Tony by this time had regained voice enough to declare that he would go where they pleased, but that he must first say a word to the mate of the Hepzibah, who had now been awaiting him some two hours or more at the landing-place.

The Count repeated this to Tony’s custodian, but the latter shook his head and rattled off a sharp denial.

“Impossible, sir,” said the Count.  “I entreat you not to insist.  Any resistance will tell against you in the end.”

Tony fell silent.  With a rapid eye he was measuring his chances of escape.  In wind and limb he was more than a mate for his captors, and boyhood’s ruses were not so far behind him but he felt himself equal to outwitting a dozen grown men; but he had the sense to see that at a cry the crowd would close in on him.  Space was what he wanted:  a clear ten yards, and he would have laughed at Doge and Council.  But the throng was thick as glue, and he walked on submissively, keeping his eye alert for an opening.  Suddenly the mob swerved aside after some new show.  Tony’s fist shot out at the black fellow’s chest, and before the latter could right himself the young New Englander was showing a clean pair of heels to his escort.  On he sped, cleaving the crowd like a flood-tide in Gloucester bay, diving under the first arch that caught his eye, dashing down a lane to an unlit water-way, and plunging across a narrow hump-back bridge which landed him in a black pocket between walls.  But now his pursuers were at his back, reinforced by the yelping mob.  The walls were too high to scale, and for all his courage Tony’s breath came short as he paced the masonry cage in which ill-luck had landed him.  Suddenly a gate opened in one of the walls, and a slip of a servant wench looked out and beckoned him.  There was no time to weigh chances.  Tony dashed through the gate, his rescuer slammed and bolted it, and the two stood in a narrow paved well between high houses.

II

THE servant picked up a lantern and signed to Tony to follow her.  They climbed a squalid stairway of stone, felt their way along a corridor, and entered a tall vaulted room feebly lit by an oil-lamp hung from the painted ceiling.  Tony discerned traces of former splendour in his surroundings, but he had no time to examine them, for a figure started up at his approach and in the dim light he recognized the girl who was the cause of all his troubles.

She sprang toward him with outstretched hands, but as he advanced her face changed and she shrank back abashed.

“This is a misunderstanding—­a dreadful misunderstanding,” she cried out in her pretty broken English.  “Oh, how does it happen that you are here?”

“Through no choice of my own, madam, I assure you!” retorted Tony, not over-pleased by his reception.

“But why—­how—­how did you make this unfortunate mistake?”

“Why, madam, if you’ll excuse my candour, I think the mistake was yours—­”