And through Piero’s agents, established under threats as terrible as those of the Ten themselves, had come the news which, from time to time, he unfolded to her; while the same secret agent brought perhaps a rumor which the gastaldo grande confided to the Ten, wherewith some convent plotting was unmasked, or other news so greatly to the keeping of the peace of the Serene Republic, that Piero might have bought therewith propitiation for all those sins against it, of which the government was happily in ignorance.  Now it was a hint of a plot in embryo to seize the arsenal, involving some members of distinction in the households of resident ambassadors; or word of the whereabouts of that wandering, barefooted emissary with plenary powers, who had hitherto eluded Venetian vigilance.

It was Piero also—­although he never confessed to it—­who, out of compassion for Marina’s priestly proclivities when she lay critically ill, had made it possible for the Jesuits to remove those coffers of treasure which, in spite of strictest orders to the contrary, accompanied them on their flight from Venice; it was not that he took part against Venice in the quarrel, but that the penalty of exile seemed to him sufficient, especially as Marina had a weakness for priests; and he could be generous in his use of power, though a man less daring would not have risked the freak.  But there was a masterful pleasure in outwitting the Signoria and the Ten, lessened only by the consciousness that he must keep this triumph to himself, and Piero also knew how to hold his tongue—­for discretion was a needful grace in that strange time of barbaric lawlessness shrouded in a more than Eastern splendor.

But even Piero sometimes quickened his step as he passed the beautiful sea facade of the Ducal Palace, whose rose-tinted walls seemed made only to reflect sunshine; for perchance he guessed the name of that victim who hung with covered face between the columns, bearing in bold letters on his breast, by way of warning, the nature of the crime for which he paid such awful penalty—­some crime against the State.  “To-day,” said Piero to himself, “it is this poor devil who cried to me to shield him when I was forced to denounce him to the Signoria; to-morrow, for some caprice of their Excellencies—­it may be Piero Salin!”

But the gastaldo relapsed easily into such philosophy as he knew.  “By the blessed San Marco and San Teodoro themselves!” he was ready to cry, as he reached his gondola, “there must always be a last ’to-morrow’!”

XXV