'Die, Ananias!' shouted the Duke. His eyes gleamed maniacally. He half rose in his chair. He seemed as if furious to foreclose on a dénouement his superstition had already anticipated. Tassino fell upon his knees.
'I did it!' he screamed.
The Duke sank back, his lips twitching and grinning. Then he glanced covertly at Bembo, and rubbed his hands together, with a motion part gloating, part deprecatory. The Ser Ludovico's eyes, shaded under his palm, were very busy, to and fro. Bembo stood like frowning marble.
'The law, Master Scrivener?' said he quietly.
The kneeling clerk murmured from a dry throat—
'Holy sir, it takes no cognisance of these accidents. The condescensions of the great compensate them.'
The Parablist, his lips pressed together, nodded gravely twice or thrice.
'I see,' he said; 'a condescension which ruins two lives.'
He addressed himself, with a deadly sweetness, to the Duke.
'I prithee, who standest for God's vicegerent, call up the Jew to sentence.'