After meeting his father and telling him Giovanni’s story, Jacopo Contarini had gone to the house of the Agnus Dei for an hour, and during that time he had told Arisa everything, according to his wont.  No sooner was he gone than Arisa made the accustomed signal and Aristarchi appeared at her window, for it was then already night.  He judged rightly that there was no time to be lost, and having stopped at his house to take his trusted man, the two rowed themselves over to Murano, and were watching the glass-house from, a distance, fully half an hour before the archers appeared.

The officer and his men came to their senses, one by one, bruised and terrified.  The man who had been thrown into the shallow canal got upon his feet, standing up to his waist in the water, sputtering and coughing from the ducking.  Before he tried to gain the shore, he crossed himself three times and repeated all the prayers he could remember, in a great hurry, for he was of opinion that Satan must still be in the neighbourhood.  It was not possible that any earthly being should have picked him up like a puppy and flung him fully ten feet from the spot where he had been standing.  He struggled to the bank, his feet sinking at each step in the slimy bottom; and after that he was forced to wade some thirty yards to the stairs in front of San Piero before he could get out of the water, a miserable object, drenched from head to foot and coated with black mud from his knees down.  Yet he was in a better case than his companions.

They came to themselves slowly, the officer last of all, for Aristarchi’s blow under the jaw had nearly killed him, whereas the other five men had only received stunning blows on different parts of their thick skulls.  In half an hour they were all on their feet, though some of them were very unsteady, and in a forlorn train they made the best of their way back to the Governor’s palace.  Their discomfiture had been so sudden and complete that none of them had any idea as to the number of their assailants; but most of them agreed that as they came within sight of the church, Zorzi had slackened his pace, and that an unholy fire had issued from his eyes, his mouth and his nostrils, while he made strange signs in the air with his crutch, and suddenly grew to a gigantic stature.  The devils who were his companions had immediately appeared in great numbers, and though the archers had fought against their supernatural adversaries with the courage of heroes, they had been struck down senseless where they stood; and when they had recovered their sight and their other understanding, Zorzi had long since vanished to the kingdom of darkness which was his natural abode.