Chapter XIII: In the Power of the Doge

Hugh fought his way forward in the confusion until he encountered a blade which pressed him back with supple cunning. It curled serpent-wise about his sword, hissing venomously as it menaced head and throat and loins. Almost he fancied he could see its flashing circles, and he divined that his opponent must be one of the Saracen Emirs, skilled in the Eastern tricks of fencing with the curved-bladed scimiter. The sweat beaded his forehead, his breath came short, for his heavy weapon was ill-adapted for such work.

Then, when the darkness danced before his eyes and a dizziness came over him, he felt a squat figure that brushed between his outspread legs and the terrible sword fell away.

"So, lord," rasped Beppo's voice. "One Paynim dog the less."

All around him Hugh heard the gasping breaths of struggling men, prayers, curses, threats, the whirr of flailing blades. It was impossible to distinguish friend from foe.

"Mocenigo!" he cried. "Mocenigo! Stand forth and meet me!"

A mocking laugh was his answer.

"It may not be, good youth, it may not be!"

"Coward!" taunted Hugh.

Again the mocking laughter.

"Too late, boy."

The words came hollow as from a vault, and Hugh hurled himself in the direction of the voice; but at the first step he ran against the table which barred the hut midway from the entrance. A red mist of anger enveloped him. He hacked and slashed and hewed at the empty air. It was Matteo's voice which brought him back to sanity.

"They have gone," panted the jongleur.

"Whither?" shouted Hugh. "They could not have passed us. A light, make a light!"

"Here, lord," exclaimed Beppo, and the gondolier struck flint and steel above a pitch-pine torch.

The wood flared smokily, revealing the shattered interior of the hut, a single white-robed figure sprawling in a pool of blood where Beppo's knife had dropped him. In the end wall, which backed against the overhanging dune, a door gaped open.

"After them," commanded Hugh, and he started to lead the way.

But Beppo caught his sleeve.

"With permission, Magnificence," said the gondolier. "That is no more than a passage through the sand which comes out by the water. They will be in their gondolas by now."

"Then in St. Cuthbert's name, let us follow as quick as we may."

The comrades ran from the hut along the path they had come by betwixt the dunes. They had reached the edge of the reeds before the gondoliers overtook them, puffing heavily.

"It is right to hurry, lords," remarked Beppo, as he and Giacomo shoved off. "But we should not miss the favours God sends us. The Paynim had a full purse."

"It is yours," said Matteo. "You are good varlets. Now, do you come up with our foes, and there will be yet more gold in your pockets."

"We will, St. Mark helping us," returned Beppo.

They swept forth from the shadow cast by the Isle of Rabbits, and emerged upon the surface of the lagoons, faintly lit by the starshine from the lowering purple sky. The comrades strained their eyes in every direction, but it was Giacomo who first saw the quarry. He pointed to the eastward with a grunt.

Barely discernible in the darkness, two dots were speeding over the water. One, at right angles to their course, made in the direction of the open sea. The other, slightly in advance, was heading towards Venice.

"'Tis they," said Beppo. "See, lords. The Saracens are bound out from the lagoons. No doubt they have a galley lying in wait for them. The others would return to the fondaco Pisano."

"Can you catch up with them?" asked Matteo.

"Do but watch us, Magnificence."

The gondola seemed almost to fly, as Beppo and Giacomo bent their backs to the oars and the ripples purred under the cleaving bow. But for some minutes, despite this pace, the green gondola held its own. Mocenigo's crew were seasoned oarsmen, and they rowed like demons. Yet desperate though they were, they could not hope to match strength with the redoubtable pair who pursued them.

A half hour went by, and the green gondola's lead was reduced to a matter of yards. The comrades could see Mocenigo and his bravos standing on the deck with swords drawn. But the lights of Venice gleamed very close, barred at intervals by the dark mouths of the canals, and once in that network of tangled waterways the task of the pursuers would be redoubled.

"Up with them," cried Matteo. "A Byzant apiece to you, lads."

"Trust us, lord," gasped Beppo.

The gap was spanned as he spoke and their bow overlapped the green gondola's stern.

"Close in, close in," ordered Hugh.

The green gondola made shift to sheer off, but the attempt was hopeless; and in self-defence, Mocenigo's gondoliers were forced to withstand the attack of Beppo and Giacomo. The crack of meeting oars resounded with the clash of swords. Gunwale to gunwale the two craft lay, bobbing at every shock, and it required a clear head and a nimble foot to keep one's balance. But no thought of danger was in Hugh's mind when his blade crossed Mocenigo's.

