Chapter III: Fever and Convalescence

Of the four occupants of Castel Nuovo the first to awaken in the morning was Jacintha, who, after dressing, proceeded immediately to Barbara's room. Having tapped at the door, first softly, then loudly, and receiving no answer, she ventured to enter.

Barbara was awake, and talking to herself in a very odd manner.

She took no notice of the approach of Jacintha, and the latter perceived at once that her forebodings were realized.

Barbara, her dark hair lying in disorder on her pillow, a bright color burning in her cheek, the light of reason quenched in her eye, was in a high state of fever. She was not speaking in Italian, the language used by her the previous evening, but in another tongue altogether strange to Jacintha.

The latter returned quickly to her own room to make it known to Lambro, who had just struggled into his finery.

"What else could be expected after sleeping at night in a damp forest?" was his comment. "Fever! and she in that very chamber, too! By God, if the Master should return and find her there!"

"Come and listen to her. She is talking in a strange language: she looks at me with piteous eyes as if making some request. Perhaps you can understand her."

The old Palicar followed her to Barbara's chamber. His roving life in the Balkan Peninsula had given him a knowledge, more or less imperfect, of all the languages spoken from the Danube to Maina, but he failed to identify the speech of Barbara with any one of these.

"It's not Romaic, nor Turkish, nor Albanian, nor--"

"Listen!" said Jacintha, in a startled voice.

Amid the plaintive flow of unintelligible sound there came at irregular intervals a recurrence of the same three syllables.

"_Rav-en-na!_" murmured Jacintha with white lips.

"She's thinking of Ravenna on the other side of the sea," said Lambro, indicating the direction with his hand. "Wishes to go there perhaps."

"No, no. Have you forgotten? Ravenna! That's what the last one said when she raved. 'O Ravenna, what have you done?' were her words."

Lambro stared dubiously at Jacintha. Then the eyes of both turned simultaneously to the violet sealing-wax on the wall, as if that had some connection with the name.

"I don't like this," muttered the old Palicar, turning away uneasily. "There's something eerie about it. How has the signorina got hold of that name?"

Leaving Jacintha there he proceeded with subdued mien to the dining-hall, and aroused Paul from slumber with the question,--

"Have you ever had the malaria?"

"Can any one live in your cursed Greek climate, and not take it?" said Paul, somewhat resenting the rough shaking he had received.

"Then you run no risk of taking it again by staying here."

Paul was wide awake now, and sprang instantly to his feet.

"You mean that the signorina has caught the fever?"

"That is so. She'll not see Zara for some weeks--if indeed at all. You have done a nice thing for me, Captain Cressingham, for she cannot be removed now. And what will the Master say if he should return and find a fever-stricken person in his house? His was wise advice, after all. 'Admit no strangers in my absence, Lambro.' I have broken his orders, and this is the result."

It may have been selfish on the part of Paul, but his thoughts were too much set on Barbara to permit of commiseration for Lambro's position. Never had he been attracted by any maiden as he had been by Barbara, and now to learn that she was in a dangerous fever filled him with a feeling akin to horror.

"Where does the nearest doctor live? I must fetch him at once."

"She's a dead woman if you do. Leave her to Jacintha, and she may recover; trust her to a Dalmatian doctor, and she'll certainly die."

With which assurance Lambro retired grumbling terribly, for inasmuch as all Jacintha's attention would be required by the patient, he foresaw that for the next month he would have to prepare his own meals, and likewise those of Paul, should the latter choose to remain at Castel Nuovo; and if there was aught that the old Palicar disliked it was work, even of the lightest sort.

In descending the stairs Paul was met by Jacintha.

"There is no use in disguising the truth," she said in answer to his eager questioning. "The signorina is in a very dangerous state. But leave her to me, and she shall recover. I was a nurse at Constantinople, remember; and in the matter of fever I know what to do as well as a doctor, perhaps better than any you will find in this uncivilized region."

Impressed somehow by Jacintha's faith in her own powers Paul felt that Barbara could not be in better hands.

"And you will remain at Castel Nuovo till she recovers?"

Paul gladly assented to this proposal.

