canal below. Very much to his 
 
 astonishment, the fellow observed that there 
 
 276
 
 "The lacqueys on the stairs were talking in low whispers. 
 
 Page 277.]
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE RAVEN 
 
 was not so much as a single gondola at the 
 quay of the house. But a great crowd stood 
 upon the neighbouring bridge, and he could 
 hear the buzz of its excited talk. 
 
 " They are coming, Leonardi the boats 
 are below?" 
 
 " There is no one there, excellenza." 
 
 The Marchesa asked the question of that 
 lacquey with an assumption of an indifference 
 she was far from feeling. That premonition, 
 which is a factor of so many misfortunes, 
 warned her already that something was amiss. 
 It was no great matter that the first of her 
 guests should be a few minutes late and 
 yet 
 
 " Do you not hear the bell ? " she asked 
 her servant presently. 
 
 " I hear nothing but the voices on the 
 bridge, excellenza." 
 
 A crimson flush dyed her cheeks. She 
 opened her fan and began to use it briskly. 
 The lacqueys on the stairs without were talk- 
 ing in low whispers. The bell of the church 
 of Santa Maria struck a quarter past 
 eight. 
 
 Bianca went to the window of her balcony 
 
 and stood there breathing quickly. The 
 
 279 Q
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 crowd on the neighbouring bridge saw her, 
 and hailed her with derisive cries. There 
 came to her in that instant a memory of the 
 priest and of his warning, which she had 
 forgotten. 
 
 " Oh," she said, " what is it, what does it 
 mean ? Who is keeping them away ? What 
 story have they heard ? " 
 
 She did not know at this time what she 
 feared or why her guests delayed their 
 coming. Many excuses for them were sug- 
 gested by her busy brain ; but in spite of it 
 all a vague foreboding crept upon her, and 
 she still thought that she heard the voice 
 of the priest warning her. Often she asked 
 Leonardi if he did not hear the great bell 
 of the house ; his answer was ever the same : 
 
 " There is no one there, excellenza ; there 
 is no boat upon the canal, only the people 
 on the bridge." 
 
 Half-past eight o'clock was the hour now, 
 and as it struck, panic seized the. mistress of 
 the house, and was shared by her servants. 
 One by one they began to leave the palace ; 
 at first the more timid and impudent ; then 
 the irresolute ; at last even those whom she 
 
 had trusted greatly. Alone there in that 
 
 280
 
 "They swarmed up as an army to the loot." 
 
 Page 281.]
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE RAVEN 
 
 great ballroom, alone with the countless 
 tapers, and the sweet-smelling flowers, and 
 the gold and silver of the ornaments, she 
 stood as one in a dream. The message 
 which the night gave to her was the 
 message the priest had spoken. " Your hour 
 is at hand," he had said. 
 
 For a little while the absence of her ser- 
 vants was unnoticed. When she discovered 
 it, when her voice began to echo through 
 the empty rooms, and was unanswered, 
 when pitifully it changed from the voice of 
 an angry woman to the cry of one in great 
 trouble, the full significance of the night was 
 revealed to her. She knew that the Three 
 had willed this punishment. Some enemy 
 had warned the people to shun her house. 
 She began to ask what other punishments 
 awaited her. She ran from room to room 
 hysterically, as though some befriending 
 voice would speak to her there. She re- 
 turned again to the head of the great stair- 
 case and stood there as one petrified. 
 
 For guests were coming to her house now. 
 They were already upon the marble stair- 
 case. They swarmed up as an army to 
 
 the loot. Their cries were as the cries 
 
 283
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 of demons. They were the beggars of 
 Venice ragged, haggard, hungry. 
 
 The woman stood without the power of 
 voice or limb ; it seemed to her that her very 
 heart was paralysed. She had heard of these 
 people the children of the Ghetto, the 
 children of the factories, the bravos from the 
 Ambassadors' kitchen, the thieves, the assas- 
 sins, the honest poor of Venice but never 
 had her dainty eyes been permitted to see 
 them. 
 
 She knew that this was her punishment, 
 this the ultimate humiliation that Venice had 
 put upon her. Where the great lords of the 
 city should have stood, the ragged, the home- 
 less, the starving now bent their knees in 
 mockery. With joyous cries, and the frenzy 
 of plenty anticipated, they crowded about the 
 mistress of the palace. 
 
 " Viva ! Bianca ! Viva ! the Queen of the 
 Poor! Viva! our Lady of Venice! The 
 tables are spread, comrades ; the wine is 
 ready." 
 
 The very pit of the nether world seemed 
 open in that house. Gaunt men ; lazzarom 
 whose rags scarce hung upon their shoulders; 
 
 cripples, whose bent limbs wormed, beastlike, 
 
 284
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE RAVEN 
 
 upon the stairs ; women with the faces of 
 witches ; outcasts whose eyes were alight with 
 the fires of hunger ; children old in deformity 
 and pain all these swarmed about the mis- 
 tress of the palace. They breathed their 
 thanks into her ashen face ; their rags were 
 pressed to her robe of gold ; their shouts 
 resounded in the house. They kissed her 
 hand ; they knelt to her ; they swept by as a 
 torrent to the place where the flagons were 
 filled and the feast was ready. 
 
 But Bianca fell in a swoon, and the 
 beggars passed triumphantly to the tables 
 awaiting them. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The last of the guests whom Venice had 
 sent to the Palazzo della Scala left the house 
 when the neighbouring clocks were striking 
 the hour of midnight Bianca heard their 
 shouts as they swarmed away in boats and 
 barges ; she heard the greetings they passed 
 
 with those on the bridge. In the solitude 
 
 285
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 of that great ballroom she looked at the 
 trampled flowers, at the tapers guttering in 
 their sockets, at the crumbs of the feast 
 which was to have been the glory of Venice. 
 But she neither wept nor spoke. A vague 
 sense of personal peril, a shrinking from the 
 fatal truth which must be known to-morrow 
 were her prevailing thoughts. She moved as 
 some spirit of the feast, as some apparition, 
 going from room to room and door to door ; 
 saying always, "I am alone." 
 
