CHAPTER XXIV

St. Hilary and I were smiling at ourselves before the pier-glass in my bedroom. It seemed to me quite impossible that we could be recognized.

As a captain of the Inquisitorial Guard St. Hilary was inimitable. His black eyes, as bright and piercing as any swashbuckler’s, glowed through the velvet mask with a ferocity that was startling. His leanness and agility, the stiff carriage of his compact and sinewy little body, the gray goatee and mustachios, all distinctive of St. Hilary, were quite as distinctive of the part he had taken. Nothing could be more thoroughly foreign, more Italian.

He was pleased to approve of me. A magnificent robe of old Genoese velvet, bordered with ermine, the Doge’s cap, with one great stone glowing in the front, made of me a most imposing personage. The velvet mask completed my disguise. We might or might not be mistaken for the two gallant young noblemen whose costumes St. Hilary had “squeezed” from them, but at least we were not ourselves.

244And so, seated stiffly upright, not to crush our gorgeous costumes, we started late in the evening for the ball at the C?sarini Palace.

Propelled with vigorous strokes, we swept down the Grand Canal. It was impossible not to enter into the adventure with spirit and abandon. Our going to the ball was audacious enough. But the ball itself was a mere bagatelle to us. We were about to loot a palace. It is not every day that one has such big game to key one’s nerves to fighting pitch.

We glided silently and swiftly down the broad stream. Glimmering lanterns of other gondolas danced about us. Every moment we overtook and were passed by guests. Every Rio poured forth its tribute, a doge, a monk, a queen, a knight. As we neared the palace the gondolas almost touched, so dense was the throng. A compact mass, we drifted toward the blaze of light pouring from the open hall of the C?sarini Palace.

Slowly, one by one, the gondolas were deftly guided to the marble steps. St. Hilary grasped my arm. He whispered his last instructions. I was not an adept at this sort of thing.

“We must keep together as much as possible. But first, we shall have to separate. To find our way to the tower, that is the main thing. If you 245find the way clear thither, you must indicate it to me by resting your forefinger lightly on your thigh. I shall show you I have found it by resting the same finger on the hilt of my dagger. Once in the tower, we can determine our next move. The chances are that it will be open to the guests from the garden. A dark tower is an admirable retreat for a couple to make love in.”

As St. Hilary was whispering these words in my ear, my attention was distracted by the gondola floating by our side. Its oarsmen were vainly attempting to cut across our bows. Our own gondoliers were unwilling to give way. Before I could interfere, we had jammed the other gondola against the variegated red and blue posts placed before every Venetian palace. Instantly the curtains of the felsa of the neighboring gondola were drawn aside. The head of a cardinal was thrust out. Forgetting that I was in costume, I drew back to avoid being seen. The cardinal was Duke da Sestos. He had doffed his mask while he shouted to our men to make way. Awed by the ducal coronet on his gondola, our oarsmen paused. The other shot forward and drew up at the steps of the palace. Alighting there, the duke handed out two ladies. I recognized them as Mrs. Gordon 246and Jacqueline, in spite of their masks and disguise.

In our turn we paused at the water’s edge. Servants dressed in the costume of the gondoliers of the fifteenth century stood in a row to receive us. Two of them steadied the gondola; another placed his little platform of green baize; the fourth offered a deferential arm. I gathered my robe about me, and we stepped from the platform to the crimson carpet. Surrendering our tickets to our friend the majordomo, who bowed to us much more courteously than he had done the day before, we advanced slowly down the hall, glowing with a thousand candles. I noticed with satisfaction that the doors of glass leading into the garden were wide open. We should have no difficulty in entering the tower, then, unless its gates were locked. The full moon fell with a soft radiance on the playing fountain, the statues, and the bare whiteness of Italian seats. But we dared not enter the garden.

With a Mephistopheles crowding me close on one side and St. Hilary on the other, the train of a Lucretia Borgia dragging in front, and the lance of a Don Quixote poking me in the back, I ascended a stairway, impressively noble in its 247proportions. Along its entire length at intervals were placed busts of some great ancestor of the House of C?sarini. They stood in niches of the wall and on the balustrade of each turn of the stairway.

The grand staircase ended in a great square hall. A full-length portrait of Prince C?sarini on horseback looked down on us. A row of servants stood at the two open folding-doors leading into the sala. On either side of the sala were the usual reception-rooms and card-rooms.

