hamber, and the dagger with which he had been stabbed
was yet in his heart.

"A proof--have I not given you a proof?" the priest cried again, while
the woman's terrible cry rang through the house, and the three stood
close together, as men upon whom a judgment has fallen.

"Man or devil--who are you?" they asked in hushed whispers.

He answered them by letting his monk's robe slip from his shoulders.
As the robe fell, they beheld a figure clad in crimson velvet and
corselet of burnished gold; the figure of a man whose superb limbs had
been the envy of the swordsmen of Italy; whose face, lighted now with
a sense of power and of victory, was a face for which women had given
their lives.

"It is the Prince of Iseo," they cried, and, saying it, fled from the
house of doom.

At that hour, those whose gondolas were passing the Palazzo Pisani
observed a strange spectacle. A priest stood upon the balcony of the
house holding a silver lamp in his hand; and as he waited, a boat
emerged from the shadows about the church of San Luca and came swiftly
toward him.

"The Signori of the Night," the loiterers exclaimed in hushed
whispers, and went on their way quickly.

* * * * *

Very early next morning, a rumor of strange events, which had happened
in Venice during the hours of darkness, drew a great throng of the
people to the square before the ducal palace.

"Have you not heard it," man cried to man--"the Palazzo Pisani lacks
a mistress to-day? The police make their toilet in the boudoir of my
lady. And they say that the lord of Pisa is dead."

"Worse than that, my friends," a gondolier protested, "Andrea Foscari
crossed to Maestre last night, and the dogs are even now on his
heels."

"Your news grows stale," croaked a hag who was passing; "go to the
Piazzetta and you shall see the head of one who prayed before the
altar ten minutes ago."

They trooped off, eager for the spectacle. When they reached the
Piazzetta, the hag was justified. The head of a man lay bleeding upon
the marble slab between the columns. It was the head of the Marquis of
Cittadella.

In the palace of the police, meanwhile, Pietro Falier, the Captain,
was busy with his complaints.

"The lord of Pisa is dead," he said, "the woman has gone to the
Convent of Murano; there is a head between the columns; Andrea Foscari
will die of hunger in the hills--yet Gian Mocenigo goes free. Who is
this friar that he shall have th