n. "Show it to me."

Giovanni went to the other end of the annealing oven, and came back a
moment later carrying the iron tray on which stood the pieces Zorzi had
made on the previous morning. Beroviero looked at them critically, tried
their weight, and noticed their transparency.

"That is not my glass," he said in a tone of decision.

"No," said Giovanni, "I saw that it was not your ordinary glass. It
seems much better. Now Zorzi must have made it in a new crucible, and if
he did, he made it with some secret of yours, for it is impossible that
he should have discovered it himself. I said to myself that if he had
made it, and the red glass there, he must have opened the book which you
had buried together in this room, and that there was only one way of
hindering him from learning everything in it, and ruining you and us by
setting up a furnace of his own."

Beroviero was looking hard at Giovanni, but he was now thoroughly
alarmed for the safety of his treasured manuscript, and listened with
attention and without any hostility. The proofs seemed at first sight
very strong, and after all Zorzi was only a Dalmatian and a foreigner,
who might have yielded to temptation.

"What did you do?" asked Beroviero.

Giovanni told him the truth, how he had written a letter to the
Governor, and had seen him in person, as well as Jacopo Contarini.

"Of course," Giovanni concluded, "you know best. If you find the book
as you and he hid it together, he must have learned your secrets in some
other way."

"We can easily see," answered old Beroviero, rising quickly. "Come here.
Get the crowbar from the corner, and help me to lift the stone."

Giovanni took pains to look for the crowbar exactly where it was not,
for he thought that this would divert any lingering suspicion from
himself, but Beroviero was only annoyed.

"There, there!" he cried, pointing. "It is in that corner. Quickly!"

"It would be like the clever scoundrel to have copied what he wanted and
then to have put the book back into the hiding-place," said Giovanni,
pausing.

"Do not waste words, my son!" cried Beroviero in the greatest anxiety.
"Here! This is the stone. Get the crowbar in at this side. So. Now we
will both heave. There! Wedge the stone up with that bit of wood. That
will do. Now let us both get our hands under it, and lift it up."

It was done, while he was speaking. A moment later Giovanni had scooped
out the loose earth, and Beroviero was stari