The Shadow of the Czar Part 13

Paul raised her beautiful face upward to his own, and looked down into the light of her dark eyes.

"Barbara, I have loved you from the first moment of seeing you."

Barbara could not truthfully say that her love had begun so early. The knowledge of it had come upon her perhaps a month ago.

"I wish I had known it. A month ago!" he added ruefully. "Just think of the kisses I have missed!"

"Nothing prevents you, Paul, from repairing lost opportunities."

Who could have resisted the witchery of those lips raised so temptingly at that moment? Not Paul, certainly.

The dusk of twilight was stealing over the island. The stars were beginning to glimmer through the violet air above.

"It is time to return," said Paul, leading Barbara towards the boat.

"The mantilla!" she exclaimed, suddenly stopping short in her walk. "I left it in the ruins. I must go back for it, since it is Jacintha's.

And my diamond brooch is fastened to it."

"You are tired, Barbara. Remain here. I will fetch it."

"Do not be long."

"Can you not bear a parting of five minutes?" he asked with a smile.

"One minute is too long, Paul."

Seating Barbara upon a fragment of rock, Paul hastened over the gra.s.sy upland in the direction of the cla.s.sic ruin, which was distant about a quarter of a mile from the sh.o.r.e.

At the edge of a small wood that intervened between himself and the temple, he paused for a moment to listen to Barbara, who was singing in a sweet plaintive voice the hymn to the Virgin accustomed to be sung in her convent at vesper hour.

"Fading, still fading, the last beam is s.h.i.+ning.

Ave Maria! day is declining: Safety and innocence fly with the light: Temptation and danger walk forth with the night: From the fall of the shade till the matin shall chime s.h.i.+eld us from peril, and save us from crime.

_Ave Maria, audi nos!_"

She formed a pretty picture as she sat there alone by the dusky-blue sea in the faint starlight, her dainty white-robed figure clearly outlined against the black rock.

"I'm the luckiest mortal living," muttered Paul. "By heaven! won't the fellows be dumb with surprise and envy when I mount the jetty-stairs at Corfu with Barbara upon my arm! And as for uncle, always an admirer of the ladies, he'll fairly wors.h.i.+p her."

He pictured Colonel Graysteel's look of admiration, and caught his whispered aside: "By Jove, Paul, where did you find this lovely vestal? Lucky dog! no wonder you have stayed away so long!"

Barbara had followed Paul with her eyes, and now, on seeing him pause, she waved her hand prettily, while he, like a gallant lover, waved his in turn. Then, eager to despatch his quest and to return to her, he plunged into the wood, and Barbara was lost to view.

On reaching the temple, Paul quickly found the mantilla, but the brooch which should have been attached to it was missing. As the ornament was a valuable one he did not like to return without it, and he therefore began a search in the fading light.

Having spent ten minutes without success, he resolved to quit the task lest Barbara, sitting by the lonely sh.o.r.e, should become nervous at his long delay.

As he rose to his feet he looked upward, and found that the stars were invisible. A white mist like a ghost was floating over the isle.

s.n.a.t.c.hing up the mantilla, he dashed down through the woodland, and, but for the murmur of the sea, which served to direct his course, he would most certainly have missed his way.

As he drew near to the beach he called upon Barbara by name, but received no answer. This was puzzling, inasmuch as he was near the place where he had left her. Near? He was at the exact spot. There was the crag upon which she had been seated a few minutes previously, but of Barbara herself not a trace was visible.

Vainly did his eyes seek to pierce the veil of mist that hung around; every object more than a few feet distant was hidden from view.

The melancholy lapping of the waves over the sand was the only sound that broke the stillness.

Where was Barbara? Ah! alarmed perhaps by the mist and by his long absence, she had left the sh.o.r.e to seek him, and had missed her way to the ruin. He would go back at once and find her.

He had just turned to retrace his steps, when suddenly from out the mist that overhung the sea there came a strange voice,--

"_All ready? Give way, then. To Castel Nuovo!_"

The words were immediately followed by the dip and roll of oars,--sounds that sent a thrill of horror through Paul's heart. In one swift moment he realized what was happening.

The Austrian gendarmerie sent by the convent authorities had come at last! Come? ay, and were going with their purpose accomplished!

Barbara, silent, perhaps because in a swoon, was in the hands of enemies who were carrying her off, and though her captors were but a few yards distant, he was unable to render her any aid. The suddenness, the stillness, the mysteriousness of it all was more appalling than the act of abduction itself.

Half-an-hour had not yet elapsed since Barbara had pressed her glowing lips to his. And now--and now--was ever lover's dream cut short so awfully and abruptly as this?

"Barbara! Barbara!" he cried in agony. "If you are there, speak."

Was he mistaken, or did he really hear his own name p.r.o.nounced by a voice faintly sounding, as if the speaker's head were m.u.f.fled within the folds of a cloak?

Following his first impulse, he dashed into the sea towards the point whence came the sound of the oars. Like a madman he leaped and plunged forward through mist and water with the desire of arresting the progress of the receding boat. Vain hope! He did not even obtain a glimpse of the boat, much less come up with it.

Not till the water surged breast-high around him did he pause, and then he stood mechanically listening to the sound of the oar-sweep as it died away in the distance.

Recovering from his stupor he waded back to land, and sought the place where he had left his own boat.

It was gone!

It had either been taken in tow by Barbara's captors, or cast adrift in order to prevent him from giving trouble by following them.

The island had become his prison, inasmuch as he had no way of crossing to the mainland except by swimming, and though he might not have shrunk from a three-mile course in smooth water, the same distance across a sea-channel traversed by currents and covered by a thick fog was a very different matter.

Though every moment of detention diminished his hope of effecting Barbara's rescue, yet here he was, absolutely helpless, dependent for his release upon the chance pa.s.sing of some fis.h.i.+ng-boat.

He did not doubt--he could not doubt--that the abduction of Barbara was the work of Cardinal Ravenna, who had probably been apprised by Abbess Teresa of the flight of his youthful _protege_. It was not likely that he would restore her to the Convent of the Holy Sacrament; some more secure establishment would be chosen, and, when Barbara was once immured by the authority of a powerful ecclesiastic, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to reach her. The only consoling feature in this dark affair was that the success of the cardinal's scheme, whatever its character, hung upon Barbara's life; so far she was safe, but the thought of the sufferings to which she might be subjected, in order to extort submission, drove Paul's mind to the verge of frenzy.

At midnight the mist began to lift almost as suddenly as it had come on. The whole blue arch of heaven became revealed. The moon was now at its full, and the cold, pallid light shone over the island with its dark woods, and its ivory-white temple on the hill-top, the fallen shrine of love.

Paul mounted this hill and glanced over the sea in all directions; but his hope of seeing some barque in the vicinity of the isle was immediately extinguished. Not a sail was visible.

He had brought to the island a pair of field-gla.s.ses, and these he now directed over the channel that separated him from the Dalmatian mainland. The light was insufficient for the taking of distant observations; nevertheless, he came to the conclusion that a tiny light visible at a certain point on the coast marked the position of Castel Nuovo; and, aware that Barbara's captors must long ere this have reached their destination, this light became an object of deep interest. Without any reason whatever to guide him, he took up the belief that it marked the room in which she was detained for the night, and impressed by this fancy, he kept his eyes fixed upon it as wistfully as if it were the face of Barbara herself.