'Messer Carlo Zeno, the Venetian merchant, is very anxious to see you this very evening,' he said. 'From his manner, I suspect that the business will not bear any delay and that it may be profitable to you.' Rustan smiled, bent his head and walked quickly, but said nothing for several moments. 'Does Messer Zeno need money?' he asked presently. 'If so, let us stop at my house and I will see what little sum I can dispose of.' Mild as Omobono was, an angry, contemptuous answer rose to his lips, but he checked it in time. 'My master never borrows,' he answered, with immense dignity. 'I can only tell you that so far as I know he wishes to see you in regard to some commission with which a friend in Venice has charged him.' Rustan smiled more pleasantly than ever, and walked still faster. 'We will go directly to Messer Zeno's house, then,' he said. 'This is a most fortunate day for buying and selling, and perhaps I have precisely what he wants. We shall see, we shall see!' Omobono's thin little legs had hard work to keep up with the Bokharian's untiring stride, and though Rustan made a remark now and then, the clerk could hardly answer him for lack of breath. The sun had set and it was almost dark when they reached Zeno's house, and the secretary knocked at the door of his master's private room. CHAPTER III When it was quite dark the old woman came back with something hidden under her tattered shawl, and Zoë drew the rotten shutters that barely hung by the hinges and fastened them inside with bits of rain-bleached cord that were knotted through holes in the wood. She also shut the door and put up a wooden bar across it. While she was doing this she could hear Anastasia, the crazy paralytic who lived farther down the lane, singing a sort of mad litany of hunger to herself in the dark. It was the thin nasal voice of a starving lunatic, rising sharply and then dying away in a tuneless wail:-- Holy Mother, send us a little food, for we are hungry! Kyrie eleeison! Eleeison! Blessed Michael Archangel, gives us meat, for we starve! Eleeison! O blessed Charalambos, for the love of Heaven, a kid roasted on the coals and good bread with it! Eleeison, eleeison! We are hungry! Holy Sergius and Bacchus, Martyrs, have mercy upon us and send us a savoury meal of pottage! Eleeison! Pottage with oil and pepper! Eleeison, eleeison! Holy Peter and Paul and Zacharius, send your angels with fish, and with meat, and with sweet cooked herbs! Eleeison, let us eat and be filled, and sleep! Eleeison! Spread us your heavenly tables, and let us drink of the good water from the heavenly spring! Oh, we are hungry! We are starving! Eleeison! Eleeison! Eleeison!