Arethusa

by F. Marion Crawford

  CHAPTER XIX

  Zoe had closed her eyes to bear the pain better, and a tiny drop ofblood slowly trickled from the lip she had bitten in the first momentof the torture. It made a thin, dark line from her mouth downward, alittle on the left side, over her white chin. Her breath came in deepand quivering sobs, drawn through her clenched teeth, but no othersound escaped her in those awful seconds. She was praying that deathmight come soon, but she did not ask for strength to be silent; thatshe had, for Carlo Zeno's sake, and for the sake of the just vengeancethat would overtake Andronicus when she was dead, if only he were notwarned of what was perhaps so near. She thought she might die of thepain only; she was sure that she must faint away if it lasted manymoments longer.

  The Emperor bent down in his saddle to see her agonised white facemore clearly in the gathering gloom, and to catch the least syllableshe might speak; and his loose lip moved, for he was counting tohimself, counting the ten score, after which she would be able to bearno more and would tell him where the danger was. For the corpse-facedman knew his business, and his experience had been wide and long, andthe Emperor knew that he never made a mistake. Moreover, the Greekminister smiled with sheer pleasure at the sight, and hoped that hismaster would command them to put the girl to death by very slowtorments.

  The guards, too, crowded upon each other to see, but they were not allsilent now; for there were brave men amongst them, savage adventurersfrom the wild mountains beyond the Black Sea, who feared neither God,nor Emperor, nor man; and they did not like the sight they saw, andthey said words one to another in strange tongues which the Greekscould not understand.

  Andronicus counted slowly to twenty, and then still more slowly toforty, and the tortured girl's sharp breathing irritated him.

  'Speak!' he cried, in a tone that was low and angry. 'Tell me wherethe danger is, or the thing shall eat out your heart!'

  Then the answer came, but not in Zoe's voice, nor by one voice, but bymany, loud and deep; and though the words were confused, some could beheard well enough; and they told the loose-lipped cowardly youth wherethe danger was, for it was upon him.

  'Johannes! Johannes reigns! God and the Emperor! Emperor Johannes!'

  That was what the voices shouted from the gate, as the multitude sweptin, driving the sentinels and guards before them as the gale drivesdry leaves. With but one breathing-space for thought and resolve, theguards in their scarlet tunics closed round Andronicus like waves ofblood in the deep dusk, and he went down under them, and heard themanswer the coming people--

  'Johannes reigns! Emperor Johannes!'

  Zoe heard the cry through her torment and forgot the pain for onemoment, and the next, the dumb Ethiopian who had held her, slit thetorturer's bandage and plucked the walnut shell from under her arm,with its living contents, and threw them away; for he had seenAndronicus go down, and knew that there was a new master. Then some ofthe men, who remembered it afterwards, saw the corpse-faced mangrovelling on the ground and searching for his treasure, which couldmake the toughest victim speak before one could count ten score; forhe served the Emperor, whoever he might be, as he and his fatherbefore him had served many. No one ever killed the torturer. So hewent amongst the trampling feet on his hands and knees, feelingnothing, if so be that he might find his pet and get it back safelyinto its cage in his bosom. And when he found it still in the walnutshell, by the strange chance that protects all evil, he laughed like amaniac and slipped between the guards' legs on all fours, like ahideous white-faced ape, and ran away into the palace.

  Zoe had opened her eyes, and the pain was gone, leaving only a throbbehind, and she gathered her torn tunic to her neck with one hand asbest she could and slipped out of the turmoil; and only she, of allthose that heard the first shout, knew how it was that the people werecheering for the delivered Emperor, while Johannes was still shut upin the tower and guarded by the deaf-and-dumb Africans; and in theglorious triumph of her plan she forgot everything else but the manshe loved, and he was safe now, beyond all doubt. Was he not thefriend of the restored Johannes? The soldiers would not dare, on theirlives, to keep him a prisoner now, not for one hour, not for onemoment.

  And there he rode, surely enough, in the front rank of the multitude,on the right hand of Emperor John. She knew him, though the last greylight was fading from the sky. She would have known him in the dark,it seemed to her that if she had been blind she would have known thathe was near; and her joy rose in her throat, after the torture she hadendured, and almost choked her, so that she reeled unsteadily andgasped for breath.

