“Mercy, Prince, for the love of God!”

The priest released the pressure of his hands and let the other sink at his feet.

“Who sent you, rogue?” he asked.  “Who pays your wage?”

“I dare not tell you, Excellency.”

“Dare not! you dare not—­you, whom a word will put to torture greater than any you have dreamed of in your worst agonies; you dare not.”

“Excellency, the Countess of Treviso; I am her servant.”

“And the man who sent her to the work—­his name?”

“Andrea, Count of Pisa, Excellency.”

The priest stepped back as one whose curiosity was entirely satisfied.

“Ah!  I thought so.  And the price they paid you, knave?”

“Forty silver ducats, Excellency,”

“Ho, ho! so that is the price of a friar in Venice.”

The bravo sought to join in the jest.

“Had they known it was the Prince of Iseo, it had been a hundred thousand, Excellency.”

Fra Giovanni did not listen to him.  His quick brain was solving a strange problem—­the problem of the price that these people, in their turn, should pay to Venice.  When he had solved it, he turned to the cringing figure at his feet.

“Signor Rocca,” he said, “do you know of what I am thinking?”

“Of mercy, Excellency; of mercy for one who has not deserved it.”

“But who can deserve it?”

“Excellency, hearken to me.  I swear by all the saints—­”

“In whose name you blaspheme, rascal.  Have I not heard your oath in Naples when the irons seared your flesh?  Shall I listen again when the fire is being made ready, and there is burning coal beneath the bed you will lie upon to-night, Signor Rocca?”

“Oh! for God’s sake, Excellency!”

“Not so; for the sake of Venice, rather.”

“I will be your slave—­I swear it on the cross—­I will give my life—­”

“Your precious life, Signor Rocca!—­nay, what a profligate you are!”

Fra Giovanni’s tone, perhaps, betrayed him.  The trembling man began to take heart a little.

“Prove me Excellency,” he whined; “prove me here and now.”

The friar made a pretence of debating it.  After a little spell of silence he bade the other rise.

“Come,” he said, “your legs catch cold, my friend, and will burn slowly.  Stretch them here upon the Campo while I ask you some questions.  And remember, for every lie you tell me there shall be another wedge in the boot you are about to wear.  You understand that, signore?”

“Excellency, the man that could lie to the Prince of Iseo has yet to be born.”

It was a compliment spoken from the very heart; but the priest ignored it.

“Let us not speak of others, but of you and your friends.  And, firstly, of the woman who sent you.  She is now—­”

“In the Palazzo Pisani waiting news of you.”

“You were to carry that news to her?”