Arethusa Part 38

She was only a weak girl, after all, and once or twice, when she thought of the pain, a sharp little shiver ran down her back to her very heels, and things swam before her for an instant in the deep sea of colour; but that only lasted for a moment, and when she reached the foot of the tower and went in under the archway that led to the door, she was thinking of Zeno again, and of nothing else.

It was as Gorlias had told her. A very different watch was set there since the attempt of the previous night, and she found herself face to face with an obstacle she had not antic.i.p.ated. The iron door was shut and was guarded by two huge Africans in black mail armour, who stood on either side with drawn scimitars.

They looked over her head as she approached them, and they seemed to take no notice of her existence. She thought she had never seen such expressionless faces as theirs; the features were as shiny and motionless as bronze, and the purple haze of the sunset without filled the deep arch and lent them an unnatural colour which was positively terrifying.

'If you please, kind sirs,' Zoe began as she stood still, 'my mistress sends some fine wheat bread and fresh cream cheese to the wife of the captain.'

She might as well have spoken to statues; neither of the negroes paid the slightest attention. But she was not to be put off so easily.

'If you please,' she repeated with pleading emphasis and more loudly, 'my mistress----'

She stopped speaking in the middle of the sentence, suddenly scared by the immobility of the two black men, and by their size, and by the purple glare that was reflected from their great polished scimitars, of which one noiseless sweep could sever her head from her body. They were like the genii in one of those tales of the Arabian Nights which Greek story-tellers were then just learning from the Persians, and from the Tartar merchants of Samarcand and Tashkent. Zoe had listened to them by the hour when she was a little girl, and now she suddenly felt an irrational conviction that she had dreamed herself into one of them, and that the imprisoned Emperor was guarded by supernatural beings.

However, when she looked at the motionless features and at the broad, polished blades, she did not feel that painful shiver which had run down her when she had thought of being tortured by the people of the palace, and she soon took courage again and began to speak a third time.

'If you please,' she said, but she got no further, for she had gently plucked at the mailed sleeve of the man on her right, to attract his attention, and he moved at once, and bent down a little.

He touched his ear with his left forefinger and shook his head slowly to show that he was deaf, and pointed to his companion and back to his own ear and shook his head again; and then, to Zoe's horror, he opened his enormous mouth just before her eyes, and she saw that it was empty. He had no tongue.

Johannes was guarded by deaf mutes, and Zoe knew Constantinople and the ways of the palace well enough to understand that they were placed there to make an end of any one, man or woman, who should attempt to pa.s.s.

She tried signs, now. She took her basket from her head and set it down on the step between the sentinels, and crouched on her heels to uncover it and show the contents. The men saw and nodded, and then inclined their heads to one side in that peculiar way which means indifference all over the East. And indeed they did not care whether the basket held cheese or sweetmeats, and their faces grew stony again as they looked outwards, over her head.

She covered up her little basket disconsolately and rose to her feet.

The glow was beginning to fade in the courtyard, and she felt her heart sink as the shadows deepened. It was absolutely necessary to the success of the dangerous enterprise on which she and Gorlias had embarked, that Johannes himself, or at least the captain's wife should be warned of what was to take place in less than half an hour. If this could not be done, everything might go wrong at the last minute, their cleverly concerted trick would fail and be exposed, and she and Gorlias, and Zeno himself, would probably pay for their audacity with their lives.

The closed door between the sentinels was covered with iron and studded with big nails. It was perfectly clear that it must be opened from within, if at all, and that the men themselves would have to knock or make some other signal by sound in order to obtain entrance for any one who was really authorised to go in. It was also clear that if the men on the other side of the door were stone deaf like the two guards, they could not hear any such knocking, and no entrance would be possible at all except when those within opened for some reason of their own or at fixed hours. Again, thought Zoe, it followed that there was probably some one near who could hear sounds from without, and there was always a bare possibility, in such times, that this person might be a secret friend to the prisoner, though supposed to be one of his gaolers.

