The position of Zeno was quite clear to Zoë now, and a great wave of
happiness lifted her and bore her on with it as she realised that she
might save his life just when his chances looked most hopeless, and
that whether she succeeded or failed her own must certainly be staked
for his. Heroism is nearer the surface in women than in most men, and
often goes quite as deep.
Zoë had understood very suddenly how matters stood, and that
Tocktamish and his men meant to let Zeno perish, simply because he
might ruin them all if he regained his liberty; or, if it were found
out that he was taken, they intended to hand him over to Andronicus.
It was not at all likely that they would set him free even if they got
the great ransom they demanded.
But if by any means Johannes could be brought suddenly from his
prison, all Constantinople would rise in revolution to set him on the
throne, and it would be as dangerous to keep his friend Zeno in
confinement as it now seemed rash to his captors to let him out. The
first thing to be done was to reach Johannes himself and warn him, and
this could only be accomplished by a woman. Gorlias knew the soldiers,
and had as much influence with them as any one, perhaps, and whatever
could be done from without he would do; yet it was quite certain that
the men could not be got together again unless Johannes were actually
free.
The difficulty lay there. To reach him was one thing, and was within
the bounds of possibility; to bring him out would be quite another.
But Zoë had confidence in the devotion of the captain's wife, of whom
Gorlias had told her, and believed that in such a case two women could
do more than ten men.
Yet she saw that it might be fatal to let the imprisoned Emperor know
that Zeno was himself a prisoner. To prevent this she conceived the
plan of writing a letter in the Venetian's name, accepting on behalf
of the Republic the gift of Tenedos, and promising instant help and
liberty. Zeno had given his word that he would renew the attempt for
the sake of Tenedos, though for nothing else; this condition being
accepted, she knew that nothing could hinder him from keeping his word
if he were free. She would therefore only be writing for him what he
himself would write if he could; and besides, if she needed a more
valid excuse, it would be done to save his life.
Her learning stood her in good stead now as she carefully penned the
answer on stout Paduan paper. She made Zeno thank the Emperor on
behalf of the Serene Republic for his generous gift, and say that he
was ready, that not a moment should be lost, and that in an hour the
sovereign should be restored to his people, or Carlo Zeno would die in
the attempt.
This last phrase, as it ran from her pen, seemed to her a little too
theatrical to be Zeno's own, but she determined to let it stand for
the sake of the impression it should make on Johannes. Zeno would no
more have mentioned such a trifle as the risk of life and limb in
anything he meant to do than seamen would stop to talk of danger when
ordered to shorten sail in a dangerous gale. Such things are a part of
the game. No sailor will spin a yarn about a storm unless he has seen
the Flying Dutchman or the Sea Serpent or the Man in the Top; he is in
danger half his life. But the average modern soldier, who may be under
fire three or four times in his career, repeats the story of his
battles to any one who will listen. Zoë did not know whether Johannes
had ever seen Zeno's handwriting or not, but that mattered little in
those days, when many fine gentlemen could not write their own
letters. She folded the sheet neatly in a small square, and placed it
in her shoe by way of experiment, to see whether it would stay there
while she walked.
She did all this while Gorlias was gone, and before he came back the
afternoon was half over, though the spring days were growing long. He
told her that the Tartar was safe in his quarters, where he would
probably sleep till midnight at the very least, to the infinite rage
and disgust of his men. They had expected him to return laden with
gold or with the secure promise of it, and he had come back not only
empty-handed, but hopelessly drunk; and as they knew him well, but did
not know that he had swallowed a dose of opium that would have sent a
tiger to sleep, they meditated in gloomy thirst on the quantity of
strong wine he must have absorbed during an absence which had only
lasted two hours. What he had told Zoë of their coming to fetch him if
he stayed too long had been a pure invention to frighten her; they did
not even know where he had been, for he had merely announced his
intention of going out to collect Zeno's ransom from the Venetian
merchants, and his reputation for strength and ferocity was such that
they had not dreamed of his needing help.
