sekeeping. As he talked, he
heard the even tread of a number of marching men. He sprang to his feet
and went to the window, for he guessed who was coming, though he could
not imagine why the Governor had not waited till the next day, as had
been agreed. He could not know that on leaving him Jacopo Contarini had
seen his father and had told him of Zorzi's misdeeds; and that the
Governor had supped with old Contarini, who was an uncompromising
champion of the law, besides being one of the Ten and therefore the
Governor's superior in office; and that Contarini had advised that Zorzi
should be taken on that same night, as he might be warned of his danger
and find means to escape. Moreover, Contarini offered a trusty and swift
oarsman to take the order to Murano, and the Governor wrote it on the
supper table, between two draughts of Greek wine, which he drank from a
goblet made by Angelo Beroviero himself in the days when he still worked
at the art.

In half an hour the warrant was in the hands of the officer, who
immediately called out half-a-dozen of his men and marched them down to
the glass-house.

Giovanni saw them stop and knock at the door, and he heard Pasquale's
gruff inquiry.

"In the Governor's name, open at once!" said the officer.

"Any one can say that," answered the porter. "In the devil's name go
home and go to bed! Is this carnival time, to go masquerading by the
light of the moon and waking up honest people?"

"Silence!" roared the lieutenant. "Open the door, or it will be the
worse for you."

"It will be the worse for you, if the Signor Giovanni hears this
disturbance," answered Pasquale, who could see Giovanni at the window
opposite in the moonlight. "Either get orders from him, or go home and
leave me in holy peace, you band of braying jackasses, you mob of
blobber-lipped Barbary apes, you pack of doltish, droiling, doddered
joltheads! Be off!"

This eloquence, combined with Pasquale's assured manner, caused the
lieutenant to hesitate before breaking down the door, an operation for
which he had not been prepared, and for which he had brought no engines
of battery.

"Can you get in?" he inquired of his men, without deigning to answer the
porter's invectives. "If not, let one of you go for a sledge hammer.
Try it with the butts of your halberds against the lock, one, two, three
and all at once."

"Oh, break down the door!" cried Pasquale derisively. "It is of oak and
iron, and it cost good mon