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Dick laughed, and assured the professor that he was the one in supreme authority, which seemed to relieve and satisfy the old man. In truth, the boys did just about as they pleased, but they succeeded in this by making Zenas believe he was the one who wished to do the things that interested them most. In carrying this out, Dick was far more clever than Brad.
“Reggio seems to be behaving better,” said Merriwell.
“Correct,” nodded Buckhart. “Mebbe it was a fit he had. It seems gone now.”
“Though he keeps looking back.”
Once more Dick spoke to the gondolier, asking him why he had seemed to flee through those narrow and dark channels, and why he kept turning his head to stare behind them.
Reggio paused and leaned forward.
“Ah!” he said, in a very low voice, “you don’t-a know. I – I feel-a it in da air.” He spoke in broken English now.
“What did you feel in the air?”
“Death!” whispered the gondolier. “You don’t-a know. You not see-a heem follow us. He follow. That why I hurry vera much.”
“Whoop!” muttered Brad. “That’s a heap fine! So we had a race with death, did we? Well, partner, if that isn’t daffy talk, what do you call it?”
“Do you mean that we were really and truly pursued by anything, Reggio?” demanded Dick.
“I mean-a it. Death he follow us. But mebbe he not-a after us. He follow no more now.”
CHAPTER XVII. – THE RING OF IRON
A boat full of musicians appeared, gliding slowly past them in the moonlight, surrounded by many gondolas. To the throbbing of the harp and guitar, a score of voices were chanting an Italian song.
“Splendid! magnificent!” breathed the professor.
The singing ceased. The gondolas swung near the music barge, from which white, phantom hands were outstretched. Into those hands fell silver coins, and the gondolas swept away.
Dick spoke a word of command to Reggio, who quickly sent them close to the boat of the singers. Merriwell added his contribution to the collection the musicians were taking up.
“There’s still music in Venice,” said Dick, as they drifted away.
“But now,” said Professor Gunn, “the musicians are professionals, who take that way of making a living.”
“Then,” spoke Dick, “in a certain sense it is true that —
“‘In Venice Tasso’s echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier:
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear;
Those days are gone – but beauty still is here.’”
“Well quoted, my boy!” exclaimed the old pedagogue, in deep satisfaction.
“Let’s follow the music boat,” suggested Brad. “That singing has stirred up something a whole lot inside of me. I sure would like to hear some more.”
So Reggio was instructed to follow the musicians.
Some fifteen minutes later, perhaps, the music boat turned into a narrow, close canal, where all was darkness and gloom, with never a gleam of light, save from the gondolas, where lamps twinkled and moved like wills-o’-the-wisp. The boats were lost in the blackness of the place, the lights alone marking their movements.
“Another right fine place for a race with death, pard,” whispered Brad.
“Why have they turned in here?” whispered the professor apprehensively.
“We’ll find out,” said Dick. “We must be close to the Bridge of Sighs. Yes, you can see it against the sky. There it is.”
“With a palace and a prison on either hand,” murmured Zenas.
The beautiful bridge could be seen, buttressed by two great hulks of gloom. It was a ghostly place, and the cool air of the night seemed to take on a deeper chill.
The music barge floated beneath the arch of the bridge and stopped. Reggio permitted his gondola to slowly move along until it was also beneath the bridge. Above them was the terrible prison. Beneath them was the dark and sluggish waters. Dick thought of the headless bodies that once had awaited the changing tide that was to bear them away from that bloodstained spot to outer sea.
Suddenly the musicians began to play and chant a solemn song, full of sadness and despair. Enraptured, enthralled, their blood cold in their bodies, the boys and the old professor listened to the most thrilling and impressive music that had ever greeted their ears. In fancy, Dick seemed to hear the tread of the condemned passing over the bloody bridge, the moans of the dying within those black walls. The air shuddered and vibrated with the horror of it.
Never as long as life lasted could any of that trio forget that chanted song.
When it ended at last, they seemed turned to stone themselves. It was several moments before one of them stirred or even seemed to breathe.
“Let’s get out of here!” Brad finally suggested, chokingly.
“Grand, but terrible!” muttered the professor.
“I would not have missed it for worlds!” declared Dick.
Reggio swung the gondola round, and they were soon moving toward the open canal.
Just as they passed out of the deeper darkness, a black gondola swept close to them – so close that the two boats almost touched.
An unseen person reached forth a ghostly hand from between divided black curtains, and something was tossed through the air, falling with a little clang at the feet of Reggio. It sounded not unlike the ring of money.
