“’Tis below, excellency, by the chapel; we can reach it by this stairway,” and he darted to the head of the flight of narrow stairs which had escaped my eye.
I followed, and in a moment we were down a short, stone stair and stood in a narrow gallery richly and gaudily painted in the Turkish fashion. It was empty; at the end was a door that I knew opened into the chapel, and I hurried to it and peeped in. All was quiet; the priest stood waiting in the dim light. I turned and found the dwarf at my heels.
“Quick!” I said in a whisper; “can we cut off his entry here?”
Maluta skurried ahead of me, without pausing even to reply, and we had passed through a door at the other end, into a small room that had one window on the Red Place, before either of us paused.
“Must he come this way?” I asked hastily.
The dwarf nodded, and I turned and, locking the door behind me, put the key into my pocket; then I went to the only other entrance and stood waiting. Here too, as luck would have it, the key was on the inside. Maluta stood watching me. I looked around keenly for one object that I desired, but saw it not, and then my eye alighted on the wide scarf at the dwarf’s waist.
“Take off your sash,” I said sharply; “tear it into four strips, so—knot them together—we shall need a rope.”
He obeyed, his eyes twinkling, and had scarcely tied the last knot before I heard someone coming. I listened—would there be more than one? No, it was one footstep—an eager and a hasty one—and it came on swiftly. I waited quietly, holding Maluta’s pistol in my right hand.
The door opened violently, and the Boyar Kurakin entered, so hastily that he did not perceive us until I had closed the door with my left hand, and locking it, thrust the key into my bosom with its fellow. Then he saw me and stopped short and stared. To him I was only the apprentice who had played him the trick with the miniature, and the recollection of that douche of hot soup brought a scowl to his forehead. It was a handsome, evil face, as I saw it now, and I remembered the Princess Daria’s cry, “I can die—I would gladly die!”
“What brings you hither, knave?” he asked with fierce scorn, “to brave your betters?”