sack over his head."

"He lies very quiet."

"Tumble him out and you will find that he is lively enough."

The cord which bound me was undone and the sack drawn from over my head.
With my eyes closed I lay motionless upon the floor.

"By the saints, Matteo, I tell you that you have broken his neck."

"Not I. He has only fainted. The better for him if he never came out of
it again."

I felt a hand within my tunic.

"Matteo is right," said a voice. "His heart beats like a hammer. Let him
lie and he will soon find his senses."

I waited for a minute or so and then I ventured to take a stealthy peep
from between my lashes. At first I could see nothing, for I had been
so long in darkness and it was but a dim light in which I found myself.
Soon, however, I made out that a high and vaulted ceiling covered with
painted gods and goddesses was arching over my head. This was no mean
den of cut-throats into which I had been carried, but it must be the
hall of some Venetian palace. Then, without movement, very slowly and
stealthily I had a peep at the men who surrounded me. There was the
gondolier, a swart, hard-faced, murderous ruffian, and beside him were
three other men, one of them a little, twisted fellow with an air
of authority and several keys in his hand, the other two tall young
servants in a smart livery. As I listened to their talk I saw that the
small man was the steward of the house, and that the others were under
his orders.

There were four of them, then, but the little steward might be left out
of the reckoning. Had I a weapon I should have smiled at such odds as
those. But, hand to hand, I was no match for the one even without three
others to aid him. Cunning, then, not force, must be my aid. I wished
to look round for some mode of escape, and in doing so I gave an almost
imperceptible movement of my head. Slight as it was it did not escape my
guardians.

"Come, wake up, wake up!" cried the steward.

"Get on your feet, little Frenchman," growled the gondolier. "Get up, I
say," and for the second time he spurned me with his foot.

Never in the world was a command obeyed so promptly as that one. In an
instant I had bounded to my feet and rushed as hard as I could to the
back of the hall. They were after me as I have seen the English hounds
follow a fox, but there was a long passage down which I tore.

It turned to the left and again to the left, and then I found myself
back in the hall once more. They