CHAPTER XXXIII.
Through a narrow street, lighted by the lanterns which hung before the doors of the few wine shops that were still open—for the hour was late—a man, wrapped in a hooded cloak, went stumbling over the dogs that were asleep in the middle of the way, and not unfrequently over the watchmen lying upon the mats before the closed entrances to the bazaars they were guarding. He entered one wine shop after another, muttering an oath of disappointment as he withdrew from each. At length he turned into an alley, which seemed like a mere crevice in the compact mass of houses, and threaded his way between windowless and doorless walls, until the passage widened into a small and filthy court. At the extreme rear of this a lamp was just flickering with its exhausted oil, and only sufficed to show him a doorway. Rapping gently he called in Italian:
"Pedro! Giovan!"
The door was opened by a short, stout man with bullet head, who spread himself across the entrance and peered into the face of the late comer. Two villainous looking men stared through the lurid glare of a rush light on a low table, at which, squatted on the ground, they were playing dice. A purse or pouch of gold thread, decorated with some device wrought with pearls and various precious stones, lay beside them.
"Ah, the gentleman from Genoa!" exclaimed one. "You are quite welcome to our castle. Ricardo, where is the stool? Well! if you can't find it, lie down, and let the gentleman sit on your head."
"You appear to be in luck, Pedro, if I am to judge from the purse yonder," said the visitor. "Your lady has taken you back to her affection, and given you this as a love token, I suppose."
"I'll tell you the secrets of my lady's chamber, Signior, when you tell me those of yours," replied Pedro.
"Perhaps," interposed Giovan, "the gentleman would have us help him in to the secrets of his lady's chamber. How now, Signior Alexis, have you trapped a new beauty so soon in Byzantium?"
"Let's throw for this before we talk," interposed Ricardo, holding the purse in one hand and a dice cup in the other. "One business at a time."
The three men threw. The stake fell to Ricardo, who thrust the rich prize into his dirty pocket, where a third of the contents of the purse had previously been deposited.
"May I see the little bag?" asked Alexis.
"No!" was the surly response.
"You see, Signior," interposed Giovan, in an attempt to mitigate the rudeness of his comrade, "You see it was a trust from—from a dead man, who was afraid to take it with him to purgatory, lest the fire might tarnish it. So we keep it for him until he comes back. And we are still in the trust business, Signior! Our credit is without a stain. You know it was just a suspicion of our integrity—we would not have our honor even suspected by the police—that led us to leave Genoa. Will you trust us with any little business?"
"Do you know the Albanian officer in the emperor's guards?" asked Alexis.
"No, and want to know nothing about officers of any sort," growled Giovan.
"Ay!" interposed Ricardo, "the red-topped fellow, with a body like Giovan's, and the neck the right height to come under my sword arm?" making the gesture of cutting off one's head with a sabre. "Does he disturb you?"
"Yes!"
"It will be worth a hundred ducats," said Giovan.
"A hundred and fifty," said Ricardo; and, lowering his voice to the others, added, "I need fifty, and I would take only my even share."
"You shall have it," said Alexis, counting out the gold. "If you deceive me, you know that one word from me here in Byzantium will cost you your heads. Good night!"
When he had gone, Giovan said in low voice:
"I say, Pedro, we will divide a thousand ducats out of this."
"How?" exclaimed the two.
"The young officer is brother to the lady at the grand chamberlain's. She will pay heavy ransom if we deliver him instead of—" drawing his finger across his throat. "Of course we should have to leave Byzantium. But Ricardo and I have concluded that it were best to be gone anyhow; for the people here are so poor that our business does not thrive. This purse once held ducats, but when we took it, it had only silver bits. We pocket-bankers need better constituency."
"Yes, we had better get out of this," said Pedro. "General Giustiniani has come to live in Galata.[69] He got his weasel-eyes on me yesterday as I was doing a little business by the old wharf. That man knows too much, he does. But he'll never get me on the galley benches again. I'd crawl like a mud turtle on the bottom of Marmora before I'd go under the hatches a second time. I like freedom and fresh air, I do—" blowing out of his face the thick smoke emitted by the wick floating on the surface of a saucer of oil.
"Right!" said Giovan. "Let's get out of this if we can do so with enough gold to pay our royal travelling expenses. But if we spare the neck of that fellow who is in Signior Alexis' way, where will we keep him that Alexis will not know it?"
"Our mansion here is hardly commodious enough for so distinguished and lively a guest as the young officer will be likely to be," said Ricardo, scraping the spiders' webs from the low ceiling of the room with his cap.
"Try the old water vault," suggested Pedro.
"Good!" said Ricardo, "when the Albanian goes to the walls, as he does every day, he will pass near to the opening."