 Venice had humiliated her ; she knew that 
 no further humiliation was possible. Never 
 again would she hold up her head in the 
 city ; never again would her name be aught 
 but sport for the people ; a mockery and a 
 name dishonoured. Woman-like, she cared 
 less for any punishment that her judges 
 might be about to visit upon her than for 
 this mortal wound to her vanity. And, 
 woman-like, too, she began to long in her 
 heart for some word of sympathy, if it were 
 but one which should loose the imprisoned 
 tears and open the salving torrent of her 
 grief. 
 
 "Oh, my God," she exclaimed, "help me, 
 
 for I am helpless and alone." 
 
 286
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE RAVEN 
 
 A voice answered her, speaking from the 
 shadows. She recognised it at once and 
 stood up quickly when she heard it. The 
 pride of Bianca of Venice was not yet 
 broken. 
 
 " Signora," said the voice, " it is God's 
 will that I come here to answer your 
 prayer." 
 
 The speaker stepped to the light, and 
 she beheld the cowled friar who had come 
 to her upon the eve of the Feast. But his 
 voice was no longer the voice of one who 
 judged her; he spoke with gentleness as a 
 brother who pities and would comfort. 
 
 "Who are you; why do you come here?" 
 she asked, struggling the while with her 
 pride ; yet turning toward this unknown as to 
 one sent from the darkness of the city to be 
 her friend. 
 
 Fra Giovanni, for he it was who now 
 stood before her, threw back his robe that 
 she might see his face. 
 
 " Signora," he said, " I am one whom 
 they call the father of Venice ; and I come 
 to help you even as I helped your husband 
 long years ago at Brescia." 
 
 She looked at him with wonder in her eyes. 
 287
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 " I know you," she said in a low voice, 
 " you are the Prince of Iseo." 
 
 The priest covered his face again. 
 
 " The Prince of Iseo, as you say, signora 
 yet, to this city, the Capuchin monk, Giovanni, 
 who comes here to-night to help you, as last 
 night he came to warn you." 
 
 " To help me, my lord you come to help 
 me. Nay, look upon this house and tell me 
 what help can save my name now." 
 
 " Signora," he said earnestly, " we go 
 where you shall build you a new house and 
 a new name. Come quickly, for my gondola 
 waits at the riva" 
 
 They quitted the Palazzo della Scala to- 
 gether before ten minutes had passed. She 
 knew not why she went nor whither ; but 
 it seemed to her that this priest, who had 
 been her husband's friend, would befriend 
 her in that hour of her necessity. Ever in 
 her mind was the thought of her humiliation 
 and of the new day to come. What ven- 
 geance did the city yet contemplate? It 
 might even contemplate her death, she 
 thought ; and to such a one the fear of death 
 was a dread unspeakable. 
 
 Whither, then, did the priest carry her? 
 288
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE RAVEN 
 
 She asked the question silently as the gon- 
 dola turned from the great Canalazzo to one 
 of the narrowest and the most pestilent of 
 the water-ways of Venice. Fearfully she 
 looked up to the great silent houses, to the 
 alleys, and the stinking dens of the poor 
 which bordered them. There were moments 
 when she distrusted the man, and feared 
 even that he was conducting her to the 
 prisons. 
 
 Through the narrow water-ways, by the 
 church of La Madalena, on past San Mar- 
 cuola, toward the Ghetto and the ultimate 
 west. How should she find help in such a 
 place of misery and of want, of hunger and 
 of crime ? For she was in the beggars' city 
 now. Here lived the very poorest in Venice. 
 She had heard of the place as of some pit of 
 horrors ; but now her eyes must look upon 
 it to read its truths for themselves. When 
 the gondola stopped at last, it was before a 
 wretched house, into whose lower rooms she 
 could see quite plainly. A young woman 
 lived there, and the wan light of a candle 
 showed her white face bending over the cot 
 where slept her child. 
 
 " Look," said the priest in a low voice, 
 
 289
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 "an hour ago that woman was your guest, 
 signora. But she neither ate nor drank. 
 Her thoughts were in that room with her 
 son who slept. See now what gladness has 
 come into her home. For she has carried 
 your gifts to her child and the child will 
 live." 
 
 Bianca buried her face in her hands. 
 Swiftly there came to her the memory 
 that she, too, had a son, and that he had 
 waited vainly to hear her voice. 
 
 "Signore for pity's sake spare me!" she 
 exclaimed; "my son waits for me in Turin." 
 
 Again the gondola shot over the dark 
 waters of the foetid canal. Again it stood 
 before the windows of a house. A lamp 
 swung from a ceiling blackened by age and 
 smoke. A bed of rags stood near a stove ; 
 an old woman, whose white hairs were as an 
 ornament of silver to the room, lay in the 
 bed. Squatting on the floor was a cripple, 
 whose twisted and distorted limbs had climbed 
 the staircase of the Palazzo della Scala but 
 an hour ago. 
 
 " Look," said the priest, as he touched the 
 arm of the trembling woman, "a son whom 
 
 God has cursed, for so the people say, carries 
 
 290
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE RAVEN 
 
 bread and wine from your table to the mother 
 who bore him. What happiness is in his 
 heart to-night, because of the feast you gave, 
 signora. Call it not a humiliation, then, to 
 have done as Christ our Master did before 
 us. Can there be humiliation because the 
 children live and the hungry are hungry no 
 more? Nay, say rather that it is a work of 
 God, most blessed, to which you have been 
 sent." 
 
 The gondola passed on swiftly. Bianca 
 sat white and still, for a new world and the 
 visions of a new world were unfolding before 
 her eyes. She saw the cities of the poor, 
 the cities of the little children ; she saw the 
 throne of her motherhood, and the name of 
 her own son was upon her lips. She did not 
 hear the priest when he bade her look for 
 the third time. 
 
 They had stopped before a small house 
 near the church of San Geremia. The door 
 of the house was open. In the stone cor- 
 ridor beyond, a little coffin, with tapers on 
 either side of it, awaited the boat which 
 should carry it to San Michele. 
 
