Marietta: A Maid of Venice by F. Marion Crawford (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📖

reach for you to drink, while I go and get help."

"They have sent for a surgeon," answered Zorzi.

"A surgeon? No surgeon shall come here. A surgeon will divide you into lengths, fore and aft, and kill you by inches, a length each day, and for every day he takes to kill you, he will ask a piece of silver of the master! If a surgeon comes here I will throw him out into the canal. This is a burn, and it needs an old woman to dress it. Women are evil beings, a chastisement sent upon us for our sins. But an old woman can dress a burn. I go. There is the water."

Zorzi called him back when he was already at the door.

"The fire! It must not go down. Put a little wood in, Pasquale!"

The old porter grumbled. It was unnatural that a man so badly hurt should think of his duties, but in his heart he admired Zorzi all the more for it. He took some wood, and when Zorzi looked, he was trying to poke it through the 'bocca.'

"Not there!" cried Zorzi desperately. "The small opening on the side, near the floor."

Pasquale uttered several maledictions.

"How should I know?" he asked when he had found the right place. "Am I a night boy? Have I ever tended fires for two pence a night and my supper? There! I go!"

Zorzi could hear his voice still, as he went out.

"A surgeon!" he grumbled. "I should like to see the nose of that surgeon at the door!"

Zorzi cared little who came, so that he got some relief. His head was hot now, and the blood beat in his temples like little fiery hammers, that made a sort of screaming noise in his brain. He saw queer lights in circles, and the beams of the ceiling came down very near, and then suddenly went very far away, so that the room seemed a hundred feet high. The pain filled all his right side, and he even thought he could feel it in his arm.

All at once he started, and as he lay on his back his hands tried to grip the flat wood of the bench, and his eyes were wide open and fixed in a sort of frightened stare.

What if he should go mad with pain? Who would remember the fire in the master's furnace? Worse than that, what safety was there that in his delirium he should not speak of the book that was hidden under the stone, the third from the oven and the fourth from the corner?

His brain whirled but he would not go mad, nor lose consciousness, so long as he had the shadow of free will left. Rather than lie there on his back, he would get off his bench, cost what it might, and drag himself to the mouth of the furnace. There was a supply of wood there, piled up by the night boys for use during the day. He could get to it, even if he had to roll himself over and over on the floor. If he could do that, he could keep his hold upon his consciousness, the touch of the billets would remind him, the heat and the roar of the fire would keep him awake and in his right mind.

He raised himself slowly and put his uninjured foot to the floor. Then, with both hands he lifted the other leg off the bench. He was conscious of an increase of pain, which had seemed impossible. It shot through and through his whole body; and he saw flames. There was only one way to do it, he must get down upon his hands and his left knee and drag himself to the furnace in that way. It was a thing of infinite difficulty and suffering, but he did it. Inch by inch, he got nearer.

As his right hand grasped a billet of wood from the little pile, something seemed to break in his head. His strength collapsed, he fell forward from his knee to his full length in the ashes and dust, and he felt nothing more.

CHAPTER X

The porter unbarred the door and looked out. It was nearly noon and the southerly breeze was blowing. The footway was almost deserted. On the other side of the canal, in the shadow of the Beroviero house, an old man who sold melons in slices had gone to sleep under a bit of ragged awning, and the flies had their will of him and his wares. A small boy simply dressed in a shirt, and nothing else, stood at a little distance, looking at the fruit and listening attentively to the voice of the tempter that bade him help himself.

Pasquale looked at the house opposite. Everything was quiet, and the shutters were drawn together, but not quite closed. The flowers outside Marietta's window waved in the light breeze.

"Nella!" cried Pasquale, just as he was accustomed to call the maid when Marietta wanted her.

At the sound of his voice the little boy, who was about to deal effectually with his temptation by yielding to it at once, took to his heels and ran away. But no one looked out from the house. Pasquale called again, somewhat louder. The shutters of Marietta's window were slowly opened inward and Marietta herself appeared, all in white and pale, looking over the flowers.

"What is it?" she asked. "Why do you want Nella?"

The canal was narrow, so that one could talk across it almost in an ordinary tone.

"Your pardon, lady," answered Pasquale. "I did not mean to disturb you. There has been a little accident here, saving your grace."

This he added to avert possible ill fortune. Marietta instantly thought of Zorzi. She leaned forward upon the window-sill above the flowers and spoke anxiously.

"What has happened? Tell me quickly!"

"A man has had his foot badly burned—it must be dressed at once."

"Who is it?"

"Zorzi."

Pasquale saw that Marietta started a little and drew back. Then she leaned forward again.

"Wait there a minute," she said, and disappeared quickly.

The porter heard her calling Nella from an inner room, and then he heard Nella's voice indistinctly. He waited before the open door.

Nella was a born chatterer, but she had her good qualities, and in an emergency she was silent and skilful.

"Leave it to me," she said. "He will need no surgeon."

