Maître le Bastien’s eyes twinkled and he shook a warning finger at me.
“Have a care, monsieur,” he said; “she is the prince’s only child,—and heiress,—and I doubt not there is some intrigue afoot.”
“I grow interested,” I said gaily. “I must solve the problem.”
“The saints forbid!” exclaimed the goldsmith piously; “you are already in trouble enough, M. le Marquis; do not, therefore, thrust your hand into a hornet’s nest.”
I laughed, with no thought of following this prudent advice; instead, I lay awake half the night, puzzling over the trinket, and when I finally fell asleep, it was to dream—hothead that I was—of the most beautiful face in the world, the face of the Princess Daria.
Next morning, as soon as we had finished breakfast, I prepared to set out for the palace of Prince Voronin, to return the locket to the princess of my dreams.
I remember well—as if it had been yesterday—the pains I took with my toilet, and how hard I stared at myself in the mirror that Maître le Bastien had brought from Paris. Yet I was no longer a callow youth to have my head turned by such folly; it only goes to show what a fool a man can be over a beautiful face. But if I hoped for satisfaction in my own image, I got but little. I saw in Le Bastien’s mirror a tall man with wide shoulders and long, strong arms, but I was not handsome, and I sighed at the contrast between my irregular features and my bold, blue eyes, and M. Kurakin’s classical beauty. I had a scar, too, on my forehead from a sword cut at Seneffe, and my chestnut hair, which I wore without a peruke, was beginning to show threads of silver, and I had the air of a fighter and no courtier, though I was well enough born and bred, too, for that matter, but I was no fop. My dress, too, had to suit my supposed condition, and being simple and even shabby in the matter of a blue taffety coat, did not set off either my face or figure, and I confess that—longing for the first time to pose as a squire of dames—I was in no very good humour either with myself or the world when I set out at last with the pear in the bosom of my doublet, and some directions from Maître le Bastien in my ears. Moreover, to add to my discomfiture, he had called after me, with a twinkle in his eye, that no man would be allowed to visit the terem of Voronin’s palace, and I had best ask for old Piotr, the steward, at once and trust my errand to him. I shrugged my shoulders and tossed back a defiance, but I was far from feeling sanguine myself, as I left our quarters and began to thread the narrow lanes between them and the prince’s palace, which stood much nearer the banks of the Moskva.
As I left the bazaars behind me the streets seemed unusually quiet, and I had traversed perhaps a hundred yards and turned into a lonely lane, flanked on either side by the rear walls of two old houses, when I heard a shrill squeal of agony, so intense and so piercing that it seemed scarcely human, and followed by a silence as ominous. I stopped to listen and heard a shutter open on my right and close again; evidently some woman had peeped out to see what it was, but she would venture no more, and the stillness awakened my suspicions. What mischief was afoot now? I loosened my sword in its scabbard and felt for my pistol, and advancing quickly, I peered under the edge of a low vaulted gateway. It opened into the garden of a vacant house to the left; the yard was nearly choked with weeds—nearly, not quite—in the centre there was an open space, and in it I saw a burly fellow, red-headed and red-bearded, crushing some creature, child or beast, I knew not, under his knee. As I advanced my footsteps struck an echo from the stone pavement at the gateway and the man looked over his shoulder. It was my acquaintance, Kurakin’s steward, and, in a flash, it dawned on me that he was taking his vengeance on the unhappy dwarf. The next moment I had the great brute by the collar and put my pistol to his head, and he, recoiling as far as he could, let his victim fall on the pavement. With a kick and the threat of the pistol I got the big fellow to his feet; it was in my mind to make an end of him, but he was too contemptible.
“Get out!” I said to him in Russ; “be off to your kennel or——” I flourished my weapon.
He cursed me, his great bloated face purple and his eyes like blood, but he dared not linger, for he read that in my glance which cowed him. He slunk off like the coward he was, and then I looked at the dwarf, who lay in a heap on the ground, and marvelled that a creature so tiny could have resisted him a moment. The poor little wretch was stripped almost naked and had been lashed until he was covered with blood. A bloody thong lay near to tell the tale, and his throat had two purple marks on it where the steward’s fingers had been pressing the breath out of his body. Yet, nearly spent as he was, he crawled to my feet and fell to mumbling over them and kissing them, until it turned my stomach.