Tocktamish poured half a flagon of Chian wine into a tall Venetian
beaker and drank it off by way of whetting his appetite.
'The master of the house is unavoidably absent,' he observed, when he
had smacked his lips noisily. 'He has sent me to beg that you will
excuse him and make yourselves at home.'
By this time Dame Polo was beginning to revive, and the two men were
somewhat reassured as to the Tartar's intentions. When he had entered
he had looked as if he meant to murder them all, but it was now
evident from his manner that he wished to produce a pleasant
impression. He drew the peacock towards him, and at once took all the
best pieces that were left on the dish, using his fingers to save
trouble. Giustina watched him without turning her head, and judged
that, after all, he had only meant to show his admiration for her
beauty when he had leered so horribly. She was in reality the least
timid of all the party, though she had shrieked so loudly, and she
remembered a fairy story about a frightful monster that had loved a
beautiful princess. She was already pondering on the means of making a
similar conquest.
'Are we to understand,' asked Marin Cornèr, politely, but in a shaky
tone, 'that you come from Messer Carlo Zeno?'
Tocktamish grunted assent, for his mouth was full, and he nodded
emphatically.
'Messer Carlo Zeno is in need of a large sum of money without delay,'
he said, when he was able to speak again.
Sebastian Polo looked at Marin Cornèr significantly; and Marin Cornèr
looked at Sebastian Polo. The fat lady pricked her ears, figuratively
speaking, for indeed they were much too deeply embedded in their
exuberant surroundings of cheek and jowl to suggest that they could
ever prick at all. The Tartar crammed his mouth full again, and his
great beard wagged with his jaws in the inevitable silence that
followed. In her heart Giustina compared him to a ravenous lion, but
her father thought he resembled a hungry hyena.
Finding that his throat was not cut yet, and learning that there was
to be a question of money, Marin Cornèr felt that the colour was
returning to his nose and the warmth to his heart.
'Why does Messer Carlo not come home himself and get the money he
needs?' he asked.
By this time Omobono had recovered from his fright enough to creep
into the room behind Tocktamish. He was already making anxious
gestures to the two Venetian gentlemen to enjoin caution. The Tartar
drank again before he answered the question.
'He happened to be so busy that he preferred to send me to get the
money for him,' said the soldier. 'You see we are old friends. We
fought together in Greece.'
Then Omobono's voice was heard, quavering with anxiety.
'There is no money in the house!' he cried, winking violently at Polo
and Cornèr. 'There is not a penny, I swear! There were large payments
to make yesterday.'
The poor little secretary was so anxious to be heard that he had come
within arm's length of the Tartar, though behind him. Tocktamish
turned his big head, and put out his hand unexpectedly, and Omobono
felt himself caught and whirled round like a child till he was close
to the table and face to face with the tipsy giant. He was sure that
he felt his liver shrivelling up inside him with sheer fright.
'What is this little animal?' the Tartar asked, cocking one eye in a
knowing way and examining him with a sort of boozy gravity.
But Omobono really could not find a word. His captor shook him
playfully.
'What is your name, you funny little beast?' he enquired, and he
roared with laughter by way of answering himself.
Giustina, strange to say, was the only one to join in his mirth, and
she laughed quite prettily, to the inexpressible surprise of her
parents, who were shocked and grieved, as well as scared almost to
death.
'Come, come!' laughed the Tartar, shaking the little man like a
bean-bag. 'If you cannot speak, you can at least give up your keys,
and I will see for myself if there is any money!'
Thereupon he seized the bunch of keys which the secretary wore at his
belt, and wrenched it off with a pull that snapped the thong by which
it hung. Again Giustina laughed, but a little more nervously now; her
mother sat transfixed, open-mouthed, with an almost idiotic
expression. Again the two merchants glanced at each other, and then
both looked towards the door.
Between his fright and the terrible indignity of having his keys torn
from him, Omobono had never been nearer to fainting in his life.
'Robbery!' he gasped. 'Rank robbery!'
Tocktamish sent him spinning into the nearest corner by a turn of the
wrist, after which the ruffian took another mouthful of meat, and
slowly filled his glass while he was disposing of it. Omobono had
steadied himself in the corner, but his face was deadly white, and his
lips were moving nervously in a delirium of terror.
'Messer Carlo needs ten thousand ducats before sunset,' observed the
Tartar before he drank.
Polo and Cornèr started to their feet; to their commercial souls the
mere mention of such a demand was more terrifying than all the crooked
weapons that gleamed in Tocktamish's broad belt.
