"By heaven, your Highness, if I had but known this three hours earlier I would have cut the villain's throat."
"And thereby, in the cardinal's words, have precipitated my immediate ruin. We must act warily. Listen."
And here Barbara proceeded to enlighten the marshal as to Redwitz of Zamoska, the guardian of the three sealed letters; and how on receiving intelligence of his uncle's imprisonment or death, the nephew was to despatch these missives,—one to the Russian Foreign Minister, a second to the Duke of Bora, and a third to the office of the "Kolokol" newspaper.
"A subtle knave!" smiled Zabern.
Himself born with a genius for plotting, the marshal took a keen zest in outwitting the plans of others, and in his view the cardinal's contrivance for safeguarding himself presented some interesting features.
"I fail to see why your Highness should fear the cardinal. You are so like Princess Natalie in face and figure that you can laugh at his threat to expose you on the coronation day. We will ascribe his statement to the malice of a disappointed ecclesiastic."
"Not so," replied Barbara, with a shake of her graceful head. "My sister Natalie had a mole upon her right shoulder, as the physicians who attended her birth, and the nurses and ladies who waited upon her, can prove. I have no such mark. Now, Zabern, never lacking in subtle counsel, you see my peril. Aid me. You defeated Lipski; now defeat the cardinal for me."
"A very easy matter. Why did not your Highness confide in me before?"
"How—easy? In what way do you propose to act?"
"In the first place, are you certain that no one knows your secret besides ourselves, Ravenna, and Captain Woodville? This Redwitz, for example?"