It was wondrously beautiful, seen from the river, with every line and curve of light reflected almost as clear as the reality. The sight held his attention, so that he was abreast of the bathing-steps ere he remembered his desire for secrecy, and, in his haste, the canoe--answering to his swift stroke--almost spun round, bringing him, in an instant, within an ace of collision with the hard brick. As it was, he heard a faint grating sound.
"By Jove! that was a near shave," he muttered to himself.
Out of the darkness of the courtyard, for the unilluminated block of the palace rose between it and the white radiance, came a voice:--
"Is't thou? Hast brought the tool--we must get the job done ere dawn and--"
The rest was inaudible as the river slid him on. What were they up to? he wondered idly; taking advantage, doubtless, of the absolute desertion of the courtyard, the entry to which had been blocked for the night, the main entrance to the palace having been prepared for the reception of the guests. Were they meddling with the padlock Dering had put on the tampion which stopped the muzzle of the old gun? Time to see to that in the morning.
He was now steering his way just on the edge of the shadow cast by the wall on the water, and in front of him jutted out a balcony smaller than the rest, and nearer the river. Those upper ones, he knew, were part of the chapel; but this--
He looked at it narrowly, wondering if he had ever noticed it before, then let the paddle sink idly across the boat, and sat staring at what he saw. Dering, of course! But the woman! Who on earth was she? A native? Hardly; and yet he did not remember seeing anyone at the ball whose dress was in the least like this; even in the dark it glittered.
"Do you call that love?" came a voice echoing softly over the water. "I don't. When I love, I mean to give, not to take; and the more I give, the more I'll have to give; because, you see, love will come back--it must."
By all that was incomprehensible, Laila Bonaventura! And, if there was any certainty in these shadows, Dering's arm--
Phew! Lance knew his Shakespeare also; had, in fact, a curiously ingenuous and human acquaintance with even the exact words of the great master. So as he drifted on, leaving those two in the balcony, a line drifted with him:--