All these thoughts flashed across her mind in a few seconds, while she was covering her basket. She therefore took rather more time over this than was necessary, and as the mutes did not show signs of driving her away, she at once began to sing, quite sure that they could not hear her. It was a forlorn hope, indeed, but anything was worth trying. Her voice sounded loud and clear under the archway:--

Over the water to my love, for the hour is come!

The water, the blue water, the water salt and the water fresh!

Open, my very dear love, open thy door to me, For I have come swiftly over the water----

At this point, to Zoe's inexpressible amazement and delight, the door really opened, and she almost choked for sheer joy.

The captain's wife appeared in the dim evening light, standing well within, and Zoe recognised her at once from the description Gorlias had given of her. The sentinels, being perfectly deaf, did not at first know that the door had been opened, as they stood looking straight before them. The stout woman spoke in a low voice.

'By four toes and by five toes,' she said, by way of answer to the words Zoe had sung.

The girl lost no time, for there was none to lose, and though there was little light she saw that there were four or five more armed Ethiopians in the small chamber, so that it would be impossible to deliver her letter.

'Tell him from Carlo Zeno to be ready at once,' she said quickly, 'and not to show surprise at anything that happens.'

The deaf mutes outside now perceived that she was speaking with some one, and that the entrance behind them was open. She had just handed her basket to the captain's wife when the two turned together to see who had opened, but almost at the same instant the heavy iron door swung quickly on its hinges again and shut with a clang that echoed out to the courtyard. Zoe sprang back hastily lest the door itself should strike her as it closed, and the quick movement hurt her a little, for she made a false step on the foot with which she limped, turning it slightly as her weight came upon it.

That one step nearly cost her life, for though the sentinels were deaf and dumb they were not blind. She thought they were going to let her go away unhindered, and she was already almost out of the archway when she felt herself seized by the arms from behind.

When she had stumbled, her low shoe had turned a little, and the folded letter, now useless, had fallen out. As it was white, the guards had seen it instantly on the dark pavement, and one of them had picked it up while the other had caught her.

Zoe instinctively struggled with all her might for a few seconds, but the dumb man twisted one of her arms behind her till it was agony to move, and she was powerless. Her captor now handed her over to his companion, who had sheathed his scimitar and had placed the letter inside his steel cap. She could not look round, but she felt that the grip on her twisted wrist changed, and she was pushed out into the courtyard and made to walk in the direction of the palace. She could not help limping much more than before, and in the grasp of the big Ethiopian she felt what a small weak thing she would be in the tormentors' hands if Gorlias did not come in time.

The purple light had almost faded below, and the grey dusk was creeping up out of the ground, though the high upper story of the marble palace was still bathed in the evening glow, and still a few swallows circled round the eaves. Zoe looked up to the vast cornices and at the fleecy pink clouds that floated in the sky, and as she was forced along, almost as fast as she could walk, she wondered whether she should ever again see the bright noonday sun. It would not take long to kill her if Gorlias did not come in time.

There were many men coming and going now, and there were guards in scarlet, drawn up at the entrance to the palace as if they were waiting. Some slaves, hastening away, paused a moment to watch Zoe go by, smooth-faced creatures who lived among the Emperor's women.

'There goes five hundred ducats' worth!' laughed one, in a voice like a girl's.

'What has she done?' asked another, of the dumb Ethiopian.

The speaker was a newcomer in the palace, and the others jeered at him for not knowing that the man was one of the mutes.

And he pushed and dragged Zoe along without noticing them. She looked straight before her now, at the palace door, and as she went, she was in a kind of dream, and she wondered what the room to which she was being taken would be like, the place where she was presently to be tortured if Gorlias did not come in time; she wondered whether it would be light or dark, and what the colour of the walls would be.

The African hurt her very much as he forced her along, though she made no resistance; but she did not think of the pain she felt, nor of the pain she would surely be made to feel presently. It was as if she were detached from her own personality, and could speculate about what was going to happen to her, and about the men who would ask her questions, and about the queer-looking instruments of torture that would be brought, and even the colour of the executioner's hair. She fancied him a red-haired man with ugly, yellow eyes and bad teeth that he showed. She did not know whether it were fear or courage that so took her out of herself.

