Suddenly a door, which Flora had never noticed before in the chamber of penitence, opened, and two recluses appeared on the threshold.
“The abbess!” ejaculated Flora, yielding to a sudden impulse of alarm.
But almost at the same instant Stephano sprung forward, caught the abbess by the arm, and dragged her into the chamber; then rushing up a flight of narrow stone steps, with which that door communicated, and which the other recluse had already turned to ascend, he brought her forcibly back also. This latter nun was Sister Alba, the presiding authority of the chamber of penitence.
Her astonishment, as well as that of the lady abbess, at the spectacle of a number of armed men in the most private part of the entire establishment, may well be conceived; nor was this disagreeable surprise unmixed with intense alarm. But they had little time for reflection.
“The key of that door!” cried Stephano in a fierce and menacing tone, as he pointed toward Carlotta’s dungeon.
The abbess mechanically drew forth the key from beneath her convent-habit, and Piero, rushing forward, clutched it eagerly. In a few moments it turned in the lock—the next moment the door stood open.
But what a spectacle met the view of Piero, Flora, and those who were near enough to glance within! Stretched upon the stone floor of the narrow cell lay the victim—motionless and still! Drops of gore hung to her lips; in the agony of her grief she had burst a blood-vessel—and death must have been almost instantaneous.
Flora staggered back—sick at the dreadful sight; and she would have fallen to the ground had not the Marquis of Orsini suddenly sprung forward to sustain her.
“This is no place for you, young lady,” he said. “Permit me to conduct you back to the companionship of the Countess of Arestino.”
Flora leant upon his arm, and he half carried, rather than led her away from the chamber of penitence into the robbers’ hold. But as they passed through the aperture formed by the removal of the masonry, a terrible menace met their ears.