Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “Oh! In that case I congratulate you, my dear friend!” returned Contarini gaily.

  The others laughed at the retort, and the party broke up, though all did not go at once. Venier went out alone, while two or three walked with Contarini to his gondola. The rest stayed behind in the shop and made old Hossein unroll his choicest carpets and show them his most precious embroideries, though he protested that it was already much too dark to appreciate such choice things. But they did not wish to be seen coming away in a body, for such playing was very strictly forbidden, and the spies of the Ten were everywhere.

  Contarini dismissed his gondola at the house of the Agnus Dei, and was admitted by the trusted servant who had once taken a message to Zorzi. He found Arisa waiting for him in her favourite place by the open window, and the glow of the setting sun made little fires in her golden hair. She could tell by his face that he had been fortunate at play, and her smile was very soft and winning. As he sank down beside her in the luxurious silence of satisfaction, her fingers were stealthily trying the weight of his laden wallet. She could not lift it with one hand. She smiled again, as she thought how easily Aristarchi would carry the money in his teeth, well tied and knotted in a kerchief, when he slipped down the silk rope from her window, though it would be much wiser to exchange it for pearls and diamonds which Contarini might see and admire, and which she could easily take with her in her final flight.

  He trusted her, too, in his careless way, and that night, when he was ready to go down and admit his companions, he would empty most of the gold into a little coffer in which he often left the key, taking but just enough to play with, and almost sure of winning more.

  She was very gentle on that evening, when the sun had gone down, and they sat in the deepening dusk, and she spoke sadly of not seeing him for several hours. It would be so lonely, she said, and since he could play in the daytime, why should he give up half of one precious night to those tiresome dice? He laughed indolently, pleased that she should not even suspect the real object of the meetings.

  By and by, when it was an hour after dark, and they had eaten of delicate things which a silent old woman brought them on small silver platters, Contarini went down to let in his guests, and Arisa was alone, as usual on such evenings. For a long time she lay quite still among the cushions, in the dark, for Jacopo had taken the light with him. She loved to be in darkness, as she always told him, and for very good reasons, and she had so accustomed herself to it as to see almost as well as Aristarchi himself, for whom she was waiting.

  At last she heard the expected signal of his coming, the soft and repeated splashing of an oar in the water just below the window. In a moment she was in the inner room, to receive him in her straining arms, longing to be half crushed to death in his. But to-night, even as he held her in the first embrace of meeting, she felt that something had happened, and that there was a change in him. She drew him to the little light that burned in her chamber before the image, and looked into his face, terrified at the thought of what she might see there. He smiled at her and raised his shaggy eyebrows as if to ask if she really distrusted him.

  “Yes,” he said, nodding his big head slowly, “something has happened. You are quick at guessing. We are going to-night. There is moonlight and the tide will serve in two or three hours. Get ready what you need and put together the jewels and the money.”

  “To-night!” cried Arisa, very much surprised. “To-night? Do you really mean it?”

  “Yes. I am in earnest. Michael has emptied my house of all my belongings to-day and has taken the keys back to the owner. We have plenty of time, for I suppose those overgrown boys are playing at dice downstairs, and I think I shall take leave of Contarini in person.”

  “You are capable of anything!” laughed Arisa. “I should like to see you tear him into little strips, so that every shred should keep alive to be tortured!”

  “How amiable! What gentle thoughts you have! Indeed, you women are sweet creatures!”

  With her small white hand she jestingly pretended to box his huge ears.

  “You would be well paid if I refused to go with you,” she said with a low laugh. “But I should like to know why you have decided so suddenly. What is the matter? What is to become of all our plans, and of Contarini’s marriage? Tell me quickly!”

  “I have had a visit from an officer of the Ten to-day,” he said. “The Ten send me greeting, as it were, and their service, and kindly invite me to leave Venice within twenty-four hours. As the Ten are the only persons in Venice for whom I have the smallest respect, I shall show it by accepting their invitation.”

