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Weeks after Fra Francesco had disappeared from the convent a letter was brought by the gastaldo of Nicolotti, Piero Salin, who, in spite of opposition among the brothers, persisted in delivering it with his own hand, though it was rare that any one outside his usual circle was permitted to hold an interview with Fra Paolo; but Piero's masterful ways had not left him, and when he willed to do a thing the wills of others counted little.
Piero Salin stood in the doorway as he glanced up from the drawings that littered his table the dark oak table which had seemed a centre of cheer to Girolamo, when, in this very chamber, his child had made a radiance for him in which the lines of his life shone large and satisfying.
"To-day," said Piero to himself, "it is this poor devil who cried to me to shield him when I was forced to denounce him to the Signoria; to-morrow, for some caprice of their Excellencies it may be Piero Salin!" But the gastaldo relapsed easily into such philosophy as he knew.
The stakes are high for the friars' game five thousand scudi apiece and a promise of Church preferment; but Piero Salin hath ways of doing his duty! The Senate will send orders for the better protection of its Consultore; meanwhile let him not venture forth without two ducal guards." "Your Excellency knoweth that Fra Paolo will have no state."
And this whole plot hath been unveiled to us by one who watcheth secretly in Rome for the interest of Venice, since there hath been no open communication. It was hatched in the Orsini palace, in that holy city, not unknown to some of their Eminences; the chief accomplices are friars we have the names of the other two; and Piero Salin is on the watch.
But when the wedding oration had been preached over those twelve bridal pairs, and the wedding benediction had been granted, it was not Gabriele, the boyish betrothed of Toinetta, who brought the blushing bride, partly in triumph and partly in pique, to her father's side, but Piero Salin, the handsomest gondolier on the lagoons, the most daring and dreaded foe of all the established traghetti.
Piero Salin was a splendid specimen of the people tall, broad-shouldered, gifted by nature and trained by wind and wave to the very perfection of his craft; positive, nonchalant, and masterful; affable when not thwarted; of fewer words than most Venetians; an adept at all the intricacies of gondolier intrigue, and fitted by intimate knowledge to circumvent the tosi.
And perhaps the bard of the beggars, like the English humorist, would wish his pauvres Gueux to be left unmolested. The sights of Toulouse would occupy a conscientious traveller many days. The least leisurely should find time to visit the tiny square called place du Salin.
Piero Salin had been secretly summoned by the Ten and given an indefinite leave of absence from Venice, together with a large discretionary power in the direction of his wanderings, with certain other passes and perquisites which bespoke a curious confidence in one who had been known for a successful and much dreaded bandit gondolier.
"For such an employ there is none like Piero Salin for daring and intrigue; and the assassins may linger long in hiding on the route to Rome." And so they first remembered Piero in these crowded days and discussed his fault with a degree of leniency that would have been foreign to the traditions of Venice had he not been needed for important secret service.
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