Locked in each other"s arms, the two men swayed backwards and forwards, and then fell, rolling over and over.
Paul"s cry, together with the noise of the scuffle, had attracted the notice of the guard posted at the end of the corridor leading to this chamber. The shouting of voices and the running of feet were heard on the other side of the door.
"Ho! Lasco, off to the captain for the key. The devil"s work is going on within. How have they managed to get inside? Ah, by the window!
Melchior, up to the battlement, and cover the window with your rifle.
See they escape not! Now, Lasco, dolt! dullard! s...o...b..dy! don"t stand gaping there. Run for the key. The key, man, the key!"
"The key _is_ here!" cried a deep, powerful voice. And above the oaths and gasps of his struggling opponent, Paul could hear Zabern"s Hessian boots clattering along the corridor.
"Lasco, quick! Yon lamp! hold it up!" cried the marshal. "Gabor and Melchior, as I open the door, rush in and cover them with your rifles.
Now!"
The key rattled in the lock; the ma.s.sive door swung back upon its hinges, and the two sentinels, eager to learn what was taking place, rushed in with rifles levelled, ready to fire at any one who should offer resistance.
They paused in blank amazement at beholding by the light of the lamp one of their own corps stretched supine and panting, with Paul Woodville above pinning him to the floor by the throat.
"Why, it"s Michael!" cried Gabor.
Even in the midst of his excitement Paul observed that Zabern was carrying in his hand a sheet of paper which he recognized as his translation of the cipher despatch.
"In time, thank heaven!" murmured the marshal, from which remark Paul concluded that the mission of the traitor-sentinel was connected in some way with Orloff"s letter.
"Gabor, Lasco, Melchior, leave us. Close the door; retire to the far end of the corridor, and on your lives stir not from that spot till I call."
The three sentinels retired.
"Good-night to Michael!" whispered Gabor to his two comrades. "We shall never see him again. I know that look in the marshal"s eye."
Paul, little the worse for the struggle, released his hold of the soldier and rose to his feet. But it was beyond the power of the other to rise. Fear, inspired by the presence of the dark-frowning Zabern, kept him motionless and mute. He sat the picture of abject terror.
Now that Paul was free to look around, he observed that he was within a vaulted stone chamber, about twenty feet square, and but scantily supplied with furniture. In one part there was a small iron chest fixed to the wall with staples. Paul, by some intuition, divined that Michael"s nefarious attempt was directed against the contents of this chest.
Zabern made one swift stride towards the coffer, and seemed relieved at finding it locked.
Turning again, he folded his arms and faced the man with a terrible frown.
"I shall not ask your object in coming here. You and I both know that.
So you haven"t got it?"
Michael made no reply.
"It is still safe?"
Michael remained mute. He seemed literally frozen with terror.
"Why so silent, fellow? Your tongue wagged ever loudest in the guard-house."
"When I first entered," observed Paul, "smoke hung about the place."
An enthusiastic orator in the Diet had once described Zabern as "the man who had never known fear." The statement, if true at the time of the utterance, was certainly not true now. Fear in all its power fell upon the heart of the marshal as his eye caught sight of a pa.s.sage in the paper which he held: "Risk of discovery in transmitting doc.u.ment.
Therefore burn as soon as seized."
"h.e.l.l shall seize you, fellow, if you have done so!" he cried. "Did you come provided with a key, then? Where is it?"
Still Michael made no reply. Zabern, following the direction of his eyes, perceived a key lying upon the floor. The marshal placed it within the lock of the chest, turned it, raised the lid, and saw that the coffer contained nothing but a heap of charred parchment. Zabern, his mouth drawn in an agony that showed all his white teeth, rose, and with a dreadful look in his eyes turned slowly round upon the guilty man.
A cry for mercy rang through the chamber as the marshal sprang forward with drawn sabre. His was not a "prentice hand; he knew exactly where to find the fifth rib. A swift stab,--the fall of a body, and then all was silent, save for the mournful plash of the rain outside.
