Ravenna smiled cynically as he listened to the murmur of the far-off voices.
"The morrow shall see your mirth turned to mourning," he muttered.
The letter accidentally dropped from his hand as he was in the act of affixing his seal of the paschal lamb. He let it lie, while with closed eyes he leaned back in his chair, picturing his triumph of the morrow. In fancy he could see the princess led off, a pale, silent, drooping captive under an escort of Russian soldiers, and the Duke of Bora enthroned in the cathedral amid the shouting of the Czar"s legions.
"Barbara Lilieska," he said aloud, and with his eyes still closed, "you shall regret your insolence in putting an affront upon me in the sight of Czernova."
"Don"t be too sure of that," said an ironical voice.
The one man in Czernova whom the cardinal least desired to see on this particular night was Zabern; and yet it was Zabern who had spoken!
With a sudden start Ravenna opened his eyes to find the marshal standing with folded arms upon the other side of the table. Behind him was his orderly, Nikita. A third man, a trooper named Gabor, was in the act of locking the door of the apartment. Alive to his peril, the cardinal struck repeatedly at a bell upon the table.
"Of no use," remarked Zabern, with an ice-cold smile. "There is no one in the house but your steward, who is keeping watch at the foot of the staircase. He has lately become a spy in my service. He has just dismissed your household, bidding them go forth to view the city decorations. They will not return for an hour at least--ample time for our work."
"What do you want of me?"
"Your life."
Ravenna could not suppose that Zabern had come for anything else; nevertheless, the cool, frank avowal sent the blood to his heart with a rush.
"You would murder me?" he gasped.
"Call it murder if you will. Execution is my term."
"What is my trespa.s.s?"
""Stolen waters are sweet." Strange text for holy cardinal to address to youthful princess. You comprehend? Do you ask, then, why you should die?"
So all was known to these men. What mercy could he expect? He glanced from one to the other, but saw no pity in their stern, set faces. The trio had come to do a b.l.o.o.d.y work, and would do it. He strove to keep a cool head; he tried to reason with his would-be a.s.sa.s.sins.
"You will have to answer for what you do."
"To the saints above--yes; and I am ready. At the bar of G.o.d I"ll rest my t.i.tle to heaven on the holy deed I do to-night. To a human tribunal--no, for none shall know that you have been killed by others.
Behold!"
Zabern, as he spoke, drew forth a small cut-gla.s.s phial, half-full of a liquid resembling distilled water. The silver cap bore the inscription, "The Manna of Saint Nicholas."
"_Aqua Tophania_," continued the marshal. "Ah! you start? You recognize the phial? Yes, it has been taken from a secret drawer of your own cabinet. Why a holy cardinal should have poison in his possession is best known to himself. I can, however, testify to its efficacy, for the condemned criminal upon whom I experimented to-day died within five minutes. Pasqual Ravenna, your servants on their return will find you leaning over the table dead, clutching this empty phial in your hand. To-morrow all Slavowitz will be discussing the suicide of the cardinal archbishop. Your nephew, Redwitz of Zamoska, may send off his three sealed packets, and very much surprised the recipients will be to find nothing within them but blank papers, for the originals have been abstracted, read by the princess, and burnt."
Like one dazed by a heavy blow, Ravenna stared vacantly at the speaker, and then his eye, mechanically sinking lighted upon something white near his feet. It was the letter that he had recently written.
The sight of it suddenly quickened his blood and suggested a plan for outwitting his a.s.sa.s.sins. He was still seated at the table, and with his foot he gently pushed the letter forward till it lay concealed beneath the fringe of the overhanging damask cloth.
Upon the table itself there lay before him a doc.u.ment almost as dangerous as the letter. This was a roll of vellum with papal seals attached. It was beyond him to conceal this doc.u.ment from Zabern, whose face was set upon it with grim satisfaction.
"What have we here?" he cried, stooping over the table, and lifting the vellum. "The papal bull, as I live," he continued, glancing his eye rapidly over the doc.u.ment, and reading s.n.a.t.c.hes from it. ""We, Pio Nono ... do herewith commission our faithful brother in Christ, Pasqual Ravenna"--Angels of light! such names mingled! Christ and Ravenna!--"commission him to p.r.o.nounce sentence of anathema and excommunication against the so-called Natalie Lilieska,"--so-called, so-called," muttered Zabern, stopping in his reading with a sudden fear, and hardly daring to continue the perusal; "what does that mean?--"in that while claiming to be lawful Princess of Czernova, and a daughter of the True Church, she is an impostor who ..." Oh, devil that you are!" cried Zabern, breaking off, and grinding his teeth in anger, "so you have told that story to the Pope?"
"It is known to all the Vatican," replied Ravenna, hoping that the knowledge of the fact would restrain Zabern from his dreadful purpose.
"The Pope will understand why I am murdered, and to whom the deed should be ascribed. You will do well to pause and reflect."
