"The gentlemen, then. Will they come?" said the gondolier, hoarsely. And again freeing himself with two strokes of his powerful arms, he passed out (for the door was still open), and began to descend the outside staircase.
"Oh, thank Heaven, he has gone!" "Oh, lock the door!" cried the two ladies together.
"We must follow him, Mr. Senter," said Sir William. "He is plainly mad from drink, and may do some harm."
"Yes; and down there Andrea can help us," answered Peter.
And the two gentlemen hastened down the staircase. It was a very long flight with three turns. The court below was brilliantly lighted by many wall lamps.
"I don't like my husband's going down," said Lady Kay, in a tremor, as she stood on the landing outside. "If they are going to seize him, the more of us the better; don't you think so? For while they are holding him, you and I could run across and get that other man in from the riva."
But Miss Senter was not there. She had rushed back into the house, and was now calling with all her strength: "Giorgio! Carmela! Assunta! Beppa!" There was no answer, and, seized with a fresh panic by the strangeness of this silence, she hastened out again and joined Lady Kay, who was already half-way down the stairs. The gondolier had not turned towards the water entrance; he had crossed the court in the opposite direction, and now he was passing through a broad, low door which led into the hall on the ground-floor behind the show-room of Z. Pelham, throwing open as he did so both wings of this entrance, so that the light from the court entered in a broad beam across the stone pavement.
"My dear, don't go in!" "Oh, Peter, stop! stop!" cried the two ladies, as they breathlessly descended the last flight.
But Peter and Sir William had paid no attention. Quickly detaching two of the lamps from the wall, they had followed the madman.
"The other gondolier!" gasped Lady Kay.