'Got out? You are sure?' Zoë could have screamed for joy; the revulsion was almost too sudden.
'Yes, I am sure of that. There is a search for him in all the quarters about the palace. When I had cleared everything away below the tower, I dropped downstream to a quiet place I know, and went ashore to learn what I could. The great gate of Blachernæ was open, the court was full of lights, and the guards had been called out. Half of them were reeling about, still very drunk, but I met many that were more sober, searching the streets and lanes with lanterns. I lingered till the same party found me twice and looked at me suspiciously, and then I slipped away again and came here. I do not believe any of them know whom they are looking for; they have only been told that some one has broken out of the palace, I suppose. That made me think that Zeno had come quietly home, quite sure that he had not been recognised.'
Gorlias told his story in the low, monotonous tone peculiar to him, which seemed to express the most perfect indifference to anything that might happen. But Zoë cared nothing for his way of telling what was just then the best possible news. Zeno was not safe yet, but she knew him well enough to feel sure that if he had not been taken within the palace, he had little to fear. Sooner or later he would come home, as if nothing had happened. Gorlias understood her sigh of relief.
'You must go in and rest, Kokóna,' he said, and he quietly pushed her towards the door. 'I will watch till daylight in the boat, in case he should come and need anything.'
She could hardly walk, and he now noticed her lameness for the first time, and asked the cause of it.
'He stepped on me when I was lying under the canvas,' she answered. 'But it is nothing,' she added quietly. 'I hardly felt anything at first.'
'I will carry you,' said Gorlias.
Before she could prevent him, he had lifted her in his arms and was carrying her into the house. He knew the way up to her apartment, having been to see her there, and he stepped easily and surely with his burden, his bare feet hardly making any sound on the marble steps. She lay across his arms like a thing without weight, borne along as a maid carries a fresh gown that she is afraid of ruffling. But the man's arms and clothes were wet and cold, and even his breath chilled her.
Her nerves were overwrought, and she was foolishly frightened now. The stairs were very dark, and the touch of the man who carried her was like that of a wet monster of night, cold and horribly strong, holding her and carrying her in his vast arms as the autumn night wind whirls the leaves along. He never paused for breath, he never stopped to try and see the steps under his feet; he only went on and up, up, up, till she fancied she was not in Zeno's house, but in some high and mysterious tower to which she had been suddenly transported by an awful being from another world who was taking her to the top and would hurl her from the highest turret into space.