Venetian Masque

In his urgency to end things, the speaker came forward rather recklessly. Marc-Antoine in whom anger had stifled prudence succumbed to the lure of this. Taking the thrusting blade on his own, he enveloped it in a circular parry, and in delivering the counter leaned forward too boldly. One of the newcomers, a burly fellow, who, wary and experienced, had hitherto been more watchful than active, was quick to take the chance this offered, and from Marc-Antoine's uncovered flank passed his sword through his body. 'That settles it, I think,' he grunted.

The weapon dropped from the stricken man's extended hand. For a moment he emerged there into full view, swaying forward erect and rigid on that threshold. Then he crumpled and collapsed forward into the alley, whilst the scream that rang out behind him from the Vicomtesse was on a different note from any that had preceded it.

As Marc-Antoine lay prone and still, the bully who had brought him down touched him with his foot. 'Ay, that's the end of him,' he croaked.

The leader in the white vizor stooped forward. 'Is he dead?'

'As dead as Judas, after what I put through him. Come, man. We must look to ourselves.'

He glanced swiftly to right and left, as he spoke. The cries of the Vicomtesse had not been wasted. Lights were moving in the Corte del Cavallo, and with them footsteps and a sound of voices, whilst from the side of the fondamenta three dark figures were approaching, one of them brandishing an oar.

The assassins were caught between two groups. But the bully who had accounted for Marc-Antoine was Contarini, a man of ripe experience. He was prompt to take charge. 'Here, to me!' he ordered his immediate neighbour. Instead of obeying him, the man in the white vizor turned aside and plunged towards the doorway. His foot was on the threshold, and his blade was already probing the shadows, when Contarini's heavy hand fell on his shoulder, and wrenched him back.

'Damn you for a fool!' he was angrily cursed.

'Save your breath for running, my master,' growled Contarini, and dragged him on. 'So. Shoulder to shoulder.' He croaked an instruction to the two behind him. 'Follow close, you others.'

They charged down the alley towards the water, thrusting aside the three who faced them. Before their threatening blades even the man with the oar, who was the only one who had a weapon of any description, fell impotently back.

Thus they reached the quay, and the man in the mask almost tumbled into the gondola that awaited them, sick and faint from a wound which he had ignored until the business was over. As the gondola sped away, he lay on the cushions in the felza, plucked off the vizor and then tore open the breast of his coat, disclosing in the lantern-light linen that was dark with blood.

The burly ruffian, standing over him, swore softly at the sight. 'Saint Mark! Did he get you, Vendramin?' He knelt to lay bare the wound, whilst, behind him, one of his companions was attending to the hurt of the other, who was also very near the end of his endurance.

'It's nothing,' said Vendramin. 'I've lost some blood. That's all. But take a look at it.'

'On my soul,' said Contarini, 'that fellow should have followed my trade. He'd have made a great success of it. It makes me feel like a murderer to have killed a man who could pink two assailants out of four.'

If Vendramin nursed a regret that he had not fulfilled his intentions by serving that false Delilah in the same way, that regret did not suffice to mar the satisfaction in his half-swooning senses. He had settled the account of that damned Englishman and removed all peril of his further interference. He had the exalted sense of honour vindicated.

CHAPTER XXVIII QUESTIONS

The three who came so ineffectually, but with such good intentions, to the rescue from the side of the fondamenta, were Renzo and his gondolier, and Philibert, the valet, who, re-directed from the Casa Gazzola, was arriving on his errand of warning.

They reached the spot a moment ahead of the party with a lantern, coming down the alley from the other side, a party composed of the porter and his son from the embassy, and the secretary Jacob. The porter carried a blunderbuss, and Jacob brandished an ugly-looking sabre.

On her knees in the mud of the alley the Vicomtesse was whimpering piteously over the body of Marc-Antoine, imploring him in accents of distraction to speak to her. She did not become conscious of the presence of Jacob until he was down on one knee on the other side of the body, with Jacques, the porter's son, holding the lantern for him.

Then she felt hands upon her shoulder and her arms, strong hands that attempted to raise her, and Coupri, the porter from the embassy, was gently remonstrating with her.

'Madame! Madame! Madame la Vicomtesse!'

'Leave me, leave me,' was her answer, impatiently sobbed out. All her attention the while strained upon the intent face of Jacob, whose hands were quietly busy with the body.