The secretary paused and placidly noted the effect of his words upon Piero, who could have gnashed his teeth for anger at those talking walls of Venice which had betrayed him—so cautiously had he told his secret to the Lady Beata only, in that short moonlight stroll!
At a sign from the secretary a second gondola, wearing the ducal livery and filled with the gorgeous costumes of the palace guards, came out from the floating mass and approached the gondola of the people, where the Lady Marina sat trembling like a frightened fawn.
There was a struggle among the lesser craft to draw closer to this dramatic centre; they jostled each other unceremoniously; a splash, like a falling oar, was heard, but scarce noted in the absorbing interest of the moment; only a bare-legged boy jumped off from a tiny fishing-skiff near which the oar had floated, and swam with it to to the gondola from which it had fallen—since it was this boat which was making the carnival for them! Piero, alone, had slightly turned his head and noted that no one now stood on the ponte piede behind the felze of his gondola.
\"The galley waits to receive the noble ladies to whom I am commissioned by those who have sent me to offer my respectful homage,\" said the secretary, bowing low before the felze. \"The noble ladies will proceed thither in the ducal gondola which attends them. And thou, Messer Gastaldo, wilt graciously aid me in their escort—since, verily, they owe much to thy chivalry.\"
It was a pleasant scene for the onlookers.
But the Lady Marina sat motionless, and gave neither word nor sign in response to the invitation of the ducal secretary.
\"Shall the pleasure of the lady of this noble house not be consulted?\" Piero questioned, struggling to cover his defiance under a tone of deference.
But his answer was only in the secretary''''s eyes,—smiling, imperious,—more defiant than his own impotent will; and in the courtly waiting attitude, which had not changed, and which seemed unbearably to lengthen out the passing seconds.
The Lady Beata, winding compassionate arms around her friend, had raised her veil, whispering words of tenderness.
But there was no recognition in the glance that met hers—only the immeasurable pathos of a hopeless surrender; the fervent passion of Marina''''s will and faith had made all things seem possible of achievement, though Venice was against her, for had not the mission been given her in a vision by the Holy Madonna of San Donato—Mother of Sorrows—and was not the issue sure? And yielding all thought of self she had braced every faculty to accomplish the holy task of which she alone felt the urgency. But the overtaxed heart and brain could endure no longer thwarting; their activity and unquestioning purpose had been her only power; and the moment she ceased to struggle will and reason fled together.
Pitifully acquiescent, she went with them unresisting.
* * * * *
A haze that was not luminous hung in the sky; night was creeping on without a sunset, as they battled their way up the Giudecca against the current which rushed like a boiling torrent around San Giorgio—the blue calm of the waters turned to a frenzied, foam-lashed green.
The men rowed fast, with tight-furled sail, but the storm came faster; ranks of threatening clouds were hurrying from the east, gathering like armies of vengeful spirits, darker, closer about them, shutting off every breath of air; an oppression, throbbing with nameless fears, was upon them—a hush, as if life had ceased; then the scorching, withering torment of a fierce sirocco, and the moan of the wind, like a soul in pain.
Marina grew faint and wide-eyed for terror, but they could not soothe her by word or touch; she sat with clasped hands, gasping for breath, listening to the low, long boom on the shores of the Lido, like muffled thunder, ceaselessly recurring—the terrible noise of the great waves beating against the sea-walls—beating and breaking in fury, tossing their spray high in air and whirling it in clouds, like rain mists, far across the lagoon. Would the barriers stand—or yield and leave them to their doom? Were the great waters of the Adriatic uprising in vengeance to overwhelm this city in her sin? Boom upon boom sounded through all the voices of the storm. Santa Maria! was it this that the Tintoretto had foretold!
A dazzling, frenzied flash of light,—a vast peal of thunder that was like the wrath of a mighty, offended God,—then darkness, and a torrent of rain—the waters in the shifting path of the wind leaping up to meet the waters from the sky!
The vesper bells of Venice came sobbing through the storm, tossed and broken by the tornado into a wraith of a dirge; and now, by some fantastic freak of nature, as the winds rose higher, the iron tongues from every campanile—for a brief moment of horror—came wrangling and discordant, as if tortured by some demon of despair.
\" Ave Maria, Gratia plena !\"
the women cried together, falling on their knees, while the men toiled and struggled to hold the invincible galley of the Ten outside the whirling path of the storm—advancing and retreating at the will of the elements, against which their own splendid, human strength was like the feeble, untaught effort of a helpless infant.
\" Mater Dei, Ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae .\"
The words rose in a wail between the gusts.
For measureless moments, mighty as hours, they battled between San Marco and San Giorgio, tossed to and fro—now nearer the haven of the great white dome, now—as a lightning flash unveiled San Marco—near enough to see a cloud of frightened doves go whirling over the flood which swept the Piazza from end to end and poured out under the great gates of the Ducal Palace into the lagoon.
\" Summa Parens clementia—nocte surgentes ——\"