CHAPTER I

Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have

been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal

signs=.

The Shadow of the Czar

[Illustration: THE CORONATION DUEL.

_Frontispiece_]

The

Shadow of the Czar

By

John R. Carling

_Illustrated_

Boston

Little, Brown, and Company

1903

_Copyright, 1902_,

BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

_All rights reserved._

Published September, 1902

UNIVERSITY PRESS · JOHN WILSON

AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE MEETING IN THE FOREST 1

II. THE CASTLE BY THE SEA 3

III. FEVER AND CONVALESCENCE 30

IV. THE SEALED CHAMBER 45

V. THE RETURN OF THE "MASTER" 60

THE STORY

I. TWO YEARS AFTERWARDS 78

II. CZERNOVESE POLITICS 92

III. A MENACE FROM THE CZAR 110

IV. THE PRINCESS AND THE CARDINAL 122

V. ON THE RUSSIAN FRONTIER 136

VI. KATINA THE PATRIOT 149

VII. WHAT HAPPENED IN RUSSOGRAD 170

VIII. PAUL AND THE PRINCESS 186

IX. A DISPLAY OF SWORDSMANSHIP 200

X. THE DEED OF MICHAEL THE GUARDSMAN 215

XI. THE ENVOY OF THE CZAR 230

XII. THE POLISH CONSPIRACY 254

XIII. THE FATE OF THE APPROPRIATION

BILL 274

XIV. NEARING A CRISIS 300

XV. THE EVE OF THE CORONATION 326

XVI. THE CRIME THAT FAILED 343

XVII. THE BEGINNING OF THE CORONATION 361

XVIII. THE GREAT WHITE CZAR 377

XIX. THE CORONATION DUEL 395

XX. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL 410

THE SHADOW OF THE CZAR

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER I

THE MEETING IN THE FOREST

Paul Cressingham, captain in Her Britannic Majesty's army, had seen

some active service, and was therefore not unused to sleeping on the

ground at night wrapt in his military cloak. Nevertheless he had a

civilian weakness, if not for luxury, at least for comfort, and much

preferred a four-poster, whenever the same was procurable.

At the time, however, when this story opens it seemed likely that if

he slept at all, his slumbers would have to be _à la belle étoile_,

for he found himself late at night wandering in a deep pine-forest of

Dalmatia.

Paul's regiment--the Twenty-fourth Kentish--had its headquarters at

Corfu; for his were the days when the United States of the Ionian

Isles formed a dependency of the British Crown. His uncle, Colonel

Graysteel, was commander-in-chief of the forces stationed there,--a

fact which stood Paul in good, or possibly in bad, stead, for thereby

he was enabled to obtain more relaxation than is consonant with the

traditions of the War Office, his furloughs being extremely numerous,

and spent chiefly in exploring odd corners of the Adriatic.

Colonel Graysteel growled occasionally at his nephew's negligences.

Having no children of his own, he had adopted Paul as his heir. On

parade there was no finer figure than Paul's,--tall, athletic,

soldierly. With hair of a golden shade and having a tendency to curl,

with soft hazel eyes that could look stern, however, at times, and

with graceful drooping moustache, he was first favorite with the

ladies of the English colony at Corfu, especially as his elegance in

waltzing was the despair of all his brother-officers. He was an

excellent shot, a deadly swordsman, a dashing rider, a youth of spirit

and bravery. To one of this character much must be forgiven, and the

old colonel forgave accordingly.

Nevertheless when Paul one fine morning walked into his uncle's villa

at breakfast-time and requested furlough for no other reason than a

wish to explore the wilds of Dalmatia, there was a slight outbreak of

wrath on the part of the commander-in-chief.

"Another leave of absence? I don't believe you've put in three months'

service this year."

"Four months, five days," corrected the other amiably.

"The Commissioner's beginning to notice your vagaries."

"Hang the Commissioner," replied the young man, irreverently. "Let him

give me something worthy of doing, and I'll do it. Get up a war, say

against Austria or Turkey, the latter preferred; show me the enemy and

you'll find me to the fore. But this playing at soldiers; this

marching and counter-marching; this inspection of kit, and attendance

at parade,--I'm growing wearied of it. I'm rusting here,--I, whose

motto is 'Action.' Am I to remain for ever in these cursed malarial

isles, a mere drilling machine?"

"The drillings pay when comes the day," retorted the colonel, so

surprised at this betrayal into rhyme that he repeated it. "And what's

this new craze of yours for Dalmatia? Wild outlandish place! Nobody

ever goes there."

"Precisely my reason for visiting it," returned Paul, lunging with

his sabre-point at a mosquito that had just settled on a panel of the

wall. "Why go where everybody goes? My tastes run in the direction of

the odd, the romantic, the wild, the--anything that's opposed to the

common round of existence. I fancy I shall find it in Dalmatia."

"You'll find yourself in the hands of banditti. That's where you'll

be. The mountains swarm with them. And I'm damned if I'll pay your

ransom," cried the colonel with returning wrath, as he recalled the

liberality and frequency with which Paul drew upon his purse.

"Remember the case of young Lennox, and the severed ear sent to his

father in an envelope. Ten thousand florins! That's what the old chap

had to pay to get his son out of the clutches of the infernal

scoundrels, and never a thaler has he been able to recover from the

Austrian Government. And now you would run yourself and me into a

similar noose!"

"Banditti won't fix my ransom at so high a rate. Besides," added Paul,

critically contemplating the Damascene inlaying of his sabre, "they've

first got to take me."

"Well, if they'll fix it at what you're worth," said his uncle,

grimly, "I shall not object to the payment."

Ultimately Paul obtained the desired furlough by resorting to his

usual threat; he would sell his commission, buy a string of camels,

and spend the rest of his life in trying to discover the sources of

the Nile.

Thus it came to pass that a few days after this interview young

Captain Cressingham embarked on board the Austrian Lloyd's steamer

_Metternich_, bound for Zara, the clean, well-built capital of

Dalmatia, directing his voyage to this city in order to renew old

memories with some former college-chums, who were about to pass their

summer holiday in its neighborhood.

Finding that he had anticipated the arrival of his friends by a few

days, Paul resolved to spend the interval in taking a pedestrian tour

southward as far as Sebenico: and accordingly he set off, without

either companion or servant, and wearing his uniform, partly because

as a soldier he was proud of it, partly because experience had taught

him that in these eastern regions a uniform inspires respect in the

minds of innkeepers, if not in those of banditti.

He passed the first night of this journey at a wayside hostelry.

At sunrise he resumed his course, walking amid picturesque scenery--on

the right the sparkling sea, on the left glorious pine-clad mountains.

Late in the afternoon Paul, who had followed the post-road, reached a

point where it entered a magnificent forest. As this wild-wood was

just the sort of place where banditti might be expected to lurk,

Paul's first impulse was to turn aside, and to take the more

circuitous way along the sea-beach.

"You fear!" a secret voice seemed to whisper: and the reproach decided

his route. Not even in his own eyes would he be a coward.

This choice of a road was but a small matter, one might think; yet it

was to form the turning-point of his life.

He walked forward at a quick pace, and, with an eye to a challenge

from some outlaw of the forest, he kept his hand constantly upon the

butt of his revolver.

He did not meet with a bandit, however, but with a bear--the first he

had ever seen in a wild, free state.

The creature came shambling from the wood on one side of the road a

few yards in front of him, and there it stood, with its eyes fixed

upon the wayfarer, as if questioning the right of man to invade these

solitudes.

"An adventure at last!" murmured Paul, tingling with excitement.

"_Ursus Styriacus_ from his size. Now to emulate Hereward the Wake."

As previously stated Paul was an excellent shot, and inasmuch as his

revolver was six-chambered he had little fear as to the result of the

encounter.

The killing of a bear is the easiest thing in the world, at least

according to the theory set forth by a hunter whom Paul had met the

previous evening at the hostelry.

"If you fire at Bruin while he is on all-fours, you waste powder and

shot, for his tough shaggy sides are almost impervious to bullets. You

must face him at close quarters, and when he rises on his hind legs to

welcome you with that hug which is his characteristic, then is the

time to aim at the vital parts. If the shots fail to take effect, and

you find yourself in his embrace, you simply draw your knife, give the

necessary stab, and the thing is done."

The plan seems beautifully simple.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Paul did not have the

opportunity of reducing the theory to practice; for, as he slowly

advanced, revolver in hand, and with his eye alert to every movement

of the bear, the latter ambled off again into the wood.

Resolving to give chase, Paul turned aside from the road. He would

shoot that bear, bring back some fellows from the inn to flay the

animal, and present the skin to his uncle.

But Colonel Graysteel was not destined to decorate his smoking-room

with a trophy of his nephew's valor, for though Paul followed hard

upon his quarry, its rate of progress surpassed his own. In a few

moments it had passed from view, and all the shouting and random

firing on the part of Paul failed to provoke the return of the animal.

"Talk no more to me of the spirit of bears," he muttered, as he put up

his weapon.

Paul turned to resume his journey in some vexation of spirit--a

feeling which did not diminish as he began to realize that he had lost

his bearings. All around him rose the lofty pines, obscuring his view

of the road from which he had been diverted by the chase of the bear.

There was nothing to indicate the way. He carried an ordnance-map of

the district, and the forest was marked large upon it, but he was

unable to tell what particular point of the map corresponded with his

own position at that moment. Moreover, he was without a compass; and,

to add to his difficulty, the sun had set.

Seek as he would he could not find the road. Now and again he shouted

at the top of his voice, even at the risk of attracting the notice of

persons less friendly than charcoal-burners or wood-cutters, but his

cries met with no response. The silence and solitude of the leafy

vistas around were more suggestive of the primeval back-woods of the

New World than of an European forest.

For several hours he walked, or rather stumbled along, in the

darkness, wandering this way or that, as blind fancy directed, and

haunted by the reflection that Bruin might return with one of his

_confrères_, eager to dine off a too venturesome tourist.

He had given himself up as hopelessly lost, when he came to a spot

where the foliage above his head suddenly lifted, revealing a sky of

the darkest blue set with glittering stars. This sky extending in a

broad band far to the left and far to the right proclaimed the welcome

fact that he had hit upon the road again.

He looked at his watch, and found that it was close upon midnight.

That infernal Bruin had delayed his journey by six hours.

Even now he had no idea which way to turn for Sebenico, till his eyes,

roaming over as much of the sky as was contained within his circle of

vision, caught the sign of Ursa Major.

"Poetic justice!" he smiled. "Misled by the earthly bear, guided by

the heavenly." Knowing that Sebenico lay to the south, he accordingly

set his face in that direction with intent, on reaching the first

milestone, to ascertain from his ordnance-map the position of the

nearest village or inn.

He stepped forward briskly, and keeping a sharp lookout soon came upon

a milestone glimmering white upon one side of the road. Kneeling down

he struck a match--like the revolver, a recent invention in 1845--and

by the faint glow learned that he was thirty miles from Zara.

Taking out his map, together with the "Tourist's Manual for Dalmatia,"

he proceeded to make a study of both by the brief and unsatisfactory

illuminations afforded by a succession of lucifers.

"After to-night," he muttered, "I shall always carry a small lantern

with me; likewise a compass."

Now while Paul was kneeling there, intent upon book and map, he

received the greatest surprise of his life.

"Which way does Zara lie?"

The question was spoken in Italian--the common language of

Dalmatia--by a voice so soft and musical that the like had never been

heard by Paul.

When he had risen to his feet he stood mute with astonishment, a

passage from "Christabel" floating through his mind,--

"I guess 't was frightful there to see

A lady so richly clad as she--

Beautiful exceedingly!"

For, in truth, it _was_ a lady that Paul saw standing before him at

midnight hour beneath the light of the stars in the depth of the

Dalmatian forest; and, like the lady of the poem, she was both richly

dressed and marvellously beautiful--lovely as the soft beauty of a

southern night; with raven hair, and dusky eyes that seemed the

mirrors of a sweet melancholy. She wore a long Dalmatian capote with

the hood drawn over her head. The capote being partly open revealed a

costume of the richest silk. Decorated with curious gold brocade, and

with a wealth of chain-work and gems, this dress, though it might have

been pronounced bizarre by the more sober taste of Western ladies,

harmonized in Paul's judgment with the wild oriental beauty of the

wearer.

"Pardon me if I have startled you. Which way does Zara lie?"

And the astounded Paul, usually full of assurance in the presence of

women, could do nothing on the present occasion but simply stammer

forth, while pointing to the north,--

"That is the road to Zara."

"I thank you, signor."

With a stately inclination of her head she drew her capote more

closely around her, and walked away in the direction indicated by Paul

as quietly and confidently as if the lonely forest-road were the

Boulevard des Italiens, and the distant Zara a pretty toy-shop a few

yards ahead!

Different people, different customs. Was it the habit of young

Dalmatian women to take solitary midnight walks through bear-haunted

forests?

Recovering from his surprise Paul hastened after her.

"Signorina, you cannot walk alone to Zara."

"And why cannot I walk alone to Zara?" said the young lady, facing

Paul and assuming a hauteur that had a somewhat chilling effect upon

his gallantry.

"Perils beset you--banditti, for example."

"With native Dalmatians the person of a woman is held sacred. No one,

not even a robber, will do me hurt."

Subsequent inquiry on the part of Paul proved that the lady had spoken

correctly. Indeed he learned that if a stranger travelling in this

region were to place himself under the escort of a woman, he would be

free from molestation.

This high standard of chivalry, curious among a people otherwise

barbarous, explained the lady's confidence and fearlessness in

approaching him.

"But, signorina," remonstrated Paul, "the way is so long. Zara is

thirty miles off. And you would walk that distance on foot! Consider

the fatigue."

"I can sit and rest, and when tired can sleep for a time on the ground

as I did last night. I _must_ reach Zara," she added, with a shiver as

of fear.

Her dress of jewels gave proof of her wealth, her voice and manner of

refinement. It was amazing, then, to hear her talk of sleeping _al

fresco_ on the turf like a gipsy or a soldier.

"I thank you, signor, but I do not require an escort." So saying she

walked away again with the dignity of a princess, while Paul in his

bewilderment gazed after her retreating figure.

"Here's a mystery, forsooth! Who is she? What is she? What lovely

eyes! And what a witching face! Now how should a fellow act in a case

like this? Ought I not to follow her?"

Paul had no wish to force his protection upon a young woman averse to

it, but the circumstances seemed to justify him in exercising some

sort of surveillance over her, for though the Dalmatians might be such

paladins as she had represented, there were dangers other than those

arising from the malevolence of human beings--bears, for example. If

harm should befall her, then his would be the blame for permitting her

to go on her way alone. But as she was opposed to his presence he

shrank from walking by her side. She might insist upon his retiring,

and refusal or obedience would be equally distasteful to him. His

course was clear; the protection must be exercised from a distance,

and without her knowledge.

Accordingly he followed in the wake of the young woman, screening

himself from a possible backward glance on her part by keeping within

the covert of the trees that skirted the roadside, and stepping out

from time to time to note her progress.

Her slow and halting pace gave clear indication that she was worn with

travelling, and half-an-hour had not passed when Paul observed her

swaying to one side as if about to fall. Too tired to proceed farther,

she turned to a grassy mound beside the road and sat down, resting her

brow upon her hand, the very picture of languor and despondency.

The sight of her helplessness moved Paul strangely. No longer

concealing himself, he walked boldly forward in the centre of the road

that she might observe his coming.

