THE servant picked up a lantern and signed to Tony to follow her. They
climbed a squalid stairway of stone, felt their way along a corridor,
and entered a tall vaulted room feebly lit by an oil-lamp hung from the
painted ceiling. Tony discerned traces of former splendour in his
surroundings, but he had no time to examine them, for a figure started
up at his approach and in the dim light he recognized the girl who was
the cause of all his troubles.
She sprang toward him with outstretched hands, but as he advanced her
face changed and she shrank back abashed.
"This is a misunderstanding--a dreadful misunderstanding," she cried
out in her pretty broken English. "Oh, how does it happen that you are
here?"
"Through no choice of my own, madam, I assure you!" retorted Tony, not
over-pleased by his reception.
"But why--how--how did you make this unfortunate mistake?"
"Why, madam, if you'll excuse my candour, I think the mistake was
yours--"
"Mine?"--"in sending me a letter--"
"_You_--a letter?"--"by a simpleton of a lad, who must needs hand it
to me under your father's very nose--"
The girl broke in on him with a cry. "What! It was _you_ who received
my letter?" She swept round on the little maid-servant and submerged
her under a flood of Venetian. The latter volleyed back in the same
jargon, and as she did so, Tony's astonished eye detected in her the
doubleted page who had handed him the letter in Saint Mark's.
"What!" he cried, "the lad was this girl in disguise?"
Polixena broke off with an irrepressible smile; but her face clouded
instantly and she returned to the charge.
"This wicked, careless girl--she has ruined me, she will be my undoing!
Oh, sir, how can I make you understand? The letter was not intended for
you--it was meant for the English Ambassador, an old friend of my
mother's, from whom I hoped to obtain assistance--oh, how can I ever
excuse myself to you?"
"No excuses are needed, madam," said Tony, bowing; "though I am
surprised, I own, that any one should mistake me for an ambassador."
Here a wave of mirth again overran Polixena's face. "Oh, sir, you must
pardon my poor girl's mistake. She heard you speaking English,
and--and--I had told her to hand the letter to the handsomest foreigner
in the church." Tony bowed again, more profoundly. "The English
Ambassador," Polixena added simply, "is a very handsome man."
"I wish, madam, I were a better proxy!"
She echoed his laugh, and then clapped her hands together with a look
of anguish. "Fool that I am! How can I jest at such a moment? I am in
dreadful trouble, and now perhaps I have brought trouble on you
also--Oh, my father! I hear my father coming!" She turned pale and
leaned tremblingly upon the little servant.
Footsteps and loud voices were in fact heard outside, and a moment
later the red-stockinged Senator stalked into the room attended by
half-a-dozen of the magnificoes whom Tony had seen abroad in the
square. At sight of him, all clapped hands to their swords and burst
into furious outcries; and though their jargon was unintelligible to
the young man, their tones and gestures made their meaning unpleasantly
plain. The Senator, with a start of anger, first flung himself on the
intruder; then, snatched back by his companions, turned wrathfully on
his daughter, who, at his feet, with outstretched arms and streaming
face, pleaded her cause with all the eloquence of young distress.
Meanwhile the other nobles gesticulated vehemently among themselves,
and one, a truculent-looking personage in ruff and Spanish cape,
stalked apart, keeping a jealous eye on Tony. The latter was at his
wit's end how to comport himself, for the lovely Polixena's tears had
quite drowned her few words of English, and beyond guessing that the
magnificoes meant him a mischief he had no notion what they would be at.
At this point, luckily, his friend Count Rialto suddenly broke in on
the scene, and was at once assailed by all the tongues in the room. He
pulled a long face at sight of Tony, but signed to the young man to be
silent, and addressed himself earnestly to the Senator. The latter, at
first, would not draw breath to hear him; but presently, sobering, he
walked apart with the Count, and the two conversed together out of
earshot.
"My dear sir," said the Count, at length turning to Tony with a
perturbed countenance, "it is as I feared, and you are fallen into a
great misfortune."
"A great misfortune! A great trap, I call it!" shouted Tony, whose
blood, by this time, was boiling; but as he uttered the word the
beautiful Polixena cast such a stricken look on him that he blushed up
to the forehead.
"Be careful," said the Count, in a low tone. "Though his
Illustriousness does not speak your language, he understands a few
words of it, and--"
"So much the better!" broke in Tony; "I hope he will understand me if I
ask him in plain English what is his grievance against me."
The Senator, at this, would have burst forth again; but the Count,
stepping between, answered quickly: "His grievance against you is that
you have been detected in secret correspondence with his daughter, the
most noble Polixena Cador, the betrothed bride of this gentleman, the
most illustrious Marquess Zanipolo--" and he waved a deferential hand
at the frowning hidalgo of the cape and ruff.
"Sir," said Tony, "if that is the extent of my offence, it lies with
the young lady to set me free, since by her own avowal--" but here he
stopped short, for, to his surprise, Polixena shot a terrified glance
at him.
