Venetian Marco Polo himself, wide-eyed and eager, toiling across burning
wastes to the Great Khan of far-off Cathay, was not more imbued with the
very spirit of adventure than were St. Hilary and I that April
afternoon, as we set forth on our little voyage of discovery in a
prosaic gondola.
We had lunched at the Grundewald. We rose with a certain deliberation,
and walked toward the Molo. The band was thundering out a Strauss waltz.
The Piazza was filled with its usual laughing, chattering crowd, eating
and drinking at the hundreds of round little tables that overflowed a
quarter of the square.
I could not help thinking what a sensation I should cause if the great
throng was suddenly to be stilled, while from the balcony up there by
the four bronze horses I cried aloud for all the square to hear that we
two adventurers of the twentieth century were about to lay bare one of
the mysteries of Venice–that we were to bring forth to the light of day
a marvelous treasure that had been hid for nearly half a thousand years.
How they would howl me into a shamed silence with their jeers and
laughter! And supposing that I could tell them the very hiding-place,
would one of all those hundreds, even the poorest, take the trouble to
go and see? Would the hunchbacked bootblack in the Arcade there, gnarled
and twisted with the cold of winter and the heat of summer? Would the
Jewish shopkeepers, the antiquarian in the library, the tourists, who
had come three thousand miles to feast their eyes on wonders? Not the
most visionary would stir in his seat. Only St. Hilary and I, it
appeared, in the whole world were absolute fools this afternoon.
“_E dove?_” demanded the gondolier, after we had taken our seats.
“_Canalazzo_,” I cried, “_e presto, molto, molto presto._”
“_Si, si, signore_,” he cried with enthusiasm, scenting a generous tip.
The sun, just dipping behind the dome of the Salute, blazed fiercely,
but the awning of our gondola was thrown back. Swiftly we swept down the
sun-kissed stream, cleaving the lake of gold. The great palaces on
either side, ablaze with riotous color, seemed as unreal as a painted
picture. What had we to do with this mysterious Venice, this enchantress
of the seas, holding herself aloof in melancholy disdain? Like curious
savages, we were to prowl in her very holy of holies. We were to despoil
her of her last glorious treasure, that she had guarded so jealously
these hundreds of years.
The fantasy burst as a bubble in thin air. Behind us raced a boatful of
trippers, the two oarsmen exerting every effort to urge on their craft
to the railway station. There were the English _père de famille_; the
comfortable mamma with a chick on either side. And about them were piled
high bandboxes and shawls, portmanteaus and carryalls. It was the
twentieth century after all. It was quite fitting that we should be
seeking to reap where we had not sown.
We passed the Grand Hotel. Mrs. Gordon, Jacqueline, and the duke were
seated on the balcony. I raised my hat mechanically. The duke returned
the greeting with a flourish. Mrs. Gordon was suddenly interested in the
customs-house opposite. Jacqueline smiled, but her greeting would have
been as cordial to the concierge of her hotel. My face burned. I wished
to tell St. Hilary to continue the search without me, and yet I
hesitated. Even now, one nod to the gondolier and I could be landed at
the steps; but I hesitated, and in five seconds we had passed. Before I
had wholly recovered my presence of mind we were at the Rio di Bocca.
Our gondolier uttered his weird cry of warning. The gondola turned the
corner sharply. We were in cool depths. The smell of damp mortar, that
indefinable moist smell of the _canaletti_ of Venice smote our nostrils.
We skirted an old wall, bulging outward with decrepitude; a narrow quay,
bathed in sunlight; the barred windows of a palace, blackness and gloom
within. A barge of bricks was poled slowly past us, then a funeral
catafalque. A hotel omnibus just escaped collision. I saw it all, but I
saw it all unheeding. Three years of selfish ease and irresponsibility
had left me incapable of quick decision at this critical moment. And now
another opportunity to become reconciled to Jacqueline had passed. I had
raised one more barrier between us.
St. Hilary shouted sharply to the gondolier. We came to a sudden stop.
We were at the sixtieth palace, and its façade was as bare as the sheet
of an unsigned hotel register.
“So again we have come on a fool’s errand,” he groaned.
The gondolier leaned forward and touched my sleeve. He had observed our
perplexity. He pointed to a palace we had just passed.
“Ecco, Signori, the House of the Angel! It is not this one. It is the
third back.”
“The third back?” I repeated mechanically. I let my glance follow his
outstretched finger. With a twist of the oar he had turned the gondola
again toward the Grand Canal.
“Behold, Signore, the House of the Angel. Up there, in the niche over
the door.”
I raised my eyes dully. I had no idea what the man was talking about.