"Signor, you are following me," she said, with a touch of reproach in

her voice.

"I plead guilty."

"Wishing to protect me from imaginary perils?"

"Imaginary! You may be safe from men, but have you made a truce with

the beasts? A huge bear crossed this road a few hours ago."

The lady gave a start of fear. Paul saw his advantage and pursued it.

"Signorina, I am an Englishman--a military officer, as you see," he

remarked, putting aside his cloak and revealing his handsome uniform

of dark blue adorned with silver facings. "I do not ask who or whence

you are; but whether you be princess or peasant, I cannot let you go

on your way alone and unprotected."

She did not reply, and Paul continued in a somewhat firmer tone,--

"You do wrong to repel me. You are too exhausted to walk farther

without aid."

"You speak the truth," she murmured. "I am faint. I have eaten nothing

for twelve hours."

Her tone went to Paul's heart, the more so as he had nothing to offer

her in the shape of food, for he had long ago consumed his last

morsel.

"You must think it strange," said the lady, after a brief pause, "for

a woman to be wandering in this hour in such a spot."

"I do not press for confidences--only for permission to conduct you to

a place of safety."

"But learn the risk you run by so doing. It was not from churlishness

that I refused your escort just now. Signor, I will be frank with you,

believing that you will not betray me. I have escaped from a convent,

where I was forcibly detained, and I fear pursuit by the Austrian

gendarmerie. Hence, by aiding me, you may come into collision with the

authorities. Why should I bring trouble upon you? Now you understand

my desire for Zara. I hope to find there some English vessel. Once

beneath its flag I shall be safe."

"You fear pursuit? Then you require an arm for your defence. So long

as I can handle sword and pistol no one shall carry you off against

your will. Signorina, you must come with me."

"And where would you take me?" she asked in a tone that showed she was

yielding.

"Not far from here, according to my guide-book, is a path leading down

to the sea. On the shore, which is distant about a mile, stands a

building, old but tenanted, and called Castel Nuovo. This is the

nearest human habitation," continued Paul. "Before meeting you I had

intended to try my fortune there. Now, suppose we go together? As the

Dalmatians are such respecters of women they will not refuse you

hospitality. Rest at this castle for the night, and to-morrow you

shall find an easier way of reaching Zara than journeying thither on

foot."

The young lady was not long in coming to a decision. A roof, food, and

a bed, and these distant but a mile, offered a more attractive

prospect than supperless repose on the dank turf of the dark

bear-haunted wild-wood. She rose to her feet, looked intently at Paul,

and read in his clear eyes the glance of a good conscience.

"Take me with you," she said, with the simplicity of a child.

Paul bowed, and offered his arm, which she accepted. The touch of her

little hand thrilled him with a strange pleasure.

CHAPTER II

THE CASTLE BY THE SEA

Walking onward a few paces they came to the path mentioned in the

guide-book.

Few words were spoken, for Paul, knowing that his fair companion was

tired, famished, and sleepy, purposely refrained from conversation.

Once, however, the silence was broken, when the lady timidly ventured

to ask his name, which being given, he in turn requested the like

favor from her.

"I have been taught to call myself Barbara," was her answer, which

Paul could not but think was a somewhat odd way of expressing herself.

Barbara! If he had not thought it a pretty name before, he certainly

thought it such now.

"And Barbara," he murmured, more to himself than to his companion,

"means 'strange.'"

"I fear you will find my character correspondent."

"But you have a second name?" smiled Paul.

"Presumably, but I am in ignorance respecting it, for my parentage is

unknown to me. Indeed, signor, it is true," she added sadly. "I am a

mystery to myself."

Her statement filled Paul with wonder, but though desirous of learning

her history he recognized that the time was scarcely yet ripe to press

for confidences.

The path traversed by them formed a gradual descent, in parts so steep

that Barbara would often have slipped but for Paul's strong arm. The

murmur of the sea was now heard; a faint breeze blew coldly; finally

emerging from the wood, they found themselves on an open grassy space

shelving down to the beach.

There, distant about a hundred yards, stood the building that they

sought--Castel Nuovo.

The retention of the epithet "Nuovo" was perhaps intended as a joke on

the part of the Dalmatians. Like the rest of earthly things the castle

must once have been new, but that once, judging by appearances, was a

long time ago. The greater part of the edifice was in ruins, the stars

glimmering through the vacant window spaces and through the gaps that

yawned in the ivy-mantled walls.

A massive, square built tower perched on a rock that overhung the sea,

seemed the portion likeliest to be tenanted, if tenanted at all, for

signs of human presence were wanting. Neither light nor sound came

from it.

Silent and ghostly in the cold starlight rose the gray tower, the sea

splashing with melancholy murmur at the foot of the crag.

The brief notice contained in the guide-book--"Castel Nuovo, an old

mansion, residence of the Marquis Orsino"--did not suggest a place

like this, a place seeming to be desolated by the curse of some past

tragedy; and as Paul contemplated the scene, a feeling of misgiving

stole over him,--a misgiving which found reflection in Barbara's face.

Seating his companion upon a fallen column, Paul went forward to

reconnoitre. Crossing the grass-grown pavement of what had once been a

stately loggia, he mounted the mossy fractured steps leading to the

door of the tower. On the lintel was sculptured, "Marino Faliero,

1348"--proof that the castle dated from the days when the Venetians

held sway in Dalmatia.

No sooner had Paul rapped upon the massive oaken door than a terrible

din arose from within. His summons had startled into wakefulness a

menagerie of dogs, and these, judging by their deep bass, brutes of

the largest size.

A casement high above the portal opened immediately, and an old man's

voice cried,--

"Is that you, Master?"

The question was spoken in Romaic, a language with which Paul had

become familiar by reason of his residence in Corfu.

He directed his eyes upward, but the speaker was invisible. Familiar

perhaps with the attacks of banditti, he was too cautious to expose

his person as a target for a pistol-shot.

Stepping back, the better to be heard, and speaking in Romaic, the

better to be understood, Paul explained his object in knocking,

withholding the fact, however, that the lady with him had escaped from

a convent, lest it should dispose the old man to decline so dangerous

a fugitive.

"You cannot stay here," was the answer, when Paul had finished

speaking.

"I will pay you, and that handsomely, for the trouble we give."

"It's not a question of money. This house is not mine, and I cannot

open it to whom I will. I have received strict orders from the Master

to admit no one during his absence. If he should return and find me

entertaining strangers, I should suffer."

"Your master, whoever he may be, never meant that you should turn away

at midnight a young lady exhausted by a twelve hours' wandering in the

forest without food. I ask not for myself, but for her. It is but for

a single night."

"A single hour would be too long."

Paul stood dismayed by the old man's churlishness. He pictured

Barbara's look of distress on announcing that he had brought her on a

bootless errand.

"You a Greek," he cried, "to refuse hospitality to an Englishman,

whose uncle fought for Greece--"

This appeal wrought a remarkable change in the old man.

"What do you say you are?"

"An Englishman, nephew of Colonel Graysteel, commandant of the British

forces at Corfu, and--"

"An Englishman! Why the devil didn't you say so before? I took you for

a damned Austrian. And you are the nephew of old 'Fighting Graysteel'?

I was with him at Missolonghi. Wait. I'll be down in a moment. Hi,

Jacintha, Jacintha," he added, addressing some one within. "Get up, or

I'll throw something at your head."

The old man withdrew from the casement, and Paul concluded that he was

coming downstairs, for the baying of the dogs gradually ceased; there

were sounds suggestive of the idea that he was kicking them into some

place of safety.

"Jacintha?" thought Paul. "The old fellow's wife, daughter, or

servant? Whoever she may be, I am glad for the young lady's sake that

a woman lives here."

Footsteps were now audible in the passage. A little panel in the upper

part of the door slid aside revealing an iron grating, behind which

appeared a man's face set in a square of light.

"No tricks with me. Now, mylordos, if you are what you say you are,

speak to me in English, for though I don't talk the language myself I

understand it when spoken by others."

"Open the door, and give me some supper--" began Paul.

"Ah! you're an Englishman, all over," interrupted the other with a dry

chuckle. "The first thing he thinks of is his belly."

And the inmate, apparently satisfied with this credential of

nationality, swung open the great iron-studded door and revealed

himself.

He was a little man, and though past seventy years of age, his form

had lost little of the elasticity and strength of youth. His thin

curved nose was extremely suggestive of the beak of an eagle, a

resemblance increased by his bright piercing eyes. His hair was white

and flowing, and his moustaches were of such a length that he had tied

them together at the back of his head.

His attire was gorgeous in the extreme, and he was evidently very

proud of the fact. He wore an open jacket that was a perfect marvel of

silk, velvet, and rows of silver buttons; a white fustanella or kilt

glittering with embroidery of gold; and gaiters and slippers rich with

the same decoration. Altogether he was one of the strangest creatures

that Paul had ever beheld.

In one hand he carried a yataghan, and in the other a lighted lamp,

and he bowed low with theatrical grace.

"Since you are an Englishman, enter. Welcome, ten thousand welcomes,"

he cried, waving his sparkling yataghan around, as if inviting Paul to

take entire possession of the castle. "Every Englishman is my brother,

for did not your countrymen fight for the liberation of Greece? Can we

ever forget Navarino? You see before you the friend, the

companion-in-arms of General Church and Lord Cochrane. You must have

heard your uncle talk of me,--Lambro the Turcophage, with whose name

Ottoman mothers still frighten their children, by telling them how

Lambro, whenever food ran short in the camp, never hesitated to roast

and eat his Turkish prisoners. Ah!" Like a ghoul he smacked his lips

at the memory of those repasts. "Yes, to me, and to men like me,

Greece owes the freedom that she now enjoys. I should be great to-day,

and hold high office under King Otho: but what am I? What you see. The

custodian of an old ruin. This is national gratitude, mylordos. It is

thus that Hellas rewards those who have shed their blood for her."

Paul immediately recognized in the speaker one of the class called

Palicars, men who had fought for the independence of Greece in the

twenties; in their youth half soldiers and half brigands, but always

full of patriotism and bold as lions against the Turk; in old age too

often apt to be garrulous, boastful, vain.

Muttering some words of gratitude for the proffered hospitality, Paul

immediately flew off for Barbara, whom he found asleep. In a state of

weariness she had rested her arm on a stone balustrade, pillowed her

cheek on her sleeve, and without intending it had fallen asleep in

that attitude.

"Fie, signorina," said Paul with chiding smile, as he gently roused

her. "Sleeping in the open air! Do you court malaria? Come, there is

better rest for you in yon tower, where you will not be the only lady.

Our host is a somewhat queer character, but--'any port in a storm,' as

our English proverb has it."

He assisted her to rise, and helped her across the dilapidated loggia,

and up the steps to the entrance of the hall where Lambro stood

waiting to receive them.

But no sooner had the old Palicar obtained a clear view of Barbara

than his eyes almost started from their sockets. His shaking hand

dropped the lamp, and the hall was plunged into sudden darkness. With

the ejaculation of "Kyrie eleison" the warrior, who was wont to boast

that he had fought in a hundred battles, fled at the sight of a young

maiden's face.

At the end of the corridor he recovered himself, and shouted,

"Jacintha, Jacintha, come down."

"What is the matter?" said a voice at his elbow.

"Matter enough," replied Lambro, grasping the woman's shoulders and

whispering in her ear. "The dead have returned to life. Walk to the

door, pick up the lamp, re-light it, and look at the lady that the

Englishman has brought with him."

Jacintha did as bidden. The lamp, re-kindled, showed her as a little

fair-haired woman of subdued demeanor, her face retaining traces of

former good looks.

She cast one glance at Barbara, and immediately gave a strange gasp.

"In God's name," she murmured, "who are you?"

"A hard question," returned Barbara, with a touch of bitterness in her

voice, "seeing that I myself cannot answer it."

This reply seemed to enhance Jacintha's fear. She stood mutely staring

at Barbara, who began to feel something of resentment at the woman's

strange manner.

"I will depart if you wish it," she said, turning away with quiet

dignity, though her heart sank within her at the thought of passing

the night out of doors.

"Oh! no, no. Pardon me, my lady, if I seem rude," replied Jacintha,

assuming an humble manner, and stepping forward as if to intercept

Barbara's departure. "Do not go. We shall be glad if you will stay.

Stay here as long as you will--at least--that is--till--till--"

"Till the Master returns," chimed in Lambro, "and then--well, it's his

rule to have no strangers here."

He had apparently plucked up his courage, for he had come forward to

the entrance again, where he and Jacintha stood staring curiously,

first at Barbara, then at each other.

"You seem to know me," said Barbara, "though I do not think that you

can ever have seen me before to-night."

Receiving no reply, she glanced at Paul as if seeking an explanation

from him, who had none to give, for he was as much perplexed as

Barbara herself to account for the singular behavior of this couple.

"At first sight of you," began Lambro, "we thought--But no matter what

we thought; we see now we were wrong."--He cast at the woman a glance

which Paul interpreted as a warning for her to be reticent, and

continued: "Now, Jacintha, show our guests the way upstairs. The

nephew of the man who fought for Greece shall have no cause to

complain of our hospitality."

"A queer couple," whispered Paul to Barbara, "but trustworthy, I

believe. I think you will be safe here."

Barbara, almost ready to sink to the ground with fatigue, had no other

course than to accept the shelter of Castel Nuovo, however strange her

entertainers; and accordingly still resting upon Paul's arm, she

followed Jacintha up the staircase, while Lambro, having locked the

door, brought up the rear.

"Your wife?" Paul asked of him and referring to Jacintha.

"She answers the purpose," replied Lambro. "We've done without a

priest so far. She's mine because I bought her. Five hundred beshliks

she cost me in the slave-mart of Janina. A deal of money, a great deal

of money," continued the old fellow, wincing as if he had had a tooth

drawn. "I'm doubtful whether I've had the value of it. I could have

bought a lovely young Circassian at the price. But since she was

warranted to be a splendid nurse and an excellent cook, I took her as

a helpmeet for my old age."

Paul trusted that Barbara did not understand Romaic, for the old

Palicar's society was not exactly of the sort that a matronly duenna

would have chosen as suitable for a young maiden.

The interior of Castel Nuovo formed a pleasant and striking contrast

with its dilapidated exterior. The apartment to which the visitors

were conducted was stamped with an air of wealth and dignity,--lofty,

composed of dark oak, and furnished with stained-glass casements,

blazoned in their centre with the Winged Lion of St. Mark. The roof

was richly fretted; the pictures painted on the panelling of the walls

were in a fine state of preservation. On the wide tesselated hearth

beneath a beautifully carved mantelpiece were pine logs disposed as

for a fire. To these Jacintha applied a match, and soon a blaze sprang

up, so bright as to render any other light superfluous.

"The Master's dining-hall," remarked Lambro.

"Let me help you, my lady," said Jacintha, observing Barbara

embarrassed with the fastenings of her capote.

She assisted in untying the hood, and having removed the cloak, seated

Barbara in a comfortable arm-chair by the fire.

Despite the Romaic costume worn by Jacintha, and the golden coins

twisted in her hair, Paul had no difficulty in fixing her nationality.

"You are an Englishwoman?" he said, with a smile.

"Yes, sir, I am," was her reply, accompanied by a submissive little

curtsey.