"I know that she is a stranger to you," continued Jacintha, "but still she came here under your guidance and protection, and therefore in some measure you are responsible for her safety. Yes, I say, safety. Captain Cressingham," she added, with a strange earnestness, "your presence here is necessary. The signorina is in peril. If the Master should return and find--"

She broke off abruptly, perceiving Lambro at the foot of the staircase.

"Now, Jacintha, attend to your patient. I'll see to the captain's breakfast."

And awed by the cold glittering eye of her partner, Jacintha became mute and glided away.

That day, and the few days that followed, formed the most unhappy time that Paul had ever known, for the fair maiden whom he loved lay in the mystic borderland betwixt life and death.

He haunted the corridor leading to her bedroom, either sitting silent in the recess of an embrasured window, or walking to and fro with noiseless tread, eagerly questioning Jacintha whenever she appeared. She began to pity this young Englishman with his haggard looks, so much so that she always returned favorable answers, even when the waters of the dark river had almost closed over the head of her patient.

Mindful of Barbara's escape from a convent, Paul would not wander more than a few yards from the castle, fearful lest the ecclesiastical authorities or the Austrian gendarmes should make their appearance during his absence, to say nothing of the return of the mysterious Master, whose presence was equally to be guarded against, if Jacintha had spoken truly.

Paul's refusal to accompany Lambro for a sail on the sea or on a tramp through the woods with his dogs provoked that worthy's contempt. A fine soldierly fellow like Paul to be fretting over a thing of a girl, when a Circassian equally lovely could be bought in the neighboring province of Albania for five hundred beshliks, with the additional advantage of selling the damsel again when she had ceased to please. It was absurd!

At last one day Jacintha was able to announce that Barbara had passed the crisis. The relief to Paul's overwrought mind was so great that he almost felt as if he himself, and not Barbara, had been the sufferer.

"And you will be glad to learn, Captain Cressingham," said the nurse, with a smile that had a hidden meaning in it, "that the illness has left no disfiguring traces on her beauty."

She was still too weak for conversation, and Jacintha averred that some days must elapse before she could let him see the patient.

In the meantime, however, Paul did not fail to remind her daily of his existence.

Near by lived a charcoal-burner accustomed to call at the castle for the purpose of bringing Jacintha her stock of provisions from the market-town.

Making use of this man Paul every day procured the loveliest of flowers, in addition to fruits and other delicacies, and these, accompanied by wishes for her welfare, he would send up to the patient through the medium of the faithful Jacintha, who in turn brought back Barbara's expressions of gratitude.

The period of Barbara's convalescence was a somewhat dull time for Paul, self-debarred as he was from quitting the vicinity of the castle.

He tried to take an interest in Lambro's companionship, despite his indefinable suspicion of the old Palicar, but he soon grew tired of hearing the same stories, for there was but one theme upon which the Greek would converse, namely, the Hellenic War of Independence,--a war in which, though history be strangely silent on the matter, Lambro had taken the leading part, at least, according to his own account.

Occasionally the vain old man, forgetful that his strength and skill were departing, would invite Paul to a fencing-bout; if defeated, he grew angry; but when Paul, in the exercise of a little _finesse_, permitted himself to be worsted, then Lambro, suspecting the trick played upon him, grew more angry still; so that there was no pleasing him. In short, he was a somewhat trying individual to live with, and Paul was never sorry when he saw him setting off for a long tramp by the shore or through the woods, attended by his twelve mastiffs, brutes big and ferocious, but esteemed by Paul because they were such, since they would prove excellent auxiliaries against any foe who should approach the castle with intent to carry off Barbara, and that such abduction might be attempted was a fear ever present to his mind.

Indeed, it was quite within the range of probability that any day a serious fray might occur, for heedless as to what the Austrian law might be in the matter of maidens who escaped from convents, Paul was determined that Barbara should not be surrendered to the authorities without opposition on his part; while Lambro, though disposed to look upon the fair fugitive somewhat in the light of an encumbrance, was nevertheless fierce in declaring, with a fine scorn of consequences, that he would shoot the first gendarme who should attempt to cross _his_ threshold; and Paul had little doubt that the fiery old Klepht would keep his word.

Still, this was not quite the sort of recreation that Paul wanted.

"Have you no books here?" he asked of Lambro one day.

"Would you turn caloyer or papa? No? Then, what can you want with books?"

