Marietta listened in surprise.  It seemed impossible that Giovanni should not take her to task at once if he had found the mantle.  He was not the kind of man to put off accusing any one when he had proof of guilt and was sure that the law was on his side, and Marietta felt sure that the evidence against her was overwhelming, for she had yet to learn what amazing things can be done with impunity by people who have the reputation of perfect innocence.

Giovanni was telling Pasquale, in a tone which every one might hear, that he had sent for a gardener, who would soon come with a lad to help him, that the two must be admitted at once, and that he himself would be within to receive them; but that no one else was to be allowed to go in, as he should be extremely busy all the morning.  Having said these things three or four times over, in order to impress them on Pasquale’s mind, he went in.  The porter looked up at Marietta’s window a moment, and then followed him and shut the door.  It was clear that Giovanni had no intention of speaking to his sister before the mid-day meal.  She breathed more freely, since she was to have a respite of several hours.

When she was dressed, Nella called the gondolier from her own window, and met him in the passage when he came up.  He at once promised to make inquiries about Zorzi and went off to the palace to find his friend and crony, the Governor’s head boatman.  The latter, it is needless to say, knew every detail of the supernatural rescue from the archers, who could talk of nothing else in spite of the Governor’s prohibition.  They sat in a row on the stone bench within the main entrance, a rueful crew, their heads bound up with a pleasing variety of bandages.  In an hour the gondolier returned, laden with the wonderful story which Nella was the first, but not the last, to hear from him.  Her brown eyes seemed to be starting from her head when she came back to tell it to her mistress.

Marietta listened with a beating heart, though Nella began at once by saying that Zorzi had mysteriously disappeared, and was certainly not in prison.  When all was told, she drew a long breath, and wished that she could be alone to think over what she had heard; but Nella’s imagination was roused, and she was prepared to discuss the affair all the morning.  The details of it had become more and more numerous and circumstantial, as the men with the bandaged heads recalled what they had seen and heard.  The devils that had delivered Zorzi all had blue noses, brass teeth and fiery tails.  A peculiarity of theirs was that they had six fingers with six iron claws on each hand, and that all their hoofs were red-hot.  As to their numbers, they might be roughly estimated at a thousand or so, and their roaring was like the howling of the south wind and the breaking of the sea on the Lido in a winter storm.  It was horrible to hear, and would alone have put all the armies of the Republic to ignominious flight.  Nella thought these things very interesting.  She wished that she might talk with one of the men who had seen a real devil.