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The red-faced, bawlingdin of the musicians was sufficient to render us invisible, because it overpowered the senses But the men were far too drunk to have seen us in perfect silence Indeed,a kiss on my cheek, went to the very center of the table, to a space left there, presu to the music, and he stepped over the padded bench and sat down
Only then did the twoat one another adamantly about some point or other, take notice of this resplendent scarlet-clad guest
My Master had let the hood of his cape fall, and his hair ondrously shaped in its prodigious length He looked the Christ again at the Last Supper with his lean nose and mild full mouth, and the blond hair parted so cleanly in the middle, and the whole ht
He looked frouests, and to ed into their conversation, discussing with them the atrocities visited upon those Venetians left in Constantinople when the twenty-one-year-old Turk, Sultan Mehmet II, had conquered the city
It seeument as to how the Turks actually breached the sacred capital, and onethat had not the Venetian ships sailed away fro her before the final days, the city ht have been saved
No chance at all, said the other, a robust red-haired olden eyes What a beauty! If this was the rogue who misled Bianca, I could see why Between red beard and mustache, his lips were a lush Cupid's bow, and his jaw had the strength of Michelangelo's superhuure
"For forty-eight days, the cannons of the Turk had bombarded the walls of the city," he declared to his consort, "and eventually they broke through What could be expected? Have you ever seen such guns?"
The other man, a very pretty dark-haired olive-skinned felloith rounded cheeks very close to his se velvet black eyes, became furious and said that the Venetians had acted like cowards, and that their supported fleet could have stopped even the cannons if they had ever come With his fist he rattled the plate in front of him "Constantinople was abandoned!" he declared "Venice and Genoa did not help her The greatest empire on Earth was allowed on that horrible day to collapse "
"Not so," saidhis head slightly to one side His eyes swept slowly from one man to the other "There were in fact many brave Venetians who came to the rescue of Constantinople I think, and with reason, that even if the entire Venetian fleet had come, the Turks would have continued It was the drea Sultan Mehmet II to have Constantinople and he would never have stopped "
Oh, this wasI was ready for such a lesson in history I had to hear and see thisup a light cross-legged chair with a coood vantage point on all of theht better see the dancers, who even in their clu ornate sleeves flapping about and the slap of their jeweled slippers on the tile floor
The red-haired one at table, tossing back his long richly curling ave hi look
"Yes, yes, here is a man who knohat happened, and you lie, you fool," he said to the other ht to the end Three ships were sent by the Pope; they broke through the blockade of the harbor, slipping right by the Sultan's evil castle of Ruine the bravery?"
"Frankly, no!" said the black-haired one, leaning forward in front of my Master as if my Master were a statue
"It was brave," said my Master casually "Why do you say nonsense you don't believe? You knohat had happened to the Venetian ships caught by the Sultan, come now "
"Yes, speak up on that Would you have gone into that harbor?" demanded the red-haired Florentine "You knohat they did to the Venetian ships they caught six months before? They beheaded every man on board "