As the unhappy Bianca slid from under my arm to the floor, I tiptoed
forward and stared up into the face. It was the face of the priest
Domenico, livid, distorted, grinning down at me. With a shiver I
sprang past the corpse for a doorway facing me, that led still
further into this unholy pavilion. The curtain before it had been
wrenched away from the rings over the lintel--by the hand, no doubt,
of the poor wretch as he had been haled to execution--since, save for
a missing cord, the furniture of the room was undisturbed. The room
beyond was bare, uncarpeted, and furnished like a workshop.
A solitary lamp burned low on a bracket, over a table littered with
tools, and in the middle of the room stood a brazier, the coals in it
yet glowing, with five or sick steel-handled implements left as they
had been thrust into the heart of the fire. Were they, then, also
torturers, these murderers?
My eyes turned again to the work-table. On it, among the tools,
rested a crown--the crown of Corsica! Nay, there were two--two
crowns of Corsica! . . . In what new art of treachery had the man
been surprised? Treachery to Genoa, on top of treachery to Corsica.
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