A few words on her part sufficed to give her history. Nurse in the

service of an English doctor at Constantinople, she had, when

returning home, been captured by Turkish pirates, and carried to

Janina for sale, where she was purchased by Lambro, and brought to

Castel Nuovo. Paul's ears tingled at the thought of an Englishwoman

being sold in an Albanian slave-mart. He wondered whether she knew

that she was now living in a free country. Her real name was Winifred

Power, but Lambro would persist in calling her Jacintha.

It so happened that Paul was well acquainted with her native town,

inasmuch as his school-days had been passed in its neighborhood. His

allusions to places with which both were familiar drew tears to the

woman's eyes.

"Ah! do not talk of home," she said. "Every week I can see from the

windows here the steamer from Trieste on its way to England; a few

days' sail only, and yet as impossible for me to reach as the stars."

"You're better off here," growled the old Greek. "I bought you, and by

God I'll keep you. You are not to leave me till I--I--die--" He

winced as if not liking the prospect presented by the last word.--"You

have promised as much. I have treated you better than any Turk would.

You live in a castle with fine dresses and plenty to eat and drink;

and when I'm a--gone you'll have my savings, and can then go back to

England. What more do you want?"

"Shall I be permitted to leave here after your death?" asked Jacintha,

darting a strange look upon Lambro, who frowned, and said,--

"Who is to prevent you? What nonsense you talk! Why don't you ask our

guests what they'll have for supper?"

"What would my lady like?" inquired Jacintha turning to Barbara, and

enumerating the contents of her larder.

"You are very good," smiled Barbara. "Anything will do for me."

"Except, of course, roast Turk," said Paul, turning to Lambro. "We

must draw the line at that."

The Turcophage grinned and withdrew in company with Jacintha; and as

they called no servant to their aid, Paul concluded, and rightly, that

these two were the sole tenants of the castle.

Paul had now a better opportunity than heretofore for observing his

fair companion as she sat by the hearth, the bright firelight playing

over her silken attire with its shimmer of chain-work and jewels. Her

figure was beautifully shaped; her features were of pure, classic

type, as clear and delicate as if sculptured from alabaster. There was

something peculiarly noble in the pose of her head, which disposed

Paul to the belief that when the mystery of her origin became solved,

it would be found that she was of high birth.

She had spread out her hands to the fire, and with her face upturned

to Paul, she said with charming _naïveté_,--

"I am so glad that you insisted upon me accompanying you, for this is

certainly more cheerful than the dark forest."

The light of gratitude sparkling in her soft dusky eyes completely

captivated Paul. He began to think that it would be a pleasant thing

if she would always smile so upon him, and upon none other.

"Our new friends," he remarked, "are evidently expecting visitors, and

those--two in number--to judge from the cutlery." He pointed to the

dining-table and its snowy cloth set with Majolica-ware, cut-glass,

and silver. "The Master and his wife I presume. Unpleasant for us if

they should arrive to-night, and should object to the proceedings of

their hospitable seneschal."

Lambro and his partner now entered, bringing in a repast.

Barbara and Paul drew to the table. The humble Jacintha acted as

waitress and seemed to take pleasure in the office.

Though Barbara ate but sparingly, her companion amply atoned for any

deficiencies on her part; and when Lambro, going down to the castle

cellar, returned with a bottle of delicious maraschino, and a box

containing cigars of ambrosial flavor, Paul's satisfaction was

complete.

Lambro having called for his chibouque, perched himself upon a chair

and sat cross-legged upon it in oriental fashion, while Jacintha at

his command took a live coal from the fire by aid of the tongs, and

applied it to the bowl of his pipe. Then the old Palicar puffed away

in placid contentment while Jacintha went off to prepare a room for

Barbara.

"Those cigars," Lambro presently remarked, addressing Paul, "have

never paid Austrian duty. Whence do I procure them? From the sea,--my

constant friend. A toast, a toast," he cried, raising his glass of

maraschino. "Here's to the storm-fiend, and may he never cease to

send us rich flotsam and jetsam. The dress I wear," he added, patting

his gay costume with pride, "comes from the body of a drowned

compatriot. If the signorina requires a new dress we can supply her

with one as rich as that she now has. No, I am not a wrecker," he

continued, as if in answer to Paul's suspicions. "I simply take the

gifts the waves send me, and they send them pretty frequently on this

wild rocky coast. Sometimes it is a Turkish vessel that goes to pieces

on the reef out yonder," he went on, nodding in the direction of the

sea. "Jacintha and I can hear their cries, but we are unable to help

them. I would not help them if I could," he exclaimed with a fierce

flash of energy, and taking the pipe from his mouth. "Are not the

Turks the enemies of Greece? When I hear their shrieks rising above

the sound of the storm--A-a-h!" He finished the sentence with a smack

of his lips.

It would be impossible to imagine any being more weird than this

little Greek, as he sat there cross-legged, tricked out in the finery

of the dead, his eye glittering wildly, and his moustaches tied at the

back of his head.

Paul deemed it advisable on Barbara's account to give a different turn

to the conversation.

"This must have been a grand old castle when entire," he said. "The

property, is it not, of the Italian Marquis Orsino?"

"Not so," replied Lambro, with a shake of his head. "The marquis sold

it seven years ago to my present Master--"

"My guide-book is evidently not up to date."

"Though," added Lambro, "the sale was kept a secret."

"Why so?"

"All the Master's ways are secret."

"May one ask his name?"

"He has forbidden me to reveal it."

Paul, though conscious that he was treading on delicate ground, could

not repress his further curiosity.

"Where does he live when not here?"

"He has never told me."

"What is his nationality?"

"That is equally a mystery to me."

Paul's interest in the Master increased, and as Lambro did not seem to

resent his questioning, he continued,--

"How often does he visit this place?"

"It may be once only in the year, it may be twice or thrice."

"I gather from your first words when I knocked at the door, and also

from the previous state of this table, that you are expecting him at

the present time?"

"Expecting him!" echoed Lambro. "I am always expecting him. He never

gives warning of his coming, either by letter or messenger. A loud

knock of the door, and there he is! He may arrive to-night, he may not

arrive for six months. But present or absent the larder must always be

full, and the dining-room and the bedroom ready for his immediate

reception. A hard man is the Master."

"And how long do his visits last?"

"That depends upon the mood of his companion."

"His companion? Do you mean his wife?"

"His wife?" repeated Lambro, with a peculiar laugh. "The Master is a

bachelor and will always remain such. He is a member of a peculiar

brotherhood pledged to the repudiation of women."

"What is the object of his visits?"

But Lambro was not disposed to be more communicative.

"Captain Cressingham," he said with a deprecatory shake of his head,

"you must not ask me to betray my Master's secrets."

Paul accepted the rebuke with a good grace.

"You speak truth. I have no right to pry into his affairs. I

apologize."

Secrecy is always suspicious. Lambro's reticence served but to whet

Paul's curiosity. A weird interest began to gather around the unknown

owner of Castel Nuovo, who was so studious of concealing his identity,

who without previous warning came and vanished at irregular intervals

on errands that necessitated a reserve in speaking of them.

At this point Jacintha reappeared carrying a lighted lamp.

"Would my lady like to retire now?"

Yes, my lady would, and arose for that purpose. Paul held the door as

she passed forth.

"Good night, signorina."

She returned the valediction, accompanying it with a graceful

inclination of her head, and a grateful smile that said as plainly as

words could say, "But for you I should now be without bed."

The room to which Jacintha conducted Barbara was intended as a lady's

bedchamber, as the toilet accessories sufficiently proved. A princess

could not have found fault with its dainty tasteful appointments. And,

surprising to relate, not a particle of dust was visible anywhere; the

place was clean, swept, and garnished as if prepared that very day for

the reception of a visitor.

"You are not giving up your own room to me, I hope?" said Barbara.

"Oh, no, my lady. I do not sleep here."

Barbara stared hard at the speaker. Seeing that the "Master,"

according to Lambro's statement, was a foe to womankind, it was

singular, to say the least of it, that Castel Nuovo should contain a

chamber of this description.

Tired as Barbara was, her curiosity would not let her rest, and she

wandered about the room asking a variety of questions. Had this been a

bridal-chamber, or a death-chamber, or both? Had the mysterious

"Master," mourning the loss of a wife or a daughter, given command

that this apartment should be attended to every day, preserved in the

same order as that in which it was when last occupied? Barbara could

extract nothing from the reticent Jacintha, who seemed troubled by her

visitor's catechism.

In her course round the apartment Barbara's quick eyes detected a

circular piece of violet-colored sealing-wax adhering to one of the

walls. She inquired how it came there, but Jacintha professed

ignorance. Attracted by an indefinable feeling, Barbara asked that the

lamp might be brought near. The wax was situated at a point just where

a horizontal band of carving that formed the upper border of a panel

touched upon the smooth plain oak above. A closer inspection showed

that the wax bore the image of a paschal lamb,--an image, tiny indeed,

yet perfectly clear. The wax had been stamped with a seal. Why?

Children might perhaps find pleasure in fixing a piece of wax upon a

wall and in stamping it with a seal, but as there were no children at

Castel Nuovo this explanation would not suffice. If it were the work

of adults what was its purport? Jacintha averred that it was not her

doing; she could not say whose it was or assign any reason for its

origin.

"Can you not put me in another room?"

"The other rooms are somewhat damp. Why, my lady, what do you fear?"

she asked in reproachful surprise.

A hard question. It was impossible to link this piece of wax with any

harm to herself, so Barbara turned away. The dainty little bed invited

her to repose. Why trouble further?

When at last Barbara with a delicious sense of relief had slipped her

tired and aching limbs beneath the sheets, Jacintha brought to the

bedside a glass containing a dark-colored liquid.

"Only quinine, my lady."

In a moment Barbara was sitting up in manifest fear, her eyes large

and ghost-like.

"You don't think I have caught malaria?"

"It is best to take precautions," replied Jacintha, evasively.

"Fever? I have been dreading that," exclaimed Barbara, clasping her

hands. "And I must be at Zara to-morrow. If I linger here I shall be

caught by--Give me the quinine; give me double, treble the ordinary

draught, if it will act as an antidote."

Barbara, after taking the potion, fell asleep almost immediately, and

Jacintha returned to the dining-hall, where in answer to her eager

questioning Paul gave an account of the meeting in the forest and

related all he knew concerning Barbara, which, in truth, was not very

much.

"And now tell me, Jacintha," he said, when he had finished, "why did

you start so on first seeing the signorina?"

Jacintha seemed absolutely terror-stricken at this question. The old

Palicar who had been drinking somewhat freely of the maraschino turned

upon his consort with a fierce frown, drew his yataghan and shook it

furiously at her.

"If ever you let that matter out--you know what I mean--by God, I'll

cut your throat. Be off, woman! Go to bed; and remember what I say."

And Jacintha, who evidently stood thoroughly in awe of the fiery

little Greek, withdrew without a word.

"Captain Cressingham," continued Lambro in a quieter tone, "you may

believe me or not, as you will, but it is a fact that Jacintha and

myself have never seen the signorina till to-night."

"Nor her portrait?"

"Nor her portrait."

Something in his manner convinced Paul that the old Palicar was

speaking the truth, which only made the matter more perplexing.

Despite the repudiation there was evidently some mystery connected

with Barbara, a mystery known to Lambro and his consort. Paul

intuitively felt that the Palicar's reticence could never be overcome,

but he was not without hope of extracting the secret from Jacintha if

he should have an opportunity of speaking with her alone.

"Paul Cressingham," he murmured, when he found himself left in the

dining-hall for the night, "you came to Dalmatia in quest of the

strange, the romantic, the wild. I am beginning to think you have

found them." He drew his chair to the fire, composed himself for

sleep, and dreamed of Barbara till morning gleamed through the

casement.

CHAPTER III

FEVER AND CONVALESCENCE

Of the four occupants of Castel Nuovo the first to awaken in the

morning was Jacintha, who, after dressing, proceeded immediately to

Barbara's room. Having tapped at the door, first softly, then loudly,

and receiving no answer, she ventured to enter.

Barbara was awake, and talking to herself in a very odd manner.

She took no notice of the approach of Jacintha, and the latter

perceived at once that her forebodings were realized.

Barbara, her dark hair lying in disorder on her pillow, a bright color

burning in her cheek, the light of reason quenched in her eye, was in

a high state of fever. She was not speaking in Italian, the language

used by her the previous evening, but in another tongue altogether

strange to Jacintha.

The latter returned quickly to her own room to make it known to

Lambro, who had just struggled into his finery.

"What else could be expected after sleeping at night in a damp

forest?" was his comment. "Fever! and she in that very chamber, too!

By God, if the Master should return and find her there!"

"Come and listen to her. She is talking in a strange language: she

looks at me with piteous eyes as if making some request. Perhaps you

can understand her."

The old Palicar followed her to Barbara's chamber. His roving life in

the Balkan Peninsula had given him a knowledge, more or less

imperfect, of all the languages spoken from the Danube to Maina, but

he failed to identify the speech of Barbara with any one of these.

"It's not Romaic, nor Turkish, nor Albanian, nor--"

"Listen!" said Jacintha, in a startled voice.

Amid the plaintive flow of unintelligible sound there came at

irregular intervals a recurrence of the same three syllables.

"_Rav-en-na!_" murmured Jacintha with white lips.

"She's thinking of Ravenna on the other side of the sea," said Lambro,

indicating the direction with his hand. "Wishes to go there perhaps."

"No, no. Have you forgotten? Ravenna! That's what the last one said

when she raved. 'O Ravenna, what have you done?' were her words."

Lambro stared dubiously at Jacintha. Then the eyes of both turned

simultaneously to the violet sealing-wax on the wall, as if that had

some connection with the name.

"I don't like this," muttered the old Palicar, turning away uneasily.

"There's something eerie about it. How has the signorina got hold of

that name?"

Leaving Jacintha there he proceeded with subdued mien to the

dining-hall, and aroused Paul from slumber with the question,--

"Have you ever had the malaria?"

"Can any one live in your cursed Greek climate, and not take it?" said

Paul, somewhat resenting the rough shaking he had received.

"Then you run no risk of taking it again by staying here."

Paul was wide awake now, and sprang instantly to his feet.

"You mean that the signorina has caught the fever?"

"That is so. She'll not see Zara for some weeks--if indeed at all. You

have done a nice thing for me, Captain Cressingham, for she cannot be

removed now. And what will the Master say if he should return and find

a fever-stricken person in his house? His was wise advice, after all.

'Admit no strangers in my absence, Lambro.' I have broken his orders,

and this is the result."

It may have been selfish on the part of Paul, but his thoughts were

too much set on Barbara to permit of commiseration for Lambro's

position. Never had he been attracted by any maiden as he had been by

Barbara, and now to learn that she was in a dangerous fever filled him

with a feeling akin to horror.

"Where does the nearest doctor live? I must fetch him at once."

"She's a dead woman if you do. Leave her to Jacintha, and she may

recover; trust her to a Dalmatian doctor, and she'll certainly die."

With which assurance Lambro retired grumbling terribly, for inasmuch

as all Jacintha's attention would be required by the patient, he

foresaw that for the next month he would have to prepare his own

meals, and likewise those of Paul, should the latter choose to remain

at Castel Nuovo; and if there was aught that the old Palicar disliked

it was work, even of the lightest sort.

In descending the stairs Paul was met by Jacintha.

"There is no use in disguising the truth," she said in answer to his

eager questioning. "The signorina is in a very dangerous state. But

leave her to me, and she shall recover. I was a nurse at

Constantinople, remember; and in the matter of fever I know what to do

as well as a doctor, perhaps better than any you will find in this

uncivilized region."

