CHAPTER XXVI

The garden was dark. Only the bloom of a cherry tree and a line of lilies planted the length of the pergola showed white against the gloom. The waning moon hardly touched the top of the garden wall now, but fell full on the palace windows and the tower.

No light was to be seen. The last guest had departed. The Princess Caesarini was grand enough lady to have her own ways in spite of those of the world; and one of them was to be in bed by two o’clock.

The question was, where should I find St. Hilary? I should look for him first, of course, in the tower. It was barely possible that he had waited for me. Scarcely half an hour had passed since I left the palace.

He was seated on the parapet, quietly smoking. He greeted me grimly.

“Well, you have made a nice mess of things. I should have known that failure is always the result of one’s mixing up business and sentiment. 264There can be no search for the casket to-night. Come, let’s be going.”

“Nonsense, St. Hilary,” I cried sharply. “You know very well we shall finish our search to-night. It is natural that you should feel some annoyance–not with me, but with circumstances. I promised you I would not betray myself; but could you have lain quiet in my place?”

“Of course I could,” he mumbled.

“As to there being no further search, why did you wait here if you intended to relinquish it? Why did you not go on with it alone? You have waited, hoping I should return.”

“But you deliberately told the duke that you were hiding, waiting for a chance to find the casket. At least you hinted as much. He understood you to mean that. For aught we know he has put the palace on its guard.”

“Yes,” I answered angrily, “I told him that–deliberately. What else could I do? He must have guessed. But after discovering me, would he think it likely that I should return to continue the search? No. He has seen me leave the palace. He has followed me, or had me followed, to my rooms. He thinks that I am in bed. I am certain that no one has followed me here. He has seen me go out of the palace. He has 265not seen me return. There is the matter in a nutshell.”

“But has he seen me go out?” demanded St. Hilary.

“Are you sure he knows you were at the ball?”

“Ah, that’s the question. I think we ought to fling up our search for to-night.”

“I do not. The finding of that casket is my only chance for happiness now. Where is the key?”

“It is quite useless. It unlocks the outer door of the passage, but the inner door defies this key and some skeleton keys I have with me. Confound these old Italian locks! That round window over your head is the only chance. If you give me a leg up, I think I can pry it open and squeeze through.”

So that was why he had waited! He had attempted, then, to carry on the search without me; he had waited for me only because he had found my help absolutely necessary. Suddenly, I mistrusted St. Hilary. It seemed difficult for his mind to work in normal grooves. Deceit and lying were as natural to him as breathing. And yet, with one exception, he had been fair and generous with me. Was it only to discard me when I was of no further use?

266“But where does the window lead?” I demanded.

“We must take our chances as to that. I am the slighter. Let me go through first.”

I stooped down and braced my arms against the wall. He lightly sprang on my shoulders. I felt him strain and tug at the casement. Then I heard a crack. Waiting a moment to be sure that the slight noise had not aroused any one, he spurned my shoulders, and leaped upward. For an instant his body hovered comically in mid-air. Then it disappeared.

I stood motionless against the wall, listening with all my ears. Five minutes passed, and I began to wonder if he had deserted me, when his head appeared through the window.

“I am standing on a bench. Jump, and catch my hands. This is the only chance to get into the palace that I can see.”

I measured the window with my eye. I kicked a bit of mortar from between two stones in the wall. Edging my toe in, I sprang up. Twice I failed to reach his outstretched arms, but the third time I was successful. A strenuous minute, and I stood panting beside him.

We entered a draughty passage. St. Hilary went confidently to the door at the end, and pushing 267it open, he struck a match. We were in an anteroom. Huge presses ran up to the ceiling on three of the walls. The fourth wall was paneled, and in spite of my excitement, or perhaps because of it, I saw that it was covered with names carved in the oak. In other days this had undoubtedly been the page’s room. And now I had another proof of St. Hilary’s keenness. He opened the door of what I supposed to be one of the presses, and we were in the sala. The air was yet heavy with the smell of perfume and crushed flowers.

“Shall I light one of these candles?” I whispered. “Is it safe?”

He nodded, and I took one of the candles from its sconce. St. Hilary stood by the great fireplace, where two lions crouched.

“These must be the two lions of the eighth landmark,” I said.

I held the candle high above my head. As the light flared, vague spectral forms seemed to spring out of the darkness and to vanish. Our shadows, gigantic and monstrous, danced grotesquely on the polished floor. In a dozen mirrors our figures were dimly reflected.

“The ninth hour?” demanded St. Hilary hoarsely.

268“And Joseph said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream, and behold, the sun and moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me,” I answered.