The palace at whose steps we had halted was a magnificent structure of
the fourteenth century, so beautiful that in any other city than Venice
it would have been worth a pilgrimage to see. Over the doorway was a
triangular niche, a kind of shrine. A half figure of an angel was carved
in the niche, and a kneeling child looked quaintly up into the angel’s
face. The gondolier pointed to the shrine reverently.
“The angel is to drive away the evil spirits, Signore. The evil spirit
of a pig once dwelt in this beautiful palace. I assure the Signore that
I am telling him the truth, though there are many hundreds of years
since the evil soul of the pig was conjured away by the angel and the
little child. The house is now sweet and clean of all evil, and is
called the House of the Angel. But look, Signore, you can see the
unclean pigs that were carved in the wall by the wicked builder. Before
they were broken, the house was called the House of the Pigs.”
We looked upward.
The house had a frieze made of a capriciously carved array of pigs. The
posture of each two of the creatures was the same: the one recumbent,
the other erect. The heads and the feet and most of the bodies had been
stricken off.
“It is very simple,” cried St. Hilary exultingly. “Our husks of corn
have simply become the bodies of pigs. We have found the second
landmark.”
He held the photograph of the background of the second hour before me.
That background, it will be remembered, was a hanging, and on this
hanging a decorative scheme that we had supposed to be husks of corn.
I forgot my folly in passing Jacqueline, and her cold greeting. Here was
proof indisputable that we were really on the track of the casket at
last.
“But why,” queried St. Hilary, knitting his forehead in perplexity,
“should it be the fifty-seventh palace, and not the sixtieth?”
I opened the Bible, and again read the story. I saw our mistake
immediately. In our haste to test this new theory of mine we had not
read the narrative with sufficient care.
“There is another verse that we have omitted to read. It follows
immediately after.” I read it aloud:
_And within three days they could not declare the riddle._
“You observe the expression ‘within.’ That is to say, we were not to
look for the sixtieth palace, but for the fifty-seventh, or the third
within sixty.”
“Ah, that is quite clear,” cried St. Hilary with a sigh of relief. “And
now for the next landmark. Read your passage of the second hour again.”
_And there went forth a champion out of the camp of the Philistines,
named Goliath, whose height was six cubits and a span._
“Six cubits and a span,” he mused. “What the deuce are the six cubits
and a span?”
“Let us look around.” I motioned to the gondolier to rest on his oars.
We drifted slowly past the House of the Angel. The next house was a
warehouse–an ugly four-story building, set some five paces back. The
upper stories projected over the lowest story, and were supported by
pillars.
“There are six of those pillars, and there is a door. Can that be your
cubits and a span?”
I shook my head. “Those pillars are of wood. This warehouse could not
have been built when the goldsmith made his casket.”
“True; and it would be a senseless proceeding to lead us past the
fifty-seventh palace, only to land us at the fifty-eighth.”
“But look, St. Hilary, we have been so close to the forest that we have
failed to see the trees. Do you observe those circular windows just over
our heads? There are just six of them. As for the span, isn’t a span
half a cubit? The top of that squat door let into the wall there is
semi-circular in shape; the semi-circle, the exact counterpart of the
upper part of the windows. Nothing could be more clear.”
“My only fear is that it is too clear to be true,” he said anxiously.
“We shall soon determine that.”
I stood upright on the seat of the gondola, and, reaching forward,
pulled a rusty bell that hung beside the low door. Our gondola, at a
sign from me, had been rowed up stream once more.
In response to my vigorous summons a servant appeared at the main door
of the House of the Angel.
“What may the Signori desire?” he inquired.
“We are architects,” lied St. Hilary glibly. “We are very desirous to
see your garden. We understand that it is a very curious old garden.”
The servant in the shabby livery shook his head.
“The Signori Inglesi are mistaken,” he answered politely. “The
interesting garden belongs to the House of the Camel just behind this
palazzina. Our garden has only artichokes and asparagus and beans and
things.”
“The House of the Camel!” I exclaimed involuntarily.
St. Hilary pinched my arm for silence. “But there is a passage through
your garden that leads to the garden of the other house, is there not?”
He jingled insinuatingly some loose coins in his pocket.
“Ah, yes, Signore, that is true. A long, long time ago, a great
nobleman, dwelt in this house, and his daughter lived in the house
behind. He had a gate made in the wall that divides the two gardens. The
gate is still there.”
“Excellent! And you will lead us into the garden of the House of the
Camel by that gate?”
Without further parley, St. Hilary leaped lightly ashore. I followed his
example, and tossed our fare to the gondolier.
