His eye swept over the Kremlin, and I knew that his mind was conjuring up a thousand pictures of the dark deeds that made up its secret annals. Before he spoke again, I looked at the gate and saw a hideous little figure rushing towards us, whirling its arms above its large head, and uttering a shrill sound between a squeal and a whistle. Von Gaden, awaking from his revery, eyed the new-comer with little favor.
“It is Homyak, one of the court dwarfs,” he remarked calmly, “and he is evidently badly frightened.”
The little creature threw himself upon the doctor, grasping his mantle in his talon-like fingers and raising a white drawn face.
“I have seen the dead!” he moaned, cowering down until he was the picture of abject terror. “I have seen the dead!”
Von Gaden shook his mantle free with an impatient gesture.
“You are evidently troubled with a bad conscience, Homyak,” he said cynically, “therefore your graveyard visitants are frequent!”
The dwarf covered his wizened face with his hands, and rocked to and fro in an ecstasy of fear. I could not help a feeling of pity as well as disgust as I beheld him.
“What was your vision this time?” the Jew asked, with relentless contempt.
The dwarf stopped his exhibition of terror, and going close to the physician, tried to raise his hideous face to his interrogator’s.
“It was he!” he whispered in a tone just audible to me. “He, whom you tried to save on the Red Staircase, and who lay dying that night on the stone pavement of his own courtyard!”