"Your classic ancestors would not have asked that question. To read, of course."

"Bah! the best use you can put books to is to twist them into cartridges. That's what we did with them in the war." In Lambro's opinion there had only been one war worthy of the name. "Did you ever hear of the siege of ----?"

"But as to the books now?" gently murmured Paul, who did not wish to hear anything about the siege of ----.

"Books? Yes, there are some here in the topmost room of the castle; but you cannot get at them, for that room is the Master's study; and on his departure he always locks the door, and takes the key with him."

Paul, with his head full of suspicion against the Master, could discern nothing but a sinister caution in his practice of keeping the study-door locked during his absence. Accordingly on the following day when Lambro was out of the way, and Jacintha occupied with her patient, Paul ascended the staircase leading to the upper portion of the tower. On the topmost landing of all he came upon a stout door of oak securely locked. This without doubt was the entrance of the study spoken of by Lambro. A pendant on the other side of the key-hole prevented Paul from obtaining the slightest glimpse of the interior.

Not only had the Master left this door locked, but he had likewise taken precautions to prevent any one during his absence from entering without his knowledge, for the hinges of the door were sealed with violet-colored wax bearing the impress of a paschal lamb.

The care thus taken to screen the room from espionage increased Paul's suspicions. Then he turned away, becoming suddenly conscious that to pry thus upon the affairs of a stranger was conduct unworthy of a soldier and a gentleman; and yet a secret voice seemed to whisper that he was justified in his proceeding, when he recalled Jacintha's strange remark that the return of the Master threatened Barbara's safety.

"Jacintha," said he, when next he saw that person, "what secret is contained in that locked room at the top of the tower, for," he added, proceeding beyond his knowledge, "I am convinced that there is some mystery connected with it."

That he was correct in his surmise was sufficiently evinced by the look of fear that came over Jacintha's face.

"You must ask Lambro."

"He will not tell me."

"And I dare not."

"Why?"

"Lambro would kill me if I should reveal the secret. You yourself heard his threat. I have taken a solemn oath upon the Holy Sacrament itself to preserve silence. Do not speak of this matter again, I pray you," she continued, with pain in her voice, "for, indeed, Captain Cressingham, it is no concern of yours."

And then, as if desirous of reverting to a more pleasing topic, she added,--

"I have good news for you. The signorina is now strong enough to rise and be dressed. To-morrow you shall see her."

This intelligence was more acceptable to Paul than the baton of a general. He had very little sleep that night for thinking of Barbara.

Next day at noon, Barbara having been dressed by Jacintha, was assisted by the same faithful attendant to an adjoining sitting-room, and comfortably installed in a big arm-chair placed beside an open casement which commanded a view of the sea.

How quick was the turn of her head towards the door when Paul's step sounded there! How bright her smile as she offered him her slender hand. How sweet the color that played over her cheek while she thanked him for the presents that he had sent up to her! A white rose graced her dusky hair, the flower being, as Paul noticed with secret pleasure, his gift of the previous day.

Jacintha had withdrawn on Paul's entrance. Wise creature, Jacintha! It is not every woman who will recognize herself as _de trop_ when youth and maiden meet.

"I am glad to see you recovering, signorina."

"I am still very weak. I tremble to think what would have become of me had I lain down in that wood. The fever would certainly have carried me off. I owe my life to you."

"No--to Jacintha."

"And to Jacintha, who will not take any reward from me."

After this there was a silence. Paul found his usual flow of language gone. He longed to be brilliant; he was conscious of seeming stupid.

"It is six weeks since our meeting in the woods," he observed, for want of a better remark.

"And you were going to Sebenico, then. Have you remained at Castel Nuovo all this time on my account?"

"I desire to keep my promise of seeing you safely to Zara."

Barbara murmured her gratitude, adding,--

"But am I not putting you to great inconvenience?"

"No, signorina, no. These are my holidays. I am on a long furlough. My time is my own, or rather it is at your disposal."

Barbara's eyes drooped beneath Paul's gaze. Why should this handsome young captain interest himself so on her behalf?

"Jacintha tells me that you have never quitted the vicinity of the castle."

"True. It has been my desire to guard against a surprise on the part of your pursuers."

