IN THE POWER OF THE DOGE
Hugh fought his way forward in the confusion until he encountered a
blade which pressed him back with supple cunning. It curled
serpent-wise about his sword, hissing venomously as it menaced head
and throat and loins. Almost he fancied he could see its flashing
circles, and he divined that his opponent must be one of the Saracen
Emirs, skilled in the Eastern tricks of fencing with the
curved-bladed scimiter. The sweat beaded his forehead, his breath
came short, for his heavy weapon was ill-adapted for such work.
Then, when the darkness danced before his eyes and a dizziness came
over him, he felt a squat figure that brushed between his outspread
legs and the terrible sword fell away.
"So, lord," rasped Beppo's voice. "One Paynim dog the less."
All around him Hugh heard the gasping breaths of struggling men,
prayers, curses, threats, the whirr of flailing blades. It was
impossible to distinguish friend from foe.
"Mocenigo!" he cried. "Mocenigo! Stand forth and meet me!"
A mocking laugh was his answer.
"It may not be, good youth, it may not be!"
"Coward!" taunted Hugh.
Again the mocking laughter.
"Too late, boy."
The words came hollow as from a vault, and Hugh hurled himself in the
direction of the voice; but at the first step he ran against the
table which barred the hut midway from the entrance. A red mist of
anger enveloped him. He hacked and slashed and hewed at the empty
air. It was Matteo's voice which brought him back to sanity.
"They have gone," panted the jongleur.
"Whither?" shouted Hugh. "They could not have passed us. A light,
make a light!"
"Here, lord," exclaimed Beppo, and the gondolier struck flint and
steel above a pitch-pine torch.
The wood flared smokily, revealing the shattered interior of the hut,
a single white-robed figure sprawling in a pool of blood where
Beppo's knife had dropped him. In the end wall, which backed against
the overhanging dune, a door gaped open.
"After them," commanded Hugh, and he started to lead the way.
But Beppo caught his sleeve.
"With permission, Magnificence," said the gondolier. "That is no
more than a passage through the sand which comes out by the water.
They will be in their gondolas by now."
"Then in St. Cuthbert's name, let us follow as quick as we may."
The comrades ran from the hut along the path they had come by betwixt
the dunes. They had reached the edge of the reeds before the
gondoliers overtook them, puffing heavily.
"It is right to hurry, lords," remarked Beppo, as he and Giacomo
shoved off. "But we should not miss the favours God sends us. The
Paynim had a full purse."
"It is yours," said Matteo. "You are good varlets. Now, do you come
up with our foes, and there will be yet more gold in your pockets."
"We will, St. Mark helping us," returned Beppo.
They swept forth from the shadow cast by the Isle of Rabbits, and
emerged upon the surface of the lagoons, faintly lit by the starshine
from the lowering purple sky. The comrades strained their eyes in
every direction, but it was Giacomo who first saw the quarry. He
pointed to the eastward with a grunt.
Barely discernible in the darkness, two dots were speeding over the
water. One, at right angles to their course, made in the direction
of the open sea. The other, slightly in advance, was heading towards
Venice.
"'Tis they," said Beppo. "See, lords. The Saracens are bound out
from the lagoons. No doubt they have a galley lying in wait for
them. The others would return to the fondaco Pisano."
"Can you catch up with them?" asked Matteo.
"Do but watch us, Magnificence."
The gondola seemed almost to fly, as Beppo and Giacomo bent their
backs to the oars and the ripples purred under the cleaving bow. But
for some minutes, despite this pace, the green gondola held its own.
Mocenigo's crew were seasoned oarsmen, and they rowed like demons.
Yet desperate though they were, they could not hope to match strength
with the redoubtable pair who pursued them.
A half hour went by, and the green gondola's lead was reduced to a
matter of yards. The comrades could see Mocenigo and his bravos
standing on the deck with swords drawn. But the lights of Venice
gleamed very close, barred at intervals by the dark mouths of the
canals, and once in that network of tangled waterways the task of the
pursuers would be redoubled.
"Up with them," cried Matteo. "A Byzant apiece to you, lads."
"Trust us, lord," gasped Beppo.
The gap was spanned as he spoke and their bow overlapped the green
gondola's stern.
"Close in, close in," ordered Hugh.
The green gondola made shift to sheer off, but the attempt was
hopeless; and in self-defence, Mocenigo's gondoliers were forced to
withstand the attack of Beppo and Giacomo. The crack of meeting oars
resounded with the clash of swords. Gunwale to gunwale the two craft
lay, bobbing at every shock, and it required a clear head and a
nimble foot to keep one's balance. But no thought of danger was in
Hugh's mind when his blade crossed Mocenigo's.
