Half-way up the door, deep set in the thin and delicate foliage of the carving, were two circular windows, one in each panel.
"Can you reach them?" asked Valentine. "I am a hand too short."
By means of standing on the base of one of the side pillars of the door, Adrian could easily touch the whole span of the glass.
"Now, do I break it?" whispered the page.
"Yes," returned Visconti's sister. "But wait, there may be some soldier on hidden guard."
She looked around cautiously.
"I see no one," she continued. "Now, only through this one arch canst thou be noticed from the garden, and there I will stand, with my open fan; now quick—thy dagger handle."
She turned her back to him and raised her hand against the stonework of the arch, her mantle so falling over her arm that anyone, looking thither, could have seen nothing save her figure.
Adrian leaned forward and struck the glass a violent blow with the handle of his dagger; it was hard, and resisted, but at a second blow shivered. The page tore away the metal framework, and slipping his arm through, thrust back the first bolt. But it was fastened in three places, and the other two were not so easy. Straining up to his full height, the page forced half his body through the broken window and succeeded in slipping back the second bolt; the third was almost at the bottom of the tall door, nor was the opening he had forced large enough for him to do more than admit his arm and shoulder through. He still held his dagger in his hand, and grasping at it at the end of the blade, struck violently downward at the bolt head with the handle. It did not move the first time, nor the second, nor the third; but at the fourth blow it suddenly shot back and the door was open. Adrian struggled through the window, backward, on to his feet, his hand and arm torn in several places, dizzy with the strain.