"At last," he exulted. "I have seen more of your back than your face, Messer Assassin."

"It may be we will amend that, Messer Hugh," rejoined the Italian, fencing cautiously.

"It seems you fear me."

"Not so, good youth. But you have a way of being inconvenient--for a lad unspurred."

"Ay, 'twas you warned me of the dangers of Outremer," retorted Hugh. "Does it surprise you to find me alive?"

Mocenigo laughed grimly.

"Be not too sure of life. My arm is long."

"And mine!"

Mocenigo slipped to the deck to avoid a swinging cut, and Hugh gathered himself to leap the green gondola's rail. One of Mocenigo's bravos was down, and the sole remaining one had all he could do to resist Matteo and Ralph. The gondoliers were waging an independent battle. But in the very moment of victory a hail rang out of the darkness.

"In the name of the Republic!"

And a lean, twelve-oared galley ranged alongside the comrades' gondola.

"In the name of the Republic!" the hail was repeated. "Put down your arms."

"The Lords of the Night!" cried Beppo.

"The Lords of the Night!" was the echo from the green gondola.

Mocenigo sprang to his feet at the cry.

"To your sweeps, knaves," he shouted. "Be swift, and you would escape."

His gondoliers already were thrusting out their oars, and their craft gained headway rapidly. Mocenigo waved his sword to Hugh as the shadows closed round it.

"May the Panagia guard you against the hour I give you the end I have in mind," he called.

Hugh turned in baffled rage to Matteo.

"What fools are these who aid the foes of Venice?" he exclaimed. "Bid them pursue before it is too late."

"They are the police," said Matteo. "The Lords of the Night, who have jurisdiction over Venice from sunset to dawn. I know not what it means, Hugh, but be calm. Here comes one who will answer us."

An officer, handsomely garbed in black velvet slashed with vermeil samite, climbed from the stern of the galley to the deck of the gondola beside them.

"Your names, Messers?" he demanded sternly.

"This is Messer Hugh de Chesby, an English lord, and I am Matteo of Antioch, a jongleur," answered Matteo. "We are in Venice seeking shipping for Outremer. But your business is not with us, noble sir. In that gondola which flees toward La Giudecca is one Messer Mocenigo, who is outlawed from Venice and a spy of the Saracens."

The officer shrugged his shoulders.

"Say you so? Well, Messer, he cannot escape for long, an the Republic chooses to spread her nets for him. But you are caught red-handed in the act of disobeying the laws of the Grand Council against broiling in the city. You must go with me to the Palace for trial."

Matteo affected to be unconcerned.

"Have it your own way, Magnificence," he returned. "We have just overheard this Mocenigo plotting with three Saracen envoys on the Isle of Rabbits. The matter touches narrowly the honour of the Republic. If you will not pursue him, the least we demand is that we be taken straight to the Doge to tell the facts to His Highness in person."

The officer was impressed.

"To the Palace you shall go," he said. "And if his Highness the Doge cares to investigate your story doubt not that you will be arraigned before him."

Matteo saw that no more was to be gained and he bowed assent.

"We are at your disposal, Messer," he said. "Do you wish our swords?"

"No, you may keep them, an you give your words to make no effort to escape."

"We do."

"That is well. Now, Messers, do you and your servants come aboard my galley. We will tow your gondola to the Palace of St. Mark."

It was nearly midnight when the police galley rounded to the landing-steps on the Square of St. Mark, and the comrades, with Beppo and Giacomo--now vastly sobered and no little troubled--were led into the vestibule of the Doge's Palace. There seats were given to them, and they waited for what seemed a long time, until a Chamberlain brought word that the Doge would see them. Even at that hour Dandolo was still engaged in official business. As the two comrades went up the stairs to the audience chamber, they passed a group of chief artisans of the Arsenal, who had been receiving instructions for the work remaining to be done to make ready the armament for the Crusade.

The ruler of Venice sat in a high-backed chair--almost a throne--behind a wide table heaped with parchments, books, maps, writing materials, models of vessels and samples of weapons and armour. He was fingering a miniature petrary when they entered. Half a dozen secretaries, shaven clerics for the most part, bustled around him.

"You must increase the length of the casting arm," he directed a bearded artisan, who stood on the opposite side of the table from him. "I will have it throw the missile as far as a land machine. If the weight must be reduced to fit it on the forecastle of the galleys, then you must save on other parts."

