Omobono had drawn on a pair of well-greased raw-hide boots that came
half-way up his thin legs, and had wrapped himself in his big brown
cloak before going out. On his smooth grey head he wore a soft felt
hat, the brim turned up round the crown at the back but pulled out to
a long point in front, and he carried a tough cornel stick in his
right hand. He had been careful to leave in the strong box the purse
that contained money belonging to his employer, and had but a few
small coins of his own in his wallet to pay a ferryman if he should
need one, or to give to a hungry beggar. Like most men who have failed
to make money Omobono was very sorry for poor people, and did not
believe that all beggars could be rich if they would work. But he was
poor himself, and his charity was of the humble kind.
There was a fairly broad street behind Carlo Zeno's house, and here
the early spring sun had dried the mud to something like a solid
surface; but Omobono followed this thoroughfare only for a little
distance, and then turned into a narrow and filthy lane that led to
other lanes, and to others still beyond, all crowded with humanity,
all dark and muddy, all foul with garbage, all reeking with the
overpowering smell of Eastern cooking made up of garlic, frying
onions, sour cream, oil of sesame, and roasting mutton where there
were Jews or Mohammedans, or fried fish where Christians lived, since
it was Friday.
The small wooden houses, black with smoke and the dampness of the past
winter, overhung the way so that the opposite balconies of the second
stories almost touched each other. Had the buildings been higher,
scarcely any light at all would have reached the lower windows; as it
was, a man with good eyes might just see to read at noon if he were
not too far within.
Omobono evidently knew his way well enough, for he did not pause as he
threaded the labyrinth, and only now and then glanced up at certain
dingy signs that hung from the crazy wooden balconies, or from wooden
arms that stuck out here and there like gallows from the walls. As he
walked, he was chiefly occupied in not running against the people he
met, and in not stepping upon the half-naked children that squirmed
and squalled in the mud before every doorstep. For there were children
everywhere, children and dirt, dirt and children, all of much the same
colour in those dusky lanes. Near almost every open door the
slatternly mother stirred a dark mess of some sort over a little
earthen pan of coals, or toasted gobbets of fat mutton on a black iron
fork, or fried some wretched fish in boiling oil. The Christian women
were by far the dirtiest, and their children were the least healthy
and the most neglected, for many of the little creatures had not a
stitch of clothing on them. Most decent were the Mohammedans; they had
already the bearing and the self-respect of the conquering race, and
they treated their Greek and Bokharian neighbours with silent
contempt. Did not Sultan Amurad, over there on the Asian shore, make
and unmake these miserable little Greek emperors as he pleased? If he
chose could he not take Constantinople and turn a stream of Christian
blood into the Golden Horn that would redden the Sea of Marmora as far
as Antigone and Prinkipo?
Omobono went on and on, picking his way as he might, and little
noticed by the people. He was not by any means in the poorest quarter
of the city, and no one begged of him as he went by. If he thought of
anything except of not setting his booted foot down on some child's
sprawling leg or arm, he thanked heaven and the saints that he had
been born a Venetian, and had been washed and sent to school like a
Christian boy when he was little instead of having first seen the
light, or what passed for light, in a back street of Constantinople.
He turned another corner, entered a lane even narrower than those he
had yet traversed, but almost deserted, and much less dark because one
side of it was occupied by a wall not more than ten feet high, in
which only one small door was to be seen. Along the top of the masonry
all sorts of sharp bits of rusty iron and a quantity of broken
crockery were set in mortar with the evident intention of discouraging
any attempt to climb over, either from within or from without. The
door itself was in good repair, and had been recently coated with tar
and sharp sand by way of preserving it against the damp. A well-worn
horizontal slit an inch long, and an upright one a foot higher up,
showed that it had two separate Persian locks into which keys were
often thrust.
Omobono rapped on the tarred wood with the iron-shod end of his stick
and listened. He could hear a number of girls' voices chattering, and
one was singing softly in a language he did not understand. He knocked
again, a moment later the voices were suddenly silent, and he heard
the clacking of heavy slippers on wet flags as some one came to open.
