Turk's wives, and you must be answerable for this scandal.
The best I can do is to have you taken privately to the Palazzo Cador,
instead of being brought before the Council. I have pleaded your youth
and inexperience"--Tony winced at this--"and I think the business may
still be arranged."

Meanwhile the agent of the Ten had yielded his place to a sharp-featured
shabby-looking fellow in black, dressed somewhat like a lawyer's clerk,
who laid a grimy hand on Tony's arm, and with many apologetic gestures
steered him through the crowd to the doors of the church. The Count held
him by the other arm, and in this fashion they emerged on the square,
which now lay in darkness save for the many lights twinkling under the
arcade and in the windows of the gaming-rooms above it.

Tony by this time had regained voice enough to declare that he would go
where they pleased, but that he must first say a word to the mate of the
Hepzibah, who had now been awaiting him some two hours or more at the
landing-place.

The Count repeated this to Tony's custodian, but the latter shook his
head and rattled off a sharp denial.

"Impossible, sir," said the Count. "I entreat you not to insist. Any
resistance will tell against you in the end."

Tony fell silent. With a rapid eye he was measuring his chances of
escape. In wind and limb he was more than a mate for his captors, and
boyhood's ruses were not so far behind him but he felt himself equal to
outwitting a dozen grown men; but he had the sense to see that at a cry
the crowd would close in on him. Space was what he wanted: a clear ten
yards, and he would have laughed at Doge and Council. But the throng was
thick as glue, and he walked on submissively, keeping his eye alert for
an opening. Suddenly the mob swerved aside after some new show. Tony's
fist shot out at the black fellow's chest, and before the latter could
right himself the young New Englander was showing a clean pair of heels
to his escort. On he sped, cleaving the crowd like a flood-tide in
Gloucester bay, diving under the first arch that caught his eye,
dashing down a lane to an unlit water-way, and plunging across a narrow
hump-back bridge which landed him in a black pocket between walls. But
now his pursuers were at his back, reinforced by the yelping mob. The
walls were too high to scale, and for all his courage Tony's breath came
short as he paced the masonry cage in which ill-luck had landed him.
Suddenly a gate opened in