“Thoughtful of you to send off that chap. We can’t be too careful,”
remarked St. Hilary as we followed the servant in the shabby livery into
the hall.
This hall, as in all Venetian palaces, ran through the house from front
to rear. At its end was a glass door. The door unlocked, we were in the
garden. A path turned to the right, joining a broad walk fringed with a
well-trimmed hedge of box. This walk led straight to the gate–our gate
of the third hour. There was no need to refer to the photograph. It was
unmistakable.
“The Signori are of course expected?” asked the servant hesitatingly, as
he unlocked this gate.
“Naturally,” replied St. Hilary, dropping a piece of silver in his palm.
The gate was locked behind us.
“How are we to find our way out?” I demanded.
St. Hilary was staring about him as one who knows his ground.
“My dear Hume,” he grinned, “I know my way out perfectly. Allow me to
point out to you the Well of the Pomegranates and the Loops, and
immediately over the doorway there the Sign of the Blind Camel. We are
at the landmark of the fourth hour.”
“And the ten figures on the disks of the third hour are represented by
these busts built in the wall–five in either wall. We are getting on.
But why, I wonder, did da Sestos lead us to this landmark by the way of
the House of the Angel? He might have brought us here directly by the
Campo San Salvatore.”
“Because,” commented St. Hilary, “the way by land would have
necessitated a dozen directions. By water we have come without undue
perplexity in three. But here, I am afraid, our voyage of discovery must
end for to-night. We shall have to puzzle out the fifth hour before we
can go farther.”
I had opened the Bible that I had brought with me from the gondola, and,
supported by the curb of the well, I rested it on my knee, turning to
the Book of Genesis. I read the verse of the fourth hour:
_And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking at the well, that
the man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets
for her hands of ten shekels’ weight of gold._
“This is obscure enough,” I said ruefully. “This jargon of a golden
earring and of half a shekel weight and two bracelets of ten shekels’
weight will take some time to reason out, especially as we have no idea
what to look for.”
“And I think.” St. Hilary remarked, “we are to be interrupted. Here
comes one of the priests of the seminary to see what business we have in
his garden.”
“Gentlemen,” asked the padre politely, as we bowed with an assurance
that belied my feelings at least, “you are looking for some one? I saw
you admitted a moment ago by the gate yonder.”
“Yes,” boldly lied St. Hilary once more. “We were about to ring your
bell. We went to the House of the Angel by mistake. We are architects,
and we have heard that you have a wonderful old dial. We are making a
study of the curious dials of Venice. Would you show us yours?”
St. Hilary’s question was not so idle as might appear. He was ignoring
the existence of the fifth landmark, and was asking for the sixth
landmark, which we had identified in this way. The Venetian scene of the
sixth hour, it will be remembered, was that of the Doge and the poet
Petrarch seated in the balcony of San Marco, overlooking the Piazza, and
watching the festivities below, symbolized by the dancing automaton
figure, that advanced ten steps to the front and ten to the rear. The
parallel story in the Bible we had found by a rather roundabout process.
Some days before I had accidentally made the discovery that the face of
the Doge bore a remarkable resemblance to the prophet Isaiah as depicted
in one of the mosaics of San Marco. Naturally, then, when we hunted up
the Biblical stories of the hour, after my return from church, we looked
for a story in which the prophet Isaiah figured as one of the
characters. The concordance at the back of my Oxford Bible referred us
to the story of the Jewish King Hezekiah, who, sick unto death, went to
the prophet Isaiah for a sign that he should recover his strength. And
this was the verse:
_And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What shall be the sign? And Isaiah said,
Shall the shadow of the dial go back ten degrees or shall the shadow go
forward?_
The little automaton figure advancing and retreating ten steps
symbolized plainly the going forward and backward of the shadow. This
was significant in itself, and might have made us tolerably sure that a
dial was to be the landmark. But when, in the light of this story, we
looked carefully at the railing of the balcony as photographed in our
snap-shot, we noticed at once that the ironwork of the railing was of
intertwined circles, intersected by diameters drawn through each of
their centers. The circles, then, stood for the dial; the diameter, for
the needle of the dial. We might be reasonably certain that our search
would be narrowed to more and more defined limits. Even without the
landmark of the fifth hour, by which we should be able to discover the
locality of the dial for ourselves (provided always that we could
interpret the numbers aright), it was not an extravagant hope of St.
Hilary’s that the padre might direct us to the landmark of the sixth
hour. I waited breathlessly for his answer. Let the gods be propitious;
let fortune smile!
The gaunt but handsome face of the young priest was lighted up with a
charming smile.
