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I thought it was all over, for the cords were new, so that I could not break them. I tried hard enough! But even if I had broken loose, I could never have fought my way through the crowd alone. The noose was around my neck." He stopped, as if he had told everything. "Go on!" said Arisa. "How did you escape? What an adventure!" "One of my men saved me.
Aristarchi spoke at last, in an easy, reassuring tone. "My friend," he said, "I am not going to hurt you any more. You may think it strange, but I really shall not kill you. Arisa and I have loved each other for a long time, and since she has lived here, I have come to her almost every night.
He pushed the curtain aside, a very little, in order to see before springing. Contarini stood half turned away from the door, clasping Arisa to his breast and kissing her hair.
"That glass was made at her father's furnace," he said. "A pity he could not have made his daughter of glass too," answered Arisa. "Graceful and silent?" "And easily destroyed! But if I say that, you will think me jealous, and I am not. She will bring you wealth.
I know your house almost as well as you do, and you have kindly told me that your friends are all looked in. We shall therefore not have the trouble of leaving by the window, since we can go out by the front door, where my boat will be waiting for us. You will never see us again." Contarini's eyes rolled wildly, and still Arisa smiled. "You have made him suffer," she said. "He loved me."
"Do you mean to say that he chanced to find a dead friar lying in the road?" asked the Georgian. "How should I know? I daresay the monk was alive when he met my man, and happened to die a few minutes afterwards by mere chance. It was very fortunate, was it not?" "Yes!" Arisa laughed softly. "But what did he do? Why did he take the trouble to dress the monk in his clothes?"
"You must not call yourself a slave, Arisa," answered Jacopo. "What am I, then? You bought me with your good gold from Aristarchi the Greek captain, in the slave market. Your steward has the receipt for the money among his accounts! And there is the Greek's written guarantee, too, I am sure, promising to take me back and return the money if I was not all he told you I was.
Having delivered himself of these opinions Aristarchi began to look about him for whatever might be worth the trouble of carrying off, and Arisa collected all her jewels from the caskets in which they were kept, and little bags of gold coins which she had hidden in different places.
He had a little learning, and could pass for a monk when he could get a cowl. He went out before it was daylight that morning, and exchanged clothes with a burly friar whom he met in a quiet place." "But how did the friar agree to that?" asked Arisa in surprise. "He had nothing to say. He was dead," answered Aristarchi.
Try to see her, and tell me whether she is pretty, but most of all learn whether she is really rich." "That is easy enough. I will go to the furnace and offer to buy a cargo of glass for Sicily." "But you will not take it?" asked Arisa in sudden anxiety lest he should leave her to make the voyage. "No, no! I will make inquiries. I will ask for a sort of glass that does not exist."
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