 "Signora," said the priest, dropping his 
 
 voice until it was but a whisper, "look well, 
 
 291
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 for yonder is a house of weeping. He was 
 their only son, and the least of the jewels 
 you wear would have given him back to 
 them. Never more in that house will a 
 child's voice be heard nor the word of a 
 mother to him she loved. Oh, look upon it 
 well, signora, for the tears fall upon the 
 child's face as to-morrow they may fall upon 
 the face of your son." 
 
 He spoke as one who judges, for he knew 
 that the hour of his victory was at hand. 
 When he had finished, he looked at the 
 woman and saw that the burning tears 
 were falling fast upon her hands. Pride 
 warred with her grief no more. All the 
 years she had reigned in Venice were for- 
 gotten in that instant. She was a woman 
 crying for the love of the child she had lost. 
 
 "God," she prayed, "if I might live to see 
 my son again." 
 
 The priest heard the prayer, and pity 
 welled up in his heart. 
 
 "Signora," he said, "how many women in 
 Venice have that prayer on their lips to-night 
 and shall be unanswered?" 
 
 She cringed at his words, and a cry, as of 
 
 a woman who has known all that human 
 
 292
 
 WHITE WINGS TO THE RAVEN 
 
 suffering can teach, escaped her lips. The 
 jewels at her throat seemed to burn her. 
 "They would give life to the children of 
 Venice," she thought. 
 
 " Take me to my son," she cried. " To- 
 morrow, I will find a home in the convent 
 of Murano. The children of Venice shall 
 hunger no more " 
 
 " Signora," was the answer, "your home 
 lies in the houses of the poor." 
 
 He made a sign to his servant, and the 
 gondola was halted at the steps by the 
 bridge of Rialto. A young man stepped 
 from the shadows of the quay when the 
 boat came up ; he raised the weeping woman 
 and held her in his strong arms. 
 
 And to him the priest said, as he had 
 promised to say : 
 
 "Son, behold thy mother!" 
 
 293
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 I. 
 
 THERE had been a growing fear of the 
 mystery for many days, but when the Feast 
 of the Ascension came at last, panic fell upon 
 the city ; and even the voices of the priests 
 were powerless to control the terror of the 
 people. Strangers coming to Venice stood 
 awestruck in the great square, unable to 
 believe that this was the city of their dreams. 
 No bells rang out a joyous welcome to the 
 weary traveller ; no processions passed from 
 the splendid churches ; no clowns fooled upon 
 the Piazzetta ; no music was heard upon the 
 lonely waters. Even the palaces of the rich 
 were closed, and by the alleys where the 
 poor herded, prophets stood to cry : " Woe 
 
 to Venice, for the Day of Judgment is at hand." 
 
 295
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 There had been a growing fear of the 
 mystery ; yet none could say why he feared 
 or what enemy had come down to the city 
 to strike at the best of her sons and the 
 wisest of her councillors. Nevertheless, men 
 said that death was everywhere death by 
 the poignard, death of a strange sickness, the 
 swift lurking death which struck unseen and 
 paid no penalties. 
 
 At first mere gossip to make chatter for 
 the day, the story of another victim killed 
 by a bravo, the dread of the sickness of the 
 East, men found it no more than the common 
 peril of the age they lived in. But anon it 
 took a swift and terrible turn for a fisher- 
 man, coming in from Alberoni, declared that 
 he had seen the death-ship upon the lagoon 
 and that the destruction of the city was at 
 hand. 
 
 " I saw it, signori ; I heard the death-bell 
 ringing. A man lay upon the ship with a 
 dagger in his heart. Before the Cross I 
 swear it. He who rowed the boat was not 
 of this world. There were devils to set the 
 sails of it; there was the fire of hell at the 
 prow. Let the city hearken, for it is the 
 
 warning of God." 
 
 296
 
 "I saw it, signori; I heard the death-bell ringing." 
 
 Page z 97 .]
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 The tale was told to the Council and to 
 the police on the eve of the great feast. It 
 spread through the city as the news of a 
 mighty disaster. No child in Venice was so 
 young that he had not heard his mother tell 
 the story of the death-ship ; the story of that 
 phantom gondola, which spirits rowed upon 
 the lagoons of Venice to warn the city of 
 some misfortune about to visit her, to tell 
 of sickness, perchance, and of the harvesting 
 of death. 
 
 Even strong men quailed at the news of it. 
 Women held their children in their arms and 
 hurried to the churches ; the priests pro- 
 claimed the judgment of God and denounced 
 the sins of the people. But the omen of 
 death was everywhere. And anon a new 
 terror came swiftly upon the trembling city. 
 For an unknown hand set red crosses upon 
 the houses of the doomed, and where the 
 hand wrote, there a man died before the sun 
 dawned again. 
 
 The fisherman told his tale, and Venice 
 listened greedily. From that moment all 
 thought of masquerade and carnival ceased. 
 The bells of the churches rang no more ; 
 there were no lights in the cafes on the 
 
 299 R
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 great square ; the booths of the clowns were 
 shut, and the zanni starved within them. 
 Even the educated, who laughed at the 
 fisherman's story, laughed no more when 
 every morning brought some new account of 
 assassination and of fatality. 
 
 "A fool's tale," they said; "and yet we see 
 men die. Some enemy of Venice, surely, 
 has come back to reckon with her. She has 
 dealt roughly with the best of her soldiers 
 since the monk Giovanni ruled us. Sforza, 
 Lord of Milan ; Andrea Foscari, the swords- 
 man ; Christoforo, Count of Carmagnola 
 such men, when they are banished, do not 
 sleep in the mountains. Let the police get 
 news of them, and they will know why the 
 red cross is on the houses." 
 
 But the poor, grown old in their supersti- 
 tions, would listen to no words of reason. 
 
 "The death-ship is on the sea!" they 
 cried. "We have looked upon it with our 
 own eyes. Those who have died are but 
 grains of the harvest which must fall. Woe 
 to Venice, for this is the Day of Judgment."
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 II. 
 