  “But why? What have you done?”

  “Of course it is not a serious matter to give a sound beating to an officer of justice and six of his men,” answered Aristarchi, “but it is not the custom here, and they suspect me of having done it. To tell the truth, I think I am hardly treated. I have sent Zorzi back to Murano, and if the Ten have the sense to look for him where he has been living for five years, they will find him at once, at work in that stifling furnace-room. But I fancy that is too simple for them.”

  He told her how Pasquale had come in the morning, and how the officer who had been in pursuit of him had searched the ship for Zorzi in vain. The order to leave Venice had come an hour later. The anchors were now up, and the vessel was riding to a kedge by a light hawser, well out in the channel. As soon as Arisa could be brought on board Aristarchi meant to make sail, for the strong offshore breeze would blow all night.

  “We may as well leave nothing behind,” said Aristarchi coolly. “Michael will wait for us below, in one of the ship’s boats. There is room for all Contarini’s possessions, if we could only get at them.”

  “Would it not be better to be content with what we have already, and to go at once?” asked Arisa rather timidly.

  “No,” replied Aristarchi. “I am going to say good-bye to your old friend in my own way.”

  “Do you mean to kill him?” asked Arisa in a whisper, though it was quite safe for them to talk in natural tones. “I could go behind him and throw something over his head.”

  Aristarchi grinned, and pressed her beautiful head to his breast, caressing her with his rough hands.

  “You are as bloodthirsty as a little tigress,” he said. “No. I do not even mean to hurt him.”

  “Oh, I hoped you would,” answered the Georgian woman. “I have hated him so long. Will you not kill him, just to please me? We could wind him in a sheet with a weight, you know, and drop him into the canal, and no one would ever know. I have often thought of it.”

  “Have you, my gentle little sweetheart?” Aristarchi chuckled with delight as he stroked her hair. “I am sorry,” he continued. “The fact is, I am not a Georgian like you. I have been brought up among people of civilisation, and I have scruples about killing any one. Besides, sweet dove, if we were to kill the son of one of the Council of Ten, the Council would pursue us wherever we went, for Venice is very powerful. But the Ten will not lift a hand to revenge a good-for-nothing young gamester whose slave has run away with her first love! Every one will laugh at Contarini if he tries to get redress. It is better to laugh than to be laughed at, it is better to be laughed at than to cry, it is better to cry one’s eyes blind than to be hanged.”

  Having delivered himself of these opinions Aristarchi began to look about him for whatever might be worth the trouble of carrying off, and Arisa collected all her jewels from the caskets in which they were kept, and little bags of gold coins which she had hidden in different places. She also lit a candle and brought Aristarchi to the small coffer in which Contarini kept ready gold for play, and which was now more than half full.

  “The dowry of the glass-maker’s daughter!” observed the Greek as he carried it off.

  There were small objects of gold and silver on the tables in the large room, there was a dagger with a jewelled hilt, an illuminated mass book in a chased silver case.

  “You will need it on Sundays at sea,”
said Aristarchi.

  “I cannot read,” said the Georgian slave regretfully. “But it will be a consolation to have the missal.”

  Aristarchi smiled and tossed the book upon the heap of things.

  “It would be amusing to pay a visit to those young fools downstairs, and to take all their money and leave them locked up for the night,” he said, as if a thought had struck him.

  “There are too many of them,” answered Arisa, laying her hand anxiously upon his arm. “And they are all armed. Please do nothing so foolish.”

  “If they are all like Contarini, I do not mind twenty of them or so,” laughed Aristarchi. “They must have more than a thousand gold ducats amongst them. That would be worth taking.”

  “They are not all like Contarini,” said Arisa. “There is Zuan Venier, for instance.”

  “Zuan Venier? Is he one of them? I have heard of him. I should like to see whether he could be frightened, for they say it is impossible.”

