“I am the wife of the Lord Romanos. If you kill me, you kill your Princess.”
Again that clash of steel, and Danaë’s stubborn heart misgave her. Pausing only to wind her shawl firmly round Janni and herself, she began to climb, hurriedly and furiously, and never ceased until she had reached her eyrie, where no one could see her from below. She found a cradle among the branches for Janni, and tied him there safely before she ventured to look out of the window she had made for herself. On the lawn lay a prostrate figure in a red gown, dreadfully still, with a deeper red spreading from it to the grass, and men in the uniform of the Prince’s guard were searching eagerly among the trees. Others came rushing out of the house as she watched.
“Not a soul there! Where are they?” was the cry. “What is the use of killing the she-wolf if the cub is left alive?”
Then Petros was false! More than that, it came upon Danaë like a blow that her father had planned this murder all along, and deliberately made use of her to further his plot. In the sudden revulsion of feeling she forgot her own hatred of the Lady, and the ignoble part it had led her to play. Janni was alive, left to her charge by his murdered mother, and she would save him if she died for it. Sick and shaking, she crawled back to where she had left him, and found him peacefully asleep. Seating herself in a fork of the branches beside him, she loosened her dagger in its sheath. If they were tracked to the tree, no one should touch him while she remained alive.
CHAPTER V.
THE BRAND OF CAIN.
Danaë woke from the sleep or stupor that had overcome her to find Janni patting her face.
“Wake up, Nono, wake up!” he was saying, as he was wont to do in the early morning. “Breakfast!”
With a horrible spasm of fear, she covered his mouth quickly with the shawl, fearing his voice might have been heard, then listened apprehensively. But no sound came from below, and Janni was struggling to get rid of the shawl, and insisting, in his own language, which only Danaë understood, that he was very hungry, and would shortly roar if breakfast was not forthcoming. Judging by her own sensations that some hours must have passed since she had climbed the tree, she ventured to crawl back to her point of vantage and peer cautiously forth. The dreadful red form still lay where it had fallen, marring the peaceful beauty of the garden with its rigid lines and clenched hands, but of the murderers there was no sign. Could they have guessed that she and Janni were hidden in the grounds, and be lying in wait in the house, ready to pounce upon them when hunger should drive them forth? Danaë shook from head to foot as the thought occurred to her, but a howl from Janni brought her back to him in a panic, and made action inevitable. Quieting him with promises and entreaties, she let herself down from the tree, and starting at every sound, crept through the bushes and reconnoitred the kitchen door. There was no one to be seen, and she ventured inside. Everything was thrown about and broken, but no one was there. Kicking off her slippers, she crept through the hall to the front of the house. Curtains had been roughly pulled down, pieces of furniture dragged from their places, evidently to make sure that no one was hiding behind them, and all receptacles ransacked. The sight of the bureau standing open gave her a shock, but she saw at once that the secret drawer had not been discovered. Approaching noiselessly, she touched the spring, and the Girdle of Isidora, in all its antique and sacred beauty, lay before her worshipping eyes. With a sudden impulse she snatched it up, and fastened it with trembling fingers round her waist, hidden by her long coat and apron, leaving the drawer open.
A distant wail reminded her of her charge, and she returned hastily into the kitchen to look for food. Some milk she was able to rescue from a broken crock, but there was none of the white bread which was always bought for Janni. Surely Despina ought to have returned with her purchases by this time? Danaë ran out towards the gate, avoiding with a shudder the tumbled heap which showed where Mariora had made her gallant and ineffectual stand on behalf of her mistress, but recoiled hastily. Almost at her very feet lay Despina, dead among her baskets. She had been attacked from behind and cut down as soon as she was inside the gate. With iron resolution the girl crushed down the desire that seized her to run away screaming—anywhere, anywhere, away from those three corpses. Janni remained alive and dependent on her, and she must take care of him. Setting her teeth, she stepped forward gingerly until she was able to seize one of the baskets. Happily, it was the one containing the bread, and she hurried back to Janni, and brought him down from the tree and fed him. She found a hiding-place in the bushes, close to the spot where the Lady had sat writing that morning, and tried to get the child to sleep again while she thought things out. How she was to place him in safety she could not tell. She did not even know the way to the Palace, and besides, her brother might even now have started on his expedition. Moreover, there was the disquieting fact that the murderers had all worn the uniform of the guard, which seemed to ring her round with fresh perils. The guard were then in the plot to destroy the Lady and her son, and to go to the Palace would be to walk straight into their clutches. Worse still, they were to provide a detachment to garrison the garden that night, so the Prince had told Despina when he announced his approaching journey before he rode out, and they would no doubt use the opportunity to place the three dead bodies inside the house, and remove all traces of the tragedy from the outside. They were not to come near the house itself, nor to see anything of the inmates, so their orders ran, and therefore the horrible business would in the most natural way remain undiscovered until Prince Romanos returned to Therma and came to see his wife.
And in the meantime? Danaë’s heart sank. Her brother would be away three or four days, as he had told Despina, and it would fall to her to keep Janni safely concealed and fed for that time. The slightest sign of their presence, the faintest wail from the child, and the murderous crew who had killed his mother would be upon them. There would be no more milk, even if she could make the bread last which she had found in the basket, and Janni was not accustomed to bear privation silently. Nor was a tree an ideal sleeping-place for three or four nights, especially when any movement in the branches might betray your presence to bloodthirsty enemies below. Slowly a plan grew up in Danaë’s mind. She and Janni would escape from the garden while there was time, before the guard arrived that evening. The gate was out of the question owing to the presence of the sentry, but the wall was easy to climb, especially where trees grew close to it. Danaë had no mind to trust herself in Therma, but she knew, by longing observation from her treetops, which way lay the open country, and there it must be possible to find villages where she and Janni might be sheltered until she could manage to communicate with her brother. Crawling out of her concealment, she picked up the letter which the Lady had been writing, and which had fallen to the ground, folded it and hid it in her dress. It would be a credential should she be forced to approach Prince Romanos through a third person, less likely by far to arouse suspicion or to provoke danger than the famous girdle. Then she ventured back into the house to collect a few clothes for herself and Janni, which she made into a bundle with the rest of the bread, and hid among the trees at the point she thought best for crossing the wall. Returning to fetch the child, she was horrified to hear violent blows upon the gate. The guard had arrived early—the mob of the city were attacking the house—the conjectures, both equally alarming, chased one another through her brain as she caught up Janni, and rushed with him once more to the tree of refuge. But before she could mount it she heard her brother’s voice.