"And who does that?" demanded the Uzcoque.
"Who! Need you ask the question? What do you give for the shelter you receive from Austria? At what price do you inhabit the town and castle of Segna?"
"At none that I am aware of," replied Dansowich fiercely. "We dwell there, in virtue of our compact with the Emperor, as soldiers of the Archduke, bound to defend the post confided to us against the aggressions of the infidel. As soldiers we have our pay, as mariners we have our lawful booty."
"Pay and booty!" repeated the Proveditore scornfully. "Whence comes, then, your manifest misery and poverty? Whence comes it that you turn robbers, if in the pay of Austria? No, Dansowich, you will not deceive us by such flimsy pretexts! Your gains, lawful and unlawful, are wrested from you by the archducal counsellors, in whose hands you are mere puppets. 'Twas they who prompted you to tell the Turks that you were in league with Venice; that the republic encouraged your misdeeds, and shared the profits of your aggressions on the subjects of the Porte. They it was who caused the documents to be prepared, with forged seals and signatures of the illustrious Signoria, which were to serve as proofs of your lying assertions. Deny this, if you can."
The beard and mustache of the old Uzcoque appeared to curl and bristle with fury at the insulting imputations of the Proveditore. For a moment he seemed about to fly at his interlocutor; his fingers clutched and tore the straw upon which he was sitting; and his fetters clanked as his whole frame shook with rage. After a brief pause, and by a strong effort, he restrained himself, and replied calmly to the taunting accusation of the Venetian.
"Why go so far," said he, "to seek for motives that may be found nearer home? You seem to have forgotten how many times the Archduke has compelled us to make restitution of booty wrested from Venetian subjects. You forget, too, that it was in consequence of your complaints he sent to the cruel Rabbata to control us—Rabbata whom we slew in our wrath, for we are freemen and brook no tyranny. If we are poor individually, it is because we yield up our booty into the hands of our woivodes, to be used for the common good of seven hundred families. No, Signor! if the republic has to complain of us, let her remember the provocations received at her hands, the persecutions which converted a band of heroes into a pirate horde, and which changed our holy zeal against the enemies of the Cross into remorseless hatred of all mankind. As to the forged seals and signatures you talk of, and the deceptions practised on the Turks, if such there were, they were the self-willed act of our woivodes, and in no way instigated by Austria."
"Thou liest, Dansowich!" said the Proveditore sternly. "Did you not proclaim and swear in the public market-place of the Austrian town of Segna, that you were the friends and allies of Venice? This you would never have dared to do, but with the approval and connivance of the archducal government."
The eyes of the pirate sparkled with a strange and significant gleam as the Proveditore recalled the circumstance to his recollection.
"Know ye not," said he with a grim smile, "whom ye have to thank for that good office? 'Twas Dansowich himself, who thereby but half fulfilled his vow of vengeance against the republic. And when did it occur?" he continued with rising fury. "Was it not shortly after the day in which that heartless villain, the Proveditore Marcello, captured the woivode's wife, and hung her, unoffending and defenceless, unshriven and unabsolved, upon a tree on the Dalmatian shore?"
The Uzcoque paused, overcome by the bitter memories he was calling up, and by the fury and hatred they revived in his breast. His eyes were bloodshot, and the foam stood upon his lips as he concluded. The Proveditore smiled. The favourable moment he had been waiting had arrived, the moment when he doubted not that Dansowich would betray himself. Taking Antonio's drawing from under his cloak, he suddenly unrolled and held it before the Uzcoque, in such a manner that the light of the lantern fell full upon the ghastly countenance of the old woman.