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

news that Beroviero withdrew his consent to the marriage. Venier almost dictated the letter which Contarini wrote with a trembling hand, and he promised to deliver it himself, and if necessary to act as ambassador.

Beroviero had already called to Marietta that it was time to go home, though the mid-day bells had not yet rung out the hour, when Pasquale appeared in the garden and announced that Venier was waiting in his gondola and desired an immediate interview on a matter of importance.

He would have come on Contarini's behalf, if for no other reason, but he had spent much time that morning in laying Zorzi's case before his friends and all the members of the Grand Council who could have any special influence with the Ten, or with the aged Doge, who, although in his eightieth year, frequently assisted in person at their meetings, and whose Counsellors were always present. He was now almost sure of obtaining a favourable hearing for Zorzi, and wished to see Beroviero, for he was still in ignorance of Zorzi's return to the glass-house during the night.

Marietta was told to go into the deserted building, containing the main furnaces, now extinguished, for it was not fitting that she should be seen by a patrician whom she did not know, sitting in the garden as if she were a mere serving-woman whose face needed no veil. She ran away laughing and hid herself in the passage where she had spent moments of anguish on the night of Zorzi's arrest, and she waved a kiss to him, when her father was not watching.

Zorzi waited at the door of the laboratory, while Beroviero waited within, standing by the table to receive his honourable visitor. When Zorzi saw Venier's expression of astonishment on seeing him, he smiled quietly, but offered no audible greeting, for he did not know what was expected of him. But Venier took his hand frankly and held it a moment.

"I am glad to find you here," he said, less indolently than he usually spoke. "I have good news for you, if you will take my advice."

"The master has already told me what it is," Zorzi answered. "I am ready to give myself up whenever you think best. I have not words to thank you."

"I do not like many words," answered Venier. "But if there is anything I dislike more, it is thanks. I have some private business with Messer Angelo first. Afterwards we can all three talk together."

CHAPTER XXIV

Zorzi sat on a low bench, blackened with age, against the whitewashed wall of a small and dimly lighted room, which was little more than a cell, but was in reality the place where prisoners waited immediately before being taken into the presence of the Ten. It was not far from the dreaded chamber in which the three Chiefs sometimes heard evidence given under torture, the door was closed and two guards paced the narrow corridor outside with regular and heavy steps, to which Zorzi listened with a beating heart. He was not afraid, for he was not easily frightened, but he knew that his whole future life was in the balance, and he longed for the decisive moment to come. He had surrendered on the previous day, and Beroviero had given a large bond for his appearance.

There were witnesses of all that had happened. There was the lieutenant of the archers, with his six men, some of whom still showed traces of their misadventure. There was Giovanni, whom the Governor had forced to appear, much against his will, as the principal accuser by the letter which had led to Zorzi's arrest, and the letter itself was in the hands of the Council's secretary. But there was also Pasquale, who had seen Zorzi go away quietly with the soldiers, and who could speak for his character; and Angelo Beroviero was there to tell the truth as far as he knew it.

But Zorzi was not to be confronted with any of these witnesses: neither with the soldiers who would tell the Council strange stories of devils with blue noses and fiery tails, nor with Giovanni, whose letter called him a liar, a thief and an assassin, nor with Beroviero nor Pasquale. The Council never allowed the accused man and the witnesses for or against him to be before them at the same time, nor to hold any communication while the trial lasted. That was a rule of their procedure, but they were not by any means the mysterious body of malign monsters which they have too often been represented to be, in an age when no criminal trials could take place without torture.

Zorzi waited on his bench, listening to the tread of the guards. As many trials occupied more than one day, his case would come up last of all, and the witnesses would all be examined before he himself was called to make his defence. He was nervous and anxious. Even while he was sitting there, Giovanni might be finding out some new accusation against him or the officer of archers might be accusing him of witchcraft and of having a compact with the devil himself. He was innocent, but he had broken the law, and no doubt many an innocent man had sat on that same bench before him, who had never again returned to his home. It was not strange that his lips should be parched, and that his heart should be beating like a fuller's hammer.

At last the footsteps ceased, the key ground and creaked as it turned, and the door was opened. Two tall guards stood looking at him, and one of them motioned to him to come. He could never afterwards remember the place through which he was made to pass, for the blood was throbbing in his temples so that he could hardly see. A door was opened and closed after him, and he was suddenly standing alone in the presence of the Ten, feeling that he could not find a word to say if he were called upon to speak.

A kindly voice broke the silence that seemed to have lasted many minutes.

"Is this the person whom we are told is in league with Satan?"

It was the Doge himself who spoke, nodding his hoary head, as very old men do, and looking at Zorzi's face with gentle eyes, almost colourless from extreme age.