 The Feast of the Ascension passed, and all 
 day long a crowd of the terrified people 
 gazed seawards over the still lagoon, as 
 though it might see with its own eyes the 
 phantom ship, which had come out of the 
 unknown to warn the city. 
 
 In the booth of old Barbarino, the first of 
 the clowns of Venice, gloomy faces and 
 heavy sighs marked the close of those black 
 hours. Little Nina herself Nina the danc- 
 ing-girl, who had been called the Daughter 
 of Venice no one listened to her when she 
 laughed at the people's stories. 
 
 " Who can call back the sun ? " exclaimed 
 old Barbarino wearily, as the seemingly inter- 
 minable day at length drew to its close ; 
 " every morning a body in the water, every 
 night the death-ship on the lagoon. Shall 
 we create the stars, my daughter, as Joshua 
 in the Scriptures ? Do your nuns teach you 
 that?" 
 
 Nina, the child of the people, clung lov- 
 ingly to her superstitions ; but the education, 
 
 which Venice had given her at the convent 
 
 301
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 of the Cistercian nuns, had done not a little 
 to moderate them. 
 
 " Your death-ship is a cloud upon the 
 water," she said quietly; "if the people 
 are frightened to-day, they will laugh to- 
 morrow. He, who sets the red crosses upon 
 the houses, will go presently to the columns 
 of the Piazzetta, and there will be a rope 
 for his neck. Fra Giovanni is in Rome, or 
 we should have come to our senses before 
 this day. But they say that the Ascension 
 brings him back, and then " 
 
 She spoke as a little prophetess, for her 
 faith in the great monk, Giovanni, the ruler 
 of Venice, was unshaken. She had won his 
 friendship for herself and for the clowns 
 who flocked to her father's booth. In her 
 eyes Fra Giovanni was all-powerful to work 
 miracles, even to raise the very dead. Had 
 he been in Venice, she argued, a word from 
 him would have quieted the people's folly 
 and brought them back to reason. But old 
 Barbarino, who had never loved the priests, 
 was to be put off with no such tale. 
 
 " Let your monk make us bread from the 
 stones and I will believe in him," he retorted. 
 
 " If he is the people's friend, as he says, why 
 
 302
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 does he permit the people to die ? Believe it 
 not, little Nina. We shall be on the road to 
 Florence before the week is out, and God 
 help us as we go." 
 
 She would not argue with him, but quitted 
 that melancholy home of hers, and set out to 
 wander, she knew not whither. It was the 
 first hour of evening then ; no gondolas were 
 to be seen on the canals at such an hour. 
 The cafes, the shops, the theatres were all 
 deserted. In the churches the music of 
 vespers for the dead made a dirge of the 
 night. Men, masked and with their cloaks 
 muffled about their faces, went hurriedly to 
 their homes. The hand of the unknown 
 assassin might be raised for them at any 
 corner. Panic drove them to their houses. 
 A young priest, standing at the door of the 
 church of Santa Maria della Salute, recog- 
 nised the little dancing-girl as she put off 
 her boat from the quay, and bade her begone. 
 
 "It is for such as you that Venice is to 
 perish," he said harshly. 
 
 Nina did not answer him. She was accus- 
 tomed to the contempt of the priests. The 
 love of Venice and the friendship of the 
 
 master of Venice were her recompense. And 
 
 303
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 now, as she sought her consolation, she was 
 recalled to a memory of this friend by the 
 voice of one of the people's prophets, who 
 cried from the bridge of Rialto : 
 
 " Woe to Venice, for the red cross is on 
 the house of Giovanni, the priest, and to- 
 morrow he must die." 
 
 III. 
 
 The dancing-girl heard the words, clear 
 and distinct above the murmur of voices 
 and the rippling water. They were repeated 
 again and again as the prophet turned to- 
 wards the narrow streets of the Merceria. 
 She heard them echoing afar as a low mur- 
 mur of sound, and still she sat terrified and 
 motionless. 
 
 " The red cross is on the house of Gio- 
 vanni, the priest, and to-morrow he must die." 
 
 Until this time she had paid little heed to 
 the stories of assassination and of death, of 
 which the whole city was full. Perchance 
 she did not credit them ; or set them down 
 
 34
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 to the terror of the women and the ignorance 
 of the people. But now the truth of them 
 came to her in an instant. Fra Giovanni 
 the great priest who had been her friend 
 when she was friendless the benefactor who 
 had saved her father from his follies a hun- 
 dred times would the unknown assassin 
 strike even at him ! The thought brought the 
 blood to her cheeks. From the first moment 
 when she heard the prophet crying, it came to 
 her that God had sent her to the bridge that 
 she might hear the words, and help her 
 friend. 
 
 She had left her father's booth in the little 
 boat the clowns used upon the lagoon. The 
 house of the Capuchin monk stood upon the 
 island known as the Guidecca, the island of 
 the Jews. To reach it she must cross the 
 great expanse of water before the Piazzetta; 
 that lagoon whereon the apparition had been 
 seen ; that lagoon which no boatman of 
 Venice would now face after nightfall, even 
 though one had offered him a thousand ducats 
 for the ferry. 
 
 Fear of it appalled her ; yet courage 
 drove her on. She would dare all for her 
 friend's sake. To warn Fra Giovanni to 
 
 35
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 warn her friend, who had been in Rome and 
 might know nothing of the red cross or its 
 meaning ! She braved all else in that con- 
 suming desire. 
 
 Her boat touched the quay of the priest's 
 house just as darkness came down upon the 
 city. A lantern at the gate of it showed 
 her the red cross painted boldly upon the 
 postern. She was still debating how she 
 should tell Fra Giovanni her news when she 
 saw the monk himself pacing the garden and 
 coming towards her. He, in turn, had heard 
 the splash of oars ; and when he observed 
 the little boat and the face of her who 
 rowed it, a cry of wonder escaped him. 
 
 " Thou, child and alone ! " 
 
 She did not know how to answer him. 
 The keen black eyes of the monk seemed to 
 read her very heart. She could not tell him 
 why she had come to the house. There 
 was nothing hidden from the mind of Fra 
 Giovanni, she thought. And he must have 
 laughed at her already. 
 