This sala of the C?sarini Palace, one of the most impressive in Venice, both in size and plan, is a square apartment, one side facing the Grand Canal, the other, a little side canal. Quite two-thirds of the room is raised above the rest of the floor, and is ascended by three marble steps. The effect on entering was indescribably brilliant. Dancing had already commenced on this immense dais. Every moment a couple descended and ascended the marble steps. The air was heavy with perfume. The strange costumes were reflected in a score of mirrors sunk in the walls at intervals between the tapestries. Through the velvet masks gleamed dark and languorous eyes that beckoned and challenged seductively. Already here and there a nymph 248fled with light laughter; a satyr pursued with eager eyes. One felt that license would go far before these masks were removed at supper.

I missed St. Hilary almost immediately. Jacqueline and the duke were dancing. I watched them gloomily. On what mad errand were St. Hilary and I bent to-night? We had forced ourselves here by browbeating two weak young fools, who were no doubt quite ready to turn and rend us. If we were exposed! And before Jacqueline! We were absolutely no more respectable than two thieves whose eyes are fixed greedily on the silver spoons.

My arm was jogged. St. Hilary stood beside me. His eyes danced. His forefinger rested lightly on the hilt of his dagger. I strolled after him. He led the way directly to one of the camerini. He paused before a Titian. I stared at a Giorgione. He sauntered on. I kept him just in sight. We passed through half a dozen of the square little rooms. We entered the last of them, where several men were gathered about a punch-bowl. St. Hilary dropped into a chair in the corner. I occupied the chair next to him. Presently, when a burst of loud laughter came from the men at the punch-bowl, he leaned forward and picked up an imaginary pin. “I know where the casket is.”

249I started violently.

“I have traced it from the tower.”

“You have traced it from the tower!” I repeated incredulously.

“To this room,” he whispered. “You remember the scene of the seventh hour?”

“And in the seven and twentieth day of the month was the earth dried,” I murmured.

“Precisely. The twenty-seven steps from the summit of the tower bring one to a door that opens on a passage. The other door to that passage is just to the right of your chair.”

“And how do you know that?” I demanded, staring at it.

“A lady fainted a few minutes ago. She was carried through that door to the landing for air. While the door was open I made good use of my opportunity, and I have taken the precaution to put the key of the door opening on to the tower into my pocket.”

I looked about me eagerly for the eighth landmark. The four walls were not suggestive.

“The painted ceiling,” prompted St. Hilary.

I looked upward. The decoration of the ceiling represented a king rising from his throne in the act of greeting a woman who made obeisance before him. I recognized the figures as those of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. 250The throne had six steps. At the base of the steps crouched two lions.

“And now that we have found the eighth landmark?” I asked quietly.

“The numbers are 6 and 2,” he whispered. Then aloud, in Italian, “Shall we go into the ball-room?”

I took St. Hilary’s arm. We passed through a succession of reception-rooms, and as we entered each room I felt the familiar and significant pressure. Passing through six of these rooms, we were in the sala again.

The decorous dancing of an hour ago had given way to a rout, a pageant, a scene of childish abandon and folly. The younger of the aristocracy of Venice had each assumed some classic character. Arm in arm, a wild procession of shepherds crowned with chaplets, bacchantes, and goddesses romped across the stage. There was Jason with his golden fleece, Thetis with her sea-nymphs, Orpheus with a pair of loving-birds on his wrist.

Round and round the great ball-room, up and down the marble steps, swept the procession. Presently it stopped abruptly. With a wild shout, they swept down on the laughing spectators; each Jack chose an incongruous Jill. 251Apollo made captive Catherine di Medici; Pomona, Falstaff; Hebe, Mephistopheles.

Too late, St. Hilary and I turned to flee. A chain of flowers deftly tossed by white arms made us prisoners, St. Hilary to Diana, myself to a Mermaid. The grotesque mob again formed in procession. To the flourish of trumpets and the beating of drums, after encircling the ball-room once more, they proceeded to the supper-room. There, of course, each was expected to unmask.

It was impossible to retreat. Every step brought us nearer to exposure and disgrace. This knowledge, disagreeable enough in itself, was made doubly embarrassing when my fair jailer whispered coyly in my ear that not all the disguise in the world could deceive her. It was evident, of course, that she had taken me for the man whose costume I wore, and that tender passages had passed between the two before now. I muttered some incoherent reply. I followed miserably after St. Hilary and his inamorata.

But even at the eleventh hour came a reprieve. St. Hilary had guided his fair unknown past the supper-room, down the stairway. I followed his example. At the foot of the stairway we turned 252to the right, and so made our way into the moonlight of the garden. The shades of Elysium are not more grateful to perturbed spirits than was to us the dark bower overgrown with yellow jessamine and honeysuckle. But the girl at my side had become suspicious. I had spoken no word. She drew back in alarm. At that instant St. Hilary’s Diana discovered her mistake. There was an hysterical cry from each of the girls. Together they fled down the path to the palace, while St. Hilary followed them with mocking laughter. Then we plunged into the arbor. We were saved.