In the Palace of the King Part 31

The Princess was naturally violent, especially with her inferiors, and when she was angry she easily lost all dignity. She seized the dwarf by the arm and shook him.

"No jesting!" she cried. "He did not kill himself--who did it?"

"n.o.body," repeated Adonis doggedly, and quite without fear, for he knew how glad she would be to know the truth. "His Highness is not dead at all--"

"You little hound!" The Princess shook him furiously again and threatened to strike him with her other hand.

He only laughed.

"Before heaven, Madam," he said, "the Prince is alive and recovered, and is sitting in his chair. I have just been talking with him. Will you go with me to his Highness's apartment? If he is not there, and safe, burn me for a heretic to-morrow."

The Princess's hands dropped by her sides in sheer amazement, for she saw that the jester was in earnest.

"He had a scratch in the scuffle," he continued, "but it was the fall that killed him, his resurrection followed soon afterwards--and I trust that his ascension may be no further distant than your Excellency desires."

He laughed at his blasphemous jest, and the Princess laughed too, a little wildly, for she could hardly control her joy.

"And who wounded him?" she asked suddenly. "You know everything, you must know that also."

"Madam," said the dwarf, fixing his eyes on hers, "we both know the name of the person who wounded Don John, very well indeed, I regret that I should not be able to recall it at this moment. His Highness has forgotten it too, I am sure."

The Princess's expression did not change, but she returned his gaze steadily during several seconds, and then nodded slowly to show that she understood. Then she looked away and was silent for a moment.

"I am sorry I was rough with you, Adonis," she said at last, thoughtfully. "It was hard to believe you at first, and if the Prince had been dead, as we all believed, your jesting would have been abominable. There,"--she unclasped a diamond brooch from her bodice--"take that, Adonis--you can turn it into money."

The Princess's financial troubles were notorious, and she hardly ever possessed any ready gold.

"I shall keep it as the most precious of my possessions," answered the dwarf readily.

"No," she said quickly. "Sell it. The King--I mean--some one may see it if you keep it."

"It shall be sold to-morrow, then," replied the jester, bending his head to hide his smile, for he understood what she meant.

"One thing more," she said; "Don John did not send you down to tell this news to the court without warning. He meant that I should know it before any one else. You have told me--now go away and do not tell others."

Adonis hesitated a moment. He wished to do Don John's bidding if he could, but he knew his danger, and that he should be forgiven if, to save his own head, he did not execute the commission. The Princess wished an immediate answer, and she had no difficulty in guessing the truth.

"His Highness sent you to find Dona Dolores," she said. "Is that not true?"

"It is true," replied Adonis. "But," he added, antic.i.p.ating her wish out of fear, "it is not easy to find Dona Dolores."

"It is impossible. Did you expect to find her by waiting in this corner!

Adonis, it is safer for you to serve me than Don John, and in serving me you will help his interests. You know that. Listen to me--Dona Dolores must believe him dead till to-morrow morning. She must on no account find out that he is alive."

At that moment the officer who had offered to get information for the dwarf returned. Seeing the latter in conversation with such a great personage, he waited at a little distance.

"If you have found out where Dona Dolores de Mendoza is at this moment, my dear sir," said Adonis, "pray tell the Princess of Eboli, who is very anxious to know."

The officer bowed and came nearer.

"Dona Dolores de Mendoza is in his Majesty's inner apartment," he said.

CHAPTER XX

Dolores and Ruy Gomez had pa.s.sed through the outer vestibule, and he left her to pursue his way towards the western end of the Alcazar, which was at a considerable distance from the royal apartments. Dolores went down the corridor till she came to the niche and the picture before which Don John had paused to read the Princess of Eboli's letter after supper. She stopped a moment, for she suddenly felt that her strength was exhausted and that she must rest or break down altogether. She leaned her weight against the elaborately carved railing that shut off the niche like a shrine, and looked at the painting, which was one of Raphael's smaller masterpieces, a Holy Family so smoothly and delicately painted that it jarred upon her at that moment as something untrue and out of all keeping with possibility. Though most perfectly drawn and coloured, the spotlessly neat figures with their airs of complacent satisfaction seemed horribly out of place in the world of suffering she was condemned to dwell in, and she fancied, somewhat irreverently and resentfully, that they would look as much out of keeping with their surroundings in a heaven that must be won by the endurance of pain.

