t from the folds of the sackcloth.

"I will tell you when to cover yourself," he said, speaking at the
horizon. "We shall have to spend the day under one of the islands. I
have some bread and cheese and water, and there are onions. When it is
night I will just slip into our canal at Murano, and you can sleep in
the laboratory, as if you had never left it."

"If they find me there, they cannot say that I am hiding," said Zorzi
with a low laugh.

"Lie low," said Pasquale softly. "There is a boat coming."

For ten minutes neither spoke, and Zorzi lay quite still, covering his
face. When the danger was past Pasquale began to talk again, and told
him all he himself knew of what had happened, which was not much, but
which included the assurance that the master was for him, and had turned
against Giovanni.

"As for me," said Zorzi, by and by, when they were moored to a stake,
far out in the lagoon, "I was whirled from place to place by those two
men, till I did not know where I was. When they first carried me off,
they made me lie in the bottom of their boat as I am lying now, and they
took me to a house somewhere near the Baker's Bridge. Do you know the
house of the Agnus Dei?"

Pasquale grunted.

"It was not far from that," Zorzi continued. "Aristarchi lives there.
The mate went back to the ship, I suppose, and Aristarchi's servant gave
us supper. Then we slept quietly till morning and I stayed there all
day, but Aristarchi thought it would not be safe to keep me in his house
the next night--that was last night. He said he feared that a certain
lady had guessed where I was. He is a mysterious individual, this Greek!
So I was taken somewhere else in the bottom of a boat, after dark. I do
not know where it was, but I think it must have been the garret of some
tavern where they play dice. After midnight I heard a great commotion
below me, and presently Aristarchi appeared at the window with a rope.
He always seems to have a coil of rope within reach! He tied me to
him--it was like being tied to a wild horse--and he got us safely down
from the window to the boat again, and the mate was in it, and they took
me to the ship faster than I was ever rowed in my life. You know the
rest."

All through the long July day they lay in the fierce sun, shading
themselves with the sacking as best they could. But when it was dark at
last, Pasquale cast off and headed the skiff for Murano.

CHAPTER XXII

Jacopo Contarini's l