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Title: The Sorceress of Rome
Author: Gallizier, Nathan, 1866-1927
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Sorceress of Rome" ***
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Illustration: Was Stephania not overacting her part? (See page 311)]
[Illustration: Title page]
THE
SORCERESS
OF ROME
BY
_NATHAN GALLIZIER_
AUTHOR OF
CASTEL DEL MONTE
PICTURES BY
THE KINNEYS
DECORATIONS BY P. VERBURG
THE PAGE COMPANY
BOSTON
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1907
BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London
All rights reserved
First Impression, October, 1907
Second Impression, February, 1920
THE COLONIAL PRESS
C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U.S.A.
Somewhere, in desolate wind-swept space,
In Twilight-land, in no-man’s land,
Two hurrying shapes met face to face
And bade each other stand.
"And who are you?" cried one agape
Shuddering in the gloaming light.
"I know not," said the second shape,
"I only died last night."
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.
[Illustration: decoration]
[Illustration: music fragment]
*INTRODUCTION*
The darkness of the tenth century is dissipated by no contemporary
historian. Monkish chronicles alone shed a faint light over the
discordant chaos of the Italian world. Rome was no longer the capital
of the earth. The seat of empire had shifted from the banks of the
Tiber to the shores of the Bosporus, and the seven hilled city of
Constantine had assumed the imperial purple of the ancient capital of
the Cæsars.
Centuries of struggles with the hosts of foreign invaders had in time
lowered the state of civilization to such a degree, that in point of
literature and art the Rome of the tenth century could not boast of a
single name worthy of being transmitted to posterity. Even the memory
of the men whose achievements in the days of its glory constituted the
pride and boast of the Roman world, had become almost extinct. A great
lethargy benumbed the Italian mind, engendered by the reaction from the
incessant feuds and broils among the petty tyrants and oppressors of the
country.
Together with the rest of the disintegrated states of Italy, united by
no common bond, Rome had become the prey of the most terrible disorders.
Papacy had fallen into all manner of corruption. Its former halo and
prestige had departed. The chair of St. Peter was sought for by bribery
and controlling influence, often by violence and assassination, and the
city was oppressed by factions and awed into submission by foreign
adventurers in command of bands collected from the outcasts of all
nations.
From the day of Christmas in the year 800, when at the hands of Pope Leo
III, Charlemagne received the imperial crown of the West, the German
Kings dated their right as rulers of Rome and the Roman world, a right,
feebly and ineffectually contested by the emperors of the East. It was
the dream of every German King immediately upon his election to cross
the Alps to receive at the hand of the Pope the crown of a country which
resisted and resented and never formally recognized a superiority forced
upon it. Thus from time to time we find Rome alternately in revolt
against German rule, punished, subdued and again imploring the aid of
the detested foreigners against the misrule of her own princes, to
settle the disputes arising from pontifical elections, or as protection
against foreign invaders and the violence of contending factions.
Plunged in an abyss from which she saw no other means of extricating
herself, harassed by the Hungarians in Lombardy and the Saracens in
Calabria, Italy had, in the year 961, called on Otto the Great, King of
Germany, for assistance. Little opposition was made to this powerful
monarch. Berengar II, the reigning sovereign of Italy, submitted and
agreed to hold his kingdom of him as a fief. Otto thereupon returned to
Germany, but new disturbances arising, he crossed the Alps a second
time, deposed Berengar and received at the hands of Pope John XII the
imperial dignity nearly suspended for forty years.
Every ancient prejudice, every recollection whether of Augustus or
Charlemagne, had led the Romans to annex the notion of sovereignty to
the name of Roman emperor, nor were Otto and his two immediate
descendants inclined to waive these supposed prerogatives, which they
were well able to enforce. But no sooner had they returned to Germany
than the old habit of revolt seized the Italians, and especially the
Romans who were ill disposed to resume habits of obedience even to the
sovereign whose aid they had implored and received. The flames of
rebellion swept again over the seven hilled city during the rule of Otto
II, whose aid the Romans had invoked against the invading hordes of
Islam, and the same republican spirit broke out during the brief, but
fantastic reign of his son, the third Otto, directing itself in the
latter instance chiefly against the person of the youthful pontiff,
Bruno of Carinthia, the friend of the King, whose purity stands out in
marked contrast against the depravity of the monsters, who, to the
number of ten, had during the past five decades defiled the throne of
the Apostle. Gregory V is said to have been assassinated during Otto’s
absence from Rome.
The third rebellion of Johannes Crescentius, Senator of Rome, enacted
after the death of the pontiff and the election of Sylvester II, forms
but the prelude to the great drama whose final curtain was to fall upon
the doom of the third Otto, of whose love for Stephania, the beautiful
wife of Crescentius, innumerable legends are told in the old monkish
chronicles and whose tragic death caused a lament to go throughout the
world of the Millennium.
[Illustration: decoration]
*CONTENTS*
[Illustration: decoration]
*BOOK THE FIRST*
Chapter
I. The Grand Chamberlain
II. The Pageant in the Navona
III. On the Palatine
IV. The Wanton Court of Theodora
V. The Wager
VI. John of the Catacombs
VII. The Vision of San Pancrazio
VIII. Castel San Angelo
IX. The Sermon in the Ghetto
X. The Sicilian Dancer
XI. Nilus of Gaëta
XII. Red Falernian
XIII. Dead Leaves
XIV. The Phantom at the Shrine
XV. The Death Watch
XVI. The Conclave
*BOOK THE SECOND*
I. The Meeting
II. The Queen of Night
III. The Elixir of Love
IV. The Secret of the Tomb
V. The Grottos of Egeria
VI. Beyond the Grave
VII. Ara Coeli
VIII. The Gothic Tower
IX. The Snare of the Fowler
X. The Temple of Neptune
XI. The Incantation
XII. The Hermitage of Nilus
XIII. The Lion of Basalt
XIV. The Last Tryst
XV. The Storm of Castel San Angelo
XVI. The Forfeit
XVII. Nemesis
XVIII. Vale Roma
*BOOK THE THIRD*
I. Paterno
II. Memories
III. The Consummation
IV. The Angel of the Agony
V. Return
[Illustration: decoration]
[Illustration: decoration]
*LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS*
"Was Stephania not overacting her part?" (_See page_ 311) _Frontispiece_
"Looking up from the task he was engaged in"
"Persisting in his endeavour to remove her mask"
"The haunting memories of Stephania"
[Illustration: decoration]
*Book the First*
*The Truce
of God*
"As I came through the desert, thus it was
As I came through the desert: All was black,
In heaven no single star, on earth no track;
A brooding hush without a stir or note,
The air so thick it clotted in my throat.
And thus for hours; then some enormous things
Swooped past with savage cries and clanking wings;
But I strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear."
—_James Thomson_.
*BOOK THE FIRST*
*CHAPTER I*
*THE GRAND CHAMBERLAIN*
It was the hour of high noon on a sultry October day in Rome, in the
year of our Lord nine hundred and ninety-nine. In the porphyry cabinet
of the imperial palace on Mount Aventine, before a table covered with
parchments and scrolls, there sat an individual, who even in the most
brilliant assembly would have attracted general and immediate attention.
Judging from his appearance he had scarcely passed his thirtieth year.
His bearing combined a marked grace and intellectuality. The finely
shaped head poised on splendid shoulders denoted power and intellect.
The pale, olive tints of the face seemed to intensify the brilliancy of
the black eyes whose penetrating gaze revealed a singular compound of
mockery and cynicism. The mouth, small but firm, was not devoid of
disdain, and even cruelty, and the smile of the thin, compressed lips
held something more subtle than any passion that can be named. His
ears, hands and feet were of that delicacy and smallness, which is held
to denote aristocracy of birth. And there was in his manner that
indescribable combination of unobtrusive dignity and affected elegance
which, in all ages and countries, through all changes of manners and
customs has rendered the demeanour of its few chosen possessors the
instantaneous interpreter of their social rank. He was dressed in a
crimson tunic, fastened with a clasp of mother-of-pearl. Tight fitting
hose of black and crimson terminating in saffron-coloured shoes covered
his legs, and a red cap, pointed at the top and rolled up behind brought
the head into harmony with the rest of the costume.
Now and then, Benilo, the Grand Chamberlain, cast quick glances at the
sand-clock on the table before him; at last with a gesture of mingled
impatience and annoyance, he pushed back the scrolls he had been
examining, glanced again at the clock, arose and strode to a window
looking out upon the western slopes of Mount Aventine.
The sun was slowly setting, and the light green silken curtains hung
motionless, in the almost level rays. The stone houses of the city and
her colossal ruins glowed with a brightness almost overpowering. Not a
ripple stirred the surface of the Tiber, whose golden coils circled the
base of Aventine; not a breath of wind filled the sails of the deserted
fishing boats, which swung lazily at their moorings. Over the distant
Campagna hung a hot, quivering mist and in the vineyards climbing the
Janiculan Mount not a leaf stirred upon its slender stem. The ramparts
of Castel San Angelo dreamed deserted in the glow of the westering sun,
and beyond the horizon of ancient Portus, torpid, waveless and suffused
in a flood of dazzling brightness, the Tyrrhene Sea stretched toward the
cloudless horizon which closed the sun-bright view.
How long the Grand Chamberlain had thus abstractedly gazed out upon the
seven-hilled city gradually sinking into the repose of evening, he was
scarcely conscious, when a slight knock, which seemed to come from the
wall, caused him to start. After a brief interval it was repeated.
Benilo drew the curtains closer, gave another glance at the sand-clock,
nodded to himself, then, approaching the opposite wall, decorated with
scenes from the Metamorphoses of Ovid, touched a hidden spring.
Noiselessly a panel receded and, from the chasm thus revealed, something
like a shadow passed swiftly into the cabinet, the panel closing
noiselessly behind it.
Benilo had reseated himself at the table, and beckoned his strange
visitor to a chair, which he declined. He was tall and lean and wore
the gray habit of the Penitent friars, the cowl drawn over his face,
concealing his features.
For some minutes neither the Grand Chamberlain nor his visitor spoke.
At last Benilo broke the silence.
"You are the bearer of a message?"
The monk nodded.
"Tell me the worst! Bad news is like decaying fruit. It becomes the
more rotten with the keeping."
"The worst may be told quickly enough," said the monk with a voice which
caused the Chamberlain to start.
"The Saxon dynasty is resting on two eyes."
Benilo nodded.
"On two eyes," he repeated, straining his gaze towards the monk.
"They will soon be closed for ever!"
The Chamberlain started from his seat.
"I do not understand."
"The fever does not temporize."
"’Tis the nature of the raven to croak. Let thine improvising damn
thyself."
"Fate and the grave are relentless. I am the messenger of both!"
"King Otto dying?" the Chamberlain muttered to himself. "Away from
Rome,—the Fata Morgana of his dreams?"
A gesture of the monk interrupted the speaker.
"When a knight makes a vow to a lady, he does not thereby become her
betrothed. She oftener marries another."
"Yet the Saint may work a miracle. The Holy Father is praying so
earnestly for his deliverance, that Saint Michael may fear for his
prestige, did he not succour him."
"Your heart is tenderer than I had guessed."
"And joined by the prayers of such as you—"
The monk raised his hand.
"Nay,—I am not holy enough."
"I thought they were all saints at San Zeno."
"That is for Rome to say."
There was a brief pause during which Benilo gazed into space. The monk
heard him mutter the word "Dying—dying" as if therein lay condensed the
essence of all his life.
Reseating himself the Chamberlain seemed at last to remember the
presence of his visitor, who scrutinized him stealthily from under his
cowl. Pointing to a parchment on the table before him, he said
dismissing the subject:
"You are reported as one in whom I may place full trust, in whom I may
implicitly confide. I hate the black cassocks. A monk and misfortune
are seldom apart. You see I dissemble not."
The Grand Chamberlain’s visitor nodded.
"A viper’s friend must needs be a viper,—like to like!"
"’Tis not the devil’s policy to show the cloven hoof."
"Yet an eavesdropper is best equipped for a prophet."
Again the Chamberlain started.
Straining his gaze towards the monk, who stood immobile as a phantom, he
said:
"It is reported that you are about to render a great service to Rome."
The monk nodded.
"A country without a king is bad! But to carry the matter just a trifle
farther,—to dream of Christendom without a Pope—"
"You would not dare!" exclaimed Benilo with real or feigned surprise,
"you would not dare! In the presence of the whole Christian world?
Rome can do nothing without the Sun,—nothing without the Pope. Take
away his benediction: ’Urbi et Orbi’—What would prosper?"
"You are a poet and a Roman. I am a monk and a native of Aragon."
Benilo shrugged his shoulders.
"’Tis but the old question: Cui bono? How many pontiffs have, within
the memory of man, defiled the chair of Saint Peter? Who are your
reformers? Libertines and gossipers in the taverns of the Suburra,
among fried fish, painted women, and garlic; in prosperity proud, in
adversity cowards, but infamous ever! The fifth Gregory alone soars so
high above the earth, he sees not the vermin, the mire beneath."
"Perhaps they wished to let the mire accumulate, to furnish work for the
iron broom of your tramontane saint! Are not his shoulders bent in holy
contemplation, like the moon in the first quarter? Is he not shocked at
the sight of misery and of dishevelled despair? His sensitive nerves
would see them with the hair dressed and bound like that of an antique
statue."
"Ay! And the feudal barons stick in his palate like the hook in the
mouth of the dog fish."
"We want no more martyrs! The light of the glow-worm continues to shine
after the death of the insect."
"It was a conclave, that disposed of the usurper, John XVI."
"Ay! And the bravo, when he discovered his error, paid for three
candles for the pontiff’s soul, and the monk who officiated at the last
rites praised the departed so loudly, that the corpse sat up and
laughed. And now he is immortal and possesses the secret of eternal
life," the monk concluded with downcast eyes.
"Yet there is one I fear,—one who seems to enlist a special providence
in his cause."
"Gerbert of Cluny—"
"The monk of Aurillac!"
"They say that he is leagued with the devil; that in his closet he has a
brazen head, which answers all questions, and through which the devil
has assured him that he shall not die, till he has said mass in
Jerusalem."
"He is competent to convert a brimstone lake."
"Yet a true soldier seeks for weak spots in the armour."
"I am answered. But the time and the place?"
"In the Ghetto at sunset."
"And the reward?"
"The halo of a Saint."
"What of your conscience’s peace?"
"May not a man and his conscience, like ill-mated consorts, be on
something less than speaking terms?"
"They kill by the decalogue at San Zeno."
"Exitus acta probat!" returned the monk solemnly.
Benilo raised his hand warningly.
"Let him disappear quietly—ecclesiastically."
"What is gained by caution when one stands on an earthquake?" asked the
monk.
"You deem not, then, that Heaven might take so strong an interest in
Gerbert’s affairs, as to send some of the blessed to his deliverance?"
queried Benilo suavely.
The Chamberlain’s visitor betrayed impatience.
"If Heaven troubled itself much about what is done on earth, the world’s
business would be well-nigh bankrupt."
"Ay! And even the just may fall by his own justice!" nodded Benilo.
"He should have made his indulgences dearer, and harder to win. Why
takes he not the lesson from women?"
There was a brief pause, during which Benilo had arisen and paced up and
down the chamber. His visitor remained immobile, though his eyes
followed Benilo’s every step.
At last the Grand Chamberlain paused directly before him.
"How fares his Eminence of Orvieto? He was ailing at last reports," he
asked.
"He died on his way to Rome, of a disease, sudden as the plague. He
loved honey,—they will accuse the bees."
With a nod of satisfaction Benilo continued his perambulation.
"Tell me better news of our dearly beloved friend, Monsignor Agnello,
Archbishop of Cosenza, Clerk of the Chamber and Vice-Legate of Viterbo."
"He was found dead in his bed, after eating a most hearty supper," the
monk spoke dolefully.
"Alas, poor man! That was sudden. But such holy men are always ready
for their call," replied the Grand Chamberlain with downcast eyes. "And
what part has his Holiness assigned me in his relics?"
"Some flax of his hair shirt, to coil a rope therewith," replied the
monk.
"A princely benefaction! But your commission for the Father of
Christendom? For indeed I fear the vast treasures he has heaped up,
will hang like a leaden mountain on his ascending soul."
"The Holy Father himself has summoned me to Rome!" The words seemed to
sound from nowhere. Yet they hovered on the air like the knell of Fate.
The Grand-Chamberlain paused, stared and shuddered.
"And who knows," continued the monk after a pause, "but that by some
divine dispensation all the refractory cardinals of the Sacred College
may contract some incurable disease? Have you secured the names,—just
to ascertain if their households are well ordered?"
"The name of every cardinal and bishop in Rome at the present hour."
"Give it to me."
A hand white as that of a corpse came from the monk’s ample parting
sleeves in which Benilo placed a scroll, which he had taken from the
table.
The monk unrolled it. After glancing down the list of names, he said:
"The Cardinal of Gregorio."
The Chamberlain betokened his understanding with a nod.
"He claims kinship with the stars."
"The Cardinal of San Pietro in Montorio."
An evil smile curved Benilo’s thin, white lips.
"An impostor, proved, confessed,—his conscience pawned to a saint—"
"The Cardinal of San Onofrio,—he, who held you over the baptismal
fount," said the monk with a quick glance at the Chamberlain.
"I had no hand in my own christening."
The monk nodded.
"The Cardinal of San Silvestro."
"He vowed he would join the barefoot friars, if he recovered."
"He would have made a stalwart mendicant. All the women would have
confessed to him."
"It is impossible to escape immortality," sighed Benilo.
"Obedience is holiness," replied the other.
After carefully reviewing the not inconsiderable list of names, and
placing a cross against some of them, the monk returned the scroll to
its owner.
When the Chamberlain spoke again, his voice trembled strangely.
"What of the Golden Chalice?"
"Offerimus tibi Domine, Calicem Salutaris," the monk quoted from the
mass. "What differentiates Sacramental Wine from Malvasia?"
The Chamberlain pondered.
"Perhaps a degree or two of headiness?"
"Is it not rather a degree or two of holiness?" replied the monk with a
strange gleam in his eyes.
"The Season claims its mercies."
"Can one quench a furnace with a parable?"
"The Holy Host may work a miracle."
"It is the concern of angels to see their sentences enforced."
"Sic itur ad astra," said the Chamberlain devoutly.
And like an echo it came from his visitor’s lips:
"Sic itur ad astra!"
"We understand each other," Benilo spoke after a pause, arising from his
chair. "But remember," he added with a look, which seemed to pierce his
interlocutor through and through. "What thou dost, monk, thou dost. If
thy hand fail, I know thee not!"
Stepping to the panel, Benilo was about to touch the secret spring, when
a thought arrested his hand.
"Thou hast seen my face," he turned to the monk. "It is but meet, that
I see thine."
Without a word the monk removed his cowl. As he did so, Benilo stood
rooted to the spot, as if a ghost had arisen from the stone floor before
him.
"Madman!" he gasped. "You dare to show yourself in Rome?"
A strange light gleamed in the monk’s eyes.
"I came in quest of the End of Time. Do you doubt the sincerity of my
intent?"
For a moment they faced each other in silence, then the monk turned and
vanished without another word through the panel which closed noiselessly
behind him.
When Benilo found himself once more alone, all the elasticity of temper
and mind seemed to have deserted him. All the colour had faded from his
face, all the light seemed to have gone from his eyes. Thus he remained
for a space, neither heeding his surroundings, nor the flight of time.
At last he arose and, traversing the cabinet, made for a remote door and
passed out. Whatever were his thoughts, no outward sign betrayed them,
as with the suave and impenetrable mien of the born courtier, he entered
the vast hall of audience.
A motley crowd of courtiers, officers, monks and foreign envoys, whose
variegated costumes formed a dazzling kaleidoscope almost bewildering to
the unaccustomed eye, met the Chamberlain’s gaze.
The greater number of those present were recruited from the ranks of the
Roman nobility, men whose spare, elegant figures formed a striking
contrast to the huge giants of the German imperial guard. The mongrel
and craven descendants of African, Syrian and Slavonian slaves, a
strange jumble of races and types, with all the visible signs of their
heterogeneous origin, stared with insolent wonder at the fair-haired
sons of the North, who took their orders from no man, save the grandson
of the mighty emperor Otto the Great, the vanquisher of the Magyars on
the tremendous field of the Lech.
A strange medley of palace officials, appointed after the ruling code of
the Eastern Empire, chamberlains, pages and grooms, masters of the outer
court, masters of the inner court, masters of the robe, masters of the
horse, seneschals, high stewards and eunuchs, in their sweeping citron
and orange coloured gowns, lent a glowing enchantment to the scene.
No glaring lights marred the pervading softness of the atmosphere; all
objects animate and inanimate seemed in complete harmony with each
other. The entrance to the great hall of audience was flanked with two
great pillars of Numidian marble, toned by time to hues of richest
orange. The hall itself was surrounded by a colonnade of the Corinthian
order, whereon had been lavished exquisite carvings; in niches behind
the columns stood statues in basalt, thrice the size of life. Enormous
pillars of rose-coloured marble supported the roof, decorated in the
fantastic Byzantine style; the floor, composed of serpentine, porphyry
and Numidian marble, was a superb work of art. In the centre a fountain
threw up sprays of perfumed water, its basin bordered with glistening
shells from India and the Archipelago.
Passing slowly down the hall, Benilo paused here and there to exchange
greetings with some individual among the numerous groups, who were
conversing in hushed whispers on the event at this hour closest to their
heart, the illness of King Otto III, in the cloisters of Monte Gargano
in Apulia whither he had journeyed on a pilgrimage to the grottoes of
the Archangel. Conflicting rumours were rife as to the course of the
illness, and each seemed fearful of venturing a surmise, which might
precipitate a crisis, fraught with direst consequences. The times and
the Roman temper were uncertain.
The countenance of Archbishop Heribert of Cologne, Chancellor of the
Empire, reflected grave apprehension, which was amply shared by his
companions, Archbishop Willigis of Mentz, and Luitprand, Archbishop of
Cremona, the Patriarch of Christendom, whose snow-white hair formed a
striking contrast to the dark and bronzed countenance of Count Benedict
of Palestrina, and Pandulph of Capua, Lord of Spoleto and Beneventum,
the lay-members of the group. The conversation, though held in
whispered tones and inaudible to those moving on the edge of their
circle, was yet animated and it would seem, that hope had but a small
share in the surmises they ventured on what the days to come held in
store for the Saxon dynasty.
Without paying further heed to the motley throng, which surged up and
down the hall of audience, seemingly indifferent to the whispered
comments upon himself as a mere man of pleasure, Benilo seated himself
upon a couch at the western extremity of the hall. With the elaborate
deliberation of a man who disdains being hurried by anything whatsoever,
he took a piece of vellum from his doublet, on which from time to time
he traced a few words. Assuming a reclining position, he appeared
absorbed in deep study, seemingly unheedful of his surroundings. Yet a
close observer might have remarked that the Chamberlain’s gaze roamed
unsteadily from one group to another, until some chance passer-by
deflected its course and Benilo applied himself to his ostentatious task
more studiously than before.
"What does the courtier in the parrot-frock?" Duke Bernhardt of Saxony,
stout, burly, asthmatic, addressed a tall, sallow individual, in a
rose-coloured frock, who strutted by his side with the air of an
inflated peacock.
John of Calabria gave a sigh.
"Alas! He writes poetry and swears by the ancient Gods!"
"By the ancient Gods!" puffed the duke, "a commendable habit! As for
his poetry,—the bees sometimes deposit their honey in the mouth of a
dead beast."
"And yet the Philistines solved not Samson’s riddle," sighed the Greek.
"Ay! And the devil never ceases to cut wood for him, who wishes to keep
the kettle boiling," spouted the duke with an irate look at his
companion as they lost themselves among the throngs. Suddenly a marked
hush, the abrupt cessation of the former all-pervading hum, caused
Benilo to glance toward the entrance of the audience hall. As he did
so, the vellum rolled from his nerveless hand upon the marble floor.
*CHAPTER II*
*THE PAGEANT IN THE NAVONA*
The man, who had entered the hall of audience with the air of one to
whom every nook and corner was familiar, looked what he was, a war-worn
veteran, bronzed and hardened by the effect of many campaigns in many
climes. Yet his robust frame and his physique betrayed but slight
evidence of those fatigues and hardships which had been the habits of
his life. Only a tinge of gray through the close-cropped hair, and now
and then the listless look of one who has grown weary with campaigning,
gave token that the prime had passed. In repose his look was stern and
pensive, softening at moments into an expression of intense melancholy
and gloom. A long black mantle, revealing traces of prolonged and hasty
travel, covered his tall and stately form. Beneath it gleamed a dark
suit of armour with the dull sheen of dust covered steel. His helmet,
fashioned after a dragon with scales, wings, and fins of wrought brass,
resembled the headgear of the fabled Vikings.
This personage was Margrave Eckhardt of Meissen, commander-in-chief of
the German hosts, Great Warden of the Eastern March, and chief adviser
of the imperial youth, who had been entrusted to his care by his mother,
the glorious Empress Theophano, the deeply lamented consort of Emperor
Otto II of Saracenic renown.
The door through which he entered revealed a company of the imperial
body-guard, stationed without, in gilt-mail tunics, armlets and greaves,
their weapon the formidable mace, surmounted by a sickle-shaped halberd.
The deep hush, which had fallen upon the assembly on Eckhardt’s entrance
into the hall, had its significance. If the Romans were inclined to
look with favour upon the youthful son of the Greek princess, in whose
veins flowed the warm blood of the South, and whose sunny disposition
boded little danger to their jealously guarded liberties, their
sentiments toward the Saxon general had little in common with their
evanescent enthusiasm over the "Wonder-child of the World." But if the
Romans loved Eckhardt little, Eckhardt loved the Romans less, and he
made no effort to conceal his contempt for the mongrel rabble, who,
unable to govern themselves, chafed at every form of government and
restraint.
Perhaps in the countenance of none of those assembled in the hall of
audience was there reflected such intensity of surprise on beholding the
great leader as there was in the face of the Grand Chamberlain, the
olive tints of whose cheeks had faded to ashen hues. His trembling
hands gripped the carved back of the nearest chair, while from behind
the powerful frame of the Patricius Ziazo he gazed upon the countenance
of the Margrave.
The latter had approached the group of ecclesiastics, who formed the
nucleus round the venerable Archbishop of Cremona.
"What tidings from the king?" queried the patriarch of Christendom.
Eckhardt knelt and kissed Luitprand’s proffered hand.
"The Saint has worked a miracle. Within a fortnight Rome will once more
greet the King of the Germans."
Sighs of relief and mutterings of gladness drowned the reply of the
archbishop. He was seen to raise his hands in silent prayer, and the
deep hush returned anew. Other groups pushed eagerly forward to learn
the import of the tidings.
The voice of Eckhardt now sounded curt and distinct, as he addressed
Archbishop Heribert of Cologne, Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire.
"If the God to whom you pray or your patron-saint, has endowed you with
the divine gift of persuasion,—use it now to prompt your king to leave
this accursed land and to return beyond the Alps. Roman wiles and Roman
fever had well-nigh claimed another victim. My resignation lies in the
hands of the King. My mission here is ended. I place your sovereign in
your hands. Keep him safe. I return to the Eastern March."
Exclamations of surprise, chiefly from the German element, the Romans
listening in sullen silence, rose round the commander, like a sullen
squall.
Eckhardt waved them back with uplifted arm.
"The king requires my services no longer. He refuses to listen to my
counsel! He despises his own country. His sun rises and sets in Rome.
I no longer have his ear. His counsellors are Romans! The war is
ended. My sword has grown rusty. Let another bear the burden!—I return
to the Eastern March!"
During Eckhardt’s speech, whose curtness barely cloaked the grief of the
commander over a step, which he deemed irrevocable, the pallor in the
features of the Grand Chamberlain had deepened and a strange light shone
in his eyes, as, remote from the general’s scrutiny, he watched and
listened.
The German contingent, however, was not to be so easily reconciled to
Eckhardt’s declaration. Bernhardt, the Saxon duke, Duke Burkhardt of
Suabia, Count Tassilo of Bavaria and Count Ludeger of the Palatinate
united their protests against a step so fatal in its remotest
consequences, with the result that the Margrave turned abruptly upon his
heels, strode from the hall of audience, and, passing through the rank
and file of the imperial guard, found himself on the crest of Mount
Aventine.
Evening was falling. A solemn hush held enthralled the pulses of the
universe. A dazzling glow of gold swept the western heavens, and the
chimes of the Angelus rang out from untold cloisters and convents. To
southward, the towering summits of Soracté glowed in sunset gold. The
dazzling sheen reflected from the marble city on the Palatine proved
almost too blinding for Eckhardt’s gaze, and with quick, determined
step, he began his descent towards the city.
At the base of the hill his progress suffered a sudden check.
A procession, weird, strange and terrible, hymning dirge-like the words
of some solemn chant, with the eternal refrain "Miserere! Miserere!"
wound round the shores of the Tiber. Four files of masked, black
spectres, their heads engulfed in black hoods, wooden crucifixes
dangling from their necks, carrying torches of resin, from which escaped
floods of reddish light, at times obscured by thick black smoke, marched
solemnly behind a monk, whose features could but vaguely be discerned in
the tawny glare of the funereal light. No phantom procession at midnight
could have inspired the popular mind with a terror so great as did this
brotherhood of Death, more terrifying than the later monks and ascetics
of Zurbaran, who so paraded the frightfulness of nocturnal visions in
the pure, unobscured light of the sun. In numbers there were
approximately four hundred. Their superior, a tall, gaunt and terrible
monk, escorted by his acolytes, held aloft a large black crucifix. A
fanatic of the iron type, whose austerity had won him a wide ascendency,
the monk Cyprianus, his cowl drawn deeply over his face, strode before
the brotherhood. The dense smoke of their torches, hanging motionless
in the still air of high noon, soon obscured the monks from view, even
before the last echoes of their sombre chant had died away.
Without a fixed purpose in his mind, save that of observing the temper
of the populace, Eckhardt permitted himself to be swept along with the
crowds. Idlers mostly and inquisitive gapers, they constituted the
characteristic Roman mob, always swarming wherever there was anything to
be seen, however trifling the cause and insignificant the attraction.
They were those who, not choosing to work, lived by brawls and sedition,
the descendants of that uproarious mob, which in the latter days of the
empire filled the upper rows in theatre and circus, the descendants of
the rabble, whose suffrage no Cæsar was too proud to court in the
struggle against the free and freedom-loving remnants of the
aristocracy.
But there were foreign elements which lent life and contrast to the
picture, elements which in equal number and profusion no other city of
the time, save Constantinople, could offer to the bewildered gaze of the
spectator.
