a liar and
other things, and Giovanni had particularly requested that the force
sent should be sufficient to overpower the "raging devil" at once and
without scandal. He judged that ten men would suffice for this, he said.
The fact was that he feared some resistance on the part of Pasquale,
whom he knew to be a friend to Zorzi. He had carefully abstained from
alluding to Zorzi's lameness, lest the mere mention of it should excite
some compassion in his hearer. He had in fact done everything to assure
the success of his scheme, except the one thing which was the most
necessary of all. He had allowed himself to speak of it in the hearing
of the gondolier who hated him, and who lost no time in making use of
the information.

It was nearly supper-time when he deposited Giovanni at the steps of the
house and took the gondola round to the narrow canal in which the boats
lay, and which was under Nella's window. The shutters were wide open,
and there was a light within. He called the serving-woman by name, and
she looked out, and asked what he wanted. Then, as now, gondoliers
worked indoors like the servants when not busy with the boats, and slept
in the house. The man was on friendly terms with Nella, who liked him
because he thought her mistress the most perfect creature in the world.

"I have ripped the arm of my doublet," he said. "Can you mend it for me
this evening?"

"Bring it up to me now," answered Nella. "There is time before supper.
You can wait outside my room while I do it. My mistress is already gone
downstairs."

"You are an angel," observed the gondolier from below. "The only thing
you need is a husband."

"You have guessed wrong," answered Nella with a little laugh. "That is
the only thing I do not need."

She disappeared, and the gondolier went round by the back of the house
to the side door, in order to go upstairs. In a quarter of an hour,
while she stood in her doorway, and he in the passage without, he had
told her all he knew of Giovanni's evil intentions against Zorzi,
including the few words which the Governor had spoken audibly. The torn
sleeve was an invention.

Giovanni was visibly elated at supper, a circumstance which pleased his
wife but inspired Marietta with some distrust. She had never felt any
sympathy for the brother who was so much older than herself, and who
took a view of things which seemed to her sordid, and she did not like
to see him sitting in her father's place, often talki