Then the phantom hand disappeared and the gondola slipped swiftly into the blackness from which they had just emerged, being lost to view.
“What was it?” muttered Buckhart. “Did some one throw Reggio a coin?”
Dick grasped the arm of his bosom friend.
“Look!” he breathed. “Look at Reggio!”
The gondolier had not moved after the thing dropped at his feet. He was poised with his body swayed backward a little, and he seemed to be gazing with wide-open eyes at the mysterious object lying within ten inches of his feet. His attitude was expressive of the greatest horror.
“Whatever does it mean?” speculated the Texan. “He certain looks a whole lot alarmed.”
Dick started to speak to the gondolier, but checked himself and continued to watch the man.
Onward glided the boat, out into the full flood of moonlight.
Then the man at the oar could plainly see the thing that had been cast before him. Slowly, slowly, as if dreading to touch it, yet forcing himself to perform the act, Reggio stooped and picked it up.
“At last!” he muttered, with a choking sound – “at last it has come to me!”
“What is it?” questioned Dick.
“Death!” answered the man.
“Death?” exclaimed Professor Gunn. “Why, what do you – ”
“See!” directed the gondolier, holding the object up in the moonlight. “Here it is! By this I am told that I must die!”
“What is it?”
“A ring of iron.”
“A ring of iron? What has that to do with your death?”
“It tells me that I am chosen. I have a few hours in which to settle my affairs and make ready. I knew that death pursued us to-night!”
“He’s still making crazy talk, pard!” declared Brad, who could understand Italian, although he made a mess in attempting to speak it.
“The man is not crazy,” asserted Dick positively.
“He sure talks that way.”
“There is something behind all this, Brad – something I’d like to understand.”
Professor Gunn continued to question Reggio. They seemed quite alone just then, with no other boats near them.
“I warned you not to speak of the Ten,” said the gondolier. “It is now too late.”
“But the Council of Ten no longer exists.”
“Not as once it did; but there is another. Oh, if I talk now it will only hasten the end! I am chosen, anyhow, and there is no escape! Little Teresa, my sister – what will become of her!”
The man seemed utterly crushed and hopeless. All the buoyant life and grace had departed from his body. His shoulders were bowed and his appearance that of one aged twenty years in a few moments.
“Boys,” said Professor Gunn, “there is something mighty singular and sinister back of this. That man is badly frightened.”
“Or doing stunts,” muttered Buckhart.
“No stunts,” asserted Dick. “His terror and despair is genuine. Evidently the iron ring is a sign of some sort. He believes that the receipt of it dooms him to death.”
“Folly.”
“Perhaps not.”
For a little time now Reggio answered none of their questions. Finally he straightened up and looked around. He lifted his arms and stretched them out to the white buildings with a despairing gesture.
“Farewell – farewell, Venice!” he murmured, with a sob. “This is my last night with you! For the last time I look on your beauty! Before another night my eyes will be closed in the long, long sleep.”
Then suddenly he seemed to realize that the others were looking and listening. He threw back his shoulders, drew in a deep breath, and with that breath his manhood seemed to return. He made a careless gesture of his hand.
“It is nothing to you, signors,” he said. “Mind not anything you have seen or heard. But it is better that you should leave Venice, for I have spoken to you of the Ten.”
“But you have not explained – you have not told us what you mean,” said the professor.
“It is better that you should not know. Your knowledge would place you in peril. Talk no more of the Ten. Keep your lips tightly closed, if you value your lives – and leave Venice.”
“Well, I like that!” growled Brad, in a manner that plainly told he did not like it. “I opine we won’t be chased out of Venice in any such manner.”
“Not much!” declared Dick earnestly. “We’ll remain and solve the mystery of the Ten.”
In vain they tried to learn anything further from the gondolier. He became silent, and no amount of questioning elicited anything of a satisfactory sort.
“I must return to Teresa,” he finally said. “It is the last time I shall see her.”
He then insisted on taking them without delay to their lodgings. On the way, he swung the gondola into another dark and narrow canal. A peculiar whistle sounded from his lips, causing Professor Gunn, who was very nervous by this time, to give a jump of alarm.
“My! my!” muttered the old pedagogue. “I’m expecting anything to happen! I’m looking for assassins everywhere. Why did he whistle? What does it mean?”
The answer came in the form of a gleam of light from a window in the wall on their left.
Reggio uttered a soft exclamation of satisfaction.
