"Call it murder if you will. Execution is my term."
"What is my trespass?"
"'Stolen waters are sweet.' Strange text for holy cardinal to address to youthful princess. You comprehend? Do you ask, then, why you should die?"
So all was known to these men. What mercy could he expect? He glanced from one to the other, but saw no pity in their stern, set faces. The trio had come to do a bloody work, and would do it. He strove to keep a cool head; he tried to reason with his would-be assassins.
"You will have to answer for what you do."
"To the saints above—yes; and I am ready. At the bar of God I'll rest my title to heaven on the holy deed I do to-night. To a human tribunal—no, for none shall know that you have been killed by others. Behold!"
Zabern, as he spoke, drew forth a small cut-glass phial, half-full of a liquid resembling distilled water. The silver cap bore the inscription, "The Manna of Saint Nicholas."
"Aqua Tophania," continued the marshal. "Ah! you start? You recognize the phial? Yes, it has been taken from a secret drawer of your own cabinet. Why a holy cardinal should have poison in his possession is best known to himself. I can, however, testify to its efficacy, for the condemned criminal upon whom I experimented to-day died within five minutes. Pasqual Ravenna, your servants on their return will find you leaning over the table dead, clutching this empty phial in your hand. To-morrow all Slavowitz will be discussing the suicide of the cardinal archbishop. Your nephew, Redwitz of Zamoska, may send off his three sealed packets, and very much surprised the recipients will be to find nothing within them but blank papers, for the originals have been abstracted, read by the princess, and burnt."
Like one dazed by a heavy blow, Ravenna stared vacantly at the speaker, and then his eye, mechanically sinking lighted upon something white near his feet. It was the letter that he had recently written. The sight of it suddenly quickened his blood and suggested a plan for outwitting his assassins. He was still seated at the table, and with his foot he gently pushed the letter forward till it lay concealed beneath the fringe of the overhanging damask cloth.
Upon the table itself there lay before him a document almost as dangerous as the letter. This was a roll of vellum with papal seals attached. It was beyond him to conceal this document from Zabern, whose face was set upon it with grim satisfaction.