"At last," he exulted. "I have seen more of your back than your
face, Messer Assassin."
"It may be we will amend that, Messer Hugh," rejoined the Italian,
fencing cautiously.
"It seems you fear me."
"Not so, good youth. But you have a way of being inconvenient--for a
lad unspurred."
"Ay, 'twas you warned me of the dangers of Outremer," retorted Hugh.
"Does it surprise you to find me alive?"
Mocenigo laughed grimly.
"Be not too sure of life. My arm is long."
"And mine!"
Mocenigo slipped to the deck to avoid a swinging cut, and Hugh
gathered himself to leap the green gondola's rail. One of Mocenigo's
bravos was down, and the sole remaining one had all he could do to
resist Matteo and Ralph. The gondoliers were waging an independent
battle. But in the very moment of victory a hail rang out of the
darkness.
"In the name of the Republic!"
And a lean, twelve-oared galley ranged alongside the comrades'
gondola.
"In the name of the Republic!" the hail was repeated. "Put down your
arms."
"The Lords of the Night!" cried Beppo.
"The Lords of the Night!" was the echo from the green gondola.
Mocenigo sprang to his feet at the cry.
"To your sweeps, knaves," he shouted. "Be swift, and you would
escape."
His gondoliers already were thrusting out their oars, and their craft
gained headway rapidly. Mocenigo waved his sword to Hugh as the
shadows closed round it.
"May the Panagia guard you against the hour I give you the end I have
in mind," he called.
Hugh turned in baffled rage to Matteo.
"What fools are these who aid the foes of Venice?" he exclaimed.
"Bid them pursue before it is too late."
"They are the police," said Matteo. "The Lords of the Night, who
have jurisdiction over Venice from sunset to dawn. I know not what
it means, Hugh, but be calm. Here comes one who will answer us."
An officer, handsomely garbed in black velvet slashed with vermeil
samite, climbed from the stern of the galley to the deck of the
gondola beside them.
"Your names, Messers?" he demanded sternly.
"This is Messer Hugh de Chesby, an English lord, and I am Matteo of
Antioch, a jongleur," answered Matteo. "We are in Venice seeking
shipping for Outremer. But your business is not with us, noble sir.
In that gondola which flees toward La Giudecca is one Messer
Mocenigo, who is outlawed from Venice and a spy of the Saracens."
The officer shrugged his shoulders.
"Say you so? Well, Messer, he cannot escape for long, an the
Republic chooses to spread her nets for him. But you are caught
red-handed in the act of disobeying the laws of the Grand Council
against broiling in the city. You must go with me to the Palace for
trial."
Matteo affected to be unconcerned.
"Have it your own way, Magnificence," he returned. "We have just
overheard this Mocenigo plotting with three Saracen envoys on the
Isle of Rabbits. The matter touches narrowly the honour of the
Republic. If you will not pursue him, the least we demand is that we
be taken straight to the Doge to tell the facts to His Highness in
person."
The officer was impressed.
"To the Palace you shall go," he said. "And if his Highness the Doge
cares to investigate your story doubt not that you will be arraigned
before him."
Matteo saw that no more was to be gained and he bowed assent.
"We are at your disposal, Messer," he said. "Do you wish our swords?"
"No, you may keep them, an you give your words to make no effort to
escape."
"We do."
"That is well. Now, Messers, do you and your servants come aboard my
galley. We will tow your gondola to the Palace of St. Mark."
It was nearly midnight when the police galley rounded to the
landing-steps on the Square of St. Mark, and the comrades, with Beppo
and Giacomo--now vastly sobered and no little troubled--were led into
the vestibule of the Doge's Palace. There seats were given to them,
and they waited for what seemed a long time, until a Chamberlain
brought word that the Doge would see them. Even at that hour Dandolo
was still engaged in official business. As the two comrades went up
the stairs to the audience chamber, they passed a group of chief
artisans of the Arsenal, who had been receiving instructions for the
work remaining to be done to make ready the armament for the Crusade.
The ruler of Venice sat in a high-backed chair--almost a
throne--behind a wide table heaped with parchments, books, maps,
writing materials, models of vessels and samples of weapons and
armour. He was fingering a miniature petrary when they entered.
Half a dozen secretaries, shaven clerics for the most part, bustled
around him.
"You must increase the length of the casting arm," he directed a
bearded artisan, who stood on the opposite side of the table from
him. "I will have it throw the missile as far as a land machine. If
the weight must be reduced to fit it on the forecastle of the
galleys, then you must save on other parts."
