It was not strange that
his lips should be parched, and that his heart should be beating like a
fuller's hammer.
At last the footsteps ceased, the key ground and creaked as it turned,
and the door was opened. Two tall guards stood looking at him, and one
of them motioned to him to come. He could never afterwards remember the
place through which he was made to pass, for the blood was throbbing in
his temples so that he could hardly see. A door was opened and closed
after him, and he was suddenly standing alone in the presence of the
Ten, feeling that he could not find a word to say if he were called upon
to speak.
A kindly voice broke the silence that seemed to have lasted many
minutes.
"Is this the person whom we are told is in league with Satan?"
It was the Doge himself who spoke, nodding his hoary head, as very old
men do, and looking at Zorzi's face with gentle eyes, almost colourless
from extreme age.
"This is the accused, your Highness," replied the secretary from his
desk, already holding in his hand Giovanni's letter.
Zorzi saw that the Council of Ten was much more numerous than its name
implied. The Councillors were between twenty and thirty, sitting in a
semicircle, against a carved wooden wainscot, on each side of the aged
Doge, Cristoforo Moro, who had yet one more year to live.
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