“Curse it, I wish I had to do with a man instead of a woman, and the
fairest woman in Venice,” said the gondolier. “Here, Nicholas, lend me
your handkerchief and bring a light.”
It was all over. The worst had happened. Nothing could save me. I still
crouched in the corner, but I was tense in every muscle, like a wild cat
about to spring.
If I had to die I was determined that my end should be worthy of my
life.
One of them had gone for a lamp and Matteo was stooping over me with a
handkerchief. In another instant my secret would be discovered. But he
suddenly drew himself straight and stood motionless. At the same instant
there came a confused murmuring sound through the little window far
above my head. It was the rattle of oars and the buzz of many voices.
Then there was a crash upon the door upstairs, and a terrible voice
roared: “Open! Open in the name of the Emperor!”
The Emperor! It was like the mention of some saint which, by its very
sound, can frighten the demons.
Away they ran with cries of terror--Matteo, the valets, the steward, all
of the murderous gang. Another shout and then the crash of a hatchet and
the splintering of planks. There were the rattle of arms and the cries
of French soldiers in the hall. Next instant feet came flying down the
stair and a man burst frantically into my cell.
“Lucia!” he cried, “Lucia!” He stood in the dim light, panting and
unable to find his words. Then he broke out again. “Have I not shown you
how I love you, Lucia? What more could I do to prove it? I have betrayed
my country, I have broken my vow, I have ruined my friends, and I have
given my life in order to save you.”
It was young Lorenzo Loredan, the lover whom I had superseded. My heart
was heavy for him at the time, but after all it is every man for himself
in love, and if one fails in the game it is some consolation to lose to
one who can be a graceful and considerate winner.
I was about to point this out to him, but at the first word I uttered he
gave a shout of astonishment, and, rushing out, he seized the lamp which
hung in the corridor and flashed it in my face.
“It is you, you villain!” he cried. “You French coxcomb. You shall pay
me for the wrong which you have done me.”
But the next instant he saw the pallor of my face and the blood which
was still pouring from my head.
“What is this?” he asked. “How come you to have lost your ear?”
I shook off my weakness, and pressing my handkerchief to my wound I rose
from my couch, the debonair colonel of Hussars.
“My injury, sir, is nothing. With your permission we will not allude to
a matter so trifling and so personal.”
But Lucia had burst through from her cell and was pouring out the whole
story while she clasped Lorenzo's arm.
“This noble gentleman--he has taken my place, Lorenzo! He has borne it
for me. He has suffered that I might be saved.”
I could sympathise with the struggle which I could see in the Italian's
face. At last he held out his hand to me.
“Colonel Gerard,” he said, “you are worthy of a great love. I forgive
you, for if you have wronged me you have made a noble atonement. But I
wonder to see you alive. I left the tribunal before you were judged,
but I understood that no mercy would be shown to any Frenchman since the
destruction of the ornaments of Venice.”
“He did not destroy them,” cried Lucia. “He has helped to preserve those
in our palace.”
“One of them, at any rate,” said I, as I stooped and kissed her hand.
This was the way, my friends, in which I lost my ear. Lorenzo was found
stabbed to the heart in the Piazza of St. Mark within two days of the
night of my adventure. Of the tribunal and its ruffians, Matteo and
three others were shot, the rest banished from the town.
Lucia, my lovely Lucia, retired into a convent at Murano after the
French had left the city, and there she still may be, some gentle lady
abbess who has perhaps long forgotten the days when our hearts throbbed
together, and when the whole great world seemed so small a thing beside
the love which burned in our veins. Or perhaps it may not be so. Perhaps
she has not forgotten.
There may still be times when the peace of the cloister is broken by the
memory of the old soldier who loved her in those distant days. Youth
is past and passion is gone, but the soul of the gentleman can never
change, and still Etienne Gerard would bow his grey head before her and
would very gladly lose his other ear if he might do her a service.