'Ten thousand ducats!' they repeated together in a breath.
'Yes!' roared the Tartar, in a voice that made the glasses on the
table shake together and ring. 'Ten thousand ducats! And if I do not
find the money in the house, you two must find it in yours! Do you
understand?'
[Illustration: 'Yes!' roared the Tartar. 'Ten thousand ducats! And if
I do not find the money in the house, you two must find it in yours!
Do you understand?']
They understood, for his voice was like thunder, and he had risen too,
and towered above them with his full glass in one hand and Omobono's
keys in the other. Then, being already tolerably drunk, he solemnly
raised the keys to his lips, thinking that he held the glass in that
hand, and rolled his eyes terribly at the two merchants; and he set
the glass down with an emphatic gesture, as if it had been the bunch
of keys, and it broke to pieces, and the yellow wine splashed out
across the table and ran down and streamed upon the mosaic floor.
A terrific Tartar oath announced that he had realised his mistake, and
as he at once made up his mind that the Venetians were responsible for
it, his next action was to hurl the foot of the broken glass at Polo's
head; and he instantly seized the empty silver flagon and flung it at
Cornèr's face. The lighter weapon missed its aim and broke to atoms
against the opposite wall, but the jug struck Cornèr full on the
bridge of his thin nose with awful effect, and he fell to the floor
and lay there, a moaning, bleeding heap.
Polo looked neither at his wife nor at his daughter, but fled through
the open door at the top of his not very great speed. His wife fainted
outright, and in real earnest now, and with a final croak rolled
gently from her chair, without hurting herself at all. Omobono
flattened his lean body against the wall, trembling in every joint,
and gibbering with fear; and Tocktamish, seeing that he had so
satisfactorily cleared the field, proceeded to address his attentions
to Giustina, who had not fainted, but was really much too frightened
to rise from her seat or try to escape.
The Tartar drew his chair nearer to hers, and suddenly smiled, as if
he had done nothing unusual, and was only anxious to make himself
agreeable. He had been drinking since early morning, but he would be
good for at least another gallon of wine before it made him senseless.
He addressed Giustina in the poetic language of his native country.
'Come, pet parrot of my soul!' he began, coaxingly. 'Fill me a cup and
let me hear your ravishing voice! Tocktamish has cleared the house as
the thunderstorm clears the hot air from the valley! Drink, my pretty
nightingale, and the golden wine shall warm your speech in your little
throat, as the morning sunshine melts the icicles in my beard when I
have been hunting all night in winter! Drink, my fawn, my spring lamb,
my soft wood-pigeon, my white bunny rabbit! Drink, sweet one!'
The Tartar's similes were in hopeless confusion, possibly because he
translated them into Greek, but he was convinced that he was eloquent,
and he was undeniably as strong as a bear. He had filled a fresh glass
and was evidently anxious to make Giustina drink out of it before him,
for he held it to her lips with his left hand while his right tried to
take her round the waist and draw her to his knee.
But this was much more than she was prepared to submit to. In the
fairy story, Beast was less enterprising in the presence of Beauty,
and collapsed into obedience at the mere lifting of her finger.
Giustina was a big creature, usually sleepy and not inclined to move
quickly; but she was capable of exerting considerable strength in an
emergency. The instant she felt Tocktamish's hand at her waist, she
rose with a quick, serpentine motion that unwound her, as it were,
from his encircling hold, and almost before he knew that she was on
her feet she had fled from the room and slammed the door behind her.
Tocktamish tried to follow her, but he stumbled successively over the
still unconscious dame and the still moaning Cornèr, so that when he
reached the door at last his purpose had undergone a change, and, as
he thought, an improvement. Women never ran out of the house into the
street, he argued; therefore Giustina was now upstairs and would stay
there; hence it would be wiser to finish the peacock and anything else
he could lay hands on before going to pay her a visit. For Tocktamish
found the food and the wine to his liking, and such as were not to be
had every day, even by a Tartar officer with plenty of money in his
wallet. He was tolerably steady still, as he made his way back towards
his seat.
His eye fell on Omobono, flattened against the wall and still in a
palsy of fear; for all that has been told since Cornèr had fallen and
Polo had run away had occupied barely two minutes.
Tocktamish suddenly felt lonely, and the little secretary amused him.
He took him by the collar and whirled him into Giustina's vacant chair
at the table.
'You may keep me company, while I finish my dinner,' he explained. 'I
cannot eat alone--it disturbs my digestion.'