Zabern"s face grew terrible in its expression, as he realized the desperate strait to which Barbara was now reduced. If the Pope were master of her secret, not only could he anathematize, but he had likewise the power of deposing her whenever he chose.
""Pause and reflect"?" said Zabern, repeating Ravenna"s words. "Why, this disposes me more than ever to slay you. What motive have I for keeping you alive? So, cardinal," he continued, after a brief pause, "you would have come to the coronation, robed in full canonicals, with the Latin clergy of Czernova at your back, to interdict Abbot Faustus from performing the ceremony, to read the Pope"s rescript, and to anathematize the princess with bell, book, and candle. Vain your hopes! This papal bull shall not be read in the cathedral to-morrow, for here is the end of it."
With these words Zabern raised the doc.u.ment to the flame of the candelabrum, and there held it till the vellum had shrivelled to blackened flakes.
"That the Pope should sign his name to such rhodomontade!" he muttered contemptuously. "He threatens us; let him beware of his own downfall.
The House of Savoy shall be our avengers. The Sardinian king will never rest till he himself shall reign at Rome."
A prediction destined to be fulfilled.
Zabern, resolving to show cause for the slaying of Ravenna, seated himself in a chair, rested his elbow upon the table, his face upon his hand, and glared across the crimson damask.
"Cardinal, when you told the Pope that story, did you tell him the whole of it? How the Princess Natalie met her death, for example?"
"The Princess Natalie committed suicide at Castel Nuovo."
"True; and so you told her father, Prince Thaddeus, but you did not tell him her reason for the act. Let us hear it."
Ravenna was silent.
"The truth is that you had become possessed of unhallowed desires towards that fair princess during your tour with her around the sh.o.r.es of the Adriatic. When at Zara you proposed a visit to your place, Castel Nuovo, and the princess, doubting nothing, willingly accompanied you. While there you made certain proposals to her, who was so innocent in mind that she failed to understand you, and wonderingly repeated your words to the housekeeper Jacintha. Full well did Jacintha know your object in bringing that young girl there. For, holy cardinal, Natalie was not the first. You were ever eloquent in persuading youthful widows and maidens to renounce the world and to take the veil. It was your practice to escort your victims to some convent in Dalmatia, and the journey was always broken at Castel Nuovo. When your _protegees_ left that place they had good reason for wishing to hide themselves in a convent.
"To such a point of depravity and recklessness had your nature grown that you could not refrain, even where a princess was concerned. At Castel Nuovo there was a secret pa.s.sage leading from your study to the chamber where Natalie slept. In the silence and darkness of the night you stole down to accomplish your wicked purpose. When I think of the shame and horror of that poor girl"s awakening, her imploring words and cries--"
At this point Nikita, thinking of his own youthful daughter, who once upon a time had been almost persuaded by Ravenna to adopt a conventual life, could no longer restrain himself.
"Have at you!" he cried fiercely, drawing his sabre.
The stroke aimed by him at the cardinal"s head was intercepted by the sword of the quick-moving Zabern.
"Hold, Nikita. No clumsy work. No betrayal of ourselves. Toffana"s h.e.l.l-drops will do the trick more safely. Put up your weapon."
When the other had somewhat reluctantly obeyed, Zabern resumed,--
"Next morning the wretched princess, rendered completely insane by the thought of her dishonor, staggered through the secret pa.s.sage, and after invoking the vengeance of heaven upon you, she stabbed herself and so died.
"By some means you prevailed upon Lambro and Jacintha to maintain silence on the part played by you in this tragedy. A message was sent to Prince Thaddeus, who happened at this time to be at Zara. He came; wept over his daughter"s suicide; wondered what motive could have prompted the deed, but never suspected the holy cardinal. Pasqual Ravenna, do you deny the truth of this?"
No answer came from the accused.
"Cardinal, such guilt as yours would be ill-atoned for by an after-life of penance in monastic cell, in sackcloth and ashes, with scourgings and with diet of bitter herbs. But, untroubled by the crime, dead to the voice of conscience, you mingle unashamedly with your fellow-men, you aspire to play the statesman--nay, you hesitate not to minister in the holiest rites of religion. Was it not enough for you to have destroyed Natalie, but that you must seek to draw her sister to your arms? And because our princess would remain virtuous and good, you in your black rage would come forward at the coronation to-morrow, and, by lying words--for none know better than yourself that she is the lawful daughter of Thaddeus--you would seek to procure her dethronement. Never slew I man yet, save with regret; now for the first time do I take pleasure in killing a fellow-mortal.
"Pasqual Ravenna, your last hour has come. To-night shall Princess Natalie"s dying cry be answered. The maidens whom you have wronged shall be avenged."
Something glittered in Zabern"s hand. It was a surgical instrument of steel, designed for forcing open the jaws of persons bent on keeping them shut.
Holding this dreadful instrument, together with the poison-phial, in his left and only hand, Zabern motioned Nikita and Gabor to grip the cardinal by the arms.