Barbara's face lost its bright expression for a moment.

"My pursuers!" she murmured. "My pursuers! The thought of them haunted me while I lay ill. I dreaded lest I should be carried off in my helpless state. But as six weeks have elapsed I think I may regard the pursuit--if pursuit there were--as over. But tell me, Captain Cressingham,"--how prettily the name fell from her lips!--"what would you have done if my pursuers had appeared?"

"Fought," replied Paul laconically.

"But supposing they had been a dozen in number?"

"No matter. Lambro loves a fight, so do I. Castel Nuovo was built to stand a siege. The door is of massive oak; the lower windows are barred; there are abundant loopholes convenient for taking shots at the enemy. And besides there are the twelve mastiffs, each of which is capable of tackling a man. Trust us, signorina, we should have made a good defence."

It was pleasant to be near such towers of strength as Paul and Lambro, who appeared to regard Austrian gendarmerie with contempt. Then her pleasure became lost in surprise. Was this Englishman really willing to undergo such perils on her behalf? Ay, those, and much more, Barbara, to gain your smiles.

"I am fortunate in my friends," she said, "but rather than expose them to such hazard I think I should prefer to give myself up."

She was a sweet and interesting patient, and the charm of her face and figure was enhanced by the toilette in which Jacintha had arrayed her,--a dress all soft and white and foamy with silk muslin. A silver rope girdle was tied at one side and fell in two long, graceful tassels. Delicate antique lace fringed the slender wrists. Paul's quick eye observed that a small portion of the lace was torn off from the right sleeve. He wondered why the defect had not been repaired. A trifling circumstance, but one destined to recur with peculiar force at a later date.

This was not the costume she had worn on the night of her first meeting with him. Whence, then, did it come? Barbara seemed to divine his thoughts.

"I see you are observing my dress," she remarked. "It is a gift from Jacintha, drawn from an old chest in her wardrobe. It might have been expressly made for me, for it fits to a nicety without requiring the least alteration. Made for another, and yet suiting me to perfection. Is not that a singular coincidence?"

The fit of the dress did not strike Paul so much as the costliness of the material. He could not account for Jacintha's possession of such attire except on the supposition that it formed part of the flotsam and jetsam which supplied Lambro with his finery.

Again Barbara seemed to read his thoughts.

"No, it is not a gift of the sea; Jacintha assured me of that; otherwise I would not wear it. I have no liking for the clothing of the drowned." And then displaying a pair of pretty satin shoes, she added: "And these, too, are Jacintha's gift, and they fit as if my feet had been measured for them."

She turned to the open casement and surveyed the scene without.

"Ah! if I could but get into the air outside I should recover the sooner."

"Then come down to-morrow, and sit outside on the terrace."

"I am too weak to walk."

"No matter. I will carry you," replied Paul, boldly.

"I shall have to get Jacintha's leave first," said Barbara, half-pleased, half-reluctant. "Jacintha is an ideal nurse. She will have her commands obeyed, and will not yield to the whims of her patient."

When Jacintha appeared, her consent was readily obtained, and as she averred that Barbara had talked enough for one day, Paul was compelled to take his leave.

He spent the rest of the day in recalling Barbara's words. The interview, though delightful, contained one element of disappointment: Barbara had said nothing as to her previous history. Paul had hesitated to question her on the matter, leaving her to take the initiative. Time would doubtless bring increasing confidence on her part.

On the following day he redeemed his promise of carrying her into the open air. An exquisite sense of pleasure filled him as he felt the clasp of Barbara's arm around his neck and noted the sweet color that mantled her cheek. From her chamber he bore her down the staircase and out to a dismantled marble terrace, where he seated her in a lounge, which had been placed there by Jacintha. Above her rose a stately terebinth, whose light-green foliage, crimsoned with clusters of delicate flowers, cast a circle of shade around.

It was the height of summer, and the day, though hot, was not oppressive; the atmosphere being tempered by the air flowing from the Dalmatian highlands that rose behind them, peak above peak, in dark wooded glory.

Facing them was the smooth Adriatic almost as blue as the heaven it reflected. Far off in the summer haze picturesque feluccas, with their white lateen sails, glided to and fro with slow dream-like motion.