Impressed somehow by Jacintha's faith in her own powers Paul felt that

Barbara could not be in better hands.

"And you will remain at Castel Nuovo till she recovers?"

Paul gladly assented to this proposal.

"I know that she is a stranger to you," continued Jacintha, "but

still she came here under your guidance and protection, and therefore

in some measure you are responsible for her safety. Yes, I say,

safety. Captain Cressingham," she added, with a strange earnestness,

"your presence here is necessary. The signorina is in peril. If the

Master should return and find--"

She broke off abruptly, perceiving Lambro at the foot of the

staircase.

"Now, Jacintha, attend to your patient. I'll see to the captain's

breakfast."

And awed by the cold glittering eye of her partner, Jacintha became

mute and glided away.

That day, and the few days that followed, formed the most unhappy time

that Paul had ever known, for the fair maiden whom he loved lay in the

mystic borderland betwixt life and death.

He haunted the corridor leading to her bedroom, either sitting silent

in the recess of an embrasured window, or walking to and fro with

noiseless tread, eagerly questioning Jacintha whenever she appeared.

She began to pity this young Englishman with his haggard looks, so

much so that she always returned favorable answers, even when the

waters of the dark river had almost closed over the head of her

patient.

Mindful of Barbara's escape from a convent, Paul would not wander more

than a few yards from the castle, fearful lest the ecclesiastical

authorities or the Austrian gendarmes should make their appearance

during his absence, to say nothing of the return of the mysterious

Master, whose presence was equally to be guarded against, if Jacintha

had spoken truly.

Paul's refusal to accompany Lambro for a sail on the sea or on a tramp

through the woods with his dogs provoked that worthy's contempt. A

fine soldierly fellow like Paul to be fretting over a thing of a girl,

when a Circassian equally lovely could be bought in the neighboring

province of Albania for five hundred beshliks, with the additional

advantage of selling the damsel again when she had ceased to please.

It was absurd!

At last one day Jacintha was able to announce that Barbara had passed

the crisis. The relief to Paul's overwrought mind was so great that he

almost felt as if he himself, and not Barbara, had been the sufferer.

"And you will be glad to learn, Captain Cressingham," said the nurse,

with a smile that had a hidden meaning in it, "that the illness has

left no disfiguring traces on her beauty."

She was still too weak for conversation, and Jacintha averred that

some days must elapse before she could let him see the patient.

In the meantime, however, Paul did not fail to remind her daily of his

existence.

Near by lived a charcoal-burner accustomed to call at the castle for

the purpose of bringing Jacintha her stock of provisions from the

market-town.

Making use of this man Paul every day procured the loveliest of

flowers, in addition to fruits and other delicacies, and these,

accompanied by wishes for her welfare, he would send up to the patient

through the medium of the faithful Jacintha, who in turn brought back

Barbara's expressions of gratitude.

The period of Barbara's convalescence was a somewhat dull time for

Paul, self-debarred as he was from quitting the vicinity of the

castle.

He tried to take an interest in Lambro's companionship, despite his

indefinable suspicion of the old Palicar, but he soon grew tired of

hearing the same stories, for there was but one theme upon which the

Greek would converse, namely, the Hellenic War of Independence,--a war

in which, though history be strangely silent on the matter, Lambro had

taken the leading part, at least, according to his own account.

Occasionally the vain old man, forgetful that his strength and skill

were departing, would invite Paul to a fencing-bout; if defeated, he

grew angry; but when Paul, in the exercise of a little _finesse_,

permitted himself to be worsted, then Lambro, suspecting the trick

played upon him, grew more angry still; so that there was no pleasing

him. In short, he was a somewhat trying individual to live with, and

Paul was never sorry when he saw him setting off for a long tramp by

the shore or through the woods, attended by his twelve mastiffs,

brutes big and ferocious, but esteemed by Paul because they were such,

since they would prove excellent auxiliaries against any foe who

should approach the castle with intent to carry off Barbara, and that

such abduction might be attempted was a fear ever present to his mind.

Indeed, it was quite within the range of probability that any day a

serious fray might occur, for heedless as to what the Austrian law

might be in the matter of maidens who escaped from convents, Paul was

determined that Barbara should not be surrendered to the authorities

without opposition on his part; while Lambro, though disposed to look

upon the fair fugitive somewhat in the light of an encumbrance, was

nevertheless fierce in declaring, with a fine scorn of consequences,

that he would shoot the first gendarme who should attempt to cross

_his_ threshold; and Paul had little doubt that the fiery old Klepht

would keep his word.

Still, this was not quite the sort of recreation that Paul wanted.

"Have you no books here?" he asked of Lambro one day.

"Would you turn caloyer or papa? No? Then, what can you want with

books?"

"Your classic ancestors would not have asked that question. To read,

of course."

"Bah! the best use you can put books to is to twist them into

cartridges. That's what we did with them in the war." In Lambro's

opinion there had only been one war worthy of the name. "Did you ever

hear of the siege of ----?"

"But as to the books now?" gently murmured Paul, who did not wish to

hear anything about the siege of ----.

"Books? Yes, there are some here in the topmost room of the castle;

but you cannot get at them, for that room is the Master's study; and

on his departure he always locks the door, and takes the key with

him."

Paul, with his head full of suspicion against the Master, could

discern nothing but a sinister caution in his practice of keeping the

study-door locked during his absence. Accordingly on the following day

when Lambro was out of the way, and Jacintha occupied with her

patient, Paul ascended the staircase leading to the upper portion of

the tower. On the topmost landing of all he came upon a stout door of

oak securely locked. This without doubt was the entrance of the study

spoken of by Lambro. A pendant on the other side of the key-hole

prevented Paul from obtaining the slightest glimpse of the interior.

Not only had the Master left this door locked, but he had likewise

taken precautions to prevent any one during his absence from entering

without his knowledge, for the hinges of the door were sealed with

violet-colored wax bearing the impress of a paschal lamb.

The care thus taken to screen the room from espionage increased Paul's

suspicions. Then he turned away, becoming suddenly conscious that to

pry thus upon the affairs of a stranger was conduct unworthy of a

soldier and a gentleman; and yet a secret voice seemed to whisper that

he was justified in his proceeding, when he recalled Jacintha's

strange remark that the return of the Master threatened Barbara's

safety.

"Jacintha," said he, when next he saw that person, "what secret is

contained in that locked room at the top of the tower, for," he

added, proceeding beyond his knowledge, "I am convinced that there is

some mystery connected with it."

That he was correct in his surmise was sufficiently evinced by the

look of fear that came over Jacintha's face.

"You must ask Lambro."

"He will not tell me."

"And I dare not."

"Why?"

"Lambro would kill me if I should reveal the secret. You yourself

heard his threat. I have taken a solemn oath upon the Holy Sacrament

itself to preserve silence. Do not speak of this matter again, I pray

you," she continued, with pain in her voice, "for, indeed, Captain

Cressingham, it is no concern of yours."

And then, as if desirous of reverting to a more pleasing topic, she

added,--

"I have good news for you. The signorina is now strong enough to rise

and be dressed. To-morrow you shall see her."

This intelligence was more acceptable to Paul than the baton of a

general. He had very little sleep that night for thinking of Barbara.

Next day at noon, Barbara having been dressed by Jacintha, was

assisted by the same faithful attendant to an adjoining sitting-room,

and comfortably installed in a big arm-chair placed beside an open

casement which commanded a view of the sea.

How quick was the turn of her head towards the door when Paul's step

sounded there! How bright her smile as she offered him her slender

hand. How sweet the color that played over her cheek while she thanked

him for the presents that he had sent up to her! A white rose graced

her dusky hair, the flower being, as Paul noticed with secret

pleasure, his gift of the previous day.

Jacintha had withdrawn on Paul's entrance. Wise creature, Jacintha!

It is not every woman who will recognize herself as _de trop_ when

youth and maiden meet.

"I am glad to see you recovering, signorina."

"I am still very weak. I tremble to think what would have become of me

had I lain down in that wood. The fever would certainly have carried

me off. I owe my life to you."

"No--to Jacintha."

"And to Jacintha, who will not take any reward from me."

After this there was a silence. Paul found his usual flow of language

gone. He longed to be brilliant; he was conscious of seeming stupid.

"It is six weeks since our meeting in the woods," he observed, for

want of a better remark.

"And you were going to Sebenico, then. Have you remained at Castel

Nuovo all this time on my account?"

"I desire to keep my promise of seeing you safely to Zara."

Barbara murmured her gratitude, adding,--

"But am I not putting you to great inconvenience?"

"No, signorina, no. These are my holidays. I am on a long furlough. My

time is my own, or rather it is at your disposal."

Barbara's eyes drooped beneath Paul's gaze. Why should this handsome

young captain interest himself so on her behalf?

"Jacintha tells me that you have never quitted the vicinity of the

castle."

"True. It has been my desire to guard against a surprise on the part

of your pursuers."

Barbara's face lost its bright expression for a moment.

"My pursuers!" she murmured. "My pursuers! The thought of them haunted

me while I lay ill. I dreaded lest I should be carried off in my

helpless state. But as six weeks have elapsed I think I may regard the

pursuit--if pursuit there were--as over. But tell me, Captain

Cressingham,"--how prettily the name fell from her lips!--"what would

you have done if my pursuers had appeared?"

"Fought," replied Paul laconically.

"But supposing they had been a dozen in number?"

"No matter. Lambro loves a fight, so do I. Castel Nuovo was built to

stand a siege. The door is of massive oak; the lower windows are

barred; there are abundant loopholes convenient for taking shots at

the enemy. And besides there are the twelve mastiffs, each of which is

capable of tackling a man. Trust us, signorina, we should have made a

good defence."

It was pleasant to be near such towers of strength as Paul and Lambro,

who appeared to regard Austrian gendarmerie with contempt. Then her

pleasure became lost in surprise. Was this Englishman really willing

to undergo such perils on her behalf? Ay, those, and much more,

Barbara, to gain your smiles.

"I am fortunate in my friends," she said, "but rather than expose them

to such hazard I think I should prefer to give myself up."

She was a sweet and interesting patient, and the charm of her face and

figure was enhanced by the toilette in which Jacintha had arrayed

her,--a dress all soft and white and foamy with silk muslin. A silver

rope girdle was tied at one side and fell in two long, graceful

tassels. Delicate antique lace fringed the slender wrists. Paul's

quick eye observed that a small portion of the lace was torn off from

the right sleeve. He wondered why the defect had not been repaired. A

trifling circumstance, but one destined to recur with peculiar force

at a later date.

This was not the costume she had worn on the night of her first

meeting with him. Whence, then, did it come? Barbara seemed to divine

his thoughts.

"I see you are observing my dress," she remarked. "It is a gift from

Jacintha, drawn from an old chest in her wardrobe. It might have been

expressly made for me, for it fits to a nicety without requiring the

least alteration. Made for another, and yet suiting me to perfection.

Is not that a singular coincidence?"

The fit of the dress did not strike Paul so much as the costliness of

the material. He could not account for Jacintha's possession of such

attire except on the supposition that it formed part of the flotsam

and jetsam which supplied Lambro with his finery.

Again Barbara seemed to read his thoughts.

"No, it is not a gift of the sea; Jacintha assured me of that;

otherwise I would not wear it. I have no liking for the clothing of

the drowned." And then displaying a pair of pretty satin shoes, she

added: "And these, too, are Jacintha's gift, and they fit as if my

feet had been measured for them."

She turned to the open casement and surveyed the scene without.

"Ah! if I could but get into the air outside I should recover the

sooner."

"Then come down to-morrow, and sit outside on the terrace."

"I am too weak to walk."

"No matter. I will carry you," replied Paul, boldly.

"I shall have to get Jacintha's leave first," said Barbara,

half-pleased, half-reluctant. "Jacintha is an ideal nurse. She will

have her commands obeyed, and will not yield to the whims of her

patient."

When Jacintha appeared, her consent was readily obtained, and as she

averred that Barbara had talked enough for one day, Paul was compelled

to take his leave.

He spent the rest of the day in recalling Barbara's words. The

interview, though delightful, contained one element of disappointment:

Barbara had said nothing as to her previous history. Paul had

hesitated to question her on the matter, leaving her to take the

initiative. Time would doubtless bring increasing confidence on her

part.

On the following day he redeemed his promise of carrying her into the

open air. An exquisite sense of pleasure filled him as he felt the

clasp of Barbara's arm around his neck and noted the sweet color that

mantled her cheek. From her chamber he bore her down the staircase and

out to a dismantled marble terrace, where he seated her in a lounge,

which had been placed there by Jacintha. Above her rose a stately

terebinth, whose light-green foliage, crimsoned with clusters of

delicate flowers, cast a circle of shade around.

It was the height of summer, and the day, though hot, was not

oppressive; the atmosphere being tempered by the air flowing from the

Dalmatian highlands that rose behind them, peak above peak, in dark

wooded glory.

Facing them was the smooth Adriatic almost as blue as the heaven it

reflected. Far off in the summer haze picturesque feluccas, with their

white lateen sails, glided to and fro with slow dream-like motion.

Sea, sky, and mountains combined to form a scene of enchanting beauty,

rendered still more enchanting to Paul by the presence of Barbara, to

whom Jacintha had imparted an additional charm by adorning her with

the graceful _pezzotto_, or muslin scarf, which, pinned on the head

and falling over the arms and shoulders, permitted the beautiful face

and hair of the wearer to be seen through it.

"Have you ever noticed, Captain Cressingham, how trifles annoy when

one is in a state of illness? And I am annoyed by a trifle, one so

absurd that I feel ashamed to mention it."

Paul urged her, nevertheless, to describe the annoyance.

"What torments me is a piece of sealing-wax on a panel in my bedroom.

Reposing the other night, with my eyes turned towards it, I was

seized by a singular fancy. The wax seemed to be receding through the

wall, drawing me after it. Reason told me that this could not be so,

that the wax was immovably fixed to the panel, and that I was in bed;

yet all the same, there was the circle of wax gliding onward with

never-ending motion through the realm of air, and myself floating

along in its wake like a disembodied spirit. This sensation occurs

every night. My mind is kept perpetually on the rack following that

piece of wax through the infinity of space, ever lured onward by the

hope of arriving at some goal. But that goal perpetually evades me,

and therein is the torment."

"Having had the malaria myself," observed Paul, "I can testify that

such queer notions do occur. What is the color of this wax?" he added,

having little doubt as to what the answer would be.

"It is of a violet hue, and bears the impress of a lamb carrying a

banner. I cannot go back to that chamber again," continued Barbara,

"or I shall be driven mad, for the annoyance is depriving me of all

sleep. I must change my room, even though my good nurse is opposed to

it."

But Jacintha did not offer any opposition when Paul made known her

patient's desire for a different sleeping-room; without any demur she

immediately set about preparing another chamber.

That same night, when all was still in the castle, Paul, taking a

revolver and a lamp, sought the room vacated by Barbara. He quickly

discovered the piece of stamped wax, and saw that it corresponded

precisely with the seal upon the door of the mysterious study.

Extinguishing his lamp, he sat down on a chair beside the panel,

determined to watch there during the night to ascertain, if possible,

whether there was any ground for Barbara's strange fancy.

It was a long and dreary vigil, and when the gray light of dawn stole

in through the casement, and nothing had occurred to excite suspicion,

he was fain to question the wisdom of his action.

