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.