far better chance
of serving Marietta in the future if he obeyed his master and delivered
his message exactly; for he should see Contarini himself and judge of
him, in the first place, and that alone was worth much, and afterwards
there would be time enough for desperate resolutions. He hastened his
stroke, and when he ran under the shadow of the overhanging houses his
mood changed and he grew hopeful, as many young men do, out of sheer
curiosity as to what was before him, and out of the wish to meet
something or somebody that should put his own strength to the test.

It was not far now. With infinite caution he threaded the dark canals,
thanking fortune for the faint starlight that showed him the turnings.
Here and there a small oil lamp burned before the image of a saint; from
a narrow lane on one side, the light streamed across the water, and with
it came sounds of ringing glasses, and the tinkling of a lute, and
laughing voices; then it was dark again as his skiff shot by, and he
made haste, for he wished not to be seen.

Presently, and somewhat to his surprise, he saw a gondola before him in
a narrow place, rowed slowly by a man who seemed to be in black like
himself. He did not try to pass it, but kept a little astern, trying not
to attract attention and hoping that it would turn aside into another
canal. But it went steadily on before him, turning wherever he must
turn, till it stopped where he was to stop, at the water-gate of the
house of the Agnus Dei. Instantly he brought to in the shadow, with the
instinctive caution of every one who is used to the water. Gondolas were
few in those days and belonged only to the rich, who had just begun to
use them as a means of getting about quickly, much more convenient than
horses or mules; for when riding a man often had to go far out of his
way to reach a bridge, and there were many canals that had no bridle
path at all and where the wooden houses were built straight down into
the water as the stone ones are to-day. Zorzi peered through the
darkness and listened. The occupant of the gondola might be Contarini
himself, coming home. Whoever it was tapped softly upon the door, which
was instantly opened, but to Zorzi's surprise no light shone from the
entrance. All the house above was still and dark, and he could barely
make out by the starlight the piece of white marble bearing the
sculptured Agnus Dei whence the house takes its name. He knew that above
the high balcony t