Moors from the Western Caliphate of Cordova, Saracens from the Sicilian
conquest, mingled with white-robed Bedouins from the desert; Greeks from
the Morea, Byzantines, Epirotes, Albanians, Jews, Danes, Poles, Slavs
and Magyars, Lombards, Burgundians and Franks, Sicilians, Neapolitans
and Venetians, heightened by the contrast of speech, manner and garb the
dazzling kaleidoscopic effect of the scene, while the powerful Northern
veterans of the German king thrust their way with brutal contempt
through the dregs of Romulus.
After having extricated himself from the motley throngs, Eckhardt,
continuing his course to southward and following the Leonine wall, soon
found himself in the barren solitudes of Trastevere. Here he slackened
his pace, and, entering a cypress avenue, seated himself on a marble
bench, a relic of antiquity, offering at once shade and repose.
Here he fell into meditation.
Three years had elapsed since the death of a young and beloved wife, who
had gone from him after a brief but mysterious illness, baffling the
skill of the physicians. In the ensuing solitude he had acquired grave
habits of reflection. This day he was in a more thoughtful mood than
common. This day more than ever, he felt the void which nothing on
earth could fill. What availed his toils, his love of country, his
endurance of hardships? What was he the better now, in that he had
marched and watched and bled and twice conquered Rome for the empire?
What was this ambition, leading him up the steepest paths, by the brinks
of fatal precipices? He scarcely knew now, it was so long ago. Had
Ginevra lived, he would indeed have prized honour and renown and a name,
that was on all men’s lips. And Eckhardt fell to thinking of the bright
days, when the very skies seemed fairer for her presence. Time, who
heals all sorrows, had not alleviated his grief. At his urgent request
he had been relieved of his Roman command. The very name of the city
was odious to him since her death. Appointed to the office of Great
Warden of the East and entrusted with the defence of the Eastern border
lands against the ever-recurring invasions of Bulgarians and Magyars,
the formidable name of the conqueror of Rome had in time faded to a mere
memory.
Not so in the camp. Men said he bore a charmed existence, and indeed
his counsels showed the forethought and caution of the skilled leader,
while his personal conduct was remarkable for a reckless disregard of
danger. It was observed, though, that a deep and abiding melancholy had
taken possession of the once free and easy commander. Only under the
pressure of imminent danger did he seem to brighten into his former
self. At other times he was silent, preoccupied. But the Germans loved
their leader. They discussed him by their watch-fires; they marvelled
how one so ready on the field was so sparing with the wine cup, how the
general who could stop to fill his helmet from the running stream under
a storm of arrows and javelins and drink composedly with a jest and a
smile could be so backward at the revels.
In the year 996, Crescentius, the Senator of Rome raised the standards
of revolt, expelled Gregory the Fifth and nominated a rival pontiff in
the infamous John the Sixteenth. Otto, then a mere youth of sixteen
summers, had summoned his hosts to the rescue of his friend, the
rightful pontiff. Reluctantly, and only moved by the tears of the
Empress Theophano, who placed the child king in his care and charge,
Eckhardt had resumed the command of the invading army. Twice had he put
down the rebellion of the Romans, reducing Crescentius to the state of a
vassal, and meting out terrible punishment to the hapless usurper of the
tiara. After recrossing the Alps, he had once more turned his attention
to the bleak, sombre forests of the North, when the imperial youth was
seized with an unconquerable desire to make Rome the capital of the
empire. Neither prayers nor persuasions, neither the threats of the
Saxon dukes nor the protests of the electors could shake Otto’s
indomitable will. Eckhardt was again recalled from the wilds of Poland
to lead the German host across the Alps.
Meanwhile increasing rumours of the impending End of Time began to
upheave and disturb the minds. A mystical trend of thought pervaded the
world, and as the Millennium drew nearer and nearer pilgrims of all ages
and all stages began to journey Rome-ward, to obtain forgiveness for
their sins, and to die within the pale of the Church. At first he
resisted the strange malady of the age, which slowly but irresistibly
attacked every order of society. But its morbid influences, seconded by
the memory of his past happiness, revived during his last journey to
Rome, at last threw Eckhardt headlong into the dark waves of
monasticism.
During the present, to his mind, utterly purposeless expedition, it had
seemed to Eckhardt that there was no other salvation for the loneliness
in his heart, save that which beamed from the dismal gloom of the
cloister. At other times a mighty terror of the great lonesomeness of
monastic life seized him. The pulses of life began to throb strangely,
surging as a great wave to his heart and threatening to precipitate him
anew into the shifting scenes of the world. Yet neither mood endured.
Ginevra’s image had engraved itself upon his heart in lines deep as
those which the sculptors trace on ivory with tools reddened with fire.
Vainly had he endeavoured to cloud its memory by occupying his mind with
matters of state, for the love he felt for her, dead in her grave,
inspired him with secret terror. Blindly he was groping through the
labyrinth for a clue—It is hard to say: "Thy will be done."
Passing over the sharp, sudden stroke, so numbing to his senses at the
time, that a long interval had to elapse, ere he woke to its full agony;
passing over the subsequent days of yearning, the nights of vain regret,
the desolation which had laid waste his life,—Eckhardt pondered over the
future. There was something ever wanting even to complete the dull
torpor of that resignation, which philosophy inculcates and common sense
enjoins. In vain he looked about for something on which to lean, for
something which would lighten his existence. The future was cold and
gray, and with spectral fingers the memories of the past seemed to point
down the dull and cheerless way. He had lost himself in the labyrinth
of life, since her guiding hand had left him, and now his soul was
racked by conflicting emotions; the desire for the peace of a recluse,
and the longing for such a life of action, as should temporarily drown
the voices of anguish in his heart.
When he arose Rome was bathed in the crimson after glow of departing
day. The Tiber presented an aspect of peculiar tranquillity. Hundreds
of boats with many-coloured sails and fantastically decorated prows
stretched along the banks. Barges decorated with streamers and flags
were drawn up along the quays and wharfs. The massive gray ramparts of
Castel San Angelo glowed in the rich colours of sunset, and high in the
azure hung motionless the great standard, with the marble horses and the
flaming torch.
Retracing his steps, Eckhardt soon found himself in the heart of Rome.
An almost endless stream of people, recruiting themselves from all clans
and classes, flowed steadily through the ancient Via Sacra. Equally
dense crowds enlivened the Appian Way and the adjoining thoroughfares,
leading to the Forum. In the Navona, then enjoying the distinction of
the fashionable promenade of the Roman nobility, the throngs were
densest and a vast array of vehicles from the two-wheeled chariot to the
Byzantine lectica thronged the aristocratic thoroughfare. Seemingly
interminable processions divided the multitudes, and the sombre and
funereal chants of pilgrims and penitents resounded on every side.
Pressing onward step for step, Eckhardt reached the arch of Titus;
thence, leaving the fountain of Meta Sudans, and the vast ruins of the
Flavian Amphitheatre to the right, he turned into the street leading to
the Caelimontana Gate, known at this date by the name of Via di San
Giovanni in Laterano. Here the human congestion was somewhat relieved.
Some patrician chariots dashed up and down the broad causeway; graceful
riders galloped along the gravelled road, while a motley crowd of
pedestrians loitered leisurely along the sidewalks. Here a group of
young nobles thronged round the chariot of some woman of rank; there, a
grave, morose-looking scribe, an advocate or notary in the cloister-like
habit of his profession, pushed his way through the crowd.
While slowly and aimlessly Eckhardt pursued his way through the shifting
crowds, a sudden shout arose in the Navona. After a brief interval it
was repeated, and soon a strange procession came into sight, which, as
the German leader perceived, had caused the acclamation on the part of
the people. In order to avoid the unwelcome stare of the Roman rabble,
Eckhardt lowered his vizor, choosing his point of observation upon some
crumbled fragment of antiquity, whence he might not only view the
approaching pageant, but at the same time survey his surroundings. On
one side were the thronged and thickly built piles of the ancient city.
On the opposite towered the Janiculan hill with its solitary palaces and
immense gardens. The westering sun illumined the distant magnificence
of the Vatican and suffered the gaze to expand even to the remote swell
of the Apennines.
The procession, which slowly wound its way towards the point where
Eckhardt had taken his station, consisted of some twelve chariots, drawn
by snow-white steeds, which chafed at the bit, reared on their haunches,
and otherwise betrayed their reluctance to obey the hands which gripped
the rein—the hands of giant Africans in gaudy, fantastic livery. The
inmates of these chariots consisted of groups of young women in the
flower of beauty and youth, whose scant airy garments gave them the
appearance of wood-nymphs, playing on quaintly shaped lyres. While
renewed shouts of applause greeted the procession of the New Vestals, as
they styled themselves in defiance of the trade they plied, and the gaze
of the thousands was riveted upon them,—a new commotion arose in the
Navona. A shout of terror went up, the crowds swayed backward, spread
out and then were seen to scatter on both sides, revealing a chariot,
harnessed to a couple of fiery Berber steeds, which, having taken
fright, refused to obey the driver’s grip and dashed down the populous
thoroughfare. With every moment the speed of the frightened animals
increased, and no hand was stretched forth from all those thousands to
check their mad career. The driver, a Nubian in fantastic livery, had
in the frantic effort to stop their onward rush, been thrown from his
seat, striking his head against a curb-stone, where he lay dazed. Here
some were fleeing, others stood gaping on the steps of houses. Still
others, with a cry of warning followed in the wake of the fleeting
steeds. Adding to the dismay of the lonely occupant of the chariot, a
woman, magnificently arrayed in a transparent garb of black
gossamer-web, embroidered with silver stars, the reins were dragging on
the ground. Certain death seemed to stare her in the face. Though
apprehensive of immediate destruction she disdained to appeal for
assistance, courting death rather than owe her life to the despised
mongrel-rabble of Rome. Despite the terrific speed of the animals she
managed to retain over her face the veil of black gauze, which
completely enshrouded her, though it revealed rather than concealed the
magnificent lines of her body. Eckhardt fixed his straining gaze upon
the chariot, as it approached, but the sun, whose flaming disk just then
touched the horizon, blinded him to a degree which made it impossible
for him to discern the features of a face supremely fair.
For a moment it seemed as if the frightened steeds were about to dash
into an adjoining thoroughfare.
Breathless and spellbound the thousands stared, yet there was none to
risk his life in the hazardous effort of stopping the blind onrush of
the maddened steeds. Suddenly they changed their course towards the
point where, hemmed in by the densely congested throngs, Eckhardt stood.
Snatching the cloak from his shoulders, the Margrave dashed through the
living wall of humanity and leaped fearlessly in the very path of the
snorting, onrushing steeds. With a dexterous movement he flung the dark
cover over their heads, escaping instantaneous death only by leaping
quickly to one side. Then dashing at the bits he succeeded, alone and
unaided, in stopping the terrified animals, though dragged along for a
considerable space. A great shout of applause went up from the throats
of those who had not moved a hand to prevent the impending disaster.
Unmindful of this popular outburst, Eckhardt held the frightened steeds,
which trembled in every muscle and gave forth ominous snorts, until the
driver staggered along. Half dazed from his fall and bleeding profusely
from a gash in the forehead, the Nubian, almost frightened out of his
wits, seized the lines and resumed his seat. The steeds, knowing the
accustomed hand, gradually quieted down.
At the moment, when Eckhardt turned, to gain a glimpse of the occupant
of the chariot, a shriek close by caused him to turn his head. The
procession of the New Vestals had come to a sudden stand-still, owing to
the blocking of the thoroughfare, through which the runaway steeds had
dashed, the clearing behind them having been quickly filled up with a
human wall. During this brief pause some individual, the heraldry of
whose armour denoted him a Roman baron, had pounced upon one of the
chariots and seized one of its scantily clad occupants. The girl had
uttered a shriek of dismay and was struggling to free herself from the
ruffian’s clutches, while her companions vainly remonstrated with her
assailant. To hear the shriek, to turn, to recognize the cause, and to
pounce upon the Roman, were acts almost of the same moment to Eckhardt.
Clutching the girl’s assailant by the throat, without knowing in whose
defence he was entering the contest, he thundered in accents of such
unmistakable authority, as to give him little doubt of the alternative:
"Let her go!"
With a terrible oath, Gian Vitelozzo released his victim, who quickly
remounted her chariot, and turned upon his assailant.
"Who in the name of the foul fiend are you, to interfere with my
pleasure?" he roared, almost beside himself with rage as he perceived
his prey escaping his grasp.
Through his closed visor, Eckhardt regarded the noblemen with a contempt
which the latter instinctively felt, for he paled even ere his
antagonist spoke. Then approaching the baron, Eckhardt whispered one
word into his ear. Vitelozzo’s cheeks turned to leaden hues and,
trembling like a whipped cur, he slunk away. The crowds, upon
witnessing the noble’s dismay, broke into loud cheers, some even went so
far as to kiss the hem of Eckhardt’s mantle.
Shaking himself free of the despised rabble whose numbers had been a
hundred times sufficient to snatch his prey from Vitelozzo and his
entire clan, Eckhardt continued upon his way, wondering whom he had
saved from certain death, and whom, as he thought, from dishonour. The
procession of the New Vestals had disappeared in the haze of the
distance. Of the chariot and its mysterious inmate not a trace was to be
seen. Without heeding the comments upon his bravery, unconscious that
two eyes had followed his every step, since he left the imperial palace,
Eckhardt slowly proceeded upon his way, until he found himself at the
base of the Palatine.
*CHAPTER III*
*ON THE PALATINE*
The moon was rising over the distant Alban hills, when Eckhardt began
his ascent. Now and then, he paused on a spot, which offered a
particularly striking view of the city, reposing in the fading light of
day. No sound broke the solemn stillness, save the tolling of
convent-bells on remote Aventine, or the sombre chant of pilgrims before
some secluded shrine.
Like the ghost of her former self, Rome seemed to stretch interminably
into the ever deepening purple haze.
Colossal watch-towers, four-cornered, massive, with twin-like steeples
and crenelated ramparts, dominated the view on all sides. Their shadows
fell afar from one to another. Here and there, conspicuous among the
houses, loomed up the wondrous structures of old Rome, sometimes singly,
sometimes in thickly set groups. Beyond the walls the aqueducts pursued
their long and sinuous path-ways through the Campagna. The distant Alban
hills began to shroud their undulating summits in the slowly rising
mists of evening.
What a stupendous desolation time had wrought!
As he slowly proceeded up the hill, Eckhardt beheld the Palatine’s
enormous structures crumbled to ruin. The high-spanned vaulted arches
and partitions still rested on their firm foundations of Tophus stone,
their ruined roofs supported by massive pillars, broken, pierced and
creviced. Resplendent in the last glow of departing day towered high
the imperial palaces of Augustus, Tiberius and Domitian. The
Septizonium of Alexander Severus, still well preserved in its seven
stories, had been converted into a feudal stronghold by Alberic, chief
of the Optimates, while Caligula’s great piles of stone rose high and
dominating in the evening air. The Jovian temples were still standing
close to the famous tomb of Romulus, but the old triumphal course was
obstructed with filth. In crescent shape here and there a portico was
visible, shadeless and long deprived of roofing. High towered the
Coliseum’s stately ruins; Circus and Stadium were overgrown with bushes;
of the baths of Diocletian and Caracalla, once magnificent and imposing,
only ruins remained. Crumbling, weatherbeaten masonry confronted the
eye on every turn. Endless seemed the tangled maze of crooked lanes,
among which loomed a temple-gable green with moss or a solitary column;
an architrave resting on marble columns, looked down upon the huts of
poverty. Nero’s golden palace and the Basilica of Maxentius lay in
ruins; but in the ancient Forum temples were still standing, their
slender columns pointing to the skies with their ornate Corinthian
capitals.
The Rome of the Millennium was indeed but the phantom of her own past.
On all sides the eye was struck with inexorable decay. Where once
triumphal arches, proud, erect, witnessed pomp and power, crumbling
piles alone recorded the memory of a glorious past. Great fragments
strewed the virgin-soil of the Via Sacra from the splendid arch of
Constantine to the Capitol. The Roman barons had turned the old Roman
buildings into castles. The Palatine and the adjoining Coelian hill
were now lorded over by the powerful house of the Pierleoni.
Crescentius, the Senator of Rome, claimed Pompey’s theatre and the
Mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian, Castel San Angelo; in the waste fields
of Campo Marzio the Cavalli had seized the Mausoleum of Augustus; the
Aventine was claimed by the Romani and Stefaneschi; the Stadium of
Domitian by the Massimi. In the Fora of Trajan and Nerva the Conti had
ensconced themselves; the theatre of Marcellus was held by the Caetani
and the Guidi ruled in the tomb of Metellus.
There was an inexpressible charm in the sadness of this desolation which
chimed strangely with Eckhardt’s own life, now but a memory of its
former self.
It was a wonderful night. Scarce a breath of air stirred the dying
leaves. The vault of the sky was unobscured, arching deep-blue over the
higher rising moon. To southward the beacon fires from the Tor di
Vergera blazed like a red star low down in the horizon. Wrapt in deep
thought, Eckhardt followed the narrow road, winding his way through a
wilderness of broken arches and fallen porticoes, through a region
studded with convents, cloisters and the ruins of antiquity. Gray mists
began to rise over housetops and vineyards, through which at intervals
the Tiber gleamed like a yellow serpent in the moonlight. Near the
Ripetta long spirals of dark smoke curled up to the azure night-sky and
the moon cast a glory on the colossal statue of the Archangel Michael,
where it stood on the gloomy keep of Castel San Angelo. The rising
night-wind rustled in organ-tones among the cypress trees; the fountains
murmured, and in a silvery haze the moon hung over the slumbering city.
Slowly Eckhardt continued the ascent of the Palatine and he had scarcely
reached the summit, when out of the ruins there rose a shadow, and he
found himself face to face with Benilo, the Grand Chamberlain.
"By St. Peter and St. Paul and all the saints I can remember!" exclaimed
the latter, "is it Eckhardt, the Margrave, or his ghost? But no matter
which,—no man more welcome!"
"I am but myself," replied Eckhardt, as he grasped the proffered hand.
"Little did I hope to meet you here," Benilo continued, regarding
Eckhardt intently. "I thought you far away among the heathen Poles."
"I hate the Romans so heartily, that now and then I love to remind them
of my presence."
"Ay! Like Timon of Athens, you would bequeath to them your last
fig-tree, that they may hang themselves from its branches," Benilo
replied with a smile.
"I should require a large orchard. Is Rome at peace?"
"The burghers wrangle about goats’ wool, the monks gamble for a human
soul, and the devil stands by and watches the game," replied Benilo.
"Have you surprised any strange rumours during my absence?" questioned
Eckhardt guardedly.
"They say much or little, as you will," came the enigmatic reply. "I
have heard your name from the lips of one, who seldom speaks, save to
ill purpose."
Eckhardt nodded with a grim smile, while he fixed his eyes on his
companion. Slowly they lost themselves in the wilderness of crumbling
arches and porticoes.
At last Eckhardt spoke, a strange mixture of mirth and irony in his
tones.
"But your own presence among these ruins? Has Benilo, the Grand
Chamberlain become a recluse, dwelling among flitter mice and
jack-daws?"
"I have not sipped from the fount of the mystics," Benilo replied. "But
often at the hour of dusk I seek the solitudes of the Palatine, which
chime so strangely with my weird fancies. Here I may roam at will and
without restraint,—here I may revel in the desolation, enlivened only
now and then by the shrill tones of a shepherd’s pipe; here I may ramble
undisturbed among the ruins of antiquity, pondering over the ancient
greatness of Rome, pondering over the mighty that have fallen.—I have
just completed an Ode—all but the final stanzas. It is to greet Otto
upon his return. The Archbishop of Cologne announced the welcome
tidings of the king’s convalescence—truly, a miracle of the saint!"
Eckhardt had listened attentively, then he remarked drily:
"Let each man take his own wisdom and see whither it will lead him.
Otto is still pursuing a mocking phantom under the ruins of crumbled
empires, but to find the bleached bones of some long-forgotten Cæsar!
Truly, a worthy cause, in which to brave the danger of Alpine snows and
avalanches—and the fever of the Maremmas."
"We both try to serve the King—each in his way," Benilo replied,
contritely.
Eckhardt extended his hand.
"You are a poet and a philosopher. I am a soldier and a German.—I have
wronged you in thought—forgive and forget!"
Benilo readily placed his hand in that of his companion. After a pause
Eckhardt continued:
"My business in Rome touches neither emperor nor pope. Once, I too,
wooed the fair Siren Rome. But the Siren proved a Vampire.—Rome is a
enamel house.—Her caress is Death."
There was a brief silence.
"’Tis three years since last we strode these walks," Eckhardt spoke
again. "What changes time has wrought!"
"Have the dead brought you too back to Rome?" queried Benilo with
averted gaze.
"Even so," Eckhardt replied, as he strode by Benilo’s side. "The dead!
Soon I too shall exchange the garb of the world for that of the
cloister."
The Chamberlain stared aghast at his companion.
"You are not serious?" he stammered, with well-feigned surprise.
Eckhardt nodded.
"The past is known to you!" he replied with a heavy sigh. "Since she has
gone from me to the dark beyond, I have striven for peace and oblivion
in every form,—in the turmoil of battle, before the shrines of the
Saints.—In vain! I have striven to tame this wild passion for one dead
and in her grave. But this love cannot be strangled as a lion is
strangled, and the skill of the mightiest athlete avails nothing in such
a struggle. The point of the arrow has remained in the wound. Madness,
to wander for ever about a grave, to think eternally, fatefully of one
who cannot see you, cannot hear you, one who has left earth in all the
beauty and splendour of youth."
A pause ensued, during which neither spoke.
They walked for some time in silence among the gigantic ruins of the
Palatine. Like an alabaster lamp the moon hung in the luminous vault of
heaven. How peacefully fair beneath the star-sprinkled violet sky was
this deserted region, bordered afar by tall, spectral cypress-trees
whose dark outlines were clearly defined against the mellow luminance of
the ether. At last Eckhardt and his companion seated themselves on the
ruins of a shattered portico, which had once formed the entrance to a
temple of Saturnus.
Each seemed to be occupied with his own thoughts, when Eckhardt raised
his head and gazed inquiringly at his companion, who had likewise
assumed a listening attitude. Through the limpid air of the autumnal
night, like faint echoes from dream-land, there came softly vibrating
harp-tones, mingled with the clash of tinkling cymbals, borne aloft from
distant groves. Faint ringing chimes, as of silver bells, succeeded
these broken harmonies, followed by another clash of cymbals, stormily
persistent, then dying away on the evanescent breezes.
A strange, stifling sensation oppressed Eckhardt’s heart, as he listened
to these bells. They seemed to remind him of things which had long
passed out of his life, the peaceful village-chimes in his far-away
Saxon land, the brief dream of the happy days now for ever gone. But
hark! had he not heard these sounds before? Had they not caressed his
ears on the night, when accompanying the king from Aix-la-Chapelle to
Merséburg, they passed the fateful Hoerselberg in Thuringia?
Eckhardt made the sign of the cross, but the question rising to his lips
was anticipated by Benilo, who pointed towards a remote region of the
Aventine, just as the peals of the chiming bells, softened by distance
into indistinct tremulous harmonies, and the clarion clearness of the
cymbals again smote the stillness with their strangely luring clangour.
"Yonder lies the palace of Theodora," Benilo remarked indifferently.
Eckhardt listened with a strange sensation.
He remembered the pageant he had witnessed in the Navona, the pageant,
from whose more minute contemplation he had been drawn by the incident
with Gian Vitelozzo.
"Who is the woman?" he questioned with some show of interest.
"Regarding that matter there is considerable speculation," replied
Benilo.
"Have you any theory of your own?"
The Chamberlain shrugged his shoulders.
"Heard you ever of a remote descendant of Marozia, still living in
Italy?"
"I thought they had all been strangled long ago."
"But if there were one, deem you, that the harlot-blood which flowed in
the veins of her mother and all the women of her house would be
sanctified by time, a damp convent-cell, and a rosary?"
"I know nothing of a surviving limb of that lightning-blasted trunk."
"Did not the direct line of Marozia end with John XI, whom she succeeded
in placing in the chair of St. Peter, ere she herself was banished to a
convent, where she died?" questioned Benilo.
"So it is reported! And this woman’s name is?"
"Theodora!"
"You know her?"
Benilo met Eckhardt’s gaze unflinchingly.
"I have visited her circle," he replied indifferently.
Eckhardt nodded. He understood.
Dexterously changing the subject Benilo continued after a pause.
"If you had but some heart-felt passion, to relieve your melancholy; if
you could but love somebody or something," he spoke sympathetically.
"Truly, it was never destined for the glorious career of Eckhardt to end
behind the bleak walls of a cloister."
Eckhardt bowed his head.
"Philosophy is useless. Strange ailments require strange cures."
For some time they gazed in silence into the moonlit night. Around them
towered colossal relics of ancient grandeur, shattered walls, naked
porticoes. Wildernesses of broken arches stretched interminably into
the bluish haze, amidst woods and wild vegetation, which had arisen as
if to reassert their ancient possessions of the deserted site.
At last Eckhardt spoke, hesitatingly at first, as one testing his
ground, gradually with firmer purpose, which seemed to go straight to
the heart of his companion.
"There is much about Ginevra’s sudden death that puzzles me, a mystery
which I have in vain endeavoured to fathom. The facts are known to you,
I can pass them over, dark as everything seems to me at this very
moment. So quickly, so mysteriously did she pass out of my life, that I
could not, would not trust the testimony of my senses. I left the house
on the Caelian hill on that fateful night, and though I felt as if my
eyes were bursting from my head, they did not shed a single tear. Where
I went, or what I did, I could not tell. I walked about, as one
benumbed, dazed, as it sometimes happens, when the cleaving stroke of an
iron mace falls upon one’s helmet, deafening and blinding. This I
remember—I passed the bridge near the tower of Nona and, ascending the
Borgo, made for the gate of San Sebastian. The monks of Della Regola
soon appeared, walking two by two, accompanied by a train of acolytes,
chanting the Miserere, and bearing the coffin covered with a large pall
of black velvet."
Eckhardt paused, drawing a deep breath. Then he continued, slowly:
"All this did not rouse me from the lethargy which had benumbed my
senses. Only the one thought possessed me: Since we had been severed in
life, in death at least we could be united. We were both journeying to
the same far-off land, and the same tomb would give us repose together.
I followed the monks with a triumphant but gloomy joy, feeling myself
already transported beyond the barriers of life. Ponte Sisto and
Trastevere passed, we entered San Pancrazio."
There was another pause, Benilo listening intently.
"The body placed in the chapel, prior to the performance of the last
rites," Eckhardt continued, "I hurried away from the place and wandered
all night round the streets like a madman, ready to seek my own
destruction. But the hand of Providence withheld me from the crime. I
cannot describe what I suffered; the agony, the despair, that wrung my
inmost heart. I could no longer support a life that seemed blighted
with the curse of heaven, and I formed the wildest plans, the maddest
resolutions in my whirling brain. For a strange, terrible thought had
suddenly come over me. I could not believe that Ginevra was dead. And
the longer I pondered, the greater became my anxiety and fear. Late in
the night I returned to the chapel. I knelt in the shadow of the vaulted
arches, leaning against the wall, while the monks chanted the Requiem.
I heard the ’Requiescat in Pace,’ I saw them leave the chapel, but I
remained alone in the darkness, for there was no lamp save the lamp of
the Virgin. At this moment a bell tolled. The sacristan who was making
the rounds through the church, preparatory to closing, passed by me. He
saw me, without recognizing who I was, and said: ’I close the doors.’
’I shall remain,’ I answered. He regarded me fixedly, then said: ’You
are bold! I will leave the door ajar—stay, if you will!’ And without
speaking another word he was out. I paid little heed to him, though his
words had strangely stirred me. What did he mean? After a few moments
my reasoning subsided, but my determination grew with my fear.
Everything being still as the grave, I approached the coffin, cold sweat
upon my brow. Removing the pall which covered it, I drew my dagger which
was strong and sharp, intending to force open the lid, when suddenly I
felt a stinging, benumbing pain on my head, as from the blow of a
cudgel. How long I lay unconscious, I know not. When after some days I
woke from the swoon, the monks had raised a heavy stone over Ginevra’s
grave, during the night of my delirium. I left Rome, as I thought, for
ever. But strange misgivings began to haunt my sleep and my waking
hours. Why had they not permitted me to see once more the face I had so
dearly loved, ere they fastened down for ever the lid of the coffin?
’Tis true, they contended that the ravages of the fever to which she had
succumbed had precipitated the decomposition of her body. Still—the
more I ponder over her death, the more restless grows my soul. Thus I
returned to Rome, even against my own wish and will. I will not tarry
long. Perchance some light may beam on the mystery which has terrified
my dreams, from a source, least expected, though so far I have in vain
sought for the monk who conducted the last rites, and whose eyes saw
what was denied to mine."
There was a dead silence, which lasted for a space, until it grew almost
painful in its intensity. At last Benilo spoke.
"To return to the night of her interment. Was there no one near you, to
dispel those dread phantoms which maddened your brain?"
"I had suffered no one to remain. I wished to be alone with my grief."
"But whence the blow?"
"The masons had wrenched away an iron bar, in walling up the old
entrance. Had the height been greater, I would not be here to tell the
tale."
Benilo drew a deep breath. He was ghastly pale.
"But your purpose in Rome?"
"I will find the monk who conducted the last rites—I will have speech
with Nilus, the hermit. If all else fails, the cloister still remains."
"Let me entreat you not to hasten the irrevocable step. Neither your
king nor your country can spare their illustrious leader."
"Otto has made his peace with Rome. He has no further need of me,"
Eckhardt replied with bitterness. "But this I promise. I shall do
nothing, until I have had speech with the holy hermit of Gaëta.
Whatever he shall enjoin, thereby will I abide. I shall do nothing
hastily, or ill-advised."
They continued for a time in silence, each wrapt in his own thoughts.
Without one ray of light beaming on his course, Eckhardt beheld a
thousand vague and shadowy images passing before his eyes. That
subterranean love, so long crouched at his soul’s stairway, had climbed
a few steps higher, guided by some errant gleam of hope. The weight of
the impossible pressed no longer so heavily upon him, since he had
lightened his burden by the long withheld confession. The vertigo of
fatality had seized him. By a succession of irregular and terrible
events he believed himself hurried towards the end of his goal. A
mighty wave had lifted him up and bore him onward.
"Whither?"
From the distance, borne aloft on the wings of the night-wind, came
faintly the chant of pilgrims from secluded shrines on the roadway.
Eckhardt’s mind was made up. He would seek Nilus, the hermit.
Perchance he would point out to him the road to peace and set at rest
the dread misgivings, which tortured him beyond endurance. This boon
obtained, what mattered all else? The End of Time was nigh. It would
solve all mysteries which the heart yearned to know.
And while Benilo seemed to muse in silence over the strange tale which
his companion had poured into his ear, the latter weighed a resolve
which he dared not even breathe, much less confide to human ear. Truly,
the task required of Nilus was great.
