ough which the heart-beats of Fra Antonio sounded in his ears
louder and more ominous than the harsh tones of the summons had done a
moment before.

Who were those two terrible gondoliers all in black, who stood by the
water-entrance on the Fondamenta? Was it the shadow of their great black
hats that darkened their features like masks? Why were they there?

He glanced stealthily at the faces of the friars; they were more full of
interest than dread, while the eyes of the little choristers who stood
robed for chapel service shone with delight. Evidently to all that
community the interruption was an event filled with possibilities of
excitement that was welcomed as breaking the monotony of the daily
round. Perhaps no one had noticed those gondoliers! Only Father
Gianmaria, the Superior, and the Senator Giustinian Giustiniani, the
Chief of the Ten, were stern and angry; and Fra Paolo stood between
them--calm and inscrutable as ever.

Now, thought Fra Antonio, before the curiosity of the friars had been
satisfied,--while no one was thinking of him,--he must escape! But at
every passage leading out of the court a scarlet coat stood guard, save
only before the low doorway of the dormitory stair. Fra Giulio's eyes
were fixed earnestly, adoringly, upon his beloved Fra Paolo, and he had
moved a little way from the wall.

Fra Antonio stole softly in behind him, breathlessly anxious. He was
already under the archway when his unsteady foot stumbled in a hollow of
the worn brick pavement just within the opening--in another moment he
should be safe! But a voice, meant for him alone, leaped through all
that crowd and petrified him with horror; it was filled with a sarcastic
grace as it offered the courtesy.

"Whoever hath need to leave this cloister before the Inquiry of Venice
is satisfied, shall be served by the gondola of the _Piombi_--which
waits."

I Piombi! Those prisons under the leads where the heat was slow
torture--this was the meaning of the masked gondoliers!

Surely it was the Chief of the Ten who had spoken! Fra Antonio trembled
from head to foot; but was he not already far enough within the narrow,
winding passage to be hidden from the cruel gaze of that man of power?
Half an inch might make the difference between life and death; he folded
his black gown closer about him--stealthily--so that it might not
rustle, watching the faint shadow on the pavement in agony--what if his
hand had been seen as he passed it be