Arethusa

by F. Marion Crawford

'Yes!' roared the Tartar. 'Ten thousand ducats! And if I do not find the money in the house, you two must find it in yours! Do you understand?'

They understood, for his voice was like thunder, and he had risen too, and towered above them with his full glass in one hand and Omobono's keys in the other. Then, being already tolerably drunk, he solemnly raised the keys to his lips, thinking that he held the glass in that hand, and rolled his eyes terribly at the two merchants; and he set the glass down with an emphatic gesture, as if it had been the bunch of keys, and it broke to pieces, and the yellow wine splashed out across the table and ran down and streamed upon the mosaic floor.

A terrific Tartar oath announced that he had realised his mistake, and as he at once made up his mind that the Venetians were responsible for it, his next action was to hurl the foot of the broken glass at Polo's head; and he instantly seized the empty silver flagon and flung it at Cornèr's face. The lighter weapon missed its aim and broke to atoms against the opposite wall, but the jug struck Cornèr full on the bridge of his thin nose with awful effect, and he fell to the floor and lay there, a moaning, bleeding heap.

Polo looked neither at his wife nor at his daughter, but fled through the open door at the top of his not very great speed. His wife fainted outright, and in real earnest now, and with a final croak rolled gently from her chair, without hurting herself at all. Omobono flattened his lean body against the wall, trembling in every joint, and gibbering with fear; and Tocktamish, seeing that he had so satisfactorily cleared the field, proceeded to address his attentions to Giustina, who had not fainted, but was really much too frightened to rise from her seat or try to escape.

The Tartar drew his chair nearer to hers, and suddenly smiled, as if he had done nothing unusual, and was only anxious to make himself agreeable. He had been drinking since early morning, but he would be good for at least another gallon of wine before it made him senseless. He addressed Giustina in the poetic language of his native country.

'Come, pet parrot of my soul!' he began, coaxingly. 'Fill me a cup and let me hear your ravishing voice! Tocktamish has cleared the house as the thunderstorm clears the hot air from the valley! Drink, my pretty nightingale, and the golden wine shall warm your speech in your little throat, as the morning sunshine melts the icicles in my beard when I have been hunting all night in winter! Drink, my fawn, my spring lamb, my soft wood-pigeon, my white bunny rabbit! Drink, sweet one!'

The Tartar's similes were in hopeless confusion, possibly because he translated them into Greek, but he was convinced that he was eloquent, and he was undeniably as strong as a bear. He had filled a fresh glass and was evidently anxious to make Giustina drink out of it before him, for he held it to her lips with his left hand while his right tried to take her round the waist and draw her to his knee.

But this was much more than she was prepared to submit to. In the fairy story, Beast was less enterprising in the presence of Beauty, and collapsed into obedience at the mere lifting of her finger. Giustina was a big creature, usually sleepy and not inclined to move quickly; but she was capable of exerting considerable strength in an emergency. The instant she felt Tocktamish's hand at her waist, she rose with a quick, serpentine motion that unwound her, as it were, from his encircling hold, and almost before he knew that she was on her feet she had fled from the room and slammed the door behind her.

Tocktamish tried to follow her, but he stumbled successively over the still unconscious dame and the still moaning Cornèr, so that when he reached the door at last his purpose had undergone a change, and, as he thought, an improvement. Women never ran out of the house into the street, he argued; therefore Giustina was now upstairs and would stay there; hence it would be wiser to finish the peacock and anything else he could lay hands on before going to pay her a visit. For Tocktamish found the food and the wine to his liking, and such as were not to be had every day, even by a Tartar officer with plenty of money in his wallet. He was tolerably steady still, as he made his way back towards his seat.