Marietta: A Maid of Venice

by F. Marion Crawford

"I will not leave you," she cried. "They shall take me with you, wherever you are going!"

She grasped his hand with both her hands, and then, as he moved, she slipped her arm round him. At the street door the pounding blows succeeded each other in quick succession, but apparently without effect.

Zorzi saw that he must make her understand her extreme danger. He took hold of her wrist with a quiet strength that recalled her to herself, and there was a tone of command in his voice when he spoke.

"Go at once," he said. "It will be worse for both of us if you are found here. They will hang me for stealing the master's daughter as well as his secrets. Go, dear love, go! Good-bye!"

He kissed her once, and then gently pushed her from him. She understood that she must obey, and that if he spoke of his own danger it was for the sake of her good name. With a gesture of despair she turned and left him, crossed the patch of light without looking back, and disappeared into the shadows beyond. She was safe now, for he would go and meet the archers, opening the door to give himself up. Using his crutch he swung himself along into the dark corridor without another moment's hesitation.

But matters did not turn out as he expected. When the force came down the footway from the dilution of San Piero, Giovanni was still talking to his wife about household economies and censuring what he called the reckless extravagance of his father's housekeeping. As he talked, he heard the even tread of a number of marching men. He sprang to his feet and went to the window, for he guessed who was coming, though he could not imagine why the Governor had not waited till the next day, as had been agreed. He could not know that on leaving him Jacopo Contarini had seen his father and had told him of Zorzi's misdeeds; and that the Governor had supped with old Contarini, who was an uncompromising champion of the law, besides being one of the Ten and therefore the Governor's superior in office; and that Contarini had advised that Zorzi should be taken on that same night, as he might be warned of his danger and find means to escape. Moreover, Contarini offered a trusty and swift oarsman to take the order to Murano, and the Governor wrote it on the supper table, between two draughts of Greek wine, which he drank from a goblet made by Angelo Beroviero himself in the days when he still worked at the art.

In half an hour the warrant was in the hands of the officer, who immediately called out half-a-dozen of his men and marched them down to the glass-house.

Giovanni saw them stop and knock at the door, and he heard Pasquale's gruff inquiry.

"In the Governor's name, open at once!" said the officer.

"Any one can say that," answered the porter. "In the devil's name go home and go to bed! Is this carnival time, to go masquerading by the light of the moon and waking up honest people?"