destroying them wholesale, of hewing them in pieces by the hundred and the thousand, and of piling up pyramids of their ugly grinning heads. Why were they Genoese? Carlo Zeno would rather have taken a box on the ear from Sultan Amurad, the Turk, over there in Asia Minor, than a civil word from the least objectionable of those utterly unspeakable monsters of Genoese. 'Behold,' said Tertullian one day in scorn, 'how these Christians love one another.' Matters had not improved in eleven hundred years, since that learned Doctor of the Church had departed this life, presumably for a more charitable world; but Carlo Zeno would have answered that the Genoese were no more Christians than mules, and much less so than the pigs, which are all under the special protection of the blessed Saint Anthony.

At the very time, too, when my story begins, those obnoxious villains of Genoa were on the successful side of a revolution; for they had helped Emperor Andronicus to imprison his father, Emperor John, in the tall Amena tower on the north side of the city, by the Golden Horn, and to lock up his two younger brothers in a separate dungeon. It was true that Emperor John had ordered Andronicus and his little son of five to be blinded with boiling vinegar, but Genoese money had miraculously converted the vinegar into bland white wine, and had reduced the temperature from the boiling point to that of a healthful lotion, so that neither the boy nor the man were any the worse after the application than before; but Andronicus had resented the mere intention on the part of his father, and had avenged himself by taking the Empire, such as it was, for the present, while reserving the delight of murdering his parent and his brothers at a convenient season in the future.

All this was very well, no doubt, and Andronicus was undisputed Emperor for the time being, because the Genoese and Sultan Amurad were willing that he should be; but Amurad had not always been his friend, and the Genoese had not always had the upper hand of the Venetians; the wind might change in a moment and a tempest might whirl him away from the throne even more quickly than the fair breeze had wafted him towards it.

Zeno thought so too, and wondered whether it would please fate to make him the spirit of the storm. He cared very little about Handsome John, as Paleologus was nicknamed, but he cared a great deal for a possible chance of driving the Genoese out of Pera and of getting the island of Tenedos for the Venetian Republic.

And now he had transacted the business of the day, and had dined on a roasted palamit, for it was a Friday and the palamit is the best fish that swims, from the Dardanelles to the Black Sea; and Zeno would no more have eaten meat on a day of abstinence than he would have sat down to table with a Genoese. He had been brought up to be a churchman, and though the attempt to make a priest of him had failed for obvious reasons, he was constant in observing those little rules and regulations which he had been taught to believe conducive to salvation, seeing that he was of a rash temper, prone to seek danger, and never sure of coming home alive when it pleased him to walk abroad. He was not a quarrelsome man on his own account, but he had a most wonderful facility for taking up the quarrels of other people who seemed to be in the right. The more hopeless the just case, or cause, the more certain it was that Carlo Zeno would take it up and fight for it as if it were his own.

But now, if ever, he was peacefully inclined; for the palamit had been done to a turn by the Dalmatian cook; the salad which had followed it had been composed to his liking, with shredded red peppers, pickled olives, anchovies, and cardamom seeds, all mixed among the crisp lettuce; and the draught of wine that had finished the meal had gleamed in the Murano glass like spirit of gold, and the flavour of it, as he had thoughtfully sipped it, had made him think of the scent that still sunshine draws from fruit hanging on vine and tree. He sat in a deep chair on his covered balcony, and was conscious that for the moment peace and privacy were almost as delightful as the best fight in the world. It would have been impossible to say more than that.

The sun was low, for the spring days were not yet long, and the shadow of the city already fell across the deep blue water of the Golden Horn. Zeno gazed down at the moving scene; his keen brown eyes watched the boats gliding by and softened, for what he saw made him think of Venice, the lagoons, and his home. Of all people, the most incorrigible wanderer is generally the most hopelessly sentimental about his native place.

Zeno had brown eyes that could soften like a woman's, but they were much more often keen and quick, turning suddenly to take in at a glance all that could be seen at all, until they fixed themselves with a piercing gaze on whatever interested their owner most for the time being,—his friend, or his adversary, his quarry if he were hunting, a woman's face or figure. He was not a big man, but he was thoroughly well made and well put together, elastic, tough, and active. His small brown hands, compact and firm, seemed ready to seize or strike at instant notice—the ideal hands of a fighting man. There was the same ready and fearless look in his clean-shaven face and small, energetic head, and when he moved his least motion betrayed the same gifts. Women did not think him handsome in those days, when the idea of beauty in man or woman alike was associated with fair or auburn hair and milk-white skin and cherry lips. In fact, Carlo Zeno hardly showed his lips at all, his thick hair was almost black, and his complexion was already as tanned and weather-stained as an old sailor's. But like many men of action he was careful of his dress, and extremely fastidious in his ways. In the ranks, the greatest dandies are often the best soldiers, explain the fact as you will. Some officers say that such men are far too vain to run away. Many a French noble who perished on the scaffold in the revolution bestowed more of his last moments on his toilet than he devoted to his prayers, and died like a hero and a gentleman. There are defects, like vanity, which may sometimes pass for virtues. Carlo Zeno was one of those men whose outward appearance is little affected by what they do, on whom the dust and heat of travel seem to leave no trace; who are invariably clean, neat, and fresh, the envy and despair of ordinary people. His dark-red velvet cap was always set on his thick hair at the same angle, and its sheen was as speckless as if dust did not exist. The narrow miniver border of his wine-coloured cloth coat was never ragged or worn at the edges; the fine linen, gathered at his throat and wrists, never betrayed the least suspicion of dinginess; the mud of Constantinople never clung to the soft Bulgarian leather of his well-made shoes.

Just now, the latter were stuck out in front of him as he leaned back in his deep chair and stretched his legs, asking himself vaguely whether he could be contented for any long time with the quiet life he was leading.

As if in answer to the question, his clerk and secretary, an important little grey-bearded personage, appeared on the balcony at that very moment with a letter in his hand.

'From Venice, sir,' said Omobono—that was his name—'and by the handwriting and the seal I judge it is written by Messer Marco Pesaro.'

Zeno frowned and then smiled, as he generally did at the manifestations of Omobono's incorrigible curiosity. It was the only defect of a most excellent person who was indispensable to Zeno's daily life, and invaluable in his business. Omobono had the sad and gentle face of an honest man who has failed on his own account, but whose excellent qualities are immensely