At last Eckhardt and Benilo parted for the night. Eckhardt went his
way, pondering, and wondering what the morrow would bring, and Benilo
returned among the ruins of the Palatine, where he remained seated for a
time, staring up at the starry night-sky, as if it contained the
solution of all that was dark and inscrutable in man’s existence.
*CHAPTER IV*
*THE WANTON COURT OF THEODORA*
A strange restlessness had seized the Chamberlain, after his meeting
with the German commander. The moon illumined the desolate region with
her white beams, dividing the silent avenues into double edged lines of
silvery white, and bluish shadows. The nocturnal day with its subdued
tints disguised and mantled the desolation. The mutilated columns, the
roofs, crumbled beneath the torrents and thunders of centuries, were
less conspicuous than when seen in the clear, merciless light of the
sun. The lost parts were completed by the half tints of shadows; only
here and there a brusque beam of light marked the spot, where a whole
edifice had crumbled away. The silent genii of Night seemed to have
repaired the ancient city to some representation of fantastic life.
As he hurried along the slopes of the hill, Benilo fancied at times that
he beheld vague forms, lurking in the shadows; but they seemed to vanish
the moment he approached. Low whisperings, an undefined hum, floated
through the silence. First he attributed the noises to a fluttering in
his ears, to the sighing of the night-wind or to the flight of some
snake or lizard through the nettles. In nature all things live, even
death; all things make themselves heard, even silence. Never before had
Benilo felt such an involuntary terror. Once or twice he precipitately
changed his course, hurrying down some narrow lane, between desolate
looking rows of houses, low and ill-favoured, whose inmates recruited
themselves from the lowest types of the mongrel population of Rome.
At the Agrippina below the bridge of Nero he paused and gave a sigh of
relief. The phantoms seemed to have vanished. No breath of life broke
the stillness. As on a second Olympus the marble palaces of the Cæsars
towered on the summit of the Capitoline hill, glistening white in the
ghostly moonlight. Below, the Tiber sent his sluggish waves down toward
Ostia, rocking the fleet of numberless boats and barges which swung
lazily at their moorings.
Benilo found himself in a quarter of Rome which had been abandoned for
centuries. Ruins of temples and porticoes were strewn in the waste
which he traversed. Here at least he could breathe more freely. No one
was likely to surprise his presence in these solitudes. The
superstition of the age prevented the Romans from frequenting the vale
between Mounts Aventine and Testaccio after dark, for it was believed to
be the abode of evil spirits.
As the Chamberlain made his way through the wilderness of fallen
columns, shattered porticoes, and tangles of myrrh and acanthus, the
faint clash of cymbals, like the echo of some distant bacchanalia, fell
upon his ear. A strange fitful melody, rising and falling with weird
thrilling cadence, was borne upon the perfumed breezes.
He had not advanced very far, when through an avenue of tall spectral
cypress trees he emerged upon a smooth and level lawn, shut in by black
groups of cedar, through the entwined branches of which peeped the
silver moon.
Traversing a broad marble terrace, garlanded with a golden wealth of
orange trees and odorous oleanders, Benilo approached a lofty building,
surrounded at some distance by a wall of the height of half-grown palms.
A great gate stood ajar, which appeared to be closely guarded. Leaning
against one of the massive pillars which supported it, stood an African
of giant stature, in scarlet tunic and white turban, who, turning his
gleaming eyeballs on Benilo, nodded by way of salutation. Entering the
forbidden grounds, the Chamberlain found himself in a spacious garden
which he traversed with quick, elastic step, as one familiar with the
locality.
As Benilo advanced under the leafy branches, swaying in melancholy
relief against the blue-green sky, the sight of thousands of coloured
lamps hanging in long festoons from tree to tree first caused him to
start and to look about. A few moments later he was walking between
quaintly clipped laurel and yew-bushes, which bordered the great avenue
starred with semi-circular lights, where bronze and marble statues held
torches and braziers of flame.
Sounds of joy and merry-making fell upon his ear, causing a frown, like
a black shadow, to flit over his face, deepening by stages into
ill-repressed rage. In whichever manner the dark prophecies concerning
the Millennium may have affected the Romans and the world at large, it
was quite evident they disturbed not the merry circle assembled in the
great hall beyond.
At last Benilo found himself at the entrance of a vast circular hall.
The picture which unfolded itself to his gaze was like a fairy fantasy.
Gilded doors led in every direction into vast corridors, ending in a
peri-style supported by pillars. These magnificent oval halls admitted
neither the light of day nor the season of the year. The large central
hall, at the threshold of which Benilo stood, reviewing the spectacle
before him, had no windows. Silver candelabra, perpetually burning
behind transparent curtains of sea-green gauze diffused a jewel-like
radiance.
And here, in the drowsy warmth, lounging on divans of velvet, their feet
sunk in costly Indian and Persian carpets, drinking, gossiping, and
occasionally bursting into fitful snatches of song, revelled a company
of distinguished men, richly clad, representatives of the most exclusive
Roman society of the time. They seemed bent upon no other purpose save
to enjoy the pleasure of the immediate hour. Africans in fantastic
attire carried aloft flagons and goblets, whose crystalline sheen
reflected the crimson glow of the spicy Cyprian.
Benilo’s arrival had not been noticed. In the shadow of the entrance he
viewed the brilliant picture with its changing tints, its flash of
colour, its glint of gold, the enchanting women, who laughingly
gossipped and chatted with their guests, freed from the least restraint
in dress or manner, thus adding the last spark to the fire of the purple
Chianti. But as he gazed round the circle, the shade of displeasure
deepened in Benilo’s countenance.’
Bembo, the most renowned wit in the seven-hilled city, had just recited
one of his newest and most poignant epigrams, sparing neither emperor
nor pope, and had been rewarded by the loud applause of his not too
critical audience and a smile from the Siren, who, in the absence of the
hostess, seemed to preside over that merry circle. With her neck and
shoulders half veiled in transparent gauze, revealing rather than
concealing the soft, undulating lines of her supple body and arms, her
magnificent black hair knotted up at the back of her head and wreathed
with ivy, Roxané smiled radiantly from the seat of honour, which she had
usurped, the object of mad desire of many a one present, of eager
admiration to all. A number of attendants moved quickly and noiselessly
about the spacious hall, decorated with palms and other tropical plants,
while among the revellers the conversation grew more lively every
moment.
In the shadow of the great door Benilo paused and listened.
"Where is the Queen of the Groves?" Roffredo, a dissolute youth,
questioned his neighbour, who divided his attention between the fair
nymph by his side and the goblet which trembled in his hands.
"Silence!" replied the personage to whom the young noble had addressed
himself, with a meaning glance.
Roffredo and the girl by his side glanced in the direction indicated by
the speaker.
"Benilo," replied the Patrician. "Is he responsible for Theodora’s
absence?"
Oliverotto uttered a coarse laugh.
Then he added with a meaning glance:
"I will enlighten you at some other time. But is it true that you have
rescued some errant damsel from Vitelozzo’s clutches? Why do you not
gladden our eyes with so chaste a morsel?"
Roffredo shrugged his shoulders.
"Who knows, whether it was the vulture’s first visit to the dove’s
nest?" he replied with a disgusting smile. "’Tis not a matter of much
consequence."
Benilo heard the lie and the empty boast. He hated the prating youth
for reasons of his own, but cared not to interfere at this stage,
unconscious that his presence had been remarked.
"Is she fair?" questioned the girl by Roffredo’s side.
"Some might call her so," replied the latter.
The girl pouted and raised the goblet to her lips.
"Reveal her name to us!" croaked Bembo, who, though at some distance,
had heard every word of the discourse. "And I will forthwith dedicate to
her five and twenty stanzas on her virtue!"
"Who spoke the fatal word?" laughed Roxané, who presided over the
circle. "What is amusing you so much, you ancient wine-cask?" She then
turned to the poet, whose rather prosaic circumference well justified
the epithet.
"The old theme—women!" croaked Bembo good-humouredly.
"Forget it!" shouted Roffredo, draining his goblet. "Rather than listen
to your tirades, they would grasp the red hot hand of the devil."
"Ah! We live in a sorry age and it behooves us to think of the end,"
Roxané sighed with a mock air of contrition, which called forth a
general outburst of mirth.
"You are the very one to ponder over the most convenient mode of exit
into the beyond," sneered the Lord of Gravina.
"What have we here?" rasped Bembo. "Who dares to speak of death in this
assembly?"
"Nay, we would rather postpone the option till it finds us face to face
with that villainous concoction you served us, to make us forget your
more villainous poetry," shouted Oliverotto, hobbling across the hall
and slapping the poet on the back. "I knew not that Roman soil produced
so vile vintage!"
"’Twas Lacrymae Christi," remonstrated Bembo. "Would you have Ambrosia
with every epigram on your vileness?"
"Nay, it was Satan’s own brew," shrieked the baron, his voice strident
as that of a cat, which has swallowed a fish bone.
And Oliverotto clinked his goblet and cast amorous glances right and
left out of small watery eyes.
Bembo regarded him contemptuously.
"By the Cross! You are touched up and painted like a wench! Everything
about you is false, even to your wit! Beware, fair Roxané,—he is ogling
you as a bullfrog does the stars!"
At this stage an intermezzo interrupted the light, bantering tone of
conversation. A curtain in the background parted. A bevy of black
haired girls entered the hall, dressed in airy gowns, which revealed
every line, every motion of their bodies. They encircled the guests in a
mad whirl, inclining themselves first to one, then to the other. They
were led by one, garbed as Diana, with the crescent moon upon her
forehead, her black hair streaming about the whiteness of her statuesque
body like dark sea-waves caressing marble cliffs. Taking advantage of
this stage of the entertainment Benilo crossed the vast hall unnoticed
and sat apart from the revellers in gloomy silence, listening with
ill-concealed annoyance to the shouts of laughter and the clatter of
irritating tongues. The characteristic wantonness of his features had
at this moment given place to a look of weariness and suffering, a
seemingly unaccustomed expression; it was a look of longing, the craving
of a passion unsatisfied, a hope beyond his hope. Many envied him for
his fame and profligacy, others read in his face the stamp of sullen
cruelty, which vented itself wherever resistance seemed useless; but
there was none to sound his present mood.
Benilo had not been at his chosen spot very long, when some one touched
him on the shoulder. Looking up, he found himself face to face with an
individual, wrapt in a long mantle, the colour of which was a curious
mixture of purple and brown. His face was shaded by a conical hat, a
quaint combination of Byzantine helmet and Norse head-gear, being
provided with a straight, sloping brim, which made it impossible to
scrutinize his features. This personage was Hezilo, a wandering
minstrel seemingly hailing from nowhere. At least no one had penetrated
the mystery which enshrouded him.
"Are you alone insensible to the charms of these?" And Benilo’s
interlocutor pointed to the whirling groups.
"I was thinking of one who is absent," Benilo replied, relapsing into
his former listless attitude.
"Why not pluck the flowers that grow in your path, waiting but your will
and pleasure?"
Benilo clenched his hands till the nails were buried in the flesh.
"Have you ever heard of an Eastern drug, which mirrors Paradise before
your senses?"
Hezilo shook his head. "What of it?"
"He who becomes its victim is doomed irretrievably. While under its
baleful spell, he is happy. Deprive him of it and the horrors of hell
are upon him. No rest! No peace! And like the fiend addicted to the
drug is the thrice accursed wretch who loves Theodora."
Hezilo regarded the Chamberlain strangely.
"Benilo deploring the inconstancy of woman," he said with noiseless
laugh. Then, beckoning to one of the attendants, he took from the
salver thus offered to him a goblet, which he filled with the dark
crimson wine.
"Drink and forget," he cried. "You will find it even better than your
Eastern drug."
Benilo shook his head and pushed away the proffered wine.
"Your advice comes too late!"
For a moment neither spoke. Benilo, busied with his own thoughts, sat
listening to the boisterous clamour of the revellers, while the harper’s
gaze rested unseen upon him.
After a pause he broke the silence.
"How chanced it," he said, placing his hand affectionately on the
other’s shoulder, "that Benilo, who has broken all ten commandments and,
withal, hearts untold, Benilo, who could have at his feet every woman in
Rome, became woman’s prey, her abject slave? That he is grovelling in
the dust, where he might be lord and master? That he whines and
whimpers, where he should command?"
Benilo turned fiercely upon his interlocutor.
"Who dares say that I whine and whimper and grovel at her feet? Fools
all! On a mountain pass the trip is easier down than up! Know you what
it means to love a woman with mad consuming passion, but to be cast
aside for some blatant ass, to catch a few crumbs of favour tossed in
one’s face? Men like that rhyming zebra Bembo, who sings of love, which
he has never felt."
"Still you have not answered my question," said the harper with quiet
persistence. "Why are you the slave where you should be the master?
Theodora is whimsical, heartless, cruel; still she is a woman."
"She is a devil, a heartless beautiful devil who grinds the hearts of
men beneath her feet and laughs. Sometimes she taunts me till I could
strangle her—ah! But I placed myself in the demon’s power and having
myself broken the compact which bound me to her, body and soul—from the
lord I was, I have sunk to the slave I am,—you see, I speak free from
the heart, what little she has left of it."
The harper nodded.
"Why not leave Rome for a time?" he said. "Your absence might soften
Theodora’s heart. Your sins, whatever they were, will appear less
glaring in the haze of the distance."
Benilo looked up like an infuriated tiger.
"Has she appointed you my guardian?" he laughed harshly.
"I have had no words with her," replied the harper. "But one with eyes
to see, cannot help but sound your ailment."
The Chamberlain relaxed.
"The drug is in the blood," he replied wearily.
"Then win her back, if you can," said the harper.
Benilo clenched his hands while he glared up at the other. "It is a game
between the devil and despair, and the devil has the deal."
"A losing game for you, should either win."
Benilo nodded.
"I know it! Yet one single word would make me master where I am the
slave."
"And you waver?"
"Silence!" growled Benilo. "Tempt me no more!"
Their discourse at this point was rudely interrupted by the clamour of
the guests, bent upon silencing Bembo’s exuberance, whose tongue, like a
ribbon in the wind, fluttered incessantly. He bore himself with the airs
of some orator of antiquity, rolling his eyes until they showed the
whites beneath, and beating the air with his short, chubby arms.
"If Bembo is to be believed there is not in all Rome one faithful wife
nor one innocent girl," roared the lord of Bracciano, a burly noble who
was balancing a dainty dancer on his knee, while she held his faun-like
head encircled with her arms.
"Pah!" cried Guido da Fermo, a baron whose chief merit consisted in
infesting the roads in the Patrimony of St. Peter. "There are some, but
they are scarce, remarkably scarce!"
"Make your wants known at the street corners," exclaimed Roffredo,
taking the cue. "And I wager our fair Queen would be the first to claim
the prize."
And the young Patrician whose face revealed traces of grossest
debauchery gazed defiantly round the hall, as if challenging some one to
take up the gauntlet, if he dared.
"Be careful!" whispered the girl Nelida, his companion. "Benilo is
looking at you!"
Roffredo laughed boisterously.
"Theodora’s discarded lover? Why should I muffle my speech to please
his ear?"
The girl laughed nervously.
"Because the tongue of a fool, when long enough, is a rope to hang him
by,—and he loves her still!"
"He loves her still," drawled the half-intoxicated Patrician, turning
his head toward the spot where Benilo sat listening with flaming eyes.
"The impudence!"
And he staggered to his feet, holding aloft the goblet with one hand,
while the other encircled the body of the dancing girl, who tried in
vain to silence him.
"Fill your goblets," he shouted,—"fill your goblets full—to the brim."
He glanced round the hall with insolent bravado, while Benilo, who had
not lost a word the other had spoken, leaned forward, his thin lips
straightening in a hard white line, while his narrowing eyelids and his
trembling hands attested his pent up ire louder than words.
"A toast to the absent," shrieked Roffredo. "A toast to the most
beautiful and the most virtuous woman in Rome, a toast to—"
He paused for an instant, for a white-cheeked face close to his,
whispered:
"Stop! On your life be silent!"
But Roffredo paid no heed.
He whirled the crystal goblet round his head, spilling some of the
contents over the girl, who shrank from it, as from an evil omen. The
purple Chianti looked like blood on her white skin.
"To Theodora!" shouted the drunken youth, as all except Benilo raised
their goblets to join in the toast. "To Theodora, the Wanton Queen,
whose eyes are aglow with hell’s hot fire, whose scarlet lips would kiss
the fiend, whose splendid arms would embrace the devil, were he passing
fair to look upon!"
He came no further.
"May lightning strike you in your tracks!" Benilo howled, insane with
long suppressed rage, as he hurled a heavy decanter he had snatched from
the board, at the head of the offender.
A shrill outcry, dying away into a moan, then into silence, the crash of
broken flagons, a lifeless form gliding from his paralyzed arms to the
floor, roused Roffredo to the reality of what had happened. The heavy
decanter having missed its aim, had struck the girl Nelida squarely in
the forehead, and the dark stream of blood which flowed over her eyes,
her face, her neck, down her arms, her airy gown, mingled with the
purple wine from the Patrician’s spilled goblet.
It was a ghastly sight. In an instant pandemonium reigned in the hall.
The painted women shrieked and rushed for safety behind columns and
divans, leaving the men to care for the dying girl, whom Bembo and
Oliverotto tenderly lifted to a divan, where the former bandaged the
terribly gashed head.
While he did so the poor dancing girl breathed her last.
The awful sight had effectually sobered Benilo. For a moment the
drunken noble stared as one petrified on the deed he had wrought, then
the sharp blade of his poniard hissed from its scabbard and with a half
smothered outcry of fury he flew at Roffredo’s throat.
"This is your deed, you lying cur!" he snarled into the trembling
youth’s face, whom the catastrophe had completely unnerved and changed
into a blanched coward. "Retract your lying boast or I’ll send you to
hell ere you can utter a Pater-Noster!"
With the unbounded fury of a maniac who has broken his chains and
against whose rage no mortal strength may cope, Benilo brought Roffredo
down on the floor, where he knelt on his breast, holding his throat in a
vice-like grip, which choked any words the prostrate youth might
endeavour to speak.
The terror of the deed, which had cast its pall over the merry
revellers, and the suddenness of the attack on Roffredo had so
completely paralyzed those present, that none came to the rescue of the
prostrate man, who vainly struggled to extricate himself from his
opponent’s clutches. His eyes ablaze with rage, Benilo had set the
point of his dagger against the chest of his victim, whom now no power
on earth seemed able to save, as his cowardly associates made no effort
to stay the Chamberlain’s hand.
He who had seen Benilo, in the palace on the Aventine, composing an ode
in the hall of audience, would have been staggered at the complete
transformation from a diplomatic courtier to a fiend incarnate, his
usually sedate features distorted with mad passion and rage. A
half-choked outcry of brute fear and despair failed to bring any one to
the prostrate boaster’s aid, most of those present, including the women,
thronging round the dead girl Nelida, and Roffredo’s fate seemed sealed.
But at that moment, something happened to stay Benilo’s uplifted hand.
*CHAPTER V*
*THE WAGER*
At the moment when Benilo had raised his poniard, to drive it through
his opponent’s heart, the diaphanous curtains dividing the great hall
from the rest of the buildings were flung aside and in the entrance
there appeared a woman like some fierce and majestic fury, who at a
moment’s glance took in the whole scene and its import. Her manner was
that of a queen, of a queen who was wont to bend all men to her
slightest caprice. Every eye in the large hall was bent upon her and
every soul felt a thrill of wonder and admiration. The ivory pallor of
her face was enhanced by the dark gloss of her raven hair. The
slumbrous starry eyes were meant to hold the memories of a thousand
love-thoughts. A dim suffused radiance seemed to hover like an aureole
above her dazzling white brow, crowning the perfect oval of her face,
adorned with a clustering wealth of raven-black tresses. She was arrayed
in a black, silk-embroidered diaphanous robe, the most sumptuous the art
of the Orient could supply. Of softest texture, it revealed the
matchless contours of her form and arms, of her regal throat,
heightening by the contrast the ivory sheen of her satin-skin.
But those eyes which, when kindled with the fires of love, might have
set marble aflame, were blazing with the torches of wrath, as looking
round the hall, she darted a swift inquiring glance at the chief
offenders, one of whom could not have spoken had he wished to, for
Benilo was fairly strangling him.
The rest of the company had instinctively turned their faces towards the
Queen of the Groves, endeavouring at the same time to hide the sight of
the dead girl from her eyes by closely surrounding the couch, with their
backs to the victim. But their consternation as well as the very act
betrayed them. From the struggling men on the floor, Theodora’s gaze
turned to the affrighted company and she half guessed the truth.
Advancing towards her guests, she pushed their unresisting forms aside,
raised the cover from the dead girl with the bloody bandage over the
still white face, bent over it quickly to kiss the dark, silken hair,
then she demanded an account of the deed. One of the women reported in
brief and concise terms what had happened before she arrived. At the
sight of this flower, broken and destroyed, Theodora’s anger seemed for
a moment to subside, like a trampled spark, before a great pity that
rose in her heart. In an instant the whole company rushed upon her with
excited gestures and before the Babel of jabbering tongues, each
striving to tell his or her story in a voice above the rest, the Fury
returned.
Theodora stamped her foot and commanded silence. At the sight of the
woman, Benilo’s arms had fallen powerlessly by his side and Roffredo,
taking advantage of an unwatched moment, had pushed the Chamberlain off
and staggered to his feet.
"Whose deed is this?" Theodora demanded, holding aloft the covering of
the couch.
"It was my accursed luck! The decanter was intended for this lying cur,
whose black heart I will wrench out of his body!"
And Benilo pointed to the shrinking form of Roffredo.
"What had he done?"
"He had insulted you!"
"That proves his courage!" she replied with a withering glance of
contempt.
Then she beckoned to the attendants.
"Have the girl removed and summon the Greek—though I fear it is too
late."
There was a ring of regret in her tones. It vanished as quickly as it
had come.
The body of Nelida, the dancing girl, was carried away and the guests
resumed their seats. Roxané had reluctantly abandoned her usurped place
of honour. A quick flash, a silent challenge passed between the two
women, as Theodora took her accustomed seat.
"A glass of wine!" she commanded imperiously, and Roffredo, reassured,
rushed to the nearest attendant, took a goblet from the salver and
presented it to the Queen of the Groves.
"Ah! Thanks, Roffredo! So it was you who insulted me in my absence?"
she said with an undertone of irony in her voice, which had the rich
sound of a deep-toned bell.
"I said you would embrace the devil, did he but appear in presentable
countenance!" Roffredo replied contritely, but with a vicious side
glance at Benilo.
An ominous smile curved Theodora’s crimson lips.
"The risk would be slight, since I have kept company with each of you,"
she replied. "And our virtuous Benilo took up the gauntlet?"
Her low voice was soft and purring, yet laden with the poison sting of
irony, as through half-closed lids she glanced towards the Chamberlain,
who sat apart in moody silence like a spectre at the feast.
Benilo scented danger in her tone and answered cautiously:
"Only a coward will hear the woman he loves reviled with impunity."
Theodora bowed with mock courtesy.
"If you wish to honour me with this confession, I care as little for the
one as the other. From your temper I judge some innocent dove had
escaped your vulture’s talons."
Benilo met the challenge in her smouldering look and answered with
assumed indifference:
"Your spies have misinformed you! But I am in no mood to constitute the
target of your jests!"
"There is but one will which rules these halls," Theodora flashed out.
"If obedience to its mandates is distasteful to you, the gates are
open—spread your pinions and fly away!"
She flung back her head and their eyes met.
Benilo turned away, uttering a terrible curse between his clenched
teeth.
There was a deep hush in the hall, as if the spirit of the dead girl was
haunting the guests. The harps played a plaintive melody, which might
indeed have stolen from some hearth of ashes, when stirred by the breath
of its smouldering spark, like phantom-memories from another world, that
seemed to call to Theodora’s inner consciousness, each note a foot-step,
leading her away beyond the glint and glitter of the world that
surrounded her, to a garden of purity and peace in the dim,
long-forgotten past. Theodora sat in a reverie, her strange eyes fixed
on nothingness, her red lips parted, disclosing two rows of teeth,
small, even, pearly, while her full, white bosom rose and fell with
quickened respiration.
"The Queen of the Groves is in a pensive mood to-night," sneered the
Lord of Bracciano, who had been engaged in mentally weighing her charms
against those of Roxané.
Theodora sighed.
"I may well be pensive, for I have seen to-day, what I had despaired of
ever again beholding in Rome—can you guess what it is?"
Shouts of laughter broke, a jarring discord, harshly upon her speech.
"We are perishing with curiosity," shouted, as with one voice, the
debauched nobles and their feminine companions.
"In the name of pity, save our lives!" begged a girl nearest to
Theodora’s seat.
"Can you guess?" the Queen of the Groves repeated simply, as she gazed
round the assembly.
All sorts of strange answers were hurled at the throne of the Queen of
the Groves. She heeded them not. Perhaps she did not even hear them.
At last she raised her head.
Without commenting on the guesses of her guests, she said:
"I have seen in Rome to-day—a man!"
Benilo squirmed. The rest of the guests laughed harshly and Bembo, the
Poet asked with a vapid grin:
"And is the sight so wondrous that the Queen of Love sits dreaming among
her admirers like a Sphinx in the African desert?"
"Had he horns?" shouted the Lord of Bracciano.
"Or a cloven hoof?" cried Oliverotto.
"What was he like?" sneered a third.
Theodora turned upon her questioners, a dash of scorn in her barbed
reply.
"I speak of a man, not reptiles like you—you all!"
"Mercy, oh queen, mercy!" begged the apoplectic poet, amid the noisy
clamour of his jeering companions. But heedless of their jabbering
tongues Theodora continued earnestly:
"Not such men as the barons of Rome are pleased to call themselves,
cowardly, vicious,—beasts, who believe not in God nor the devil, and
whose aim in life is but to clothe their filthy carcass in gaudy apparel
and appease the cravings of their lust and their greed! I speak of a
man, something the meaning of which is as dark to you as the riddle of
the Sphinx."
The company gazed at each other in mute bewilderment.
Theodora was indeed in a most singular mood.
"Are we not at the Court of Theodora?" shouted the Lord of Bracciano,
who was experiencing some inconvenience in the feat of embracing with
his short arms the two women between whom he was seated. "Or has some
sudden magic transported us to the hermitage of the mad monk, who
predicts the End of Time?"
"Nay," Benilo spoke up for the first time since Theodora’s rebuke had
silenced him, "perhaps our beautiful Queen of Love has in store for her
guests just such a riddle as the one the Sphinx proposed to the son of
Iokasté—with but a slight variation."
The illiterate high-born rabble of Rome did not catch the drift of the
Patrician’s speech, but the pallor on Theodora’s cheeks deepened.
Roxané alone turned to the speaker.
"And the simile?" she asked in her sweet siren-voice, tremulous with the
desire to clash with her more beautiful rival.
Benilo shrugged his shoulders, but he winced under Theodora’s deadly
gaze.
"The simile?" he replied with a jarring laugh. "It is this, that incest
and adultery are as old as the Athenian asses, that never died, and that
the Sphinx eventually drowned herself in the Aegean Sea."
Theodora made no reply, but relapsed into her former state of
thoughtfulness. As she turned from Benilo, her eyes met those of
Roxané, and again the two women flashed defiance at each other.
Again the laughter of the revellers rose, louder than before.
"By the Cross," shouted the poet, "the Queen of Love will take the
veil."
"Has she chosen the convent, whose nuns she will cause to be canonized
by her exemplary life and glorious example," jeered Roxané.
"We shall sing a thousand Aves and buy tapers as large as her
unimpeached virtue!" cried another of the women.
"I fear one nunnery is damned from chapel to refectory," growled Benilo,
keeping his eyes on the floor, as if fearful of meeting those he
instinctively felt burning upon him.
"Silence!" cried Theodora at last, stamping her foot on the floor, while
a glow of hot resentment flushed her cheeks. "Your merriment and clamour
only draws the sharper line between you and that other, of whom I
spoke."
Roffredo looked up with a smile of indolence.
"And who is the demi-god?" he drawled lazily.
She measured him with undisguised scorn and contempt.
"The name! The story!" bellowed several individuals, raising their
goblets and half spilling their contents in their besotten mood.
In a strange voice, melodious as the sound of Æolian harps when the
night wind passes over their strings, amid profound silence Theodora
related to her assembled guests the incident of the runaway steeds in
which she had so prominently figured, the chariot having been her
own,—the occupant herself. She omitted not a detail of the stranger’s
heroic deed, passing from her own thrilling experience to Vitelozzo’s
assault upon one of the New Vestals, and his discomfiture at the hand of
him who had saved her life.
"And while your Roman scum hissed and hooted and raised not a finger in
the girl’s defence, her rescuer alone braved Vitelozzo’s fury—I saw him
whisper something into the ruffian’s ear and the mighty lord skulked
away like a frightened cur. By heaven, I have seen a man!" the Queen of
the Groves concluded ecstatically, disdaining to dwell on her own
rescue.
For a lingering moment there hovered silence on the assembly. Gradually
it gave way to a flutter of questions.
"Who is he?" queried one.
"What is he like?" shouted another.
Theodora did not heed the questions. Only her lovely face, framed by
hair dark as the darkest midnight, had grown a shade more pale and
pensive.
Suddenly she turned to the last questioner, a woman.
"What was he like?" she replied. "Tall, and in the prime of manhood;
his face concealed by his vizor."
The woman sighed amorously. The men nodded to each other with meaning
glances. The danger of the convent seemed passed.
Benilo, who during Theodora’s narrative had proven an ideal listener, of
a sudden clenched his fist and gazed round for the harper, who sat in a
remote corner of the hall.
Another moment’s musing, then the Chamberlain ground his teeth together
with the fierce determination to carry out at all hazards, what he had
resolved in his mind. Theodora herself was playing into his hands.
"Do you know this incomparable hero, this modern Theseus?" he drawled
out slowly and with deliberate impudence, addressing the Queen of the
Groves.
Theodora’s gaze was sharp as steel.
"What is it to you?" she hissed.
Benilo shrugged his shoulders disdainfully.
"Nothing whatever! I also know him!"
There was something in his tone, which struck the ever-watchful ear of
Theodora like a danger-knell.
"You know him?" echoed a chorus of voices from every part of the great
hall.
He waved back the eager questioners.
"I know him!" he declared emphatically, then he was silent.
Theodora seemed to have grown nervous.
"Are you serious?"
"Never more so!" Benilo replied, with a slight peculiar hardening of the
lips.
"Is he a Roman?" cried a voice.
"All Romans according to our fair Queen’s judgment, are curs and
degenerates," Benilo drawled insultingly.
Theodora nodded.
"Even so," she replied coldly.
"This demi-god, however, is also slightly known to you," the Chamberlain
continued, now fairly facing the Queen of Love, "even though he has not
yet found his way to your bowers."
Theodora winced.
"Why do you taunt me?" she flashed back angrily.
Benilo heeded her not. Instead of replying, he addressed himself to the
company, speaking in a dry, half-bantering tone, while Theodora watched
him like a tigress.