"But, your Highness, if we lighten the other parts it will not rest
solid on the deck," objected the artisan.
"Fool!" snapped the Doge. "Bolt it to the deck with iron nails. Do
not come to me again until you have succeeded."
The artisan retired, and Dandolo swept the room with his strange,
wellnigh sightless eyes.
"Who else?" he asked sharply.
There was no trace of fatigue in his voice, no stoop in his thin
shoulders. He carried his ninety-two years as though he had been a
man of forty.
"Your Highness," said the police officer, stepping forward, "these
are the prisoners, foreigners, who have demanded to be brought before
you."
"Crusaders?" expostulated Dandolo. "All such are to be brought
before their own chiefs on St. Nicolo. So it has been arranged. You
know that."
"But these are not Crusaders, your Highness. They say they have
information for the Republic."
"Humph! What are they?"
"They are an English lord and a jongleur of Antioch, with three
servants, who were found fighting with a gondola which escaped on the
lagoons."
"Yes," broke in Matteo, "and that gondola which escaped contained an
enemy of the Republic, an outlaw of Venice, who was trafficking with
the Saracens."
The Doge turned quickly toward the jongleur.
"You speak boldly, Messer," he said. "Who was this man?"
"His name is Mocenigo, and he is in the employ of the Greek Emperor."
"So?" Dandolo's dead-white face was emotionless. "Yes, it comes to
our memory that Mocenigo was outlawed for debauchery. But what is
that to you, Messer? Are you a relative of a family he has
aggrieved?"
"No."
"Then could you not have left justice to the duly authorised officers
of the Republic?"
"Yes, your Highness. Ordinary justice. But this man is more than
outlaw."
"What then?"
"I have said it. He trafficks with the Saracens. We pursued him,
without his knowledge, to the Isle of Rabbits, where he met three
Emirs, who landed from a galley which lay outside the lagoons. They
came to ask him of the Crusade and where it was going, and----"
"Stay," said Dandolo.
He beckoned to his secretaries.
"Clear the room. I wish nobody to remain except these strangers.
The guards may wait without."
Dandolo sat silent, his chin cupped in one hand, his eyes staring in
front of him in the uncanny direct way which was one of his traits,
until the fluttering of robes and the pattering of feet had ended
with the shutting of the door.
"Draw nearer," he ordered abruptly. "Both of you. Stand by my side
here."
He directed them to a position close to his chair.
"Who are you who have talked thus far?" he asked, peering at them out
of eyes which were clouded by a slight film.
"I am called Matteo of Antioch, a jongleur."
The Doge leaned forward and studied his face.
"And you?"
He turned to Hugh.
"Hugh de Chesby, lord of Chesby in England."
"Chesby? That is a name passing well-known in Outremer."
"Sir James de Chesby is my father," answered Hugh steadily.
The Doge's dim old eyes examined his features at close range.
"Both honest faces," was the verdict. "I give frequent thanks to Our
Lord Jesus Christ that my sight still serves me on occasion. Well,
and what say you, Messer Matteo? These Saracens asked the man
Mocenigo of the Crusade?"
"Ay, your Highness. And he told them it would not sail for Babylon
or any port in Paynimry."
"This year?" amended the Doge.
"Nay, any year," he said.
"Said he so?" Dandolo murmured. "And then?"
"He said it would sail against Constantinople."
The Doge's gaunt frame snapped upright in his chair, and a light
seemed to flash from his face.
"Why did you conceive it necessary to tell me this?"
"Because it seemed to me, your Highness, that it touched the honour
of the Republic--ay, of all Christendom."
"You have repeated it to no one else?"
"No."
"You have said nothing of your suspicions to the leaders of the host?"
"Fair sir, we had no suspicions before to-night."
Dandolo drummed on the arm of his chair and stared over the comrades'
heads.
"Look you, Messers," he said suddenly. "You have been taken by the
officers of the Republic in the violation of her laws. You are
strangers here, and none will take interest in your fate--nay, none
will know of it. A word from me, and you will disappear."
Hugh frowned in anger at this speech, but Matteo motioned to him to
hold his temper.
"What you have said is sufficiently clear, Lord Doge," replied the
jongleur placidly. "But I have yet to hear that justice is departed
from Venice."
"And I propose to give you justice," retorted Dandolo. "'Tis because
you are both plainly honourable and well-intentioned in your
blunderings."
"Blunderings, sire? Where have we blundered?"
"You have blundered into that which doth not concern you, into
matters of great import. But you gained the knowledge through no
fault of your own, and so I would help you to escape the
consequences."
"You speak to us in riddles, your Highness," said Hugh impatiently.
