hind him to gather up the folds!

Those words could not be meant for him; they were merely a general
order; there were twenty men--forty men in that company more wicked than
he! He could not turn back and face them to glide into his place again;
it would be certain death; but when the Chief of the Ten or Father
Gianmaria should begin to speak, he must go on.

He lifted one foot to be ready; a great sweat broke out on his
forehead--would this silence never end? He dared not stir until there
should be words to hold the crowd; for if he should be caught----

Were they speaking?--His heart thumped so that he could not hear. Santa
Maria!--death could not be worse!

"Thou art summoned; they are calling thee," said Fra Giulio, close
beside him, in a low, hard voice that changed to one more compassionate
as the friar turned his livid face toward him. "I know not thy fault,
but Fra Paolo will plead for thee; for thou art ill, verily."

"Fra Paolo is no man of mercy."

"Nay, but of justice. He will not remember thy discourtesies."

"_Discourtesies_!" ay, it was true; Fra Giulio did not know--nobody
knew; he would take courage and plead to be forgiven his manifold
"discourtesies" toward this idol of the Servi; it was for this that he
was summoned! The palace guards were approaching the low passage, and
the extremity of his need steadied him; he rallied all his powers for a
last effort, and, shaking off their touch, advanced into the court--his
face, withered and pain-stricken, might have plead for him but for the
strange hardness of the lines.

"It was a sudden malady that bade me seek my cell," he gasped. "I knew
not that your Excellency had need of me."

He was a ghastly thing in his fear.

The inexorable Chief of the Ten surveyed him in silence for a brief
moment that seemed unending.

"Ay, Fra Antonio, we _have_ need of thee--more than another. For word
hath reached Venice, privately, from special friendly sources in Rome,
that thou art come hither charged with a message of vital import to a
trusted servant of the Republic. Thou hast leave of the Signoria to
declare it in this presence."

Fra Antonio opened his dry lips and framed some words of which he heard
no echo.

"The Inquiry of Venice is satisfied," said the Chief. "Thou art the man
whom we seek. Conduct him to the gondola of the Piombi."

Fra Antonio fell upon his knees in wild supplication as the guards
gathered around him, but the Father Superior det