Thus much Gorlias had found out, and he had also ascertained that the
men were in a thoroughly bad temper in consequence of the turn affairs
had taken, and much more inclined to murder Zeno than to let him out.
As for his whereabouts, Gorlias only knew that he was in one of the
many dry cisterns, which existed under old Constantinople, and which
had never been in use since the crusaders had cut the aqueducts and
sacked the city more than a hundred and seventy years earlier. The men
who had shut up Zeno knew where he was, but it was very likely that
they had not told their comrades. In those last days of the Empire the
foreign mercenaries were little better than bands of robbers,
half-trained at that, who preyed on the peasant part of the
population, obeying their officers only when it was worth the trouble,
and not even practising thieves' honour in the division of plunder.
Not a day passed then without brawl and bloodshed amongst the
soldiery; hardly a night went by without some act of violence and
depredation for which they were responsible. They had stolen under
Johannes, they robbed under Andronicus; under Johannes restored, they
would steal again. And they drank perpetually. If Sultan Amurad had
been the man that Mohammed the Conqueror turned out to be, the Turks
would have been in possession of Constantinople fully eighty years
before they actually stormed it, and with a tenth of the loss.
If Zeno had relied on the eight hundred soldiers who had agreed to
make a revolution for Johannes, he had done so because he knew they
could be trusted to rise if there was a chance of plundering the
palace and of cutting the throats of a few hundred of their divers
countrymen who had been preferred before them as a body-guard, and
were therefore their sworn enemies. But the instant those delightful
prospects disappeared they cared no more who was Emperor than a cur
cares who throws him a bone; the existing condition of things was good
enough for them, and they would risk nothing to change it, unless
change meant wine, women, and loot. Many of them were in reality
Mohammedans like Tocktamish, and looked upon all Christians, including
their employers, as their lawful prey--as dogs, moreover, and no great
fighters at that, but mostly cowardly curs. It was agreeable to live
amongst them because one could beat them and drink wine without the
disapproval of the greybeards; but as for respecting them, a Tartar
like Tocktamish would as soon have thought of fearing them.
Zoë knew all this, and so did Gorlias, and they agreed that unless
Johannes could be brought visibly before the soldiers there was little
chance of success, and none of saving Zeno. The difficulty lay in the
fact that Johannes was kept in a place even more inaccessible than
Zeno's cistern. The whole matter was a vicious circle. He could not be
set free unless the troops rose for him; but the troops would not rise
unless they saw him in their midst; and if there were no rising Zeno
would be starved to death in the well. Gorlias Pietrogliant was a man
of resources, but the problem completely baffled him.
He stood silent and in thought at Zoë's window; she sat quite
motionless on the great divan, watching him and thinking too. Her
knees were drawn up almost to her chin, and her folded hands clasped
them while she looked straight at the astrologer's back with unwinking
eyes. Neither he nor she knew how long they kept silence; it might
have been five minutes, or it might have been half an hour. Time plays
queer tricks when people are in great danger or in great distress.
Then Zoë's expression began to change very slowly, as an idea dawned
upon her. It was as if she saw something between her and Gorlias,
something that took shape by degrees, something new and unexpected
that presently grew to be a whole picture, and from a picture became a
real scene, full of living people, moving and talking; the tender
mouth opened a little as if she were going to speak, and the delicate
nostril quivered, the colour spread like dawn in her pale cheeks, and
a deep warm light came into her eyes.
When the scene was over and the vision disappeared, she nodded slowly,
as if satisfied that in her waking dream she had dreamed true.
[Illustration: Then, all at once, he felt that she had received one of
those inspirations of the practical sense which visit women who are
driven to extremities.]
'I have thought of a way,' she said at last.
