"The master has already told me what it is," Zorzi answered. "I am ready to give myself up whenever you think best. I have not words to thank you."
"I do not like many words," answered Venier. "But if there is anything I dislike more, it is thanks. I have some private business with Messer Angelo first. Afterwards we can all three talk together."
CHAPTER XXIV
Zorzi sat on a low bench, blackened with age, against the whitewashed wall of a small and dimly lighted room, which was little more than a cell, but was in reality the place where prisoners waited immediately before being taken into the presence of the Ten. It was not far from the dreaded chamber in which the three Chiefs sometimes heard evidence given under torture, the door was closed and two guards paced the narrow corridor outside with regular and heavy steps, to which Zorzi listened with a beating heart. He was not afraid, for he was not easily frightened, but he knew that his whole future life was in the balance, and he longed for the decisive moment to come. He had surrendered on the previous day, and Beroviero had given a large bond for his appearance.
There were witnesses of all that had happened. There was the lieutenant of the archers, with his six men, some of whom still showed traces of their misadventure. There was Giovanni, whom the Governor had forced to appear, much against his will, as the principal accuser by the letter which had led to Zorzi's arrest, and the letter itself was in the hands of the Council's secretary. But there was also Pasquale, who had seen Zorzi go away quietly with the soldiers, and who could speak for his character; and Angelo Beroviero was there to tell the truth as far as he knew it.
But Zorzi was not to be confronted with any of these witnesses: neither with the soldiers who would tell the Council strange stories of devils with blue noses and fiery tails, nor with Giovanni, whose letter called him a liar, a thief and an assassin, nor with Beroviero nor Pasquale. The Council never allowed the accused man and the witnesses for or against him to be before them at the same time, nor to hold any communication while the trial lasted. That was a rule of their procedure, but they were not by any means the mysterious body of malign monsters which they have too often been represented to be, in an age when no criminal trials could take place without torture.
Zorzi waited on his bench, listening to the tread of the guards. As many trials occupied more than one day, his case would come up last of all, and the witnesses would all be examined before he himself was called to make his defence. He was nervous and anxious. Even while he was sitting there, Giovanni might be finding out some new accusation against him or the officer of archers might be accusing him of witchcraft and of having a compact with the devil himself. He was innocent, but he had broken the law, and no doubt many an innocent man had sat on that same bench before him, who had never again returned to his home. It was not strange that his lips should be parched, and that his heart should be beating like a fuller's hammer.
At last the footsteps ceased, the key ground and creaked as it turned, and the door was opened. Two tall guards stood looking at him, and one of them motioned to him to come. He could never afterwards remember the place through which he was made to pass, for the blood was throbbing in his temples so that he could hardly see. A door was opened and closed after him, and he was suddenly standing alone in the presence of the Ten, feeling that he could not find a word to say if he were called upon to speak.
A kindly voice broke the silence that seemed to have lasted many minutes.