There arose cries and shoutings without, and a petty officer burst into the hut, puffed with importance and pride.
"Prisoners, lord!" he reported. "Three spies caught skulking and peeping in the wood."
"Bring them in!" said young Zuan. "And keep those men quiet outside. Do you wish the whole island to know we are here?"
The prisoners were thrust into the room—great, squat, hairy fellows in the barbaric dress of Huns, surly and villanous. They would not speak. It was evident that they understood neither Italian nor Greek, and they affected not to comprehend the sailing-master's halting efforts at their own tongue. They only stared under their shaggy brows, silent and stolid, and tugged at the hands which were bound behind them.
"Are these men?" cried out young Zuan, in fine Venetian scorn. "Take the cattle away! Bind their feet and set a guard over them. Hark! What is that?"
That was a woman's scream from without, low and very angry.
"But a woman, lord," explained the officer who had brought in the prisoners—"a young wench who was prowling with these fellows and was taken with them. Asking your lordship's pardon, I thought it idle to bring her to you—a common wench."
"Take these men away," said young Gradenigo, "and bring in the woman. It may be that she speaks a Christian tongue."
She crept into the hut, pressing against the side of the doorway, and stood against the farther wall—a girl, a mere slip of a girl, with her long brown hair down over her eyes. And there against the wall she stood, shaking, her hands twisting together over her breast, and her eyes, like the eyes of a hunted, cornered animal, went swiftly from one face to another of the men across the room, and finally settled upon the face of Zuan Gradenigo, and did not stir for a long time.
She stood in her thin white shift, and on her bared arms were marks as if rough hands and none too clean had been there.