'There is no money in the house!' he cried, winking violently at Polo and Corner. 'There is not a penny, I swear! There were large payments to make yesterday.'

The poor little secretary was so anxious to be heard that he had come within arm's length of the Tartar, though behind him. Tocktamish turned his big head, and put out his hand unexpectedly, and Omobono felt himself caught and whirled round like a child till he was close to the table and face to face with the tipsy giant. He was sure that he felt his liver shrivelling up inside him with sheer fright.

'What is this little animal?' the Tartar asked, c.o.c.king one eye in a knowing way and examining him with a sort of boozy gravity.

But Omobono really could not find a word. His captor shook him playfully.

'What is your name, you funny little beast?' he enquired, and he roared with laughter by way of answering himself.

Giustina, strange to say, was the only one to join in his mirth, and she laughed quite prettily, to the inexpressible surprise of her parents, who were shocked and grieved, as well as scared almost to death.

'Come, come!' laughed the Tartar, shaking the little man like a bean-bag. 'If you cannot speak, you can at least give up your keys, and I will see for myself if there is any money!'

Thereupon he seized the bunch of keys which the secretary wore at his belt, and wrenched it off with a pull that snapped the thong by which it hung. Again Giustina laughed, but a little more nervously now; her mother sat transfixed, open-mouthed, with an almost idiotic expression. Again the two merchants glanced at each other, and then both looked towards the door.

Between his fright and the terrible indignity of having his keys torn from him, Omobono had never been nearer to fainting in his life.

'Robbery!' he gasped. 'Rank robbery!'

Tocktamish sent him spinning into the nearest corner by a turn of the wrist, after which the ruffian took another mouthful of meat, and slowly filled his gla.s.s while he was disposing of it. Omobono had steadied himself in the corner, but his face was deadly white, and his lips were moving nervously in a delirium of terror.

'Messer Carlo needs ten thousand ducats before sunset,' observed the Tartar before he drank.

Polo and Corner started to their feet; to their commercial souls the mere mention of such a demand was more terrifying than all the crooked weapons that gleamed in Tocktamish's broad belt.

'Ten thousand ducats!' they repeated together in a breath.

'Yes!' roared the Tartar, in a voice that made the gla.s.ses on the table shake together and ring. 'Ten thousand ducats! And if I do not find the money in the house, you two must find it in yours! Do you understand?'

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'Yes!' roared the Tartar. 'Ten thousand ducats! And if I do not find the money in the house, you two must find it in yours!

Do you understand?']

They understood, for his voice was like thunder, and he had risen too, and towered above them with his full gla.s.s in one hand and Omobono's keys in the other. Then, being already tolerably drunk, he solemnly raised the keys to his lips, thinking that he held the gla.s.s in that hand, and rolled his eyes terribly at the two merchants; and he set the gla.s.s down with an emphatic gesture, as if it had been the bunch of keys, and it broke to pieces, and the yellow wine splashed out across the table and ran down and streamed upon the mosaic floor.

A terrific Tartar oath announced that he had realised his mistake, and as he at once made up his mind that the Venetians were responsible for it, his next action was to hurl the foot of the broken gla.s.s at Polo's head; and he instantly seized the empty silver flagon and flung it at Corner's face. The lighter weapon missed its aim and broke to atoms against the opposite wall, but the jug struck Corner full on the bridge of his thin nose with awful effect, and he fell to the floor and lay there, a moaning, bleeding heap.

Polo looked neither at his wife nor at his daughter, but fled through the open door at the top of his not very great speed. His wife fainted outright, and in real earnest now, and with a final croak rolled gently from her chair, without hurting herself at all. Omobono flattened his lean body against the wall, trembling in every joint, and gibbering with fear; and Tocktamish, seeing that he had so satisfactorily cleared the field, proceeded to address his attentions to Giustina, who had not fainted, but was really much too frightened to rise from her seat or try to escape.

The Tartar drew his chair nearer to hers, and suddenly smiled, as if he had done nothing unusual, and was only anxious to make himself agreeable. He had been drinking since early morning, but he would be good for at least another gallon of wine before it made him senseless.

He addressed Giustina in the poetic language of his native country.

'Come, pet parrot of my soul!' he began, coaxingly. 'Fill me a cup and let me hear your ravishing voice! Tocktamish has cleared the house as the thunderstorm clears the hot air from the valley! Drink, my pretty nightingale, and the golden wine shall warm your speech in your little throat, as the morning sunshine melts the icicles in my beard when I have been hunting all night in winter! Drink, my fawn, my spring lamb, my soft wood-pigeon, my white bunny rabbit! Drink, sweet one!'