“Teresa is waiting for me, signors,” he said. “I must hasten with you and then return.”
“So this is his ranch,” said Buckhart. “He camps here, I judge.”
But now a change came over the gondolier. The light above had been shut off suddenly. Darkness followed for a moment, after which the light gleamed again. Again it disappeared for a few seconds, and again it gleamed.
“Trouble!” hissed Reggio. “Teresa has made the danger signal!”
“Dear! dear! dear!” gasped Zenas Gunn. “This is terrible! It is so dark. In the light of day I am brave as a lion – I fear nothing. But this darkness is so treacherous that I – really I’m disturbed.”
“Signors,” entreated the gondolier, “I entreat you a moment to wait, till I see what danger it is that has alarmed my sister. When I have reassured her, I will hasten to take you on your way.”
“All right, Reggio,” said Dick promptly. “We can wait. In fact, we’re in no haste.”
“Hum! ha!” coughed Zenas. “I am in haste to get out of this dark spot – indeed I am!”
“But you would not leave a lady in trouble, professor?” remonstrated Dick. “I know you would not do that, for you are the soul of chivalry. Where the fair sex is concerned, you are ever ready to face peril or death.”
“That’s right,” agreed the old pedagogue, bracing up. “You understand me perfectly, Richard. You are a very astute lad. Reggio, we will wait.”
“And,” added Dick, “if you need our assistance, you may depend on us.”
The gondolier poured out his thanks, swung the craft alongside some dark steps, fastened it to a ring of iron set in the marble, and then stepped out, saying he would make great haste.
He had not ascended more than three of the steps when he paused. At the same moment, from some dark nook, a figure stepped out above him.
“Who is there?” challenged the gondolier.
“A friend, Reggio Tortora,” came the answer, in perfect Italian, the voice being soft and musical.
“A friend?” retorted the gondolier, suspiciously. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for your return.”
“Who are you?”
“You know me well.”
“I know you not.”
A laugh sounded low and soft in the darkness.
“Your ears must be losing their cunning, Reggio. Why, I should recognize your voice anywhere in all the world that I heard it. Come nearer.”
But the gondolier had been warned of death that hovered over him, and he did not move.
“If you are my friend,” he said, “why do you lurk like an assassin at my door?”
Again that musical laugh echoed between those dark walls.
“You seem timid as a rabbit, Reggio. Is this the brave, careless Tortora I knew so well? It cannot be.”
The gondolier was angered by the mockery of the words and laughter, but he did not forget that the iron ring had fallen at his feet a short time before. Might this not be the man chosen by the Ten to strike the fatal blow?
“Reggio,” called Dick, standing up and preparing to step from the gondola to the steps, “if you need aid, you may rely on us.”
“You bet your boots!” exclaimed Buckhart, eager to do something. “Just say the word, Reg, and we’ll get right into the game. I’m beginning to spoil for a rumpus, and I’m the Unbranded Maverick of the Rio Pecos. When I get my war paint on and take to the trail, I’m a holy howler on ten wheels.”
“Boys, boys!” spluttered the agitated old professor, “do be careful! Don’t leave me here! I must protect you. I must take care of you. If any harm comes to you, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Don’t worry, professor,” said Dick.
“Just keep your clothes on, professor,” urged Brad.
“There is but one,” said Reggio, in answer to Dick. “I need no aid in facing one man.”
Again the stranger laughed.
“Even though you are changed,” he said, “you yet have a little pride, my Reggio. But why should you fear me! I am here to do you a great service.”
“To do me a service?”
“Even so, my Reggio.”
“What service?”
“I would save your life.”
“How is that – how can it be?”
“You are under the ban of the Terrible Ten,” whispered the stranger, leaning forward in the darkness, and sending the words down the steps at the gondolier.
“How know you that unless you are my enemy – unless you are the assassin sent to do the deed?” demanded Reggio.
“I know many things, but my means of knowledge I keep in my own breast. You doubt me? I swear to you that I can save you, and will – on a certain condition.”
“No one condemned by the Ten has ever escaped,” retorted Reggio.
“You shall be the first – if you agree to terms I will offer.”
“What are the terms?” doubtingly inquired the doomed man.
“Will you accept them?”