That day Paul again carried Barbara downstairs to breathe the pure air

of the sunlit terrace.

"My sleep last night was sweet and sound," she remarked. "With my new

bedroom, and with this glorious air, I shall soon be well again."

She looked so radiant that Paul refrained from mentioning his

nocturnal vigil. Though full of indefinable suspicion himself, he had

no wish to alarm her mind; and he had laid both on Lambro and Jacintha

an injunction to maintain silence respecting the locked room.

Barbara's strength gradually returned. In a day or two she was able to

stand, and, leaning upon Paul's arm, she walked to and fro in the

immediate vicinity of the castle. These promenades were soon

lengthened into rambles along the seashore or through the fragrant

pine woods, Paul being her constant companion. She had taken his arm

at first from weakness; she now continued to do so from habit.

As his knowledge of Barbara increased Paul discovered that she had

received an extraordinary education, her course of study having been

as remarkable for what it omitted as for what it contained. While

knowing very little of poetry, painting, music, needle-work, and other

accomplishments usually included in the feminine curriculum, she was

nevertheless well versed in mathematics, logic, and "the dismal

science," to wit, political economy. Classic antiquity was almost a

sealed book to her, but modern history and current continental

politics she had at her finger-tips, and her knowledge of royal and

noble genealogies with all their ramifications might have put a herald

to the blush. She could give the biographies, and the characteristic

foibles, of all the leading statesmen of Europe; was mistress of

several modern languages, notably Polish or Russian, and--most

puzzling circumstance of all--she was quite _au fait_ with the

mysteries and subtleties of Catholic theology.

As she could scarcely have passed her twentieth year, it seemed to

Paul that Barbara, in view of her extensive acquirements, must have

commenced her studies so soon as she had quitted her cradle.

Her intellectual training appeared more adapted to the acquirements of

a ruler, a statesman, or an ambassador than to those of an ordinary

young lady; and Paul puzzled himself to account for the aims of those

who had directed her education, for Barbara herself volunteered no

information on the matter, and still maintained an attitude of

reticence as to her past life.

CHAPTER IV

THE SEALED CHAMBER

When, amid the most enchanting scenery to be found in Europe, and at a

time when all the charms of summer are poured upon the earth, a

handsome young captain is brought into companionship with a youthful

woman, whose intellect charms even more than her beauty; and when the

pair dwell isolated from the rest of the world with nothing to divert

attention from each other, it requires no prophet to predict the

result.

Barbara was now out of her convalescent stage; and, therefore, neither

she nor Paul had any valid excuse for remaining longer at Castel

Nuovo; nevertheless they continued to postpone indefinitely the day of

departure.

Paul completely ignored the regiment at Corfu, and the good uncle, who

was doubtless fuming at his nephew's protracted absence; and Barbara

on her part seemed to have forgotten her pursuers from the convent,

and her desire for the protection of the British flag.

Enwrapped in each other, yielding to the delicious spirit of _dolce

far niente_, the pair were leading an idyllian life.

To Lambro and Jacintha the scenery around was as it had always been,

but to Paul and Barbara, mountains, sea, air, sky, had become steeped

in hues of divine beauty; each succeeding day seemed happier than the

preceding.

They entertained a dreamy notion that their life at Castel Nuovo would

not last forever, but its end they put far from their thoughts. The

golden present was all in all. Why anticipate pain? _Vogue la

galère._

Lambro offered no opposition to their stay, though the thought of the

Master's return gave him some uneasiness at times, and he said as much

to Jacintha.

"I wish he would come," was her reply. "I should like to see his face

when he sets eyes upon the signorina."

"He'll think as we did, that she has risen from the dead," returned

Lambro.

"Well, she has a protector in Captain Cressingham, who will know how

to deal with the Master, should he appear."

"Humph! there'll be the devil to pay ere long," growled Lambro. That

Jacintha was not married to the old Greek troubled Barbara very

little, if at all. Jacintha had brought her back to life; Jacintha was

as good as gold; Barbara, figuratively speaking, would have turned and

rent any one who should have ventured to assail the reputation of

Jacintha.

For, thanks to new influences, Barbara's character was undergoing

development. The stateliness and gravity that had marked her bearing

on the first night of her coming to Castel Nuovo were yielding to a

more buoyant and girlish spirit.

Close to the castle a semicircle of dark rocks, with a sandy base,

over which the tide flowed, formed an ideal bathing place. Every

morning Barbara would seek this spot attended by Jacintha.

"Wouldn't Abbess Teresa and the nuns be scandalized if they saw me

now?" she would remark as she returned to breakfast, laughing and

wringing out her dark wet locks like some lovely Nereid.

She was a maiden formed for gayety. In previous days her natural

disposition had evidently been kept under restraint. She was now

revelling in the sunshine of a new and sweet liberty, and Jacintha

could scarcely believe her own eyes, when one day, attracted by the

sounds of sweet laughter and of ringing steel proceeding from an

adjoining apartment, she peeped in and discovered the cause of it all

to be Barbara, who was receiving her first lesson in fencing from

Paul, while Lambro looked on with sombre approval.

"What next, I wonder?" thought Jacintha.

Barbara illumined the dark and melancholy castle like a sunbeam. Even

Lambro relaxed something of his moroseness in her presence, and had

begun to doubt whether five hundred beshliks could procure in the mart

of Janina a maiden in all respects like Barbara. She had taken to

Lambro much more than Paul had, who could not overcome his secret

distrust of the old Palicar.

But then Lambro was a hero in Barbara's eyes, because he had fought

for the freedom of a conquered race, and she herself, as it

subsequently transpired, was the daughter of a conquered race.

When the day's strolling with Paul was over, and the evening meal

finished, she would invite the old Greek to fight his battles over

again. Sitting on a low stool at his feet, and resting her elbows on

her lap and her chin on her hands, her hair sometimes falling in dusky

waves around her fair throat, she would betray such interest in

Lambro's reminiscences that the foolish Paul was often moved to

jealousy.

"And by deeds such as these," she murmured on one occasion, "was the

freedom of Hellas won. Why should not Poland achieve what Greece has

achieved?"

"So, signorina, you are of Polish blood?" smiled Paul.

"And am proud of my nationality."

"I would for your sake that your people were free."

"They _will_ be free again," she answered, a beautiful heroic look

transfiguring her face with a new light. "Oh! Kosciusko," she cried,

with an outburst of patriotism that quite surprised Paul, "why did you

say '_Finis Poloniæ_'? Because _you_ said it, men have come to believe

it. No, no, it is not true. The greenstone sceptre of Poland may lie

in the treasury of the Kremlin broken in halves, but the spirit of the

Polish people is not broken. Would that I had been born a man that I

might shoulder musket and fight for fatherland! The Princess Radzivil

fought on horseback against the Russians, and why may not I?" And then

raising her wine-glass aloft, she added, "Confusion to the Czar!"

"Amen," said Lambro, responsive to the toast. "We had to assassinate

old Capo d'Istria because he was too much under Russian influence. Ah!

how we danced the Romaïka the night he died!"

This remark of Lambro created a diversion, for Barbara, who had never

seen the Greek national dance, asked him to describe it.

The old Palicar did more than describe,--he acted it. Kicking his

embroidered slippers into the air he went through all the flings and

evolutions of the Romaïka with an agility surprising for one so aged,

at the same time chanting an appropriate ballad.

"Ah! who could leap higher than Lambro in his youth?" he cried, when

he had finished his performance.

Barbara thanked him, and observed, with a pretty air of command, that

as Lambro had done something to entertain them it was now Paul's turn

to do the like.

And Paul began by singing the first song that entered his head and

that happened to be "The Mistletoe Bough," at that time not so

hackneyed a ballad as now, and probably never before heard in the hall

of a Dalmatian castle. At any rate it was new to his hearers, and

Barbara in particular seemed much interested by it.

"Is there any truth in it?" she asked at its conclusion.

"Supposed to be founded on fact," returned Paul, proceeding to relate

the story of the fair lady of Modena.

"Ginevra, if she had lived at Castel Nuovo," observed Barbara, "might

have found a better place of concealment than an oaken chest. Now,"

she added, prompted by a playful impulse, "give me a clear start of

one minute, and without going outside the castle I will undertake to

hide where no one shall find me."

She sprang up, and with laughing eyes and graceful step danced from

the apartment.

"She is still a girl, you see," smiled Paul.

Entering into the fun of the thing they allowed a full minute to

elapse, and then set off to find her.

They went through the castle from roof to basement, exploring every

place capable of affording concealment. But Barbara was invisible; she

had vanished as if completely melted to air.

Half-an-hour had passed in this search. Then they went again through

the building loudly calling her by name, and, proclaiming themselves

beaten, they invited her to come forth from her hiding place.

Their appeal met with no response. They stared dubiously at one

another. The affair had begun to lose its humorous side. The

death-like silence, Barbara's invisibility, the gray twilight now

stealing through the castle, caused it to assume a somewhat ghostly

aspect.

"She must have gone outside," said Lambro.

"She promised to keep within the building," observed Paul.

For the third time they explored the castle, ending their search on

the highest landing of the staircase. Here they paused before the

locked door of the mysterious study.

"She is perhaps concealed here," suggested Paul.

"Impossible," returned Lambro, pointing to the wax. "The Master's seal

is unbroken."

"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 promptitude 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 attitude 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 passing 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

passing 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."

"Oh! my lady, so soon?" cried Jacintha sorrowfully, for she had become

very fond of Barbara.

"If the cardinal should appear he will take me back to the convent."

"By whose authority?" asked Paul, hotly.

"He is my guardian."

"That may be, but he shall not restore you to the convent against your

will. You have not taken the vows of a nun?"

"No. I was placed in the convent to be educated merely."

"And you do not wish to return?"

"After enjoying freedom? Oh! no, no."

"Then you shall not return," said Paul, decisively.

"Still I must leave here. I cannot stay longer under this roof."

"True, but do not act hastily. Where are you going? What are your

plans? Take a day for reflection. That brief delay will not make much

difference. It is not likely that the cardinal will appear to-morrow,

and if he should, what matters? For my own part I should very much

like to come face to face with the man who proposes to immure you

within the walls of a nunnery. He would not find me honey-tongued,

though such a course may seem ungrateful after having so long enjoyed

the shelter of his roof. Fear him not, signorina. Remain at least

another day. Remember that to-morrow was fixed for our sail to Isola

Sacra."

Barbara was persuaded by these words. One day, as Paul had said, would

not make much difference.

"And I fainted at sight of a picture!" she said, with self-reproachful

smile. "I, who have talked of shouldering a musket, and of fighting

for Poland."

"We all have our fears at times. I ran away from my first battle,"

observed Lambro, without stating from how many others he had run.

Now that her fears were vanishing, Barbara began to review the sequel

of her recent adventure. She had waked from a swoon to find herself in

the arms of Paul, and with the words "dearest Barbara" falling upon

her ear. The significance of the expression did not appeal to her at

the time, but now the recalling of it caused her heart to palpitate.

Her color came and went. She scarcely dared raise her eyes to meet his

gaze. Silence and shyness marked her as their own for the remainder of

the evening.

That night, when the other inmates of the castle were sleeping, Paul,

with lighted lamp, stole off to the bedchamber containing the secret

panel, and began to explore the hidden passage and staircase leading

to the mysterious study. Roof, walls, and flooring were of black oak

thick with dust. Every angle had a festoon of cobwebs. On turning the

corner of the staircase Paul made his first discovery. For some

purpose or other a very long nail had been fixed in the baluster, and

not having been driven far into the wood, it projected in such a

manner that unobservant persons brushing hastily by would run the risk

of tearing their clothing.

Some such accident had happened, for from the head of this nail there

hung a tiny shred of flimsy fabric, which, upon examination by the

light of the lamp, Paul found to be a fragment of delicate lace,--lace

of a color, texture, and pattern that he had seen in the charming

white costume with the silver rope-girdle which Jacintha had bestowed

upon Barbara.

This fragment of lace had not become detached while Barbara herself

was turning the staircase, inasmuch as during her recent adventure she

had been wearing a different dress.

Scrutinizing everywhere, Paul was attracted by a faint sparkle coming

from the dust in a corner of the staircase, the cause of which proved

to be a little article of gold, obviously a seal. It was circular in

shape, and the band encircling the stone was inscribed with the motto,

"_Esse quam videri_." The stone itself forming the seal was a lovely

sapphire bearing the image of a double-headed eagle, beautifully and

delicately engraved.

"The royal arms of Poland, as I live!" muttered Paul. His surprise was

naturally very great, but since speculation as to how the thing came

to be there would have been mere waste of time, he pocketed the

treasure-trove and passed on to the mysterious apartment. This he

found differed in no way from an ordinary study. It was well lighted

and well carpeted. There were numerous shelves with books thereon.

There were chairs, a table, and an escritoire. There were

oil-paintings on the walls. There was really nothing to alarm one in

the aspect of the apartment. Paul did not feel anything of the strange

sensation spoken of by Barbara, and therefore he felt compelled to

ascribe that part of her experience to the imagination of a timid

maiden. The room was locked and sealed from intrusion: _ergo_, her

argument was there must be something fearful in it.

Paul turned his attention to the portraits on the wall, and began with

that of the Master who was represented in the scarlet robes of a

cardinal. It was a handsome face upon which Paul gazed,--a face full

of intellectual power, with nothing of the mystic visionary about it;

the face of a man of action, a man of ambition, an ecclesiastical

statesman of the type of Richelieu or Mazarin. Paul waved the lamp to

and fro, trying to educe the wicked expression that had frightened

Barbara. True, the countenance was a cold and haughty character, but

he could not honestly affirm that there was anything sinister in it.

Barbara's fancy was probably due to her hostile feelings.

He next surveyed the picture of the young lady,--a maiden robed in

jewelled attire with pearl necklace, diadem, and sceptre. The

resemblance to Barbara was indeed so marvellous that Paul at first was

disposed to believe that she was the person here represented, and that

the symbols of high rank were decorative fancies of the artist.

A closer study of the portrait, however, made him think otherwise.

True, every feature corresponded with Barbara's; hair and eyes were of

the same color. The difference was in the expression. This girl had

mischievous eyes, an arch smile, a radiant look. It was clearly the

face of one leading a happy, unclouded life, whereas even in Barbara's

smile there was always a tinge of melancholy, as if her mind were

shadowed by the memory of some secret sorrow.

Who was this youthful lady with the smiling eyes? If she resembled

Barbara in face, why not in the height and shape of her figure? Ah!

here without doubt was the original wearer of that soft, silky dress

which had required no alteration to suit Barbara. The young lady had

perhaps left it as a parting gift to Jacintha for services rendered by

the latter.

She had doubtless come to Castel Nuovo under the charge of Cardinal

Ravenna. Singular that the bedchamber in which Barbara had slept

should have been previously occupied by a lady her exact counterpart

in face and figure! Was the bedroom that was kept in a constant state

of readiness intended for her use?

He understood now the cause of the amazement on the part of Lambro and

Jacintha when they first beheld Barbara; they were doubtless startled

by her extraordinary resemblance to their previous guest.

That this lady had traversed the corridor leading to the cardinal's

study was proved by the lace fragment of her dress adhering to the

nail of the staircase, though it was difficult to assign a reason for

this proceeding. A secret amour was the first idea that suggested

itself. But then, a girl with so lovely a face would never lack

youthful and handsome lovers; it was not likely, therefore, that she

would be guilty of an intrigue with an ecclesiastic old enough to be

her father.