'Who knocks?' asked a deep and harsh female voice from within, in the
Greek tongue but with a thick accent.
'A Venetian who has business with the worthy Karaboghazji,' answered
Omobono in a conciliatory tone.
'Which Karaboghazji?' enquired the voice suspiciously.
'Rustan,' explained Omobono mildly.
From his voice, the woman probably judged that if he had come with any
nefarious purpose she was more than a match for him. The door opened
after some rattling and creaking of locks, and Omobono started in
spite of himself. She was indeed a match for him, or for any other man
who was likely to knock at the door. It was no wonder that the
Venetian secretary drew back and hesitated before he spoke again.
The woman was a huge red-haired negress in yellow, fully six feet tall
in her heelless slippers, and her black arms, bare above the elbow,
were as sinewy and muscular as any fisherman's or porter's. Her thick
lips were parted in a sort of savage grin that showed two rows of
teeth as sharp and white as a shark's; her hair must have been just
dyed that day, for it was as red as flame to the very roots, and it
stood out almost straight from her shiny black forehead and temples;
as she rather contemptuously scrutinised Omobono from head to foot the
whites of her coal-black eyes gleamed in a way that was positively
terrifying. She wore wide Greek trousers of blue cotton, gathered at
the ankle, and a wadded coat of yellow, that hung down below her knees
in loose folds, like a sort of skirt, but fitted tightly over her
tremendous shoulders. This garment was closely girded round her ample
waist by a red sash, in which she carried her armoury, consisting of a
serviceable Arab knife with a bone hilt and brass sheath, and a small
whip made of a broad flat thong of hippopotamus hide with a short oak
stock.
This terrific apparition stood in the little vestibule holding the
door open and grinning at Omobono. She had closed another door behind
her before opening the outer one, for the slave-dealer's establishment
was evidently managed with a view to the safety of his merchandise.
'And what do you want of Rustan Karaboghazji at this time of the
afternoon?' enquired the negress. 'Who are you?'
'I am only a clerk,' answered Omobono in a deprecating tone, and
shrinking a little under his cloak, as the awful virago thrust her
head forward. 'I am the clerk of Messer Carlo Zeno, a rich Venetian
merchant, who sends a message by me to your master----'
'My master!' interrupted the black woman, with a scornful laugh. 'My
master, indeed!'
'I--I supposed----' faltered Omobono apologetically.
The negress moved a little and rested one huge hand on her hip, while
she slipped the other slowly up the door-post till it was above her
head. In this attitude she looked gigantic.
'You mean my husband,' she said, showing all her teeth. 'Rustan
Karaboghazji is my husband. Do you understand?'
'Yes, Kokóna--I--I mean Kyría--yes, certainly! I should have known at
once that you were the mistress of the house if you had not
condescended to open the door yourself, Kyría.'
'And what would become of the cattle,' enquired the negress with a
backward toss of her head towards the yard behind her, 'if the stable
door were in charge of a slave? If your master--' she dwelt on the two
words contemptuously--'wishes to buy of us, he will have to come here
and choose for himself.'
'No, no!' answered Omobono hastily. 'It is another matter. I think it
is a commission for a friend. It is something very especial. That is
why I beg to be allowed to speak with the Kyrios, your husband.'
The black woman had listened attentively.
'At this hour,' she said after a moment's thought, 'Rustan is at his
devotions.'
'I would not interrupt them for the world,' protested Omobono. 'I can
wait----'
'No. You will probably find him at the church of Saint Sergius and
Saint Bacchus. If he is not there, ask the sacristan where he is. My
husband is a very devout man; the sacristan knows him well.'
'I hope,' said Omobono, whose curiosity scented a mystery, 'that the
sacristan will not take me for an importunate stranger and send me on
a fool's errand. If the Kyría would give me some sign by which the
sacristan may know that I came from her----'
Omobono paused on this suggestion, hoping for a favourable answer.
Again the big woman waited a moment before speaking.