"Once upon a time, the Queen of Love boasted that mortal man did not
breathe who would resist her charms. Now there is at this hour one man
here in Rome, whom even the matchless Theodora dare not summon to her
circle, one man before whose ’No’ her vain-glorious boast would break
like a bubble, one man whose soul she may not sap and send to hell! And
this one man is even the hero of her dreams, her rescuer,—the rescuer of
a maiden of spotless virtue, the vanquisher of a giant! Do I speak
truth, divine Theodora?"
Those who watched the expression on the face of the Queen of the Groves
marvelled alike at Benilo’s audacity and the startling absence of a
passionate outburst on the part of the woman. And though the blood
seethed through Theodora’s veins, the sudden change of front on Benilo’s
part seemed to stagger her for a moment. It was a novel sensation to
see the man who had heretofore been like clay in the moulder’s hands now
daring to flout her openly and to hold up her wounded pride as a target
for the jests of those present. It was a novel sensation, to find
herself publicly berated, but the shaft sank deep. Theodora’s eyes
flashed scorn and there was something cruel in her glances. Benilo felt
its sting like a whiplash. His nerves quivered and he breathed hard.
But he had gone too far to recede. His spirit had risen in arms against
the disdain of the woman he loved,—loved with a passion that seemed to
have slept in a tomb for ages and suddenly gathered new strength, like a
fire kindled anew over dead ashes.
Acting on a sudden impulse, he raised his head and looked at her with a
fearlessness which for the moment appeared to startle her
self-possession, for a deep flush coloured the fairness of her face and,
fading, left it pale as marble. Still Theodora did not speak and the
breathless silence which had succeeded Benilo’s last taunt resembled the
ominous hush of the heated atmosphere before a thunder-clap. No one
dared speak and the Chamberlain, apparently struck by the sudden
stillness, looked round from the tumbled cushions where he reclined.
"You do not answer my question, fair Theodora," he spoke at last, an
undertone of mockery ringing through his speech. "I grant you power
over some weak fools," and Benilo glanced round the assembly, little
caring for the mutter which his words raised, "but you will at least
admit that there is one man in Rome at this very hour, on whom all your
charms and blandishments would be wasted as a caress on cold marble."
Another deep and death-like pause ensued; then Theodora’s silvery cold
tones smote the profound silence with sharp retort, as goaded at last
beyond forbearance by his scoffing tone she sprang to her feet.
"There is not a man in Rome," she hissed into Benilo’s face, "not in
Italy, not in all the world, whom I could not bend to the force of my
will. Where I choose, I conquer!"
A sardonic laugh broke from Benilo’s lips.
"And by what means?"
"Benilo," she flashed forth in withering contempt, "I know not what your
object is in taunting me—and I care not—but by Lucifer, you go too far!
Name to me a man in Rome, name whom you will, and if I fail to win him
in one month—"
"What then?"
For a moment she hesitated.
"Name the wager yourself!"
An ominous smile curved Benilo’s lips.
"All the wealth I possess against you—as my wife!"
She laughed scornfully and shuddered, but did not reply.
"Are you afraid?" he cried, tauntingly.
"What a fate!" she replied with trepidation in her tone. "But I accept
it, even it!"
She turned her back on him after a look of such withering contempt as
one might cast on some reptile, and took her former seat, when again she
was startled by his voice. Its mock caressing tones caused her to
clench her firm white hands and bend forward as if tempted to strangle
the viper, that had dared to place its glittering coils in her path.
"It now remains but to name the champion, just to prevent the wrong bird
from fluttering into the nest," said Benilo, addressing the company.
"The champion! The champion!" they shouted, breathing more freely,
since the expected lightning did not strike.
"Fill the goblets!" Benilo exclaimed, and in a moment the wine was
poured, the guests arose and gathered round the central figures.
Benilo raised his goblet and turned to Theodora, wincing under her look
of contempt.
"The champion is to be my choice and to be accepted unconditionally?" he
questioned.
"Not so!" she flashed forth, half rising from her seat, her eyes flaming
with wrath. "I would not have my words distorted by so foul a thing as
you! It is to be the rescuer of the girl, he before whom the lord
Vitelozzo slunk away like a whipped cur! You have taunted me with my
lack of power face to face with that one—and that one alone, the only
man among a crowd of curs!"
Benilo paused, then he said with a hard, cold smile:
"Agreed!" And he placed the goblet to his lips. The guests did
likewise and drank the singular toast, as if it had not implied a
glaring insult to each present, including the one who reëchoed it.
"And now for his name!" Benilo continued. "Just to prevent a
mischance."
The irony of his words and the implied insult cut Theodora to the quick.
With hands tightly clenched as If she would strangle her tormentor, she
sprang to her feet.
"I object!" she gasped, almost choked with rage, while her startled
listeners seemed to lack even voice to vent their curiosity before this
new and unexpected outburst.
"I appeal to the company assembled, who has witnessed the wager between
the Queen of Love and her faithful and obedient lover," Benilo sneered,
looking round among the guests. "How know we, what is concealed under a
vizor, beneath a rusty suit of armour? Security lies but in the name of
the unconscious victim of Theodora’s magic, is it not so?"
The smile on the Chamberlain’s countenance caused him to appear more
repulsive than his former expression of wildest rage. But, prompted by
an invincible curiosity, the guests unanimously assented.
"Be it so!" gasped Theodora, sinking back in her seat. "I care not."
Benilo watched her closely, and as he did so he almost repented of his
hasty wager. Just at that moment his gaze met that of the harper, who
stood like some dark phantom behind the throne of the Queen of the
Groves, and the Chamberlain stifled the misgivings, which had risen
within him. And though smiling in anticipation of the blow he was about
to deliver, a blow which should prove the sweetest balm for the misery
she had caused him by her disdain, he still wavered, as if to torment
her to the extremest limits. Then, with a voice audible in the remotest
parts of the great hall, he spoke, his eye in that of Theodora, slowly
emphasizing each title and name:
"Margrave Eckhardt of Meissen, Commander-in-chief of the German hosts!"
There was the silence of death in the hall.
For a moment Theodora stared fixed and immobile as a marble statue, her
face pale as death, while a thin stream of purple wine, spilled from her
trembling goblet, trickled down her white, uplifted arm. Then she
rushed upon him, and knocking the goblet out of his hand, causing it to
fall with a splintering crash at Benilo’s feet, she shrieked till the
very walls re-echoed the words:
"You lie! You lie!"
Benilo crossed his arms over his chest, and, looking squarely into the
woman’s eyes, he repeated in the same accents of defiance:
"Margrave Eckhardt of Meissen, Commander-in-chief of the German hosts."
"Again I tell you you lie! You lie!" shrieked the woman, now almost
beside herself. "Is there no one among all this scum here assembled, to
chastise this viper? Hear me!" she cried as, affrighted, the guests
shrank back from her blazing eyes and panting breath, while with all the
superhuman beauty of a second Medusa she stood among them, and if her
gaze could have killed, none would have survived the hour. "Hear me!
Benilo has lied to you, as time and again he has lied to me! He, of
whom he speaks, is dead,—has died—long ago!"
Benilo breathed hard. "Then he has arisen from the dead and returned to
earth,—to Rome—" he spoke with biting irony in his tones. "A strange
hereditary disease affecting the members of his house."
When he saw the deadly pallor which covered the woman’s face, and the
terror reflected in her eyes, Benilo continued:
"And deem you in all truth, O sagacious Theodora, that a word from the
lips of any other man would have caused Vitelozzo to release his prey?
Deem you not in your undoubted wisdom that it required a reason, even
weightier than the blow of a gauntleted hand, to accomplish this
marvellous feat? And,—since you are dumb in the face of these
arguments,—will you not enlighten us all why Theodora, the beautiful,
the chaste, would deprive him of the plume, to whom it rightfully
belongs,—the German commander, Margrave Eckhardt of Meissen, who risked
his life to save that of our beautiful queen?"
Theodora turned upon her tormenter like an animal at bay.
"I have heard enough! I will not! The wager is off!"
And rising she prepared to leave the hall without another word.
It would have been difficult for the most profound physiognomist to
analyze Benilo’s feelings, when he saw his purpose, his revenge, foiled.
Looking up he met the enigmatic gaze of the harper resting upon him with
a strange mixture of derision and disdain.
"Stay!" Benilo cried to Theodora as she grasped the curtain in the act
of pushing it aside. He knew if she passed beyond it, he had lost
beyond retrieve. But she paused and turned, mute inquiry and defiance
in her look.
"The Queen of the Groves has made a wager before you all," the
Chamberlain shouted, lashing himself into the rage needful to make him
carry out his design unflinchingly. "After being informed of the person
of the champion she has repudiated it! The reasons are plain,—the
champion is beyond her reach! The Queen of the Groves is too politic to
play a losing game, especially when she knows that she is sure to lose!
The charms of our Goddess are great, but alas! There is one man in Rome
whom she dare not challenge!"
He paused to study the effect of his words upon her.
She regarded him with her icy stare.
"It is not a question of power—but of my will!"
"So be it!" retorted Benilo. "But since the Queen of Love has refused
my wager for reasons no doubt good and efficient, perhaps there is in
this company one less pure, one less scrupulous, one of beauty as great,
who might win, where Theodora shuns the risk! Will you take up the
gauntlet, fair Roxané, and lure to the Groves, Eckhardt, the general?"
"Benilo—beware!"
Shrill, sharp like breaking glass, like the cry of a wounded animal
maddened with rage and agony, the outcry seemed wrenched from Theodora’s
white, drawn lips. Her large, splendid eyes flashed unutterable scorn
upon the Chamberlain and her lithe form swayed and crouched as that of a
tigress about to spring.
"Will Roxané take the wager?" Benilo repeated defiantly.
The anticipation of the on-coming contest caused Roxané’s cheek to
blanch. But not to be thought deficient in courage, to meet her rival,
she replied:
"Since the Queen of the Groves shuns the test, perhaps I might succeed,
where—"
She did not finish the sentence.
Like a lightning flash Theodora turned from the man, who had roused her
ire, to the woman who had stung her pride with ill-veiled mockery, and
while she slowly crept towards her opponent, her low voice, tremulous
with scorn, stung as a needle would the naked flesh.
"And do you dream that Eckhardt of Meissen has aught to fear from you,
fair Roxané? Deem you, that the proud Roxané with all her charms, could
cause the general of the German host to make one step against his will?"
For a moment the two women stood face to face, measuring each other with
deadly looks.
"And what if I would?" flashed Roxané.
Two white hands slowly but firmly encircled her throat.
"I would strangle you!" hissed Theodora, her face deadly pale.
Roxané’s cheeks too had lost their colour. She knew her opponent and
she instinctively felt she had reached the limit. She gave a little
nervous laugh as she drew Theodora’s reluctant hands from the marble
whiteness of her throat, where their touch had left a rosy imprint.
"I do not wish your Saxon bear," she said. "If you can tame him, we
come to his skin!"
"By Lucifer!" replied the Queen of the Groves, "did I but choose to, I
would make him forget heaven and hell and bring him to my feet!"
"How dramatic!" sneered Benilo. "Words are air! We want proofs!"
She whirled upon him.
"And what will become of the snake, when the hunter appears?"
Benilo paled. For a moment his arrogance deserted him. Then he said
with an ominous scowl:
"Let the hunter beware!"
She regarded him with icy contempt. Then she turned to the revellers.
"Since Benilo has dared to cross swords with me," she cried, "though I
despise him and all of you, I accept the challenge, if there is one in
this company who will confirm that it was Eckhardt who discomfited
Vitelozzo."
From the background of the hall, where he had sat a silent listener,
there came forward an individual in the gaudy attire of a Roman
nobleman. He was robust and above the middle height, and the lineaments
of his coarse face betrayed predominance of brute instincts over every
nobler sentiment.
"Vitelozzo! Vitelozzo!" the guests shouted half amazed, half amused.
The robber-baron nodded as he faced Theodora on the edge of the circle.
"I have listened to your discourse," he snarled curtly. "For your
opinions I care not. And as for the skullion to whom I gave in,—out of
sheer good will,—ha, ha!—may the devil pull the boots from his
legs!—’twas no meaner a person than he, at whose cradle the fiend stood
sponsor, Eckhardt—the general—but I will yet have the girl, I’ll have
her yet!"
And with a vigorous nod Vitelozzo took up a brimming decanter and
transported himself into the background whence he had arisen.
His word had decided the question.
For a moment there was an intense hush. Then Theodora spoke:
"Eckhardt of Meissen, the commander of the German hosts, shall come to
my court! He shall be as one of yourselves, a whimpering slave to my
evil beauty! I will it,—and so it shall be!"
For a moment she glanced at Benilo and the blood froze in his veins.
Heaven and earth would he have given now to have recalled the fateful
challenge. But it was too late. For a time he trembled like an aspen.
No one knew what he had read in Theodora’s Medusa-like face.
Some of the revellers, believing the great tension relieved, now pushed
eagerly forward, surrounding the Queen of the Groves and plying her with
questions. They were all eager to witness a triumph so difficult to
achieve, as they imagined, that even Theodora, though conscious of her
invincible charms, had winced at the task.
But the Queen of Love seemed to have exchanged the attributes of her
trade for those of a Fury, for she turned upon them like an animal
wounded to death, that sees the hounds upon its track and cannot escape.
"Back! All of you!" she hissed, raising her arms and sweeping them
aside. "What is it after all? Is he not a man, like—no! Not like you,
not like you!—Why should I care for him?—Perhaps he has wife and child
at home:—the devils will laugh the louder!"
She paused a moment, drawing a deep breath. Then she slowly turned
towards the cringing Chamberlain. Her voice was slow and distinct and
every word struck him as the blow from a whip.
"I accept your wager," she said, "and I warn you that I will win! Win,
with all the world, with all your villainy, with the Devil himself
against me. Eckhardt shall come to the Groves! But," she continued
with terrible distinctness, "if aught befall him, ere we have stood face
to face, I shall know the hand that struck the blow, were it covered by
the deepest midnight that ever blushed at your foulness, and by the
devil,—I will avenge it!"
After these words Theodora faced those assembled with her splendid
height in all the glory of her beauty. Another moment she was gone.
For a time deep silence succeeded.
Never had such a scene been witnessed in the Groves. Never had the Queen
of Love shown herself in so terrible a mood. Never had mortal dared to
brave her anger, to challenge her wrath. Truly, the end of time must be
nigh when her worshippers would dare defy the Goddess of the Shrine.
But after Theodora had disappeared, the strain gradually relaxed and
soon wore away entirely. With all, save Benilo. His calm outward
demeanour concealed only with an effort his terrible apprehensions, as
he mixed freely, to divert suspicion, with the revellers. These thought
the moments too precious to waste with idle speculations and soon the
orgy roared anew through the great hall.
Benilo alone had retreated to its extreme end, where he allowed himself
to drop into a divan, which had just been deserted by a couple, who had
been swept away by the whirling Bacchanale. Here he sat for some time,
his face buried in his hands, when looking up suddenly he found himself
face to face with Hezilo.
"I have done it," he muttered, "and I fear I have gone too far!"
He paused, scanning the harper’s face for approval. Its expression he
could not see, but there was no shade of reproof in the voice which
answered:
"At best you have but erred in the means."
"I wished to break her pride, to humble her, and now the tables are
turned; it is I, who am grovelling in the dust."
"No woman was by such means ever wooed or won," the harper replied after
a brief pause. "Theodora will win the wager. But whether she win or
lose, she will despise you for ever more!"
Benilo pressed his hands against his burning temples.
"My heart is on fire! The woman maddens me with her devilish charms,
until I am on the verge of delirium."
"You have been too pliant! You have become her slave! Her foot is on
your neck! You have lost yourself! Better a monstrous villain, than a
simpering idiot, who whines love-ditties under his lady’s bower and
bellows his shame to the enduring stars! Dare to be a man,—despite
yourself!"
So absorbed was Benilo in his own thoughts, that the biting irony of the
other’s speech was lost upon him.
He extended his hand to his strange counsellor.
"It shall be as you say: The Rubicon is passed. I have no choice."
The stranger nodded, but he did not touch the proffered hand.
At last the Chamberlain rose to leave the hall.
The sounds of lutes and harps quivered through the Groves of Theodora;
flutes and cymbals, sistrum and tympani mingled their harmonies with the
tempest of sound that hovered over the great orgy, which was now at its
height. The banquet-hall whirled round him like a vast architectural
nightmare. Through the dizzy glare he beheld perspectives and seemingly
endless colonnades. Everything sparkled, glittered, and beamed in the
light of prismatic irises, that crossed and shattered each other in the
air. Viewed through that burning haze even the inanimate objects seemed
to have waked to some fantastic representation of life.—But through it
all he saw one face, supremely fair in its marble cold disdain,—and
unable to endure the sight longer Benilo the Chamberlain rushed out into
the open.
In the distance resounded the chant of pilgrims traversing the city and
imploring the mercy and clemency of heaven.
*CHAPTER VI*
*JOHN OF THE CATACOMBS*
Once outside of the pavillion, Benilo uttered a sigh of relief. He had
resolved to act without delay. Ere dawn he would be assured that he
held in his grasp the threads of the web. There was no time to be lost.
Onward he hurried, the phantom of the murdered girl floating before his
eyes in a purple haze.
While bearing himself ostensibly in the character of a mere man of
pleasure, Benilo the Chamberlain lost no opportunity of ingratiating
himself with the many desperate spirits who were to be found in the city
ready and willing to assist at any enterprise, which should tend to
complicate the machine of government. While he rushed into every
extravagance and pleasure, surpassing the companions of his own rank in
his orgies, he suffered no symptoms of a deeper feeling to escape him,
than that of excellence in trifling, the wine cup, the pageant, the
passing show. It may have been a strain of mongrel blood, filtering
through his veins, which tempered his endurance with the pliancy
essential to intrigue, a strain that was apparent in the sculptured
regularity of his features. His movements had the pliant ease, the
stealthy freedom of the tiger. Had he been caught like Milo, he would
have writhed himself out of the trap with the sinuous persistency of the
snake. There was something snake-like in the small, glittering eyes,
the clear smoothness of the skin. With all its brightness no woman
worthy of the name but would have winced with womanly instincts of
aversion and repugnance from his glances. With all its beauty, none,
save Otto alone, had ever looked confidingly into his face. Men turned
indeed to scan him approvingly as he passed, but they owned no sympathy
with the smooth, set brow, the ever present smile in the lips of Benilo
the Chamberlain.
After deliberating upon the course he was about to pursue Benilo
approached the shores of the Tiber. Under the cypress avenues it was
dark, and the air came up chill and damp from the stream. A sombre blue
over-arched the labyrinth of pillars and ruins, of friezes and statues,
of groves and glades which lay dreaming in the pale light of the moon.
No other light, save the moist glimmer of the stars whose mist-veiled
brightness heralded the approach of a tempest, fell on the chaos of
undefined forms. Utter solitude, utter silence prevailed. More and more
Benilo lost himself in the wilderness of this ill-favoured region.
The shortest way to the haunts of John of the Catacombs, of whom he was
in immediate search, lay across the ancient Alta Semita, where now the
Via di Porta Pia winds round the Quirinal hill. But for reasons of his
own the Chamberlain chose to make a detour, preferring streets whose
deserted character would not be likely to bring him into contact with
some unwelcome, nocturnal rambler. Wrapping himself more closely in his
cloak and looking cautiously about, he hastened along the North Western
declivity of the Quirinal hill, until he reached the remains of a wall
built, so tradition has it, by Servius Tullius. This quarter had ever
since the time of the emperors enjoyed the worst reputation in all Rome.
The streets were tortuous, the houses, squalid, the whole surroundings
evil. Benilo moved cautiously along the wall, for a few drinking shops
were still open and frequented by a motley throng, with whom it was not
safe to mingle, for to provoke a brawl, might engender grave
consequences. Wretched women plied their shameful trade by the light of
flickering clay-lamps; and watery-eyed hags, the outcasts of all
nations, mingled with sailors, bandits and bravi. Drunken men lay
snoring under tables and coarse songs were shouted from hoarse throats,
half drowned by the uproarious clamour of two fellows who were playing
at dice. Suddenly there was a commotion followed by piercing shrieks.
The gamblers had fallen out over their pretty stakes. After a short
squabble one had drawn his knife on the other and stabbed him in the
side. The wounded man fell howling on the ground and the assassin took
to his heels. The dancers of the establishment, heedless of the
catastrophe, began at once to rattle their castagnettes and sway and
whirl in disgraceful pantomime.
After Benilo had passed the shameful den and reached the end of the
alley he found himself once more in one of the waste regions of the
city. Truly many an emperor was more easily discovered than John of the
Catacombs. The region had the appearance as if an earthquake had
shattered into dust the splendid temples and porticoes of antiquity, so
great was the destruction, which confronted him on every turn. High in
the air could be heard the hoarse cry of the vulture, wheeling home from
some feast of carnage; in the near-by marshes the croaking of the frogs
alternated with the dismal cry of the whippoorwill.
Suddenly the Chamberlain paused and for a moment even his stout heart
stopped beating, and his face turned a ghastly pallor. For directly
before him there arose out of the underbrush, with back apparently
turned towards him, some formless apparition in the dark habit of a
monk, the cowl drawn over his head. But when he attained his natural
height, he faced Benilo, although the latter would have sworn that he
did not see him turn.
It was with some degree of fascination that Benilo watched the person
and the movements of this human monster. What appeared of his head from
under the cowl seemed to have become green with cadaverous tints. One
might say that the mustiness of the sepulchre already covered the bluish
down of his skin. His eyes, with their strong gaze sparkled from
beneath a large yellowish bruise, and his drooping jaws were joined to
the skin by two lines as straight as the lines of a triangle. The
bravo’s trembling hands, the colour of yellow wax, were only a net-work
of veins and nerves. His sleeves fluttered on his fleshless arms like a
streamer on a pole. His robe fell from his shoulders to his heels
perfectly straight without a single fold, as rigid as the drapery in the
later pictures of Cimabue or Orcagna. There appeared to be nothing but
a shadow under the brown cowl and out of that shadow stared two stony
eyes. John of the Catacombs looked like a corpse returned to earth, to
write his memoirs.
At the sight of the individual, reputed the greatest scourge in Rome,
the Chamberlain could not repress a shudder, and his right hand sought
mechanically the hilt of his poniard.
"Why—thou art a merry dog in thy friar’s cowl, Don Giovan, though it
will hardly save thee from the gallows," exclaimed Benilo, approaching
slowly. "Since when dost affect monastic manners?"
"Since the fiend is weary of saints, their cowls go begging," a harsh
grating voice replied, while a hideous sneer lit up the almost fleshless
skull of the bravo, as with his turbid yellow eyes, resembling those of
a dead fish, he stared in Benilo’s face.
"And for all that," the denisen of the ruins continued, watching from
under inflamed eyelids the effect his person produced on his Maecenas,
"and for all that I shall make as good a saint as was ever catalogued in
your martyrology."
"The fiend for aught might make the same," replied Benilo. "What is your
business here?"
"Watching over dead men’s bones," replied the bravo doggedly.
"Never lie to the devil,—you will neither deceive him nor me! Not that
I dispute any man’s right to be hanged or stabbed—least of all thine,
Don Giovan."
"’Tis for another to regulate all such honours," replied the bravo.
"And it is an old saying, never trust a horse or a woman!"
Benilo started as if the bravo had read his thoughts.
"You prate in enigmas," he said after a pause. "I will be brief with
you and plain. We should not scratch, when we tickle. I am looking for
an honest rogue. I need a trusty and discreet varlet, who can keep his
tongue between his teeth and forget not only his master’s name, but his
own likewise. Have you the quality?"
John of the Catacombs stared at the speaker as if at a loss to
comprehend his meaning. Instead of answering he glanced uneasily in the
direction of the river.
"Speak out, man, my time is brief," urged the Chamberlain, "I have
learned to value your services even in the harm you have wrought, and if
you will enter my service, you shall some day hang the keys of a nobler
tower on your girdle than you ever dreamt of."
The bravo winced, but did not reply. Suddenly he raised his head as if
listening. A sound resembling the faint splash of an oar broke the
stillness. A yell vibrated through the air, a louder splash was heard,
then all was deep silence as before.
"That sounded not like the prayer of a Christian soul departing," Benilo
said with an involuntary shudder, noting the grin of satisfaction which
passed over the outlaw’s face. "What was that?"
"Of my evil brother an evil instrument," replied John of the Catacombs
enigmatically.
"I fear you will have to learn manners in my school, Don Giovan," said
Benilo in return. "But your answer. Are you ready?"
"This very night?" gasped the bravo, suspecting the offer and fearful of
a snare.
"Why not?" demanded the Chamberlain curtly.
"I am bound in another’s service!"
"You are an over-punctilious rogue, Don Giovan. To-morrow then!"
"Agreed!" gurgled the bravo, extending a monstrously large hand from
under his gown, with a forefinger of extraordinary length, on the end of
which there was a wart.
Benilo pretended not to see the proffered member. But before addressing
himself further to John of the Catacombs he glanced round cautiously.
"Are we alone?"
The bravo nodded.
"Is my presence here not proof enough?"
The argument prevailed.
"To our business then!" Benilo replied guardedly, seating himself upon a
fragment of granite and watching every gesture of the bravo.
"There arrived to-day in Rome, Eckhardt the general. His welfare is very
dear to me! I should be disconsolate came he to harm in the exercise of
his mission, whatever that be!"
There was a brief pause during which their eyes met.
The outlaw’s face twitched strangely. Or was it the play of the
moonbeams?
"Being given to roaming at random round the city," Benilo continued,
speaking very slowly as if to aid the bravo’s comprehension, "for such
is their wont in their own wildernesses,—I am fearful he might go
astray,—and the Roman temper is uncertain. Yet is Eckhardt so fearless,
that he would scorn alike warning or precaution. Therefore I would have
you dog his footsteps from afar,—but let him not suspect your presence,
if you wish to see the light of another morning. Wear your monk’s habit,
it becomes you! You look as lean and hungry and wolfish as a hermit of
twelve years’ halo, who feeds on wild roots and snails. But to me you
will each day report the points of interest, which the German leader has
visited, that I too may become familiar with their attraction. Do I
speak plainly?"
"I will follow him as his shadow," gurgled the bravo.
Benilo held out a purse which John of the Catacombs greedily devoured
with his eyes.
"You are a greedy knave," he said at last with a forced laugh. "But
since you love gold so dearly, you shall feast your eyes on it till they
tire of its sheen. Be ready at my first call and remember—secrecy and
despatch!"
"When shall it be?" queried the bravo.
"A matter of a day or two at best—no longer! Meanwhile you will improve
your antiquarian learning by studying the walks of Rome in company with
the German general. But remember your distance, unless you would meet
the devil’s grandame instead of creeping back to your hovels. And
where, by the way, may a pair of good eyes discover John of the
Catacombs in case of urgent need?"
The bravo seemed to ponder.
"There is an old inn behind the Forum. It will save your messenger the
trouble to seek me in the Catacombs. Have him ask for the lame brother
of the Penitents,—but do not write, for I cannot read it."
Benilo nodded.
"If I can trust you, the gain will be yours," he said. "And now—lead
the way!"
John of the Catacombs preceded his new patron through the tall weeds
which almost concealed him from view, until they reached a clearing not
far from the river, whose turbid waves rolled sluggishly towards Ostia.
Here they parted, the bravo retracing his steps towards the region
whence they had come, while Benilo made for the gorge between Mounts
Aventine and Testaccio. It was an ill-famed vale, noted even in remote
antiquity for the gross orgies whence it had gained its evil repute,
after the cult of Isis had been brought from Egypt to Rome.
The hour was not far from midnight. The moon had passed her zenith and
was declining in the horizon. Her pale spectral rays cast an uncertain
light over the region and gave the shadows a weird and almost
threatening prominence. In this gorge there dwelt one Dom Sabbat, half
sorcerer, half madman, towards whose habitation Benilo now directed his
steps. He was not long reaching a low structure, half concealed between
tall weeds and high boulders. Swiftly approaching, Benilo knocked at
the door. After a wait of some duration shuffling foot steps were to be
heard within. A door was being unbarred, then the Chamberlain could
distinguish the unfastening of chains, accompanied by a low dry cough.
At last the low door was cautiously opened and he found himself face to
face with an almost shapeless form in the long loose habit of the
cloister, ending in a peaked cowl, cut as it seemed out of one cloth,
and covering the face as well as the back of the head, barring only two
holes for the eyes and a slit for the mouth. After the uncanny host
had, by the light of a lantern, which he could shade at will, peered
closely into his visitor’s face, he silently nodded, beckoning the other
to enter and carefully barred the door behind him. Through a low,
narrow corridor, Dom Sabbat led the way to a sort of kitchen, such as an
alchemist might use for his experiments and with many grotesque bends
bade his visitor be seated, but Benilo declined curtly, for he was ill
at ease.
"I have little time to spare," he said, scarcely noticing the
alchemist’s obeisance, "and less inclination to enter into particulars.
Give me what I want and let me be gone out of this atmosphere, which is
enough to stifle the lungs of an honest man."
"Hi, hi, my illustrious friend," fawned the other with evident enjoyment
of his patron’s impatience. "Was the horoscope not right to a minute?
Did not the charm work its unpronounced intent?"
"’Tis well you remind me! It required six stabs to finish your bungling
work! See to it, that you do not again deceive me!"
"You say six stabs?" replied Dom Sabbat, looking up from the task he was
engaged in, of mixing some substances in a mortar. "Yet Mars was in the
Cancer and the fourth house of the Sun. But perhaps the gentleman had
eaten river-snails with nutmeg or taken a bath in snake skins and
stags-antlers?"
[Illustration: "Looking up from the task he was engaged in."]
"To the devil with your river-snails!" exploded Benilo. "The
love-philtre and quickly,—else I will have you smoked out of your
devil’s lair ere the moon be two hours older!"
The alchemist shook his head, as if pained by his patron’s ill temper.
Yet he could not abstain from tantalizing him by assuming a
misapprehension of his meaning.
"The hour," he mumbled slowly, and with studied hesitation, "is not
propitious. Evil planets are in the ascendant and the influence of your
good genius is counteracted by antagonistic spells."
"Fool!" growled Benilo, at the same time raising his foot as if to spurn
the impostor like a dog. "You keep but one sort of wares such as I
require,—let me have the strongest."
Neither the gesture nor the insult were lost on Dom Sabbat, yet he
preserved a calm and imperturbable demeanour, while, as if
soliloquizing, he continued his irritating inquiries.
"A love-philtre? They are priceless indeed;—even a nun,—three drops of
that clear tasteless fluid,—and she were yours."
Again Benilo’s lips straightened in a hard, drawn line. Stooping over
the alchemist, he whispered two words into his ear, which caused Dom
Sabbat to glance up with such an expression of horror that Benilo
involuntarily burst into a loud laugh, which sent the other spinning to
his task.