The mystery was bewildering, especially when the diadem and sceptre

were taken into consideration. Lambro and his consort could explain

it, but only by breaking the oath imposed upon them by the

cardinal,--an oath taken, if Jacintha's words were true, upon the Holy

Sacrament itself. It must be a weighty secret to require such

safeguarding; nay, more, it was a secret that threatened Jacintha's

own life, as shown by her remark to Lambro: "Shall I be permitted to

leave here after your death?"

Musing on all this, Paul turned from the portraits to examine the rest

of the apartment, without discovering anything of consequence, till,

being near the hearth, he happened to glance downwards. For a moment

he stood as still as a statue; then he stooped and held the lamp low.

On the polished oak flooring was a dark stain.

CHAPTER V

THE RETURN OF THE "MASTER"

The "Isola Sacra" mentioned by Paul as an inducement for Barbara to

prolong her stay, was a small, uninhabited island facing Castel Nuovo

at the distance of about three miles.

The island had often attracted the curiosity of Barbara, and Paul had

promised that he would row her over to it whenever she felt disposed.

The day named by her for the excursion had come, and accordingly after

breakfast Paul and Barbara descended to the beach, where they found

Lambro getting his sailing-boat ready for their use. Jacintha followed

with a luncheon-basket on her arm.

"It's no use putting up the sail," remarked the old Greek. "There's

not a breath of wind stirring. You'll have to row."

Barbara sat by the tiller, where a silken cushion had been placed for

her accommodation. Paul taking the oars pushed off, giving a smile to

Jacintha and a nod to Lambro.

"At what hour must we expect you back?" asked Jacintha.

"Not till evening," replied Paul, who set out with the intention of

spending the day upon the island, and of returning in romantic style

beneath the light of the stars.

It was a morning of soft sunlight, lovely and still,--"the very bridal

of the earth and sky." The heaven was one deep, living blue, and the

sea so smooth that the mountain peaks, the cliffs, and the towers of

the castle were reflected on the azure surface of the water as in a

mirror.

"It seems," sighed Barbara to herself, "that my last day here is to be

the fairest."

In happy, dreamy silence she leaned back in her seat, holding the

cords of the tiller, and watching Paul as he manipulated the oars.

Each sweep of his arm lifted the boat half out of the water, for he

was no novice at rowing, being the captain of the Britannic Aquatic

Club at Corfu.

Barbara had never known any pleasure equal to that of Paul's

companionship; and now this pleasure was about to end--unless--unless.

And then the questions that had robbed her of sleep during the night

began again their work of torture. Why had he called her "dearest

Barbara"? Was it a mere transitory outburst of affection on his part,

evoked by her helpless state? Would he place her on shipboard at Zara,

and, leaving her to go on her way alone, return to Corfu? The thought

alarmed her; she grew faint at the idea of a future without Paul.

She contrived to mask her emotion beneath a calm exterior, and as Paul

caught her smiles, he little thought how her heart was pulsating to

the very tune of love. She even volunteered to take one of the oars.

"What? and but just recovered from a fever! Besides, you will blister

your fingers."

But Barbara was not to be dissuaded. She took the oar, and, never

having held one before, behaved like a true novice. She failed to keep

time with her partner, and her oar either did not strike the water, or

striking, deluged the boat with spray, till Paul began to consider

whether it would not be wise to suspend the luncheon-basket from the

masthead. Strange how man will tolerate in woman blundering such as he

would not tolerate for a moment in his fellowman! Barbara's

incompetence at the oar was delightful in Paul's eyes.

"I'd better give it up," she cried laughingly. "Our boat is

performing such extraordinary gyrations that the steamer from Zara,

which I can see in the distance, will be coming up to ascertain the

cause."

So Paul resumed possession of the oar, and rowing onward in gallant

style, reached the island, and ran the boat in upon the sands of a

little bay.

Isola Sacra was not more than two miles in length, and about one in

breadth; nevertheless, within its limited space there was considerable

diversity. There were cliffs rising vertically from the water; there

were strips of yellow sand by the sea; there were woods, and a

silver-flashing stream. And most attractive sight of all, the remains

of a Grecian temple crowning the summit of a small eminence, the

marble columns glowing brilliantly white against a background of dark

cypresses.

Towards this edifice they slowly made their way.

"To whom was this temple raised?" asked Barbara, as they stood within

the ruin.

"It was the shrine of Eros."

The Temple of Love! What more appropriate place could there be for an

avowal?

"The god of love," she murmured softly. "And his altar and shrine are

fallen!"

"But not his worship," replied Paul. "That is eternal."

Barbara averted her eyes, and trembled with a sweet feeling.

They sat down on a fallen column beneath the shadow cast by a graceful

palm. Before them lay the bay they had just crossed,--a blue

semicircular mirror, the Illyrian mountains forming a picturesque

background.

Paul and Barbara sat drinking in the deep beauty of the scene. In the

boat their conversation had been lively and unrestrained, but now a

silence lay on both.

Barbara was the first to speak.

"I think," she murmured dreamily, gazing at the sky, "that the

loveliest part of heaven must be above this isle."

Paul glanced at her inquiringly, not quite comprehending her remark.

"The Arabian poets," she continued, "assert that the fairest spot on

earth is situated beneath the fairest spot in heaven, the earthly, as

it were, being a reflex of the heavenly."

"A pretty idea!" said Paul. "With me, however, the fairest place on

earth is not a fixed, but a moveable point."

"Yes?" said Barbara inquiringly.

"To me the fairest place is wherever you happen to be. Do I make

myself clear, dearest Barbara, or shall I say more?"

Barbara tried to speak, but the words would not come. There was no

need for speech, however. A light that would have made the plainest

features beautiful stole over her face. She placed her little hand

within his, and by that act Paul knew that she was his for ever.

He drew her to his embrace, where she reclined supremely happy and yet

afraid to raise her eyes to his.

"Barbara," he whispered, "you have never yet told me the story of your

life. Will you not do so now?"

There was nothing Barbara would not have done to please Paul. She was

silent for a few moments, as if collecting her thoughts, and then,

still within the circle of his arms, she began in a voice as low and

silvery as if coming from dreamland.

"If I have been truly told, I was born at Warsaw in 1826, and shall

therefore be nineteen years of age next month.

"My parents I never knew; indeed I am even ignorant of their names and

station in life. I had been adopted in infancy by a noble Polish lady,

the Countess Lorenska,--a youthful widow, who, although kindness

itself, was always mute to any remark relative to my parentage,

though, as you may guess, the question as to my origin troubled me but

little in those early days.

"The Countess Lorenska was very rich, her mansion at Warsaw a palace,

and the ladies and gentlemen who attended her salons vied with each

other in caressing and spoiling me. I had all that wealth could

supply, including learned masters, under whose tuition I began that

course of instruction which you have characterized as peculiar for a

woman.

"My adoptive mother, herself well educated, superintended my studies,

but the lesson she seemed chiefly desirous of inculcating is contained

in almost the first sentence I was taught to utter,--'I will always

love Poland and the Catholic Church. I will never cease to oppose

Russia and the Greek Faith.' This vow was part of my prayers morning

and evening, and such is the force of habit that I still continue to

say it.

"As you may suppose, Polish history formed part, and a very important

part, of my curriculum. My blood glowed as I listened to the story of

my country's wrongs. But indeed I did not require the voice of past

history to teach me patriotism. What was happening all round was

sufficient. I was between five and six years of age when the uprising

at Warsaw took place, and the unjust and terrible reprisals exacted by

the conquering Russians have left an impression upon my mind which no

length of time can ever efface.

"The war passed, and an era of tranquillity, or rather of torpor,

followed.

"Among those who frequented the assemblies held by the Countess

Lorenska--assemblies that partook more of a political than of a social

character--was a young priest of Italian origin, named Pasqual

Ravenna, who exercised considerable influence over the mind of my

adoptive mother, inasmuch as he was her father-confessor.

"One night during a brilliant entertainment I stole out of the _salle

de danse_ into the moonlit gardens without, in order to avoid waltzing

with a silly fellow who was my special aversion. I secreted myself in

a quiet arbor. On the other side of the shrubbery two persons were

slowly pacing to and fro, and earnestly conversing. I recognized the

voices of Countess Lorenska and Father Ravenna. I had no wish to hear

what they were saying; indeed, I was too much pre-occupied with my

would-be partner, whom I could see through the leaves vainly trying to

find me, to pay much attention to them, but still fragments of their

dialogue reached my ears.

"'She must be removed,' Ravenna was saying; 'she is too near'--I did

not catch the word--'to be safe. He often visits Warsaw. If she should

be seen and recognized by him, our plan would be frustrated. Besides,

she is growing. We must take care that she forms no love-attachment.'

"The countess laughed.

"'How absurd! She is too young for such notions.'

"'She is only twelve, 'tis true, but she is more advanced physically

and mentally than most girls of fifteen. She will be safer in a

convent till--till--her restoration,' he added, as if hesitating for

the choice of a word.

"'If you say so, it must be so,' said the countess with a sigh,

'though it will almost break my heart to part with her. Your

instructions have been carried out to the very letter. She will always

be a devout Catholic, and patriotically Polish.'

"'So far--good,' replied Ravenna.

"They both moved off at this point, and not till then did it dawn upon

me that they were speaking of myself.

"Next morning I was summoned by the countess, whom I found seated with

Father Ravenna.

"'Barbara,' she said, 'you are going to live in a convent for the next

six years, where you will continue the studies you have begun here.

Father Ravenna will conduct you to the convent. And do not forget

that if I should die he will be your guardian, and you must obey his

commandments, however strange they may appear.'

"I cried very much on parting from my adoptive mother.

"'Courage! It is for the good of Poland,' said the countess, as she

folded me in a last embrace.

"I failed to understand how Poland could be benefited by poor simple

me, still less how my six years' residence in a convent was to

accomplish that end.

"Under the conduct of Ravenna I travelled southward by easy stages. I

began to forget my grief in the novelty of the scenes that succeeded

each other. We entered Dalmatia, the country growing in grandeur and

wildness with every mile of our journey.

"At last we reached our destination,--the Convent of the Holy

Sacrament, situated in an isolated valley amid the loftiest peaks of

the Dinaric Alps,--and here Ravenna left me after a long conference

with the abbess.

"My life in the convent was a very pleasant one. Being the youngest

person in the establishment, I became a sort of pet with the nuns.

Though I took part in the devotional services of the convent, I did

not wear the religious habit, nor did I partake of the food of the

other inmates. My fare was more delicate than theirs; I wore costly

dresses; I had my own dining-chamber with a nun to wait upon me. In

short, if I had been a princess they could not have paid me more

deference and attention.

"My studies were mainly directed by three monks from a neighboring

establishment, one of whom, so the nuns asserted, had been a leading

statesman of Austria, who, for some offence, had been ordered by the

Kaiser to retire to a monastery; be that as it may, his was a mind

well stored with political knowledge, and Metternich himself could not

have taught me more of the secrets of contemporary history.

"My second year's residence in the convent was saddened by the tidings

of the Countess Lorenska's death,--to me a calamity in more ways than

one, for it made Father Ravenna my guardian, and him I had always

viewed with secret dislike, if not with fear.

"Now that I was growing older and more thoughtful, the question as to

my parentage began to trouble me. Who was I? why kept ignorant of my

origin? why put to this course of study? The abbess Teresa averred

that all would ultimately be made clear by my guardian Ravenna, who

would remove me from the convent as soon as I was eighteen.

"On the eve of my eighteenth birthday Ravenna appeared, no longer a

simple priest. His scarlet robes and the title 'Your Eminence,'

addressed to him by the abbess, showed that he had risen to the

dignity of a cardinal.

"He held an interview with me in the quietude of my own apartment. He

had not seen me for six years, remember, and of course during that

time I had grown from girlhood into womanhood.

"I noticed that as soon as he had set eyes on me he gave a start. I am

certain that he murmured 'How like'! During the whole of the interview

he walked to and fro, seemingly intent on studying my face and figure,

now in one light, now in another, conduct which very much embarrassed

me.

"'Know, my daughter,' he began, 'that your father, supposed by you to

be dead, is really living.'

"You can imagine my surprise at this statement.

"'Then why does he not acknowledge me?'

"'He has lived under the belief that you died as soon as born.'

"'He knows differently now?'

"'I have informed him of his error.'

"'And he has sent you to bring me to him?' I cried joyfully.

"'Alas! there's a difficulty at present in the way of your meeting

each other. Accustomed for eighteen years to regard you as dead, he

listens with scepticism to the story that you are living. Nay, more,

he avers the statement to be a conspiracy on my part."

"'A conspiracy!' I repeated wonderingly.

"'He has another daughter by a second wife, your half-sister, of whom

he has grown passionately fond. You, as the elder, stand in the light

of her interests; whatever she thought herself entitled to now

devolves upon you. For this reason he seeks to deny your relationship

to him.'

"'They wrong me by such thoughts,' I cried. 'I ask not for wealth, but

for affection.'

"'Tut, tut,' returned the cardinal. 'We have clear proofs of your

filiation and legitimacy. We shall compel him to acknowledge you. You

shall not be deprived of your rights.'

"'How came my father to think me dead?'

"'I believe I am responsible for that error,' he said, with a smile

that told me some interested motive lay at the root of his deception.

"I was unable to control my indignation.

"'You!' I cried. 'A holy cardinal the author of a falsehood that has

separated a father from his daughter for eighteen years, and that will

perhaps keep them apart forever! I honor my father for his present

distrust of you. If you lied to him in my infancy, what wonder that he

should deem you to be lying now?'

"The cardinal waved his hand deprecatingly. 'The end sanctifies the

means, and my end is a noble one.'

"Curiosity overcame my anger. Despite my aversion to the cardinal, I

could not refrain from plying him with questions; the names of my

father and my sister; their station in life; their abode, and the

like.

"But Cardinal Ravenna remained inflexibly uncommunicative. It was in

vain that I knelt before him, and with tears entreated that he would

let me see my father and sister face to face.

"'My presence may move them,' I said.

"'Your presence, my daughter, would create confusion,' he said coldly.

'Leave to me the task of winning for you a splendid heritage. Till

then you must remain in this convent.'

"And with that Ravenna took his departure.

"The new knowledge imparted by the cardinal contributed rather to

embitter than to cheer my life. It was not a pleasant reflection that

somewhere in the world I had both father and sister who had never seen

me, and who, apparently, had no desire to see me.

"For this state of affairs the cardinal, according to his own

statement, was responsible, and I hated him for it. He cared nothing

for the feelings of parent and child; his only object in bringing the

two together was to advance his own interests; he would exact a price

both from the father and from the new daughter.

"I resolved to cast off the self-constituted guardianship of Cardinal

Ravenna. I would quit the convent, and, making my way to Warsaw,

endeavor to discover the friends of my girlhood.

"But when I conferred with Abbess Teresa she told me kindly, yet

firmly, that this could not be; the cardinal had left strict orders

that I must be detained till his return.

"From that time my freedom ceased. The walks which I had been

accustomed to take outside the convent in the company of two attendant

nuns were stopped. The cloister gardens were open to me; once I had

deemed them spacious, now they seemed very narrow. Though treated

kindly in other ways I knew myself to be a prisoner watched by

innumerable eyes.

"The cardinal came not to release me. And thus eight months

passed,--the most melancholy time I had ever known.

