“Yes, in view of Pahlen’s desperate strait. When he discovers—and he must have discovered it ere this—that his treasonable document is missing, what will he do? Aware that the plot has become known to others, he and his fellow-conspirators will see the necessity of striking the blow before Paul has time to learn of their treason. It behoves them to act, and to act at once. Delay will be fatal to them.”
This conclusion, so startling, yet so palpably obvious, filled Arcadius with sudden dismay.
“A thousand devils!” he muttered. “What may not be happening now at the Michaelovski Palace? We must—ah! what the devil’s that?”
Hitherto quiet had prevailed outside the Citadel, but now in a moment the air became filled with a series of sounds, eerie enough and loud enough to startle the boldest. As if subjected to a well-directed fusilade of heavy artillery the fortress trembled to its very foundations, amid a confused shouting of voices, a grinding of timber, and a crashing of ice, intermingled with the dull plunge of heavy bodies into deep water.
“By heaven! the bridge is down!” cried Loris.
The bridge! Their only way to the Michaelovski Palace! The two brothers rushed to the nearest window. Finding it difficult to open, Loris shattered the glass with his sword-hilt.
Dark and starless as was the night, they could nevertheless see that not a single pontoon remained in the place where the bridge had lately been. Nature had played havoc with man’s work. Between the Citadel and the opposite bank intervened a broad expanse of black water, upon whose rapid current ghostly bergs tumbled and crashed, danced and whirled, as if in glee at the destruction wrought. Here and there, in mid-stream and clinging to fragments of timber, human forms could be heard uttering cries for help.
The brothers looked at each other with pale faces, and eyes full of baffled rage.
The catastrophe had put an end to the proposed visit to the Michaelhof. No boat could live on such a tide. For hours, and it might be days, the pair would be cut off from the Imperial quarter as effectually as if they were in far-off Siberia.
“No crossing to-night,” said Loris. “Now, Pahlen, do as you list. There is none to stay your hand.”