Ransacking some remote corner in his devil’s kitchen he at last produced
a tiny phial, which he wrapped in a thin scroll. This he placed with
trembling hands into those eagerly stretched out to grasp it and
received therefor a hand full of gold coin, the weight of which seemed
to indicate that secrecy was to constitute no small portion of the
bargain.
After having conducted his visitor to the entrance, where he took leave
of him with many bends of the head and manifold protestations of
devotion, Dom Sabbat locked his abode and Benilo hastened towards the
city.
As he mentally surveyed the events of the evening even to their remotest
consequences, he seemed to have neglected no precaution, nor omitted
anything which might eventually prevent him from triumphing over his
opponents. But even while reviewing with a degree of satisfaction the
business of the night, terrible misgivings, like dream shadows, drooped
over his mind. After all it was a foolhardy challenge he had thrown to
fate. Maddened by the taunts of a woman, he had arrayed forces against
himself which he must annihilate, else they would tear him to pieces.
The time for temporizing had passed. He stood on the crater of a
volcano, and his ears, trained to the sounds of danger, could hear the
fateful rumbling in the depths below.
In that fateful hour there ripened in the brain of Benilo the
Chamberlain a thought, destined in its final consequences to subvert a
dynasty. After all there was no security for him in Rome, while the
Germans held sway in the Patrimony of St. Peter. But—indolent and
voluptuous as he was—caring for nothing save the enjoyment of the
moment, how was he to wield the thunderbolt for their destruction, how
was he to accomplish that, in which Crescentius had failed, backed by
forces equal to those of the foreigners and entrenched in his
impregnable stronghold?
As Benilo weighed the past against the future, the scales of his crimes
sank so deeply to earth that, had Mercy thrown her weight in the balance
it would not have changed the ultimate decree of Retribution. Only the
utter annihilation of the foreign invaders could save him. Eckhardt’s
life might be at the mercy of John of the Catacombs. The poison phial
might accomplish what the bravo’s dagger failed to do,—but one thing
stood out clearly and boldly in his mind; the German leader must not
live! Theodora dared not win the wager,—but even therein lay the
greater peril. The moment she scented an obstacle in her path, she
would move all the powers of darkness to remove it and it required
little perspicuity to point out the source, whence it proceeded.
At the thought of the humiliation he had received at her hands, Benilo
gnashed his teeth in impotent rage. His pride, his vanity, his
self-love, had been cruelly stabbed. He might retaliate by rousing her
fear. But if she had passed beyond the point of caring?
As, wrapt in dark ruminations, Benilo followed the lonely path, which
carried him toward the city, there came to him a thought, swift and
sudden, which roused the evil nature within him to its highest tension.
Could his own revenge be more complete than by using his enemies, one
for the destruction of the other? And as for the means,—Theodora
herself would furnish them. Meanwhile—how would Johannes Crescentius
bear the propinquity of his hereditary foe, the emperor? Might not the
Senator be goaded towards the fateful brink of rebellion? Then,—Romans
and Germans once more engaged in a death grapple,—his own time would
come, must come, the time of victory and ultimate triumph.
*CHAPTER VII*
*THE VISION OF SAN PANCRAZIO*
Two days had elapsed since Eckhardt’s arrival in Rome. At the close of
each day, he had met Benilo on the Palatine, each time renewing the
topic of their former discourse. Benilo had listened attentively and,
with all the eloquence at his command, had tried to dissuade the
commander from taking a step so fateful in its remotest consequences.
On the evening of the third day the Chamberlain had displayed a strange
disquietude and replied to Eckhardt’s questions with a wandering mind.
Then without disclosing the nature of the business which he professed to
have on hand, they parted earlier than had been their wont.
The shades of evening began to droop with phantom swiftness. Over the
city brooded the great peace of an autumnal twilight. The last rays of
the sun streaming from between a heavy cloud-bank, lay across the
landscape in broad zones of brilliancy. In the pale green sky, one by
one, the evening stars began to appear, but through the distant
cloud-bank quivered summer lightning like the waving of fiery whips.
Feeling that sleep would not come to him in his present wrought up state
of mind, Eckhardt resolved to revisit the spot which held the dearest he
had possessed on earth. Perhaps, that prayer at the grave of Ginevra
would bring peace to his soul and rest to his wearied heart. His feet
bore him onward unawares through winding lanes and deserted streets
until he reached the gate of San Sebastiano. There, he left the road
for a turfy hollow, where groups of black cypress trees stretched out
their branches like spectral arms, uplifted to warn back intruders. He
stood before the churchyard of San Pancrazio.
Pausing for a moment irresolutely before its gloomy portals Eckhardt
seemed to waver before entering the burial ground. Hushing his
footsteps, as from a sense of awe, he then followed the well-known path.
The black foliage drooped heavily over him; it seemed to draw him in and
close him out of sight, and although there was scarcely any breeze, the
dying leaves above rustled mysteriously, like voices whispering some
awful secret, known to them alone. A strange mystery seemed to pervade
the silence of their sylvan shadows, a mystery, dread, unfathomable, and
guessed by none. With a dreary sense of oppression, yet drawn onward by
some mysterious force, Eckhardt followed the path, which here and there
was over-grown with grass and weeds. Uneasily he lifted the overhanging
branches and peered between the dense and luminous foliage. Up and down
he wistfully gazed, now towards the winding path, lined by old
gravestones, leading to the cloister; now into the shadowy depths of the
shrubbery. At times he paused to listen. Never surely was there such a
silence anywhere as here. The murmur of the distant stream was lost.
The leaves seemed to nod drowsily, as out of the depths of a dream and
the impressive stillness of the place seemed a silent protest against
the solitary intruder, a protest from the dead, whose slumber the
muffled echo of his footsteps disturbed.
For the first time Eckhardt repented of his nocturnal visit to the abode
of the dead. Seized with a strange fear, his presence in the churchyard
at this hour seemed to him an intrusion, and after a moment or two of
silent musing he turned back, finding it impossible to proceed.
Absently he gazed at the decaying flowers, which turned their faces up
to him in apparent wonderment; the ferns seemed to nod and every
separate leaf and blade of grass seemed to question him silently on the
errand of his visit. Surely no one, watching Eckhardt at this place and
at this hour, if there was such a one near by chance, would have
recognized in him the stern soldier who had twice stormed the walls of
Rome.
Onward he walked as in the memory of a dream, a strange dream, which had
visited him on the preceding night, and which now suddenly waked in his
memory. It was a vague haunting thing, a vision of a great altar, of
many candles, of himself in a gown of sack-cloth, striving to light them
and failing again and again, yet still seeing their elusive glare in a
continual flicker before his eyes. And as he mused upon his dream his
heart grew heavy in his breast. He had grown cowardly of pity and
renewed grief.
Following a winding path, so overgrown with moss that his footsteps made
no sound upon it, which he believed would lead him out of the
churchyard, Eckhardt was staggered by the discovery that he had walked
in a circle, for almost directly before him rose the grassy knoll tufted
with palms, between which shone the granite monument over Ginevra’s
grave. Believing at this moment more than ever in his life in signs and
portents, Eckhardt slowly ascended the sloping ground, now oblivious
alike to sight and sound, and lost in the depths of his own thoughts.
Bitter thoughts they were and dreamily vague, such as fever and
nightmare bring to us. Relentlessly all the long-fought misery swept
over him again, burying him beneath waves so vast, that time and space
seemed alike to vanish. He knelt at the grave and with a fervour such
as is born of a mind completely lost in the depths of mysticism, he
prayed that he might once more behold Ginevra, as her image lived in his
memory. The vague deep-rooted misery in his heart was concentrated in
this greatest desire of his life, the desire to look once more upon her,
who had gone from him for ever.
After having exhausted all the pent-up fervour of his soul Eckhardt was
about to rise, little strengthened and less convinced of the efficacy of
his prayer, when his eyes were fixed upon the tall apparition of a
woman, who stood in the shadow of the cypress trees and seemed to regard
him with a strange mixture of awe and mournfulness. With parted lips
and rigid features, the life’s blood frozen in his veins, Eckhardt
stared at the apparition, his face covered with a pallor more deadly
than that of the phantom, if phantom indeed it was. A long white shroud
fell in straight folds from her head to her feet, but the face was
exposed, and as he gazed upon it, at once so calm and so passionate, so
cold and yet so replete with life,—he knew it was Ginevra who stood
before him. Her eyes, strangely undimmed by death, burnt into his very
soul, and his heart began to palpitate with a mad longing. Spreading
out his arms in voiceless entreaty, the half-choken outcry: "Ginevra!
Ginevra!" came from his lips, a cry in which was mingled at once the
most supreme anguish and the most supreme love.
But as the sound of his voice died away, the apparition had vanished,
and seemed to have melted into air. Only a lizard sped over the stone
in the moonlight and in the branches of the cypress trees above
resounded the scream of some startled night-bird. Then everything faded
in vague unconsciousness, across which flitted lurid lights and a face
that suddenly grew dim in the strange and tumultuous upheaval of his
senses. The single moment had seemed an hour, so fraught with strange
and weird impressions.
Dazed, half-mad, his brow bathed in cold dew, Eckhardt staggered to his
feet and glanced round like one waking from a dream. The churchyard of
San Pancrazio was deserted. Not another human being was to be seen.
Surely his senses, strangely overwrought though they were, had not
deceived him. Here,—close beside him,—the apparition had stood but a
moment ago; with his own eyes he had seen her, yet no human foot had
trampled the fantastic tangle of creepers, that lay in straggling length
upon the emerald turf. He lingered no longer to reason. His brain was
in a fiery whirl. Like one demented, Eckhardt rushed from the
church-yard. There was at this moment in his heart such a pitiful
tumult of broken passions, hopelessness and despair, that the acute,
unendurable pain came later.
As yet, half of him refused to accept the revelation. The very thought
crushed him with a weight of rocks. Amid the deceitful shadows of night
he had fallen prey to that fear from which the bravest are not exempt in
such surroundings. The distinctness of his perception forbade him to
doubt the testimony of his senses. Yet, what he had seen, was
altogether contrary to reason. A thousand thoughts and surmises, one
wilder than the other, whirled confusedly through his brain. A great
benumbing agony gnawed at his heart. That, which he in reason should
have regarded as a great boon began to affect him like a mortal injury.
By fate or some mysterious agency he had been permitted to see her once
more, but the yearning had increased, for not a word had the apparition
vouchsafed him, and from his arms, extended in passionate entreaty, it
had fled into the night, whence it had arisen.
Accustomed to the windings of the churchyard, Eckhardt experienced
little difficulty in finding his way out. He paced through the wastes
of Campo Marzio at a reckless speed, like a madman escaped from his
guards. His brain was aflame; his cheeks, though deadly pale, burned as
from the hidden fires of a fever. The phenomenon had dazzled his eyes
like the keen zigzag of a lightning flash. Even now he saw her floating
before him, as in a luminous whirlwind, and he felt, that never to his
life’s end could he banish her image from his heart. His love for the
dead had grown to vastness like those plants, which open their blossoms
with a thunder clap. He felt no longer master of himself, but like one
whose chariot is carried by terrified and uncontrollable steeds towards
some steep rock bristling precipice.
Gradually, thanks to the freshness of the night-air, Eckhardt became a
little more calm. Feeling now but half convinced of the reality of the
vision, he sought by the authentication of minor details to convince
himself that he was not the victim of some strange hallucination. But
he felt, to his dismay, that every natural explanation tell short of the
truth, and his own argumentation was anything but convincing.
In the climax of wonderment Eckhardt had questioned himself, whether he
might not actually be walking in a dream; he even seriously asked
himself whether madness was not parading its phantoms before his eyes.
But he soon felt constrained to admit, that he was neither asleep nor
mad. Thus he began gradually to accept the fact of Ginevra’s presence,
as in a dream we never question the intervention of persons actually
long dead, but who nevertheless seem to act like living people.
The moon was sinking through the azure when Eckhardt passed the Church
of the Hermits on Mount Aventine. The portals were open; the ulterior
dimly lighted. The spirit of repentance burned at fever heat in the
souls of the Romans. From day-break till midnight, and from midnight
till day-break, there rose under the high vaulted arches an incessant
hum of prayer. The penitential cells, the vaults underneath the
chapels, were never empty. The crowds which poured into the city from
all the world were ever increasing, and the myriad churches, chapels and
chantries rang night and day with Kyrie Eleison litanies and sermons,
purporting to portray the catastrophe, the hail of brimstone and fire,
until the terrified listeners dashed away amid shrieks and yells, shaken
to the inmost depths of their hearts with the fear that was upon them.
There were still some belated worshippers within, and as Eckhardt
ascended the stone steps, he was seized with an incontrollable desire to
have speech with Nilus, the hermit of Gaëta, who, he had been told, was
holding forth in the Church of the Hermits. To him he would confess
all, that sorely troubled his mind, seeking his counsel and advice. The
immense blackness within the Basilica stretched vastly upward into its
great arching roof, giving to him who stood pigmy-like within it, an
oppression of enormity. Black was the centre of the Nave and
unutterably still. A few torches in remote shrines threw their
lugubrious light down the aisles. The pale faces of kneeling monks came
now and then into full relief, when the scant illumination shifted,
stirred by ever so faint a breath of air, heavy with the scent of
flowers and incense.
Almost succumbing under the strain of superstitious awe, exhausted in
body and mind by the strange malady, which had seized his soul, his
senses reeling under the fumes of incense and the funereal chant of the
monks, his eyes burning with the fires of unshed tears, Eckhardt sank
down before the image of the Mother of God, striving in vain to form a
coherent prayer.
How long he had thus remained he knew not. The sound of footsteps in
the direction of the North transept roused him after a time to the
purpose of his presence. Following the direction indicated to him by
one of the sacristans, Eckhardt groped his way through the dismal gloom
towards the enclosure where Nilus of Gaëta was supposed to hold his dark
sessions. By the dim light of a lamp he perceived in the confessional
the shadowy form of a monk, and approaching the wicket, he greeted the
occupant with a humble bend of the head. But, what was visible of the
monk’s countenance was little calculated to relieve the oppression which
burdened Eckhardt’s soul.
From the mask of the converted cynic peered the eyes of a fanatic. The
face was one, which might have suggested to Luca Signorelli the traits
of his Anti-Christ in the Capella Nuova at Orvieto. In the deep
penetrating eyes was reflected the final remorse of the wisdom, which
had renounced its maker. The face was evil. Yet it was a face of
infinite grief, as if mourning the eternal fall of man.
Despite the advanced hour of night the monk was still in his seat of
confession, and the mighty leader of the German host, wrapt in his long
military cloak, knelt before the emaciated anchorite, his face, manner
and voice all betraying a great weariness of mind. A look of almost
bodily pain appeared in Eckhardt’s stern countenance as, at the request
of the monk, who had receded within the gloom of the confessional, he
recounted the phenomena of the night, after having previously acquainted
him with the burden of his grief.
The monk listened attentively to the weird tale and shook his head.
"I am most strangely in my senses," Eckhardt urged, noting the monk’s
gesture. "I have seen her,—whether in the body, or the spirit, I know
not,—but I have seen her."
"I have listened, my son," said the monk after a pause, in his low
sepulchral voice.—"Ginevra loved you,—so you say. What could have
wrought a change in her, such as you hint? For if she loved you in
life, she loves you in death. Why should she—supposing her present—flee
from your outstretched arms? If your love could compel her to return
from the beyond,—why should it lack the power to make the phantom give
response?"
"Could I but fathom that mystery,—could I but fathom it!"
"Did you not speak to her?"
"My lips but uttered her name!"
"I am little versed in matters of this kind," the monk replied in a
strange tone. "’Tis but the natural law, which may not be transgressed
with impunity. Is your faith so small, that you would rather uproot the
holiest ties, than deem yourself the victim of some hallucination,
mayhap some jeer of the fiend? Dare you raise yourself on a pedestal,
which takes from her her defenceless virtue, cold and silent as her lips
are in death?"
Every word of the monk struck Eckhardt’s heart with a thousand pangs. A
deep groan broke from his lips.
"Madman that I was," he muttered at last, "to think that such a tale was
fit for mortal ears."
Then he turned to the monk.
"Have you no solace to give to me, no light upon the dark path, I am
about to enter upon,—the life of the cloister, where I shall end my
days?"
There was a long pause. Surprise seemed to have struck the monk dumb.
Eckhardt’s heart beat stormily in anticipation of the anchorite’s reply.
"But," a voice sounded from the gloom, "have you the patience, the
humility, which it behooves the recluse to possess, and without which
all prayers and penances are in vain?"
"Show me how I can humble myself more, than at this hour, when I
renounce a life of glory, ambition and command. All I want is
peace,—that peace which has forsaken me since her death!"
His last words died in a groan.
"Peace," repeated the monk. "You seek peace in the seclusion of the
cloister, in holy devotions. I thought Eckhardt of too stern a mould,
to be goaded and turned from his duty by a mere whim, a pale phantom."
A long silence ensued.
"Father," said the Margrave at last, speaking in a low and broken voice,
"I have done no act of wrong. I will do no act of wrong, while I have
control over myself. But the thought of the dead haunts me night and
day. Otto has no further need of me. Rome is pacified. The life at
court is irksome to me. The king loves to surround himself with
perfumed popinjays, discarding the time-honoured customs of our
Northland for the intricate polity of the East.—There is no place for
Eckhardt in that sphere of mummery."
For a few moments the monk meditated in silence.
"It grieves me to the heart," he spoke at last, "to hear a soldier
confess to being tempted into a life of eternal abnegation. I judge it
to be a passing madness, which distance and work alone can cure. You
are not fitted in the sight of God and His Mother for the spiritual
life, for in Mezentian thraldom you have fettered your soul to a corpse
in its grave, a sin as black as if you had been taken in adultery with
the dead. Remain in Rome no longer! Return to your post on the
boundaries of the realm. There,—in your lonely tent, pray nightly to
the Immaculate One for her blessing and pass the day in the saddle among
the scattered outposts of your command! The monks of Rome shall not be
festered by the presence among them of your fevered soul, and you are
sorely needed by God and His Son for martial life."
"Father, you know not all!" Eckhardt replied after a brief pause, during
which he lay prostrate, writhing in agony and despair. "From youth up
have I lived as a man of war.—To this I was bred by my sire and
grandsire of sainted memory. I have always hoped to die on some glorious
field. But it is all changed. I, who never feared mortal man, am
trembling before a shadow. My love for her, who is no more, has made me
a coward. I tremble to think that I may not find her in the darkness,
whither soon I may be going. To this end alone I would purchase the
peace, which has departed. The thought of her has haunted me night and
day, ever since her death! How often in the watches of the night, on
the tented field, have I lain awake in silent prayer, once more to
behold her face, that I can never more forget!"
There was another long pause, during which the monk cast a piercing
glance at the prostrate soldier. Slowly at last the voice came from the
shadows.
"Then you still believe yourself thus favoured?"
"So firmly do I believe in the reality of the vision, that I am here to
ask your blessing and your good offices with the Prior of St. Cosmas in
the matter closest to my heart."
"Nay," the monk replied as if speaking to himself, "if you have indeed
been favoured with a vision, then were it indeed presumptuous in one,
the mere interpreter of the will divine, to oppose your request! You
have chosen a strict brotherhood, though, for when your novitiate is
ended, you will not be permitted to ever again leave the walls of the
cloister."
"Such is my choice," replied Eckhardt. "And now your blessing and
intercession, father. Let the time of my novitiate be brief!"
"I will do what I can," replied the monk, then he added slowly and
solemnly:
"Christ accepts your obedience and service! I purge you of your sins in
the name of the Trinity and the Mother of God, into whose holy keeping I
now commit you! Go in peace!"
"I go!" muttered the Margrave, rising exhausted from his long agony and
staggering down the dark aisles of the church.
Eckhardt’s footsteps had no sooner died away in the gloom of the
high-vaulted arches, than two shadows emerged from behind a pillar and
moved noiselessly down towards the refectory.
In the dim circle of light emanating from the tapers round the altar,
they faced each other a moment.
"What ails the Teuton?" muttered the Grand Chamberlain, peering into the
muffled countenance of the pseudo-confessor.
"He upbraids the fiend for cheating him of the smile of a corpse," the
monk Cyprianus replied with strangely jarring voice.
"And yet you fear I will lose my wager?" sneered the Chamberlain.
The monk shrugged his shoulders.
"They have a proverb in Ferrara: ’He who may not eat a peach, may not
smell at it.’"
"And you were not revealed to him, you, for whom he has scoured the very
slime of the Tiber?" Benilo queried, ignoring the monk’s facetiousness.
"’Tis sad to think, what changes time has wrought," replied the latter
with downcast eyes. "Truly it behooves us to think of the end,—the end
of time!"
And without another word the monk passed down the aisles and his tall
form was swallowed in the gloom of the Church of the Hermits.
"The end!" Benilo muttered to himself as he thoughtfully gazed after the
monk. "Croak thou thine own doom, Cyprianus! One soul weighs as much as
another in the devil’s balance!"
With these words Benilo passed through the portals of the church and was
soon lost to sight among the ruins of the Aventine.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*CASTEL SAN ANGELO*
Night had spread her pinions over the ancient capital of the Cæsars and
deepest silence had succeeded the thousand cries and noises of the day.
Few belated strollers still lingered in the deserted squares. Under the
shadows of the Borgo Vecchio slow moving figures could be seen flitting
noiselessly as phantoms through the marble ruins of antiquity, pausing
for a moment under the high unlighted arches, talking in undertones and
vanishing in the night, while the remote swell of monkish chants,
monotonous and droning, died on the evanescent breezes.
Round Castel San Angelo, rising, a giant Mausoleum, vast and sombre out
of the solitudes of the Flaminian Way, night wove a more poetic air of
mystery and quiet, and but for the tread of the ever wakeful sentinels
on its ramparts, the colossal tomb of the emperor Hadrian would have
appeared a deserted Memento Mori of Imperial Rome, the possession of
which no one cared to dispute with the shades of the Cæsars or the
ghosts of the mangled victims, which haunted the intricate labyrinth of
its subterranean chambers and vaults.
A pale moon was rising behind the hills of Albano, whose ghostly rays
cast an unsteady glow over the undulating expanse of the Roman Campagna,
and wove a pale silver mounting round the crest of the imperial tomb,
whose towering masses seemed to stretch interminably into the night, as
if oppressed with their own memories.
What a monstrous melodrama was contained in yonder circular walls! They
wore a comparatively smiling look only in the days when Castel San
Angelo received the dead. Then according to the historian Procopius,
the immense three-storied rotunda, surmounted by a pyramidal roof had
its sides covered with Parian marble, intersected with columns and
surmounted with a ring of Grecian statues. The first story was a
quadrangular basement, decorated with festoons and tablets of funeral
inscriptions, colossal equestrian groups in gilt bronze at the four
corners.
Within the memory of living generation, this pile had been the theatre
of a tragedy, almost unparalleled in the annals of Rome, the scene of
the wildest Saturnalia, that ever stained the history of mediæval state.
An incongruous relic of antique profligacy and the monstrosities of the
lower empire, drawing its fatal power from feudal institutions,
Theodora, a woman illustrious for her beauty and rank, had at the dawn
of the century quartered herself in Castel San Angelo. From there she
exercised over Rome a complete tyranny, sustained against German
influence by an Italian party, which counted amongst its chiefs
Adalbert, Count of Tuscany, the father of this second Messalina. Her
fateful beauty ruled Church and state. Theodora caused one pontiff after
another to be deposed and nominated eight popes successively. She had a
daughter as beautiful and as powerful as herself and still more
depraved. Marozia, as she was called, reigned supreme in Castel San
Angelo and caused the election of Sergius III, Anastasius III and John
X, the latter a creature of Theodora, who had him appointed to the
bishopric of Ravenna. Intending to deprive Theodora and her lover, the
Pope, of the dominion of Rome, Marozia invaded the Lateran with a band
of ruffians, put to the sword the brother of the Pope, and incarcerated
the pontiff, who died in prison either by poison or otherwise.
Tradition relates that his corpse was placed in Theodora’s bed, and
superstition believes that he was strangled by the devil as a punishment
for his sins.
Left as widow by the premature death of the Count of Tusculum and
married to Guido, Prince of Tuscany, Marozia, after the demise of her
second husband, was united by a third marriage to Hugo of Provence,
brother of Guido. Successively she placed on the pontifical throne Leo
VI and Stephen VIII, then she gave the tiara to John XI, her younger
son. One of her numerous offspring imprisoned in the same dungeon both
his mother and his brother, the Pope, and then destroyed them. Rumour
hath it, however, that a remote descendant, who had inherited Marozia’s
fatal beauty, had been mysteriously abducted at an early age and
concealed in a convent, to save her from the contamination and
licentiousness, which ran riot in the blood of the women of her house.
She had been heard of no more and forgotten long ago.
After the changes and vicissitudes of half a century the family of the
Crescentii had taken possession of Castel San Angelo, keeping their
state in the almost impregnable stronghold, without which the possession
of Rome availed but little to any conqueror. It was a period marked by
brutal passions and feudal anarchy. The Romans had degenerated to the
low estate of the barbarian hordes, which had during the great upheaval
extinguished the light of the Western empire. The Crescentii traced
their origin even to that Theodora of evil fame, who had perished in the
dungeons of the formidable keep, and Johannes Crescentius, the present
Senator and Patricius, seemed wrapt in dark ruminations, as from the
window of a chamber in the third gallery he looked out into the night,
gazing upon the eddying Tiber below, bordered by dreary huts, thinly
interspersed with ilex, and the barren wastes, from which rose massive
watch-towers. Far away to Southward sloped the Alban hills. From the
dark waving greens of Monte Pincio the eye, wandering along the ridge of
the Quirinal, reached to the mammoth arches of Constantine’s Basilica,
to the cypress bluffs of Aventine. Almost black they looked at the
base, so deep was their shade, contrasted with the spectral moon-light,
which flooded their eminences.
The chamber in which the Senator of Rome paced to and fro, was large and
exceedingly gloomy, being lighted only by a single taper which threw all
objects it did not touch into deep shadow. This fiery illumination,
casting its uncertain glimmer upon the face of Crescentius, revealed
thereon an expression of deepest gloom and melancholy and his thoughts
seemed to roam far away.
The workings of time, the traces of furious passions, the lines wrought
by care and sorrow were evident in the countenance of the Senator of
Rome and sometimes gave it in the eyes of the physiognomist an
expression of melancholy and devouring gloom. Only now and then there
shot athwart his features, like lightning through a distant cloud-bank,
a look of more strenuous daring—of almost terrifying keenness, like the
edge of a bare and sharpened sword.
The features of Johannes Crescentius were regular, almost severe in
their classic outlines. It was the Roman type, softened by centuries of
amalgamation with the descendants of the invading tribes of the North.
The Lord of Castel San Angelo was in the prime of manhood. The dark
hair was slightly touched with gray, his complexion bronzed. The gray
eyes with their glow like polished steel had a Brutus-like expression,
grave and impenetrable.
The hour marked the close of a momentous interview. Benilo, the Grand
Chamberlain, had just left the Senator’s presence. He had been the
bearer of strange news which, if it proved true, would once more turn
the tide of fortune in the Senator’s favour. He had urged Crescentius
to make the best of the opportunity—the moment might never return again.
He had unmasked a plot, the plausibility of which had even staggered the
Senator’s sagacious mind. At first Crescentius had fiercely resented
the Chamberlain’s suggestions, but by degrees his resistance had
lessened and after his departure the course outlined by Benilo seemed to
hold rut a strange fascination.
After glancing at the sand-clock on the table Crescentius ascended the
narrow winding stairs leading to the upper galleries of the formidable
keep, whose dark, blackened walls were lighted by tapers in measured
intervals, and made his way through a dark passage, until he reached the
door of an apartment at the opposite end of the corridor. He knocked
and receiving no response, entered, closing the door noiselessly behind
him.
On the threshold he paused taking in at a glance the picture before him.
The apartment was of moderate size. The lamp in the oratory was turned
low. The windows facing the Campagna were open and the soft breeze of
night stole into the flower-scented room. There was small semblance of
luxury about the chamber, which was flanked on one side by an oratory,
on the other, by a sleeping room, whose open door permitted a glimpse of
a great, high bed, hung with draperies of sarcenet.
On a couch, her head resting on her bare, white arms reclined Stephania,
the consort of the Senator of Rome. Tenderly the night wind caressed
the soft dark curls, which stole down her brow. Her right hand
supported a head exquisitely beautiful, while the fingers of the left
played mechanically with the folds of her robe. Zoë, her favourite
maiden, sat in silence on the floor, holding in her lap a red and blue
bird, which now and then flapped its wings and gave forth a strange cry.
All else was silent within and without.
Stephania’s thoughts dwelt in bygone days.
Listless and silent she reclined in her pillows, reviewing the past in
pictures that mocked her soul. Till a few hours ago she had believed
that she had conquered that madness. But something had inflamed her
hatred anew and she felt like a goddess bent upon punishing the
presumption of mortal man.
The memory of her husband holding the emperor’s stirrup upon the
latter’s entry into Rome had rekindled in her another thought which she
most of all had striven to forget. It alone had, to her mind, sufficed
to make reconciliation to existing conditions impossible. Shame and
hate seethed anew in her soul. She could have strangled the son of
Theophano with her own hands.
But did Crescentius himself wish to break the shackles which were
forever to destroy the prestige of a noble house, that had for more than
a century ruled the city of Rome? Was he content to be the lackey of
that boy, before whom a mighty empire bowed, a youth truly, imbued with
the beauty of body and soul which fall but rarely to one mortal’s
lot—but yet a youth, a barbarian, the descendant of the Nomad tribes of
the great upheaval? Was there no one, worthy of the name of a great
Roman, who would cement the disintegrated states of Italy, plant his
standards upon the Capitol and proclaim himself lord of new Roman world?
And he, her husband, from whom at one time she had expected such great
things, was he not content with his lot? Was he not at this very moment
offering homage to the despised foreigners, kissing the sandals of a
heretical pope, whom a bribed Conclave had placed in the chair of St.
Peter through the armed manifestation of an emperor’s will?
The walls of Castel San Angelo weighed upon her like lead, since Rome
was again defiled by these Northern barbarians, whom her countrymen were
powerless to repulse, whom they dared not provoke and under whose
insolence they smarted. Stephania heaved a deep sigh. Then everything
faded from her vision, like a landscape shrouded in mist and she
relapsed in twilight dreams of a past that had gone forever.
For a moment Crescentius lingered on the threshold, as if entranced by
the vision of her loveliness. The stern and anxious look, which his
face had worn during the interview with the Chamberlain, passed off like
a summer storm, as he stood before his adored wife. She started, as his
shadow darkened the doorway, but the next moment he was at her side, and
taking both her white hands in his, he drew her towards him and gazed
with love and scrutiny into the velvet depths of her eyes.
