CHAPTER II

THE CASTLE BY THE SEA

Walking onward a few paces they came to the path mentioned in the guide-book.

Few words were spoken, for Paul, knowing that his fair companion was tired, famished, and sleepy, purposely refrained from conversation.

Once, however, the silence was broken, when the lady timidly ventured to ask his name, which being given, he in turn requested the like favor from her.

"I have been taught to call myself Barbara," was her answer, which Paul could not but think was a somewhat odd way of expressing herself.

Barbara! If he had not thought it a pretty name before, he certainly thought it such now.

"And Barbara," he murmured, more to himself than to his companion, "means 'strange.'"

"I fear you will find my character correspondent."

"But you have a second name?" smiled Paul.

"Presumably, but I am in ignorance respecting it, for my parentage is unknown to me. Indeed, signor, it is true," she added sadly. "I am a mystery to myself."

Her statement filled Paul with wonder, but though desirous of learning her history he recognized that the time was scarcely yet ripe to press for confidences.

The path traversed by them formed a gradual descent, in parts so steep that Barbara would often have slipped but for Paul's strong arm. The murmur of the sea was now heard; a faint breeze blew coldly; finally emerging from the wood, they found themselves on an open gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce shelving down to the beach.

There, distant about a hundred yards, stood the building that they sought--Castel Nuovo.

The retention of the epithet "Nuovo" was perhaps intended as a joke on the part of the Dalmatians. Like the rest of earthly things the castle must once have been new, but that once, judging by appearances, was a long time ago. The greater part of the edifice was in ruins, the stars glimmering through the vacant window s.p.a.ces and through the gaps that yawned in the ivy-mantled walls.

A ma.s.sive, square built tower perched on a rock that overhung the sea, seemed the portion likeliest to be tenanted, if tenanted at all, for signs of human presence were wanting. Neither light nor sound came from it.

Silent and ghostly in the cold starlight rose the gray tower, the sea splashing with melancholy murmur at the foot of the crag.

The brief notice contained in the guide-book--"Castel Nuovo, an old mansion, residence of the Marquis Orsino"--did not suggest a place like this, a place seeming to be desolated by the curse of some past tragedy; and as Paul contemplated the scene, a feeling of misgiving stole over him,--a misgiving which found reflection in Barbara's face.

Seating his companion upon a fallen column, Paul went forward to reconnoitre. Crossing the gra.s.s-grown pavement of what had once been a stately loggia, he mounted the mossy fractured steps leading to the door of the tower. On the lintel was sculptured, "Marino Faliero, 1348"--proof that the castle dated from the days when the Venetians held sway in Dalmatia.

No sooner had Paul rapped upon the ma.s.sive oaken door than a terrible din arose from within. His summons had startled into wakefulness a menagerie of dogs, and these, judging by their deep ba.s.s, brutes of the largest size.

A cas.e.m.e.nt high above the portal opened immediately, and an old man's voice cried,--

"Is that you, Master?"

The question was spoken in Romaic, a language with which Paul had become familiar by reason of his residence in Corfu.

He directed his eyes upward, but the speaker was invisible. Familiar perhaps with the attacks of banditti, he was too cautious to expose his person as a target for a pistol-shot.

Stepping back, the better to be heard, and speaking in Romaic, the better to be understood, Paul explained his object in knocking, withholding the fact, however, that the lady with him had escaped from a convent, lest it should dispose the old man to decline so dangerous a fugitive.

"You cannot stay here," was the answer, when Paul had finished speaking.

"I will pay you, and that handsomely, for the trouble we give."

"It's not a question of money. This house is not mine, and I cannot open it to whom I will. I have received strict orders from the Master to admit no one during his absence. If he should return and find me entertaining strangers, I should suffer."

"Your master, whoever he may be, never meant that you should turn away at midnight a young lady exhausted by a twelve hours' wandering in the forest without food. I ask not for myself, but for her. It is but for a single night."

"A single hour would be too long."

Paul stood dismayed by the old man's churlishness. He pictured Barbara's look of distress on announcing that he had brought her on a bootless errand.

"You a Greek," he cried, "to refuse hospitality to an Englishman, whose uncle fought for Greece--"

This appeal wrought a remarkable change in the old man.

"What do you say you are?"

"An Englishman, nephew of Colonel Graysteel, commandant of the British forces at Corfu, and--"

"An Englishman! Why the devil didn't you say so before? I took you for a d.a.m.ned Austrian. And you are the nephew of old 'Fighting Graysteel'?

I was with him at Missolonghi. Wait. I'll be down in a moment. Hi, Jacintha, Jacintha," he added, addressing some one within. "Get up, or I'll throw something at your head."

The old man withdrew from the cas.e.m.e.nt, and Paul concluded that he was coming downstairs, for the baying of the dogs gradually ceased; there were sounds suggestive of the idea that he was kicking them into some place of safety.

"Jacintha?" thought Paul. "The old fellow's wife, daughter, or servant? Whoever she may be, I am glad for the young lady's sake that a woman lives here."

Footsteps were now audible in the pa.s.sage. A little panel in the upper part of the door slid aside revealing an iron grating, behind which appeared a man's face set in a square of light.

"No tricks with me. Now, mylordos, if you are what you say you are, speak to me in English, for though I don't talk the language myself I understand it when spoken by others."

"Open the door, and give me some supper--" began Paul.

"Ah! you're an Englishman, all over," interrupted the other with a dry chuckle. "The first thing he thinks of is his belly."

And the inmate, apparently satisfied with this credential of nationality, swung open the great iron-studded door and revealed himself.

He was a little man, and though past seventy years of age, his form had lost little of the elasticity and strength of youth. His thin curved nose was extremely suggestive of the beak of an eagle, a resemblance increased by his bright piercing eyes. His hair was white and flowing, and his moustaches were of such a length that he had tied them together at the back of his head.

His attire was gorgeous in the extreme, and he was evidently very proud of the fact. He wore an open jacket that was a perfect marvel of silk, velvet, and rows of silver b.u.t.tons; a white fustanella or kilt glittering with embroidery of gold; and gaiters and slippers rich with the same decoration. Altogether he was one of the strangest creatures that Paul had ever beheld.

In one hand he carried a yataghan, and in the other a lighted lamp, and he bowed low with theatrical grace.

"Since you are an Englishman, enter. Welcome, ten thousand welcomes,"

he cried, waving his sparkling yataghan around, as if inviting Paul to take entire possession of the castle. "Every Englishman is my brother, for did not your countrymen fight for the liberation of Greece? Can we ever forget Navarino? You see before you the friend, the companion-in-arms of General Church and Lord Cochrane. You must have heard your uncle talk of me,--Lambro the Turcophage, with whose name Ottoman mothers still frighten their children, by telling them how Lambro, whenever food ran short in the camp, never hesitated to roast and eat his Turkish prisoners. Ah!" Like a ghoul he smacked his lips at the memory of those repasts. "Yes, to me, and to men like me, Greece owes the freedom that she now enjoys. I should be great to-day, and hold high office under King Otho: but what am I? What you see. The custodian of an old ruin. This is national grat.i.tude, mylordos. It is thus that h.e.l.las rewards those who have shed their blood for her."