“I don’t quite understand you, Colonel Grodwitz,” I said quietly, looking at him very straight. “If you think I’m in the habit of gossiping with Mishka Pavloff or any other servant here, you’re very much mistaken.”
“A thousand pardons, my dear fellow; I was merely joking,” he assured me; but I guessed he had made one more attempt to “draw” me,—the last.
As I went up to my room I heard the haunting strains of a Hungarian dance from the Stravensky suite, situated on the first floor in the left wing leading from the great hall, while the Duke’s apartments were in the right wing.
Mishka entered immediately after I had locked the door.
“Get your money and anything else you value and can carry on you,” he grunted. “You will not return here. And get into this.”
“This” was the uniform of a cavalry officer; and I must say I looked smart in it.
Mishka gathered up my discarded clothes, and stowed them in the wardrobe.
“Unlock the door; Nicolai will come presently and will think you are still below,” he said. “And follow me; have a care, pull the door to—so.”
I closed the secret opening and went down the narrow stairway, steep almost as a ladder, By the dim light of the small lantern Mishka carried, I saw the door leading to the Duke’s rooms. We did not enter there, as I expected, but kept on till I guessed we must about have got down to the bowels of the earth. Then came a tremendously long and narrow passage, damp and musty smelling; at the end of it a flight of steep steps leading up to what looked like a solid stone wall. Mishka motioned me to wait, extinguished the lantern, and I heard him feeling about in the pitch darkness for a few seconds. Then, with scarcely a sound, the masonry swung back, and I saw a patch of dark sky jewelled with stars, and felt the keen night wind on my face. I passed out, waited in silence while he closed the exit again, and kept beside him as he walked rapidly away. I glanced back once, and saw beyond the great wall, the castle itself, and the lights gleaming from many windows, while from the further wing came still the sound of the music.