"Let us go to her," said Leonardo, very low, when he could command his voice. "She is like a lovely child—resisting nothing. It is some shock—it will pass."
* * * * *
And now there came a day when the proud heart of Venice was stirred to its core, for a messenger dashed breathless into the Council Chamber—an excited, protesting throng of the populace surging in through the open door behind him. "Fra Paolo! Il caro Padre! Morto!"
"Dead!" They started to their feet with ready imprecations. Fra Paolo, who had left them an hour before, with the Signor Malipiero and his devoted secretary! They exchanged glances of terrible comprehension—the triumph of Venice was avenged upon the faithful servant of the State!
The Consiglio broke up in confusion.
"Eccellentissimi," the messenger explained to the horror-stricken questioners, "they were five,—rushing out from the dark of the convent wall against him when he came alone down the steps of the Ponte della Pugna,—the villains held the others down. And Fra Paolo lay dead on the Fondamenta—stabbed in many places, as if one would cut him in bits—and the stiletto still in his forehead! And they sent me——"
"'Alone'? you ask me, Illustrissimi?—Santissima Vergine! the whole city pouring in to the cries of those that found him; and the murderers off before one could touch them, and never a guard near! They carried him into the Servi.—And the people—furious—are storming the palazzo of the nuncio as I pass; and some one cries that the envoy is off to the Lido, with his fine friends, who start for Rome. A thousand devils!—May the good San Nicolò send them to feed the fishes!"
The Senate, to testify its honor, grief, and sympathy for the beloved Counsellor, had instantly adjourned, and its members repaired in great numbers to the convent to make personal inquiries, returning to a new session prolonged through the night; for Fra Paolo, who had fainted from loss of blood on his pallet in the Servite cell, had recovered consciousness and hovered between life and death—his humble bed attended by the most famous physicians and surgeons whom the Republic could summon to her aid. The secretaries, meanwhile, were busy in preparing resolutions of affection by which to honor him in the sight of the Venetian people; letters of announcement to foreign courts, as if he had been of the blood royal; proclamations of reward for the persons of the criminals, alive or dead, which, before the day had dawned, the Signori della Notte had affixed to the doors of San Marco, along the Rialto, on the breast of Ser Robia, that all might read. And for means of bringing the offenders to justice they plotted and schemed as none but Venetians could do.
It was three days since the storm, and the gastaldo had not yet been released, he also was simply detained, without ignominy or discomfort in rooms set apart for prisoners of State before they had been brought to trial; for the events of these days had been too absorbing to permit of an examination of his case. And now, in the gray dawn which broke upon that night of anxiety and excitement, alternating between hope and fear as frequent messengers, each guarded by a detachment of palace guards, appeared with fresh news from the convent, the weary senators strolled up and down in the great chambers opening on the sea façade of the Ducal Palace discussing the event in a more desultory way—its meaning, its dangers, the achievements of the great man who might, even now, be receiving the viaticum in the convent of the Servi.
He was first named with terms of endearment strange upon the lips of that stately assembly—"Il caro Padre," "Teologo amato di Venezia"—yet the guards had failed to seize those villains who lay in wait at the Ponte della Pugna! The bridges and traghetti must be closely watched.—Ah—the gastaldo grande!