For a moment her manner seemed slightly embarrassed and there was
something in her tone which did not escape the Senator’s trained ear.
"I am glad you came," she said after the usual interchange of greetings
such as lovers indulge in when brought together after a brief
separation. "My lord’s time has been greatly occupied in the emperor’s
absence."
Crescentius failed not to note the reproach in the tone of his wife,
even through her smile. She seemed more radiantly beautiful than ever
at this moment.
"And what would my queen have?" he asked. "All I have, or ever shall
have, is hers."
"Queen indeed,—queen of a sepulcher, of the Mausoleum of an emperor,"
she replied scornfully. "But I ask not for jewels or palaces—or women’s
toys. I am my lord’s helpmate. I am to take counsel in affairs of
state."
A musing glance broke from the Senator’s eyes.
"Affairs of state," he said, with a smile and a sigh. "Alas,—I hoped
when I turned my back on Aventine, there would be love awaiting me and
oblivion—in Stephania’s arms. But I have strange news for you,—has it
reached your ear?"
She shook her head. "I know of nothing stranger than the prevailing
state."
He ignored the veiled reproach.
"Margrave Eckhardt of Meissen, the German commander-in-chief, is bent
upon taking holy orders. I thought it was an idle rumour, some gossip
of the taverns, but within the hour it has been confirmed to me by a
source whose authenticity is above doubt."
"And your informant?"
"Benilo, the Chamberlain."
"And whence this sudden world weariness?"
"The mastering grief for the death of his wife."
Stephania fell to musing.
"Benilo," she spoke after a time, "has his own ends in view—not yours.
Trust him not!"
Crescentius felt a strange misgiving as he remembered his late discourse
with the Chamberlain, and the latter’s suggestion, the primary cause of
his visit to Stephania’s apartments.
"I fear you mistrust him needlessly," he said after a pause. "Benilo’s
friendship for the emperor is but the mantle, under which he conceals
the lever that shall raise the Latin world."
Stephania gazed absently into space.
"As I lay dreaming in the evening light, looking out upon the city,
which you should rule, by reason of your name, by reason of your
descent,—of a truth, I did marvel at your patience."
A laugh of bitter scorn broke from the Senator’s lips.
"Can the living derive force and energy from a past, that is forgotten?
Rome does not want tragedies! It wants to be danced to, sung to and
amused. Anything to make the rabble forget their own abasement. ’Panem
et Circenses’ has been for ever their cry."
"Yet ours is a glorious race! Of a blood which has flowed untarnished
in the veins of our ancestors for centuries. It has been our proud
boast, that not a drop of the mongrel blood of foreign invaders ever
tainted our own. It is not for the Roman rabble I grieve,—it is for
ourselves."
"You have wondered at my patience, Stephania, at my endurance of the
foreign yoke, at my seeming indifference to the traditions of our house.
Would you, after all, counsel rebellion?"
"I would but have you remember, that you are a Roman," Stephania replied
with her deep-toned voice. "Stephania’s husband, and too good to hold
an emperor’s stirrup."
"Then indeed you sorely misjudge me, if you think that under this
outward mask of serene submission there slumbers a spirit indifferent to
the cause of Rome. If the prediction of Nilus is true, we have not much
time to lose. Send the girl away! It is not well that she hear too
much."
The last words, spoken in a whisper, caused Stephania to dismiss the
Greek maid. Then she said:
"And do you too, my lord, believe in these monkish dreams?"
"The world cannot endure forever."
Crescentius paused, glanced round the apartment, as if to convince
himself that there was no other listener. Then he rose, and strode to
the curtain, which screened the entrance to an inner chamber. Not until
he had convinced himself that they were alone, did he resume his seat by
the side of Stephania. Then he spoke in low and cautious accents:
"I have brooded over the present state, until I am well nigh mad. I
have brooded ever since the first tidings of Otto’s approach reached the
city, how to make a last, desperate dash for freedom and our old rights.
I have conceived a plan, as yet known to none but to myself. Too many
hunters spoil the chase. We cannot count on the people. Long fasts and
abstinences have made them cowards. Let them listen to the monks! Let
them howl their Misereres! I will not break into their rogue’s litany
nor deprive them of their chance in purgatory."
He paused for a moment, as if endeavouring to bring order into his
thoughts, then he continued, slowly.
"It is but seemly that the Romans in some way requite the affection so
royally showered on them by the German King. Therefore it is in my mind
to arrange such festivities in honour of Otto’s return from the shrines
of Monte Gargano, as shall cause him to forget the burden of
government."
"And enhance his love for our sunny land," Stephania interposed.
"That malady is incurable," Crescentius replied. "Otto is a fantastic.
He dreams of making Rome the capital of the earth,—a madness harmless in
itself, were it not for Bruno in the chair of St. Peter. Single handed
their efforts might be stemmed. Their combined frenzy will sweep
everything before it. These festivities are to dazzle the eyes of the
stalwart Teutons whose commander is a very Cerberus of watchfulness.
Under the cover of merry-making I shall introduce into Castel San Angelo
such forces from the Calabrian themes as will supplant the lack of Roman
defenders. And as for the Teutons—their souls will be ours through our
women; their bodies through our men."
Crescentius paused. Stephania too was silent, less surprised at the
message than its suddenness. She had never wholly despaired of him.
Now his speech revealed to her that Crescentius could be as crafty in
intrigue as he was bold in warfare. Proud as she was and averse to
dissimulation the intrigue unmasked by the Senator yet fascinated her,
as the only means to reach the long coveted goal. "Rome for the Romans"
had for generations been the watchword of her house and so little pains
had she taken to disguise her feelings that when upon some former
occasion Otto had craved an audience of her, an unheard of
condescension, inspired as much by her social position as by the fame of
her unrivalled beauty, the imperial envoy had departed with an
ill-disguised rebuff, and Stephania had shut herself up within the walls
of a convent till Otto and his hosts had returned beyond the Alps.
"Within one week, Eckhardt is to be consecrated," Crescentius continued
with slight hesitation, as if not quite assured of the directness of his
arguments with regard to the request he was about to prefer. "Every
pressure is being brought to bear upon him, to keep him true to his
purpose. Even a guard is—at Benilo’s instigation—to be placed at the
portals of St. Peter’s to prevent any mischance whatsoever during the
ceremony."
He paused, to watch the effect of his speech upon Stephania and to
ascertain if he dared proceed. But as he gazed into the face of the
woman he loved, he resolved that not a shadow of suspicion should ever
cloud that white brow, caressed by the dark wealth of her silken hair.
"The German leader removed for ever," Crescentius continued, "immured
alive within the inexorable walls of the cloister—small is indeed the
chance for another German victory."
"But will King Otto acquiesce to lose his great leader?"
"Benilo is fast supplanting Eckhardt in Otto’s favour. Benilo wishes
what Otto wishes. Benilo sees what Otto sees. Benilo speaks what Otto
thinks. Rome is pacified; Rome is content; Rome is happy; what need of
heavy armament? Eckhardt reviles the Romans,—he reviles Benilo, he
reviles the new state,—he insists upon keeping his iron hosts in the
Neronian field,—within sight of Castel San Angelo. It was to be Benilo
or Eckhardt—you know the result."
"But if you were deceived," Stephania replied with a shudder. "Your
eagle spirit often ascends where mine fails to follow. Yet,—be not
over-bold."
"I am not deceived! I bide my time. ’Tis not by force men slay the
rushing bull. Otto would regenerate the Roman world. But he himself is
to be the God of his new state, a jealous God who brooks no rival—only
subjects or slaves. He has nursed this dream until it is part of
himself, of his own flesh and blood. What may you expect of a youth,
who, not content to absorb the living, calls the dead to his aid? He
shall nevermore recross the Alps alive."
Crescentius’ tone grew gloomy as he continued.
"I bear the youth no grudge, nor ill-will.—But Rome cannot share. He
has a power of which he is himself unconscious; it is the inheritance
from his Hellenic mother. Were he conscious of its use, hardly the grave
would be a safe refuge for us. Once Rome triumphed over Hellas. Shall
Hellas trample Rome in the dust in the person of this boy, whose
unspoken word will sweep our old traditions from the soil?"
"But this power, this weakness as you call it—what is it?" Stephania
interposed, raising her head questioningly. "I know you have not
scrutinized the armour, which encases that fantastic soul, without an
effort to discover a flaw."
"And I have discovered it," Crescentius replied, his heart beating
strangely. Stephania herself was leading up to the fatal subject of his
visit; but in the depths of his soul he trembled for fear of himself,
and wished he had not come.
"And what have you discovered?" Stephania persisted curiously.
"The weak spot in the armour," he replied, avoiding her gaze.
"Is there a remedy?"
"We lack but the skilful physician."
Stephania raised herself from her recumbent position. With pale and
colourless face she stared at the speaker.
"Surely—you would not resort to—"
She paused, her lips refusing to utter the words.
Crescentius shook his head.
"If such were my desire, the steel of John of the Catacombs were
swifter. No,—it is not like that," he continued musingly, as if testing
the ground inch by inch, as he advanced. "A woman’s hand must lead the
youth to the fateful brink. A woman must enwrap him and entrap him; a
woman must cull the hidden secrets from his heart;—a woman must make him
forget time and eternity, forget the volcano, on whose crater he
stands,—until the great bell of the Capitol shall toll the hour of doom
for German dominion in Rome."
He paused, trembling, lest she might read and anticipate the thoughts of
his heart.
But she seemed not to guess them, for with a smile she said:
"They say the boy has never loved."
"Thereon have I built my plans. Some Circe must be found to administer
to him the fatal lotus,—to estrange him from his country, from his
leaders, from his hosts."
"But where is one to be trusted so supremely?" she questioned.
Crescentius had anticipated the question.
"There is but one in all Rome—but one."
"And she?" the question came almost in a whisper. "Do you know her?"
Crescentius breathed hard. For a moment he closed his eyes, praying
inwardly for courage. At last he replied with seeming indifference:
"I have known her long. She is loyal to Rome and true to herself."
"Her name?" she insisted.
"Stephania."
A wild laugh resounded in the chamber. Its echoes seemed to mock those
two, who faced each other, trembling, colourless.
"That was Benilo’s advice."
Like a knife-thrust the words from Stephania’s lips pierced the heart of
the Senator of Rome.
Stephania stared at him in such bewilderment, as if she thought him mad.
But when he remained silent, when she read in his downcast eyes the mute
confirmation of his speech, she sprang from her couch, facing him in the
whole splendour of her beauty.
"Surely you are jesting, my lord, or else you rave, you are mad?" she
cried. "Or can it be, that my ears tinkle with some mockery of the
fiend? Speak! You have not said it! You did not! You dared not."
She removed a stray lock of hair from her snow white brow, while her
eyes burnt into those of Crescentius, like two orbs of living fire.
"Your ears did not belie you, Stephania," the Senator said at last. "I
said you are the one—the only one."
With these words he took her hands in his and attempted to draw her down
beside him, but she tore them from his grasp, while her face alternately
paled and flushed.
"Nay," she spoke with cutting irony, "the Senator of Rome is a model
husband. He disdains the dagger and poison phial, instead he barters
his wife. You have an admirable code of morality, my lord! ’Tis a pity
I do not share your views, else the fiend might teach me how to profit
by your suggestion."
Crescentius did not interrupt the flow of her indignation, but his face
betrayed a keenness of anguish which did not escape Stephania’s
penetrating gaze. She approached him and laying her hands on his
shoulders bade him look her in the eye.
"How could you say this to me?" she spoke in softer, yet reproachful
tones. "How could you? Has it come to the pass where Rome can but be
saved by the arts of a wanton? If so, then let Rome perish,—and we
ourselves be buried under her ruins."
Her eyes reflected her noble, undaunted spirit and never had Stephania
appeared more beautiful to the Senator, her husband.
"Your words are the seal of loyalty upon your soul, Stephania,"
Crescentius replied. "Think you, I would cast away my jewel, cast it
before these barbarians? But you do not understand. I will be more
plain. It was not that part you were to assume."
Stephania resumed her seat by his side. Her bosom heaved and her eyes
peered dimly through a mist of tears.
"Of all the hosts who crossed the Alps with him," Crescentius spoke with
a voice, unsteady at first, but gradually gaining the strength of his
own convictions, "none shares the emperor’s dreams, none his hopes of
reconstruction. An embassy from the Palatinate is even now on the way,
to demand his return.—Not he! But there is one, the twin of his mind
and soul—Gregory the Pontiff, who will soon have his hands full with a
refractory Conclave, and will not be able to succour his friend in the
realization of his fantastic dreams. He must be encouraged,—his
watchfulness beguiled until we are strong enough to strike the final
blow. Only an intellect equal to his own dares assail the task. He
must be led by a firm hand, by a hand which he trusts—but by a hand
never forgetful of its purpose, a hand closed to bribery of chattel or
soul. He must be ruled by a mind that grasps all the strange
excrescences of his own diseased brain. Let him build up his fantastic
dream-empire, while Rome rallies her forces for a final reckoning, then
let the mirage dissolve. This is the part I had assigned to you. I can
entrust it to none else. Our hopes hang upon the fulfilment. Thus, his
hosts dissatisfied, the electors muttering beyond the Alps, the Romans
awakening to their own disgrace, the king at odds with his leaders and
himself, the pontiff menaced by the hostile Cardinals, there is one hope
left to us, to crush the invaders—our last. If it miscarries,—there
will not be gibbets enough in the Campagna for the heads that will
swing."
Stephania had gradually regained her composure. Raising her eyes to
those of Crescentius, she said with hesitation:
"There is truth in your words, but I like not the task. I hate Otto
with all my Roman heart; with all my soul do I hate that boy whose lofty
aims shame our depravity. ’Tis an ill time for masks and mummeries.
Why not entrust the task to the one so eminently fitted for it,—Benilo,
the glittering snake?"
"There will be work enough for all of us," Crescentius replied
evasively. Somehow he hated to admit even to his wife, that he
mistrusted the Chamberlain’s serpent wisdom. He had gone too far. He
dared not recede without betraying his own misgivings.
Stephania heaved a deep sigh.
"What would you have me do?"
"You have so far studiously avoided the king. You have not even
permitted him to feast his eyes on the most beautiful woman in all Rome.
Be gracious to him, enter into his vagaries, point out to him old
temples and forgotten tombs, newly dug-up friezes and musty crypts!
Tell him of our legends and lead him back into the past, from whose
labyrinth no Ariadne will guide him back to the present hour,—It is for
Rome I ask."
"Truly, were I a man, I would not trap my foe by woman’s wiles, as long
as I could grip mace or lance. Is there no man among all these Romans
of yours treacherous enough for the task?"
"It is even their treachery I dread," replied Crescentius. "Ambition or
the lust of gain may at the last moment carry victory from the field.
My maxim, you know: Trust none—Fear none! These festivities are to
dazzle the aim of suspicion, to attach the people once more to our cause
and to give you the desired opportunity to spread your nets. Then lead
him step for step away from life, until he shall himself become but a
spectre of the past."
"It is a game unworthy of you and me," Stephania replied after a long
pause. "To beguile a trusting foe—but the end? What is it to be?"
"Once in the councils of the king, you will lull his suspicions to
slumber! You will counteract the pressure of his flaxen-haired leaders!
You will make him a puppet in your hands, that has no will save yours.
Then sound the watchword: Rome and Crescentius!"
"I too love glory," Stephania spoke almost inaudibly. "Glory achieved by
valour, not intrigue. Give me time, my lord. As yet I hardly know if I
am fitted for the high mission you have laid out for me. Give me but
time."
"There shall be no further mention of this matter between us,"
Crescentius replied. "You will be worthy of your self and of Rome,
whose fates I have laid into your hands. The task is grave, but great
will be the reward. Where will the present state lead to? Is there to
be no limit to humiliation? Is every rebellion unlawful? Has Fate
stamped on our brow, Suffer and be silent?"
"For whom then is this comedy to be enacted?"
Crescentius shrugged his shoulders.
"Say for ourselves if you will. Deem you, Stephania, I would put my
head in the sling for that howling mob down yonder in their hovels? For
the rabble which would stone him, who gives them bread? Or for the
barons of Rome, who have encroached upon our sovereignty? If Fate will
but grant me victory, their robber dens shall crumble into dust, as if
an earthquake had levelled them. For this I have planned this Comedy of
Love—for this alone."
Stephania slowly rose from her seat beside the Senator. Every vestige of
colour had faded from her face.
"Surely I have not heard aright," she said. "Did you say ’Comedy of
Love’?"
Crescentius laughed, a low but nervous laugh.
"Why stare you so, Stephania, as if I bade you in all truth to betray
me? Is it so hard to feign a little affection for this wingless cherub
whom you are to mould to your fancies? The choice is his,—until—"
"Until it is his no longer," Stephania muttered under her breath, which
quickly came and went.
There was a pause of some duration, during which the Senator of Rome
restlessly paced the apartment. Stephania had resumed her former
station and seemed lost in deep rumination. From without no sounds were
audible. The city slept. The evening star burnt low down in the
horizon. The moon sickle slept on the crests of the mountains of Albano.
At last Stephania rose and laid her white arm on the shoulder of the
Senator of Rome.
"I will do your bidding," she said slowly, looking straight into his
eyes, "for the glory of Rome and your own!"
"For our glory," Crescentius replied with a deep sigh of relief. "I
knew you would not fail me in this hour of need."
Stephania raised her hand, as if deprecating the reward.
"For your glory alone, my lord,—it will suffice for both of us," she
replied hurriedly, as her arms sank down by her side.
"Be it so, since you so wish it," Crescentius replied. "I thank you,
Stephania! And now farewell. It waxes late and grave matters of state
require my instant attention. Await not my return to-night."
And kissing her brow, Crescentius hurriedly left his wife’s apartment
and ascended a spiral stairway, leading to the chamber of his
astrologer. Suddenly he staggered, as if he had seen his own ghost and
turned sick at heart.
"What have I done!" he gasped, grasping his forehead with both hands.
"What have I done!"
Was it a presentiment that suddenly rushed over Him, prompting him to
retrace his steps, prompting him to take back his request? For a moment
he wavered. His pride and his love struggled for supremacy,—but pride
conquered. He would not have Stephania think that he feared a rival on
earth. He would not have her believe that he questioned her love.
After Crescentius had departed from the chamber, Stephania gazed long
and wistfully into the starlit night without, so calm and so serene.
Then a laugh, wild and shrill, broke from her lips, and sinking back
among her cushions, a shower of tears came to her relief.
*CHAPTER IX*
*THE SERMON IN THE GHETTO*
The Contubernium Hebræorum, as it is loftily styled in the pontifical
edicts of the time, the Roman Ghetto, was a district of considerable
extent, reclaimed originally from the swamps of the Tiber at the foot of
the Capitoline Hill, and surrounded either by lofty walls, or houses
which were not permitted to have even a loop-hole to the exterior. Five
massive gates, guarded by the halberdiers of the Roman magistrate were
opened at sun-rise and closed at sun-set to emit and to receive back
their jealously guarded inmates, objects of unutterable contempt and
loathing with the populace, into whose heart the Catholic Church of the
Middle Ages had infused a veneration and love for the person of the
Redeemer rather than for his attributes, and whose passions and
devotions were as yet unalloyed by the skepticism and indifference which
began to pervade the higher ranks of society in the century of the
Renaissance.
Three or four times a year, a grand attempt at conversion was made, the
Pope appointing the most renowned ecclesiastics to deliver the sermons.
On the occasion about to be described towards the end of the year 999,
the Jews had good reason to expect a more than commonly devout throng in
the train of the pontifical delegate. They had prepared accordingly.
Upon entering the gates of the Ghetto the beholder was struck with the
dreary and melancholy aspect of the houses and the emptiness of the
little shops which appeared like holes in the walls. Such precious
wares as they possessed had been as carefully concealed as those they
had abstracted on the eve of their departure from Egypt. The exceeding
narrowness of the streets, which were in some parts scarcely wide enough
to allow two persons to walk abreast, and seemed in a manner arched,
in-as-much as one story extended above the others, increased the
disagreeable effect. Noisome smells greeted the nostrils on every turn
and the flutter of rags from numerous dark lattices seemed to testify to
the poverty within.
Such the Roman Ghetto appeared on the eve of the great harangue for
which the reigning Pontiff, Gregory V, had, in accordance with the
tradition of the Holy See, delegated the most renowned light of the
church. Not a Jew was to be seen, much less a Jewess, throughout the
whole line of march from the gates of the Ghetto to the large open
square where they held their markets, and where they had been summoned
to assemble in mass. The long narrow and intricate windings misled many
who did not keep pace with the Pope’s delegate and his attendants, but
the greater part of the rabble rushed into the square like a mountain
stream, leaping over opposing boulders, shouting, laughing, yelling and
crushing one another, as if they were taking possession of a conquered
city.
The square itself was paved with volcanic tufa, very unevenly laid. In
the center was a great fountain of granite without the least ornament,
intended exclusively for the use of the inmates of this dreary quarter.
Into this square radiated numberless streets and alleys giving its
disordered architecture the appearance of being reft and split into
chasms, some of the houses being doubtfully propped with timbers.
Round the fountain stone benches had been arranged with tables of
similar crude material, at which usually sat the Elders, who decided all
disputes, regulated the market and governed this inner empire partly by
the maxims of common sense and justice, partly by the laws prescribed by
their sacred books, severe indeed and executed with rigour, without
provoking a thought of appeal to the milder and often opposing Christian
judicature.
But now this Sanhedrim was installed in its place of honour for a
different purpose; to hear with outward complacency and inner abhorrence
their ancient law denounced and its abolition or reform advocated. For
this purpose a movable pulpit, which resembled a bronze caldron on a
tripod, carried by four Jewish converts, was duly planted under the
supreme direction of the companion friar of the pontifical delegate, who
ordered its position reversed several times, ere it seemed to suit his
fancy.
The delegate of the Pope himself, surrounded by the pontifical guards,
was still kneeling in silent prayer, when a stranger, who had followed
the procession from afar, entered the Ghetto, unremarked in the general
tumult and ensconced himself out of observation in a dark doorway. From
his point of vantage, Eckhardt had leisure to survey the whole
pandemonium. On his left there rose an irregular pile of wood-work,
built not without some pretentions to architecture, with quaint carvings
and devices of birds and beasts on the exposed joints and window-frames,
but in a state of ruinous decay. About midheight sloped a pent-house
with a narrow balcony, supported like many of the other buildings by
props of timber, set against it from the ground. The lower part of the
house was closed and barred and had the appearance of having been
forsaken for decades.
While, himself unseen Eckhardt surveyed every detail of his
surroundings; the preparations for the sermon continued. Beyond the
seats of the Elders was assembled the great mass of those who were to
profit by the exhortation, remarkable for their long unkempt beards,
their glittering eyes and their peculiar physiognomies.
Beyond the circle of these compelled neophytes a tumultuous mob
struggled for the possession of every point, whence a view of the
proceedings could be obtained, quarrelling, scoffing and buffeting the
unresisting Jews, whose policy it was not to offer the least pretext for
pillage and general massacre, which on these occasions hovered over
their heads by a finer thread than that to which hung the sword of
Damocles. Without expostulations they submitted to the rude swaying of
the mob, to their blows and revilings, opposing to their tormentors a
seemingly inexhaustible endurance. But the horror, anxiety, and rage
which glowed in their bosoms were strongly reflected in their faces,
peering through the smoky glare of innumerable torches, which they were
compelled to exhibit at all the windows of their houses. Engaged in
this office only now and then a woman appeared for a brief instant, for
the most part withered and old, or veiled and muffled with more than
Turkish scrupulousness.
At last the pulpit was duly hoisted and placed to the satisfaction of
the attending friar. The Pope’s delegate having concluded his prayer
arose and two of the Elders advanced, to present him with a copy of the
Old Testament, for from their own laws were they to be refuted. They
offered it with a deep Oriental bend and the humble request, that the
representative of his Holiness, their sovereign, would be pleased to
deliver his message. The monk replied briefly that it was not the
message of any earthly power which he was there to deliver and then
mounted the pulpit by a ladder, which his humbler associate held for
him. The attendant friar then sprinkled a lustration round the pulpit
with a bunch of hyssop, which he had dipped in an urn of holy water.
This he showered liberally upon the Elders who dared not resent it, and
ground their teeth in impotent rage.
Strangely interested, as Eckhardt found himself in the scene about to be
enacted, watching the rolling human sea under the dark blue night-sky,
he found his own curiosity shared by a second personage, who had taken
his position immediately below the door-way, in which he stood
concealed. This worthy wore a large hat, slouched over his face, which
gave him the appearance of a peasant from the marshes; but his dirty
gray mantle and crooked staff denoted him a pilgrim. Of his features
very little was to be seen, save his glittering minx-eyes. These he
kept fixed on the balcony of the ruined house, which had also attracted
Eckhardt’s attention. At other times that worthy’s gaze searched the
shadows beneath the gloomy structure with something of mingled scrutiny
and scorn.
"Surely this boasted steel-hearted knave of yours means to play us
false? Where is the rogue? He keeps us waiting long."
These words, as Eckhardt perceived, were addressed to an individual,
who, to judge from the mask he wore, did not wish to be recognized.
"Were it against the fiend, I would warrant him," answered a hushed
voice. "But folks here have a great reverence for this holy man, who
goes to comfort a plague-stricken patient more cheerfully than another
visits his lady-love. And, if he needs must die, were it not wiser to
venture the deed in some of the lonely places he haunts, than here in
the midst of thousands?"
"Nay," replied his companion in an undertone, every word of which was
understood by his unseen listener. "Here alone can a tumult be raised
without much danger, and as easily quelled. I do not set forests on
fire, to warm my feet. Here they will lay the mischief to the
Jews—elsewhere, suspicion would be quickly aroused, for what bravo would
deem it worth his while to slay a wretched monk?"
Again the pseudo-pilgrim’s associate peered into the shadows. Then he
plucked his companion by the sleeve of his mantle.
"Yonder he comes—and by all my sins—streaming like a water-dog! Raise
your staff, but no—he sees us," concluded the masked individual,
shrinking back into the shadows.
Presently a third individual joined the pilgrim and his friend.
"Don Giovan! Thou dog! How long hast kept me gaping for thee!" the
principal speaker hissed into the bravo’s face as he limping approached.
"But, by the mass,—who baptized thee so late in life?"
There was something demoniacal in the sunken, cadaverous countenance of
John of the Catacombs, as he peered into the speaker’s eyes. His
ashen-pale face with the low brow and inflamed eyelids, never more
fittingly illustrated a living sepulchre. He growled some inarticulate
response, half stifled by impotent rage and therefore lost upon his
listener. For at this moment the voice of the preacher was heard above
all the confused noise and din in the large square, reading a Hebrew
text, which he subsequently translated into Latin. It was the powerful
voice of the speaker, which prevented Eckhardt from distinctly hearing
the account which the bravo gave of his forced immersion. But towards
the conclusion of his talk, the pilgrim drew the bravo deeper into the
shadows of the overhanging balcony and now their conversation became
more distinct.
"Dog of a villain!" he addressed John of the Catacombs. "How dare you
say that you will fail me in this? Have you forgotten our compact?"
"That I have not, my lord," replied the bravo, shuddering with fear and
the cold of his dripping garments. "But an angel was sent for the
prevention of the deed! No man would have braved John of the Catacombs
and lived."
"Thou needest not proclaim my rank before all this rabble," growled the
pseudo-pilgrim. "Have I not warned thee, idiot? Deemest thou an angel
would have touched thee, without blasting thee? What had thine
assailant to do to stir up the muddy waves? An angel! Coward? Is the
bribe not large enough? Name thine own hire then!"
"A pyramid of gold shall not bribe me to it," replied the bravo
doggedly. "But I am a true man and will keep no hire which I have not
earned. So come with me to the catacombs, and I will restore all I have
received of your gold. But the saints protect that holy man—I will not
touch him!"
The pilgrim regarded the speaker with ill-repressed rage.
"Holy—maybe—," he sneered, "holy, according to thy country’s proverb:
’La Cruz en los pechos, el diablo en los hechos.’ Thou superstitious
slave! What has one like thou to fear from either angel or devil?"
"May my soul never see paradise, if I lift steel against that holy man!"
persisted the bravo.
"Fool! Coward! Beast!" snarled the pilgrim, gnashing his teeth like a
baffled tiger. "You refuse, when this monk’s destruction will set the
mob in such roaring mutiny as will give your noble associates, whom I
see swarming from afar, a chance to commence a work that will enrich you
for ever?"
"For ever?" repeated the bravo, somewhat dubiously. "But—it is
impossible. See you not he is surrounded by the naked swords of the
guards? I thought he would have come darkling through some narrow lane,
according to his wont, else I should never—moreover I have taken an
oath, my lord, and a man would not willingly damn himself!"
"Will you ever and ever forget my injunction and how much depends upon
its observance?" snarled the disguised pilgrim, looking cautiously
around. "I warn you again, not to proclaim my rank before all your
cut-throats! You swore," he then continued more sedately, "not to lift
steel against him! But have I not seen you bring down an eagle’s flight
with your cross-bow? Where is it?"
"I have sold it to some foreign lord, from beyond the Alps, where they
love such distant fowling," the bravo replied guardedly. "I for my part
prefer to steal my game with a club, or a dagger."
"You have no choice! Wait! I think I can yet provide you with a weapon
such as you require! I have for some time observed yonder worthy,
whoever he may be, staring at that old bower, as if it contained some
enchanted princess," said the pilgrim, emerging slightly from under the
shadows of the doorway and beckoning John of the Catacombs to his side.
This movement brought the two—for the third seemed to be engaged in a
look-out for probable danger—closer to Eckhardt, but luckily without
coming in contact with him, for it may be conjectured that he had no
desire to expose himself to a conflict in the dark, with three such
opponents.
The personage indicated by the disguised pilgrim had indeed for some
time been engaged in scrutinizing the form of a young girl, who,
seemingly attracted by the novelty of the scene below had appeared
behind a window of the apparently deserted house, vainly soliciting her
attentions with gestures and smiles. He was of middling height, but
very stout and burly of frame, a kind of brutal good humour and
joviality being not entirely unmingled with his harsher traits.
"By the mass!" the disguised pilgrim turned to the object of his
scrutiny, in whom we recognize no lesser a personage than Gian
Vitelozzo, as he cautiously approached and saluted him. "I see your
eyes are caught too!"
He winked at the window which seemed to hold the fascination for the
other, then nodded approval.
"Saw you ever a prettier piece of flesh and blood?"
"Yet she looks more like a waxen image than a woman of the stuff you
mention, Sir Pilgrim," returned the nobleman in a barbarous jargon of
tenth century Latin.
"She is poisoned by the stench amid which she lives, and it were charity
to take her out of it," replied the pilgrim, with a swift glance at the
cross-bow slung over the other’s shoulders.
"Ay, by the mass! You speak truth!" affirmed Vitelozzo, while a fourth
personage, whom he had not heretofore observed, had during their
discourse emerged from the shadows and had silently joined the survey.
