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.
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