"If he resist us, your Excellency?"

"Bury your knives in his body. The tribunal will uphold you.
Remove him until we have dealt with the others."

They advanced upon me, and for an instant I thought of
resistance. It would have been a heroic death, but who was there
to see it or to chronicle it? I might be only postponing my
fate, and yet I had been in so many bad places and come out
unhurt that I had learned always to hope and to trust my star. I
allowed these rascals to seize me, and I was led from the room,
the gondolier walking at my side with a long naked knife in his
hand. I could see in his brutal eyes the satisfaction which it
would give him if he could find some excuse for plunging it into
my body.

They are wonderful places, these great Venetian houses, palaces,
and fortresses, and prisons all in one. I was led along a
passage and down a bare stone stair until we came to a short
corridor from which three doors opened. Through one of these I
was thrust and the spring lock closed behind me. The only light
came dimly through a small grating which opened on the passage.

Peering and feeling, I carefully examined the chamber in which I
had been placed. I understood from what I had heard that I
should soon have to leave it again in order to appear before this
tribunal, but still it is not my nature to throw away any
possible chances.