'Ask the sacristan to direct you to find Rustan Karaboghazji, by four
toes and by five toes,' she said at last. 'He will certainly tell you
the truth if you ask him in that way.'
'By four toes and by five toes,' repeated Omobono. 'I cannot forget
that. I thank you, Kyría Karaboghazji, and I wish you a good day.'
The negress nodded and showed her teeth but said nothing more, drew
back and shut the door without waiting any longer. Omobono stood still
a moment, listened to the slapping of the heavy slippers on the wet
flags within, and then went away down the almost deserted lane,
wondering much at the taste of the Bokharian merchant in marrying an
African giantess. But soon his natural curiosity began to occupy
itself more actively with the hidden meaning of the password given him
by Rustan's wife; and, meditating on this problem, he made his way
through the heart of the city, traversing many narrow and tortuous
streets, till he suddenly emerged into a broad highway where marble
buildings gleamed in the late afternoon sunshine, and richly dressed
Greeks lounged in the wide exedræ and stately porticoes, discussing
the affairs of the Empire in general and their neighbours' most
particularly.
Omobono trudged along, past the corner of the wide Forum of
Theodosius, once the centre of the city's teeming life, but now given
over to the tanners and leather-dressers, for one end of it was used
as a slaughterhouse and the hides had not to be dragged far to be
cured; he walked on quickly, keeping to the left, and was soon in
narrow streets again, where afterwards the Grand Bazaar was built, and
where even in those days the Persian merchants and the jewellers, the
dealers in fine carpets and Eastern merchandise, the perfumers, the
Egyptian goldsmiths and the Bokharian money-changers had their homes
and the headquarters of their business. Here Omobono exchanged
greetings now and then with men of all nationalities except Genoese,
and very few of these last were to be seen, for they kept to their own
quarter beyond the Golden Horn, in Pera. But Omobono would not stop to
talk, and the streets were clean here, and well kept, and the children
were not to be seen, so that he could walk quickly, without picking
his way.
On still, and farther on; through the almost classic Forum of
Constantine, past the hill on which the bronze-bound porphyry column
still stands, and down on the other side, keeping the Hippodrome on
his left and diving into the Bokharian quarter, as different from the
last through which he had come, as that had been from those he had
passed before. For then, as now, Constantinople was a patchwork of
divers nations and languages and customs, and their quarters were like
distinct towns,--some filthy, noisy and unhealthy, some rich and
stately, some quiet and poor, some asleep all day and riotous all
night, others silent as sleep itself from nightfall till dawn, and
noisy all day with the hum of business or the ceaseless hammering
clang and clatter of workmen's tools.
Before Omobono emerged upon the little square which then surrounded
the churches of Saints Sergius and Bacchus and of Saints Peter and
Paul--the latter is now destroyed--he heartily wished that he had
hired a horse and man at one of the street corners; but he forgot his
weariness when his destination was reached, and he saw a little
bandy-legged sacristan in an absurdly short cassock of shabby black
and purple cloth, leaning against one of the columns of the portico.
Omobono ascended the broad steps that led up from the level of the
street, as though he were going in, but just as he was close to the
sacristan he stopped, as if without any premeditation, and made a
gesture of salutation, smiling in a friendly way.
'Praised be our Lord,' he said, in the Greek manner.
'Our Lord be praised. Amen,' answered the sacristan indifferently, for
it was the custom to do so.
'Could you inform me,' proceeded the Venetian clerk, 'whether that
good man Kyrios Rustan Karaboghazji is now in the church at his
devotions?'
The sacristan had a perfectly round head with a pair of very small
round eyes; moreover, his snub nose was quite round at the end. He
now pursed out his lips and made his mouth round, too, as if he were
going to whistle. Intentionally or unintentionally, he made himself
look like an idiot, and slowly wagged his bullet head as if he did not
understand.
'The church is open,' he said, at last. 'You may see,'
Omobono now applauded himself for having asked and obtained a
password, but he meant to be cautious in using it.