“But it will be an honor,” he said, “to show our curious dial to the
American gentlemen.”
“English, pardon me,” corrected St. Hilary readily, and he pinched my
arm. “We leave Venice for London in an hour or so. This is the last and
most curious dial we expect to see.”
What a polished and delightful liar the dealer in antiquities was! But a
cautious one withal. For aught we knew, we might be prowling about these
premises with a jimmy and dark lantern before many more moons, and it
might be convenient to prove an alibi.
I had expected the priest to lead us to an obscure corner of the garden.
To my surprise and disappointment he took us directly to the house. Of
what use could a dial be under a roof? The good fathers of the seminary
had taken it from the garden, in all likelihood, and placed it within
doors as an interesting curiosity for their pupils to gape at.
“Perhaps you know, gentlemen,” said the priest, as he led the way up a
broad and dreary stairway, devoid of ornament, but scrupulously clean,
“that this was once the house of the Venetian astrologer, Jacopo Bembo.
Here, some two hundred years ago, came the flower of the Venetian
aristocracy. They came to consult him–one for a love philter; another
for a talisman against the plague; another, perhaps, for a deadly potion
to still the beating of a rival’s heart. Some strange and dark scenes, I
suspect, have taken place in the laboratory of Messer Bembo. And this is
it.”
We had ascended to the third story. He threw open the door of a large
room. There were some maps on the wall, desks, and chairs. It was
evidently used now as a school-room.
“But the dial?” I cried impatiently.
“Oh, the dial is on the roof. Have you ever heard of a dial being in so
strange a place before?”
“It is precisely that,” I cried joyously, “that makes it so unique in
interest for us.”
“And this dial on the roof will make our collection of curious dials
quite complete,” added St. Hilary gravely.
We walked a few steps down the echoing landing. The worthy padre opened
a door. A narrow wooden stairway led to the roof.
“If you will pardon me, I will precede you, gentlemen. There is a
trapdoor at the top.”
“And did the great astrologer Bembo have to climb out of that hole
whenever he wished to consult the hour of day?” I asked jocosely.
“You will see,” answered the priest smiling.
When first we stepped out on the roof, the glitter of the fierce sun on
the leads blinded us. We looked in vain for the dial. The priest walked
to the parapet where a stone bench stood and pointed to a large circle
cut deep in the leads at the foot of the bench.
“Ecco, Signori, your curious dial, and the Signs of the Zodiac also. The
needle of the dial is not the truly original one. That was broken long
ago. But the one we have replaced it with is precisely similar to the
antique.”
St. Hilary and I sank on our knees to observe it the more closely and to
whisper to each other without the good father overhearing us. The dealer
traced a line tremblingly with his forefinger.
“Here,” he whispered, “is where the shadow falls at twelve o’clock. Ten
degrees before that, it must point in this direction.”
He squinted along the imaginary line. It led him over the parapet, and
in either direction it directed us to nothing more definite than the
blue sky.
“But at ten degrees after twelve,” I whispered hoarsely, “it points with
absolute directness to that square tower, the tower of Noah and his
dove, depend upon it. We have found the seventh landmark.”
We stood upright and brushed the dust from our knees. St. Hilary
produced a note-book, and began to scribble notes and to sketch the dial
with every show of professional interest.
“Yes, it is a great curiosity, this dial,” purred the priest with
satisfaction. “Here, in the cool of summer nights, when the sirocco has
been blowing all day, I often come to sit and ponder the issues of life
and death, as, no doubt, the old astrologer did before me.”
“You have a splendid view,” I remarked carelessly. “What is that square
tower over there? It appears to be the tower of a palace.”
“Yes, signore, it is the tower of the Palazzo Cæsarini. If you are
architects, you ought to see that palace. It is full of interest.”
“The Cæsarini Palace, you said, I think?” inquired St. Hilary, still
scribbling.
“Exactly, and it is known popularly as the Palazzo degli Scrigni.”
“The Palace of the Iron Safes!” I cried, startled.
“The signori Inglesi must understand that, very long ago, when the house
of the Cæsarini was the most powerful in Venice, as it still is one of
the richest, the Prince Cæsarini had two great iron safes built in the
walls of his cellars to keep his treasure in. These safes were contrived
by a certain goldsmith called da Sestos. Yes, the palace is worth
seeing. But do not attempt to see it until after Wednesday, because a
grand _bal masqué_ is to be given on that evening, and they are busy
making great preparations.”
“Ah, yes, we must have a look at it some time,” said St. Hilary
carelessly. “A thousand thanks for your courtesy, father. _Buona sera._”
“_Buona sera, signori._”