The Princess Galva: A Romance

by David Whitelaw

Dasso left the window, and crossing to the fire peered into the steel face of the clock that stood in the centre of the mantelshelf. Then in the half light he went over to the little safe embedded in the wall.

He unlocked it with trembling fingers and took from it package after package of papers and carried them over to the fire, and placing them on the seat of a chair began his task of sorting. Some were put upon the burning logs without a second glance; others, including a large roll of paper money, he placed in the breast pocket of his coat.

There were other documents, too, which caused a furrow to take shape between the evil brows, and which were held to the glow and read through from their first word to their last before they were finally pocketed or sent to swell the growing pile of grey ash on the smouldering logs.

Only once did the man look towards the thing that lay still and sinister on the great bearskin rug not two feet from where he knelt. This was when he picked up the envelope containing the hand at cards which had been the downfall of the man who now was dead.

Dasso held the package for a moment in his hand, the custodian of a dead man's honour. He seemed to be debating whether Mozara could in any way further serve him. Then as the noise outside grew louder he thrust the envelope between the bars and rose to his feet. Now there came a knocking at the great oaken door, and Dasso heard his name called by angry voices. He knew why the mob had come seeking him, and he knew the temperament of the Corbians, that they were creatures in whom civilization and barbarism were separated by the faintest of lines, and who knew no restraint or reason once their passions were aroused.

A stone hurtled through the window-pane and checked by the blind fell down with a clatter on to the polished floor and rolled almost to his feet. For the first time Dasso showed signs of haste.

He made his way from the room and through many passages to the servants quarters at the back, taking, as he ran, from a peg in the lower hall, a wide-brimmed hat and a common brown cloak which had belonged to old Pieto.

There came a crashing and splintering from the front of the house, and the man told himself that the stout oak had given at last. He opened a door beside the great dresser shutting it behind him and shooting home the heavy metal bolts. He descended a short flight of steps that lay there, and which led down to the cellars of the old mansion. At the foot he waited, and feeling out with his hands he found and lit a horn lantern.

Through cellar after cellar he made his tortuous way, past bins and racks of wine, between casks and cases stacked high to the groined roof. The air was thick and musty and great rats scampered away at the approach of the flickering yellow light and the hurried footsteps.

Then the air grew cooler, and Dasso stopped and, raising his lantern, searched the walls round him. A few stone steps led up to an opening, through which with stooping shoulders the man passed. Here he was in a tunnel, a narrow tube, that rose gradually until the fugitive could feel the cool airs of the night upon his face, and he found himself in front of an iron gateway. He took from the pocket of his coat a key, and after a few attempts the gate was thrust open, tearing its way through the mass of vegetation with which the iron-work and hinges were choked, and Dasso stood in the moonlight of the vegetable garden of his house. A thick belt of trees separated him from the building itself, and in the distance he heard the cries of the mob who had now gained an entrance. He clenched his fists and turned away. As he did so, through the trees a light splashed redly, then another—and another, and the man knew that they had set fire to the building.