“And that was her father?”

“Assuredly:  young ladies of Donna Polixena’s rank do not go abroad save with their parents or a duenna.”

Just then a soft hand slid into Tony’s.  His heart gave a foolish bound, and he turned about half-expecting to meet again the merry eyes under the hood; but saw instead a slender brown boy, in some kind of fanciful page’s dress, who thrust a folded paper between his fingers and vanished in the throng.  Tony, in a tingle, glanced surreptitiously at the Count, who appeared absorbed in his prayers.  The crowd, at the ringing of a bell, had in fact been overswept by a sudden wave of devotion; and Tony seized the moment to step beneath a lighted shrine with his letter.

“I am in dreadful trouble and implore your help.  Polixena”—­he read; but hardly had he seized the sense of the words when a hand fell on his shoulder, and a stern-looking man in a cocked hat, and bearing a kind of rod or mace, pronounced a few words in Venetian.

Tony, with a start, thrust the letter in his breast, and tried to jerk himself free; but the harder he jerked the tighter grew the other’s grip, and the Count, presently perceiving what had happened, pushed his way through the crowd, and whispered hastily to his companion:  “For God’s sake, make no struggle.  This is serious.  Keep quiet and do as I tell you.”

Tony was no chicken-heart.  He had something of a name for pugnacity among the lads of his own age at home, and was not the man to stand in Venice what he would have resented in Salem; but the devil of it was that this black fellow seemed to be pointing to the letter in his breast; and this suspicion was confirmed by the Count’s agitated whisper.

“This is one of the agents of the Ten.—­For God’s sake, no outcry.”  He exchanged a word or two with the mace-bearer and again turned to Tony.  “You have been seen concealing a letter about your person—­”

“And what of that?” says Tony furiously.

“Gently, gently, my master.  A letter handed to you by the page of Donna Polixena Cador.—­A black business!  Oh, a very black business!  This Cador is one of the most powerful nobles in Venice—­I beseech you, not a word, sir!  Let me think—­deliberate—­”

His hand on Tony’s shoulder, he carried on a rapid dialogue with the potentate in the cocked hat.

“I am sorry, sir—­but our young ladies of rank are as jealously guarded as the Grand Turk’s wives, and you must be answerable for this scandal.  The best I can do is to have you taken privately to the Palazzo Cador, instead of being brought before the Council.  I have pleaded your youth and inexperience”—­Tony winced at this—­“and I think the business may still be arranged.”

Meanwhile the agent of the Ten had yielded his place to a sharp-featured shabby-looking fellow in black, dressed somewhat like a lawyer’s clerk, who laid a grimy hand on Tony’s arm, and with many apologetic gestures steered him through the crowd to the doors of the church.  The Count held him by the other arm, and in this fashion they emerged on the square, which now lay in darkness save for the many lights twinkling under the arcade and in the windows of the gaming-rooms above it.