“It is death,” he said, “for you—and for her, the shaved head!”
And that was a living death for a Russian woman.
XXVII: “IS IT THOU?”
WE stood in the parvis of the cathedral, in the deep shadows that fall at dusk, but the light still streamed broadly over the Red Place—the Palace Beautiful, as the Russians love to call it—and across the square I caught the gleam of golden crosses against the sky. It was silent—with the silence of terror. A guard of Streltsi sat on the Red Staircase, throwing dice, but their voices were subdued. Some dark figures flitted softly across the portico, between the cathedral and the banqueting-hall. Lights shone fitfully in the windows of the palace. An officer of the guard lighted a pine torch, and it flared up in a vivid tongue of flame, throwing his burly figure and dark face into relief. He was scarcely twenty yards away from the spot where Maluta and I stood waiting. I pressed my hand heavily on the dwarf’s shoulder.
“Whether it is death or not, I must enter that prison,” I said, in a low tone.
He nodded, motioning to me to be silent, and pointing. I followed the direction of his finger with my eyes and saw a short, stout female figure on the portico, accompanied by two men. The three stood a while talking together, in subdued voices, and then they entered the palace and I drew my breath more easily. At least, they had not entered by that low door that would lead them to the princess. Meanwhile the officer with the torch had walked away and the soldiers were busy with their dice. Maluta stripped off a short cloak he wore and drew his dagger.
“I am going in,” he said, “and when I whistle, the door will be unbarred. Then it will rest with you, O excellency!”
“Go, then,” I exclaimed, with impatience, “and make haste, in the name of your patron saint!”
He stooped low and scudded across the space that intervened between the cathedral and that low door, and I watched eagerly to see how he intended to enter, for I purposed following without more delay. But a few moments sufficed to show me the futility of such a design, for the dwarf did not go to the door; he made straight for a window ten feet away—to the left—and swinging himself up on the ledges of the stone copings, as I had seen him do that first day in Kurakin’s court-yard, he reached the window-sill, and here I thought to see him balked, for I could plainly perceive the iron bars across it. However, I was destined to another surprise, for he stopped, and, hanging on the ledge, began to work at the farthest bar on the left-hand side, and in a moment he had it out and began to wriggle through the opening, which was scarcely large enough, to my eyes, to admit a monkey, and, small as the dwarf was, he had much ado to squeeze and twist his body through, but finally he disappeared within, and left me writhing with impatience without. The creature’s cleverness had, by this time, so far impressed me that I was given to expecting marvels from him, and I knew that he had a liberty about the palace—in common with the other dwarfs—that no one else had, or even dreamed of. So I forced myself to await his signal and to use all the caution that I could, reflecting that a misstep now would ruin the adventure, and, perhaps, separate me from the princess. In this frame of mind, certainly not a happy one, I waited in the ever increasing shadow, and watched and listened for ten minutes, which I took—in that mood—for two hours, though sober reflection afterwards showed me that the time was short, as men count it. I thought of Maluta’s possible failure, of the death or removal of the prisoner, while we had delayed, of a change of guard, of the arrival of Sophia, of a dozen things, in fact, that might wreck my happiness for all time.
And then I heard Maluta’s shrill whistle.