'Thank you,' he said politely, and he went on, into the church.
The sun was low and cast a rich light through the open door, full upon
the grating and closed gate of the sanctuary, and the gilt and
burnished bars reflected and diffused the warm rays, like a glory
before the unseen high altar. Omobono glanced quickly to the right and
left as he passed between the pillars, but he saw no one. Farther on,
before him and under the wide dome, two women in brown were at their
prayers, the one kneeling, the other prostrate, in Eastern fashion,
her forehead resting on the marble pavement. There was no man in
sight.
Omobono chose a clean spot, hitched up his cloak in front and knelt
upon one knee. He crossed himself and said a little prayer.
'O Lord,' he prayed, 'grant wealth and honour to the Most Serene
Republic and give Venice the victory over the Genoese. Bless Messer
Carlo Zeno, O Lord, and preserve him from sudden death. Send bread to
the poor. Give Omobono strength to resist curiosity. For ever and
ever. Amen.'
It was not a very eloquent little prayer and it lacked the set forms
of invocation and doxology which devout persons use; but Omobono had
made it up for himself long ago, and said it every day at least once,
for it precisely expressed what he sincerely wished and intended to
ask with due humility; and he was a good man, in spite of his
besetting fault, and believed that what he asked would be granted. As
yet, Venice had not triumphed over those unspeakable dogs of Genoese,
though the day of glory was much nearer than even the Venetians dared
to hope. But so far Carlo Zeno had been preserved from sudden death in
spite of his manifest tendency to break his neck for any whim; for the
rest, Omobono had more than once been the means of saving poor people
from starvation, though at some risk of it to himself, poor man; and
as for his curiosity, he had at least kept it so far in bounds as
never to read his master's letters until his master had opened them
himself, which was something for Omobono to be grateful for. On the
whole, he judged that his small prayer was not unacceptable, and he
used it every day.
He knelt a moment after he had finished it, partly because he was a
little ashamed of its being very short though he never could think of
anything to add to it, and he did not wish people to think that he was
irreverent and gabbled over a prayer merely as a form; for he was very
sensitive about such things, being a shy man. And partly he remained
on his knees a little longer because the gilded grating was very
handsome in the light of the setting sun, and reminded him of the
grating in Saint Mark's, and that naturally made him think of heaven.
But presently he rose and went out.
The sacristan was still standing by the same pillar.
'Kyrios Rustan is not in the church,' said Omobono, stopping again.
Once more the sacristan seemed to be about to purse his lips into a
circle, and to put on an air of blank stupidity, and the clerk saw
that the time had come to use the password.
'I must see him,' he said, dropping his voice, but speaking very
distinctly. 'I beg you to direct me by four toes and five toes, so
that I may find him.'
The sacristan's face and manner changed at once. His small eyes were
suddenly full of intelligence, his mouth expanded in a friendly smile,
and his snub nose seemed to draw itself to a point like the muzzle of
a hound on a scent.
'Why did you not say that at once?' he asked. 'Rustan left the church
a quarter of an hour before you came, but he is not far away. Do you
see the entrance to the lane down there?'
He pointed towards the place.
'Yes,' said Omobono, 'by the corner.'
'Yes. Go into that lane. Take the first turn to the left, and then the
second to the right again. Before you have gone far you will find
Rustan walking up and down.'
'Walking up and down?' repeated Omobono, surprised that the Bokharian
should select for his afternoon stroll such a place as one might
expect to find in the direction indicated.
'Yes.' The sacristan grinned and winked at the Venetian clerk in a
knowing way. 'He is a devout man. When he has said his prayers he
walks up and down in that little lane.'
The man laughed audibly, but immediately looked behind him to see
whether any one coming from within the church had heard him, for he
considered himself a clerical character. Omobono thanked him politely.
'It is nothing,' answered the sacristan. 'A mere direction--what is
it? If I had asked you for your purse and cloak by four toes and five
toes, I am quite sure that you would have given me both.'