He roared with laughter, and slapped Omobono on the back playfully.
The little man felt as if he had been struck between the shoulders by
a large ham, and the breath was almost knocked out of his body; and he
wondered how in the world his tight hose had survived the strain of
his sitting down so suddenly.
'You look starved,' observed the Tartar, in a tone of concern, after
observing his face attentively. 'What you want is food and drink,
man!'
With a sudden impulse of hospitality he began to heap up food on
Giustina's unused plate, with a fine indifference to gastronomy, or
possibly with a tipsy sense of humour. He piled up bits of roast
peacock, little salt fish, olives, salad, raisins, dried figs, candied
strawberries, and honey cake, till he could put no more on the plate,
which he then set before Omobono.
'Eat that,' he said. 'It will do you good.'
Then he addressed himself to the peacock again, with a good will.
Omobono would have got up and slipped away, if he had dared. Next to
his bodily fear, he was oppressed by the terrible impropriety of
sitting at his master's table, where the guests should have been. This
seemed to him a dreadful thing.
'Really, sir,' he began, 'if you will allow me I would rather----'
'Do not talk. Eat!'
Tocktamish set the example by tearing the meat off a peacock's leg
with his teeth.
'You need it,' he added, with his mouth very full.
The poor secretary looked at the curiously mixed mess which his
tormentor had set before him, and he felt very uncomfortable at the
mere idea of tasting the stuff. Then he glanced at the Tartar and saw
the latter's bloodshot eye rolling at him hideously, while the
shark-like teeth picked a leg bone, and terror chilled his heart
again. What would happen if he refused to eat? Tocktamish dropped the
bone and filled two glasses.
'To Messer Carlo Zeno!' he cried, setting the wine to his lips.
Omobono thought a little wine might steady his nerves; and, moreover,
he could not well refuse to drink his master's health.
'Good!' laughed Tocktamish. 'If you cannot eat, you can drink!'
Just then Cornèr groaned piteously, where he lay in a heap on the
floor. His nose was much hurt, but he was even more badly frightened.
The Tartar was not pleased.
'If that man is dead, take him out and bury him!' he cried, turning on
Omobono. 'If he is alive, kick him and tell him to hold his tongue! He
disturbs us at our dinner.'
Omobono thought he saw a chance of escaping, and rose, as if to obey.
But the Tartar's long arm reached him instantly and he was forced back
into his seat.
'I thought you meant me to take him away,' he feebly explained.
'I was speaking to the slaves,' said Tocktamish gravely, though there
was no servant or slave within hearing.
The unfortunate merchant, who was not at all unconscious, and had
probably groaned with a vague idea of exciting compassion, now held
his peace, for he did not desire to be kicked, still less to be taken
out and buried. The Tartar seemed satisfied by the silence that
followed. After another glass he rose to his feet and took Omobono by
the arm; considering his potations he was still wonderfully steady on
his legs.
'Where is the strong box?' he asked, dragging the secretary towards
the door opposite to the one through which Giustina had gone out.
'There is no money in the house,' cried Omobono, in renewed terror. 'I
swear to you that there is no money!'
'Very well,' answered the Tartar, who had taken the keys from the
table. 'Show me the empty box.'
'There is no strong box, sir,' answered the secretary, resolving to
control his fear and die in defending his master's property.
The difficulty was to carry out this noble resolution. Tocktamish
grabbed him by both arms and held him in the vice of his grasp.
'Little man,' he said gravely. 'There is a box, and I will find the
box, and I will put you into the box, and I will throw the box into
the water. Then you will know that it is not good to lie to
Tocktamish. Now show me where it is.'
Omobono shrank to something like half his natural size in his shame
and fear, and led the way to the counting-house. Once only he stopped,
and made a gallant attempt to be brave, and tried to repeat his queer
little prayer, as he did on all the great occasions of his life.
'O Lord, grant wealth and honour to the Most Serene Republic,' he
began, and though he realised that in his present situation this
request was not much to the point, he would have gone on to ask for
victory over the Genoese, on general principles.
But at that moment he felt something as sharp as a pin sticking into
him just where his hose would naturally have been most tight, and
where, in fact, the strain that pulled them up was most severe; in
that part of the human body, in short, which, as most of us have known
since childhood is peculiarly sensitive to pain. There was no answer
to such an argument _a posteriori_; the little man's head went down,
his shoulders went up, and he trotted on; and though he could not be
put off from finishing his prayer he had reached the door of the
counting-house when he was only just beginning to pray that he might
have strength to resist curiosity, a request even more out of place,
just then, than a petition for the destruction of the Genoese. A
moment later he and Tocktamish entered the room, and the Tartar shut
the door behind him.
