'Ah! If Messer Carlo were only free!' 'Yes--if!' Gorlias shook his head thoughtfully. 'It will not be easy to send an answer to this,' he went on. 'The woman brought it to me at the risk of her life, and said it would be impossible for her to come again. The guard is doubled, and a very different watch will be kept in future. I do not believe that we can bring Johannes out, as we might have done in spite of those fellows last night. Yet I am sure that if Messer Carlo were at liberty he would try. He would at least send word, in answer to this. But the days are over when we used to send letters up and down by a thread--the tower is watched from the river now.' 'Can you not get in by a disguise?' 'No. There is not the least chance of gaining admittance at present.' 'I could,' said Zoë confidently. 'I am sure I could! If I went in carrying a basket of linen on my head and dressed like a slave-girl in blue cotton with yellow leathern shoes, I am sure they would let me go to the captain's wife.' 'What if your basket were searched and the letter found?' 'I would put it into my shoe. They would not look for it there.' 'You would run a fearful risk.' 'For him, if it were of any use,' Zoë answered. 'But it will not help him at all, and if anything happened to me he would be sorry. Besides, why should we send a message that pretends to come from Messer Carlo when he himself is a prisoner?' 'This is the case,' Gorlias answered. 'The soldiers will never let him out till they feel safe themselves; and the only way to make them sure that there is no danger is really and truly to bring Johannes out and set him on the throne again. So long as Andronicus reigns and may take vengeance on them, they will keep Messer Carlo a prisoner to give up at any moment, or to starve him to death for their own safety--unless they murder him outright. But I do not believe that any ten of them would dare to set upon him, for they know him well.' Zoë smiled, for she was proud to love a man whom ten men would not dare to kill. 'Then the only way to save him is to free Johannes?' she said. 'Yes,' she went on, not waiting for an answer, 'I think you are right. Even if we got them their ten thousand ducats they would not let him out as long as Andronicus is at Blachernæ.' 'That is the truth of it,' Gorlias answered. 'Neither more nor less. Messer Carlo's life depends upon it.' 'Then it must be done, come what may. Thank God, I have a life to risk for him!' 'You have two,' said Gorlias quietly. 'You have mine also.' 'You are very loyal to Johannes, even to risking death. Is that what you mean?' 'More than that.' 'For Messer Carlo, then?' Zoë asked. 'You owe him some great debt of gratitude?' 'I never saw him until quite lately,' Gorlias answered. 'You need not know why I am ready to die in this attempt, Kokóna Arethusa.'