Marc-Antoine's annoyance deepened. This was a silly, vexatious waste of time and effort. It was of a piece with everything that he had seen of this Venetian Government, which spent itself in futilities whilst doing nothing to guard against the forces that were sapping the foundations of the State. But he preserved his calm on the surface.

'I shall be happy to assist them whenever they desire it.'

The apparitor's smile approved him. 'No time like the present. If you will accompany me, I shall have the honour of conducting you.'

Marc-Antoine looked at him sternly. Cristofoli grinned again.

'There are three of my men over there, and if they were to employ force it would create a scene. I am sure you would wish to avoid that.' He got up. 'Shall we be going, sir?'

Marc-Antoine did not even hesitate. He beckoned the waiter, paid for his bavaroise, and with an impeccably calm demeanour over a raging spirit, sauntered off with the tipstaff.

Past the soldiers guarding the Porta della Carta, they came into the Ducal courtyard, where a half-battalion of Slavonians bivouacked about the great bronze well-heads. They ascended the staircase over which Sansovino's giants presided, and then, by the noble external gallery, came to another staircase at the foot of which there was a guard. They ascended again, and continued to ascend until Marc-Antoine, out of breath, found himself on the top-most floor of the Ducal Palace, where the Prison of the Leads was situated.

Here in a chamber that was something between a guard-room and an office, the confidente at last handed him over to a corpulent official, who desired to know his name, age, quality, nationality, and place of abode.

Cristofoli stood by whilst Marc-Antoine resignedly gave the name of Melville and all the particulars that went with it. His answers were entered in a register. Next, by a couple of archers, acting upon the order of the official, he was searched. But with the exception of his sword, they found upon him nothing of which they accounted it their duty to deprive him.

When this was over, he was conducted by the same archers and preceded by a turnkey to the room assigned to him. It was a fair-sized chamber furnished with a table, a chair, a stool on which stood ewer and basin, and a truckle bed.

He was informed that anything in reason for which he was prepared to pay would be supplied to him, and it was suggested to him by the turnkey that he should order his supper.

After that he was left to reflect as philosophically as he might upon the indubitable fact that he was a prisoner of the inquisitors. This situation, usually accounted terrifying, was to him merely an irritation. Terrors it had none.

He wrote a note to Sir Richard Worthington and another to Count Pizzamano. He claimed the assistance of the first as a right, and begged that of the second as a favour.

He might have spared himself the trouble. For Catarin Corner, whilst more than half-persuaded of his guilt, was yet deeply concerned that he should be afforded every opportunity of establishing his innocence. Therefore, when next morning he was summoned to appear before the dread tribunal of the Three, both the British Ambassador and the Count were in attendance.

It was Cristofoli who came for him, and conducted him below to the second floor of the vast palace. He was led along a wide gallery with windows above the courtyard in which the shadows were retreating before the April sunshine and whence arose the chatter and laughter of soldiers lounging there off duty.

Cristofoli halted his prisoner before a tall, handsome door that was guarded by two archers. In the wall beside this door a lion's head of natural size was carved in stone. The open mouth was the letter-box for secret denunciations.

The door was opened, and Marc-Antoine passed into a splendid lofty antechamber. Two archers in red with short halberts were ranged inside the doorway, and two similar ones guarded another smaller door on the right. A subaltern officer paced slowly to and fro. A blaze of colour from the armorial bearings in a tall window set high at the eastern end of the room was splashed by the sunlight upon the wood mosaics of the floor. Under this window stood two tall figures. They were Sir Richard and the Count.

Turning sharply as Marc-Antoine entered, Francesco Pizzamano, who wore his senatorial toga over his walking-dress, would have come to speak to him, but that he was respectfully restrained by the officer.

This subaltern at once took charge of the prisoner, and, with Cristofoli following him as a guard, ushered him into the presence of the inquisitors.

Marc-Antoine found himself in a chamber, small and intimate, but as rich in frescoes, gildings, and stained glass as was every room in this house of splendours. He was placed at a wooden rail, whence he bowed calmly to the inquisitors. The three occupied wide bucket seats on a shallow dais set against the wall, and there was a writing-pulpit before each of them. Catarin Corner, in red as the representative of the Ducal Council, occupied the middle place, between his two colleagues in black, who were members of the Council of Ten. For background, covering the wall, they had a tapestry on which the aureoled Lion of Saint Mark stood with one paw supported upon the open evangel.

