"Barbara! Barbara!" he cried in agony. "If you are there, speak."
Was he mistaken, or did he really hear his own name pronounced by a voice faintly sounding, as if the speaker's head were muffled within the folds of a cloak?
Following his first impulse, he dashed into the sea towards the point whence came the sound of the oars. Like a madman he leaped and plunged forward through mist and water with the desire of arresting the progress of the receding boat. Vain hope! He did not even obtain a glimpse of the boat, much less come up with it.
Not till the water surged breast-high around him did he pause, and then he stood mechanically listening to the sound of the oar-sweep as it died away in the distance.
Recovering from his stupor he waded back to land, and sought the place where he had left his own boat.
It was gone!
It had either been taken in tow by Barbara's captors, or cast adrift in order to prevent him from giving trouble by following them.
The island had become his prison, inasmuch as he had no way of crossing to the mainland except by swimming, and though he might not have shrunk from a three-mile course in smooth water, the same distance across a sea-channel traversed by currents and covered by a thick fog was a very different matter.
Though every moment of detention diminished his hope of effecting Barbara's rescue, yet here he was, absolutely helpless, dependent for his release upon the chance passing of some fishing-boat.
He did not doubt—he could not doubt—that the abduction of Barbara was the work of Cardinal Ravenna, who had probably been apprised by Abbess Teresa of the flight of his youthful protégé. It was not likely that he would restore her to the Convent of the Holy Sacrament; some more secure establishment would be chosen, and, when Barbara was once immured by the authority of a powerful ecclesiastic, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to reach her. The only consoling feature in this dark affair was that the success of the cardinal's scheme, whatever its character, hung upon Barbara's life; so far she was safe, but the thought of the sufferings to which she might be subjected, in order to extort submission, drove Paul's mind to the verge of frenzy.