Sea, sky, and mountains combined to form a scene of enchanting beauty, rendered still more enchanting to Paul by the presence of Barbara, to whom Jacintha had imparted an additional charm by adorning her with the graceful _pezzotto_, or muslin scarf, which, pinned on the head and falling over the arms and shoulders, permitted the beautiful face and hair of the wearer to be seen through it.

"Have you ever noticed, Captain Cressingham, how trifles annoy when one is in a state of illness? And I am annoyed by a trifle, one so absurd that I feel ashamed to mention it."

Paul urged her, nevertheless, to describe the annoyance.

"What torments me is a piece of sealing-wax on a panel in my bedroom. Reposing the other night, with my eyes turned towards it, I was seized by a singular fancy. The wax seemed to be receding through the wall, drawing me after it. Reason told me that this could not be so, that the wax was immovably fixed to the panel, and that I was in bed; yet all the same, there was the circle of wax gliding onward with never-ending motion through the realm of air, and myself floating along in its wake like a disembodied spirit. This sensation occurs every night. My mind is kept perpetually on the rack following that piece of wax through the infinity of space, ever lured onward by the hope of arriving at some goal. But that goal perpetually evades me, and therein is the torment."

"Having had the malaria myself," observed Paul, "I can testify that such queer notions do occur. What is the color of this wax?" he added, having little doubt as to what the answer would be.

"It is of a violet hue, and bears the impress of a lamb carrying a banner. I cannot go back to that chamber again," continued Barbara, "or I shall be driven mad, for the annoyance is depriving me of all sleep. I must change my room, even though my good nurse is opposed to it."

But Jacintha did not offer any opposition when Paul made known her patient's desire for a different sleeping-room; without any demur she immediately set about preparing another chamber.

That same night, when all was still in the castle, Paul, taking a revolver and a lamp, sought the room vacated by Barbara. He quickly discovered the piece of stamped wax, and saw that it corresponded precisely with the seal upon the door of the mysterious study.

Extinguishing his lamp, he sat down on a chair beside the panel, determined to watch there during the night to ascertain, if possible, whether there was any ground for Barbara's strange fancy.

It was a long and dreary vigil, and when the gray light of dawn stole in through the casement, and nothing had occurred to excite suspicion, he was fain to question the wisdom of his action.

That day Paul again carried Barbara downstairs to breathe the pure air of the sunlit terrace.

"My sleep last night was sweet and sound," she remarked. "With my new bedroom, and with this glorious air, I shall soon be well again."

She looked so radiant that Paul refrained from mentioning his nocturnal vigil. Though full of indefinable suspicion himself, he had no wish to alarm her mind; and he had laid both on Lambro and Jacintha an injunction to maintain silence respecting the locked room.

Barbara's strength gradually returned. In a day or two she was able to stand, and, leaning upon Paul's arm, she walked to and fro in the immediate vicinity of the castle. These promenades were soon lengthened into rambles along the seashore or through the fragrant pine woods, Paul being her constant companion. She had taken his arm at first from weakness; she now continued to do so from habit.

As his knowledge of Barbara increased Paul discovered that she had received an extraordinary education, her course of study having been as remarkable for what it omitted as for what it contained. While knowing very little of poetry, painting, music, needle-work, and other accomplishments usually included in the feminine curriculum, she was nevertheless well versed in mathematics, logic, and "the dismal science," to wit, political economy. Classic antiquity was almost a sealed book to her, but modern history and current continental politics she had at her finger-tips, and her knowledge of royal and noble genealogies with all their ramifications might have put a herald to the blush. She could give the biographies, and the characteristic foibles, of all the leading statesmen of Europe; was mistress of several modern languages, notably Polish or Russian, and--most puzzling circumstance of all--she was quite _au fait_ with the mysteries and subtleties of Catholic theology.

As she could scarcely have passed her twentieth year, it seemed to Paul that Barbara, in view of her extensive acquirements, must have commenced her studies so soon as she had quitted her cradle.

Her intellectual training appeared more adapted to the acquirements of a ruler, a statesman, or an ambassador than to those of an ordinary young lady; and Paul puzzled himself to account for the aims of those who had directed her education, for Barbara herself volunteered no information on the matter, and still maintained an attitude of reticence as to her past life.