of this into the chink of the planks, and I was about to twist them outward when the sound of rapid footsteps caused me to pause and to listen.
I wish I could forget what I heard. Many a hundred men have I seen die in battle, and I have slain more myself than I care to think of, but all that was fair fight and the duty of a soldier. It was a very different matter to listen to a murder in this den of assassins. They were pushing someone along the passage, someone who resisted and who clung to my door as he passed. They must have taken him into the third cell, the one which was farthest from me. 'Help! Help!' cried a voice, and then I heard a blow and a scream. 'Help! Help!' cried the voice again, and then 'Gerard! Colonel Gerard!' It was my poor captain of infantry whom they were slaughtering.
'Murderers! Murderers!' I yelled, and I kicked at my door, but again I heard him shout and then everything was silent. A minute later there was a heavy splash, and I knew that no human eye would ever see Auret again. He had gone as a hundred others had gone whose names were missing from the roll-calls of their regiments during that winter in Venice.
The steps returned along the passage, and I thought that they were coming for me. Instead of that they opened the door of the cell next to mine and they took someone out of it. I heard the steps die away up the stair.
At once I renewed my work upon the planks, and within a very few minutes I had loosened them in such a way that I could remove and replace them at pleasure. Passing through the aperture I found myself in the farther cell, which, as I expected, was the other half of the one in which I had been confined. I was not any nearer to escape than I had been before, for there was no other wooden wall which I could penetrate and the spring lock of the door had been closed. There were no traces to show who was my companion in misfortune. Closing the two loose planks behind me I returned to my own cell and waited there with all the courage which I could command for the summons which would probably be my death knell.
It was a long time in coming, but at last I heard the sound of feet once more in the passage, and I nerved myself to listen to some other odious deed and to hear the cries of the poor victim. Nothing of the kind occurred, however, and the prisoner was placed in the cell without violence. I had no time to peep through my hole of communication, for next moment my own door was flung open and my rascally gondolier, with the other assassins, came into the cell.
'Come, Frenchman,' said he. He held his blood- stained knife in his great, hairy hand, and I read in his fierce eyes that he only looked for some excuse in order to plunge it into my heart. Resistance was useless. I followed without a word. I was led up the stone stair and back into that gorgeous chamber in which I had left the secret tribunal. I was ushered in, but to my surprise it was not on me that their attention was fixed. One of their own number, a tall, dark young man, was standing before them and was pleading with them in low, earnest tones. His voice quivered with anxiety and his hands darted in and out or writhed together in an agony of entreaty. 'You cannot do it! You cannot do it!' he cried.
'I implore the tribunal to reconsider this decision.'
'Stand aside, brother,' said the old man who presided.
'The case is decided and another is up for judgment.'
'For Heaven's sake be merciful!' cried the young man.
'We have already been merciful,' the other answered.
'Death would have been a small penalty for such an offence. Be silent and let judgment take its course.'
I saw the young man throw himself in an agony of grief into his chair. I had no time, however, to speculate as to what it was which was troubling him, for his eleven colleagues had already fixed their stern eyes upon me.
The moment of fate had arrived.
'You are Colonel Gerard?' said the terrible old man.
'I am.'
'Aide-de-camp to the robber who calls himself General Suchet, who in turn represents that arch-robber Buonaparte?'
It was on my lips to tell him that he was a liar, but there is a time to argue and a time to be silent.
'I am an honourable soldier,' said I. 'I have obeyed my orders and done my duty.'
The blood flushed into the old man's face and his eyes blazed through his mask.
'You are thieves and murderers, every man of you,' he cried. 'What are you doing here? You are Frenchmen.
Why are you not in France? Did we invite you to Venice? By what right are you here? Where are our pictures? Where are the horses of St. Mark? Who are you that you should pilfer those treasures which our fathers through so many centuries have collected? We were a great city when France was a desert. Your drunken, brawling, ignorant soldiers have undone the work of saints and heroes. What have you to say to it?'
He was, indeed, a formidable old man, for his white beard bristled with fury and he barked out the little sentences like a savage hound. For my part I could have told him that his pictures would be safe in Paris, that his horses were really not worth making a fuss about, and that he could see heroes—I say nothing of saints—without going back to his ancestors or even moving out of his chair. All this I could have pointed out, but one might as well argue with a Mameluke about religion. I shrugged my shoulders and said nothing.
'The prisoner has no defence,' said one of my masked judges.
'Has any one any observation to make before judgment is passed?' The old man glared round him at the others.
'There is one matter, your Excellency,' said another.
'It can scarce be referred to without reopening a brother's wounds, but I would remind you that there is a very particular reason why an exemplary punishment should be inflicted in the case of this officer.'
'I had not forgotten it,' the old man answered.
'Brother, if the tribunal has injured you in one direction, it will give you ample satisfaction in another.'
The young man who had been pleading when I entered the room staggered to his feet.
'I cannot endure it,' he cried. 'Your Excellency must forgive me. The tribunal can act without me. I am ill.
I am mad.' He flung his hands out with a furious gesture and rushed from the room.
'Let him go! Let him go!' said the president. 'It is, indeed, more than can be asked of flesh and blood that he should remain under this roof. But he is a true Venetian, and when the first agony is over he will understand that it could not be otherwise.'
I had been forgotten during this episode, and though I am not a man who is accustomed to being overlooked I should have been all the happier had they continued to neglect me. But now the old president glared at me again like a tiger who comes back to his victim.
'You shall pay for it all, and it is but justice that you should,' he said. 'You, an upstart adventurer and foreigner, have dared to raise your eyes in love to the grand daughter of a Doge of Venice who was already betrothed to the heir of the Loredans. He who enjoys such privileges must pay a price for them.'
'It cannot be higher than they are worth,' said I.
'You will tell us that when you have made a part payment,' said he. 'Perhaps your spirit may not be so proud by that time. Matteo, you will lead this prisoner to the wooden cell. To-night is Monday. Let him have no food or water, and let him be led before the tribunal again on Wednesday night. We shall then decide upon the death which he is to die.'
It was not a pleasant prospect, and yet it was a reprieve. One is thankful for small mercies when a hairy savage with a blood-stained knife is standing at one's elbow. He dragged me from the room and I was thrust down the stairs and back into my cell. The door was locked and I was left to my reflections.
My first thought was to establish connection with my neighbour in misfortune. I waited until the steps had died away, and then I cautiously drew aside the two boards and peeped through. The light was very dim, so dim that I could only just discern a figure huddled in the corner, and I could hear the low whisper of a voice which prayed as one prays who is in deadly fear. The boards must have made a creaking. There was a sharp exclamation of surprise.
'Courage, friend, courage!' I cried. 'All is not lost.
Keep a stout heart, for Etienne Gerard is by your side.'
'Etienne!' It was a woman's voice which spoke—a voice which was always music to my ears. I sprang through the gap and I flung my arms round her.
