And with that the old man burst into tears, and perceiving the odalisque’s girdle on the window-frame, to which the plant was attached, he took it down, kissed it hundreds of times, hid his tearful face in it, and collapsed senseless on the floor.
“Hasten, Princess, hasten!”
The odalisque pressed her companion’s hand, and dragged her down along the bushy hillside. And now they had reached the hollow forming the entrance to the underground passage which terminated at the gates of the garden on the banks of the Danube.
The odalisque had succeeded in filching the keys of the door of this secret passage from Hassan. While she was trying which of the two it was that belonged to the lock of the inner door, a cry resounded through the stillness of the night. “Hassan!” exclaimed the two girls together. They had recognised the voice.
“They have discovered our escape,” said Azrael.
“Oh, God! do not leave me!” cried Mariska, pressing her hands together. “My child!”
Azrael quickly opened the grating door. It took a few moments, and during that time a commotion was audible in the town, no doubt caused by the cry of Hassan. Cries of alarm and consternation spread from bastion to bastion, the whole garrison was aroused, and there was a confused murmur within the fortress.
“Let us hasten!” cried Azrael, quickly opening the door and dragging after her the Princess into the blind-black corridor.
At that moment a cannon-shot thundered from the fortress as an alarm-signal.
Mariska, at the sound of the shot, collapsed in terror at Azrael’s feet, and lay motionless in the corridor, still holding her child fast clasped in her arms.
“Hah! the woman has fainted,” cried the odalisque in alarm; “we shall both perish here,” she cried in her despair.
The din in the fortress grew louder every instant, from every bastion the signal-guns thundered.
“No, no, we must not perish!” exclaimed the heroine, and with a strength multiplied by the extremity of the danger, she caught up the moaning woman and child in her arms, and raising them to her bosom began making her way with them along the covered corridor.
Pitch darkness engulfed everything around them; the odalisque groped her way along by the feel of the wet, sinuous walls, stumbling from time to time beneath the burden of the dead weight in her arms, but at every fresh shot she started forward again and went on without resting.
Onwards, ever onwards!—till the last gasp! till the last heartthrob! The awakened child also began to cry.
Azrael’s knees tottered, her bosom heaved beneath the double load, her staring eyes saw nothing; and the world was as dark before her soul as it was before her eyes.
Heavy was the load upon her shoulder; but heavier still was the thought in her heart that this woman whom she was saving at the risk of her own life was the darling of him whom she loved herself, yet save her she must, for she had promised to do so.
At every step she felt her strength diminishing; with swimming head she staggered against the wall, the steps seemed to have no end; if only she could hold out till she reached the door with her, and then for a moment might see Feriz Beg and hear from his lips the words: “Well done!”—then Israfil, the Angel of Death might come with his flaming sword.
For some time she had gathered from the hollower resonance of the steps in the darkness that she was approaching the door; rallying her remaining strength, she tottered forward a few paces with her load, and when the latch of the door was already in her hand, her knees gave way beneath her, and along with the Princess and the child, she fell in a heap on the threshold, being just able to shove the key into the lock and turn it twice.
Feriz Beg, with the Magyar nobles, plunged again beneath the shade of the deep arch of the gate of the fortress garden and with wrapt attention listened for the muezzin to proclaim midnight. It was then that Azrael had said she would come.
It never occurred to him that the woman could not come, so deeply had he looked into her heart that he felt sure she would fulfil her promise.
If only the muezzin would proclaim midnight from the mosque.
At last a cry sounded through the stillness of the night, but it was not the voice of the muezzin from the mosque, but Hassan’s yell of terror from the fortress window and the din which immediately followed it, proclaiming that there was danger.
Feriz’s heart was troubled, but he never moved from the spot. He knew right well what that noise meant. They had tried to help the Princess to escape and her escape was discovered.
“What is that noise?” asked the Prince apprehensively, sticking up his head.
Feriz did not want to alarm him.
“It is nothing,” he answered. “Someone has stolen away on the bastions, perhaps, and they are pursuing him.”
Then the first cannon-shot resounded.
Feriz, for the first time in his life, was agitated at the sound of a cannon.
“That is an alarm-signal,” cried Tököly, drawing his sword.
“Keep quiet!” whispered Feriz, “perhaps they are shooting at the people who are thronging the gates.”
Nevertheless the shots were repeated from every bastion; the tumult, the uproar increased; a tattoo was beaten, the trumpets rang out and a whole concourse of people could be seen running along the bastions with torches and flashing swords in their hands.
“They are pursuing someone!” cried the Prince, and unable to endure it any longer, he leaped upon the bank.
“I know not what it is,” stammered Feriz, and a cold shudder ran through his body.
Ghyka grasped his sword, and would have rushed up
