"No," answered Contarini. "Let us at least see his face. We may know him. If you cry out," he said to Zorzi, "you will be killed instantly."
"Jacopo is right," said some one who had not spoken yet.
Almost at the same instant a door was opened and a broad bar of light shot across the hall from an inner room. Zorzi was roughly dragged towards it, and he saw that he was surrounded by about twenty masked men. His face was held to the light, and Contarini's hold on his throat relaxed.
"Not even a mask!" exclaimed Jacopo. "A fool, or a madman. Speak, man I Who are you? Who sent you here?"
"My name is Zorzi," answered the glass-blower with difficulty, for he had been almost choked. "My business is with the Lord Jacopo alone. It is very private."
"I have no secrets from my friends," said Contarini. "Speak as if we were alone."
"I have promised my master to deliver the message in secret. I will not speak here."
"Strangle him and throw him out," suggested the man with the indolent voice. "His master is the devil, I have no doubt. He can take the message back with him."
Two or three laughed.
"These spies seldom hunt alone," remarked another. "While we are wasting time a dozen more may be guarding the entrance to the house."