here were graceful columns bearing pointed stone
arches, between which are the symbols of the four Evangelists; but he
could see nothing of them. Only on the balcony, he fancied he saw
something less dark than the wall or the sky, and which might be a
woman's dress.

Some one got out of the gondola and went in after speaking a few words
in a low tone, and the door was then shut without noise. The gondola
glided on, under the Baker's Bridge, but Zorzi could not see whether it
went further or not; he thought he heard the sound of the oar, as if it
were going away. Coming alongside the step, he knocked gently as the
last comer had done, and the door opened again. He had already made his
skiff fast to the step.

"Your business here?" asked a muffled voice out of the dark.

Zorzi felt that a number of persons were in the hall immediately behind
the speaker.

"For the Lord Jacopo Contarini," he answered. "I have a message and a
token to deliver."

"From whom?"

"I will tell that to his lordship," replied Zorzi.

"I am Contarini," replied the voice, and the speaker felt for Zorzi's
face in the darkness, and brought it near his ear.

"From Angelo," whispered Zorzi, so softly that Contarini only heard the
last word.

The door was now shut as noiselessly as before, but not by Contarini
himself. He still kept his hold on Zorzi's arm.

"The token," he whispered impatiently.

Zorzi pulled the little leathern bag out of his doublet, slipped the
string over his head and thrust the token into Contarini's hand. The
latter uttered a low exclamation of surprise.

"What is this?" he asked.

"The token," answered Zorzi.

He had scarcely spoken when he felt Contarini's arms round him, holding
him fast. He was wise enough to make no attempt to escape from them.

"Friends," said Contarini quickly, "the man who just came in is a spy. I
am holding him. Help me!"

It seemed to Zorzi that a hundred hands seized him in the dark; by the
arms, by the legs, by the body, by the head. He knew that resistance was
worse than useless. There were hands at his throat, too.

"Let us do nothing hastily," said Contarini's voice, close beside him.
"We must find out what he knows first. We can make him speak, I
daresay."

"We are not hangmen to torture a prisoner till he confesses," observed
some one in a quiet and rather indolent tone. "Strangle him quickly and
throw him into the canal. It is late already."

"No," answered Contarini. "L