The gondola gliding like a black swan through the water-traffic, threaded its way across the canal, past the Erberia, where all was noise and bustle of men and women about the piled stalls of fruit and flowers and about an unloading barge. It slipped into the quieter, narrow waters of the Rio delle Beccherie, to bring up at last at the water-lapped steps of the Osteria delle Spade, the Inn of the Swords, as the crossed blades of its sign announced.

Marc-Antoine landed and consigned his person and luggage into the care of the rubicund little landlord Battista, who welcomed him volubly in the Venetian dialect, which to Marc-Antoine sounded like a mixture of bad French and bad Italian.

He was lodged on the piano nobile in an ample salon, sparsely furnished and cool with a stone floor and clumsily frescoed ceiling where cupids of unparallelled obesity rioted in an incredibly gaudy vegetable kingdom. A bedroom with a vast canopied bed, and a powder-cupboard adjoining, completed his lodging.

He installed himself, unpacked, and sent for a hairdresser.

He had travelled straight from Turin, and he had accomplished the journey in two days. In this he had been extremely fortunate, for the movements of the battered Austrian troops about the country east of the Mincio might easily have hindered and delayed him. As it was he had missed them, although the ugly signs of their passage were not wanting. He had reached Mestre unchallenged, and now in the ease and peace and dignity of Venice it seemed difficult to believe that the hideous stress of war could be anywhere within a thousand miles of them. Gay laughter-laden voices floated up to his windows from the canal below, and more than once whilst his hair was being dressed there came, to the accompaniment of the swish of oars and the gurgle of water under an iron-headed prow, snatches of song as if to stress how carefree were the people of the Lagoons.

The assumption, upon which he had decided, of the rôle of the dead Lebel, imposed upon him the necessity of journeying at once to Milan where Bonaparte had made his triumphal entry and had just established his headquarters. But he had shirked a course that was fraught with so much risk, and had contented himself with writing to the French commander. Thus he created with Barras the impression of having represented the wishes of the Directory to Bonaparte, and he could leave Barras to suppose that this had been done orally.

It would be some three hours after his arrival, when having made a careful toilet and with his glossy black hair carefully dressed and tied, but free from powder, he went below, and called for a gondola to carry him to the French Legation.

Reclining in the shade of the felza he was borne westwards up the Grand Canal, where with the approach of noon the water-traffic was becoming brisk, and then, by a network of lesser channels that lay in shadow between tall dark palaces, to the Fondamenta of the Madonna dell' Orto in the north. Alighting on the quay, he came by a narrow alley into the Corte del Cavallo, a little square scarcely larger than a courtyard. On the corner stood the residence of the ambassador of France, the Palazzo della Vecchia, a roomy but comparatively modest house for a city of such splendours.

The Citizen-Ambassador Lallemant was at work in the spacious room on the first floor which he made his office. He was interrupted by Jacob, the middle-aged, rustily clad, alert Semitic secretary, who could never forget that during the interregnum three years ago he had been for a season chargè d'affaires.

Jacob brought the ambassador a folded note, which he said had been given to him by the door-keeper Philippe.

Lallemant looked up from his papers. He was a man in middle life of a comfortable habit of body and a full, kindly, rather pallid face that like a pear was wider at the base than at the summit. The lethargy of his double chin was belied by the keen shrewdness of full dark eyes, set prominently on his face.

He unfolded the note and read: 'Camille Lebel, representative on mission, requests audience.'

He frowned in silence for a moment. Then he shrugged. 'Bring this man in.'

In the representative when he was introduced Lallemant beheld a man above the middle height, prepossessing of countenance, slimly built but with a good width of shoulder, elegantly dressed in a long black coat above spotless buckskins and boots with reversed tops. He wore a very full white neckcloth, carried a bicorne hat tucked under his arm, and bore himself with an air of consequence and authority.

The ambassador scrutinized him searchingly as he rose to greet him.

'You are welcome, Citizen Lebel. We have been looking for your arrival since the last letters from the Citizen-Director Barras.'

The newcomer frowned. 'We?' he echoed. 'Do you say "we?" May one know whom you include in that pronoun?'