  He was on the right hand of the Emperor John, 'Handsome John,' whomthe people had once loved and whom they were now ready to love again,having tasted of the scorpions with which Andronicus had regaled them.'Handsome John,' with his splendid brown beard--the light of torchesflashed upon it now--and his cloth-of-gold cloak drawn closely roundhim like a bishop's cope, so that it hid his hands and half his bridleon each side, and covered the back of his head, too, and a great partof his cheeks; he wore the tall imperial head-dress also, and itshaded his eyes. The people had recognised him more by his fine beardand his cloth of gold than by his face, but the beard wasunmistakable; and besides, there were men with him who scattered coinsto the multitude, and those coins were good. But the followers whowere nearest to him and Zeno, and who pressed round them both todefend them, if need be, were almost all sailors, Venetian shipwrightsand workmen from the docks, though Tocktamish's Tartars were closebehind, making a tremendous shouting, and striking their longtasselled spears against each other after their manner, with a clatterof wood like a monstrous rattle; and other soldiers had joined them byhundreds, and after them pressed the artisans of Constantinople, theBulgarian blacksmiths, the Italian stone-cutters and masons, theMoorish armourers and the Syrian sword-smiths from Damascus, theSicilian rope-makers, the Persian silk-weavers, and the Smyrniotecarpet-weavers, and the linen-weavers from Alexandria with manyothers; and every man who was not a soldier had something in his handfor a weapon--a hammer, a mallet, or a carpet-maker's staff, or only astout cudgel. And they ran, and pushed, and forced their way throughthe gate, spreading out again within the court, cheering and yellingfor Johannes in a dozen languages at once.

  The Emperor John sat quite still on his horse, wrapped in his cloak,but Zeno rode forward, till he was almost upon the knot of the guardswho had pulled down Andronicus, and he threw up his hand, crying outto the men not to kill, in a voice that dominated the terrific din;and he was but just in time, for he was only obeyed because he offereda reward.

  'Ten pounds of gold for Andronicus alive!' he shouted.

  For that was the price Andronicus had set on his head that morning,and what was enough for Zeno was enough for an Emperor. So half adozen of the guards dragged the man alive into the palace, and boundhim securely with his hands behind him, and stripped off his jewelsand his gold, and kicked him into a small secret room behind theporter's lodge, and shut the door. There the corpse-faced man wassquatting in a dark corner, blowing some coals to a glow in an earthenpan, because he might soon be called to do more work, and unless thevinegar was really boiling hot the fumes of it would not put out theeyesight. As Andronicus lay on the floor he could see the man.

  But outside, the confusion grew and the noise increased as the peoplepoured into the vast courtyard and pressed behind upon those who hadentered before them.

  Then the door of the tower in the corner was opened from within, andthe African mutes came out and joined the other soldiers, and from anupper window the captain and his wife looked down, and by the help ofwhat she told him he understood that it was time to set his prisonerfree, if he did not mean to risk being torn to shreds by the people,though he could not at all understand who it was whom he saw onhorseback in the torchlight, dressed in cloth of gold, with theimperial head-dress on his head, for he knew well enough that so longas the key of the upper prison hung at his own belt, Johannes couldnot get out. Yet there was no mistaking the cry of the people, and hiswife u
rged him not to lose time.

  The crowd was surging towards the tower now, led by Zeno and theEmperor, and they and their sailors and dockmen kept in front of thecrowd to be the first to dismount and enter the tower, and then thesailors kept the throng back, telling them that Johannes had gone into free his youngest son, and the two men who had the deep bags ofmoney threw lavish handfuls to the people, to amuse them while theywaited.

  But when Zeno and the Emperor came out again, Johannes' face was alluncovered, and the cloth-of-gold cope hung loosely on his shoulders;and by the glare of many torches every one knew that it was Johanneshimself, and none other, and men cheered and yelled till they werehoarse.

  After the Emperor and Zeno came a man whom no one had seen go in withthem, and he had a very scanty dark beard and was dressed in quietbrown, though he wore a horseman's boots, and he was GorliasPietrogliant, who had acted so well the part which Zoe had imaginedfor him.