The Tartar's similes were in hopeless confusion, possibly because he translated them into Greek, but he was convinced that he was eloquent, and he was undeniably as strong as a bear. He had filled a fresh gla.s.s and was evidently anxious to make Giustina drink out of it before him, for he held it to her lips with his left hand while his right tried to take her round the waist and draw her to his knee.

But this was much more than she was prepared to submit to. In the fairy story, Beast was less enterprising in the presence of Beauty, and collapsed into obedience at the mere lifting of her finger.

Giustina was a big creature, usually sleepy and not inclined to move quickly; but she was capable of exerting considerable strength in an emergency. The instant she felt Tocktamish's hand at her waist, she rose with a quick, serpentine motion that unwound her, as it were, from his encircling hold, and almost before he knew that she was on her feet she had fled from the room and slammed the door behind her.

Tocktamish tried to follow her, but he stumbled successively over the still unconscious dame and the still moaning Corner, so that when he reached the door at last his purpose had undergone a change, and, as he thought, an improvement. Women never ran out of the house into the street, he argued; therefore Giustina was now upstairs and would stay there; hence it would be wiser to finish the peac.o.c.k and anything else he could lay hands on before going to pay her a visit. For Tocktamish found the food and the wine to his liking, and such as were not to be had every day, even by a Tartar officer with plenty of money in his wallet. He was tolerably steady still, as he made his way back towards his seat.

His eye fell on Omobono, flattened against the wall and still in a palsy of fear; for all that has been told since Corner had fallen and Polo had run away had occupied barely two minutes.

Tocktamish suddenly felt lonely, and the little secretary amused him.

He took him by the collar and whirled him into Giustina's vacant chair at the table.

'You may keep me company, while I finish my dinner,' he explained. 'I cannot eat alone--it disturbs my digestion.'

He roared with laughter, and slapped Omobono on the back playfully.

The little man felt as if he had been struck between the shoulders by a large ham, and the breath was almost knocked out of his body; and he wondered how in the world his tight hose had survived the strain of his sitting down so suddenly.

'You look starved,' observed the Tartar, in a tone of concern, after observing his face attentively. 'What you want is food and drink, man!'

With a sudden impulse of hospitality he began to heap up food on Giustina's unused plate, with a fine indifference to gastronomy, or possibly with a tipsy sense of humour. He piled up bits of roast peac.o.c.k, little salt fish, olives, salad, raisins, dried figs, candied strawberries, and honey cake, till he could put no more on the plate, which he then set before Omobono.

'Eat that,' he said. 'It will do you good.'

Then he addressed himself to the peac.o.c.k again, with a good will.

Omobono would have got up and slipped away, if he had dared. Next to his bodily fear, he was oppressed by the terrible impropriety of sitting at his master's table, where the guests should have been. This seemed to him a dreadful thing.

'Really, sir,' he began, 'if you will allow me I would rather----'

'Do not talk. Eat!'

Tocktamish set the example by tearing the meat off a peac.o.c.k's leg with his teeth.

'You need it,' he added, with his mouth very full.

The poor secretary looked at the curiously mixed mess which his tormentor had set before him, and he felt very uncomfortable at the mere idea of tasting the stuff. Then he glanced at the Tartar and saw the latter's bloodshot eye rolling at him hideously, while the shark-like teeth picked a leg bone, and terror chilled his heart again. What would happen if he refused to eat? Tocktamish dropped the bone and filled two gla.s.ses.

'To Messer Carlo Zeno!' he cried, setting the wine to his lips.

Omobono thought a little wine might steady his nerves; and, moreover, he could not well refuse to drink his master's health.

'Good!' laughed Tocktamish. 'If you cannot eat, you can drink!'

Just then Corner groaned piteously, where he lay in a heap on the floor. His nose was much hurt, but he was even more badly frightened.

The Tartar was not pleased.

'If that man is dead, take him out and bury him!' he cried, turning on Omobono. 'If he is alive, kick him and tell him to hold his tongue! He disturbs us at our dinner.'

Omobono thought he saw a chance of escaping, and rose, as if to obey.

But the Tartar's long arm reached him instantly and he was forced back into his seat.

'I thought you meant me to take him away,' he feebly explained.

'I was speaking to the slaves,' said Tocktamish gravely, though there was no servant or slave within hearing.

The unfortunate merchant, who was not at all unconscious, and had probably groaned with a vague idea of exciting compa.s.sion, now held his peace, for he did not desire to be kicked, still less to be taken out and buried. The Tartar seemed satisfied by the silence that followed. After another gla.s.s he rose to his feet and took Omobono by the arm; considering his potations he was still wonderfully steady on his legs.