Lallemant was taken aback by the hard tone and the cold, hard glance of those light eyes in which he read displeasure and reproof. Resentment was to succeed his momentary confusion. But it was in this confusion that he answered.

'The pronoun? Oh! I but use it officially. A form of speech. So far no one shares with me the secret either that you were expected or that you have arrived.'

'You had better see that no one does,' was the dry injunction. 'I do not propose to be found one morning floating in one of these picturesque canals with a stiletto in my back.'

'I am sure you have no cause to be afraid of that.'

'I am not afraid of anything, citizen-ambassador. It is simply that the thing is not among my intentions.' He looked round for a chair, found one, thrust it nearer to the ambassador's writing-table, and sat down. 'Don't let me keep you standing,' he said, tone and manner plainly conveying that he accounted himself the master here. 'If you will look at this you will learn our exact relationship.'

He placed Barras' letter on the table before the ambassador.

That letter made abundantly clear the formidable authority with which Lebel was vested by the Directory. But it did not suffice to conquer the annoyance aroused in Lallemant by his visitor's hectoring manner.

'To be frank, citizen, I do not quite perceive what you are come to do that I could not have done. If you . . .'

He was interrupted by the abrupt opening of the door. A florid young man bounded impetuously into the room, speaking as he came.

'Citizen-ambassador, I am wondering whether you would like me to . . .' He broke off, perceiving the stranger, and presented every appearance of confusion. 'Oh, but my apologies! I thought you were alone. I . . . If . . . Perhaps . . . Oh, I will return later.'

Nevertheless, he did not depart. He remained swaying there, undecided, and all the while his eyes were very busy upon the visitor.

'Since you are here, what is it that you want, Domenico?'

'I should never have intruded if I had dreamed . . .'

'Yes, yes. You've said so. What do you want?'

'I was wondering whether you would allow me to take Jean with me as far as San Zuane. I am going to the . . .'

Lallemant cut him short. 'Of course you may take him. There was no need to break in on me for that.'

'Ah, but then you see, Madame Lallemant herself is not at home, and . . .'

'Oh, yes, yes. I've said that you may take him. To the devil with your explanations. You see that I am engaged. Be off.'

Mumbling excuses the young man backed away; and all the time his eyes continued to play over the visitor, from his fine boots to his sedulously dressed head.

When at last the door had closed upon him, Lallemant's lips were compressed into a little scornful smile. He glanced over his shoulder at an open doorway and a small room beyond.

'Before that interruption I was about to trouble you to accompany me in there. You were a little hasty in accommodating yourself, my friend.' He moved from the table, and waved a hand in the direction of that doorway, a tinge of sarcasm in his manner. 'If you please.'

Mystified, the visitor complied.

Lallemant left the communicating door open, so that from the inner room he commanded a view of the larger outer chamber. He advanced a chair, and explained himself.

'In here we shall be safe from eavesdroppers. It was not my intention that anything of importance should be said out there. That pleasant young man, so innocently concerned to take my son for a walk, is a spy placed in my house by the Council of Ten. By tonight the circumstance of your visit and a description of you will be in the hands of the inquisitors of state.'

'And you tolerate his presence? You leave him free of your house?'

'He has his uses. He runs messages for me. He helps to entertain my son. He makes himself pleasant to my wife, and frequently acts as an escort for her when she goes abroad. Also, since I am aware of his real trade, I take him into my confidence now and then, and disclose to him as political secrets just those matters which it suits me that the inquisitors of state should believe.'

'I see,' said Marc-Antoine, readjusting his ideas concerning this phlegmatic-looking ambassador. 'I see.'

'I thought you would. Believe me, he learns nothing here that can profit his employers.' Lallemant sat down. 'And now, citizen-representative, I am at your service.'

The false Lebel proceeded to disclose his mission. He began by congratulating himself and all Frenchmen upon the glorious victories which were attending French valour and French arms in Italy; victories which in themselves simplified the task upon which he came. However, the end was not yet reached. Austria disposed of vast resources, and none could doubt but that she would employ them freely and endeavour to re-establish herself in Lombardy. The odds against France were heavy enough already, and it was his business to see that they were rendered no heavier. Venice must at all costs be held strictly to her unarmed neutrality.