Paul was shocked by the ferocity of Zabern"s action, which had been performed with a quickness that left no time for intervention.
"Without a court-martial!" he said, severely. "We act not so in England."
"I dare not let him live to see those fellows outside again, lest they should learn from him what he has done. Not a hint as to his deed must ever get abroad; for he who knows it holds the destiny of Czernova in the hollow of his hand. Not even to a secret tribunal must the truth be whispered. And, Captain Woodville," continued Zabern, raising his dripping sabre with so menacing an air that Paul immediately stepped backward, and set hand to his own sword-hilt, "if I thought that you could not hold your peace I would slay you, too."
"What has he done?" asked Paul, impressed by the marshal"s strange manner.
"The blackest deed that could be done against the princess, and one that has destroyed the liberties of a whole people. Your decipherment of the secret despatch has come too late to do us good,--too late. Oh!
the bitterness of it, by a few moments only."
"I am still in the dark, marshal."
"On what is the liberty of Czernova based? On the Charter granted to us by Catherine of Russia. And that Charter is now burnt paper. This is the first act in the drama. The next will be, as this despatch shows, the appearance of an envoy from the Czar to demand on what grounds Czernova, formerly a part of Russian Poland, claims to be independent. What answer can we give? What t.i.tle can we show? Without our Charter we are completely at the mercy of the Czar. His ministers will loudly affirm that such Charter was never granted, that we have obtained autonomy by a lying statement, that all extant copies of the Charter are based upon a mythical doc.u.ment, that its mention in history is no proof of its past existence. "Let us see the original,"
will be their cry. "Produce the autograph signature of the Empress Catherine." Now do you understand the crime that this miscreant has wrought?"
The diabolical nature of the plot struck Paul with a feeling akin to horror. His thoughts immediately flew to Barbara, sleeping peacefully at that moment in her distant quarter of the palace, all unconscious of this new peril that threatened her throne. He felt little pity now for the slain wretch lying at his feet.
"Why did he not carry off the doc.u.ment to Russia?"
"The secret despatch a.s.signs the reason. It was more expedient to destroy it as soon as it fell into his hands. The sequel proves the serpentine wisdom of Orloff. Had this fellow concealed the Charter upon his own person it would now be in our keeping again. Oh! I could tear out my eyes for having kept such sorry watch! "Warden of the Charter" is one of my t.i.tles. A pretty warden, truly! Fortunately you and I alone know that Russia"s plot has succeeded, for those sentries at the end of the corridor are ignorant of it; in fact they do not even know that the Charter was kept here, in this, the Eagle Tower."
"I fear, marshal, that there are others who know," said Paul, picking up a lantern with a blue gla.s.s slide. "This was flashed to and fro at the window,--what else but as a signal to some distant watcher that the Charter is no more?"
The marshal ground his teeth as he recognized the force of Paul"s inference.
"Then we may expect the Czar"s envoy at an early date," he replied.
"This villain," he continued, examining the window, "gained ingress by removing the concrete in which the bars were embedded,--a task which must have occupied two or three nights. What were the patrol on the roof doing to allow of this?"
"He himself was one of the patrol," said Paul, quickly adding, "Ah!
that reminds me. There is a second fellow on the battlements whom I knocked senseless with his own rifle."
"Another? By heaven, Captain Woodville, you have done wrong in forgetting him. If he should have escaped with the tidings of what has been done!"
Zabern darted from the chamber, and, rushing past the three sentinels standing at the end of the corridor, he ran up a winding staircase that led to the roof. He was closely followed by Paul. The traitor-sentry was still lying in the place where Paul had left him.
Zabern"s examination did not last a moment.
"He will never play the traitor again," remarked the marshal. "You have shattered his skull for him. And without a court-martial, too!"
he added, dryly.
Having called up Gabor and his two companions, Zabern directed them to inter the two bodies, at the same time enjoining the trio to observe strict secrecy upon the events of that night; after which orders he proceeded to pace moodily to and fro upon the battlements in company with Paul, who, puzzled by one circ.u.mstance in the affair, sought enlightenment of the marshal.