Beside another writing-pulpit set immediately below the dais stood now a man in a patrician robe, who was the secretary of the tribunal.

The officer withdrew, leaving the prisoner with Cristofoli for only guard.

Then Marc-Antoine, in a tone as easy and confident as his bearing, informed the inquisitors that he had been ill and was still weak, and begged to be allowed to sit.

A stool was provided for him, and the secretary opened the proceedings by reading the lengthy act of accusation. Summarized, it amounted to a charge of espionage and misrepresentation, of conveying to the French Government information detrimental to the Most Serene Republic, information obtained by falsely representing himself as working in the interests of the Serenissima; of passing under the assumed name of Melville and an assumed British nationality, whereas, in fact, he was a subject of the French Republic, a member of the Cinq-Cents, and a secret agent of the Directory, whose real name was Camille Lebel.

The secretary resumed his seat, and Catarin Corner's gentle voice addressed the prisoner.

'You have heard. And no doubt you are aware of the penalties which our laws prescribe for an offence of this gravity. You have leave, sir, to urge any reasons why these penalties should not be imposed upon you.'

Marc-Antoine rose and leaned upon the rail. 'Since these charges rest entirely, or almost entirely, upon the question of my identity, and since my own assertions on this can have little weight, I would respectfully submit that your excellencies hear the British Ambassador and my friend the Senator Count Pizzamano, who are in attendance.'

Angelo Maria Gabriel, the inquisitor on Corner's right, a man of a long, sorrowful countenance, speaking mournfully through his nose, approved the invitation as a very proper one. The other, Agostino Barberigo, a shrunken, trembling, half-palsied old man, nodded a silent, contemptuous concurrence.

Sir Richard was brought in first. He was important and emphatic. He had made a grave mistake once where Mr. Melville was concerned, and for this, upon Mr. Melville's complaint, he had been severely reprimanded from Whitehall. Until this moment Mr. Melville had punished him—in Sir Richard's own view—by ignoring him and denying him all opportunity of making amends. But this opportunity being vouchsafed him at last, he meant to rehabilitate himself with his Government by making the most of it.

Hence the vehemence of the oration—it amounted to no less—which he now delivered in Marc-Antoine's defence. When stripped, however, of the imposing rhetoric, which survived even in the French that Sir Richard employed, the ambassador's statements were seen to lack authority. They rested upon letters from Mr. Pitt, one of which the Vicomte de Saulx had personally presented and others which had subsequently followed.

Sir Richard was under the necessity of admitting that, having had no acquaintance with the prisoner before their meeting here in Venice, he could not, upon his own personal knowledge, testify to the identity he claimed. He was going on to add that, nevertheless, in view of Mr. Pitt's communications, it was impossible to harbour doubt, when the doleful voice of the inquisitor Gabriel—even more nasal and doleful in French than in Italian—cut him short.

'You would not venture, Sir Richard, to exclude the possibility that the prisoner might improperly have obtained the letter he delivered to you. Monsieur Pitt's later communications to you might have been written under a misapprehension created by forgeries committed by the prisoner.'

'I should say,' answered Sir Richard, with heat, 'that such a thing is so extremely improbable as to make the suggestion . . . fantastic.'

'Thank you, Sir Richard,' droned the tearful voice.

Marc-Antoine knew how far was the suggestion from being fantastic, considering that it expressed precisely what he had done in the character of Lebel.

Messer Corner added graciously his thanks to those which his colleague had expressed, whilst old Barberigo bowed in silent dismissal.

Sir Richard, breathing noisily, but with a lift of the hand and a friendly smile for the prisoner, which he thought must impress the court, was shown out by Cristofoli.

Count Pizzamano followed at once, and with his coming the proceedings became more serious. By virtue of his senatorial rank the Count was offered a seat near the secretary's pulpit, where by a turn of the head he could face at once the inquisitors or the prisoner.