"As you yourself hope for mercy at the last day, I beseech you to grant me ten minutes—five, then—in the next room."
Zabern laid the steel and phial upon the table.
"You may have ten minutes' grace, but you will do your praying here."
"That apartment is an oratory," pleaded Ravenna.
"Let him have his wish, marshal," said Gabor.
"And see him escape us?" ejaculated Nikita fiercely.
"I cannot escape. There is no exit from the oratory, secret or open, save by that door. The window is fifty feet from the ground."
Zabern, suspecting that Ravenna was trying to effect his escape, approached the chamber in question, and found it to be an oblong apartment, twenty feet by ten, fitted up as an oratory, and hung with sacred pictures. At the far end, through a casement of stained glass, arrowy beams of tender silvery moonlight slanted upon an altar, surmounted by an ivory crucifix with waxen tapers burning before it. There was an air of solemnity in the place which exercised an influence even upon the stern mind of Zabern.
"Take your ten minutes," he exclaimed, pointing within, "but seek not to escape, for my eye shall be on you the while."
Ravenna rose from his seat; in rising he purposely stumbled and fell, and while so doing he contrived to secure possession of the letter lying beneath the table, and to secrete it within the folds of his cassock. Then with slow and faltering step he moved into the oratory, and taking out his rosary, he knelt with bowed head before the altar.