Gorlias turned, crossed the room, and stood beside her to listen; but
he did not think she had any practicable scheme to propose, and at
first, while she was speaking, he was much more inclined to follow his
own line of thought than hers. Then, all at once, he felt that she had
received one of those inspirations of the practical sense which visit
women who are driven to extremities, and which have been the wonder of
men since Jacob's mother showed him how to steal his father's
blessing. It is quite certain that it was a woman who showed Columbus
the trick with the egg, when he himself was trying to balance one on
its point. Only a woman could have thought of anything so simple.
And now, after Gorlias had vainly racked his ingenious brain for an
idea, it was the girl that suggested the only possible one. He grasped
it easily.
'It is a daring plan, and it could not succeed in broad daylight,' he
said, when she had finished, 'but it may at dusk.'
'It must,' Zoë said emphatically. 'If it fails, we shall not see each
other again.'
'Not unless it occurs to Andronicus to crucify us together,' Gorlias
answered, rather gravely. 'Very much depends on our timing ourselves
as exactly as possible.'
'Yes. Let it be a little more than half an hour after sunset, just
when the dusk is closing in. Have you everything you need?'
'I can get what is lacking. We have three good hours still before
us.'
'Go, then, and do not be late. You know what will happen to me if you
do not come just at the right time.'
'You are risking more than I,' Gorlias said.
'I have more to lose, and more to win,' Zoë answered.
She was thinking of Zeno,--of life with him, of life without him, and
of the life she would give for his. But Gorlias wondered at her
courage, for it was held nothing in those days to tear a living man or
woman to shreds, piecemeal, on the mere suspicion of treason, and that
would surely be her fate if he could not carry out precisely and
successfully the plan she had thought of. A delay of half an hour
might mean death to her, though it would not of necessity affect the
result so far as Johannes and Zeno were concerned.
Gorlias left her to make his own preparations. When he was gone Zoë
sent Yulia for Zeno's own man, Vito, the Venetian boatman. He came and
stood on the threshold while she spoke to him, out of the maids'
hearing, and in Italian, lest they should creep near and listen.
'Vito,' said Zoë, 'how is the secretary?'
'Excellency,' the Venetian answered, 'fear is an ugly sickness, which
makes healthy men tremble worse than the fever does.'
He either forgot that he was supposed to be speaking to a slave who
had no more claim to be called 'Excellency' than he had himself, and
less, if anything; or else he had made up his mind that this beautiful
Arethusa whom he had to-day seen for the first time, was not a slave
at all, but a great lady in disguise.
'You are never frightened, are you, Vito?' she asked with a smile.
'I?' Vito grinned. 'Am I of iron, or of stone? Or am I perhaps a lion?
When there is fear I am afraid.'
'But the master is never frightened,' suggested Zoë. 'Is he of stone,
then?'
'Oh, he!' Vito laughed now, and shrugged his shoulders. 'Would you
compare me with the master? Then compare copper with gold. The master
is the master, and that is enough, but I am only a sailor man in his
service. If there is fighting, I fight while I see that I am the
stronger, but when I see that I may die I run away. We are all thus.'
'But surely you would not run away and leave Messer Carlo to be
killed, would you?'
'No,' Vito answered quite simply. 'That would be another affair. It
would be shame to go home alive if the master were killed. When one
must die, one must, as God wills. It may be for the master, it may be
for Venice. But for myself, I ask you? Why should I die for nothing? I
run away. It is more sensible.'
'You need not risk being killed if you do what I am going to ask,' Zoë
said, for after talking with the man she liked his honest face, and
thought none the less of him for his frankness. 'It is a very simple
matter.'
'What is it, Excellency?'
'You need not call me that, Vito,' answered Zoë. 'I want you to row me
at sunset to the landing which is nearest to the palace gate. It must
be the dirty little one on this side of the Amena tower, is it not?'
'That is it. But without the master's orders----'
Vito looked at her doubtfully, for he had been reminded that she
considered herself a slave, and it occurred to him that she meant to
escape in Zeno's absence.
