"You paid no heed to Natalie's screams, nor will I to yours."

He thought no more now of safeguarding himself by imparting to the murder the appearance of suicide.

"To h.e.l.l, and say that Zabern sent you."

Foaming with fury, he dealt not one, but many strokes at the kneeling, swaying figure, with its feebly upraised hands. Nikita and Gabor, equally frenzied, joined in the savage work.

The three miserable men wiped their b.l.o.o.d.y sabres upon the window-curtains, and stared down upon the carpet at something which had once been a man.

The clock-tower of the cathedral now sent forth the sweet and pretty carillon that always heralded the striking of the hour. Then after a solemn interval came the first peal of midnight.

"The princess's coronation day!" said Nikita.

"Humph! will there be any coronation?" muttered Zabern.

"Hark to the shouting!" said Gabor.

From every quarter of the capital, from the groups moving to and fro along the route of the intended procession, from s.p.a.cious square and narrow alley, from the brilliantly illuminated hotel, and from the obscure private dwelling, came the sound of cheering, gradually swelling into one prolonged universal roar. The gala-day had come at last!

Zabern with a grim smile looked towards the north. The heaven in that direction was tinged with a red glow from the thousands of watch-fires in the Czar's camp--that camp towards which the swift-flying dove was now winging its course with the tidings fatal to Czernova. How long would it be ere that huge array came pouring across the border to depose the princess, and to establish the duke upon--

Zabern started.

Ere the shouting of the joyous populace had died away, a new and startling sound was reverberating through the night air. It was the boom of a single cannon, and that at no great distance. Its significance was intuitively divined by Zabern.

"The Citadel-gun!" he cried, recoiling from the window. "By G.o.d, the duke has escaped!"

CHAPTER XVII

THE BEGINNING OF THE CORONATION

The morning of Barbara's coronation broke soft and sunny; it seemed almost impossible that anything disastrous could happen on a day so fair.

Prior to setting off for the cathedral the princess entertained her ministers at breakfast. She herself occupied the head of the table, with Radzivil at her right hand and Zabern at the left. Dorislas was absent in command of the ten thousand appointed to guard the frontier.

So far no hostilities had occurred. Successive couriers arriving at intervals of every half-hour continued to report that the Russian forces still preserved their position of the previous afternoon,--a position about a mile distant from the Czernovese border. There was no movement on their part suggestive of coming invasion. The more hopeful of the ministers, therefore, began to pluck up courage, and tried to believe that the Czar's army had really mustered for the customary autumn manoeuvres, and not for the purpose of preventing the coronation.

Zabern did not share in these hopeful views; none knew better than he did the magnitude of the peril that overhung Czernova. In reporting the cardinal's death to the princess Zabern had suppressed some details, and hence Barbara was unaware that a dove had flown off to Zamoska bearing a letter, which, if it should reach the Czar's hands, would most a.s.suredly result in her dethronement. From very pity he withheld the fact.

"She will learn it soon enough," he thought. "Why add to evil the antic.i.p.ation of it?"

During the course of the breakfast many comments were made upon the murder of Cardinal Ravenna.

"A terrible and mysterious affair!" said Radzivil, greatly shocked by the tragedy, and completely ignorant as to its authors. "The physicians a.s.sert that there are no less than eighteen wounds upon the body."

"Five less than Julius Caesar received," commented Zabern irrelevantly.

"You offer a reward, I presume, for any information that shall lead to the detection of the a.s.sa.s.sins?" said the premier to Zabern, who, as Minister for Justice, was head of the department that took cognizance of crime.

"Not a rouble note," replied Zabern bluntly.

"That's contrary to your usual practice."

"Why should I offer a reward when I know who the--ah!--a.s.sa.s.sins are?

There were three of them to the deed."

"You know them? And yet they have not been seized!"

"I have weighty reasons for deferring their arrest."

"Delay may end in their escape."

"The chief a.s.sa.s.sin cannot escape from me. The police know him and have their eye upon him whenever he walks abroad. I can put my finger upon him as easily as I now lay hand upon this coat," said Zabern smiling, and suiting the action to the word.

Radzivil was about to press for further enlightenment, but Barbara checked him.

"The subject is distressing to me," she said with a look that confirmed her words.

"Your Highness, I crave pardon," said the premier.

Though Barbara fully believed that no one had ever merited death more than Ravenna, yet the deed lay heavy on her mind. Not even the thought of the many maidens, her own sister among the number, sacrificed to the unholy desires of the cardinal, could blind her to the fact that in sending Zabern to slay him she had committed a crime.

No such scruple, however, troubled the conscience of the marshal, whose only regret was that he had not despatched the duke likewise, while it lay in his power to do so.

Ere coming to the breakfast he had witnessed the execution of the deputy Lesko Lipski and the spy Ivan Russakoff with the feeling, however, that it was but sorry justice to shoot the agents, while the more guilty princ.i.p.al was at large.

"You have no tidings of Bora, I presume?" said Barbara turning to the marshal.

"None--so far, your Highness," replied Zabern. "But, oh!" he added with mingled surprise and satisfaction, "here comes one who should be able to explain the mystery of the duke's escape."

All eyes had turned towards a door which had just opened, giving ingress to a file of soldiers; they were under the command of Gabor, and escorted in their midst Miroslav, the governor of the Citadel.

"Your Highness," said Gabor, advancing and saluting, "I came upon the governor in the act of departing from the city. Thinking that you might like to interview him, I took the liberty of arresting him on my own authority."

"You have done well," replied Barbara; and then turning a cold face upon the governor, she said: "What defence have you to make, Miroslav?

You received orders to exercise special vigilance over your prisoner, the Duke of Bora, and yet he contrived to escape."

"And with my connivance, so please your Highness."

"Traitor!" said Zabern, starting up, and half drawing his sword, "you have signed your death-warrant."

"Your Highness, hear my story ere condemning me. At eleven o'clock last night I was informed that a man stood at the gate of the Citadel demanding an interview with me. I sent to ascertain his name and business. 'Carry that to your master,' said the stranger, pencilling a few words on a card, and enclosing it within an envelope. On opening the envelope this is what I beheld."