“They do not know,” he said; “not one usher in fifty knows one of us from the other, and the dwarfs are always running the secret errands of their czarish majesties. Trust me, my master. I will take you there. Why, there is not a secret,” he held his finger up to his lips, “not a conspiracy up yonder, that we do not know; they cannot deceive us—not they!”
I believed him, looking at his sharp, malicious little face. How often do princes pay for spies upon themselves, and nourish vipers in their bosoms! I shrugged my shoulders.
“Go on, then,” I said, “and be quick!”
He led on past the Red Staircase, skirted the walls of the palace, came to the rear and there, at a little postern, stumbled upon a crowd of dwarfs. At the sight of their comrade they yelled shrilly and made strange gesticulations, but Maluta silenced them by signs, laying his finger on his lips, his forehead, and his heart, and then pointing at me. They fell away and let us enter, staring at me, and swarming in after us, as I have seen bees swarm into a hive. It annoyed me; I wanted more elbow room, but remembering the difficulties before me, I tried to endure these little creatures with patience. Once in the palace we began to ascend a narrow flight of stairs,—the back stairs of the terem,—where many a secret, whether of joy or sorrow or sin, had crept up and down for years; crept until the marble steps were worn and lustreless, and the very arches, fluted and dim above us, were darkened by an atmosphere of secrecy and fear. The pattering of many little feet behind began to grow more distant and ceased altogether when we left the swarm at a turn of the stairs, below a landing, where we came suddenly upon a sentry. He lowered his staff across the narrow space and would not let us pass, but Maluta threw out his little chest and strutted, as I have seen game-cocks in the halles of Paris, and reaching up on tip-toes, he whispered to the soldier, two words that—for the next few days—were magic in their effect.
“Sophia Alexeievna.”
In an instant the staff was raised, the man saluted, and we passed safely on, through a dim gallery where, behind closed doors, I heard the murmur of subdued voices. There was something in the very air of this part of the palace that choked an honest man; it was a place for the toads that live upon the sovereign’s bounties and betray him. I was glad when the dwarf finally entered a wide corridor, lighted by windows that looked out upon the Red Place, and I saw the sun shining on the wall beside me, and felt the breeze from an open casement. Halfway down the corridor we found an usher on duty, and to him Maluta used the same password, and he opened the door and bowed me into the ante-room of the very chamber where Sophia and Maître le Bastien still awaited me. The dwarf’s cleverness had served me well indeed, but I had no time to thank him. Sophia sat in the carved chair, waiting for me with a face like a thunder-cloud; and the goldsmith had aged six months in two hours.
“You are long about your errands, sir,” snapped the czarevna as I advanced, her little eyes searching me, as keen as two needles. “Where is Vasili Ivanovitch?”
“He will be here presently, your highness,” I replied evasively; “but I have brought the miniature,” and I presented it with a profound obeisance.
I think she was surprised, but she showed no sign of being pleased. She took it with much deliberation, and turning it over and over in her hands, examined it jealously, as if she feared either deception or some injury to the precious picture, but she failed to find even a scratch upon the ivory. Relieved by this turn of affairs, Maître le Bastien found his voice.
“If your highness will permit me to take the picture and the locket back to my shop,” he said, “I will replace the miniature in its former position with such care that it will not show its removal.”