"No," jeering. "A gallant cavalier to step blithely at a great lady's command! 'Your Ladyship overwhelms me!'" bowing grotesquely. "'Your Ladyship's condescension'—"
"Why, then, need you take me?" interposed the mountebank quickly. "Can you not tell her ladyship I am not fit to appear in her presence—an uncouth clown—"
"Bah! I've already done that," answered the commandant.
"But how came her ladyship to know of me—here—?"
"How indeed?"
"And what does she want of me?"
"That," roughly, "you will find out!" and stepped down the hall, followed by the soldiers, mountebank and dwarf, the last of whom took leave of them at the door.
Clear was the night; the stars, like liquid drops about to fall, caressed with silvery rays the granite piles. In contrast to the noisome atmosphere of the prison, faint perfumes, borne from some flowery slope of the distant shore, swept languorously in and out the open aisles and passages of the Mount. In such an hour that upper region seemed to belong entirely to the sky; to partake of its wondrous stillness; to share its mysteries and its secrets. Like intruders, penetrating an enchanted spot, now they trod soft shadows; then, clangorous, beat beneath foot delicate laceworks of light.
"Here we are!" The officer stopped. At the same time upon a near-by balcony a nightingale began to sing, tentatively, as if trying the scope and quality of its voice. "You are to go in!" he announced abruptly.
"Such a fine palace! I—I would rather not!" muttered the fellow, as they crossed an outer threshold and proceeded to mount some polished stairs.