There were no traces to show who was my companion in misfortune. Closing the two loose planks behind me I returned to my own cell and waited there with all the courage which I could command for the summons which would probably be my death knell.
It was a long time in coming, but at last I heard the sound of feet once more in the passage, and I nerved myself to listen to some other odious deed and to hear the cries of the poor victim. Nothing of the kind occurred, however, and the prisoner was placed in the cell without violence. I had no time to peep through my hole of communication, for next moment my own door was flung open and my rascally gondolier, with the other assassins, came into the cell.
"Come, Frenchman," said he. He held his blood- stained knife in his great, hairy hand, and I read in his fierce eyes that he only looked for some excuse in order to plunge it into my heart. Resistance was useless. I followed without a word. I was led up the stone stair and back into that gorgeous chamber in which I had left the secret tribunal. I was ushered in, but to my surprise it was not on me that their attention was fixed. One of their own number, a tall, dark young man, was standing before them and was pleading with them in low, earnest tones. His voice quivered with anxiety and his hands darted in and out or writhed together in an agony of entreaty. "You cannot do it! You cannot do it!" he cried.
"I implore the tribunal to reconsider this decision."
"Stand aside, brother," said the old man who presided.
"The case is decided and another is up for judgment."
"For Heaven's sake be merciful!" cried the young man.
"We have already been merciful," the other answered.
"Death would have been a small penalty for such an offence. Be silent and let judgment take its course."
I saw the young man throw himself in an agony of grief into his chair. I had no time, however, to speculate as to what it was which was troubling him, for his eleven colleagues had already fixed their stern eyes upon me.
The moment of fate had arrived.
"You are Colonel Gerard?" said the terrible old man.
"I am."
"Aide-de-camp to the robber who calls himself General Suchet, who in turn represents that arch-robber Buonaparte?"
It was on my lips to tell him that he was a liar, but there is a time to argue and a time to be silent.
"I am an honourable soldier," said I. "I have obeyed my orders and done my duty."
The blood flushed into the old man's face and his eyes blazed through his mask.
"You are thieves and murderers, every man of you," he cried. "What are you doing here? You are Frenchmen.
Why are you not in France? Did we invite you to Venice? By what right are you here? Where are our pictures? Where are the horses of St. Mark? Who are you that you should pilfer those treasures which our fathers through so many centuries have collected? We were a great city when France was a desert. Your drunken, brawling, ignorant soldiers have undone the work of saints and heroes. What have you to say to it?"
He was, indeed, a formidable old man, for his white beard bristled with fury and he barked out the little sentences like a savage hound. For my part I could have told him that his pictures would be safe in Paris, that his horses were really not worth making a fuss about, and that he could see heroes--I say nothing of saints--without going back to his ancestors or even moving out of his chair. All this I could have pointed out, but one might as well argue with a Mameluke about religion. I shrugged my shoulders and said nothing.
"The prisoner has no defence," said one of my masked judges.
"Has any one any observation to make before judgment is passed?" The old man glared round him at the others.
"There is one matter, your Excellency," said another.
"It can scarce be referred to without reopening a brother's wounds, but I would remind you that there is a very particular reason why an exemplary punishment should be inflicted in the case of this officer."
"I had not forgotten it," the old man answered.