"I bought this ornament, some weeks back, in Venice, at the store of a Greek trader from the Levant."
"Ha!" exclaimed the stranger; "and where dwelt this Greek, that I may see and ask him for another such?"
The concious lady, embarrassed by such close questioning, and somewhat alarmed by the kindling glances of the questioner, replied in haste--"Nay, signor, now I remember better, it was not a Greek I bought these gauds, but of a trading Jew, who walks the Merceria with a box of jewellry."
"Just now, methinks, you said a Greek, fair lady; and now you say a Jew. What next? Why not a Moslem, or perchance _an Uzcoque?_"
At this ominous conclusion, which the stranger muttered in tones of marked significance, the alarmed culprit started to her feet; and her fierce temper getting the better of her prudence, she boldly faced the cavalier, exclaiming, in a louder key than beseemed a courtier's wife--
"And who are you, signor, that dare thus question the lady of an archducal counsellor?"
"Lady!" he sternly answered, "here I am known to none save your husband's master; but in Venice men call me the Proveditore Marcello."
And now flashed upon the indignant signora a fearful reminiscence of Jurissa's unheeded and forgotten warning, to hide her jewels for a time, and to beware of the Proveditore Marcello. In utter dismay, and nearly fainting with alarm, she sank upon the sofa, and her eyes expanded into the wide stare of terror as she gazed at the menacing visage of the Venetian noble. Unwilling to expose the conscience-striken woman before so numerous an assemblage, he seated himself beside her, and in tones inaudible to others thus whispered in her ear--"Lady! but eight days back the jewels that you wear were mine. That peacock was my own design, and made for my daughter by a cunning artificer in Candia. Its like exists not in the world; for the mould was made by my order, and broken as soon as used. 'Twas mine until the base Uzcoques plundered my baggage. How thus quickly it passed from them to you, is as well known to me as to yourself. But mark me, lady! if all these jewels are not delivered at my apartments in the west wing of the castle ere midnight, I will denounce your husband and his colleagues as long-suspected and now-proved partakers with the Pirates of Segna. And, should redress be denied me here, the ambassador of Venice shall report this infamous collusion before a higher tribunal in Vienna."