The Shadow of the Czar Part 9

"There is an entrance to this room leading from the chamber in which the signorina first slept," remarked Paul quietly.

This statement was pure conjecture on his part, but its truth was instantly made evident by Lambro's manner. He turned so savagely upon Jacintha that Paul thought he was going to strike her.

"So you couldn't keep your tongue quiet?"

"You err," said Paul, hastening to vindicate the woman. "Jacintha has told me nothing. It is simply a guess of mine, and--"

He broke off abruptly and placed his ear to the door.

"By heaven, there is some one in this room. I can detect a sound within. Signorina, are you here?" he cried, rapping upon the panels.

The dusk of the landing was suddenly illumined by a light that came and went in a moment. Merely a flash of summer lightning.

It was accompanied by something startling within. A faint cry of "Oh!"--plainly the voice of Barbara; a dull thud as of the fall of a human body, and then a significant stillness.

With a soldier's prompt.i.tude Paul flung himself against the door, bruising his shoulders by the violence of the impact.

"You'll never force that door," said Lambro. "It's too strong. We must go downstairs. The signorina must have got in here through the secret panel in the bedroom."

Paul darted down the staircase, and in a moment more was within the bedchamber. He saw what had escaped his eye in the three previous explorations, namely, that the circular piece of violet-colored wax was traversed by a horizontal fracture, clearly caused by the moving of the panel. Lambro, who had followed close upon Paul, touched a certain spring hidden within some ornamental carving of the wall, and the panel glided off laterally, revealing a narrow corridor behind.

"To the left," said Lambro. "There's a staircase a few feet off. At the top of that another to the right. Mount that and you'll see the Master's room before you."

It was strange that the old Palicar did not follow Paul up the staircase, but so it was. He remained in the bedroom by the open panel with his hand to his ear in the att.i.tude of listening.

"Oh, if she has discovered--it!" said Jacintha, with clasped hands.

"Well, what if she has? It was not our doing, nor the Master's for the matter of that."

"When I heard the signorina fall just now it brought the heart to my mouth. It reminded me of that other fall--you know whose. And in the same room, too! If--"

"Hold your tongue! How can I listen while you keep chattering?"

Paul, following the directions given by Lambro, had ascended the two staircases, and pa.s.sing through a square opening in a panelled wall similar to that which he had just quitted, found himself in the mysterious study.

Barbara lay upon the floor in a seeming swoon.

Paul cast one swift glance around the apartment, but failed to discern anything in its present state calculated to inspire fear.

Kneeling by Barbara's side he raised her to a sitting posture, and pa.s.sing his left arm around her rested her head upon his shoulder.

"Dearest Barbara, what has frightened you?" he asked, observing that her eyes were opening. It was the first time he had addressed her by her Christian name; the word had escaped him quite involuntarily.

"What has frightened you?" he repeated.

"That!" she said.

Like a timid child she clung to him, and indicating as the cause of her fear the life-size portrait of a man hanging upon the wall,--a portrait scarcely discernible in the dim light.

"Take me away," she murmured faintly. "There is something strange in the atmosphere of this room, something that I can't understand, something that makes me fear. Take me away."

As she seemed unable of herself to rise, Paul raised her light form in his arms and carried her down the secret stairway, through the bedchamber, past the wondering Lambro and his consort, back again into the dining-hall whence she had first set out.

She neither blushed nor resisted at finding herself in his arms, apparently not giving the matter a thought. Her fear overpowered every other emotion.

"Lambro," she asked, when somewhat revived by a stimulant administered by Jacintha. "There is a man's portrait on the wall of that room.

Whose?"

"The Master's."

"The Master's?" she echoed in a tone of dismay. "Have I been living all this time in the house of my enemy?"

"You know the Master, then?" inquired Paul of Barbara. "What is his name?"

"Cardinal Ravenna."

"The Master _is_ a cardinal, I believe," said Lambro. "Ravenna? Humph!

I have heard him called that by--by some; but it's not the name he usually bears when here."

"You serve a very bad master, Lambro," said Barbara reproachfully.

The old Palicar shrugged his shoulders in lieu of a reply.

Paul here recalled Lambro's remark to the effect that the Master belonged to a peculiar brotherhood pledged to the repudiation of women. This misogyny was now explained. But why should the abode of a Roman ecclesiastic contain a lady's bedchamber kept in a state of preparation for an occupant? Paul glanced at Jacintha as if seeking an explanation from her, but the old Greek had set a warning eye upon his partner, and under that glittering terror Jacintha became mute.

"You have broken the Master's seal," grumbled Lambro, turning to Barbara. "He will learn that some one has been in that room. What excuse am I to make to him?"

"How did you discover the secret panel?" asked Paul of Barbara, and paying but scant respect to the Palicar's complaint.

"By accident," she replied. "Sleeping or waking that violet wax has exercised a fascination over me. Yesterday, attracted by an indefinable impulse, I stole into the bedchamber. Conjecturing that the panel might be a movable one, I began to search for the spring.

Fortune favored my endeavors; I discovered the hidden corridor, but did not venture within. To-day when I heard you relate the story of Ginevra, I thought it would be a piece of fun to hide behind the panel and get you to search for me. While standing there in concealment the impulse came upon me to go forward and explore. I ascended the two staircases, and entered the upper room by a panel which I found open.

Till that moment curiosity had been my only feeling, but as soon as I entered the gray twilight of that room I found myself trembling; the place seemed like a haunted chamber. And yet frightened though I was I could not retreat. Some strange power drew me on to the centre of the apartment, and there I stood looking around for--I know not what. I could hear your far-off cries, but I hesitated to answer lest the sound of my voice should call forth something terrible from this silent chamber.

"Then suddenly the sight of a lady's portrait hanging on the wall impelled me forward and almost made me forget my fears. The portrait was so like me that at first I thought it must be mine, but I know it cannot be."

"Why not?" asked Paul.

"Because I have never sat to an artist, and, moreover, the lady is wearing a dress such as I have never worn. She carries a sceptre in her hand and on her head is a diadem. Who ever saw me with sceptre and diadem? No; the portrait is not mine. Whose can it be? Do you know, Lambro?"

The old Palicar shook his head, but Paul felt that little reliance could be placed on his denial.

"In a distant corner," continued Barbara, "was another portrait, less easy to examine since it hung in the shadows. As I was moving forward a sudden gleam illumined the dusky chamber, bringing every line of the portrait into clear relief. I recognized the face of my enemy, Cardinal Ravenna; he seemed to be smiling at me with wicked satisfaction. Such fear and trembling took hold of me that I fainted."

"And that is all you have seen?" said Lambro, with evident relief, a feeling in which Jacintha seemed to share.

"What else was there to see, then?" asked Paul, fixing a significant look on the Palicar, who remained mute to the question.

"And this place, you say, belongs to Cardinal Ravenna?" said Barbara.

"I must leave to-morrow."