He seized the high stool that stood beside the desk and swung it with terrific force, bringing it down on the strong box, so that it flew into splinters with an appalling din. He raged, he foamed at the mouth, he bawled and yelled, and he smashed one piece of furniture after another on the heavy iron without producing the smallest impression on it, and without getting the least answer from Omobono, who was still half-unconscious, happily for his nerves, and was dreaming that he had taken refuge in a baker's oven during a terrible thunderstorm.
The stool was reduced to kindling wood, two large chairs had followed it, and Tocktamish was in the act of heaving up the desk itself, sending inkstand, pens, and papers flying to the four corners of the room, and determined to crack the strong box with one tremendous blow, when a musical voice spoke gently through the window nearest to him. Zoë and her maids were there, and the whole household of men-servants and slaves were behind them. The three girls were standing on the broad stone seat that ran round the outside of the house in the Italian way, and they could easily look through the bars. In her haste Zoë had not veiled herself, and when the Tartar caught sight of her beautiful face at the window, the effect on his susceptible sentiments was instantaneous. The vision was a hundred times more lovely than the handsome Giustina who had escaped him. He had never seen any one like Zoë as she stood outside in the quiet afternoon sunshine. For a moment or two he was almost sober; the desk fell from his hands upon the iron chest, and was not even broken, and Tocktamish's hands hung down by his sides while he stared in stupid wonder.
Zoë was glad that there were iron bars between him and her, for she had never seen a human being more like a raging wild beast. She had looked anxiously for Omobono, but as there was no trace of him nor of any blood, she at once decided that he had been able to get out by some secret way, after Lucilla had barred the door.
'Where is Messer Carlo?' were the words which arrested Tocktamish in the act of smashing the desk.
He stood gazing at Zoë stupidly, and as he did not answer she repeated her question, watching him quietly so that he should understand that he was completely in her power. When he heard her voice again he made a sort of instinctive attempt to smooth himself, as the peacock spreads his tail before the female; he pulled out his immense moustaches, drew his shaggy beard through his two hands, settled his fur papakh on his head, and smiled complacently as he approached the window, prepared, in his own estimation, to win the heart of any woman in Constantinople. The exercise of breaking up the furniture had probably done him good, for he walked quite steadily, with his eyes wide open and his big head a little on one side.
'Messer Carlo is quite safe and very well,' he answered when he was near the grating. 'He has sent me to get him a little money, which he greatly needs.'
'You have a singular way of executing his commission,' observed Zoë, looking at the splinters of the smashed furniture.
Tocktamish felt that the havoc round him must be explained.
'I have been killing the rats,' he said. 'It is extraordinary how many rats and mice get into counting-houses!'
'Where is Messer Carlo?' Zoë asked a third time.