 " I heard them crying strange things at 
 Rialto," she stammered; "they said that you 
 had come back from Rome and that the red 
 
 cross was upon the house. I could not hear 
 
 306
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 such things, excellency I came to tell you 
 of them." 
 
 She laughed at herself afterwards because 
 she had called him 'excellency,' but he was 
 asking himself what courage was that which 
 had carried the dancing-girl where no boat- 
 man dared to pass. 
 
 "You came alone, Nina; did you not fear 
 the people's stories ? " he asked. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " The things we fear need not be true," 
 she said. " I heard the stories how that 
 men die every day in Venice, and that the 
 death-ship is on the waters. But who will 
 trouble about a dancing-girl ? Men do not 
 strike at the poor while there are the rich 
 of the city to think about. It is of you I 
 would speak, father. There was no hope 
 while you were in Rome, but now, you will 
 save the city from its follies, you will give 
 the people bread again ? " 
 
 She stood pleading before him. He re- 
 membered another day three years ago, 
 when, on that very spot, she had told him 
 of the conspiracy in the church of the 
 Servites, and had begged of him the life of 
 the man she loved, Christoforo, the banished 
 
 37
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 Count of Carmagnola. He said to himself 
 that in all Italy there was not one with the 
 courage and the heart of this little dancing- 
 girl. 
 
 "Nina," he said very gently, "was it that 
 I might save your father's house again that 
 you came here to-night ? " 
 
 She was silent at the question. He read 
 her answer in that silence, and took both 
 her hands in his. 
 
 " Not so," he said ; " I know your story, 
 little one. Go now to your home again. 
 Three years ago you saved Venice from her 
 enemies. Who knows that you may not 
 save her once more this night ? Go back 
 across the waters, then, and fear nothing, 
 whatever sights you see. And if men 
 question you as assuredly they will bid 
 them look upon the waters, where they shall 
 find the answer of Venice and of Giovanni 
 the monk." 
 
 He led her to the riva of the house, and 
 watched her boat earnestly as she rowed it 
 towards the darkness of the lagoon. 
 
 " They will follow her," he muttered to 
 himself; "they will follow her." 
 
 Swiftly turning, he called a servant to 
 308
 
 "He watched her boat earnestly." 
 
 Page 309.]
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 him. " Let the police know that we have 
 need of them," he said. "The clown's 
 daughter will show us to-night the house 
 of the assassins." 
 
 IV. 
 
 Though it was a night of May, and there 
 had been a great heat of the sun all day, 
 heavy mists steamed up from the waters of 
 the lagoon ; and so black was the hour that 
 little Nina in her boat soon lost sight of the 
 welcome lights upon the island, and could 
 discern no lanterns upon the Piazza, or even 
 in the houses by the nearer church of Santa 
 Maria della Salute. While she was talking 
 
 o 
 
 to the priest, all memory of her fears had 
 left her ; but now that she rowed alone upon 
 the broad of the channel an apprehension, 
 as great as any she had ever known, came 
 back to trouble her, and to set her hands 
 trembling upon the oars. 
 
 These tales the people told ; how if there 
 should be truth in them ! She remembered
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 the story of the fisherman, who swore before 
 the Cross that he had seen the death-ship of 
 the fables that phantom gondola which the 
 dead rowed and the spirits of the dead 
 haunted. She said she would believe in no 
 tale so foolish, and, so saying, began to be- 
 lieve in it the more. 
 
 It was very dark upon the lagoon, and 
 strangely silent. Sometimes sturdy strokes 
 shot her boat swiftly towards the distant 
 Piazzetta. Or, again, she would drift with 
 the sleepy current, and listen for the voices 
 of her imagination. Always she remembered 
 the strange words of the priest: "Who 
 knows that you may not save Venice this 
 night ! " Whatever befell, Fra Giovanni would 
 protect her, she thought. 
 
 Yet how could she, Nina, the daughter of 
 Barbarino the clown, save Venice ? Once 
 before, in the church of the Servites, she had 
 lived through a night of terror, and had dis- 
 covered those who would have betrayed the 
 city. She had delivered up to justice the 
 man whom, in her folly, she had chosen to 
 love. But such a night would never return. 
 She said that she was alone on the waters, 
 and that God looked down, upon her. She 
 
 313
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 did not know that the enemies of Venice were 
 watching her as she rowed. "A spy," they 
 said, and were determined already upon her 
 punishment. 
 
 The remembrance that none would trouble 
 about a dancing-girl gave her heart, and 
 carried her a little way further toward her 
 home. When she ceased to row for the 
 second time, a sound as of a muffled oar 
 beating the waters struck suddenly upon her 
 ears, and held her wondering. She was sure 
 that she heard the sound ; sure that it was 
 quite near her. Yet, when she peered into 
 the darkness she saw nothing but the quaint 
 figures of the mist, the little waves, and the 
 black water of the stream. It would be some 
 venturesome traveller who knew nothing of 
 the people's stories, she said. A sense of 
 loneliness and of danger approaching was 
 not to be resisted. If the people had not 
 lied ! If there should be strange sights upon 
 the lagoon ! 
 
 She rowed again a little way ; again she 
 let her boat drift upon the stream. But this 
 time no surmise, no sound of muffled oars 
 held her still. In all her life she had never 
 known so great a premonition of danger. 
 
 313
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 For a strange light fell suddenly upon her 
 face ; it came she knew not whence. The sur- 
 rounding water shone as silver beneath its 
 rays ; she saw the light as a bright phos- 
 phorescent glow upon her boat, upon her 
 hands. Everything about her was enveloped 
 in it. She sat spellbound with the rays of 
 that unearthly lantern turned full upon her. 
 
 The light shone out and darkness suc- 
 ceeded to it. She heard the sound of muf- 
 fled oars no more ; only the surging of the 
 waves as they beat against the prow of a 
 ship. And she became conscious of some 
 presence ; a presence which was not of things 
 known but of the mysteries unnameable. The 
 fisherman had told a true tale after all, then ! 
 Dread of something beyond the knowledge 
 of men appalled her. She feared to see the 
 death-ship ; and, fearing, her eyes beheld it. 
 
