Max Pemberton

“ Midnight shall see you hunted in the hills, my lord; no house shall dare to shelter you; no hand shall give you bread. When you return to the city you would have betrayed, the very children shall mock you for a beggar."
Foscari answered with an oath, and drew back. The third of the men, a youth who wore a suit of white velvet, and whose vest was ablaze with gold and jewels, now advanced jestingly.
"And for me, most excellent friar?"
"For you, Gian Mocenigo, a pardon in the name of that Prince of Venice whose house you have dishonoured." ”

“ But the priest continued warningly:
"As you obey, so hope for the mercy of Venice. You deal with those who know how to reward their friends and to punish their enemies. Betray us, and I swear that no death in all Italy shall be such a death as you will die at dawn to-morrow."
He raised his voice, and summoned the gondolier to the steps of the quay. The bravo threw himself down upon the velvet cushions with the threat still ringing in his ears.
"Excellency," he said, "I understand. They shall hear that you are dead." ”

“ For the body of Andrea, lord of Pisa, lay, still warm, upon the marble pavement of the chamber, and the dagger with which he had been stabbed was yet in his heart.
"A proof—have I not given you a proof?" the priest cried again, while the woman's terrible cry rang through the house, and the three stood close together, as men upon whom a judgment has fallen.
"Man or devil—who are you?" they asked in hushed whispers.
He answered them by letting his monk's robe slip from his shoulders. As the robe fell, they beheld a figure clad in crimson velvet, and corselet of burnished gold ”

“ III. Frà Giovanni stepped from his gondola, and stood at the door of the Palazzo Pisani exactly at a quarter to ten o'clock. Thirty minutes had passed since he had talked with the bravo, Rocca, and had put him to the proof. The time was enough, he said; the tale would have been told, the glad news of his own death already enjoyed by those who would have killed him.
Other men, perhaps, standing there upon the threshold of so daring an emprise, would have known some temptation of fear or hesitation in such a fateful moment; but the great Capuchin friar neither paused nor hesitated. ”

“ He had expected that the woman would cry out, or that the men would leap to their feet and draw their swords; but the supreme moment passed and no one spoke. A curious silence reigned in the place. From without there floated up the gay notes of a gondolier's carol. The splash of oars was heard, and the low murmur of voices. But within the room you could have counted the tick of a watch—almost the beating of a man's heart. And the woman was the first to find her tongue. She had looked at the friar as she would have looked at the risen dead ”

“ And he carries his naked sword in his hand; he has the face of a woman and his knees tremble. What means this?"
He had seemed to speak in jest, but while the cowed man was still kneeling before him, he, of a sudden, struck the sword aside, and, stooping, he gripped the bravo by the throat and dragged him from the shelter of the porch to the water's edge. As iron were the relentless hands; the man's eyes started from his head, the very breath seemed to be crushed out of him in the grip of the terrible priest.
"Signor Rocca, what means this?" the friar repeated. ”

“ Not a whisper of it, as I live, except to this friar, whom I could crush between my fingers as a glass ball out of Murano."
His colleague shook his head.
"There have been many," said he, "who have tried to crush Frà Giovanni. They grin between the bars of dungeons, my friend—at least, those who have heads left to grin with. Be warned of me, and make an ally of the man who has made an ally of Venice. The Captain knows well what he is doing. If he has gone to the priest's house now, it is that the priest may win rewards for us again, as he has won them already a hundred times." ”

“ The head of a man lay bleeding upon the marble slab between the columns. It was the head of the Marquis of Cittadella.
In the palace of the police, meanwhile, Pietro Falier, the Captain, was busy with his complaints.
"The lord of Pisa is dead," he said, "the woman has gone to the Convent of Murano; there is a head between the columns; Andrea Foscari will die of hunger in the hills—yet Gian Mocenigo goes free. Who is this friar that he shall have the gift of life or death in Venice?" ”

“ Nobles were seated at the doors of the splendid cafés; the music of stringed instruments mingled with the louder, sweeter music of the bells; women, whose jewels were as sprays of flame, many hued and dazzling, hung timidly upon the arms of lovers ”