Neither of the two had heard two little bare feet following them
softly at a distance; but when the door was shut Lucilla ran nimbly up
to it and quickly drew the great old iron bolt which had been left
where it had once been useful, at a time when the disposition of the
house had been different. Lucilla knew that all the windows within had
heavy gratings, and that neither Omobono nor his captor could get out.
Giustina had fled upstairs, as women generally do to save themselves
from any immediate danger. They are born with the idea that when a
house has more than one story the upper one is set apart for them and
their children, as indeed it always was in the Middle Ages, and they
feel sure that there must be other women there who will help them, or
defend them, or hide them. For it is a curious fact that whereas women
distrust each other profoundly where the one man of their affections
is concerned, they rely on each other as a whole body, banded together
to resist and get the better of the male sex, in a way that would do
credit to any army in an enemy's country. Therefore Giustina went
upstairs, quite certain of finding other women.
Now there was but one door on the upper landing, and that was Zoë's,
and it was open; and just outside it Lucilla was hiding in the
curtain, listening to the strange sounds that came up from below; but
when Giustina ran in without seeing her, the little slave stayed
outside and slipped downstairs noiselessly, listened again at the
dining-room door, watched the Tartar and the secretary from a place of
safety, and then ran nimbly after them on purpose to lock them in, as
she did, for she was a clever little slave and remembered the bolt.
Meanwhile Giustina rushed on like a whirlwind till she fell panting on
the divan beside Zoë, hardly seeing her at all, and staring at the
door, through which she expected every moment to see the burly Tartar
enter in pursuit; so that Yulia, who guessed the danger, ran and shut
it of her own accord.
Then Giustina drew a long breath and looked round, and she met Zoë's
eyes scrutinising her face with a look she never forgot.
'That monster!' she exclaimed, by way of explanation and apology.
Zoë had heard nothing, for the house was solidly built, and she had
not the least idea who had frightened Giustina. It occurred to her
that Gorlias might be in the house, and that on being seen by the
Venetians it had suited him to terrify them in order to get out again
without being questioned.
'You are Giustina Polo,' she said. 'I am Arethusa, Messer Carlo Zeno's
slave. Will you tell me what has happened?'
Giustina had now recovered herself enough to see that this Arethusa
was very lovely, and she momentarily forgot the danger she had
escaped.
'You are his slave!' she repeated slowly, and still breathing hard.
'Ah--I begin to understand.'
'So do I,' Zoë answered, looking at the handsome, heavy face, the dyed
hair, and marble hands.
There was something like relief in her tone, now that she had examined
her rival well.
'When did Carlo buy you?' asked Giustina, growing coldly insolent as
she recovered her breath and realised her social superiority.
'I think it was just five weeks ago,' Zoë answered simply. 'But it
seems as if I had always been here.'
'I have no doubt,' said Giustina. 'Five weeks! Yes, I understand now.'
Then a fancied sound waked her fear of pursuit again, and her eyes
turned quickly towards the door. Yulia was standing beside it,
listening with her ear to the crack; she shook her head as she met
Giustina's anxious glance. There was nothing; no one was coming.
'You had better tell me what has happened,' Zoë said. 'You met some
one who frightened you,' she suggested.
Giustina saw that Zoë was in complete ignorance of the Tartar's visit,
and she told what she had seen and heard downstairs. As she went on,
explaining that Tocktamish demanded ten thousand ducats in Zeno's
name, Zoë's expression grew more anxious, for she gathered the truth
from the broken and exaggerated narrative. After failing in his
attempt to free Johannes, Zeno had fallen into the hands of the
soldiers he had won over to the revolution; they demanded an enormous
ransom, and if it was not forthcoming they would give him up to
Andronicus.
It was bad enough, yet it was better than it might have been, for it
meant that Zeno was still alive and safe, and would not be hurt so
long as his captors could be made to wait for the money they asked.
'Ten thousand ducats!' Zoë repeated. 'It is more than can ever be got
together!'
'My father could pay twice as much if he pleased,' answered the rich
merchant's daughter, vain of his immense wealth. 'But I hardly think
he will give anything,' she added slowly, while she watched Zoë's face
to see what effect the statement might have.