 Again the white light shone upon the 
 waters. The fount of it hung as a ball of 
 fire above the still lagoon. In the aureole of 
 the light, she beheld a long, black gondola ; 
 and he who rowed it had the face as of the 
 devils in the pictures of the painters. Prone 
 in the cabin of the boat, where candles burned 
 and windows of glass permitted all the world
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 to wonder at the sight, there lay the body of 
 a man with a veil thrown across his face. She 
 perceived that the man did not move and 
 that his limbs were rigid ; she knew that 
 Venice would hear again to-morrow of the 
 death of one of her sons. 
 
 At the bow of the gondola there stood a 
 strange figure, as of a man masked in a 
 beast's head, with horns and large ears, and 
 a sword in his hand. A flame of red fire, 
 burning at his feet, cast a crimson glow upon 
 the shining blade and the strange disguise. 
 Nina had never seen, even in the fantasies 
 of the painters, a spectacle so terrible. She 
 did not cry out ; she did not try to speak to 
 the man ; no fear of things human withered 
 her courage. She thought that she had seen 
 a vision from the world beyond the grave ; 
 from that world of which the priests had 
 spoken to terrify the people and bring them 
 to repentance. 
 
 A vision, indeed, yet one very near to her 
 eyes now. She could distinguish the ring 
 upon the finger of the dead man who lay in 
 the cabin ; she could see the mirror of the 
 great lantern which diffused the phosphores- 
 cent light. He who held the sword, and was 
 
 315
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 masked in the beast's head, gave an order to 
 the steersman, and turned towards her. She 
 did not raise her voice nor move from her 
 seat. All things happened as in some moment 
 of her sleep. 
 
 She saw the shadow of the great boat mag- 
 nified and approaching ; she beheld more 
 clearly the visage of him who stood at the 
 bow ; she felt strong arms winding about 
 her body as the man stooped and lifted 
 her to the deck of the gondola. The end 
 had come, she thought and neither speaking 
 to them nor wrestling with the hand that held 
 her, she fainted in the arms of the unknown, 
 and the ship and lights vanished from her 
 sight. 
 
 V. 
 
 Nina recovered consciousness in a vast 
 room, like to no room she had ever seen. 
 They had laid her on a couch of silk ; and 
 in her waking moments she believed that she 
 
 was in her father's booth again, and that all 
 
 316
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 she had suffered had been the terror of a 
 dream. But when she opened her eyes, she 
 beheld a roof painted by one of the great 
 artists of Venice ; and from the ceiling a 
 great chandelier of glass depending ; and in 
 the chandelier many candles brightly burning. 
 
 Anon, she turned her eyes towards the 
 centre of the room, and perceived there a 
 table shining with an abundance of silver, 
 and half hidden by fruit and flowers and the 
 long red flasks for the wine. None but 
 a noble of the city could sit at such a table, 
 she thought. Nor could she so much as 
 imagine how she came to such a place, or 
 why she lay, with limbs benumbed and a 
 strange sense of physical weakness, alone in 
 that great room. 
 
 There had been no one near her when 
 first she opened her eyes ; but while she was 
 still trying to gather up the threads of her 
 own strange story, she distinguished the 
 voices of people in an antechamber, and 
 presently someone uttered the name of Fra 
 Giovanni, and she heard men laughing at 
 it. After a little while the laughter ceased, 
 and a voice exclaimed : 
 
 " If it lie ^between the priest and Fran-
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 cesco, there will be a monk the less at 
 dawn." 
 
 Nina heard the voice, and understood it. 
 Her wits were ever quick ; and out of the 
 story of the night they were shaping the 
 truth for her. The phantom gondola those 
 that rowed it were but men after all, then ! 
 The banished enemies of Venice must be its 
 masters, employing it to terrify the people, 
 and to cloak their own crimes. There was 
 no other mystery but "the mystery of ven- 
 geance awakened. Those who had set the 
 red cross upon the house of the father of 
 Venice were those in whose power she was. 
 
 "If it lie between the priest and Fran- 
 cesco ! " 
 
 She repeated the words, and began to find 
 the meaning of them. She said that while 
 she was a prisoner in that unknown house 
 the assassin had gone already to the island 
 of the Jews. When the sun rose, the man 
 who had bestowed so great a friendship upon 
 her, the man whom Venice loved as never 
 she had loved citizen before, would be no 
 more. Her own helplessness seemed pitiful 
 to her as she confessed the truth. If she 
 
 had been a man ! There were tears in her 
 
 318
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 eyes when she remembered that a brave 
 man might have saved her friend. 
 
 It was a splendid apartment in which she 
 now found herself a room in one of the 
 greatest of the palaces, she thought. She 
 could see immense painted doors, which shut 
 it off from the antechamber ; one of these 
 doors was half-open, and she distinguished, 
 beyond it, the glitter of the gold on the 
 doublet of a man, and the hilt of a sword 
 studded with diamonds. There had been no 
 time to think of herself as yet ; but when 
 she saw the man she became conscious of 
 her peril ; and with a step trained to lightness 
 from her childhood, she darted across the 
 room towards the long windows of the 
 balcony. 
 
 If she could but open those windows, and 
 cry out to any gondolier who might pass the 
 house ! When she drew back the curtains, 
 the folly of her plan disclosed itself, for the 
 window was boarded over, and bands of iron 
 drew the boards together so that no ray of 
 light could pass the chinks. 
 
 She drew back from the window as from 
 the bars of a prison. The splendour of the 
 room had put out of her head until this 
 
 319
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 moment the memory of the circumstances 
 under which she had come to the house. 
 But now she realised them fully. The 
 enemies of Venice had known of her visit, 
 and had trapped her. There could be no 
 hope that she might ever leave that room 
 again to go and tell of all the things she 
 had seen and the voices she had heard. The 
 men would kill her to save themselves. She 
 had looked upon the sun and the water for 
 the last time. 
 