"But, your Highness, if we lighten the other parts it will not rest solid on the deck," objected the artisan.

"Fool!" snapped the Doge. "Bolt it to the deck with iron nails. Do not come to me again until you have succeeded."

The artisan retired, and Dandolo swept the room with his strange, wellnigh sightless eyes.

"Who else?" he asked sharply.

There was no trace of fatigue in his voice, no stoop in his thin shoulders. He carried his ninety-two years as though he had been a man of forty.

"Your Highness," said the police officer, stepping forward, "these are the prisoners, foreigners, who have demanded to be brought before you."

"Crusaders?" expostulated Dandolo. "All such are to be brought before their own chiefs on St. Nicolo. So it has been arranged. You know that."

"But these are not Crusaders, your Highness. They say they have information for the Republic."

"Humph! What are they?"

"They are an English lord and a jongleur of Antioch, with three servants, who were found fighting with a gondola which escaped on the lagoons."

"Yes," broke in Matteo, "and that gondola which escaped contained an enemy of the Republic, an outlaw of Venice, who was trafficking with the Saracens."

The Doge turned quickly toward the jongleur.

"You speak boldly, Messer," he said. "Who was this man?"

"His name is Mocenigo, and he is in the employ of the Greek Emperor."

"So?" Dandolo's dead-white face was emotionless. "Yes, it comes to our memory that Mocenigo was outlawed for debauchery. But what is that to you, Messer? Are you a relative of a family he has aggrieved?"

"No."

"Then could you not have left justice to the duly authorised officers of the Republic?"

"Yes, your Highness. Ordinary justice. But this man is more than outlaw."

"What then?"

"I have said it. He trafficks with the Saracens. We pursued him, without his knowledge, to the Isle of Rabbits, where he met three Emirs, who landed from a galley which lay outside the lagoons. They came to ask him of the Crusade and where it was going, and----"

"Stay," said Dandolo.

He beckoned to his secretaries.

"Clear the room. I wish nobody to remain except these strangers. The guards may wait without."

Dandolo sat silent, his chin cupped in one hand, his eyes staring in front of him in the uncanny direct way which was one of his traits, until the fluttering of robes and the pattering of feet had ended with the shutting of the door.

"Draw nearer," he ordered abruptly. "Both of you. Stand by my side here."

He directed them to a position close to his chair.

"Who are you who have talked thus far?" he asked, peering at them out of eyes which were clouded by a slight film.

"I am called Matteo of Antioch, a jongleur."

The Doge leaned forward and studied his face.

"And you?"

He turned to Hugh.

"Hugh de Chesby, lord of Chesby in England."

"Chesby? That is a name passing well-known in Outremer."

"Sir James de Chesby is my father," answered Hugh steadily.

The Doge's dim old eyes examined his features at close range.

"Both honest faces," was the verdict. "I give frequent thanks to Our Lord Jesus Christ that my sight still serves me on occasion. Well, and what say you, Messer Matteo? These Saracens asked the man Mocenigo of the Crusade?"

"Ay, your Highness. And he told them it would not sail for Babylon or any port in Paynimry."

"This year?" amended the Doge.

"Nay, any year," he said.

"Said he so?" Dandolo murmured. "And then?"

"He said it would sail against Constantinople."

The Doge's gaunt frame snapped upright in his chair, and a light seemed to flash from his face.

"Why did you conceive it necessary to tell me this?"

"Because it seemed to me, your Highness, that it touched the honour of the Republic--ay, of all Christendom."

"You have repeated it to no one else?"

"No."

"You have said nothing of your suspicions to the leaders of the host?"

"Fair sir, we had no suspicions before to-night."

Dandolo drummed on the arm of his chair and stared over the comrades' heads.

"Look you, Messers," he said suddenly. "You have been taken by the officers of the Republic in the violation of her laws. You are strangers here, and none will take interest in your fate--nay, none will know of it. A word from me, and you will disappear."

Hugh frowned in anger at this speech, but Matteo motioned to him to hold his temper.

"What you have said is sufficiently clear, Lord Doge," replied the jongleur placidly. "But I have yet to hear that justice is departed from Venice."

"And I propose to give you justice," retorted Dandolo. "'Tis because you are both plainly honourable and well-intentioned in your blunderings."

"Blunderings, sire? Where have we blundered?"

"You have blundered into that which doth not concern you, into matters of great import. But you gained the knowledge through no fault of your own, and so I would help you to escape the consequences."

"You speak to us in riddles, your Highness," said Hugh impatiently. "In God's name, tell us what you mean! We fear naught! We have no sin upon our souls!"