“I will not become a murderer and a thief!” was the fierce retort. “I will not plunder and slay, and give one-half my evil gain to those criminals who hide their faces and are growing wealthy through the black crimes other men commit out of fear of them. I am a man! My ancestors were of the Castellani – the aristocrats of the red hoods. Never one of them has descended to the ranks of crime. It is because of that thing that I am now condemned to the assassin. The Ten claim they are the descendants of the black-hooded Nicolletti, and that they are avenging the old wrongs of their class. It is a lie! They are thieves and murderers, banded together for plunder. They strike no blows with their own hands, but they frighten others into doing the dark work and giving them half the plunder. Not even their tools know who compose the Ten, whose faces are always hidden. No man dares betray them by confessing. If he is caught red-handed, he takes all the blame, and tells it not that those who drove him to his crimes, and have shared his plunder, are the Ten, for if he should speak, he knows the ban of death will fall on all his family and all his blood relations.”
Repeatedly the stranger had tried to check the torrent of words flowing from Reggie’s lips, but his efforts had been unavailing. The speaker was aroused to a pitch of desperation, and he would not be silenced until he had finished.
“I fear not to speak!” he exclaimed. “I know I must die, for I have received the iron ring.”
“You fool!” hissed the other. “Do you not think of Teresa? What will happen to her if you talk like this?”
Reggie’s aspect of defiant rage suddenly departed, his shoulders drooped and he lifted his shaking hand to his eyes.
“Teresa!” he whispered. “Teresa, my sister! What have I done?”
“You have spoken like a crazy fool in the presence of foreigners,” declared the other man. “Still, besides them, I am the only one who has heard your words, and I am your friend. Their lips must be silenced, for if they speak one word of this, Teresa is doomed!”
Once more Reggio straightened himself somewhat defiantly.
“What mean you?” he demanded. “Their lips must be silenced, you say. What mean you?”
“You know.”
“They shall not be harmed while with me!” exclaimed the gondolier. “No man I have ever served has come to harm through me.”
“Oh, Lord, boys! Oh, Lord!” palpitated Zenas Gunn, almost overcome by horror. “Do you hear? Do you understand? They are speaking of murder – of killing us!”
“But Reggio is on the level,” said Dick.
“Great howling coyotes!” exclaimed Buckhart. “It begins to look some as if we were going to get mixed up with this Ten, whoever they are.”
“Tortora,” said the stranger, “you are a great fool! You will be slain, the strangers will disappear, and Teresa – it will be left for me to save her.”
“For you?”
“Yes.”
“Why, you?”
“Because she is the fairest flower of Venice! Because my sleeping dreams of her and my waking thoughts of her have brought me back to Venice from America, far over the seas.”
“By the saints!” cried Reggio, “you are Nicola Mullura!”
CHAPTER XVIII. – WHEN STEEL MEETS STEEL
“At last you have named me!” laughed the mysterious man.
“You wretch!” panted the gondolier. “How dare you again show your face in Venice?”
“I am not showing it very much,” was the cool retort. “Even here, as near as we are, you could not see it well enough to recognize me. By day you might rake the city with a fine comb, and still you would not find me.”
“You are a thief, a murderer, and death will be yours if you are discovered!”
“Never fear, my Reggio,” was the mocking assurance. “I have friends far more powerful than the authorities of this city. My friends are of the Ten.”
“For whom you committed a hundred crimes before you were compelled to flee the country in order to save yourself from the hand of justice. Well might they be your friends!”
“You are very careless in your speech, Tortora,” said the one accused, still with perfect self-possession. “I will take good care of Teresa when you are gone. Trust her to me, my Reggio. In my arms she will be safe.”
“Rather than think she might become yours would I slay her with my own hand!” panted the gondolier. “What have you been doing? You have frightened her!”
“I knocked at the door and asked admission. She should have welcomed me with open arms.”
“I knew you had frightened her. She loathes you, Nicola Mullura.”
“She shall adore me.”
“In her room she has been shuddering and praying since you knocked at the door and demanded admission.”
“You shall soothe her and tell her I have come to take her with me to America, where, in the city of New York, I am already a great man with my people.”
“Never! How have you the impudence to place your feet on these steps! How did you come here?”
“I was brought. When Teresa declined to admit me, I decided to wait until your return, for I knew you were out in the city. I am here. Now we will go in together. You shall leave me with Teresa while you take away the foreigners and return.”
The man spoke as if fully confident that Tortora would comply. The gondolier seemed hesitating, but suddenly he cried:
“As I must die, I’ll not leave you to torture my sister! The Ten will destroy me, but not until I have killed you, Mullura!”
“He has drawn a knife!” exclaimed Dick, noting as well as possible in the darkness the movements of Reggio.
“It sure is the real thing now!” said Buckhart.
