Arethusa

A month had passed, and yet, to all outward appearance, Zeno's manner of living had undergone no change. He rose early and bathed in the Golden Horn on fine days. He attended to...

Zoë and the astrologer sat in the covered balcony in full view of the secretary, who remained near the door, straining his sharp ears in vain to catch some words of the whispere...

Zeno left her when she was breathing quietly, after ordering the two little maids to watch her by turns, or at least to go to sleep very near her, in case she should wake and ca...

Zeno asked the question gently, for the colour had left her face; and she looked up at him with a frightened stare. He had once seen a like terror in the eyes of a startled doe,...

Omobono had drawn on a pair of well-greased raw-hide boots that came half-way up his thin legs, and had wrapped himself in his big brown cloak before going out. On his smooth gr...

When it was quite dark the old woman came back with something hidden under her tattered shawl, and Zoë drew the rotten shutters that barely hung by the hinges and fastened them...

The sun had set, and the wide court of Blachernæ was filled with purple light to the wall tops, like a wine-vat full to the brim; and everything that was in the glow took colour...

There was consternation in little Omobono's face the next morning when he learnt that his master had gone out during the night, and had not come home. The secretary would not be...

'The master of the house is unavoidably absent,' he observed, when he had smacked his lips noisily. 'He has sent me to beg that you will excuse him and make yourselves at home.'

Carlo Zeno, gentleman of Venice, ex-clerk, ex-gambler, ex-soldier of fortune, ex-lay prebendary of Patras, ex-duellist, and ex-Greek general, being about twenty-nine years of ag...

Rustan stayed behind to shut the outer door, and Zoë felt that she was carried as much as twenty paces forward and upwards before the bearers stood still at last. Then the slidi...

Zeno found the two occupants of the room terrorstruck, and standing on one side of the window, from which they had not dared to look out after the cry of alarm had been given fr...

Zeno left his house noiselessly half an hour later, after changing his clothes. He was now lightly clad in dark hose and a soft deerskin doublet with tight sleeves, a close-fitt...

Little Omobono's thin legs carried him up and down the stairs of Zeno's house at an astonishing pace during the next hour; for Carlo gave fifty orders, every one of which he ins...

Neither Tocktamish nor his victim knew that Lucilla had slipped the bolt after them, for Omobono was too terrified to hear anything but the Tartar's voice, and the latter was ju...

Carlo Zeno's interview with Rustan had been short and business-like, as has been said. It was indeed not at all likely that a man of the Venetian's temper and tastes would talk...

The position of Zeno was quite clear to Zoë now, and a great wave of happiness lifted her and bore her on with it as she realised that she might save his life just when his chan...

Zoë sat in the dark just within the open doorway of Zeno's house, before the marble steps. She was shivering with cold, now that the danger to herself was over, and she was bent...

When Zeno slipped from his borrowed charger and ran for his life towards that part of the square that looked darkest, he had no time to choose the direction he would afterwards...

Zoë had closed her eyes to bear the pain better, and a tiny drop of blood slowly trickled from the lip she had bitten in the first moment of the torture. It made a thin, dark li...