"This is the accused, your Highness," replied the secretary from his desk, already holding in his hand Giovanni's letter.

Zorzi saw that the Council of Ten was much more numerous than its name implied. The Councillors were between twenty and thirty, sitting in a semicircle, against a carved wooden wainscot, on each side of the aged Doge, Cristoforo Moro, who had yet one more year to live. There were other persons present also, of whom one was the secretary, the rest being apparently there to listen to the proceedings and to give advice when they were called upon to do so.

In spite of the time of year, the Councillors were all splendidly robed in the red velvet mantles, edged with ermine, and the velvet caps which made up the state dress of all patricians alike, and the Doge wore his peculiar cap and coronet of office. Zorzi had never seen such an assembly of imposing and venerable men, some with long grey beards, some close shaven, all grave, all thoughtful, all watching him with quietly scrutinising eyes. He stood leaning a little on his stick, and he breathed more freely since the dreaded moment was come at last.

Some one bade the secretary read the accusation, and Zorzi listened with wonder and disgust to Giovanni's long epistle, mentally noting the points which he might answer, and realising that if the law was to be interpreted literally, he had undoubtedly rendered himself liable to some penalty.

"What have you to say?" inquired the secretary, looking up from the paper with a pair of small and piercing grey eyes. "The Supreme Council will hear your defence."

"I can tell the truth," said Zorzi simply, and when he had spoken the words he was surprised that his voice had not trembled.

"That is all the Supreme Council wishes to hear," answered the secretary. "Speak on."

"It is true that I am a Dalmatian," Zorzi said, "and by the laws of Venice, I should not have learned the art of glass-blowing. I came to Murano more than five years ago, being very poor, and Messer Angelo Beroviero took me in, and let me take care of his private furnace, at which he makes many experiments. In time, he trusted me, and when he wished something made, to try the nature of the glass, he let me make it, but not to sell such things. At first they were badly made, but I loved the art, and in short time I grew to be skilful at it. So I learnt. Sirs—I crave pardon, your Highness, and you lords of the Supreme Council, that is all I have to tell. I love the glass, and I can make light things of it in good design, because I love it, as the painter loves his colours and the sculptor his marble. Give me glass, and I will make coloured air of it, and gossamer and silk and lace. It is all I know, it is my art, I live in it, I feel in it, I dream in it. To my thoughts, and eyes and hands, it is what the love of a fair woman is to the heart. While I can work and shape the things I see when I close my eyes, the sun does, not move, the day has no time, winter no clouds, and summer no heat. When I am hindered I am in exile and in prison, and alone."

The Doge nodded his head in kindly approbation.

"The young man is a true artist," he said.

"All this," said one of the Chiefs of the Ten, "would be well if you were a Venetian. But you are not, and the accusation says that you have sold your works to the injury of born Venetians. What have you to say?"

"Sometimes my master has given me money for a beaker, or a plate, or a bottle," answered Zorzi, in some trepidation, for this was the main point. "But the things were then his own. How could that do harm to any one, since no one can make what I can make, for the master's own use? And once, the other day, as the Signor Giovanni's letter says there, he persuaded me to take his piece of gold for a beaker he saw in my hand, and I said that I would ask the master, when he came back, whether I might keep the money or not; and besides, I left the piece of money on the table in my master's laboratory, and the beaker in the annealing oven, when they came to arrest me. That is the only work for which I ever took money, except from the master himself."

"Why did the Greek captain Aristarchi beat the Governor's men, and carry you away?" asked another of the Chiefs.

Zorzi was not surprised that the name of his rescuer should be known, for the Ten were believed to possess universal intelligence.

"I do not know," he answered quite simply. "He did not tell me, while he kept me with him. I had only seen him once before that night, on a day when he came to treat with the master for a cargo of glass which he never bought. I gave myself up to the archers, as I gave myself up to your lordships, for I thought that I should have justice the sooner if I sought it instead of trying to escape from it."

"Your Highness," said one of the oldest Councillors, addressing the Doge, "is it not a pity that such a man as this, who is a good artist and who speaks the truth, should be driven out of Venice, by a law that was not meant to touch him? For indeed, the law exists and always will, but it is meant to hinder strangers from coming to Murano and learning the art in order to take it away with them, and this we can prevent. But we surely desire to keep here all those who know how to practise it, for the greater advantage of our commerce with other nations."

"That is the intention of our laws," assented the Doge.

"Your Highness! My lords!" cried Zorzi, who had taken courage from what the Councillor had said, "if this law is not made for such as I am, I entreat you to grant me your forgiveness if I have broken it, and make it impossible for me to break it again. My lords, you have the power to do what I ask. I beseech you that