“Terrible!” groaned Professor Gunn. “Where are the authorities? It should be stopped!”
Mullura had watched closely, and now he lost not a second in whipping out his own knife.
“Fool!” he sneered. “You are no match for me! I shall kill you, and save the Ten a task!”
Tortora held his knife at arm’s length toward the sky, as if invoking the assistance of a higher power. Then he started up the steps.
“Fair play!” cried Dick Merriwell, springing from the gondola. “If we can’t stop this business, Brad, we can see fair play!”
“You bet your boots!” roared the Texan, following promptly.
The professor called to them in the greatest consternation, but they did not heed his appeals.
Mullura waited for Tortora to come within reach. Being higher up, he had the advantage.
Suddenly the gondolier darted to one side and sprang up the steps until he was on a level with the other man. Mullura tried to prevent this, but he was not quick enough. He leaped forward, striking at the gondolier.
Reggio flung up his hand and warded the blow, the knives clinking as they met and rasping as they parted with a twist.
The gondolier gave the other a swing and then struck under like a flash, but Mullura leaped backward and escaped.
The struggle that followed was of a silent, deadly sort.
Dick and Brad pressed near to watch, but did not try to interfere between the men.
Suddenly a door was flung open and a fan of light flared out upon the steps. In the open doorway, holding a lighted candle above her head, was a girl.
Both Dick and Brad gasped as they saw her, for they were struck with the fact that she was wonderfully beautiful. She was not more than seventeen, with eyes and hair as dark as deepest midnight. Her features were finely molded.
The girl’s face was very pale and her lips were parted. She made a wonderful picture as she stood there peering out at the fighting men.
The light of the candle enabled the men to see how to get at each other. Mullura cried:
“He forced it on me, Teresa! I do not wish to kill him, but now it is his life or mine!”
Saying which he crouched at a little distance. He sprang forward on the steps, made a false thrust with his knife that bore a dark stain, then plunged beneath the arm Reggio flung up.
It seemed that the gondolier would be cut to death in a moment, but he made a lucky clutch with his empty hand, and caught the wrist of his enemy, partly checking and turning the blow. He was wounded slightly.
Baffled in that manner, Mullura had the misfortune to slip on the steps while within the reach of Tortora. Before he could recover and save himself, the latter plunged the knife into his shoulder.
The stricken man broke the hold of the other, but up went one of his arms, and he reeled down the steps, on which his knife clanged, having fallen from his hand.
Reggio followed. His back was toward the light, but his manner was that of one who means to finish a task not yet accomplished.
Mullura tried to rise to his feet. He scrambled up, saw Tortora right upon him, leaped back, again lost his footing, and, a moment later, plunged with a great splash into the water.
The gondolier followed to the edge of the water, where he crouched, bloody knife in hand, watching for the man he hated to rise to the surface.
The water was ruffled and broken, but the ripples were caused by the man who had vanished, and they grew less and less. The head of Mullura did not rise into view.
“I opine the gent is done for,” muttered Brad Buckhart, finding his voice at last.
“I believe he is,” said Dick, speaking with an effort. “If so, he met his just due.”
“Nary dispute to make on that, pard.”
There was something of disappointment in Reggio’s manner as he rose to his feet.
“I wished to see him dead,” he muttered. “Still, I know he is done, and he will never touch Teresa with his vile hands.”
“I reckon he’s gone, all right, Reg,” said Brad; “but so is your gondola. It’s disappeared, and Professor Gunn has disappeared with it. Pard, we’re kind of left here, I judge.”
Already Dick had discovered that the gondola was gone.
With it had vanished the possibility of their immediately leaving the place by water, as they had reached it.
“We’re stranded, Brad,” said Dick.
They called to Professor Gunn, but there was no answer.
“Courageous old boy!” muttered the Texan, with a show of anger.
“I don’t know that we can blame him much,” said Dick, seeking an excuse. “He’s very nervous, and the spectacle of Reggio and his antagonist fighting like tigers for their lives must have caused him to lose his head.”
“Oh, he’s all right,” said Brad hastily – “he’s all right when he doesn’t tell people how brave he is.”
In the meantime Reggio was reassuring his sister, who had seemed quite horrified by the spectacle of her brother engaged in the deadly struggle with Nicola Mullura. He placed his arm about her supportingly, speaking soft words into her ear. She was white, and the candle in her hand trembled violently.
“What can we do, Reggio?” questioned Dick, in very poor Italian. “The professor is gone, and the gondola with him.”