"At last the porter, Bulgar, with whom I had always been a favorite,

listened to my pleading, and one dark night, by preconcerted

arrangement with me, he left the convent-gate unlocked, and I stole

forth.

"But my flight might soon be intercepted. A few miles to the north of

the convent, on the Bosnian frontier, is a fortress garrisoned by

Austrian troops. I remembered that once when a poor nun longing for

her freedom again, had run away, the Abbess had obtained aid from this

fortress. The commandant sent out a troop, which, scouring the country

around, returned with the fugitive after a three days' search. Devoted

to the cardinal's interests, Abbess Teresa would certainly make a

similar requisition in my case.

"Still I had the advantage of several hours' start, and, trusting to

heaven for aid, I fled onward through the darkness. Zara, sixty miles

to the northwest, was the haven of my desires. For two days I

journeyed on foot, sleeping the first night in the woods.

"At the end of the second day--but you know the rest.

"O Paul," she murmured, with a soft pressure of her arms, "whom have I

in the world but you? And to think that I at first repulsed you when

you met me that night in the wood!"

And here Barbara, having finished her story, looked up at Paul.

"Why so grave?" she asked, with a smile that masked a certain

misgiving on her part.

"In the very act of asking you to be my wife, Barbara, I feel

compelled to pause. Your story is so suggestive. Supposing you should

prove to be a rich heiress, or a peeress, or," he continued, his mind

reverting to the portrait of the lady with the diadem, "shall we

ascend higher, and say a princess?--you will make a mesalliance by

marrying one who has nothing but a cloak and a sword."

"Dreams, Paul, dreams."

"Nay, the interest taken in you by the cardinal proves that you are a

person either of rank or wealth, or possibly both."

"I place no faith in the cardinal's story. Doubtless, there does exist

somewhere a rich Polish noble, whose infant daughter was lost or

stolen away eighteen or nineteen years ago, but I do not believe that

I am she, though Ravenna would have me play the rôle of the missing

heiress. But even if I were an empress--"

Here Barbara paused in her utterance.

"Yes; if you were an empress--?"

"Cannot you guess the rest?"

"You would be my wife. Is that so, Barbara?"

"Yes, Paul," she replied, simply. "None but you."

Paul raised her beautiful face upward to his own, and looked down into

the light of her dark eyes.

"Barbara, I have loved you from the first moment of seeing you."

Barbara could not truthfully say that her love had begun so early. The

knowledge of it had come upon her perhaps a month ago.

"I wish I had known it. A month ago!" he added ruefully. "Just think

of the kisses I have missed!"

"Nothing prevents you, Paul, from repairing lost opportunities."

Who could have resisted the witchery of those lips raised so

temptingly at that moment? Not Paul, certainly.

* * * * *

The dusk of twilight was stealing over the island. The stars were

beginning to glimmer through the violet air above.

"It is time to return," said Paul, leading Barbara towards the boat.

"The mantilla!" she exclaimed, suddenly stopping short in her walk. "I

left it in the ruins. I must go back for it, since it is Jacintha's.

And my diamond brooch is fastened to it."

"You are tired, Barbara. Remain here. I will fetch it."

"Do not be long."

"Can you not bear a parting of five minutes?" he asked with a smile.

"One minute is too long, Paul."

Seating Barbara upon a fragment of rock, Paul hastened over the grassy

upland in the direction of the classic ruin, which was distant about a

quarter of a mile from the shore.

At the edge of a small wood that intervened between himself and the

temple, he paused for a moment to listen to Barbara, who was singing

in a sweet plaintive voice the hymn to the Virgin accustomed to be

sung in her convent at vesper hour.

"Fading, still fading, the last beam is shining.

Ave Maria! day is declining:

Safety and innocence fly with the light:

Temptation and danger walk forth with the night:

From the fall of the shade till the matin shall chime

Shield us from peril, and save us from crime.

_Ave Maria, audi nos!_"

She formed a pretty picture as she sat there alone by the dusky-blue

sea in the faint starlight, her dainty white-robed figure clearly

outlined against the black rock.

"I'm the luckiest mortal living," muttered Paul. "By heaven! won't the

fellows be dumb with surprise and envy when I mount the jetty-stairs

at Corfu with Barbara upon my arm! And as for uncle, always an admirer

of the ladies, he'll fairly worship her."

He pictured Colonel Graysteel's look of admiration, and caught his

whispered aside: "By Jove, Paul, where did you find this lovely

vestal? Lucky dog! no wonder you have stayed away so long!"

Barbara had followed Paul with her eyes, and now, on seeing him pause,

she waved her hand prettily, while he, like a gallant lover, waved his

in turn. Then, eager to despatch his quest and to return to her, he

plunged into the wood, and Barbara was lost to view.

On reaching the temple, Paul quickly found the mantilla, but the

brooch which should have been attached to it was missing. As the

ornament was a valuable one he did not like to return without it, and

he therefore began a search in the fading light.

Having spent ten minutes without success, he resolved to quit the task

lest Barbara, sitting by the lonely shore, should become nervous at

his long delay.

As he rose to his feet he looked upward, and found that the stars were

invisible. A white mist like a ghost was floating over the isle.

Snatching up the mantilla, he dashed down through the woodland, and,

but for the murmur of the sea, which served to direct his course, he

would most certainly have missed his way.

As he drew near to the beach he called upon Barbara by name, but

received no answer. This was puzzling, inasmuch as he was near the

place where he had left her. Near? He was at the exact spot. There was

the crag upon which she had been seated a few minutes previously, but

of Barbara herself not a trace was visible.

Vainly did his eyes seek to pierce the veil of mist that hung around;

every object more than a few feet distant was hidden from view.

The melancholy lapping of the waves over the sand was the only sound

that broke the stillness.

Where was Barbara? Ah! alarmed perhaps by the mist and by his long

absence, she had left the shore to seek him, and had missed her way to

the ruin. He would go back at once and find her.

He had just turned to retrace his steps, when suddenly from out the

mist that overhung the sea there came a strange voice,--

"_All ready? Give way, then. To Castel Nuovo!_"

The words were immediately followed by the dip and roll of

oars,--sounds that sent a thrill of horror through Paul's heart. In

one swift moment he realized what was happening.

The Austrian gendarmerie sent by the convent authorities had come at

last! Come? ay, and were going with their purpose accomplished!

Barbara, silent, perhaps because in a swoon, was in the hands of

enemies who were carrying her off, and though her captors were but a

few yards distant, he was unable to render her any aid. The

suddenness, the stillness, the mysteriousness of it all was more

appalling than the act of abduction itself.

Half-an-hour had not yet elapsed since Barbara had pressed her glowing

lips to his. And now--and now--was ever lover's dream cut short so

awfully and abruptly as this?

"Barbara! Barbara!" he cried in agony. "If you are there, speak."

Was he mistaken, or did he really hear his own name pronounced by a

voice faintly sounding, as if the speaker's head were muffled within

the folds of a cloak?

Following his first impulse, he dashed into the sea towards the point

whence came the sound of the oars. Like a madman he leaped and plunged

forward through mist and water with the desire of arresting the

progress of the receding boat. Vain hope! He did not even obtain a

glimpse of the boat, much less come up with it.

Not till the water surged breast-high around him did he pause, and

then he stood mechanically listening to the sound of the oar-sweep as

it died away in the distance.

Recovering from his stupor he waded back to land, and sought the place

where he had left his own boat.

It was gone!

It had either been taken in tow by Barbara's captors, or cast adrift

in order to prevent him from giving trouble by following them.

The island had become his prison, inasmuch as he had no way of

crossing to the mainland except by swimming, and though he might not

have shrunk from a three-mile course in smooth water, the same

distance across a sea-channel traversed by currents and covered by a

thick fog was a very different matter.

Though every moment of detention diminished his hope of effecting

Barbara's rescue, yet here he was, absolutely helpless, dependent for

his release upon the chance passing of some fishing-boat.

He did not doubt--he could not doubt--that the abduction of Barbara

was the work of Cardinal Ravenna, who had probably been apprised by

Abbess Teresa of the flight of his youthful _protégé_. It was not

likely that he would restore her to the Convent of the Holy Sacrament;

some more secure establishment would be chosen, and, when Barbara was

once immured by the authority of a powerful ecclesiastic, it would be

difficult, if not impossible, to reach her. The only consoling feature

in this dark affair was that the success of the cardinal's scheme,

whatever its character, hung upon Barbara's life; so far she was safe,

but the thought of the sufferings to which she might be subjected, in

order to extort submission, drove Paul's mind to the verge of frenzy.

At midnight the mist began to lift almost as suddenly as it had come

on. The whole blue arch of heaven became revealed. The moon was now at

its full, and the cold, pallid light shone over the island with its

dark woods, and its ivory-white temple on the hill-top, the fallen

shrine of love.

Paul mounted this hill and glanced over the sea in all directions; but

his hope of seeing some barque in the vicinity of the isle was

immediately extinguished. Not a sail was visible.

He had brought to the island a pair of field-glasses, and these he now

directed over the channel that separated him from the Dalmatian

mainland. The light was insufficient for the taking of distant

observations; nevertheless, he came to the conclusion that a tiny

light visible at a certain point on the coast marked the position of

Castel Nuovo; and, aware that Barbara's captors must long ere this

have reached their destination, this light became an object of deep

interest. Without any reason whatever to guide him, he took up the

belief that it marked the room in which she was detained for the

night, and impressed by this fancy, he kept his eyes fixed upon it as

wistfully as if it were the face of Barbara herself.

Suddenly the light vanished.

A very simple occurrence, and yet Paul had no sooner noted it than

there came over him a trembling and a horror as great as if the

extinction of that light had likewise involved the extinction of

Barbara.

His mind was either playing him strange tricks, or else his hearing

had become more than ordinarily acute. Sounds on the opposite coast

seemed close at hand,--sounds of an eerie character.

The deep silence of the night was first broken by the fitful ringing

of church bells; immediately afterwards came a series of

reverberations which Paul could compare only with the rattling echoes

produced by the discharge of artillery among lofty hills; and next

there floated over the sea a prolonged cry like the wild shriek of

some captured town.

Then all was still again.

What had happened along that moonlit coast?

* * * * *

Night waned. Morning dawned with all the fair golden glory of that

southern clime.

On the shore of Isola Sacra stood a man, his gaze fixed eastward as it

had been fixed ever since the growing light had enabled him to

perceive distant objects with any degree of distinctness.

The British regiment at Corfu would have failed to recognize their

captain in this man with his wild air, blood-shot eyes, and haggard

face staring continually over the sea.

For the twentieth time his shaking hands raised the field-glasses.

Whenever he turned the binoculars to that point of coast where Castel

Nuovo should have been, he found that Castel Nuovo was not there.

Focus the glasses as he would, he could not detect a trace of the

edifice. The blue sea seemed to be rolling over the site!

In like manner other landmarks along the coast had disappeared,

notably a white lighthouse a few miles to the north of Castel Nuovo.

The mountains, too, seemed to present an outline differing from that

of the previous day.

Then the truth in all its ghastliness broke upon Paul, and, strong man

though he was, he dropped upon the sands as one dead.

The explanation was simple and terrible.

During the night an earthquake had devastated the coast of Dalmatia;

towns had been laid in ruins; scores of people had perished; and,

among a crowd of minor catastrophes enumerated by the "Zara Times" of

that week, was the complete submergence of a picturesque edifice,

erected in the fourteenth century by the Doge Marino Faliero, and

known by the name of Castel Nuovo!

THE STORY

CHAPTER I

TWO YEARS AFTERWARDS

"Here's to the Princess of Czernova!" cried Noel Trevisa,--a

dark-eyed, handsome young fellow,--raising his glass as he spoke.

"Have you seen her yet, Paul?"

Captain Cressingham, or to use the new name assumed by him on the

death of a relative, Captain Woodville, smiled at the enthusiasm with

which his friend proposed the toast.

"I entered Slavowitz only last evening," he replied, "and have already

been asked that question six times. It seems to be the first one put

to a visitor."

"And when you have seen her you will cease to wonder at the pride of

the Czernovese in their princess. Natalie Lilieska is more than

beautiful,--she is Beauty's self."

This interchange took place on an elevated balcony of the Hôtel de

Varsovie, the principal establishment of its kind in Slavowitz, the

picturesque capital of the old Polish principality of Czernova.

Between Paul and his companion stood a marble-topped table decorated

with a bottle of Chartreuse and a box of cigars, and in the quiet

enjoyment of these luxuries the two Englishmen yielded themselves to

lazy abandon in the soft sunshine of a spring morning, watching the

gay current of Czernovese life as it flowed along the boulevard

beneath their feet.

Two years had elapsed since the night when Barbara had been carried

off to perish, as Paul believed, in the engulfing of Castel Nuovo.

A fishing-barque passing by next morning had taken Paul from the

island; its arrival was timely, for the vessel had scarcely gone

half-a-mile when the sea became violently agitated, and Isola Sacra

itself disappeared beneath the waves. The frightened fishermen,

perceiving that the force of the earthquake was not yet spent, refused

to put in on the Dalmatian coast, believing it to be safer on water

than on land. For four-and-twenty hours they kept out on the deep,

disembarking only when they deemed the peril past.

The moment Paul touched land he made his way to the vicinity of Castel

Nuovo, and found its site covered by the sea. Must he believe that the

last resting-place of Barbara was fathoms deep below these waves? He

rowed to and fro over the spot, peering through the singularly

transparent water, and sometimes fancying that he could discern the

ghostly outline of towers and battlements.

Had Barbara really been lodged at Castel Nuovo during the night of the

earthquake, or at some other place?

Inquiries carried on by him within a wide area around Castel Nuovo

yielded no tidings as to the missing maiden. Barbara, Jacintha,

Lambro, were like the shadows of a past dream.

Blank despair settled upon Paul. Life seemed scarcely worth living.

Then came news that the British troops stationed at Corfu had been

ordered to India to suppress a rising among the hill-tribes of the

frontier.

Paul, whose first impulse had been to resign his commission, now

decided to accompany his regiment lest his retirement on the eve of

war should be attributed to a spirit of cowardice. The fierce thrill

of fighting might help to drown the memory of Barbara--for a time.

And since life without her was hard to bear, he cherished the hope

that an Afghan spear might give him the death he desired.

On his arrival at Corfu, Paul learned that, owing to the death of a

wealthy aunt, he was now master of considerable landed property in

Kent, subject to the condition that he should assume his relative's

name of Woodville. Paul mechanically acquiesced, and was henceforth

gazetted as "Captain Woodville."

"Cressingham or Woodville, what matters?" he said. "Soon to be a

little dust, I hope."

This legal formality over, he hurried off to India.

In the campaign that followed he did not die; on the contrary, he

lived to gain a brilliant reputation,--a reputation destined, though

he foresaw it not, to stand him in good stead during a political

crisis of the future.

In a small border-fortress he found himself one of a garrison of four

hundred men besieged by an Afghan force twenty times its own number.

It was winter, and the mountain-passes were filled with snow.

Weeks must elapse ere relief could come. Scantily provided with

artillery, their provisions running out, sleepless from incessant

attacks, the heroic little band kept grimly to the work.

Early in the siege the major in command, with two or three officers,

yielding to a spirit of fear strange in English soldiers, proposed in

council an unconditional surrender.