"Sir," interposed the Count, "we are not accustomed in Venice to take
shelter behind a lady's reputation."
"No more are we in Salem," retorted Tony in a white heat. "I was merely
about to remark that, by the young lady's avowal, she has never seen me
before."
Polixena's eyes signalled her gratitude, and he felt he would have died
to defend her.
The Count translated his statement, and presently pursued: "His
Illustriousness observes that, in that case, his daughter's misconduct
has been all the more reprehensible."
"Her misconduct? Of what does he accuse her?"
"Of sending you, just now, in the church of Saint Mark's, a letter
which you were seen to read openly and thrust in your bosom. The
incident was witnessed by his Illustriousness the Marquess Zanipolo,
who, in consequence, has already repudiated his unhappy bride."
Tony stared contemptuously at the black Marquess. "If his
Illustriousness is so lacking in gallantry as to repudiate a lady on so
trivial a pretext, it is he and not I who should be the object of her
father's resentment."
"That, my dear young gentleman, is hardly for you to decide. Your only
excuse being your ignorance of our customs, it is scarcely for you to
advise us how to behave in matters of punctilio."
It seemed to Tony as though the Count were going over to his enemies,
and the thought sharpened his retort.
"I had supposed," said he, "that men of sense had much the same
behaviour in all countries, and that, here as elsewhere, a gentleman
would be taken at his word. I solemnly affirm that the letter I was
seen to read reflects in no way on the honour of this young lady, and
has in fact nothing to do with what you suppose."
As he had himself no notion what the letter was about, this was as far
as he dared commit himself.
There was another brief consultation in the opposing camp, and the
Count then said:--"We all know, sir, that a gentleman is obliged to
meet certain enquiries by a denial; but you have at your command the
means of immediately clearing the lady. Will you show the letter to her
father?"
There was a perceptible pause, during which Tony, while appearing to
look straight before him, managed to deflect an interrogatory glance
toward Polixena. Her reply was a faint negative motion, accompanied by
unmistakable signs of apprehension.
"Poor girl!" he thought, "she is in a worse case than I imagined, and
whatever happens I must keep her secret."
He turned to the Senator with a deep bow. "I am not," said he, "in the
habit of showing my private correspondence to strangers."
The Count interpreted these words, and Donna Polixena's father, dashing
his hand on his hilt, broke into furious invective, while the Marquess
continued to nurse his outraged feelings aloof.
The Count shook his head funereally. "Alas, sir, it is as I feared.
This is not the first time that youth and propinquity have led to fatal
imprudence. But I need hardly, I suppose, point out the obligation
incumbent upon you as a man of honour."
Tony stared at him haughtily, with a look which was meant for the
Marquess. "And what obligation is that?"
"To repair the wrong you have done--in other words, to marry the lady."
Polixena at this burst into tears, and Tony said to himself: "Why in
heaven does she not bid me show the letter?" Then he remembered that it
had no superscription, and that the words it contained, supposing them
to have been addressed to himself, were hardly of a nature to disarm
suspicion. The sense of the girl's grave plight effaced all thought of
his own risk, but the Count's last words struck him as so preposterous
that he could not repress a smile.
"I cannot flatter myself," said he, "that the lady would welcome this
solution."
The Count's manner became increasingly ceremonious. "Such modesty," he
said, "becomes your youth and inexperience; but even if it were
justified it would scarcely alter the case, as it is always assumed in
this country that a young lady wishes to marry the man whom her father
has selected."
"But I understood just now," Tony interposed, "that the gentleman
yonder was in that enviable position."
"So he was, till circumstances obliged him to waive the privilege in
your favour."
"He does me too much honour; but if a deep sense of my unworthiness
obliges me to decline--"
"You are still," interrupted the Count, "labouring under a
misapprehension. Your choice in the matter is no more to be consulted
than the lady's. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is necessary
that you should marry her within the hour."
Tony, at this, for all his spirit, felt the blood run thin in his
veins. He looked in silence at the threatening visages between himself
and the door, stole a side-glance at the high barred windows of the
apartment, and then turned to Polixena, who had fallen sobbing at her
father's feet.
"And if I refuse?" said he.
The Count made a significant gesture. "I am not so foolish as to
threaten a man of your mettle. But perhaps you are unaware what the
consequences would be to the lady."
Polixena, at this, struggling to her feet, addressed a few impassioned
words to the Count and her father; but the latter put her aside with an
obdurate gesture.
The Count turned to Tony. "The lady herself pleads for you--at what
cost you do not guess--but as you see it is vain. In an hour his
Illustriousness's chaplain will be here. Meanwhile his Illustriousness
consents to leave you in the custody of your betrothed."
He stepped back, and the other gentlemen, bowing with deep ceremony to
Tony, stalked out one by one from the room. Tony heard the key turn in
the lock, and found himself alone with Polixena.