 She was but a child still in mind, if not in 
 years, and the fear of death was very terrible 
 to her. Gifted with an imagination above 
 the common, she foresaw the moment when 
 she would lie, still and voiceless, upon the 
 floor of the room. There could be no hope 
 of mercy in that place. She heard her heart 
 beating as she crept from the window ; she 
 feared even the velvet tread of her little feet. 
 
 A man entered the room and stood to 
 watch her curiously. He was a young man, 
 and he wore a suit of black velvet, slashed 
 with gold. She met his gaze face to face, 
 and recognised him as Andrea Foscari, a 
 noble whom Venice had banished three years 
 
 before that day. There was no look of anger 
 
 320
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 on his face, for the beauty of the dancing- 
 girl, as she stood in the aureole of light, 
 fascinated him. 
 
 " Well," he said, " so our little prisoner is 
 awake again." 
 
 "My lord," she asked pitifully, "why have 
 you brought me to this house?" 
 
 " I have brought you to sup, little Nina. 
 The spirits were hungry, and would not wait." 
 
 He spoke banteringly, and turned to call 
 his companions. 
 
 " Gian," he said, " here is the little spy 
 waiting for her supper. She is going to tell 
 us why she went to the Guidecca to-night. 
 Let Benedetto bring the guitar, and she will 
 dance for us eh, my Nina, you will show 
 us afterwards how you dance upon the 
 Piazzetta ? " 
 
 He came nearer to her and clasped her 
 hand. She drew back from him, for his 
 fingers were hot and burning and she knew 
 that he was lying to her. 
 
 "Tell me," he asked in a low voice, "what 
 carried you to the Guidecca to-night." 
 
 " My lord," she answered vaguely, " I must 
 go back to my home. My father is waiting 
 
 for me!" 
 
 321
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 He laughed ironically. 
 
 " Oh," he said, " the clown weeps for his 
 daughter ; clown's tears, little Nina, which we 
 will go to see to-morrow when you have 
 earned your liberty." 
 
 Other men came into the room to the 
 number of four, men in robes of violet and 
 white, with jewels sparkling at their throats 
 and in the hilts of their daggers. One of 
 them, who seemed to be their leader, a man 
 with the fair hair of a Saxon, came towards 
 the girl and clutched her arm savagely. 
 
 " Child," he said, " why were you upon the 
 lagoon to-night?" 
 
 " My lord," she exclaimed, still thinking of 
 her home, " let me go to my father's house 
 and I will tell no one " 
 
 He stamped his foot angrily. 
 
 "Answer me," he said, "or they shall find 
 your body in the water. What brought you 
 upon the lagoon to-night ? " 
 
 She looked up at him and answered 
 unflinchingly : 
 
 " I went to warn Giovanni, the priest." 
 
 An oath rose to the man's lips. He half 
 unsheathed his dagger. She thought that he 
 
 was about to strike her down ; but, as he 
 
 322
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 stood irresolute, someone entered the room, 
 and all eyes were turned towards the door. 
 
 " Christoforo you here ! " 
 
 Nina heard the name, but did not dare to 
 raise her eyes. 
 
 Christoforo, the Lord of Carmagnola, the 
 
 man who had been a leader of Venice three 
 
 years before that day, the man whose life 
 
 she had saved in the church of the Servites 
 
 was he, then, among the assassins ? 
 
 The Count entered the room quickly. He 
 looked at the girl and at the men who sur- 
 rounded her. There was a flush of blood to 
 his cheeks when he saw the half-sheathed 
 dagger ; and he did not need to ask the 
 intention of him who held it. 
 
 "Great God!" he cried. "Have you 
 brought me from the mountains for this ? " 
 
 The man's hand dropped to his side. He 
 answered mockingly. 
 
 " Ha ! " he said, " here is our patron, then. 
 But you come to Venice too late, Count. 
 The work is done. Francesco is already at 
 the priest's house. This child followed us 
 on the lagoon to-night, and we brought her 
 here. Release her, and she will carry our 
 story to the police. You will share our 
 
 323
 
 bed, and we have not made it with 
 feathers." 
 
 Carmagnola heard him contemptuously. 
 
 "You were born to the bravo's cloak, 
 Galeazzo," he said scornfully; "by all ac- 
 counts you have worn that cloak well in 
 Venice. Come, let me see this tale-bearer." 
 
 He pushed the man roughly aside, and 
 crossed to the girl's side. 
 
 " Who are you, child ? " he asked in a 
 gentle voice. 
 
 She raised her head and looked at him. 
 A great cry of recognition escaped his lips. 
 He had last seen Nina of Venice in the 
 church of the Servites, and she had saved 
 his life there. 
 
 "Thou!" he said, "here in the Palazzo 
 Andrea?" 
 
 " It is I, Lord Count," she answered simply. 
 
 He raised her in his arms. The others 
 stood dumb ; they knew that they were face 
 to face with one of the greatest swordsmen 
 in Italy. 
 
 "Little Nina," he asked, "what brought 
 you to this house ? " 
 
 She did not know why she answered him 
 as she did, or how it was that the priest's 
 
 324
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 words came to her in that instant. Another's 
 will commanded her to speak, and she said 
 very quietly : 
 
 " Lord Count, if you will look upon the 
 water, you will see my answer." 
 
 Carmagnola regarded her perplexedly. Si- 
 lence, the silence of curiosity, was upon the 
 others. Foscari, himself, ran to the window, 
 and opening a panel in the boards looked 
 out at the black canal below. When he had 
 stood there an instant he turned to the 
 others, and they saw the whiteness of his face. 
 
 "Well?" they asked. 
 
 " The ship is there, and a body is on the 
 bier," he replied. " It is the body of Fran- 
 cesco." 
 
 A savage cry of rage burst from the lips 
 of Galeazzo as he and the three remaining 
 ran to the window. They thought that they 
 had heard a lie, but when they looked out 
 they saw their own death-ship ; and upon it 
 there lay the body of the assassin Francesco, 
 who had been sent to the house of Giovanni, 
 the priest. A dagger was still in the man's 
 heart ; his head lay over the gunwale of the 
 boat, and the water lapped upon his stream- 
 ing hair. 
 
