And meanwhile Giustina stared across her empty plate at the boats on the Golden Horn, and nursed her wrath against the man she wished to marry. 'My child,' croaked her mother, 'we fully understand your disappointment. But you should make an effort to be cheerful, if only for the sake of Messer Marin Cornèr, your father's valued friend.' 'I beg you to excuse my dulness, Madam,' answered the daughter dutifully, and with all the ceremony that children were taught to use in addressing their parents. 'I shall endeavour to obey you.' 'Come, come, Donna Giustina!' cried Cornèr. 'We will drink your health and happiness in this good----' The sentence remained unfinished, and his lips did not close; as he set down the untasted wine, his eyes fixed themselves on a point between Omobono and Polo, and the sunset effects faded from his nose, leaving a grey twilight behind. The fat dame thought it was an apoplexy, and half rose from her seat; but Giustina's eyes followed the direction of his look and she uttered a cry of real fear. Sebastian Polo, who sat with his back to the sight that terrified his daughter, gazed at the other three in astonishment. But Omobono turned half round and gasped, and seized the back of Zeno's empty chair, swinging it round on one of its legs till it was between him and the vision. Tocktamish stood there, grinning at the assembled company in a way to terrify the stoutest heart amongst them. He was magnificently arrayed in his full dress uniform of flaming yellow and gold, and his huge round fur papakh was set well back on his shaggy head. His right hand toyed amidst a perfect arsenal of weapons in his belt, and his blood-shot eyes rolled frightfully as he looked from one guest to the other, showing his shark's teeth as he grinned and grinned again. It was certainly Tocktamish, the Tartar; and Tocktamish was not perfectly sober. He was the more pleased by the impression his appearance had produced. He at once came forward to the empty place of the absent guest, which was next to Giustina's. 'I see that you have kept a place for me,' he said in barbarous Greek. 'That was very kind of you! And I am in time for the peacock, too!' Thereupon he sat down in the chair, looked round the table, and grinned again. The fat lady collapsed in a fainting fit, the two elderly merchants edged away from the board as far as they could, and Giustina uttered another piercing shriek when the Tartar leered at her. 'Who is this person?' her father tried to ask with dignity, meaning the question for Omobono. But Omobono had vanished, and the servants had fled after him. CHAPTER XV Tocktamish poured half a flagon of Chian wine into a tall Venetian beaker and drank it off by way of whetting his appetite. '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.'