'Of course,' replied Omobono nervously, seeing that the reply was
evidently expected of him. 'Of course I would. And so, good-day, my
friend.'
'And good-day to you, friend,' returned the sacristan.
The clerk went away, devoutly hoping that no unknown person would
suddenly accost him and demand of him his cloak in the name of four
toes and five toes, and he wondered what in the world he should do if
such a thing happened to him. He was quite sure that he should be
unable to hide the fact that he knew the magic formula, for he had
never been very good at deception; and if the words could procure such
instant obedience from such a disagreeable person as the sacristan had
at first seemed to be, some dreadful penalty was probably the portion
of those who disobeyed the mandate.
Thus reflecting, and by no means easy in his mind, the clerk crossed
the square and entered the lane. He had supposed that it led to a
continuation of the Bokharian quarter, but he at once saw his mistake.
Even now a man may live for years in Constantinople and yet be far
from knowing every corner of it, and Omobono found himself in a part
of the city which he had never seen. It was in ruins, and yet it was
inhabited. Few of the houses had doors, hardly any window had a
shutter, and as he passed, he saw that in many lower rooms the light
fell from above, through a fallen floor and a broken roof above it.
Yet in every ruined dwelling, and almost at every door, there was some
one, and all were frightful to see; all were in rags that hardly clung
together, and some could scarcely cover themselves modestly; one was
blind, another had no arms or no legs, another was devoured by hideous
disease--many were mere bundles of bones in scanty rags, and stretched
out filthy skeleton hands for alms as the decently dressed clerk came
near. Omobono stood still for a moment when he realised that he was in
the beggars' quarter, where more than half the dying paupers of the
great city took refuge amidst houses ruined and burnt long ago when
the Crusaders had sacked Constantinople, and never more than half
repaired since then.
The clerk stood still, for the sight of so much misery hurt him, and
it hurt him still more to think that he had but very few small coins
in his wallet. The poor creatures should have them all, one by one,
but there would be few indeed for so many.
[Illustration: He was talking with an old beggar woman.]
And then, as he took out a little piece of bronze money, he heard
sounds like nothing he had heard before; like many hundred sighs of
suffering all breathed out together; and again, like many dying
persons praying in low, exhausted voices; and again, like a gentle,
hopeless wail; and through it all there was a pitiful tremor of
weakness and pain that went to the clerk's heart. He could do very
little, and he was obliged to go on, for his errand was pressing, and
the people were as wretched at one door as they would be at the next,
so that it was better not to give all his coins at once. He dropped
one here, one there, into the wasted hands, and went on quickly,
scarcely daring to glance at the faces that appeared at the low doors
and ruined windows. Yet here and there he looked in, almost against
his will, and he saw sights that sent a cold chill down his back,
sights I have seen, too, but need not tell of. And so he went on,
turning as the sacristan had instructed him, till he saw a tall, thin
man in a brown cloth gown edged with cheap fox's fur, and having a
tight fur cap on his head. He was talking with an old beggar woman,
and his back was turned so that Omobono could only see that he had a
long black beard, but he recognised Rustan, the Bokharian dealer. The
house before which the two were standing seemed a trifle better than
the rest in the street; there were crazy shutters to the large lower
windows, which were open, however; there was a door which was ajar,
and an attempt had been made to scrape the mud from the threshold. For
the street was damp and muddy after the spring rains, but not
otherwise very dirty. There was no garbage, not so much as a
cabbage-stalk or a bleaching bone; for bones can be ground to dust
between stones and eaten with water, and a cabbage-stalk is half a
dinner to a starving man.