He clutched my arm. He pointed far above the mantel.

At first I did not understand. In front of us yawned the great fireplace. Two bowed and wearied giants supported the hooded marble mantel, their feet braced fantastically against the two crouching lions. The polished breasts and thighs of the figures glowed in the faint candle-light. Above, the space from the mantel to the very ceiling was filled with paneling, dark and somber with age and smoke, all richly and delicately carved, a design infinitely confusing with its entwined and intricate figures. A medley of chariots and horses, armored warriors and banners, all impossibly crowded together, like a frieze in a Greek temple–that is my vague impression of the carving.

“The sun and the moon and the eleven stars,” muttered St. Hilary, still pointing.

Suddenly I understood. It was the scene of Joshua going forth to battle, commanding the sun and moon to stand still. On the right shone the sun, its rays naively depicted; on the left shone the moon. Joshua held a banner in his hand, and on the banner were eleven stars.

269“There must be a spring concealed in the paneling. If we strike one of those stars––”

St. Hilary did not finish his sentence. He carried a console table toward the mantel. For once I was the quicker. I caught the mantel, braced myself on one of the giants, and so lifted myself up on it.

I struck each of the stars in turn sharply with my palm.

“Here–the dagger,” cried St. Hilary, and taking the dagger he wore from his belt he tossed it up to me. Again I struck each of the stars with the hilt of the dagger. One moment I was staring at the paneling; the next, the paneling to the right of the chimney had slid noiselessly up and I was looking into a square hole big enough to admit one’s body.

A clock somewhere in the palace struck the hour of four.

“It is the hour,” I whispered, staring down at St. Hilary. “We are to inherit Time’s legacy at last.”

St. Hilary did not answer. He was scrambling up on the table.

I waved him back imperatively. His lack of self-control restored mine. Now that I was here I had no intention of giving way to him.

“Get down,” I cried. “Are you mad? One 270of us must keep watch. Before I crawl up into the shaft I shall lower the paneled door. Push away the table there. If any one should come––”

The sentence died on my lips. His sallow face, lighted by the feeble flicker of the candle, was flushed with intense excitement. One thinks of the taper as standing before holy altars, shining on meek-eyed Madonnas and saints. But the candle he held before him revealed something of the cunning greed of the miser in his glittering eyes, something of the fierce desire of the madman. He stood perfectly motionless, gazing upward at the ceiling. One might have thought he was in a trance.

“St. Hilary! St. Hilary!” I cried, shocked at this display of emotion. “What is it, man?”

His lips tried hard to speak, but no words came from them. Then he pointed upward to the beams above his head. I followed his tense gaze. Then I understood his strange excitement.

As in all Venetian palaces, the ceiling of this sala grande was made of massive beams stretching from wall to wall. The space between these sunken beams was covered with boards nailed on top of them.

In one of these sunken beams da Sestos had 271hidden the casket. I could see it as I stood on the mantel, just out of my reach.

The spring that had released the paneling must have opened at the same time a tiny door at the side of this beam. As I moved my candle, I caught the gleam of shining metal. We had found the casket. The last three scenes of the hours, then, were meaningless.

I crawled into the shaft. I stood erect. My head was on a level with a space hardly more than a foot high between the ceiling of the sala and the floor of the apartment above. I drew myself painfully along this narrow interstice, St. Hilary’s dagger in one hand and the candle in the other. When I had reached what I thought to be the location of the casket, I brushed the dust away, and I saw several brass nails driven into the boards, forming a small circle. I struck at the circle with the sharp dagger until I could thrust my arm through the aperture I had made. I felt along the beam immediately below, and I touched the cold metal. My fingers traveled lovingly over its smooth surface. Slowly and carefully I drew the casket from its hiding-place. It was heavy–incredibly heavy. Very faintly I heard St. Hilary utter a cry of joy. I closed the little door of the beam, then I lowered 272myself into the shaft again, the precious casket clasped in both my hands. But the shaft was too narrow for me to leave it and still hold the casket. I must hand it first to St. Hilary. I stooped down and held it out. I had heard him step from the table to the mantel.

“Here it is, St. Hilary,” I said hoarsely.

It was clutched, brutally, out of my lingering grasp. A sharp blow struck my hand, then there was darkness. The paneled door had been closed. I heard the spring click as it shut tight. St. Hilary had played me false. Too late I thought of my distrust of him.

I pulled myself up into the shaft again to fetch the dagger I had left on the floor above. I struck the paneling along the edge of the top until I had located the spring. Then I hacked at the hard board till I felt it give way. I raised it cautiously and stepped out on the mantel. It had taken me half an hour to free myself.