"Would the whole Ghetto were put to plunder!" sighed the baron, turning
to the pilgrim, "but I am under severe penance now by order of the Vicar
of the Church."
"You must indeed have wrought some special deed of grace, to need his
intercession," the pilgrim sneered with disgusting familiarity.
Vitelozzo peered into the face of his interlocutor, doubtful whether to
resent the pleasantry or to feel flattered. Then he shrugged his
shoulders.
"’Twas but for relieving an old man of some few evil days of pains and
aches," he then replied carelessly. "But since we are at
questioning,—what merit is yours to travel so far with the
cockle-shells? Surely ’twas not just to witness the crumbling of this
planet into its primeval dust?"
"They say—I killed my brother," replied the disguised pilgrim coldly.
"Mine was but my uncle," said Vitelozzo eagerly, as if rejoicing in the
comparative inferiority of his crime. "’Tis true he had pampered me,
when a child, but who can wait for ever for an inheritance?"
"Ay—and old men never die," replied the pseudo-pilgrim gloomily. "You
are a bold fellow and no doubt a soldier too," he continued, simulating
ignorance of the other’s rank, in order to gain his point. "I have been
a good part of mine a silly monk. As you see, I am still in the weeds.
Yet I will wager, that I dare do the very thing, which you are even now
but daring to think."
"What am I thinking then? I pray your worship enlighten my poor
understanding," replied the nobleman sarcastically.
"You are marking how conveniently those timbers are set to the balcony
of yonder crow’s nest, for a man to climb up unobserved, and that you
would be glad if you could summon the courage to scale it to the scorn
of this circumcized mob," said the pilgrim.
Vitelozzo laughed scornfully.
"For the fear of it? I have clambered up many a strong wall with only
my dagger’s aid, when boiling lead poured down among us like melting
snow and the devil himself would have kept his foot from the ladder.
But," he concluded as if remembering that it behooved not his own
dignity to continue parley with the pilgrim, "who are you, that you dare
bandy words with me?"
The pilgrim considered it neither opportune nor discreet to introduce
himself.
"My staff against your cross-bow," he replied boastfully instead. "You
dare not attempt it and I will succeed in it!"
"By the foul fiend! Not until I have failed," replied Vitelozzo,
colouring. "Hold my cross-bow while I climb. But if you mean mischief
or deceit, know better than to practise it, for I am not what I seem,
but a great lord, who would as soon crack your empty pate as an egg!"
The pseudo-pilgrim replied apparently with some warmth, but as the
preacher’s tone now rose above the surrounding buzz only the conclusion
of his speech was audible, wherein he declared that he would restore the
noble’s cross-bow or rouse his friends to his assistance in the event of
danger. This compact concluded Eckhardt noted that the Roman baron gave
his helmet, cross-bow and other accoutrements, which were likely to
prove an impediment, into the care of the pilgrim, and prepared to
accomplish his insolent purpose.
The disguised pilgrim, whose identity Eckhardt had vainly endeavoured to
establish, now retired instantly and rejoined his companions, who had
been eagerly listening in their concealment under the doorway. The
newcomer, who had for a time swelled their number, had retreated
unobserved after having concluded his observations, as it seemed, to his
satisfaction, for Eckhardt saw him nod to himself ere he vanished from
sight.
"Here then is a weapon, Don Giovan, if you would not rather have the
point in your own skull," the pilgrim said, handing the bravo a small
bow of peculiar construction which Vitelozzo was wont to carry on his
fowling expeditions, as he styled his nightly excursions.
"Moreover," the pilgrim continued encouragingly, noting the manifest
reluctance on the part of the bravo, "I have caused you a pretty
diversion. When the tumult, which this villain will raise, shall begin,
you have but to adjust the arrow and watch the monk’s associate. When
he raises his hand—let fly!"
John of the Catacombs shivered, but did not reply, while Eckhardt
scrutinized the monk indicated by the pilgrim, as well as the glare of
the torches and their delusive light would permit. But his face being
averted, he again turned his attention to the trio in the shadows below.
The pontifical delegate meanwhile continued his sermon as unconcerned as
if his deadliest enemy did not stand close beside him ready to imprint
on his brow the pernicious kiss of Judas.
"Fear you aught for your foul carcass and the thing you call your soul?"
the pilgrim snarled, seemingly exasperated by the reluctance of the
instrument to obey the master’s behest. "Fear you for your salvation,
when so black a wretch as Vitelozzo—for I know the ruffian, who slew his
benefactor,—hazards both for a fool’s frolic? The monk is a fair mark!
Look but at him perched in the pulpit yonder, with his arms spread out
as if he would fly straightway to heaven!"
"He looks like a black crucifixion," muttered the bravo with a shudder.
"Tush, fool! You can easily conceal yourself in these shadows, for the
blame will fall on the Jews and the uproar which I will raise at
different extremities of the crowd will divert all attention from the
perpetrator of the deed!"
John of the Catacombs seemed to yield gradually to the force of the
other’s arguments. The deed accomplished, it had been agreed that they
would dive into the very midst of the congested throngs and urge the
inflamed minds to the extermination of the hated race of the Ghetto.
Eckhardt’s consternation upon listening to this devilish plot was so
great, that for a time he lost sight of the would-be assailant of the
young girl, whom he was unable to see from his concealment almost
directly beneath the balcony. Again he was staggered by the dilemma
confronting him, how best to direct his energies for the prevention of
the double crime. To rush forth and, giving a signal to the pontifical
guards, to proclaim the intended treachery, would perhaps in any other
country, age or place have been sufficient to counteract the plot. But
in this case it was most likely to secure the triumph of the offenders.
It was far from improbable, that the projectors of this deed of
darkness, upon finding their sinister designs baffled, would fall
combined upon whosoever dared to cross their path, and silence him for
ever ere he had time to reveal their real purpose. In the rancorous
irritation and mutually suspicious state of men’s minds the least spark
might kindle a universal blaze. The fears and hatred of both parties
would probably interpret the first flash of steel into a signal for
preconcerted massacre and the very consequences sought to be averted
would inevitably follow.
A further circumstance which baffled Eckhardt was the cause of the
implacable hatred, which the moving spirit of the trio seemed to bear
the pontifical delegate. But the sagacious intellect of the man into
whose hands fate had so opportunely placed a lever for preventing a
crime, whose consequences it was difficult to even surmise, suggested
these dangers and their remedies almost simultaneously. Thus he
patiently awaited the separation of the colleagues on their several
enterprises, regarding the monk with renewed interest in this new and
appalling light.
His tall and commanding form was to be seen from every point. The
austerity and gloom of the speaker’s countenance only seemed to aid in
displaying more brilliantly the irradiations of the mind which illumined
it. His harangue seemed imbued with something of supernatural
inspiration and dark as had appeared to Eckhardt the motive for the
contemplated crime, the probable reason suddenly flashed through his
mind. For in the pulpit stood Gerbert of Aurillac, Archbishop of
Rheims, Bishop of Ravenna, the teacher of the Emperor, the friend of the
Pontiff, he who was so soon as Sylvester II to be crowned with the
Triple Tiara of St. Peter.
But there was no time for musing if the double crime was to be
prevented. For John of the Catacombs, who had now turned his back on
the crowds, had possessed himself of Vitelozzo’s cross-bow and was
tightening the bow-strings. With equal caution, to avoid betraying his
presence, Eckhardt unsheathed his sword. But the jar of the blade
against the scabbard, though ever so slight, startled the outlaw’s
attention. He paused for a moment, listening and glancing furtively
about. Then he muttered to himself: "A rat," and resumed his
occupation, while Eckhardt slowly stepped from his concealment, taking
his station directly behind the kneeling bravo, unseen by the pilgrim
and the latter’s silent companion.
A brilliant glow, emanating from some mysterious source near the monk
and which many afterwards contended as having proceeded directly from
his person, suddenly illumined not only the square, the pontifical
delegate, and the monk, who held his arms aloft as if imploring a
benediction, but likewise the towering form of Eckhardt, leaning on his
bare and glittering brand.
With a yell as if he had seen a wild beast crouching for its deadly
spring, John of the Catacombs sprang up, only to be instantly struck
down by a mighty blow from the commander’s gauntleted hand. He lay
senseless on the ground, covered with blood. The bow had fallen from
his grasp. Setting his foot on the outlaw’s breast, Eckhardt hesitated
for a moment whether to rid Rome of so monstrous a villain, or spare
him, in order to learn the real instigators of the crime, when a
piercing shriek from above convinced him that while the bravo had
failed, the high-born ruffian had been more successful.
There was no time for parley.
Trampling with his crushing weight over the bravo’s breast Eckhardt
turned towards the spot whence the cry of distress had come. An intense
hush fraught with doubts and fears had fallen upon the monk’s audience
at the ominous outcry,—a cry which might have been but the signal for
some preconcerted outrage, and the hush deepened when the tall powerful
form of the German leader was seen stalking toward the deserted house
and entering it through a door, which Gian Vitelozzo had forced, the
obstacle which had luckily prevented him from reaching before his
unsuspecting victim. The ruffian could be seen from below, holding in
his arms on the balcony the shrieking and struggling girl, disregarding
in his brutal eagerness all that passed below. Suddenly his shoulder
was grasped as in the teeth of a lion, and so powerful was the pressure
that the noble’s arms were benumbed and dropped powerlessly by his side.
Before he recovered from his surprise and could make one single effort
at resistance, Eckhardt had seized him round the waist and hurled him
down on the square amidst a roaring thunder of applause mingled with
howls of derision and rage. Those immediately beneath the balcony,
consisting chiefly of the scum and rabble, who cared little for the
monk’s arguments, rejoiced at the prompt retribution meted out to one of
their oppressors, though the discomfiture of the hapless victim had left
them utterly indifferent. Why should they carry their skin to market to
right another’s wrong?
Thus they offered neither obstacle nor assistance when the Roman baron,
in no wise hurt by his fall, as the balcony was at no great height from
the ground, rose in a towering rage and challenged his assailant to
descend and to meet him in mortal combat. But by this time the
disturbance had reached the monk’s ears, and at once perceiving the
cause from his lofty point of vantage, Gerbert shouted to his audience
to secure the brawler in the name of God and the Church. The mob
obeyed, though swayed by reluctance and doubts, while the pontifical
guards closed round the offending noble to cut off his escape. But Gian
Vitelozzo seemed to possess sovereign reasons for dreading to find
himself in the custody of the Vicar of the Church and promptly took to
flight.
Overthrowing the first who opposed him, the rest offering no serious
resistance, he forced his way to one of the narrow passages of the
Ghetto, fled through it, relinquishing his accoutrements and vanished in
the shadows, which haunted this dismal region by day and by night. But
Gerbert of Aurillac was not to be so easily baffled. He had recognized
the Roman baron despite his demeaning attire. With a voice of thunder
he ordered his entire following to the ruffian’s pursuit, and noting the
direction in which Vitelozzo had disappeared, he leaped, despite his
advanced years, from his pulpit and waving a cross high in the air, led
the pursuit in person, which inaugurated a general stampede of nobles,
Jews, pilgrims, monks and the ever-present rabble of Rome.
This unforeseen incident having drawn off the crowd, which had invaded
the Ghetto, in the preacher’s wake, the great square was quickly
deserted and the torches in the high windows were extinguished as if a
sudden wind-storm had snuffed out their glowing radiance.
*CHAPTER X*
*THE SICILIAN DANCER*
After a fruitless search for the hapless victim of the Roman baron’s
licentiousness, in order to restore her in safety to her kindred or
friends, Eckhardt concluded at last that she had found a haven of
security and turned his back upon the Ghetto and its panic-stricken
inmates without bestowing another thought upon an incident, in itself
not uncommon and but an evidence of the deep-rooted social disorder of
the times. His thoughts reverted rather to the attempt upon the life of
the pontifical delegate, which some happy chance had permitted him to
frustrate, but in vain did he try to fathom the reasons prompting a
deed, the accomplishment of which seemed to hold out such meagre promise
of reward to its perpetrators, whose persons were enshrouded in a veil
of mystery. Eckhardt could only assign personal reasons to an attempt,
which, if successful, could not enrich the moving spirits of the plot, a
consideration always uppermost in men’s minds, and pondering thus over
the strange events, the commander aimlessly pursued his way in a
direction opposite to the one the monk and his following had chosen for
the pursuit of the baron. How long he had thus strolled onward, he knew
not, when he found himself in the space before the Capitol. The moon
gleamed pale as an alabaster lamp in the dark azure of the heavens,
trembling luminously on the waters of a fountain which flowed from
beneath the Capitoline rock.
Here some scattered groups of the populace sat or lolled on the ground,
discussing the events of the day, jesting, laughing or love-making.
Others paraded up and down, engaged in conversation and enjoying the
balmy night air, tinged with the breath of departing summer.
Wearied with thought, Eckhardt made his way to the fountain, and, seated
on the margin regardless of the chattering groups which continually
clustered round it and dispersed, he felt his spirits grow calm in the
monotony of the gurgling flow of the water, which was streaming down the
rock and spurting from several grotesque mouths of lions and dolphins.
The stars sparkled over the dark, towering cypresses, which crowned the
surrounding eminences, and the palaces and ruins upon them stood forth
in distinctness of splendour or desolation against the luminous
brightness of the moonlit sky.
Eckhardt’s ruminations were interrupted by the sound of a tambourine,
and looking up from his reverie, he perceived that the populace were
gathering in a wide circle before the fountain, attracted by the sound
of the instrument. In the background, kept thus remote by the vigilance
of an old woman and two half-savage Calabrians, who seemed to be the
proprietors of the show, stood a young woman in the garb of a Sicilian,
apparently just preparing to dance. She seemed to belong to a class of
damsels who were ordained under severe penalties to go masked during all
religious festivals, to protect the pilgrims from the influence of their
baleful charms. Else there could be no reason why an itinerant female
juggler or minstrel who employed the talents, which the harmonious
climate of Italy lavishes on its poorest children, to enable them to
earn a scant living from the rude populace, should affect the modesty or
precaution of a mask. But her tall, voluptuous form as she stood
collecting her audience with the ringing chimes of her tambourine,
garbed as she was in that graceful Sicilian costume, which still retains
the elegance of its Greek original, proved allurement enough despite her
mask. While thus unconsciously diverting his disturbed fancies,
Eckhardt became aware, that he had himself attracted the notice of the
dancer, for he encountered her gaze beaming on him from the depths of
her green-speckled mask, which its ordainer had intended to represent
the corruption of disease, but which the humour of the populace had
transmuted into a more pleasant association, by calling them, "Cardinal
melons."
The dancer started from her somewhat listless attitude into one of
gayety and animation, when she saw how earnestly the dark stranger
scrutinized her, and tripping across the intervening space, she paused
before him and said in a voice whose music flowed to his heart in its
mingled humility and tenderness:
"Sainted Stranger! Will you disdain dancing the Tarantella with a poor
Sicilian sinner for the love of Santa Rosalia?"
"Thou art like to make many for the love of thyself," replied Eckhardt.
"But it were little seemly to behold a sinner in my weeds join in the
dance with one in thine."
As he spoke, he peered so intently into the masked visage of the
Sicilian dancer, that she precipitately retreated.
"Nay—then I must use my spells," she replied after a moment’s thought,
and glancing round the circle, which was constantly increasing, she
added slowly, "my spells to raise the dead, since love and passion are
dead in your consecrated breast! Mother—my mandolin!"
The smile of her lips seemed to gleam even through her mask as she threw
her tambourine by its silver chain over her shoulders, taking instead
the instrument, which one of the Calabrians handed to her. Tuning her
mandolin she again turned to Eckhardt.
"But first you must fairly answer a question, else I shall not know
which of my spells to use: for with some memory alone avails,—with
others hope."
And without waiting his reply, she began to sing in a voice of
indescribable sweetness. After the second stanza she paused, apparently
to await the reply to her question, while a murmur of delight ran
through the ranks of her listeners. The first sound of her voice had
fixed Eckhardt’s attention, not alone for its exquisite purity and
sweetness, but the strange, mysterious air which hovered round her,
despite her demeaning attire.
Yet his reply partook of the asperity of his Northern forests.
"Deem you such gossamer subtleties were likely to find anchorage in this
restless breast, which, you hear, I strike and it answers with the sound
of steel?"
"Nay, then so much the worse for you," replied the dancer. "For where
the pure spirit comes not,—the dark one will," and she continued her
song in a voice of still more mellow and alluring sweetness.
Suddenly she approached him again, her air more mysterious than ever.
"Ah!" she whispered. "And I could teach you even a sweeter lesson,—but
you men will never learn it, as long as women have been trying to teach
it on earth."
"Wherefore then wear you this mask?" questioned Eckhardt with a severity
in his tone, which seemed to stagger the girl.
"To please one greater than myself," the dancer replied with a mock bow,
which produced a general outburst of laughter.
"Well then,—what do you want with me? Why do you shrink away?"
"Nay,—if you will not dance with me, I must look for another partner,
for my mother grows impatient, as you may see by the twirling of her
girdle," replied the girl pettishly. "I never cared who it was
before,—and now simply because I like you, you hate me."
"You know it is the bite of the poison spider, for which the Tarantella
is the antidote," spoke Eckhardt sternly.
Without replying the girl began her dance anew, flitting before her
indifferent spectator in a maze of serpentine movements, at once
alluring and bewildering to the eye. And to complete her mockery of his
apathy, she continued to sing even during all the vagaries of her dance.
The crowd looked on with constantly increasing delight testifying its
enthusiasm with occasional outbursts of joyful acclamation. Showers of
silver, even gold, which fell in the circle, showed that the motley
audience had not exhausted its resources in pious contributions, and the
coins were greedily gathered in by the old woman and her comrades, while
several nobles who had joined the concourse whispered to the hag, gave
her rings and other rich pledges, all of which she accepted, repaying
the donors with the less substantial coin of promise.
Suddenly the relentless fair one concluded her mazy circles by forming
one with her nude arms over Eckhardt’s head and inclining herself
towards him, she whispered a few words into his ear. A lightning change
seemed to come over the commander’s countenance, intensifying its
pallor, and struck with the impression she had produced, the Sicilian
continued her importunities, nodding towards the old hag in the
background, until Eckhardt half reluctantly, half wrathfully permitted
himself to be drawn towards the group, of which the old woman formed the
center. Pausing before her and whispering a few words into her ear,
which caused the hag to glance up with a scowling leer, the girl took a
small bronze mirror of oval shape from beneath her tunic and after
breathing upon the surface, requested the old woman to proceed with the
spell. The two Calabrians hurriedly gathered some dried leaves, which
they stuffed under a tripod, that seemed to constitute the entire
stock-in-trade of the group. After placing thereon a copper brazier, on
which the old woman scattered some spices, the latter commanded the girl
to hold the mirror over the fumes, which began to rise, after the two
Calabrians had set the leaves on fire. The flames, which greedily
licked them up, cast a strange illumination over the scene. The crowds
attracted by the uncommon spectacle pushed nearer and nearer, while
Eckhardt watched the process with an air of ill-disguised impatience and
annoyance leaning upon his huge brand.
The old woman was mumbling some words in a strange unintelligible jargon
and the Calabrians were replenishing the consumed leaves with a new
supply they had gathered up, when Eckhardt’s strange companion drawing
closer, whispered to him:
"Now your wish! Think it—but do not speak!"
Eckhardt nodded, half indifferently, half irritated, when the girl
suddenly held the bronze mirror before his eyes and bade him look. But
no sooner had he obeyed her behest, than with an outcry of amazement he
darted forward and fairly captured his unsuspecting tormentor.
"Who are you?" he questioned breathlessly, "to read men’s thoughts and
the silent wish of their heart?"
But in his eagerness he probably hurt the girl against the iron scales,
of whose jangling he had boasted, for she uttered a cry and called in
great terror: "Rescue—Rescue!"
Before the words were well uttered the two Calabrians rushed towards
them with drawn daggers. The mob also raised a shout and seemed to
meditate interference. This uproar changed the nature of the dancer’s
alarm.
"In our Holy Mother’s name—forbear—" she addressed the two Calabrians,
and the mob, and turning to her captor, she muttered in a tone of almost
abject entreaty:
"Release me—noble stranger! Indeed I am not what I seem, and to be
recognized here would be my ruin. Nay—look not so incredulous! I have
but played this trick on you, to learn if you indeed hated all
woman-kind. You think me beautiful,—ah! Could you but see my mistress!
You would surely forget these poor charms of mine."
"And who is your mistress?" questioned Eckhardt persisting in his
endeavour to remove her mask, and still under the spell of the strange
and to him inexplicable vision in the bronze mirror.
[Illustration: Persisting in his endeavour to remove her mask.]
"Mercy—mercy! You know it is a grievous offence to be seen without my
Cardinal melon," pleaded the girl with a return of the wiling witchery
in her tones and attempting, but in vain, to release herself from
Eckhardt’s determined grasp.
"Who is your mistress?" insisted the Margrave. "And who are you?"
"Release the wanton! How dare you, a soldier of the church, break the
commands of the Apostolic lieutenant?" exclaimed a husky voice and a
strong arm grasped Eckhardt’s shoulder. Turning round, the latter saw
himself confronted by the towering form of the monk Nilus, who seemed
ignorant of the person and rank of him he was addressing and whose
countenance flamed with fanatic wrath.
"Ay! And it hath come to my turn to rescue damsels, and moreover to
serve the church," added another speaker in a bantering tone and
Eckhardt instantly recognized the Lord Vitelozzo, who having eluded the
pursuit of the monk of Cluny, held a mace he had secured in lieu of his
cross-bow high and menacingly in the air.
"Friar, look to your ally, if such he be, lest I do what I should have
done before and make a very harmless rogue of him," said Eckhardt,
holding the girl with one hand while with the other he unsheathed his
sword.
"Peace, fool!" the monk addressed his would-be ally, drawing him back
forcibly. "The church needs not the aid of one rogue to subdue another.
Let the girl go, my son!" he then turned to the Margrave.
"Nay, father—by these bruises, which still ache, I will retrieve my
wrong and rescue the wench," insisted the Roman, again raising his
massive weapon, but the monk and some bystanders wedged themselves
between Eckhardt and his opponent.
"Nay, then, now we are like to have good sport," exclaimed a fourth. "A
monk, a woman and a soldier,—it requires not more to set the world
ablaze."
"Stranger,—I implore you, release me," whispered Eckhardt’s captive with
frantic entreaty amidst the ever increasing tumult of the bystanders,
who appeared to be divided, some favouring the monk, while others sided
with the girl’s captor, whose intentions they sorely misconstrued. "I
would not stand revealed to yonder monk for all the world!" concluded
the girl in fear-struck tones.
At this moment a cry among the bystanders warned Eckhardt that
Vitelozzo’s wrath had at length mastered every effort to restrain him,
and, whirling round, to defend himself he was compelled to release the
girl. But instead of making the use she might have been expected to do
of her liberty, she called to the monk, to part the combatants in the
name of the saints.
But it required no expostulation on the part of the friar, for when
Eckhardt turned fully upon him, Vitelozzo, for the first time
recognizing his antagonist, beat a precipitate retreat, but at some
distance he turned, shouting derisively:
"An olive for a fig! Your dove has flown!" and when Eckhardt,
recovering from his surprise, wheeled about, he found, much to his
chagrin, the Roman’s words confirmed by the absence of the girl as well
as of her associates, who managed to make their escape at the moment
when the impending encounter had momentarily drawn off the attention of
the crowd.
"The devil can speak truth, they say, though I believed it not till
now," muttered Eckhardt to himself as, vexed and mystified beyond
measure, he strode through the scattering crowds.
Had it been some jeer of the fiend? Had he been made the victim of some
monstrous deceit?
Who was the Sicilian dancer, whose manners and golden language belied
her demeaning attire, whose strange eyes had penetrated into the
darkness of his soul, whose voice had thrilled him with the echoes of
one long silent and forever?
The magic mirror in which, as in a haze, he had seen the one face he
most longed to see,—the strange and sudden fulfillment of the unspoken
wish of his heart,—the dancer’s marked persistence in the face of his
declared abhorrence,—her mask and her incongruous companions,—her fear
of the monk and concern for himself,—all these incidents, which one by
one floated on the mirror of his memory, rose ever and anon before his
inner gaze—each time more mystifying and bewildering.
In deep rumination Eckhardt pursued his way, gazing absently upon the
roofless columns and shattered walls, everywhere visible, over which the
star-light shone—ghostly and transparent, backed by the frowning and
embattled fortresses of the Cavalli, half hidden by the dark foliage
that sprang up amidst the very fanes and palaces of old. Now and then
he paused with a deep and heavy sigh, as he pondered over the dark and
desolate path upon which he was about to enter, over the lack of a
guiding hand in which he might trust, over the uncertainty of the step,
which, once taken was beyond recall.
Suddenly a light caught the solitary rambler’s eye, a light almost like
a star, scarcely larger indeed, but more red and intense in its ray. Of
itself it was nothing uncommon and might have shone from either convent
or cottage. But it streamed from a part of the Aventine, which
contained no habitations of the living, only deserted ruins and
shattered porticoes of which even the names and memories of their former
inhabitants had been long forgotten. Aware of this, Eckhardt felt a
slight awe, as the light threw its unsteady beam over the dreary
landscape; for he was by no means free from the superstition of the age
and it was near the hour consecrated to witches and ghosts.
But fear, whether of this world or the next, could not long daunt the
mind of the Margrave; and after a brief hesitation he resolved to make a
digression from his way, to discover the cause of the phenomenon.
Unconsciously Eckhardt’s tread passed over the site of the ill-famed
temple of Isis which had at one time witnessed those wildest of orgies
commemorated by the pen of Juvenal. At last he came to a dense and dark
copse from an opening in the center of which gleamed the mysterious
light. Penetrating the gloomy foliage Eckhardt found himself before a
large ruin, grey and roofless. Through a rift in the wall, forming a
kind of casement and about ten feet from the ground, the light gleamed
over the matted and rank soil, embedded, as it were, in vast masses of
shade. Without knowing it, Eckhardt stood on the very spot once
consecrated to the cult of the Egyptian goddess, and now shunned as an
abode of evil spirits. The walls of the ruin were covered with a dense
growth of creepers, which entwined even the crumbled portico to an
extent that made it almost impossible to penetrate into its intricate
labyrinth of corridors.
While indulging in a thousand speculations, occasioned by the hour and
the spot, Eckhardt suddenly perceived a shadow in the portico. Only the
head was visible in the moonlight, which bathed the ruin, and it
disappeared almost as quickly as it had been revealed. While meditating
upon the expediency of exploring the mystery which confronted him,
Eckhardt was startled by the sound of footsteps. Straining his gaze
through the haze of the moonlight he beheld emerging from the portico of
the temple the tall form of a man, wrapt in a long black cloak. He wore
a conical hat with sloping brim which entirely shadowed his face and on
his right arm he carried the apparently lifeless body of a girl. With
the object of preventing a probable crime Eckhardt stepped from his
place of concealment just as the stranger was about to pass him with his
mysterious burden and placed his hands arrestingly on the other’s
shoulder.
"Who are you? And what is your business here?" he questioned curtly,
attempting to remove the stranger’s vizor.
"The one matters little to your business,—the other little to mine," the
tall individual replied enigmatically while he dexterously resisted his
questioner’s effort to gain a glimpse at his face. "But," he added in a
strange oracular tone, which moved Eckhardt despite himself, "if you
value my aid in your hour of trial—assist me now in my hour of need!"
"Your aid?" echoed Eckhardt, staring amazed at his companion. "Do you
know me? In what can you assist me?"
"You are Eckhardt the Margrave," replied the stranger; then inclining
his head slightly towards him he whispered a word, the effect of which
seemed to paralyze his listener, for his arresting hand fell and he
retreated a step or two, surveying him in speechless wonder.
"Who are you?" he stammered at last.
The stranger raised the long visor of his conical hat. An exclamation
of surprise came from Eckhardt’s lips.
"Hezilo, the harper!"
The other replied with a silent nod.
"And we have never met!"
"I seldom go out!" said the harper.
"What know you of Ginevra?" begged the Margrave.
The harper shook his head.
"This is neither the time, nor the place. I must be gone—to shelter my
burden! We shall meet again! If you follow me," he concluded, noting
Eckhardt’s persistence, "you will learn nothing and only endanger my
safety and that of this child!"
"Is she dead?" Eckhardt questioned with a shudder.
"Would she were!" replied the stranger mournfully.
"Can I assist you?"
"I thank you! The burden is light. We will meet again."
There was something in the harper’s tone which arrested Eckhardt’s
desire to ignore his injunction. How long he remained on the site of
the ill-famed ruin, the Margrave hardly knew. When the fresh breeze of
night, blowing from the Campagna, roused him at last from his reverie
the mysterious stranger and his equally mysterious burden had
disappeared in the haze of the moonlit night. Like one walking in a
dream Eckhardt slowly retraced his steps to his palace on the Caelian
Mount, where an imperial order sanctioning his purpose and relieving him
of his command awaited him.
*CHAPTER XI*
*NILUS OF GAËTA*
A grand high mass in honour of the pilgrims was on the following eve to
be celebrated in the ancient Basilica of St. Peter’s. But vast as was
its extent, only a part of the pilgrims could be contained and the
bronze gates were thrown open to allow the great multitude which filled
the square to share the benefits and some of the glories of the
ceremony.
The Vatican Basilica of the tenth century, far from possessing its
present splendour, was as yet but the old consecrated palace, hallowed
by memories of the olden time, in which Charlemagne enjoyed the
hospitality of Leo III, when at his hands he received the imperial crown
of the West. Similar to the restored church of St. Paul fuori le Mure,
as we now see it, it was some twenty feet longer and considerably wider,
having five naves divided off by four rows of vast monolith columns.
There were ninety-six columns in all, of various marbles, differing in
size and style, for they had been the first hasty spoils of antique
palaces and temples. The walls above the order of columns were
decorated with mosaics such as no Roman hand could then produce or even
restore. A grand arch, such as we see at the older Basilicas to-day,
inlaid with silver and adorned with mosaic, separated the nave from the
chancel, below which was the tribune, an inheritance from the prætor’s
court of old. It now contained the high altar and the sedile of the
Vicar of Christ. Before the altar stood the Confession, the vault
wherein lay the bones of St. Peter, with a screen of silver crowned with
images of saints and virgins. And the whole was illumined by a gigantic
candelabrum holding more than a thousand lighted tapers.
The chief attraction, however, was yet wanting, for the pontiff and his
court still tarried in the Vatican receiving the homage of the foreign
pilgrims. While listlessly noting the preparations from his chosen
point of vantage, Eckhardt discovered himself the object of scrutiny on
the part of a monk, who had been listlessly wandering about and who
disappeared no sooner than he had caught the eye of the great leader.