In her room she had a small store of simple remedies, sweet oil, a pot of balsam, old linen carefully rolled up in little bundles, a precious ointment made from the fat of vipers, which was a marvellous cure for rheumatism in the joints, some syrup of poppies in a stumpy phial, a box of powdered iris root, and another of saffron. She took the sweet oil, the balsam, and some linen. She also took a small pair of scissors which were among her most precious possessions. She threw her large black kerchief over her head and pinned it together under her chin.

When she came back to Marietta's room, her mistress was wrapped in a dark mantle that covered hear thin white dress entirely, and one corner of it was drawn up over her head so as to hide her hair and almost all her face. She was waiting by the door.

"I am going with you," she said, and her voice was not very steady.

"But you will be seen—" began Nella.

"By the porter."

"Your brother may see you—"

"He is welcome. Come, we are losing time." She opened the door and went out quickly.

"I shall certainly be sent away for letting you come!" protested Nella, hurrying after her.

Marietta did not even answer this, which Nella thought very unkind of her. From the main staircase Marietta turned off at the first landing, and went down a short corridor to the back stairs of the house, which led to the narrow lane beside the building. Nella snorted softly in approval, for she had feared that her mistress would boldly pass through the hall where there were always one or two idle men-servants in waiting. The front door was closed against the heat, they had met no one and they reached the door of the glass-house without being seen.

Pasquale looked at Marietta but said nothing until all three were inside. Then he took hold of Marietta's mantle at her elbow, and held her back. She turned and looked at him in amazement.

"You must not go in, lady," he said. "It is an ugly wound to see."

Marietta pushed him aside quietly, and led the way. Nella followed her as fast as she could, and Pasquale came last. He knew that the two women would need help.

Zorzi lay quite still where he had fallen, with one hand on the billet of beech wood, the other arm doubled under him, his cheek on the dusty stone. With a sharp cry Marietta ran forward and knelt beside his head, dropping her long mantle as she crossed the room. Pasquale uttered an uncompromising exclamation of surprise.

"O, most holy Mary!" cried Nella, holding up her hands with the things she carried.

Marietta believed that Zorzi was dead, for he was very white and he lay quite still. At first she opened her eyes wide in horror, but in a moment she sank down, covering her face. Pasquale knelt opposite her on one knee, and began to turn Zorzi on his back. Nella was at his feet, and she helped, with great gentleness.

"Do not be frightened, lady," said Pasquale reassuringly. "He has only fainted. I left him on the bench, but you see he must have tried to get up to feed the fire."

While he spoke he was lifting Zorzi as well as he could. Marietta dropped her hands and slowly opened her eyes, and she knew that Zorzi was alive when she saw his face, though it was ghastly and smeared with grey ashes. But in those few moments she had felt what she could never forget. It had been as if a vast sword-stroke had severed her body at the waist, and yet left her heart alive.

"Can you help a little?" asked Pasquale. "If I could get him into my arms, I could carry him alone."

Marietta sprang to her feet, all her energy and strength returning in a moment. The three carried the unconscious man easily enough to the bench and laid him down, as he had lain before, with his head on the leathern cushion. Then Nella set to work quickly and skilfully, for she hoped to dress the wound while he was still insensible. Marietta helped her, instinctively doing what was right. It was a hideous wound.

"It will heal more quickly than you think," said Nella, confidently. "The burning has cauterised it."

Marietta, delicately reared and unused to such sights, would have felt faint if the man had not been Zorzi. As it was she only felt sharp pain, each time that Nella touched the foot. Pasquale looked on, helpless but approving.

Zorzi groaned, then opened his eyes and moved one hand. Nella had almost finished.

"If only he can be kept quiet a few moments longer," she said, "it will be well done."

Zorzi writhed in pain, only half conscious yet. Marietta left Nella to put on the last bandages, and came and looked down into his face, taking one of his hands in hers. He recognised her, and stared in wild surprise.

"You must try and not move," she said softly. "Nella has almost finished."

He forgot what he suffered, and the agonised contraction of his brows and mouth relaxed. Marietta wiped away the ashes from his forehead and cheeks, and smoothed back his thick hair. No woman's hand had touched him thus since his mother's when he had been a little child. He was too weak to question what was happening to him, but a soft light came into his eyes, and he unconsciously pressed Marietta's hand.

She blushed at the pressure, without knowing why, and first the maiden instinct was to draw away her hand, but then she pitied him and let it stay. She thought, too, that her touch helped to keep him quiet, and indeed it did.

"How did you know?" he asked at length, for in his half consciousness it had seemed natural that she should have come to him when she heard that he was hurt.

"Pasquale called Nella," she answered simply, "and I came too. Is the pain still very great?"

"It is much less. How can I thank you?"

She looked into his eyes and smiled as he had seen her smile once or twice before in his life. His memory all came back now. He knew that she ought not to have been there, since her father was away. His expression changed suddenly.

"What is the matter?" asked Marietta. "Does it hurt very much?"

"No," he said. "I was thinking—" He checked himself, and