Yet he could not kill her.
He consoled himself with the thought that she must certainly have been asleep and could, therefore, have heard nothing. It would be sufficient, he reflected, to take the precaution of securing the key of the door which opened on the outside steps leading down to the garden. Mashinka and the two lads would thus be all securely locked in.
He left the room and went up to the observatory.
Mashinka was not asleep. She had heard every word.
With almost superhuman strength she had fought down the terror that rose within her, and was able to appear asleep even while the dagger was pointed at her heart by the hand of the man whom she now knew in all his infamy.
She sprang from the bed as soon as the sound of Feodor's footsteps had died away, rushed to the little room where the two sleeping boys lay clasping each other's hands, and called them.
"Wake, children, wake!" she cried in despair; "prepare yourselves for death--it is close at hand!"
She then hastily told them all she had heard.
"And you are to be made to fight each other to death before your fathers' eyes!" she exclaimed as she concluded.
Alexander and Paul tremblingly embraced each other. It was not the thought of death that made them tremble, but the thought that their fathers should hate each other so.
"Oh! if you could but fly from here!" cried Mashinka.
"But how?" exclaimed Alexander. "Ah!--the door to the garden!
Impossible--it is locked!"
"Here!" cried Mashinka suddenly; "through this window you can reach the garden--then over the outer wall and on to the rocks on the shore!
There you will find a boat. In it you may reach the ship."
"But you--you must come with us too," they cried together.
But Mashinka had already begun to cut up the bed-clothes and tie the pieces together into a stout rope. The clothes were not long enough.
Swiftly she passed into the dining-room, and cut off the bell-cord which hung from the ceiling. With this the rope was soon completed.
The night was dark and favoured the flight of the fugitives.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XI
The Severed Cord
The two brothers were now alone in the observatory. Zeno had been carried thither and bound in the easy-chair before the great open window. Feodor sat at his big telescope watching the anchored vessel.
At intervals as he sat he informed his prisoner of what he saw passing on board.
"The roll of the drum is summoning the crew to evening prayer. The fools! . . . The watch is being set for the night. . . . Now they are hauling down the flag. . . . The captain has gone into his cabin and his lieutenant has taken the quarter-deck. . . . Now the look-out in the main-top is taking a pull from his bottle. In a moment he will drop off to sleep. . . . One by one the lights are being put out; only those from the captain's windows are now to be seen. . . . Soon they will all be asleep--in the Lord! So--good-night!"
"And now, brother," said Feodor, "the entertainment I promised you is about to begin. My fellows are already sitting in your long-boat and their own skiffs. The sound of the bell is the signal that all is ready."
With these words he left Zeno alone in the observatory and hurried downstairs to give the signal.
With a violent effort, Zeno succeeded in getting one foot so far out of his bonds that he could reach the ground with his heel. With this foot he gradually pushed himself nearer and nearer to the edge of the low open window. Then, with a desperate effort, he tilted the chair forward, and precipitated himself and it together into the depths beneath. For him there was neither entertainment nor spectacle any more on this earth.
Meantime Feodor strode down to the dining-room where he usually rang the bell in the concealed room by means of the silken cord. He stopped suddenly and turned pale with fear when he discovered that the cord had been cut.
[Illustration: "The cord had been cut"]
He burst into the next room. There Mashinka's bed was empty. He hurried into his son's bedroom. The boys were nowhere to be seen. The open window and the rope dangling outside in the wind told him plainly enough of their flight.
It was too late now. In vain his cry of wrath sounded through the fortress. In vain he pierced with his sword the empty bed from which his victim had escaped. In vain he now beat his breast for having harboured a human feeling within it. That weakness, he now saw, had indeed been his ruin.
In his boundless wrath he rushed up to the observatory to wreak all his baffled vengeance on his one remaining victim. He consoled himself with the thought that he at least could not escape.
But Zeno too had vanished. He was no longer where he had left him.
Feodor stretched his body far out of the open window and shrieked his brother's name. There was no response but the dull dashing of the waves against the rocks below.
When he raised his eyes again and looked towards the war-ship an icy chill ran through his heart. The windows of the vessel were all lighted up, and the crew were lining the bulwarks.
"Betrayed!--utterly betrayed!" he cried in despair as he cursed and abjured the Devil and all his works. "Nay, there _is_ no Devil!--there is nothing!--nothing!"
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XII
Nemesis
It was not until the next day that Feodor learned all that had taken place in the outer world.
A company of armed men were now advancing against his fortifications from the direction of the island, while the war-ship had turned her broadside with its triple row of guns against the tower.
After landing a party to storm the building from the land side, the _St. Thomas_ had stood off for the attack.
In conformity with custom, the besiegers, before beginning the assault, summoned the fortress to surrender in order that the shedding of blood might be avoided.
The Very Reverend Herr Waimner, accompanied by a herald, came as a messenger of peace to the great door of the tower and, with the blast of a trumpet, called upon its commander to take part in peaceful negotiations.
Feodor sent him the hunchback who acted as his castellan. "The fellow is stone-deaf," said he; "let them negotiate with him!"
But the hunchback was not stone-deaf--at least when he cared to hear.
He merely chose to deceive the deceivers.