When young Zuan spoke his voice was gentle and kindly, the maid was so sore beset, so full of fear, so alone.
"Do you—understand Italian?" he asked. The maid did not answer him, but when she spoke she spoke in perfectly fluent Venetian dialect—as good Venetian as Gradenigo's own. And the fear seemed to go from her, giving place to anger.
"My garments, lord!" she said, and laid her bruised arms across her bosom in a little, pitiful gesture of outraged modesty. "Your men have taken them from me. I am ashamed, lord. They—laid their foul hands on my arms." Her face twisted as at the memory of insult, and the lieutenant who stood across the room laughed aloud. Young Zuan turned upon him fiercely.
"Hold your laughter for a fitter excuse!" he said. "Are we Huns, to insult women? Go out to those men and find the maid's garments. Bring them here." The man went, staring, and, at a motion of Gradenigo's head, the sailing-master followed him, leaving the two alone.
"I am sorry, child," said Zuan Gradenigo. "We did not come here to ill-treat women. I shall see that my men are punished for what they have done. Meanwhile—" He took up the mantle which he had put aside over a near-by bench, and, crossing the room, laid it over the girl's shoulders. It covered her almost to the feet. And when he had done this he stood, for what he imagined to be a moment, looking down into the eyes that held his so steadily—brave eyes, unafraid, unclouded, unwavering. One could not be harsh or cruel in the gaze of such—even though they looked from the face of an enemy. An enemy? Nonsense! A girl taken by chance as she wandered through the wood—as she peeped, full of childish curiosity, at the disembarkment of a ship's load of soldiers. Brave eyes, unafraid. That was why they held him so, because they fronted him without fear—even with trust.
HE LAID THE MANTLE OVER THE GIRL'S SHOULDERS
Ay, doubtless that was why they held him so, and yet—He stirred restlessly. Such great eyes! With such illimitable depths! How came a wandering child by such eyes? They moved him oddly. The child would seem to be an uncommon child. Those steady, burning eyes of hers had some uncommon power, worked some strange spell, some sorcery, not evil, but unfamiliarly sweet, unknown to his experience.
He gave a little, confused laugh and raised an uncertain hand towards his head, but the girl had, at the same moment, put out one of her own hands to fasten the clasp of Zuan's mantle at her throat, and his fingers touched her arm.
At that, as if it brought back her injuries to mind, she dropped her eyes, and the man was loosed incontinently from his chains.