In spite of the prayer he had recently offered up against his
besetting fault of curiosity, Omobono could not help treading very
lightly as he came up behind the Bokharian, and as the mud was in a
pasty state, neither hard nor slimy, his heavy boots made hardly any
more noise in treading on it than a beggar's bare feet. In this way he
advanced till he could see through an open window of the house, and he
stood still and looked in, but he made as if he were politely waiting
for Rustan to turn round. Either the old beggar woman was blind, or
she thought fit not to call the Bokharian's attention to the fact that
a well-dressed stranger was standing within a few feet of him. The two
talked volubly in low tones and in the Bokharian language, which
Omobono did not understand at all, and when he was quite sure that he
could not follow the conversation he occupied his curiosity in
watching what was going on inside the house. The window was low,
having apparently once served as a shop in which the shopkeeper had
sat, in Eastern fashion, half inside and half out, to wait upon his
customers. During half a minute, which elapsed before Rustan turned
round, the clerk saw a good deal.
In the first place his eyes fell on the upturned face of a woman who
was certainly in the extremity of dangerous illness, and was probably
dying. She had been beautiful once and she had beauty still, that was
not only the soft shadow of coming death. The wasted body was covered
with nameless rags, but the pillow was white and clean; the refined
face was the colour of pure wax, and the dark hair, grey at the
temples, had been carefully combed out and smoothed back from the
forehead. The woman's eyes were closed, and deeply shadowed by
suffering, but her delicate nostrils quivered now and then as she drew
breath, and her pale lips moved a little as though trying to speak.
There were young children round the wretched bed, silent, thin, and
wondering, as children are when the great mystery is very near them
and they feel it. In their miserable tatters one could hardly have
told whether the younger ones were boys or girls, but one was much
older than the rest, and Omobono's eyes fixed themselves upon her, and
he held his breath, lest the Bokharian should hear him and turn, and
hide the vision and break the spell.
The girl was standing on the other side of the sick woman, bending
down a very little, and watching her features with a look of infinite
care and sorrow. One exquisite white hand touched the poor coverings
of the bed, rather than rested on them, as if it longed to be of some
use, and to relieve the woman's suffering ever so little. But the
clerk did not look at the delicate fingers, for his eyes were riveted
on the young girl's face. It was thin and white, but its lines were
beautiful beyond comparison with all that he had ever seen, even in
Venice, the city of beautiful women.
I think that true beauty is beyond description; you may describe the
changeless, faultless outlines of a statue to a man who has seen good
statues and can recall them; you can perhaps find words to describe
the glow, and warmth, and deep texture of a famous picture, and what
you write will mean something to those who know the master's work; you
may even conjure up an image before untutored eyes. But neither minute
description nor well-turned phrase, neither sensuous adjective nor
spiritual simile can tell half the truth of a beautiful living thing.
And the fairest living woman is twice beautiful when gladness or love
or anger or sorrow rises in her eyes, for then her soul is in her
face. As Omobono looked through the window and watched the beggar girl
leaning over her dying mother, he hardly saw the perfect line of the
cheek, the dark and sweeping lashes or the deep brown eyes--the firm
and rounded chin, the very tender mouth, the high-bred nostrils or the
rich brown hair. He could not clearly recall any of those things a few
minutes later; he only knew that he had seen for once something he had
heard of all his life. It was not till he dreamt of her face that
night--dreaming, poor man, that she was his guardian angel come to
reprove him for his curiosity--that the details all came back, and
most of all that brave and tender little mouth of hers, so delicately
womanly and yet so strong, and that unspeakable turn of the cheek
between the eye and the ear, and that poise of the small head on the
slender neck--the details came back then. But in the first moment he
only saw the whole and felt that it was perfect; then, for an instant,
the eyes looked at him across the dying woman; and in a moment more
the Bokharian turned, caught sight of him and came quickly forward,
and the spell was broken.
Rustan Karaboghazji held out both hands to Omobono, as if he were
greeting his dearest friend, and he spoke in fluent Italian. He was a
young man still, not much past thirty, with dark, straight features,
stony grey eyes, and a magnificent black beard.
'What happy chance brings you here?' he cried, immediately drawing the
Venetian in the direction whence the latter had come. 'Fortunate
indeed is Friday, the day of Venus, since it brings me into the path
of my honoured Ser Omobono!'
'Indeed, it is no accident, Kyrios Rustan----' began Omobono.