But all the time she was listening for a distant sound that might come, or that might not; and her hearing grew so sharp that she could have heard it a mile away, and the distance between her and the palace door grew shorter very quickly, and the ruthless mute urged her along faster and faster, though she limped so badly.

Then her heart leapt and stood still a moment, and the Ethiopian's grasp relaxed a little, and he slackened his pace. Not that he heard what she heard, for he was stone deaf; but the guards who stood about the door had begun to range themselves in even ranks on either side, and a tall officer made signs to the African to stand out of the way.

The air rang with the music of distant silver trumpets, there was a subdued hum of many voices and the trampling of many horses' hoofs on the hard earth outside the court.

'The Emperor comes!' cried the officer, again motioning the mute and his prisoner away.

The man understood well enough, and dragged her aside quickly and roughly out of the straight way, but not out of sight; and the sounds grew louder, and the trumpet-notes clearer, as the imperial cavalcade pa.s.sed in under the great gate. First there rode a score of guards on their white horses; six running footmen came next, in short hose and red tunics that fitted close to their bodies and glared in the twilight; then two officers of the household on their chargers; and young Andronicus himself rode in on a bay Arab mare between two ministers of state, followed by many more guards who pressed close upon him to protect him from any treacherous attack. He was dressed all in cloth of gold, and his tall Greek cap was wrought with gold and jewels; but the day had gone down, and neither the metal nor the stones gave any light, while the scarlet uniforms of the guards and footmen surged about him like waves of blood in the gathering dusk.

The Ethiopian held Zoe pinioned by the arms and looked over her head as the Emperor came near. Andronicus had pale and suspicious eyes that searched every crowd for danger, and saw peril everywhere. He hung his head a little, his jaw was heavy, his lip was loose, and his uneasy glance wandered continually hither and thither. There was still plenty of light near the palace, and Zoe saw every little thing; and the cloth of gold he wore was lit up again by the reflexion from the marble walls.

He saw the girl, too, but though her hands were behind her, he did not see at once that the African held them, for she stood quite still and met his gaze. Then he perceived that the face was the most lovely he had ever seen, and he made a motion in the saddle that was like the rising of the snake when its prey is near, and his pale eyes gleamed, and his loose lower lip shook and moved against the upper one.

He drew rein and spoke in a low tone to the minister on his right, a Greek with a fawning face, who instantly made a sign to the girl to come nearer; and the Ethiopian mute saw the gesture, and pushed her forward with one hand, close to the Emperor's stirrup, and with the other hand he took his steel cap very carefully from his head, drawing it down close to his head and over his ear so that the letter should not fall out; then, still grasping Zoe's wrist, he held the helmet up like a cup, so that Andronicus might see what was in it.

The action needed no explaining, for the young usurper had himself ordered that his father should be guarded by the dumb Ethiopians after the alarm of the previous night. The Emperor looked down at the girl's beautiful white face, but he took the letter from the soldier's steel cap and spread it out, and read it quickly, and then pa.s.sed it to the minister at his elbow, who read it too.

He looked at Zoe again, but in his eyes her beauty was all gone at once. She was one of those monsters that were always conspiring against him, against his throne and his life; she was one of those thousands whom he saw nightly in his dreams of fear, stealing upon him when he was alone and helpless, to blind him and kill him, and to bear his crowned father to the throne high on their shoulders. Zoe might have been as lovely as Aphrodite herself, just wafted from the foam of the sea by the breath of spring; to Andronicus she would have been but one of the countless evil beings who for ever plotted his destruction.

But this one was in his power. He sat on his horse and looked down at her, and his loose lips smiled; yet her face was still and proud, and in her poor blue cotton slave's dress she faced him like a young G.o.ddess.

'Who sent you with this?' he asked in the deep silence, and every man there listened for her answer.

'Since you have read it, you know,' she answered, and there was no tremor in her voice.

'Take care! Where is this Venetian, this Zeno?'

'I do not know.'

'Take care, again! I ask, where is he?'

Zoe was silent for a moment, and though she did not take her eyes from the young Emperor's face she listened intently for a distant sound that did not come.