“Come in da house,” invited the gondolier, abandoning his own tongue for the time being. “Spik da English-a to me-a. I understand-a heem vera much-a well.”
“But he can’t understand your talk, pard,” chuckled Buckhart. “That’s a horse on you.”
“I suppose we had better accept his invitation. We can’t stay out here.”
“Sure – we’ll accept it,” nodded the Texan.
So they followed Reggio and his sister into the house, the door being closed behind them. They mounted some stairs, threaded a passage of several angles, and came to a lighted room.
“Teresa,” said Reggio, “I introduce-a you my ’Merican friends. They very fine-a gentleman.”
“Wow!” muttered Brad. “Our gondolier calls us his friends, pard!”
Reggio seemed to catch the meaning of Buckhart’s low-spoken words, which were not intended for his ears, for he straightened up with an air of pride, quickly saying:
“You hear me tell-a Nicola Mullura my ancestor they belong-a to da Castellani. Mebbe you no understand-a me? I spik to him in da Italian. I poor gondolier now. My family good one. Da blood-a of da gentleman run here in me-a. I no tell-a it ev’rybody. What da use? I tell-a you now. Da Mullura blood vera bad – vera bad. Da Mullura belong-a to da Nicolletti – common class-a. My sist’ she fine-a lady.”
This was said with considerable effort, and suddenly Dick began to understand that this Venetian gondolier really believed himself and his sister of greater distinction than most of the foreigners he rowed about the city in his boat. Indeed, there was something that carried the impression that Reggio really believed he was unbending and bestowing on them a favor by permitting them to meet his sister.
“No offense, Reg, old man,” said Brad, in his frank, Western way. “I can tell that your sister is an aristocrat by looking at her. You don’t have to explain that any to me. She is all right, and so are you. I certain admire the way you polished off old Mul, out on the front steps. All the same, I didn’t think you had cooked his hash when you sheathed your knife in his dirty hide, and it was a surprise for the Unbranded Maverick of the Rio Pecos when he failed to rise to the surface after going in for that little swim.”
“His shoulder,” said Reggio; “I strike-a him in da shoulder. He no swim-a.”
“Well, it was a right fine job, Reg.”
The gondolier now questioned his sister in Italian, and she told him how she had endured terror while Mullura was outside the door, on which he knocked and knocked, demanding admittance. At first, on hearing his rapping, she took a candle and crept down to the door, asking who was there. He answered, saying it was a friend from her brother; but she recognized his voice, and fled back to her room, where she remained, praying that the door would not yield until her brother returned. After a time he ceased to knock, and she hoped he had departed. Still, knowing how bitterly he hated Reggio, she feared he was waiting to attack him at the door, and therefore she had given the danger signal by flashing the light when she heard her brother’s whistle.
Reggio explained how Mullura had attempted to force his attentions upon Teresa. He was a reckless character in Venice at the time, with a very black reputation, and the girl had shrunk from him with the greatest aversion.
On discovering that Teresa feared him, the fellow became more and more persistent in his annoying attentions. At last he insulted her, and then, burning with fury, Reggio sought the scoundrel, intending to kill him. They fought, but were separated before either had been harmed.
Then and there Mullura swore to obtain possession of Teresa and to kill Reggio if he lifted a hand to prevent it.
But directly after that the authorities obtained conclusive evidence that Mullura had been concerned in a number of crimes, the most dastardly being a cold-blooded murder. The fellow was forced to flee from Venice, much to the relief of both Reggio and Teresa. He emigrated to America, but sent back word that some day he would return and secure Teresa, in spite of herself and her brother.
All this was explained in a broken manner to the boys, upon which Brad cried:
“Good riddance to old Nic! You won’t have to worry about him any more, Reg. Both you and your sister are safe.”
“No, no!” muttered the man, a dark shadow coming to his face. “Nicola Mullura gone-a, but I have-a da iron ring-a.”
At this Teresa, who understood a little English, gave a cry and caught her brother by the arm. In Italian she plied him with questions. At first he tried to put her off, but his manner added to her alarm, and she insisted that he should tell her the truth.
“I have-a to tell-a her!” he murmured sadly. “Mebbe bet’ tell-a her now. She find-a out prit soon, best I can-a do.”
Then he took her in his arms, looking sadly and lovingly down into her upturned face.
“Little sister,” he said in soft Italian, “my heart is sore, for it is true that the Ten have placed the death seal upon me.”
She cried out in horror, clutching him and clinging to him.
