'You are never frightened, are you, Vito?' she asked with a smile. 'I?' Vito grinned. 'Am I of iron, or of stone? Or am I perhaps a lion? When there is fear I am afraid.' 'But the master is never frightened,' suggested Zoë. 'Is he of stone, then?' 'Oh, he!' Vito laughed now, and shrugged his shoulders. 'Would you compare me with the master? Then compare copper with gold. The master is the master, and that is enough, but I am only a sailor man in his service. If there is fighting, I fight while I see that I am the stronger, but when I see that I may die I run away. We are all thus.' 'But surely you would not run away and leave Messer Carlo to be killed, would you?' 'No,' Vito answered quite simply. 'That would be another affair. It would be shame to go home alive if the master were killed. When one must die, one must, as God wills. It may be for the master, it may be for Venice. But for myself, I ask you? Why should I die for nothing? I run away. It is more sensible.' 'You need not risk being killed if you do what I am going to ask,' Zoë said, for after talking with the man she liked his honest face, and thought none the less of him for his frankness. 'It is a very simple matter.' 'What is it, Excellency?' 'You need not call me that, Vito,' answered Zoë. 'I want you to row me at sunset to the landing which is nearest to the palace gate. It must be the dirty little one on this side of the Amena tower, is it not?' 'That is it. But without the master's orders----' Vito looked at her doubtfully, for he had been reminded that she considered herself a slave, and it occurred to him that she meant to escape in Zeno's absence. 'Messer Carlo would wish me to go, if he were here,' said Zoë quietly, and not at all as if she were insisting, for she saw what was the matter. 'I have no doubt it is as you say,' Vito answered. 'But I have no orders.' 'There is a message from the master to some one in the palace,' Zoë explained. 'No one but I can deliver it.' 'That is easily said,' observed Vito bluntly. 'There are no orders.' Zoë felt the blood rising to her forehead at the man's rudeness and distrust of her, but she controlled herself, for much depended on obtaining what she wished. 'It is not a message,' she said; 'it is a letter.' 'Where is it?' asked Vito incredulously. 'I will show it to you,' Zoë answered, but she first turned to the maids, who waited at the end of the room. 'Go and prepare me the bath,' she said. The two disappeared, though they did not believe that their mistress really wished to bathe again so soon. When they were gone, she stooped and took the letter from her shoe, unfolded it, and spread it out for Vito to see. The effect it made upon him was instantaneous; he looked at it carefully, and took a corner of it between his thumb and finger. 'This is the paper on which the master writes,' he said, as if convinced.