 325
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 "Well," asked Carmagnola, "and what do 
 you see, signori ? " 
 
 " The work of the spy whose hand you 
 hold ! " exclaimed Galeazzo fiercely. " Yonder 
 lies Francesco, dead. Would you send the 
 child back now, signore ? " 
 
 He did not wait for any answer, but drew 
 his dagger, and stood anew to the attack. 
 For an instant Nina heard the cries of the 
 four; she beheld the blades flashing as 
 points of silver in the light ; she saw the 
 figure of the Lord of Carmagnola as he drew 
 his sword and beat the daggers down. Then, 
 as in some hour of miracle, the great doors 
 of the room were burst open, and she knew 
 that the Guards of Venice were the masters 
 of the house. 
 
 "Signori," said the captain of the guard, 
 ironically, " they wait for you at the Palace." 
 
 No one answered him. They knew that 
 he had spoken a sentence of death. 
 
 326
 
 "She saw the figure of the Lord of Carmagnola 
 as he drew his sword." 
 
 Page 327.]
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 VI. 
 
 Very early on the following morning the 
 story of Nina of Venice was known through- 
 out the city. Fra Giovanni told it, and 
 added ornament to it. She, the dancing-girl, 
 had crossed the lagoon, that lagoon where 
 no boatman of Venice would have ventured 
 after sunset for an oar of gold ; she had 
 crossed it to save the priest whom Venice 
 loved. The police had followed her as she 
 went. Unknowingly she had been the link 
 between them and the house of the assassins. 
 They had seen her dragged from her boat ; 
 had followed the phantom gondola and learnt 
 at last that the Palazzo Andrea sheltered the 
 enemies of Venice. 
 
 Day had scarcely dawned when a mighty 
 concourse of the people gathered before the 
 booth of Barbarino the clown, and proclaimed 
 with frenzied cries that the night of mystery 
 was no more. 
 
 " She has shown to Venice the house of 
 the assassin. Viva! Nina, the dancer. Viva! 
 our daughter ! There was no death-ship after 
 all, comrades. It lies yonder at the riva 
 
 .329
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 of the Palace. Long life to our father 
 Giovanni." 
 
 Nina heard the cries, yet showed her face 
 to none. She had not slept through those 
 hours of excitement and of fear. She 
 remembered one who then lay in the 
 dungeons of the Palace. He might even 
 then be dead. She cared nothing for the 
 people's favour or the rewards of which they 
 spoke. She loved a man to whom she had 
 spoken but twice in her life. When the sun 
 set she knew that her lover would have 
 ceased to live. 
 
 " They will punish the innocent with the 
 guilty," she thought. " There will be none 
 to believe it. No one will listen to Nina, 
 the dancing-girl." 
 
 So she reasoned as the day broke, and all 
 the world of Venice flocked to the great 
 Piazza. Terror dominated the city no more. 
 Death no longer stalked the dark places. 
 Fathers would not weep for sons to-morrow, 
 nor mistresses for their lovers. What the 
 Signori of *the Night had been unable to do, 
 this waif of the booths had done. She had 
 saved Venice from her follies, and the city 
 would remember. 
 
 330
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 There had been a meeting of the Council 
 of Three at six o'clock that morning; but it 
 was noon before the Guards of the Palace 
 came to the booth on the Piazzetta and 
 asked for the clown's daughter. 
 
 " The signori await her in the Council 
 Chamber," the captain said. " Let her fear 
 nothing, for all is known." 
 
 The people heard the words and came 
 anew to the door of the booth. Above the 
 clamour of their voices, the music of bells 
 and the blare of trumpets prevailed. No pro- 
 cession which Carnival had given to Venice 
 surpassed that procession to the palace. 
 Women wept ; children cast flowers in the 
 path the Guards must tread. But Nina saw 
 neither the flowers nor the people. The face 
 -of the man she loved was ever before her. 
 She had heard again the words he had spoken 
 to her yesterday. 
 
 . Within the palace there were many of the 
 nobles of the city, of her priests and her rich 
 men. A great crowd thronged the staircase 
 leading to the Sala dei Capi where the Three 
 sat. Nina distinguished no faces, heard none 
 of the compliments addressed to her. She 
 remembered afterwards that she stood as one 
 
 331
 
 THE SIGNORS OF THE NIGHT 
 
 in a dream while the President of the Three 
 spoke to her. But there were few of his 
 words which she could repeat, and it was not 
 until the end of his address that she began 
 to listen to it. 
 
 " The city will reward you, in some part at 
 our dictation, in some part as you yourself 
 shall choose. The Palazzo Andrea, forfeit to 
 the State by reason of the crimes you have 
 discovered, will be held in perpetuity by you 
 and the children that shall be born to you. 
 Beyond this, Venice gives you the life of one 
 of the six prisoners you brought to justice 
 last night. In that choice she seeks nothing 
 but your own will and pleasure ; she imposes 
 no conditions. He whom you name will to- 
 day be sent to the Palazzo Andrea, where 
 his place of captivity must be." 
 
 A smile of amusement passed over the 
 faces of those in the room. Nina did not 
 understand it. One of the officers, who was 
 at her side, whispered : " Answer the Lord 
 President, child." 
 
 She stared at him, and said nothing. 
 
 "Well," continued the President, "and the 
 name of the prisoner to whom the Serene Prince 
 
 is willing to grant this conditional pardon ? " 
 
 332
 
 THE HAUNTED GONDOLA 
 
 " My lord," she said, "I do not under- 
 stand, I do not hear " 
 
 He took her hand encouragingly. 
 
 " Child," he said, " Venice gives you the 
 life and the custody of one of those con- 
 demned by her to death this day. There are 
 the prisoners. Name one of them to us, and 
 he is this moment free." 
 
 He made a signal to the guard, and those 
 who last night had supped in the Palazzo 
 Andrea were brought into the room. An 
 overwhelming consciousness of happiness came 
 suddenly to the trembling dancing-girl. She 
 fell at the feet of Christoforo, the Count of 
 Carmagnola. 
 
 " My lords," she said, " I have chosen." 
 
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