Not a line quivered in Dandolo's imperturbable face.

"Right knightly spoken!" he approved. "I see that you are men of spirit as well as honour. That is well, for we need such. Messers, all unwittingly you have stumbled upon the most valuable secret in the world. Your possession of it is dangerous to myself and to other people. Therefore I give you the choice of pledging me your word by the Body of Christ that you will speak naught of it to others and that you will agree to accompany the Crusade until I release you from your promise, or--the dungeons of St. Mark. Choose!"

Matteo and Hugh exchanged glances.

"That is really no choice, fair sir," said Hugh. "As it happens, I go upon a private quest to Outremer, and my affairs take me first to Constantinople."

"So much the better for you," returned the Doge. "Do you give your word?"

"Ay, fair sir."

"And for your servants?"

"For them, too."

"I rejoice, Messers. Think not that I have been unjust to you. You shall share in an exploit that will be remembered through the ages, and sung of, Messer Jongleur, wherever brave men love brave songs."

Dandolo's voice clanged like a trumpet and a fire of enthusiasm burned lambently over his waxen features.

"Then it is true what Mocenigo said?" asked Hugh.

"Ay, true, Messer Englishman. Mocenigo was permitted to come to Venice in secret to make certain arrangements for us. He is a spy in our interest in Constantinople. He gave the information you overheard to-night to the envoys of the Sultan of Babylon, in order that the property of Christians in Paynimry might be assured safety against measures of vengeance such as the Saracens take when Crusades are dispatched to their shores. I like not to use such dogs as he, but in affairs of state we accept the tools God gives us. 'Twas no more than to be expected that he should sell additional information together with that which he was charged to impart."

"But, Lord Doge," exclaimed Hugh, "what will Holy Church, what will the Apostle of Rome say to the employment of a Crusade against another Christian country?"

Once more the light of enthusiasm flamed in Dandolo's face.

"What will they say? God knows, young Englishman! He who plans for the future must always face the slurs of the blind who cannot see ahead. But I see, and I am not afraid to venture. Byzantium! What is she to-day? An empty mockery, a worn-out husk, a figment of pomp and blazonry! Her Emperors win the throne by assassination, mutilation, parricide and fratricide. Yet she purports to rule the world!

"I tell you, Messers, we will take her, and on the ruins of her ancient might we will erect a state which will be able to beat back the Saracens and carry Christian arms and commerce to the farthest ends of the earth. What use is any Crusade which chops out a little block of Paynimry, and then collapses for want of support? It is impossible to wage such wars from over-seas. But from Constantinople it will be a different task. With those giant walls to protect us, we will build up anew the Empire of the East, reconquer the provinces of Asia, win back the Holy Land.

"What if the Pope of Rome derides us? What if he excommunicates us? Long after he is dead men will remember us and bless us for our work. The Pope! Bah! He hath not even the address to see to it that these poor, misguided Crusaders receive the funds the holy friars have ransacked Europe for! He and Holy Church have lost the right to dictate the conduct of the Crusade. They should have provided for the welfare of their charges, materially as well as spiritually. But they did not, and so, Messers, this Crusade will fight for something better than relics and holy places. It will fight for the good of mankind!"

The Doge tossed up his arms in a gesture of defiance, and exhausted by the vehemence of his passion, sank down in his chair. The comrades stood silent and ill at ease. They knew not what to say. They were abashed, stupefied. They realised something in this man which was extraordinary, incalculable, a driving force of unearthly energy.

Presently, Dandolo brushed his hand before his face as if to wipe away a veil which hindered him.

"Now you know all there is to know," he said kindly. "Remember your promise, and if I can help you in aught, be sure to come to me. I like not to threaten, but bear my words in mind."

As the comrades were seating themselves in their gondola again, after passing out from the Palace, Ralph heaved a deep sigh of relief.

"I do not mind saying, Messer Hugh, that I was never more frightened in my life than when we came before that terrible old man in there," he said. "It made me think that if only you had let me bring my bow with me to-night, I might have shot this Mocenigo and all his crew and the police would not have captured us."

"And we would not have been taken to the Palace," added Matteo. "True, Ralph, but I am not sure that I regret it. What say you, Hugh?"

"Regret it? I would not have had it happen otherwise for many gold pieces!" returned Hugh. "Do you remember what Messer Fulke, the priest, told us, Matteo?"

"Ay," said Matteo. "And Crusaders--of sorts--we become."