"We were sent here," said Paul, darkly and haughtily, "to hold the

fortress, not to cede it. If you do not know your duty, Major, there

are those who will teach it you. I will shoot the first man that talks

again of surrender, be he commandant or be he private."

And without delay Paul took strong measures. He put his own superior,

together with the recreant officers, under arrest, and he himself took

the command. Upon this there arose from the garrison, when informed of

what had taken place, a ringing British cheer that startled the enemy

in their distant entrenchments.

Paul henceforth was the soul of the fight,--at the head of every

sortie, charging the enemy regardless of their number. The garrison

attributed his conduct to sheer devilry; it was, in truth, the

despairing mood of a man bent on finding death.

Ever amid the clash of arms he seemed to see before him the beautiful

face of her whom he had lost, and scarcely conscious of the fact, he

would cry "Barbara! Barbara!" to the bewilderment of his men. The wild

Afghans shrank back in dismay whenever the "Feringhee devil" turned

his dripping sabre in their direction, deeming the "bar-bar-a" uttered

by him to be a magic spell capable of dealing death around.

When at last the long-desired relief came, and the story of the heroic

defence of Tajapore became known to the world, Paul found that he had

unintentionally become a famous person.

At the end of his second year in India Paul made a remarkable

discovery.

Up till that time he had entertained the belief that Cardinal Ravenna

had perished in the Dalmatian earthquake, though strange as it may

appear, he had not thought of putting his opinion to the proof by

ascertaining whether the Sacred College had actually lost a member in

the year '45. However, being in the club-room at Poonah one day, he

happened to be glancing over a continental newspaper, when his eye was

caught by the following paragraph,--

"The Pope has been pleased to appoint Cardinal Ravenna to the

archiepiscopal see of Slavowitz."

Paul laid down the paper trembling with new hope. If the cardinal had

survived the earthquake, why should not Barbara likewise? Could it be

that she was really alive?

Till that moment Paul had been ignorant of the name of Slavowitz, but

a reference to a dictionary of geography informed him that it was the

capital of Czernova, the latter being a small independent state on the

borders of Austria and Russia.

He resolved to set off immediately for this principality, for the

purpose of interviewing the dark-dealing cardinal in whose breast was

contained the secret of Barbara's history.

Two years' assiduous attention to duty easily earned for Paul a long

furlough. He quitted India, arrived at Alexandria, and took ship for

Constantinople; thence travelling post-haste day and night he threaded

the passes of the Balkans, crossed the Danube, traversed the forests

of the Carpathians, and finally arrived at Slavowitz late at night,

where he was much disappointed to learn that the new archbishop was

absent from his see, having gone on a journey to Rome, his return,

however, being daily expected.

Paul determined to await his coming.

On this, his first morning at Slavowitz, while gazing from the balcony

of his hotel, he caught sight of an old college chum in the person of

Noel Trevisa.

Paul immediately cried to him by name, and in a moment more the two

friends were sitting together renewing old memories; and great were

Trevisa's surprise and admiration on learning that the Captain

Woodville whose name had become familiar to all Europe, was the same

as his old friend, Paul Cressingham.

"And what has brought you to this city?" inquired Paul, when the other

had drunk his toast to the fair ruler of Czernova.

"This city is my adopted home. Formerly professor of English at the

university of Slavowitz, I am now private secretary to the loveliest

princess in Europe, and occupy a suite of apartments in the palace."

"Accept my congratulations. How did you, a foreigner here, obtain the

post?"

"Thaddeus the Good--"

"Who is he?"

"Was, my dear fellow--'was' is the word, inasmuch as he is no

more--the late Prince of Czernova, her Highness's father. He died six

months ago."

"I understand. Proceed."

"Prince Thaddeus, about two years ago, offered me the post of tutor to

his daughter Natalie. I was to instruct her in English Literature and

English Constitutional History. Naturally I did not refuse so charming

a student. When a few months later her secretary resigned through

ill-health, the princess installed me in his place, where I am proud

to be. I wish I could persuade you too, Paul, to take service under

her Highness."

"What! Accept command in a toy army destined never to smell powder!

All thanks to you, Noel, but I prefer to remain with the old

Twenty-fourth."

"That's a pity, for the princess is very desirous of officering her

army with men experienced in warfare. And of all nationalities she

seems to prefer the English. On her return from Dalmatia--"

"From where?" interrupted Paul, sharply.

"From Dalmatia. Why shouldn't she go there?" retorted Trevisa,

aggressively.

"Why not, indeed? And how long is it since she returned from

Dalmatia?"

"About two years."

"Ha! proceed."

Paul's strange manner led Trevisa to wonder whether his head had not

become affected by his two years' residence in the tropics.

"Well, as I was about to say, after her return from Dalmatia, one of

the first acts of the princess was to appoint a new uniform for her

body-guard. Accordingly sketches of the various costumes worn in the

different European armies were laid before her. You, my dear Paul,

ought to feel honored by her selection."

"Why so?"

"Because the uniform she chose is one so like your own that for my

part I fail to detect the difference. As you walk through the streets

of Slavowitz you will certainly be taken for one of her _corps du

garde_, known as the Blue Legion."

A strange suspicion entered Paul's mind.

"How old is the Princess Natalie?"

"She celebrated her nineteenth birthday last week."

"Barbara, if she were living, would be twenty-one by this time,"

murmured Paul to himself; and then aloud he added: "And you say that

the princess is very beautiful?"

"Be thyself the judge," smiled Trevisa. "Within a quarter of an hour

from now she will pass along this boulevard on her way to the Mazeppa

Gardens. From the balcony here you will have a good view of her."

"Haven't you her portrait upon you?"

"At present I have with me no other likeness than this."

And here Trevisa drew forth a gold-piece, bright as if fresh from the

mint.

"The new coinage, issued this week. Reverse--the double-headed eagle,

the ancient arms of Poland. Obverse--the profile of the princess with

the legend '_Natalia, Princeps Czern. Amat. Patr._' 'Natalie, Princess

of Czernova, Lover of her Country.' Did the goddess Athene carry a

more dainty head than this?"

Paul took the coin, glanced at the obverse, and then sat in a state

wavering between belief and unbelief.

Was this golden disc really stamped with the head of Barbara? So it

seemed to Paul. At any rate, if her profile had been engraved on metal

with due regard to fidelity, it would have differed little or nothing

from that on the coin.

Then a new idea seized him, and one more consonant with probability.

Was this the profile of the maiden whose portrait he had seen in the

cardinal's secret study at Castel Nuovo--the maiden with the laughing

eyes, the sceptre and the diadem?

"A graceful head, a very graceful head," he remarked, returning the

coin. "I should like to hear more of the fair lady."

"As many questions as you please."

"First, where did the Princess Natalie pass her childhood and youth?"

"Here in the city of Slavowitz and its vicinity. Of course she has had

her travels like the rest of us, and has visited different European

countries, but, speaking generally, she was reared and educated in the

Vistula Palace, whose towers you can see rising behind yon cathedral

spire."

Clearly not Barbara, for Barbara had spent her earlier years at

Warsaw, her later in the Illyrian Convent of the Holy Sacrament.

"And what of her visit to Dalmatia?"

"That was undertaken two and a half years ago; at that time she was in

a delicate state of health, and the physicians recommended a tour

around the Adriatic. She travelled incognito with a slender suite

under the care of Cardinal Ravenna."

"Who took her, among other places," thought Paul, "to Castel Nuovo, as

is proved by the fragment of lace in the secret corridor."

"This tour was productive of singular results," continued Trevisa,

musingly.

"In what way?"

"Well, it was to have lasted three months, but it was extended to six;

and when the princess returned she was an altered being; I do not mean

in appearance, I refer to her character."

Light began to dawn upon Paul. The Princess Natalie had not returned

to Czernova; instead there had come her living image--Barbara!

"What remarkable development had the princess's character undergone?"

"Beforetime she was a gay and vivacious maiden. She returned grave and

sedate. This change was attributed to the earthquake."

"The earthquake?"

"Yes. Don't you remember the great upheaval on the Dalmatian littoral

two years ago?"

"Ah! I remember something of the sort, now I come to think of it."

"Well, the terrible scenes witnessed by Princess Natalie, together

with her own nearness to death, seem to have sobered her from girlhood

into womanhood. From that time she began to take a keen interest in

state affairs, which she had previously regarded as boredom."

"Barbara was keenly interested in politics," thought Paul.

"Beforetime her predilections, if she had any, were in favor of

Russia. She returned divested of her Muscovite sympathies."

"Barbara was decidedly an anti-Muscovite," thought Paul.

"But the greatest change--"

"Yes, the greatest change--?" repeated Paul, observing that the other

had stopped short in his utterance with the air of one about to be

betrayed into an imprudent statement.

As Trevisa did not reply, Paul drew a bow at a venture.

"The princess was reared in the Greek faith, I am given to

understand? Humph! what was Prince Thaddeus thinking of when he placed

his daughter under the tutelage of Cardinal Ravenna? One can guess the

result. The princess went away a Greek, and came back a Catholic. Is

it not so?"

"Hush!" muttered Trevisa, glancing around in some trepidation. "Yes,

that is so. You have hit on a state secret, communicated only to her

cabinet, and to me--her secretary. But, Paul, breathe not a word of

this to any one, for the knowledge of it would shake her throne,

and--"

He paused. There was a sudden commotion in the street below.

Pedestrians had stopped in their walk, and were crowding to the edge

of the pavement with their faces all set in one direction, whence came

the distant sound of cheering and of clapping hands. The applause

rolled in _crescendo_ along the boulevards, advancing nearer each

moment to the two friends.

"Here comes the princess!" cried Trevisa, springing to his feet. Paul

felt his heart beating as it had never beat before when he turned his

eyes towards the approaching cavalcade.

First came a detachment of Polish uhlans, their burnished lances

glittering in the morning sunshine, and the points decorated with

black pennons that fluttered in the breeze.

The handsome regimentals of this _corps du garde_, the Blue Legion,

promptly drew from Paul the remark,--

"Why, their uniform is the same as the Twenty-fourth Kentish!"

"A remark previously made by me," observed Trevisa, drily. "You are

singularly forgetful, Paul."

On came the lancers at a swinging trot, followed by an open landau

containing the princess.

A moment more and this carriage was abreast of the hotel, and as if

fortune were favoring Paul, the vehicle was brought to a sudden

stand-still opposite the balcony on which he stood.

The equipage was a dainty one, lined with pale blue silk, the arms of

Poland gleaming in gold from the polished sable panel. The fine black

horses, with coats like shining satin, were decked in silver harness.

But Paul saw nothing of this equipage; his eyes were set upon its

occupant.

There, seated in graceful state, with silken sunshade poised above her

head, and responsive to the plaudits of the people by sweet smiles and

a courteous bending of her head, was--the youthful and beautiful

Barbara!

The supreme joy of realizing that she was actually living so affected

Paul that for a moment the whole street--Barbara, soldiers, people,

buildings--became a confused swimming vision. A sound like the murmur

of many waters filled his ears.

With difficulty he controlled his first impulse to descend the hotel

steps, crying "Barbara! Barbara!" It set his teeth on edge afterwards

when he recalled how near he had come to making a fool of himself. No,

his first interview with her must not take place in the open street

before a wondering, gaping throng.

Fearing lest she should glance upwards and recognize him, Paul drew

aside behind a screen of aloes that decorated the balcony, and

continued to watch.

Yes, it was truly Barbara. The convent-fugitive who had strolled with

him through the pine-woods of Dalmatia, the Polish maiden whom he had

held in his arms had become a real princess with a court, ministers,

and an army at her command. The wonderment of it all! And though she

had spent nearly a third of her life in a convent, yet there she sat

with the air of one born in the purple. It was amazing, nay, charming,

to mark the dignity and the ease with which she carried herself in her

new state.

The landau of the princess had been stopped before the Hôtel de

Varsovie in order to enable her to address two pedestrians, who,

judging from the respect paid to them by the crowd, were persons of

distinction in the little world of Czernova.

The first was an elderly, silver-haired man of fine presence, and

distinguished by a stately, old-fashioned courtesy.

"Count Radzivil," replied Trevisa, in answer to Paul's question. "The

prime minister of Czernova, brother of the celebrated Michael, who

commanded the Polish insurgents of '30."

As the premier was old enough to be Barbara's grandfather, Paul could

afford to view him with composure; but the case was very different

with the other individual.

He was a man of lofty stature, and of broad, massive build, with a

dark, handsome face set off with black eyes and a black beard. The

sunbeams toyed with the silver eagle upon his helmet. His splendid

uniform glittered with gold lace, stars, and orders. He carried

himself erect, his left hand resting upon the hilt of his sabre; and

it was clear that both in his own opinion, and also in the opinion of

the crowd, he was a very grand personage indeed.

"Who's His Serene Tallness?"

"John the Strong, Duke of Bora, commander of the Czernovese army, a

member of the cabinet, and the heir-apparent to the crown. He is first

cousin to the princess, and likewise a near kinsman of the Czar."

Envy and misgiving stole over Paul as he contrasted his own inferior

rank with that of the imperially-connected Bora. Barbara was bending

forward in her carriage, laughing pleasantly, and apparently holding

an animated conversation with the duke. One might almost have thought

that she was exerting all her arts to please him.

Paul surveyed him more attentively, and quickly gauged his

character,--an individual naturally sullen, of a somewhat slow

intellect, yet not without ambition; a man upon whom the graces and

restraints of polite life lay but lightly; a little provocation, and

the savage would soon be in evidence. What could Barbara find in this

man to interest her?

"Bora seems on excellent terms with the princess," said Paul.

"Naturally, seeing that he is to marry her."

"What?"

Paul's intonation was so sharp that Trevisa turned to survey him.

"Why, Paul, how white you're grown!"

"Merely a pang from an old wound. But your princess; she can't

entertain any real love for _that_ fellow."

"Love was never fashionable at courts," smiled Trevisa. His words

jarred upon Paul. If Barbara had become such that she could marry

without any love on her side, then her nature must have sadly changed

from what it was in the old sweet days at Castel Nuovo.

"It is a _mariage de convenance_," continued Trevisa, "tending to

secure her position on the throne, and--but see, she is about to set

off again."

The princess, having finished her conversation, drew off her right

glove and extended her fair jewelled hand to the duke with a smile and

graciousness of manner that roused all the jealousy in Paul's nature.

"She has forgotten me," he murmured bitterly. "Well, of course, she

thinks me dead; but even if she knew otherwise, it is not likely that

she will pay much regard to me now. And yet what were her words to me

on the day that we were parted? 'If I were an empress, Paul, I would

be your wife.' Humph! we shall see."

Bora raised the delicate hand to his lips amid the applause of the

crowd, who seemed to regard the incident as a very pretty tableau.

Count Radzivil lifted his hat with courtly grace, and the next moment

the landau was gliding smoothly along the Boulevard de Cracovie,

followed by a detachment of cavalry similar in equipments to that

which had preceded it.

Paul was left a victim to perplexing thoughts.

What had become of the real Princess Natalie, and why had Barbara

assumed the name, title, and sceptre of the daughter of Thaddeus,

personating the character with such art and tact as apparently to defy

detection, since Trevisa, though long resident in Czernova, had no

suspicion of the substitution that had taken place?

Had Barbara a just title to the throne? Recalling her air as she sat

in the landau, Paul felt that he could not associate the appropriation

of another's heritage with that winsome and dignified presence. No,

difficult though it was to explain her conduct, he would believe

anything rather than that she was a conscious and willing usurper.