Claude stared. The Syndic"s matter-of-factness and the ease with which he ignored what had just pa.s.sed staggered him. Perhaps after all Blondel had come for this, and had been startled while waiting at the door by the quickness of his approach. "I--I had overlooked it," he murmured, trying to accept the situation.
"Then," the Syndic answered shrewdly, "I can see that you have not wanted anything."
"No."
"You lodge there?" Blondel continued, pointing to the house. "But I know you do. And keep late hours, I fear. You are not alone in the house, I think?"
"No," Claude replied; and on a sudden, as his mind went back to the house and those in it, there leapt into it the temptation to tell all to this man, a magistrate, and appeal to him in the girl"s behalf. He could not speak to a more proper person, if he sought the city through; and here was the opportunity, brought unsought, to his door. But then he had not the girl"s leave to speak; could he speak without her leave? He shifted his feet, and to gain time, "No," he said slowly, "there are two or three who lodge in the house."
"Is not the person with whom you quarrelled at the inn one of them?" the Syndic asked. "Eh? Is not he one?"
"Yes," Claude answered; and the recollection of the scene and of the support which the Syndic had given to Grio checked the impulse to speak.
Perhaps after all the girl knew best.
"And a person of the name of Basterga, I think?"
Claude nodded. He dared not trust himself to speak now. Could it be that a whisper of what was pa.s.sing in the house had reached the magistrates?
The Syndic coughed. He glanced from the distant door, now a mere blur in the obscurity, to his companion"s face and back again to the door--of which he seemed reluctant to lose sight. For a moment he seemed at a loss how to proceed. When he did speak, after a long pause, it was in a dry curt tone. "It is about him I wish to hear something," he said. "I look to you as a good citizen to afford such information as the State requires. The matter is more important than you think. I ask you what you know of that man."
"Messer Basterga!"
"Yes."
Claude stared. "I know no good," he answered, more and more surprised.
"I do not like him, Messer Syndic."
"But he is a learned man, I believe. He pa.s.ses for such, does he not?"
"Yes."
"Yet you do not like him. Why?"
Claude"s face burned. "He puts his learning to no good use," he blurted out. "He uses it to--to torture women. If I could tell you all--all, Messer Blondel," the young man continued, in growing excitement, "you would understand me better! He gains power over people, a strange power, and abuses it."
"Power? What do you mean? What kind of power?"
"G.o.d knows."
The Syndic stared a moment, his face expressive of contempt. This was not the line he had meant his questions to take. What did it matter to him how the man treated women? Pshaw! Then suddenly a light--as of satisfaction, or discovery--gleamed in his eyes. "Do you mean," he muttered, lowering his voice, "by sorcery?"
"G.o.d knows."
"By evil arts?"
The young man shook his head. "I do not know," he answered, almost pettishly. "How should I? But he has a power. A secret power! I do not understand him or it!"
The Syndic looked at him darkly thoughtful. "You did not know that that was said of him?" he asked.
"That he----"
"Has magical arts?"
Claude shook his head.
"Nor that he has a laboratory upstairs?" Blondel continued, fixing the young man gravely with his eyes. "A laboratory in which he reads much in unknown tongues? And speaks much when no one is present? And tries experiments with strange substances?"
Claude shook his head. "No!" he said. "Never! I never heard it."
He never had; but in his eyes dawned none the less a look of horror. No man in those days doubted the existence of the devilish arts at which Blondel hinted--arts by the use of which one being could make himself master of the will and person of another. No man doubted their existence: and that they were rare, were difficult, were seldom brought within a man"s experience, made them only the more hateful without making them seem to the men of that day the less probable. That they were often exercised at the cost of the innocent and pure, who in this way were added to the accursed brood--few doubted this too; but the full horror of it could be known only to the man who loved, and who reverenced where he loved. Fortunately, men who never doubted the reality of witchcraft, seldom conceived of it as touching those about them; and it was only slowly that Claude took in the meaning of the Syndic"s suggestion, or discerned how perfectly it accounted for a thing otherwise unaccountable--the mysterious sway which the scholar held over the young girl.
But he reached, he came to that point at last; and his silence and agitation were more eloquent than words. The Syndic, who had not shot his bolt wholly at a venture--for to accuse Basterga of the black art had pa.s.sed through his mind before--saw that he had hit the mark; and he pushed his advantage. "Have you noted aught," he asked, "to bear out the idea that he is given to such practices?"
Claude was silent in sheer horror: horror of the thing suggested to him, horror of the punishment in which he might involve the innocent.
"I don"t know!" he stammered at last, and almost incoherently. "I know nothing! Don"t ask me! G.o.d grant it be not so!" And he covered his face.
"Amen! Amen, indeed," Blondel answered gravely. "But now for the woman, over whom you said he had power?"
"I said?"
"Aye, you, a minute ago! Who is she? Is she one of the household? Come, young man, you must answer me," the Syndic continued with severity proportioned to the other"s hesitation. "I know much, and a little more light may enable us to act and to bring the guilty to punishment. Does she live in the house?"
Only the darkness hid Claude"s pallor. "There is a woman," he muttered reluctantly, "who lives in the house. But I know nothing! I have no proof! Nothing, nothing!"
"But you suspect! You suspect, young man," the Syndic continued, eyeing him sternly, "and suspecting you would leave her in the clutches of the devil whose she must become, body and soul! For shame!"
"But I do not believe it!" Claude cried fiercely. "I do not believe it!"
"Of her?"
"Of her? No! _Mon dieu!_ No! She is a child! She is innocent! Innocent as----"
"The day! you would say?" the Syndic struck in, almost solemnly. "The likelier prey? The choicest are ever the devil"s morsels."
"And you think that she----"
"G.o.d help her, if she be in his power! This man," the Syndic continued, laying his hand on the other"s arm, "has ruined hundreds by his secret arts, by his foul practices, by his sorceries. He has made Venice too hot for him. In Padua they will have him no more. Genoa has driven him forth. If you doubt this character of him there is an easy proof; for it is whispered, nay, it is almost certain, in what his power lies. Do you know his room?"
"No."
"No?" in a tone of dismay. "But is it not on a level with yours?"
"No," Claude answered, shivering; "it is over mine."
"No matter, there is an easy mode of proving him," the Syndic replied; and despite himself his tone was eager. "If he be the man they say he is, there is in his room a box of steel chained to the wall. It contains the spell he uses. By means of it he can enter where he pleases, he can enslave women to his will, he----"
"And you do not seize it?" Claude cried in a tone of horror.