'A double fortune, then, since a friend needs me,' continued the
Bokharian, without the slightest hesitation. 'But do not call me
Kyrios, Ser Omobono! First, I am not Greek, and then, my honoured
friend, I am no Kyrios, but only a poor exile from my country,
struggling to keep body and soul together among strangers.'
While he talked he had drawn Omobono's arm through his own and was
leading him away from the house with considerable haste. The Venetian
looked back, and saw that the old woman had disappeared.
'I have a message from my master,' he said, 'but before we go on, I
should like to----' he hesitated, and stopped in spite of Rustan.
'What should you like to do?' asked the latter, with sudden
sharpness.
Omobono's hand felt for the last of the small coins in his wallet.
'I wish to give a trifle to the poor people in that house,' he said,
summoning his courage. 'I saw a sick woman--she seemed to be
dying----'
But Rustan grasped his wrist and held it firmly, as if to make him put
the money back, but he smiled gently at the same time.
'No, no, my friend,' he answered. 'I would not have spoken of it, but
you force me to tell you that I have been before you there! I take
some interest in those poor people, and I have just given enough to
keep them for a week, when I shall come again. It is not wise to give
too much. The other beggars would rob them if they guessed that there
was anything to take. Come, come! The sun is setting, and it is not
well to be in this quarter so late.'
Omobono remembered how the sacristan had winked and laughed, when he
had spoken of Rustan's walks in the dismal lane, and the Venetian now
proceeded to draw from what he had seen and heard a multitude of very
logical inferences. That Rustan was an utter scoundrel he had never
doubted since he had known him, and that his domestic life was perhaps
not to his taste, Omobono guessed since he had seen the red-haired
negress who was his wife. Nothing could be more natural than that the
Bokharian, having discovered the beautiful, half-starved creature whom
Omobono had first seen through the window, should plot to get her into
his power for his own ends.
Having reached this conclusion, the mild little clerk suddenly felt
the blood of a hero beating in his veins and longed to take
Karaboghazji by the throat and shake him till he was senseless, never
doubting but that the cause of justice would miraculously give him the
strength needed for the enterprise. He submitted to be hurried away,
indeed, because the moment was evidently not propitious for a feat of
knight-errantry; but as he walked he struck his cornel stick viciously
into the pasty mud and shut his mouth tight under his well-trimmed
grey beard.
'And now,' said Rustan, drawing something like a breath of relief as
they emerged into the open space before the church, 'pray tell me what
urgent business brings you so far to find me, and tell me, too, how
you came to know where I was.'
Here Omobono suddenly realised that in his deductions he had made some
great mistake; for if Rustan had been in the beggars' quarter for such
a purpose as the Venetian suspected, how was it possible that he
should have left any sort of directions with his wife and the
sacristan for finding him, in case he should be wanted on some urgent
business? Omobono, always charitable, at once concluded that he had
been led away into judging the man unjustly.
'Messer Carlo Zeno, the Venetian merchant, is very anxious to see you
this very evening,' he said. 'From his manner, I suspect that the
business will not bear any delay and that it may be profitable to
you.'
Rustan smiled, bent his head and walked quickly, but said nothing for
several moments.
'Does Messer Zeno need money?' he asked presently. 'If so, let us stop
at my house and I will see what little sum I can dispose of.'
Mild as Omobono was, an angry, contemptuous answer rose to his lips,
but he checked it in time.
'My master never borrows,' he answered, with immense dignity. 'I can
only tell you that so far as I know he wishes to see you in regard to
some commission with which a friend in Venice has charged him.'
Rustan smiled more pleasantly than ever, and walked still faster.
'We will go directly to Messer Zeno's house, then,' he said. 'This is
a most fortunate day for buying and selling, and perhaps I have
precisely what he wants. We shall see, we shall see!'
Omobono's thin little legs had hard work to keep up with the
Bokharian's untiring stride, and though Rustan made a remark now and
then, the clerk could hardly answer him for lack of breath. The sun
had set and it was almost dark when they reached Zeno's house, and the
secretary knocked at the door of his master's private room.