"In God's name, tell us what you mean! We fear naught! We have no
sin upon our souls!"
Not a line quivered in Dandolo's imperturbable face.
"Right knightly spoken!" he approved. "I see that you are men of
spirit as well as honour. That is well, for we need such. Messers,
all unwittingly you have stumbled upon the most valuable secret in
the world. Your possession of it is dangerous to myself and to other
people. Therefore I give you the choice of pledging me your word by
the Body of Christ that you will speak naught of it to others and
that you will agree to accompany the Crusade until I release you from
your promise, or--the dungeons of St. Mark. Choose!"
Matteo and Hugh exchanged glances.
"That is really no choice, fair sir," said Hugh. "As it happens, I
go upon a private quest to Outremer, and my affairs take me first to
Constantinople."
"So much the better for you," returned the Doge. "Do you give your
word?"
"Ay, fair sir."
"And for your servants?"
"For them, too."
"I rejoice, Messers. Think not that I have been unjust to you. You
shall share in an exploit that will be remembered through the ages,
and sung of, Messer Jongleur, wherever brave men love brave songs."
Dandolo's voice clanged like a trumpet and a fire of enthusiasm
burned lambently over his waxen features.
"Then it is true what Mocenigo said?" asked Hugh.
"Ay, true, Messer Englishman. Mocenigo was permitted to come to
Venice in secret to make certain arrangements for us. He is a spy in
our interest in Constantinople. He gave the information you
overheard to-night to the envoys of the Sultan of Babylon, in order
that the property of Christians in Paynimry might be assured safety
against measures of vengeance such as the Saracens take when Crusades
are dispatched to their shores. I like not to use such dogs as he,
but in affairs of state we accept the tools God gives us. 'Twas no
more than to be expected that he should sell additional information
together with that which he was charged to impart."
"But, Lord Doge," exclaimed Hugh, "what will Holy Church, what will
the Apostle of Rome say to the employment of a Crusade against
another Christian country?"
Once more the light of enthusiasm flamed in Dandolo's face.
"What will they say? God knows, young Englishman! He who plans for
the future must always face the slurs of the blind who cannot see
ahead. But I see, and I am not afraid to venture. Byzantium! What
is she to-day? An empty mockery, a worn-out husk, a figment of pomp
and blazonry! Her Emperors win the throne by assassination,
mutilation, parricide and fratricide. Yet she purports to rule the
world!
"I tell you, Messers, we will take her, and on the ruins of her
ancient might we will erect a state which will be able to beat back
the Saracens and carry Christian arms and commerce to the farthest
ends of the earth. What use is any Crusade which chops out a little
block of Paynimry, and then collapses for want of support? It is
impossible to wage such wars from over-seas. But from Constantinople
it will be a different task. With those giant walls to protect us,
we will build up anew the Empire of the East, reconquer the provinces
of Asia, win back the Holy Land.
"What if the Pope of Rome derides us? What if he excommunicates us?
Long after he is dead men will remember us and bless us for our work.
The Pope! Bah! He hath not even the address to see to it that these
poor, misguided Crusaders receive the funds the holy friars have
ransacked Europe for! He and Holy Church have lost the right to
dictate the conduct of the Crusade. They should have provided for
the welfare of their charges, materially as well as spiritually. But
they did not, and so, Messers, this Crusade will fight for something
better than relics and holy places. It will fight for the good of
mankind!"
The Doge tossed up his arms in a gesture of defiance, and exhausted
by the vehemence of his passion, sank down in his chair. The
comrades stood silent and ill at ease. They knew not what to say.
They were abashed, stupefied. They realised something in this man
which was extraordinary, incalculable, a driving force of unearthly
energy.
Presently, Dandolo brushed his hand before his face as if to wipe
away a veil which hindered him.
"Now you know all there is to know," he said kindly. "Remember your
promise, and if I can help you in aught, be sure to come to me. I
like not to threaten, but bear my words in mind."
As the comrades were seating themselves in their gondola again, after
passing out from the Palace, Ralph heaved a deep sigh of relief.
"I do not mind saying, Messer Hugh, that I was never more frightened
in my life than when we came before that terrible old man in there,"
he said. "It made me think that if only you had let me bring my bow
with me to-night, I might have shot this Mocenigo and all his crew
and the police would not have captured us."
"And we would not have been taken to the Palace," added Matteo.
"True, Ralph, but I am not sure that I regret it. What say you,
Hugh?"
"Regret it? I would not have had it happen otherwise for many gold
pieces!" returned Hugh. "Do you remember what Messer Fulke, the
priest, told us, Matteo?"
"Ay," said Matteo. "And Crusaders--of sorts--we become."