rst sight. For Contarini's silken beard
hardly concealed a weak and feminine mouth, with lips too red and too
curving for a man, and his soft brown eyes had an unmanly tendency to
look away while he was speaking. He was tall, broad shouldered, and well
proportioned, with beautiful hands and shapely feet, yet he did not give
an impression of strength, whereas Venier's languid manner, assumed as
it doubtless was, could not hide the restless energy that lay in his
lean frame.

One by one the other companions came up to Zorzi, took off their masks
and grasped his hand, and he heard their lips pronounce names famous in
Venetian history, Loredan, Mocenigo, Foscari and many others. But he saw
that not one of them all was over five-and-twenty years of age, and with
the keenness of the waif who had fought his own way in the world he
judged that these were not men who could overturn the great Republic and
build up a new government. Whatever they might prove to be in danger and
revolution, however, he had saved his life by casting his lot with
theirs, and he was profoundly grateful to them for having accepted him
as one of themselves. But for their generosity, his weighted body would
have been already lying at the bottom of the canal, and he was not just
now inclined to criticise the mental gifts of those would-be
conspirators who had so unexpectedly forgiven him for discovering their
secret meeting.

"Sirs," he said, when he had grasped the hand of each, "I hope that in
return for my life, for which I thank you, I may be of some service to
the cause of liberty, and to each of you in singular, though I have but
little hope of this, seeing that I am but an artist and you are all
patricians. I pray you, inform me by what sign I may know you if we
chance to meet outside this house, and how I may make myself known."

"We have little need of signs," answered Contarini, "for we meet often,
and we know each other well. But our password is 'the Angel'--meaning
the Angel that freed Saint Peter from his bonds, as we hope to free
Venice from hers, and the token we give is the grip of the hand we have
each given you."

Being thus instructed, Zorzi held his peace, for he felt that he was in
the presence of men far above him in station, in whose conversation it
would not be easy for him to join, and of whose daily lives he knew
nothing, except that most of them lived in palaces and many were the
sons of Councillors of the Ten, and of Senato