Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/226

210 I rose, gripped a big rusty chain to steady myself, and climbed into the narrow doorway in the ponderous wall, where I found myself in the darkness beside the female who had apparently been expecting our arrival and watching our signal.

Without a word she led me through a short passage, and then, striking a match, lit a big old-fashioned lantern. As the light fell upon her features I saw they were thin and hard, with deep-set eyes and a stray wisp of silver hair across her wrinkled brow. Around her head was a kind of hood of the same stuff as her dress, a black coarse woollen, while around her neck was a broad linen collar. In an instant I recognized that she was a member of some religious order, some minor order perhaps, with whose habit we, in Italy, were not acquainted.

The thin ascetic countenance was that of a woman of strong character, and her funereal habit seemed much too large for her stunted shrunken figure.

"The sister speaks French?" I hazarded in that language, knowing that in most convents throughout Europe French is known.

"Oui, m'sieur," was her answer. "And a leetle Engleesh, too — a ve-ry leetle," she smiled.

"You know why I am here?" I said, gratified that at least one person in that lonesome country could speak my own tongue.

"Yes, I have already been told," was her answer with a strong accent, as we stood in that small, bare stone room, a semicircular chamber in the tower, once perhaps a prison. "But are you not afraid to venture here?" she asked.