  Aristarchi scratched his head, pushing his shaggy hair forward over his forehead, as he tried to think of an effectual scheme for producing the desired result.

  “The Ten might pursue us for that, as well as for a murder,” said Arisa.

  Meanwhile the friends assembled in the room downstairs had been occupied for a long time in hearing what Zuan Venier had to say to Jacopo Contarini, concerning the latter’s treatment of Zorzi. For Venier had kept his word, and as soon as all were present he had boldly spoken his mind, in a tone which his friends were not accustomed to hear. At first Contarini had answered with offended surprise, asking what concern it could be of Venier’s whether a miserable glass-blower were exiled or not, and he appealed to the others, asking whether it would not be far better for them all that such an outsider as Zorzi should be banished from Venice. But Venier retorted that the Dalmatian had taken the same oath as the rest of the company, that he was an honest man, besides being a great artist as his master asseverated, and that he had the same right to the protection of each and all of them as Contarini himself. To the latter’s astonishment this speech was received with unanimous approbation, and every man present, except Contarini, promised his help and that of his family, so far as he might obtain it.

  “I have advised Beroviero,” Venier then continued, “if he can find the young artist, to make him go before the Council of Ten of his own free will, taking some of his works with him. And now that this question is settled, I propose to you all that our society cease to have any political or revolutionary aim whatever, for I am of opinion that we are risking our necks for a game at dice and for nothing else, which is childish. The only liberty we are vindicating, so far as I can see, is that of gaming as much as we please, and if we do that, and nothing more, we shall certainly not go between the red columns for it. A fine or a few months of banishment to the mainland would be the worst that could happen. As things are now, we are not only in danger of losing our heads at any moment, which is an affair of merely relative importance, but we may be tempted to make light of a solemn promise, which seems to me a very grave matter.”

  Thereupon Venier looked round the table, and almost all the men were of his opinion. Contarini flushed angrily, but he knew himself to be in the wrong and though he was no coward, he had not the sort of temper that faces opposition for its own sake. He therefore began to rattle the dice in the box as a hint to all that the discussion was at an end.

  But his good fortune seemed gone, and instead of winning at almost every throw, as he had won in the afternoon, he soon found that he had almost exhausted the heap of gold he had laid on the table, and which he had thought more than enough. He staked the remainder with Foscari, who won it at a cast, and laughed.

  “You offered us our revenge,” said the big man. “We mean to take it!”

  But though Contarini was not a good fighter, he was a good gamester, and never allowed himself to be disturbed by ill-luck. He joined in the laugh and rose from the table.

  “You must forgive me,” he said, “if I leave you for a moment. I must fill my purse before I play again.”

  “Do not stay too long!” laughed Loredan. “If you do, we shall come and get you, and then we shall know the colour of the lady’s hair.”

  Contarini laughed as he went to the door, opened it and stealthily set the key in the lock on the outside.

  “I shall lock you in while I am gone!” he cried. “You are far too inquisitive!”

  Laughing gaily he turned the key on the whole company, and he heard their answering laughter as he went away, for they accepted the jest, and continued playing.

  He entered the large room upstairs, just as Aristarchi had finished tying up the heavy bundle in the inner chamber. Arisa heard the well-known footstep, and placed one hand over Aristarchi’s mouth, lest he should speak, while the other pointed to the curtained door. The Greek held his breath.

  “Arisa! Arisa!” Contarini called out. “Bring me a light, sweetest!”

  Without hesitation Arisa took the lighted candle, and making a gesture of warning to Aristarchi went quickly to the other room. The Greek crept towards the door, the big veins standing out like knots on his rugged temples, his great hands opened wide, with the tips of the fingers a little turned in. He was like a wrestler ready to get his hold with a spring.

  “I want some more money,” Contarini was saying, in explanation. “They said they would follow me if I stayed too long, so I have locked them in! I think I shall keep them waiting a while. What do you say, love?”

