breath out. He struggled a
moment, and then sank down. His captor deliberately knocked him on the
head with his fist, and he rolled over like a stone.

Utterly bewildered, Zorzi stood still, where he had stopped. Never in
his life had he dreamed that two men could dispose of seven, in
something like half a minute, with nothing but a stick for a weapon
between them. But he had seen it with his eyes, and he was not surprised
when he felt himself lifted from his feet, with his crutch beside him,
and carried along the footway at a sharp run, in the direction of the
glass-house. His reason told him that he had been rescued and was being
quickly conveyed to a place of safety, but he could not help distrusting
the means that accomplished the end, for he had unconsciously watched
the two men in what could hardly be called a fight, though he could not
see their faces, and a more murderous pair of ruffians he had never
seen. Men not well used to such deeds could not have done them at all,
thought Zorzi, as he was borne along, his breath almost shaken out of
him by the strong man's movements.

All was quiet, as they passed the glass-house, and no one was looking
out, for Giovanni's wife feared him far too much to seem to be spying
upon his doings, and the servants were discreet. Only Nella, hiding
behind the flowers in Marietta's window, and supposing that Marietta was
with her sister-in-law, was watching the door of the glass-house to see
when Giovanni would come out. She now heard the steps of the two men,
running down the footway. The rescue had taken place too far away for
her to hear anything but a splash in the canal. She saw that one of the
men was carrying what seemed to be the body of a man. She instinctively
crossed herself, as they ran on towards the end of the canal, and when
she could see them no longer in the shadow, she drew back into the room,
momentarily forgetting Giovanni, and already running over in her head
the wonderful conversation she was going to have with her mistress as
soon as the young girl came back to her room.

Pasquale, meanwhile, withdrew his feet from the old leathern slippers he
wore, and noiselessly stole down the corridor and along the garden path,
to find out what Giovanni was doing. When he came to the laboratory, he
saw that the window was now shut, as well as the door, and that Giovanni
had set the lamp on the floor behind the further end of the annealing
oven. Its bright light shot upw