et him on the way to the
church of San Salvatore--a short, squat man, masked and dressed from
head to foot in black. Quick as the movements of the fellow were,
dexterous his dives into porches and the patches of shadow which
the eaves cast, the priest's trained eye followed his every turn,
numbered, as it were, the very steps he took. And the smile upon Fra
Giovanni's face was fitful no more. He walked as a man who has a great
jest for his company.

"Rocca the fool, and alone! They pay me a poor compliment, those new
friends of mine; but we shall repay, and the debt will be heavy."

He withdrew his hand from his habit, where it had rested upon the hilt
of a dagger, for he knew that he had no need of any weapon. His gait
was quick and careless; he stopped often to peer into some windowless
shop where a sickly lamp burned before the picture of a saint; and
wares, which had not tempted a dead generation, appealed unavailingly
to a living one. The idea that his very merriment might cost him his
life never entered his head. He played with the assassin as a cat
with a mouse, now tempting him to approach, now turning suddenly, and
sending him helter-skelter into the door of a shop or the shadow of a
bridge. He was sure of his man, and that certainty was a delight to
him.

"If it had been any other but Rocca the clown!" he said to himself,
his thoughts ever upon the jest; "surely we shall know what to say to
him."

He had come almost to the church of San Salvatore by this time. His
walk had carried him out to the bank of a narrow, winding canal, at
whose quays once-splendid gondolas were rotting in neglect. It seemed
to him that here was the place where his tactics might well be changed
and the _role_ of the hunted put aside for that of the hunter. Quick
to act, he stepped suddenly behind one of the great wooden piles
driven into the quay for the warping of barges. The _bravo_, who did
not perceive that he had been detected, and who could not account for
the sudden disappearance of his prey, came straight on, his cloak
wrapped about his face, his naked sword in his hand. The wage would be
earned easily that night, he was telling himself. No one would miss a
beggarly monk--and he, Rocca, must live. A single blow, struck to the
right side of the back, and then--and then--

This pleasant anticipation was cut short abruptly by the total
disappearance of the man whose death was a preliminary to the wage he
anticipated so gree