  He laughed again, aloud, and on the other side of the curtain Aristarchi grinned from ear to ear and noiselessly loosened the black sash he wore round his waist. For once in his life, as Zorzi would have said, he had not a coil of rope at hand when he needed it, but the sash was strong and would serve the purpose. He pushed the curtain aside, a very little, in order to see before springing.

  Contarini stood half turned away from the door, clasping Arisa to his breast and kissing her hair. The next moment he was sprawling on the floor, face downwards, and Arisa was pressing one of the soft cushions from the divan upon his head to smother his cries, while Aristarchi bound his hands firmly together behind him with one end of the long sash, and in spite of his desperate struggle got a turn with the rest round both his feet, drew them back as far as he could and hitched the end twice. Jacopo was now perfectly helpless, but he was not yet dumb. Aristarchi had brought his tools with him, in the bosom of his doublet.

  Kneeling on Contarini’s shoulders he took out a small iron instrument, shaped exactly like a pear, but which by a screw, placed where the stem would be, could be made to open out in four parts that spread like the petals of a flower. Arisa looked on with savage interest, for she believed that it was some horrible instrument of torture; and indeed it was the iron gag, the ‘pear of anguish,’ which the torturers used in those days, to silence those whom they called their patients.

  Holding the instrument closed, Aristarchi pushed his hand under the cushion. He knew that Contarini’s mouth would be open, as he must be half suffocated and gasping for breath. In an instant the iron pear had slipped between his teeth and had opened its relentless leaves, obedient to the screw.

  “Take the pillow away,” said Aristarchi quietly. “We can say good-bye to your old acquaintance now, but he will have to content himself with nodding his head in a friendly way.”

  He turned the helpless man upon his side, for owing to the position of his heels and hands Contarini could not lie on his back. Then Aristarchi set the candle on the floor near his face and looked at him and indulged himself in a low laugh. Contarini’s face was deep red with rage and suffocation, and his beautiful brown eyes were starting from their sockets with a terror which increased when he saw far the first time the man with whom he had to deal, or rather who was about to deal with him, and most probably without mercy. Then he caught sight of Arisa, smiling at him, but not as she had been wont to smile. Aristarchi spoke at last, in an easy, reassuring tone.

  “My f
riend,” he said, “I am not going to hurt you any more. You may think it strange, but I really shall not kill you. Arisa and I have loved each other for a long time, and since she has lived here, I have come to her almost every night. I know your house almost as well as you do, and you have kindly told me that your friends are all looked in. We shall therefore not have the trouble of leaving by the window, since we can go out by the front door, where my boat will be waiting for us. You will never see us again.”

  Contarini’s eyes rolled wildly, and still Arisa smiled.

  “You have made him suffer,” she said. “He loved me.”

  “Before we go,” continued the Greek, folding his arms and looking down upon his miserable enemy, “I think it fair to warn you that under the praying-stool in Arisa’s room there is an air shaft through which we have heard all your conversation, during these secret meetings of yours. If you try to pursue us, I shall send information to the Ten, which will cut off most of your heads. As they are so empty it might seem to be scarcely worth while to take them, but the Ten know best. I can rely on your discretion. If I were not sure of it I would accede to this dear lady’s urgent request and cut you up into small pieces.”

  Contarini writhed and sputtered, but could make no sound.

  “I promised not to hurt you any more, my friend, and I am a man of my word. But I have long admired your hair and beard. You see I was in Saint Mark’s when you went there to meet the glass-maker’s daughter, and I have seen you at other times. I should be sorry never to see such a beautiful beard again, so I mean to take it with me, and if you will keep quiet, I shall really not hurt you.”

  Thereupon he produced from his doublet a bright pair of shears, and knelt down by the wretched man’s head. Contarini twisted himself as be might and tried instinctively to draw his head away.

  “I have heard that pirates sometimes accidentally cut off a prisoner’s ear,” said Aristarchi. “If you will not move, I am quite sure that I shall not be so awkward as to do that.”