Presently, and somewhat to his surprise, he saw a gondola before him in a narrow place, rowed slowly by a man who seemed to be in black like himself.  He did not try to pass it, but kept a little astern, trying not to attract attention and hoping that it would turn aside into another canal.  But it went steadily on before him, turning wherever he must turn, till it stopped where he was to stop, at the water-gate of the house of the Agnus Dei.  Instantly he brought to in the shadow, with the instinctive caution of every one who is used to the water.  Gondolas were few in those days and belonged only to the rich, who had just begun to use them as a means of getting about quickly, much more convenient than horses or mules; for when riding a man often had to go far out of his way to reach a bridge, and there were many canals that had no bridle path at all and where the wooden houses were built straight down into the water as the stone ones are to-day.  Zorzi peered through the darkness and listened.  The occupant of the gondola might be Contarini himself, coming home.  Whoever it was tapped softly upon the door, which was instantly opened, but to Zorzi’s surprise no light shone from the entrance.  All the house above was still and dark, and he could barely make out by the starlight the piece of white marble bearing the sculptured Agnus Dei whence the house takes its name.  He knew that above the high balcony there were graceful columns bearing pointed stone arches, between which are the symbols of the four Evangelists; but he could see nothing of them.  Only on the balcony, he fancied he saw something less dark than the wall or the sky, and which might be a woman’s dress.

Some one got out of the gondola and went in after speaking a few words in a low tone, and the door was then shut without noise.  The gondola glided on, under the Baker’s Bridge, but Zorzi could not see whether it went further or not; he thought he heard the sound of the oar, as if it were going away.  Coming alongside the step, he knocked gently as the last comer had done, and the door opened again.  He had already made his skiff fast to the step.

“Your business here?” asked a muffled voice out of the dark.

Zorzi felt that a number of persons were in the hall immediately behind the speaker.

“For the Lord Jacopo Contarini,” he answered.  “I have a message and a token to deliver.”

“From whom?”

“I will tell that to his lordship,” replied Zorzi.

“I am Contarini,” replied the voice, and the speaker felt for Zorzi’s face in the darkness, and brought it near his ear.

“From Angelo,” whispered Zorzi, so softly that Contarini only heard the last word.

The door was now shut as noiselessly as before, but not by Contarini himself.  He still kept his hold on Zorzi’s arm.

“The token,” he whispered impatiently.

Zorzi pulled the little leathern bag out of his doublet, slipped the string over his head and thrust the token into Contarini’s hand.  The latter uttered a low exclamation of surprise.