  But Zeno knew nothing of Arethusa, yesterday his slave, and since lastnight the woman of his heart, for in the haste and stress of thattremendous half-hour, Gorlias could tell him nothing, except that hewas Gorlias and not the Emperor, and that the deed giving Tenedos overto Venice was signed and in his bosom; and Zeno supposed that he haddevised all the wonderful scheme, which looked so simple as soon as itbegan to be carried out. Arethusa, he thought, was safe at home;sleepless, worn out with waiting, trembling with anxiety, perhaps, butsafe. Now that the deed was done, now that Andronicus was bound, andJohannes, his father, was restored to the throne, Carlo Zeno thoughtonly of leaving Constantinople without delay, before the Emperor couldtake back his word, and revoke the cession of Tenedos. For Zeno didnot put his trust in Oriental princes, and feared the Greeks even whenthey offered gifts. With a swift Venetian vessel and a fair wind, thecoveted island could be reached in two days, or even less; itsgovernor had always at heart been faithful to Johannes, and would obeythe deed which Gorlias had thrust into Zeno's hand in the tower, andif once the standard of St. Mark were raised on the fort there wassmall chance that any enemy would be able to tear it down.

  Therefore, just when the soldiers were lifting Johannes from his horseto carry him to the throne-room with wild triumph and rejoicing, Zenoslipped from the saddle to escape notice, elbowed his way to theoutskirts of the crowd, and was on the point of making for the gatewhen Gorlias found him again.

  'Arethusa asks you to come to her,' Gorlias said.

  'I am going----'

  'No. She is here. It was all her plan; she risked her life for it, wewere a few moments late, and she has been tortured. Come quickly!'

  Zeno's face changed. Gorlias saw that, even in the dim light of thenow distant torches. It was the change that comes into a masterswordman's face when he makes up his mind to kill, after onlydefending himself because his adversary has tried some dastardlymurderous trick of fence. But Zeno said nothing as he strode swiftlyby his companion's side.

  Gorlias had found her and had brought her into the lower chamber ofthe tower, now deserted by the guards. The captain's wife had beenstanding at the door, not daring to go out amongst the half-franticsoldiers. She might have fared ill at their hands if she had beenrecognised just then as the wife of the Emperor's gaoler. So she hadstood under the archway, watching and listening, and Gorlias had givenZoe half-fainting into her care while he went to find Zeno.

  She had taken the girl on her knees like a child, while she herselfsat on the narrow stone bench that ran round the wall, for there wasno furniture of any sort there. Zoe's head lay upon the shoulder ofthe big woman who gently smoothed and patted the soft brown hair, androcked the light figure on her knees with a side motion as nurses do.She did not know what was the matter, but she recognised the girl whohad brought the message and who had been caught outside the door.

  Then Zeno came, and in a moment he was close beside Zoe; resting oneknee on the stone bench, bending down, and very tenderly lifting thelovely head into his own arm.

  She knew his touch, she turned her face up with a great effort, forshe had hardly any strength left, and her lids that were buthalf-closed like a dying person's, quivered and opened, and for oneinstant her eyes were full of light. Her voice came to him from faroff, almost from the other world.

  'Safe! Ah, thank God! It was worth the pain!'

  Then she fainted quite away in his arms, but he knew that she was notdying, for he had seen many pass from life, and the signs werefamiliar to him.

  He gathered her to him and carried her lightly through the open door,where Gorlias was ready; and Gorlias knew where Vito was waiting withthe skiff at the old landing not far below the tower, and he helpedthe boatman to row them home.

  Thus ended that long day, which had so nearly been Zoe's last andZeno's too; and when she opened her eyes again and found herself lyingon her own divan under the soft light of the lamps, and looked intohis anxious, loving face, all the weariness sank away from her own,and for an instant she felt as strong as if she had freshly waked fromrest; then she put up her arms together, though it hurt her very muchto lift the left one, and she clasped her hands round his handsomebrown neck and drew him down to her without a word.

  It was only for a moment. Her strength failed her again, and he felther little hands relax; so he knelt down by the divan and laid hischeek upon the edge of her pillow, so that he could look into herface, and they both smiled; and his smile was anxious, but hers wassatisfied. He did not know what they had done to her, but he was surethat she needed care.

  'You are suffering,' he said. 'What shall I do? Shall I send for aphysician?'

  'No. Stay with me. Let me look at you. That is all I need.'

  Her speech came in short, soft phrases, like kisses from lipshalf-asleep, when there is a little dream between each sentence andthe next. But even when she was asleep he still knelt beside her, andnow and then her body quivered, and she drew a sharp breath suddenlyas if the pain she had borne ran through her again, though more inmemory than in real suffering now.