Their complacent smiles seemed meant for her anguish, and she turned from the picture in displeasure, and went on.

She was going back to her sister on the terrace, and she was going to kneel once more beside the dear head of the man she had loved, and to say one last prayer before his face was covered for ever. At the thought she felt that she needed no rest again, for the vision drew her to the sorrowful presence of its reality, and she could not have stopped again if she had wished to. She must go straight on, on to the staircase, up the long flight of steps, through the lonely corridors, and out at hist to the moonlit terrace where Inez was waiting. She went forward in a dream, without pausing. Since she had freed her father she had a right to go back to her grief. But as she went along, lightly and quickly, it seemed beyond her own belief that she should have found strength for what she had done that night. For the strength of youth is elastic and far beyond its own knowledge. Dolores had reached the last pa.s.sage that led out upon the terrace, when she heard hurrying footsteps behind her, and a woman in a cloak slipped beside her, walking very easily and smoothly. It was the Princess of Eboli. She had left the dwarf, after frightening him into giving up his search for Dolores, and she was hastening to Don John's rooms to make sure that the jester had not deceived her or been himself deceived in some way she could not understand.

Dolores had lost her cloak in the hall, and was bareheaded, in her court dress. The Princess recognized her in the gloom and stopped her.

"I have looked for you everywhere," she said. "Why did you run away from me before?"

"It was my blind sister who was with you," answered Dolores, who knew her voice at once and had understood from her father what had happened.

"Where are you going now?" she asked, without giving the Princess time to put a question.

"I was looking for you. I wish you to come and stay with me to-night--"

"I will stay with my father. I thank you for your kindness, but I would not on any account leave him now."

"Your father is in prison--in the west tower--he has just been sent there. How can you stay with him?"

"You are well informed," said Dolores quietly. "But your husband is just now gone to release him. I gave Don Ruy Gomez the order which his Majesty had himself placed in my hands, and the Prince was kind enough to take it to the west tower himself. My father is unconditionally free."

The Princess looked fixedly at Dolores while the girl was speaking, but it was very dark in the corridor and the lamp was flickering to go out in the night breeze. The only explanation of Mendoza's release lay in the fact that the King was already aware that Don John was alive and in no danger. In that case Dolores knew it, too. It was no great matter, though she had hoped to keep the girl out of the way of hearing the news for a day or two. Dolores' mournful face might have told her that she was mistaken, if there had been more light; but it was far too dark to see shades of colour or expression.

"So your father is free!" she said. "Of course, that was to be expected, but I am glad that he has been set at liberty at once."

"I do not think it was exactly to be expected," answered Dolores, in some surprise, and wondering whether there could have been any simpler way of getting what she had obtained by such extraordinary means.

"He might have been kept under arrest until to-morrow morning, I suppose," said the Princess quietly. "But the King is of course anxious to destroy the unpleasant impression produced by this absurd affair, as soon as possible."

"Absurd!" Dolores' anger rose and overflowed at the word. "Do you dare to use such a word to me to-night?"

"My dear Dolores, why do you lose your temper about such a thing?" asked the Princess, in a conciliatory tone. "Of course if it had all ended as we expected it would, I never should use such a word--if Don John had died--"

"What do you mean?" Dolores held her by the wrist in an instant and the maddest excitement was in her voice.

"What I mean? Why--" the Princess stopped short, realizing that Dolores might not know the truth after all. "What did I say?" she asked, to gain time. "Why do you hold my hand like that?"

"You called the murder of Don John an absurd affair, and then you said, 'if Don John had died'--as if he were not lying there dead in his room, twenty paces from where you stand! Are you mad? Are you playing some heartless comedy with me? What does it all mean?"