"That is, in fact, exactly his age."
"I also have a son," said the Master. "He is sixteen years of age, and he too has seen and heard many fearful things. But one thing, you know, he must not hear—tales in which a woman——"
"Ah! you are right," said the Commodore hastily. "If it is a question of that sort I need ask no more."
"Now, Commodore, if you wish it, I will myself show you all the rooms and passages in the building. Be good enough to accompany me."
Feodor led the way down the stone steps connecting one floor with another. The smallness of the rooms into which each story was divided easily made the stranger imagine that he was seeing the whole of the space between the walls, whereas he really saw only about two-thirds of it. A vertical partition, running from the vaults beneath up to the upper story, shut off a portion of the space. It was here that all the plundered treasure, ammunition and guns were carefully concealed. Through this section a secret passage led down to the rooms in which the provisions were stored, and to the subterranean "chapel" in which the armed men were hidden, waiting for the signal to force their way by means of a trap-door into the upper portions of the tower.
The living rooms through which the Commodore was conducted had quite the appearance of such as might be used by some contemplative and learned recluse. They contained naturalists' collections, shell-fish and corals, antiquities, and book-cases filled with yellow-edged folios.
Presently the officer glanced out of a window in one of the rooms and saw away beneath him the flower garden with the asters and chrysanthemums blooming in the autumn sun.
"Ah!" he exclaimed; "that garden tells plainly enough that this tower has also a mistress."
"I am very sorry that I cannot conduct you thither, Count von Ungern," said the Master; "we should have to pass through the lady's boudoir."
"The lady is your wife, is she not?" inquired the Commodore.