F. Marion Crawford

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?'

'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.'