"Is this all you have brought?" grumbled the disappointed Captain.
"Truly," replied the wily Malespini, "this light collation was intended solely for his highness the Earl of Essex, who I hear must keep his room. For your lordship dinner awaits in the banquet-room, where the Grand Duchess has ordered a boar's-head, stuffed with sage and onions, together with a pasty of pheasants, and where she will serve you with her own hands a stirrup-cup of the Grand Duke's oldest vintage."
Captain Radicofani sprang up with alacrity, but noticing that Malespini was edging nearer to his friend, ordered the secretary gruffly to pass out before him.
"Behind the bed," said Malespini in a low voice to the prisoner, as he lighted one of the tapers in the mantel candelabra, "and take all of these candles, all or you are lost."
"Idiot," shouted the Captain; "it is not yet noon. What need of lights? Play me no tricks, but leave the room."
Springing from his chair as soon as the door had closed behind Radicofani, Brandilancia examined the huge state-bedstead, and with a little exertion trundled it forward. Behind its tapestry hangings a secret door, suspected only by a crack in the wainscotting, opened beneath his prying fingers, and revealed a spiral staircase leading downward into pitchy darkness. Comprehending Malespini's admonition, he hastily appropriated the candles, and, drawing the bedstead into its place behind him, descended the dizzily circling steps. Eighty-seven he counted, twisting round and round within the turret, and then he paused, for he distinctly heard the sound of rushing water. The air had become moist as well as cool, and the steps were green and slippery with moss. Advancing with more caution, he presently found himself in a vaulted passage a little higher than his head, where a narrow pathway followed a conduit of dark water, which reflected the flame of his candle in a thousand glancing sparkles.
II
in which it is demonstrated that it is sometimes
easier to set out upon a quest than to
return therefrom
It was the Aqua Virgo, the old subterranean aqueduct built by the Emperor Claudius, that pierced the hill beneath the Villa Medici, in which Brandilancia now found himself. If he turned to the left he knew he would soon find egress through the doorway to which the chance fluttering of Marie de' Medici's fan had led him. But this would be to appear upon the streets of Rome in open day, and to run the risk of seizure by Radicofani's guards. Moreover, Malespini's advice to provide himself with so many candles was significant, and Brandilancia unhesitatingly chose the longer way, not doubting that it would finally lead him into the open country.
The stream at his side was of considerable volume and flowed with great swiftness, while the shelf upon which he was advancing was hardly more than ten inches broad. Both it and the wall were slimy with dampness, giving no secure hold to hand or foot. The pathway mounted steadily, and apparently pursued a straight course, but no opening showed itself in the distance, and the light of his taper penetrated but a little way into the blackness. As he glanced backward his shadow loomed in a gigantic and almost unrecognisable form, following him waveringly like a malevolent spirit. His footsteps woke hollow reverberations; the water gurgled and sobbed, and an odor suggestive of the tomb added to the impression that he was wandering in some unexplored catacomb. He could proceed but slowly, and the low temperature chilled him to the bone, but he pushed on resolutely as it seemed to him for interminable hours. "I shall go mad," he thought, "if there is no change in this deadly monotony," and at that instant the vault echoed with the beat of hurrying footsteps.