Max Pemberton

“ The fools that wait for me shall be left with their folly. The gold they seek shall be the saddle for my horse. My Elixir of Life shall stink in the flasks of Murano or wash the dead they carry to the coffins. Another month—a hundred thousand ducats yet from their Treasury—and the game is ended. The star of Franza will set, but it will rise again in another city, before another people, who will worship it as this people has done. ”

“ The idea that he must fight for his life, with some bravo sent to his house to rob him, did not trouble him at all. He would shoot the fellow as he would shoot a wolf, he said.
"You are saying your prayers, rogue?" he exclaimed, stepping suddenly toward the place where he had heard the sound of breathing. "I conjure you to be quick, or, certainly, you shall say them in purgatory. What! you would rob old Franza, the friend of Venice! A thousand devils take your impudence." ”

“ He had hung a lantern upon a hook in the wall of the cellar, and it cast a poor ray of wan light on the pavement beneath which his fortune lay. That which caused him to cry out suddenly was a shadow upon this patch of light. He saw that it was the shadow of a man, and he watched it with outstanding eyes, and remembered the warning of yesternight, which he had long forgotten. All his false strength left him in an instant. ”

“ An hour ago the messengers of the Three had carried away from his house one hundred thousand ducats in gold. He could still hear the cheers of the people in the gondolas before his door. Their cries: "Viva Franza, who has made the gold!" were as omens to his ears. The city without, then, believed that he had fulfilled his promise to Venice. He had given her gold, the people said, in return for the palace and the servants and the ducats she had found for him during the year he had been her guest. ”

“ He must defend himself before the Three; he must plead for time; he must declare himself unprepared for the last, the great experiment which should enrich the city beyond her dreams. A man of dogged courage, his spirit returned to him at the thought of combat. His eloquence had won a fortune for him in three cities; it should not lose a fortune for him in Venice.
"'My lords,' said he, 'I have come here at your bidding.'"
And so he entered the Palace with smiling face and ready step. ”

“ I dreamed it as I have dreamed many a sight and sound since fortune sent me to Venice. Who could be in this house when midnight strikes? Who is there with the courage to set foot in the laboratory of Zuane de Franza? Fools all—there is not one among them——"
He turned again, with a gesture of contempt, to the bookcase for the volume he needed. The taper showed a coarse, white face, with a great height of forehead, and lips thick and sensual as those of an African. ”

“ The night must find him wakeful. He had his work to do. He would cheat Venice yet—Venice and the cursed priest who had stirred up the people against him.
A hundred thousand ducats had been the price of his freedom. It was the half of the fortune he had accumulated since he began to practise his arts in the city. The rest lay safe and snug in a great iron chest in his laboratory. If he could escape from Venice with that, he would still be a rich man. Other countries would be open to him. ”

“ The President of the Three did not permit him to finish his sentence.
"Nevertheless," he exclaimed, "this is no time for excuses, signore, but fit and proper for the fulfilment of your promises. In a room below you will find the jars of water which you entrusted to our keeping a year ago. Anything else you seek shall be brought to you. But you will understand that Venice asks a hundred thousand golden ducats, and that you must find them for her before the sun has set to-day."
Franza cried out in amazement:
"A hundred thousand ducats, my lord! It is impossible." ”

“ Terror of the morning still haunted the broken man. He feared the things his eyes saw. When he looked at himself in a great mirror, when he saw that woeful face and the shrunken cheek and the long, dank hair, all the suffering he had endured in the unspeakable cell recurred to him. ”

“ A hundred thousand ducats will pay the bill at many an inn. They shall carry me to France, and I will promise gold to the French King. I will begin again and make good the fortune I have lost. While men's greed remains, there will always be a home for Franza, the gold-maker."
He stooped again to the bag and went down to the cellar quickly. When he had poured the last of the gold coins into the cavity, a mighty effort forced the stone back to its place, and a low cry of joy escaped him.
"To-morrow," he said, "to-morrow Filippo will return, and together—God, what is that?" ”

“ Would she permit him to flee? Might not the police-boat be at his door even then?
The question sent him hurrying to his balcony. He could make out the gondolas of many who went gaily to the pleasures of the night; but he did not see the boat of the Signori of the Night; nor could he espy his own gondola. Filippo had taken it, then! He, Franza, was a prisoner in his own house. He dare not trust the wreck of his fortune to the first hired barcarole that should chance to pass his door.
He must hide his money, he said to himself—must hide it from Venice and the Three. ”

“ When he had blown out his taper and drawn the lamp closer to his paper, a smile of sensuous content in his employment took possession of him, and he forgot the voice and his own foreboding.
"Another month and it shall be the end," he muttered; "one more throw with the dice of life, and it shall be the last. ”