'Messer Carlo has many friends,' Zoë answered quietly. 'But if he is
alive it is very probable that he may come home without paying any
ransom at all. And if he does, he will certainly repay the soldiers
for the trick they have played him.'
'You do not seem anxious about him,' said Giustina, deceived and
surprised by her assumed calmness.
'Are you?' Zoë asked.
At that moment Yulia opened the door, for she had been listening from
within and had heard her companion's bare feet on the pavement
outside. Lucilla slipped in, almost dancing with delight at her last
feat, and looking like a queer little sprite escaped from a fairy
tale.
'I have locked them up in the counting-house, Kokóna!' she cried. 'The
Tartar giant and the secretary! They are quite safe!'
She laughed gleefully and Yulia laughed too. Giustina suddenly
recollected her mother, who had fainted in the dining-room. As for her
father, her knowledge of his character told her that since there had
been danger he was certainly in a place of safety. She did not care
what became of Marin Cornèr, whom she detested because he had once
dared to ask for her hand, though he was a widower of fifty. But her
mother was entitled to some consideration after all, if only for
having brought into the world such a wonderful creature as Giustina
really believed herself to be. Yet in her heart the young woman felt a
secret resentment against her for having grown so enormously fat;
since it very often happens that as daughters grow older they grow
more and more like their mothers, and Giustina was aware that she
herself was already rather heavy for her age. It would be a terrible
thing to be a fat woman at thirty, and it would be her mother's fault
if she were. Many daughters are familiar with this argument, though
they may cry out and rail at the story-teller in the bazaar who has
betrayed it to the young men.
Giustina rose with much dignity now that she was fully reassured as to
the safety of the house. Zoë was questioning Lucilla, who could hardly
answer without breaking into laughter at the idea of having imprisoned
Omobono and the terrible Tartar. The little secretary had never been
unkind to any one in his life, but once or twice, when the master had
been out and he had been on his dignity, he had found the slave-girls
loitering on the stairs and had threatened them with the master's
displeasure and with a consequent condign punishment if they were ever
again caught doing nothing outside their mistress's apartment; and it
was therefore delightful to know that he was shut up with Tocktamish,
in terror of his life, and that his tremendous dignity was all gone to
pieces in his fright.
'You are a clever girl,' said Zoë. 'I only hope the door is strong.'
'I called the servants and the slaves before I came upstairs,'
Lucilla answered. 'I left them piling up furniture against the door. A
giant could not get out now.'
'Poor Omobono!' Zoë exclaimed. 'How frightened he must be.'
Giustina meanwhile prepared to go away, settling and smoothing the
folds of her gown, and pressing her hair on one side and the other.
Yulia brought her a mirror and held it up, and watched the young
lady's complacent smile as she looked at her own reflection. When she
had finished she barely nodded to Zoë, as she might have done to a
slave who had served her, and she went out in an exceedingly stately
and leisurely manner, quite sure that she had impressed Zoë with her
immeasurable superiority. She was much surprised and displeased
because Zoë did not rise and remain respectfully standing while she
went out, and she promised herself to remember this also against the
beautiful favourite when she herself should be Carlo Zeno's wife.
But at a sign from Zoë, Lucilla followed her downstairs since there
was no one else to escort her; and a few minutes later Yulia saw the
little party come out upon the landing below. The fat lady in green
silk was in a very limp condition, the embroidered roses seemed to
droop and wither, and she was helped by three of Zeno's men; Marin
Cornèr was holding a large napkin to his injured nose, so that he
could not see where he put his feet and had to be helped by the door
porter. As for Sebastian Polo, his wife and daughter well knew that
he was by this time safe at home, and was probably recovering his lost
courage by beating his slaves.
'They are gone,' said Yulia, when the boat had shoved off at last.
Zoë rose then, and went slowly to the window. She stood there a few
moments looking after the skiff, and in spite of her deep anxiety a
faint smile played round her tender mouth as she thought of her
meeting with Giustina; but it vanished almost at once. Her own
situation was critical and perhaps dangerous.
She knew that although she was a slave she was the only person in the
house who could exercise any authority now that Omobono was locked up
in the counting-house, and that it would be impossible to let him out
without liberating Tocktamish at the same time, which was not to be
thought of. If the Tartar got out now he would probably murder the
first person he met, and every one else whom he found in his way;
indeed, Zoë thought it not impossible that he was already murdering
Omobono out of sheer rage.
'Come,' she said to Lucilla. 'We must go downstairs and see what can
be done.'