An intense stillness brooded over the city. The night was starless, the
sea black as ink. Stephanie stood alone in the darkness of her balcony,
and listened to the silence.
Seven days had elapsed since her interview with Pierre Dumaresq--seven
days of horrible, nerve-racking suspense, of anguished foreboding, of
ever-creeping, leaden-footed despair. And now at last, though the
suspense still held her, she knew that the end had come. Only that
evening, as her carriage had been turning in at the palace gates, a bomb
had been flung under the wheels. By some miracle it had not exploded.
She had passed on unharmed.
But the ghastly incident was to her as the sounding of her own
death-knell. Standing there with her face to the sea, she was telling
herself that she would never see the daylight again. The very soldiers
that guarded them were revolutionists at heart. They were only waiting,
so she believed, for a strong man's word of command to throw open the
palace doors to frenzied murderers.
No sound came up to her from the motionless sea, no faintest echo of
waves upon the shore. The stillness hung like a weight upon the senses.
There was something sinister about it, something vaguely terrible. Yet,
as she stood there waiting, she was not afraid. Something deeper than
fear was in her heart. Pulsing through and through her like an electric
current was a deep and passionate revolt against the fate that awaited
her.
She could not have said whence it came, this sudden, wild rebellion that
tore her quivering heart, but it possessed her to the exclusion of all
besides. She had told herself a hundred times before that death, when it
came, would be welcome. Yet, now that death was so near her, she longed
with all her soul to live. She yearned unspeakably to flee away from
this evil place, to go out into the wide spaces of the earth and to feel
the sunshine that as yet had never touched her life.
They thought her cold and proud, these people who hated her; but could
they have seen the tears that rolled down her face that night there
might have been some among them to pity her. But she was the victim of
circumstance, bound and helpless, and, though her woman's heart might
agonise, there was none to know.
A sudden sound in the night--a sharp sound like the crack of a whip, but
louder, more menacing, more nerve-piercing. She turned, every muscle
tense, and listened with bated breath.
It had not come from the garden below her. The silence hung there like a
pall. Stay! What was that? The sound of a movement on the terrace under
her balcony--a muffled, stealthy sound.
There was no sentry there, she knew. The sentries on that side of the
palace were posted at the great iron gates that shut off the garden from
the road which ran along the shore to the fortress above.
A spasm of fear, sharp as physical pain, ran through her. She stepped
quickly back into the room; but there she stopped, stopped deliberately
to wrestle with the terror which had swooped so suddenly upon her. She
had maintained her self-control admirably a few hours before in the face
of frightful danger, but now in this awful silence it threatened to
desert her. Desperately, determinedly, she brought it back inch by inch,
till the panic in her vanished and her heart began to beat more bravely.
She went at length and opened the door that led into the long corridor
outside her apartments. The place was deserted. The silence hung like
death. She stood a moment, gathering her courage, then passed out. She
must ascertain if the Governor were in his room, and warn him--if he
would be warned.
She had nearly traversed the length of the corridor when again the
silence was rent suddenly and terribly by that sound that was like the
crack of a whip. She stopped short, all the blood racing back to her
heart. She knew it now beyond a doubt. She had known it before in her
secret soul. It was the report of a rifle in the palace square.
As she stood irresolute, listening with straining nerves, another sound
began to grow out of the night, gathering strength with every instant, a
long, fierce roar that resembled nothing that she had ever heard, yet
which she knew instinctively for what it was--the raging tumult of an
angry crowd. It was like the yelling of a thousand demons.
Suddenly it swelled to an absolute pandemonium of sound, and she shrank
appalled. The sudden, paralysing conviction flashed upon her that the
palace had been deserted by its guards and was in the hands of
murderers. She seemed to hear them swarming everywhere, unopposed, yet
lusting for blood, while she, a defenceless woman, stood cowering
against a door.
Sheer physical horror seized upon her. The mercy of the mob! The mercy
of the mob! The words ran red-hot in her brain. She knew well what she
might expect from them. They would tear her limb from limb.
She could not face it. She must escape. Even now surely she could
escape. Back in her room, only the length of the corridor away, was
deliverance. Surely she could reach it in time! Like a hunted creature
she gathered herself together, and, turning, fled along the way she had
come.
She rushed at length, panting, into her room, and, without a pause or
glance around, fled into the bedroom beyond. It was here, it was here
that her deliverance lay, safe hidden in a secret drawer.
The place was in darkness save for the light that streamed after her
through the open door. Shaking in every limb, near to fainting, she
groped her way across, found--almost fell against--her little
writing-table, and sank upon her knees before it--for the moment too
spent to move.
But a slight sound that seemed to come from near at hand aroused her.
She started up in a fresh panic, pulled out a drawer, that fell with a
crash from her trembling hands, and began to feel behind for a secret
spring. Oh, she had been a fool, a fool to hide it so securely! She
would never find it in the darkness.
Nevertheless, groping, her quivering fingers soon discovered that which
they sought. The secret slide opened and she felt for what lay beyond. A
moment later she was clasping tightly a little silver flask.
And then, with deliverance actually within her hold, she paused.
Kneeling there in the darkness she strove to collect her thoughts, that
she might not die in panic. It was not death that she feared just then.
She knew that it would come to her swiftly, she believed painlessly. But
she would not die before she need. She would wait a little. Perhaps when
the wild tumult at her heart had subsided she would be able to pray, not
for deliverance from death--there could be no alternative now--but for
peace.
So, kneeling alone, she waited; and presently, growing calmer, removed
the top of the flask so that she might be ready.
Seconds passed. Her nerves were growing steadier; the mad gallop of her
heart was slackening.
She leaned her head on her hand and closed her eyes.
And then, all in a moment, fear seized her again--the sudden
consciousness of some one near her, some one watching. With a gasp she
started to her feet, and on the instant there came the click of the
electric switch by the door, and the room was flooded with light.
Dazzled, almost blinded, she stared across the intervening space, and
met the steely, relentless eyes of Pierre Dumaresq!