Thus I gained the chancel, hurtling against the railing as I passed, and pausing for an instant, wondering whether those without could have heard the noise which in my clumsiness I had made.  But the grinding sound continued uninterrupted, and I breathed more freely.  I mounted the altar-steps, the distant light behind me still feebly guiding me; I ran round to the right, and heaved a great sigh of relief to find my hopes verified, and that the altar of San Domenico was as the altar of other churches I had known.  It stood a pace or so from the wall, and behind it there was just such narrow hiding-room as I had looked to find.

I paused at the mouth of that black opening, and even as I paused, something hard that gave out a metallic sound fell at the far end of the church.  Instinct told me it was the lock which those miscreants had cut from the door.  I waited for no more, but like a beast scudding to cover I plunged into that black space.

Madonna, wrapped in my cloak as she was, I set down upon the ground, and then I crept forward on hands and knees and thrust out my head, trusting to the darkness to envelop me.

I waited thus for some seconds, my heart beating now against my ribs as if it would hurl itself out of my bosom, my head and face on fire with the fever of reaction that succeeded my late cold pallor.

From where I watched it was impossible to see the door hidden in the black gloom.  Away in the centre of the church, an island of light in that vast sea of blackness, stood the catafalque with its four wax torches.  Something creaked, and almost immediately I saw the flames of those tapers bend towards me, beaten over by the gust that smote them from the door.  Thus I surmised that Ramiro and his men had entered.  The soft fall of their feet; for they were treading lightly now, succeeded, and at last they came into view, shadowy at first, then sharply outlined as they approached the light.

A moment they stood in half-whispered conversation, their voices a mere boom of sound in which no word was to be distinguished.  Then I saw Ramiro suddenly step forward—­I knew him by his great height—­and drag away, even as I had done, the pall that hid the coffin.  Next he seized the bench and gave a brisk order to his men in a less cautious voice, so that I caught his words.

“Spread a cloak,” said he, and, in obedience, the four that were with him took a cloak among them, each holding one of its corners.  It was thus that he meant to bear her with him.

He mounted now the bench, and I could imagine with what elation of mind he put out his hands to remove the coffin-lid.  As well as if his soul had been transformed into a book conceived for my amusement did I surmise the exultant mood that then possessed him.  He had tricked Filippo; he had out-witted us all—­Madonna herself, included—­and he was leaving no trace behind him that should warrant any so much as to dare to think that this vile deed was the work of Messer Ramiro del’ Orca, Governor of Cessna