'Messer Carlo would wish me to go, if he were here,' said Zoë quietly,
and not at all as if she were insisting, for she saw what was the
matter.
'I have no doubt it is as you say,' Vito answered. 'But I have no
orders.'
'There is a message from the master to some one in the palace,' Zoë
explained. 'No one but I can deliver it.'
'That is easily said,' observed Vito bluntly. 'There are no orders.'
Zoë felt the blood rising to her forehead at the man's rudeness and
distrust of her, but she controlled herself, for much depended on
obtaining what she wished.
'It is not a message,' she said; 'it is a letter.'
'Where is it?' asked Vito incredulously.
'I will show it to you,' Zoë answered, but she first turned to the
maids, who waited at the end of the room. 'Go and prepare me the
bath,' she said.
The two disappeared, though they did not believe that their mistress
really wished to bathe again so soon. When they were gone, she stooped
and took the letter from her shoe, unfolded it, and spread it out for
Vito to see. The effect it made upon him was instantaneous; he looked
at it carefully, and took a corner of it between his thumb and finger.
'This is the paper on which the master writes,' he said, as if
convinced.
It did not occur to him that the slave Arethusa could write at all,
nor any one else in the house except Omobono; and as for the latter,
if he had written anything he must have done so under Zeno's orders.
Writing of any sort commanded his profound and almost superstitious
respect.
'This is certainly a letter from the master,' he said, satisfied at
last, after what he considered a thoroughly conscientious inspection.
'And he wishes me to deliver it,' Zoë said. 'If I am to do that, you
must be good enough to take me to the landing in the boat. There is no
other way.'
'I could take the letter myself,' Vito suggested.
'No. Only a woman will be allowed to pass, where this must go.'
Vito began to understand, and nodded his head wisely.
'It is for Handsome John,' he said, with conviction, and fixing his
eyes on Zoë's. 'It is for the other Emperor, whom the master wishes to
set free.'
'Yes--since you have guessed it,' Zoë answered. 'Will you take me
now?'
'You will take one of your slaves with you, as you do when you go out
in the boat with the secretary, I suppose?'
Vito still felt a little hesitation.
'No. I must go alone with you. And I myself shall be dressed like a
slave, and I shall have a basket of things to carry on my head to the
wife of the gaoler.'
'I see,' said Vito, who really loved adventure for its own sake, and
was much less inclined to run away from danger than he represented.
'Did you say you wished to go at sunset?'
'Yes.'
'I shall be ready. But it will be better to take an old boat, and I
will put on ragged clothes, to look like a hired boatman.'
'Yes; that will be better.'
Vito went away, delighted with the prospect before him. He was too
young and too true a Venetian not to look forward with pleasure to
rowing the beautiful Arethusa up the Golden Horn, though he was only a
servant and she was the master's most treasured possession. He felt,
too, some manly pride in the thought of possibly protecting her, for
he meant to follow her ashore and look on from a distance, to see
whether she got safely into the tower, and he would wait until she
came out. The master would expect that much of him, at least.
As yet, neither Vito nor any member of the household, except Zoë, knew
that Zeno was a prisoner, held for ransom. It had pleased him to go
out of his house during the previous night, and some important
business detained him; that was all. When he was at leisure he would
come home. The men-servants who had waited on the guests and had heard
Tocktamish's words, to the effect that Zeno had sent him for money,
looked upon the statement as a clumsy trick which the half-drunken
robber was trying to play in Zeno's absence, and as nothing more. But
they had been far too badly frightened to stay and listen, as has been
seen. To Vito, who was, nevertheless, by far the best of them, it had
been a matter of utter indifference whether the Tartar cut the throats
of the four guests or not, compared with the urgent necessity of
keeping out of his reach. If the master had been present another side
of their character would have come into play, but as he was absent
they had thought of their own safety first.