Unwilling to continue the target of observation on the part of those who
recognized him despite his closed visor, Eckhardt entered the Basilica
and took up his station near a remote shrine, whence he could witness
the entrance of the pontifical procession, without attracting undue
attention to his person. When the pontifical train did appear, it seemed
one mass of glitter and sumptuous colour, as it filed down the aisles of
the Basilica. The rich copes of the ecclesiastics, stiff with gold and
gorgeous brocade, the jewelled mantles of the nobles, the polished
breast plates and tasselled spears of the guards passed before his eyes
in a bewildering confusion of splendour. In his gilded chair, under a
superb canopy, Gregory, the youthful pontiff, was borne along,
surrounded by a crowd of bishops, extending his hands in benediction as
he passed the kneeling worshippers.
An infinite array of officials followed. Then came pilgrims of the
highest rank, each order marching in separate divisions, in the
fantastic costumes of their respective countries. In their wake marched
different orders of monks and nuns, the former carrying torches, the
latter lighted tapers, although the westering sun still flamed down the
aisles in cataracts of light. After these fraternities and sisterhoods,
Crescentius, the Senator, was seen to enter with his suite, conspicuous
for the pomp of their attire, the taste of Crescentius being to sombre
colours.
Descending from his elevated station, Gregory proceeded to officiate as
High Priest in the august solemnity. Come with what prejudices one
might, it was not in humanity to resist the impressions of overwhelming
awe, produced by the magnificence of the spectacle and the sublime
recollections with which the solemnity itself in every stage is
associated. Despite his extreme youth, Gregory supported all the
venerableness and dignity of the High Priest of Christendom and when at
the conclusion of the high mass he bestowed his benediction on all
Christendom, Eckhardt was kneeling with the immense multitude, perhaps
more convinced than the most enthusiastic pilgrim, that he was receiving
benediction direct from heaven.
The paroxysm only subsided, when raising his head, he beheld a gaunt
monk in the funereal garb of the brotherhood of Penitent Friars ascend
the chancel. He was tall, lean as a skeleton and from his shrivelled
face two eyes, sunken deep in their sockets, burnt with the fire of the
fanatic. This was the celebrated hermit, Nilus of Gaëta, of whose life
and manners the most wonderful tales were current. He was believed to
be of Greek extraction, perhaps owing to his lengthy residence in
Southern Italy, near the shrines of Monte Gargano in Apulia. In the
pursuit of recondite mysteries of the Moorish and Cabalistical schools,
he had attained such proficiency, that he was seized with a profound
disgust for the world and became a monk. Several years he spent in
remote and pagan lands, spreading the tidings of salvation, until, as it
was whispered, he received an extraordinary call to the effect, as was
more mysteriously hinted, to turn the church from diverse great errors,
into which she had fallen, and which threatened her downfall. Last, not
least, he was to prepare the minds of mortal men for the great
catastrophe of the Millennium,—the End of Time, the end of all earthly
vanity. Special visions had been vouchsafed him, and there was that in
his age, in his appearance and his speech which at once precluded the
imposter. Nilus of Gaëta himself believed what he preached.
There was a brief silence, during which the Romans acquainted their
foreign guests in hurried whispers with the name and renown of the
reputed hermit. The latter stood motionless in the chancel and seemed
to offer up a silent prayer, ere he pronounced his harangue.
His sermon was delivered in Latin, still the common language of Italy,
even in its corrupt state, and its quality was such as to impress at
once the most skeptical with the extraordinary gifts of the preacher.
The monk began with a truly terrific picture of the state of society and
religion throughout the Christian world, which he delineated with such
gloom and horror, that but for his arabesque entanglement and his
gorgeousness of imagery one might have believed him a spirit of hell,
returned to paint the orb of the living with colours borrowed from its
murkiest depths. But with all the fantastic convolutions of his
reasoning the fervour of a real eloquence soon began to overflow the
twisted fountains, in which the scholastic rhetoric of the time usually
confined its displays. These qualities Nilus especially exhibited when
describing the pure dawn of Christianity, in which the pagan gods had
vanished like phantoms of night. He declared that they were once more
deified upon earth and the clear light all but extinguished. And
treating the antique divinities as impersonations of human passions and
lusts, the monk’s eloquence suddenly took the most terrible tints, and
considering the nature of some of the crimes which he thus delineated
and anathematized, his audience began to suspect personal allusions of
the most hideous nature.
After this singular exordium, the monk proceeded in his harangue and it
seemed as if his words, like the lava overflow from a volcano, withered
all that was green and flowery in their path. The Universe in his
desponding eloquence seemed but a vast desolation. All the beautiful
illusions which the magic of passion conjures into the human soul died
beneath his touch, changing into the phantoms, which perhaps they are.
The vanity of hope, the shallowness of success, the bitterness which
mingles with the greatest glory, the ecstasy of love,—all these the monk
painted in the most powerful colours, to contrast them with the marble
calm of that drooping form crucified upon the hill of Calvary.
Spellbound, the immense multitude listened to the almost superhuman
eloquence of the friar. As yet his attacks had dealt only in
generalities. The Senator of Rome seemed to listen to his words with a
degree of satisfaction. A singularity remarked in his character by all
his historians, which, by some, has been considered as proof of a nature
not originally evil, was his love of virtue in the abstract. Frequent
resolutions and recommendations to reform were perhaps only overcome by
his violent passions, his ambition and the exigencies of his ambiguous
state between church and empire. But as the monk detailed the crimes
and monstrosities of the age, the calm on the Senator’s face changed to
a livid, satirical smile, and occasionally he pointed the invectives of
the friar by nodding to those of his followers who were supposed to be
guilty of the crimes alleged, as if to call upon them to notice that
they were assailed, and many a noble shrank behind his neighbour whose
conscience smote him of one or all the crimes enumerated by Nilus.
In one of his most daring flights the monk suddenly checked himself and
announcing his vision of impending judgment, he bid his listeners
prepare their souls in a prophetic and oracular tone, which was
distinctly audible, amid all the muttering which pervaded the Basilica.
A few moments of devout silence followed. The monk was expected to
kneel, to offer up a prayer for divine mercy. But he stood motionless
in the chancel, and after waiting a short time, Gregory turned to an
attendant:
"Go and see what ails the disciple of Benedict,—we will ourselves say
the Gratias."
After rising, he stepped to the altar with the accustomed retinue of
cardinals and prelates and chanted the benediction. At the conclusion
Crescentius approached the altar alone, demanded permission to make a
duteous offering and emptied a purse of gold on the salver.
"A most princely and regal benefaction," muttered the Pontifical
Datary—"a most illustrious example."
"Charlemagne gave more, but so will I, when like him I come to receive
the crown of the West," muttered the Senator of Rome. His example was
immediately followed, and in a few moments the altar was heaped round
with presents of extraordinary magnificence and bounty. Sacks of gold
and silver were emptied out, jewels, crucifixes, relics, amber,
gold-dust, ivories, pearls and rare spices were heaped up in promiscuous
profusion, and in return each donor received a branch of consecrated
palm from the hand of the Datary, whose keen eyes reflected the
brightness of the treasures whose receipts he thus acknowledged.
The chant from various chapels now poured down the aisles its torrents
of melody, the vast multitudes joining in the Gloria in Excelsis.
Eckhardt’s remote station had not permitted him to witness all that had
happened. His gaze was still riveted on the friar, who was now
staggering from the pulpit, when a terrific event turned and absorbed
his attention.
The great bell of the Basilica was tolling and the vibration produced by
so many sounds shook the vast and ancient pile so violently that a
prodigious mass of iron, which formed one of the clappers of the bell,
fell from the belfry in the airy spire and dashing with irresistible
force through every obstruction, reached the floor at the very feet of
the Pontiff, crushing a deep hole in the pavement and throwing a million
pieces of shattered marble over him and his retinue.
The vast assembly was for a moment motionless with terror and surprise,
expecting little less than universal destruction in the downfall of the
whole edifice on their heads, with all its ponderous mass of iron and
stone. A cry arose that the Pontiff had been killed, which was echoed
in a thousand varying voices, according as men’s fears or hopes
prevailed. But in the first moment of panic, when it was doubtful
whether or not the entire center of the Basilica would crumble upon the
assembly, Eckhardt had rushed from the comparative safety of his own
station to the side of the Pontiff as if to shield him, when with the
majesty of a prophet interposing between offended heaven and the object
of its wrath, Gerbert of Aurillac uttered with deep fervour and amid
profound silence a De Profundis. The multitudes were stilled from their
panic, which might have been attended with far more serious consequences
than the accident itself. There was a solemn pause, broken only by a
sea-like response of "Amen"—and a universal sigh of relief, which
sounded like the soughing of the wind in a great forest.
All distinctions of rank seemed blotted out in that supreme moment.
Then the voice of Nilus was heard thundering above the breathless calm,
while he held aloft an ebony crucifix, in which he always carried the
host:
"The summits of St. Peter still stand! When they too fall, pilgrims of
the world—even so shall Christendom fall with them."
At a sign from the Pontiff his attendants raised aloft the canopy, under
which he had entered. But he refused to mount the chair and heading the
bishops and cardinals, he left the church on foot. The Datary gave one
look of hopeless despair, as the masses crowded out of the Basilica, and
abandoned all hope of restoring order. In an incredibly short time the
vast area was emptied, Crescentius being one of the last to remain in
its deepening shadows. With a degree of vacancy he gazed after the
vanishing crowds, more gorgeous in their broken and mingled pomp, as
they passed out of the high portals, than when marshalled in due rank
and order.
He too was about to leave, when he discerned a monk who stood gazing, as
it were, incredulously at the shattered altar-pavement and the mass of
iron deeply embedded in it. Hastily he advanced towards him, but as he
approached he was struck by observing the monk raise his eyes, sparkling
with mad fury, to the lighted dome above and clench his hands as if in
defiance of its glory.
"Thou seemest to hold thy life rather as a burden than a blessing, monk,
since thus thou repayest thy salvation," Crescentius addressed the
friar, somewhat staggered by his attitude.
"Ay! If I have done Heaven a temporal injury,—be comforted, ye
saints—for ye have wrought me an eternal one!" growled the monk between
clenched teeth.
"Heaven?" questioned Crescentius, almost tempted to the conclusion that
the monk, whoever he was, was out of his senses.
"Even Heaven," replied the monk. "One cubit nearer the altar,—I thought
the struggle over in my soul between the dark angel and the bright—I had
strung my soul to its mighty task,—yet I shrank from it, a second, and
more cowardly Judas."
Crescentius gazed at the friar without grasping his meaning.
"Take thy superior out of the church, he is mad and blasphemes," he
turned to the monk’s companion who listened stolidly to his raving.
"Ay!" spoke the strange monk, gnashing his teeth and shaking his fist
towards heaven, "even the church shall anon be rent in twain and form a
chasm, down which countless generations shall tumble into the
abyss—’twere just retribution!"
"Tell me but this, monk, how could Heaven itself throw obstacles in the
way of thine intent?" questioned Crescentius, perceiving that the monk
had turned to depart and more convinced than ever that he was speaking
to a madman.
"How? How? Oh, thou slow of understanding,—how?"
And the monk pointed downward, to the crushed and shattered marble of
the pavement, in which the iron clapper of the bell lay embedded.
Crescentius receded involuntarily before the fierce, insane gleam in the
monk’s eyes, while the terrible import of his speech suddenly flashed
upon his understanding. Crossing himself, he left the strange friar to
himself and passed swiftly through the motley crowds which were waiting
their turn of admission to the subterranean chapel of the Grand
Penitentiarius.
Another had remained in the dense gloom of the Basilica, though he had
not witnessed the scene which had just come to a close. After the
Pontiff’s departure, Eckhardt had retired to the shrine of Saint
Michael, where he knelt in silent prayer. His mind was filled with
fantastic imaginings, inspired chiefly by his recent pilgrimage to the
shrines of Monte Gargano. The deep void within him made itself doubly
felt in this hour and more than ever he felt the need of divine
interposition in order to retain that consciousness of purpose which was
to guide his future course.
At last he arose. A remote chant fell upon his ears, and he saw a
procession moving slowly from the refectory into the nave of the
Basilica. By the dusky glare of the torches, which they carried,
Eckhardt distinguished a number of penitent friars, bearing aloft the
banner, destined in after-generations to become the standard of the Holy
Inquisition, a Red Cross in a black field with the motto: "In Hoc Signo
Vinces." Among them and seemingly the chief personage, strode the
strange friar. With down-cast head and eyes he walked, eyes which,
while they seemed fixed on the ground in self-abasement, stealthily
scanned the features of those he passed.
"I marvel the holy saints think it worth while to trouble themselves
about the soul of every putrid, garlic-chewing knave," said an old
beggar on the steps of the Cathedral to an individual with whose brief
review Eckhardt was much struck. He was a man past the middle-age, with
the sallow complexion peculiar to the peasants of the marshes. His
broad hat, garnished with many coloured ribbons, was drawn over his
visage, though not sufficiently so, to conceal the ghastly scars, with
which it was disfigured. His lurking, suspicious eye and the peculiar
manner with which, from habit, he carried his short cloak drawn over his
breast, as if to conceal the naked stiletto, convinced Eckhardt that,
whatsoever that worthy might assume to be, he was one of those blackest
of the scourges of Italy, which the license of the times had rendered
fearfully numerous, the banditti and bravi.
"Whether the saints care or no," that individual returned, "the monk is
competent to convert the fiend himself. What an honour for the
brotherhood to have produced such a saint."
Scarcely bestowing more than a thought upon so usual an evidence of
social disorder, which neither pontifical nor imperial edicts had been
able to correct, Eckhardt passed out, without noticing that he had
himself attracted at least equal attention from the worthy described,
who after having satisfied his curiosity, slunk back among the crowds
and was lost to sight.
*CHAPTER XII*
*RED FALERNIAN*
The palace of Theodora resounded with merriment, though it was long past
midnight.
Round a long oval table in the great hall sat a score or more of belated
revellers, their Patrician garbs in disorder, and soiled with wine,
their faces inflamed, their eyes red and fiery, their tongues heavy and
beyond the bounds of control. Here and there a vacant or overturned
chair showed where a guest had fallen in the debauch, and had been
permitted to remain on his self-chosen bed of repose. A band of players
hidden in a remote gallery still continued to fill up the pauses in the
riotous clamour with their barbaric strains.
At the head of the table, first in place as in rank sat Benilo, the
Chamberlain. He seemed to take little interest in the conversation,
for, resting his head on his hands, he stared into his untouched goblet,
as if he endeavoured to cast some augury from the rising and vanishing
bubbles of the wine.
Next to him sat Pandulph, Lord of Spoleto and Beneventum. His low,
though well-set figure, dark hair, keen, black eyes and swarthy features
bespoke his semi-barbaric extraction. His countenance was far from
comely, when in repose, even ugly and repulsive, but in his eyes lay the
force of a powerful will and a depth and subtlety of intellect, that
made men fear, when they could not love him. On the right of the Count
sat the Lord of Civitella, a large, sensual man, with twinkling grey
eyes, thick nose and full red lips. His broad face, flushed with wine,
glowed like the harvest moon rising above the horizon. Opposite him sat
the Patricius Ziazo, crafty and unscrupulous, a parasite who flattered
whosoever ministered to his pleasure. The Patricius was conversing with
an individual who outshone Pandulph in rapine, the Lord of Civitella in
coarseness and himself in sycophancy, Guido of Vanossa, an arrogant
libertine, whose pinched features and cunning leer formed the true index
to his character. The Lords of Sinigaglia, Torre del Grecco, Bracciano,
Cavallo and Caetano swelled the roll of infamy on the boards of
Theodora,—worthy predecessors of the Orsini and Savelli, who were to
oppress the city in after time.
Among those who had marked the beginning of the evening by more than
ordinary gaiety, Benilo had by his splendid dissipation excited the
general envy and admiration among his fellow revellers. His face was
inflamed, his dark eyes were glittering with the adder tongues of the
serpent wine, and his countenance showed traces of unlimited debauchery.
It seemed to those present, as if the ghost of the girl Nelida, whom he
had killed in this very hall, was haunting him, so madly did he respond
to the challenges from all around, to drink. But as the wine began to
flood every brain, as the hall presented a scene of riotous debauch, his
former reckless mood seemed for the nonce to have changed to its very
opposite. Through the fumes of wine the dead girl seemed to regard him
with sad, mournful eyes.
"Fill the goblets," cried Pandulph, with a loud and still clear voice.
"The lying clock says it is day. But neither cock-crows nor clock
change the purple night to dawn in the Groves of Theodora, save at the
will of the Goddess herself. Fill up, companions! The lamp-light in the
wine cup is brighter than the clearest sun that ever shone."
"Well spoken, Pandulph! Name the toast and we will pledge it, till the
seven stars count fourteen and the seven hills but one," said the
Cavallo looking up. "I see four hour glasses even now and every one of
them lies, if it says it is dawn."
"You shall have my toast," said Pandulph, raising his goblet. "We have
drunk it twenty times already, but we will drink it twenty times
more:—the best prologue to wine ever devised by wit of man—Woman."
A shadow moved in the dusky background and peered unseen into the hall.
"And the best epilogue," replied the Lord of Civitella, visibly drunk.
"But the toast—my cup is waiting."
"To the health—wealth—and love by stealth of Theodora!" yelled Pandulph,
gulping down the contents of his goblet.
Benilo’s face turned ashen pale, but he smiled.
"To Theodora!"
Every tongue repeated the name, the goblets were drained.
"My Lord, it is your turn now," said Pandulph, turning to the Lord of
Civitella. "The good folks of Urbino have not yet rung the fire-bells
against you, but some say they soon will. Who shall it be?"
The Lord of Civitella filled up his cup with unsteady hand, until it was
running over and propping his body against the table as he stood up, he
said:
"A toast to Roxané! And as for my foragers—they sweep clean."
The toast was drunk with rapturous applause.
"Right you are," bellowed the Cavallo. "Better brooms were never made
on the Posilippo,—not a straw lies in your way."
"Did you accomplish it without fight?" sneered the Lord of Bracciano.
"Fight? Why fight? The burghers never resist a noble! We conjure the
devil down with that. When we skin our eels, we don’t begin at the
tail."
"Better to steal the honey, than to kill the bees that make it."
"But what became of the women and children after this swoop of your
foragers?" asked the Lord of Bracciano, who appeared to entertain some
few isolated ideas of honour floating on the top of the wine he had
gulped down.
"The women and children?" replied the Lord of Civitella with a mocking
air, crossing his thumbs, like the peasants of Lugano, when they wish to
inspire belief in their words. "They can breakfast by gaping! They can
eat wind, like the Tarentines,—it will make them spit clear."
The Lord of Bracciano, irritated at the mocking sign and proverbial
allusion to the gaping propensities of the people round the Lago,
started up in wrath and struck his clenched fist on the table.
"My Lord of Civitella," he cried, "do not cross your damned thumbs at
me, else I will cut them off! The people of Bracciano have still corn
in plenty, until your thieving bands scorch their fingers in the attempt
to steal it."
Andrea Cavallo interposed to stop the rising quarrel.
"Do not mind the Lord of Civitella," he whispered to Bracciano. "He is
drunk!"
"The rake! The ingrate!" growled Bracciano, "after my men opened the
traps, in which the Vicar of the Church had caught him."
"Nay! If you gape at man’s ingratitude, your mouth will be wide enough,
ere you die, my lord," spoke Pandulph with a sardonic laugh. "And men
in our day stand no more on precedence in plots than in love affairs,—do
they, my lord Benilo?"
"Nay, I’ll dispute no man’s right to be hanged or quartered before
me—least of all yours, my Lord Pandulph," the Chamberlain replied
venomously.
"My lord Benilo," replied Pandulph, "you are, when drunk, the greatest
ruffian in Christendom, and the biggest knave when sober. Bring in more
tankards, and we will not look for day till midnight booms again on the
old tower of San Sebastian! I call for full brimmers, varlets,—bring
your largest cups! We will drink another toast five fathoms deep in
wine, strong enough to melt Cleopatra’s pearls, and to a jollier dame
than Egypt’s queen."
The servitors flew out and in. In a few moments the table was
replenished with huge drinking cups, silver flagons and all the heavy
impediments of the army of Bacchus.
"We drink to the Fair Lady of the Groves,—and in her presence, too!"
shouted the Lord of Spoleto, raising his goblet anew. "Why is she not
among us? They say," he turned to Benilo with a sneer, "that you are so
jealous of the charms of your bird of paradise, that you have forbidden
her to appear before your friends."
Roaring peals of laughter crowned Pandulph’s speech.
Benilo saw the absurdity of anger, but he felt it nevertheless.
"She chooses not to leave her bower even to look on you, my Lord
Pandulph. I warrant you, she has not slept all night, listening to your
infernal din."
A renewed outburst of mirth was the response.
"Then you will permit us to betake ourselves forthwith to her gilded
chamber to implore pardon on our knees for disturbing her rest."
"Well spoken—by the boot of St. Benedict!" roared Guido of Vanossa.
"You may measure my foot and satisfy yourself that I am able to wear
it," shouted the Lord of Civitella. "On our knees we will crawl to the
Sanctuary of our Goddess,—on our knees!"
"But before we start on our pilgrimage, we will drain a draught long as
the bell-rope of the Capitol," bellowed the Lord of Bracciano.
"Fill up the tankards!" exclaimed the Lord of Spoleto. "My goblet is as
empty as an honest man’s purse,—and one of my eyes is sober yet."
"Do not take it to heart!" spoke Guido of Vanossa, whose eyes were full
of tears and wine. "You will not die in the jolly fellow’s faith!" And
with unsteady voice he began to sing a stanza in dog-Latin:
"Dum Vinum potamus
Fratelli cantiamo
A Bacco sia Onore!
Te Deum laudamus!"
"Would your grace had a better voice, you have a good will!" stammered
the lord of Sinigaglia. "’Tis ample time to repent when you can do no
better. Besides—if you are damned, it is in rare good company!"
"Ay! Saint and Sinner come to the same end!" gurgled the Lord Pandulph,
ogling the purple Falernian.
"Fill up your goblets! Though it be a merry life to lead, I doubt if it
will end in so cheery a death!" said Benilo, his eye wandering slowly
from one to the other.
"Fill up the goblets!" shouted the Lord of Spoleto, rising and
supporting his bulky carcass on the heavy oaken table.
With a sleepy leer he blinked at the guests.
"Down on your knees," he roared suddenly, his former intent reverting to
him. "To the Sanctuary of the Goddess! On our knees we will implore her
to receive us into her favour."
A strange spirit of recklessness had seized Benilo. Instead of
resenting or resisting the proposition, he was the first to get down on
all fours. His example had an electrifying effect. Although they swayed
to and fro like sail-boats on angry sea-waves, all those still sober
enough imitated the Chamberlain amid cheers and grunts, and slowly the
singular procession, led by Benilo, set in motion with the expressed
purpose of invading Theodora’s apartments, which were situated beyond
the great hall. The Lord Pandulph resembled some huge bear as on all
fours he hobbled across the mosaic floor beside the Lord of Bracciano,
who panted, grunted and swore and called on the saints, to witness his
self-abasement. Being gouty and stout, he was at one time seized with a
cramp in his leg and struck out vigorously with the result of striking
the Lord of Civitella squarely in the jaw, whereupon the latter,
toppling over, literally flooded the hall with profanity and surplus
wine. The other ten hobbled behind the leaders, cursing their own
folly, but enjoying to a degree the novelty of the pageant.
Thus they had traversed the great hall at a speed as great as their
singular mode of locomotion and their intoxicated condition would
permit. The background of the hall was but dimly lighted; the great
curtain strung between the two massive pillars, which guarded the
entrance into Theodora’s apartments, excluded the glow of the
multi-coloured lamps, strung in regular intervals in the corridor
beyond.
Benilo was the first to reach the curtain. Resting one hand on the
floor, he raised the other, after the manner of a dog, trying to push
its folds aside, when they suddenly and noiselessly parted. Something
hissed through the air, striking the object of its aim a stinging blow
in the face—a cry of pain and rage, and Benilo, who had sprung to his
feet, stood face to face with Theodora. At the same moment the lights
in the great hall were turned on to a full blaze, revealing in its
entire repelling atrocity the spectacle of the drunken revellers, who,
upon experiencing a sudden check to their further progress, had come to
a sluggish halt, some of them unable to retain their balance and
toppling over in their tracks.
"Beasts! Swine!" hissed the woman, her eyes ablaze with wrath, the whip
which had struck Benilo in the face, still quivering in her infuriated
grasp. "Out with you—out!"
The sound of a silver whistle, which she placed between her lips,
brought some five or six giant Africans to the spot. They were eunuchs,
whose tongues had been torn out, and who, possessing no human weakness,
were ferocious as the wild beasts of their native desert. Theodora gave
them a brief command in their own tongue and ere the amazed revellers
knew what was happening to them, they found themselves picked up by
dusky, muscular arms and unceremoniously ejected from the hall, those
lying in a semi-conscious stupor under the tables sharing the same fate.
*CHAPTER XIII*
*DEAD LEAVES*
While the Nubians set about in cleaning the hall and removing the last
vestiges of the night’s debauch, Theodora faced Benilo with such
contempt in her dark eyes, that for a moment the Chamberlain’s boasted
insolence almost deserted him, and though seething with rage at the
chastisement inflicted upon him he awaited her speech in silence. She
faced him, leaning against a marble statue, her hands playing nervously
with the whip.
"For once I have discovered you in your true station, the station of the
foul, crouching beast, to which you were born, had not some accident
played into the devil’s hands by giving you the glittering semblance of
the snake," she said slowly and with a disdain ringing from her words,
which cut even his debased nature to the core. "I have whipped you, as
one whips a cur: do you still desire me for your wife?"
With lips tightly compressed he looked down, not daring to meet her
fierce gaze of hatred, which was burning into his very brain.
"I see little reason for changing my mind," he replied after a brief
pause, while as he spoke his cheek seemed to burn with shame, where the
whip had struck it, and her evil, terrible beauty, exposed in her airy
night-robe, roused all the wild demoniacal passions in his soul.
The whip trembled in her hands.
"And you call yourself a man!" she said with a withering look of
contempt, under which he winced.
Then she continued in a hard and cheerless voice, wherein spoke more
than simple aversion, a voice that seemed as it were petrified with
grief, with remorse and hatred of the man who had been the cause of her
fall.
"Listen to me, Benilo,—mark well my words. What I have been, you know:
the beloved, the adored wife of a man, who would have carried me through
life’s storms under the shelter of his love,—a man, who would have shed
the last drop of his life’s blood for Ginevra,—that was. For two years
we lived in happiness. I had begged him never to lift the veil which
shrouded my birth,—a wish he respected, a promise he kept. In the field
and at court he pursued the even tenor of his way,—happy and content
with my love. Then there crept into our home a hypocrite, a liar, a
fiend, who could mock the devils in hell to scorn. He stands
there,—Benilo, his name,—a foul thing, who shrank from nothing to gain
his ends. Some fiend revealed to him the awful secret of Ginevra’s
birth, a secret which he used to draw her step by step from the man she
loved, to perpetrate a deceit, the cunning of which would put the devils
to blush. He promised to restore to her what is her own by right of her
birth. He roused in her all the evil which ran riot in her blood, and
when she had given herself to him, he revealed himself the lying fiend
he was. Stung by the furies of remorse, which haunted her night and
day,—in her despair the woman made her love the prize, wherewith to
purchase that for which she had broken the holiest ties. But those she
made happy were beasts,—enjoying her favour, giving nothing in return.
My heart is sick of it,—sick of this sham, sick of this baseness.
Heaven once vouchsafed me a sinner’s glimpse of paradise, of a home of
purity and peace where indeed I might have been a queen,—a queen so
different from the one who rules a gilded charnel-house."
Benilo had listened in silent amazement. He failed to sound the drift
of Theodora’s speech. The whip-lash burned on his cheek. Her sudden
dejection gave him back some of his former courage.
"I believe Theodora is discovering that she once possessed a
conscience," he said with a sardonic smile. "How does the violent
change agree with you?" he drawled insolently, for the first time
raising his eyes to hers.
She appeared not to heed the question, but nodding wearily she said:
"I am not myself to-night. Despite all which has happened, I stand here
a suppliant before the man who has ruined my life. I have something
else to say."
"Then I fear you have played your game and lost," he said brutally.
Theodore interrupted his speech with a gesture, and when she spoke, a
shade of sadness touched her halting tones.
"Last night he came to me in my dream.—I will never forget the
expression with which he regarded me. I am weary of it all,—weary unto
death."
"Unfortunately our wager does not concern itself with
sleep-walking—though it seems your only chance of luring your
over-scrupulous mate to your bower."
The woman started.
"Surely, you do not mean to hold me to the wager?"
He smiled sardonically.
"Considering the risk I run in this affair—why not? Eckhardt is a man
of action—so is Benilo,—who has performed the rare miracle of compelling
the grave to return to his arms Ginevra, a queen indeed,—of her kind."
Surely some extraordinary change had taken place in the bosom of the
woman before him. She received the thrust without parrying it.
"I see," he continued after a brief pause, "Eckhardt proves too mighty a
rock, even for Theodora to move!"
"His will is strong—but all night in his lonely cell he called Ginevra’s
name."
"You are well informed. Why not take the veil yourself,—since a life of
serene placidity seems so suddenly to your taste?"
"And where is it written that I shall not?" she questioned, looking him
full in the eye. Benilo winced. If she would but quarrel. He felt
insecure in her present mood.
"Here—on the tablets of my memory, where a certain wager is recorded,"
he replied.
She turned upon him angrily.
"It is you who forced me to it against my will.—I took up your gauntlet,
stung by your biting ridicule, goaded by your insults to a weak and
senseless folly."
"Then you acknowledge yourself vanquished?"
"I am not vanquished. What I undertake, I carry through—if I wish to
carry it through."
"It has to my mind ceased to be a matter of choice with you," drawled
the Chamberlain. "In three days Eckhardt’s fate will be sealed,—as far
as this world of ours is concerned. You see, your chances are small and
you have no time to lose."
"Day after to-morrow—holy Virgin—so soon?" gasped Theodora.
"You have inadvertently called on one whose calls you have not of late
returned," sneered the Chamberlain, with insolent nonchalance.
"Day after to-morrow," Theodora repeated, stroking her brow with one
white hand. "Day after to-morrow!"
"Do not despair," Benilo drawled sardonically. "Much can happen in two
days."
She did not seem to hear him. Her thoughts seemed to roam far away.
Then they returned to earth. For a moment she studied the man before
her in silence, then dropping the whip, she stretched out her hand to
him.
"Release me from this wager," she pleaded, "and all shall be forgotten
and forgiven."
He did not touch the hand. It fell.
"Theodora," he whispered hoarsely. "You will never know how I love you!
I am not as evil as I seem. But there are moments when I lose control
and madness chokes my better self, in the hopeless hunt for your love.
Theodora—bury the past! Give up this baleful existence—live with me
again."
She laughed a shrill laugh.
"Your concubine! And you have the courage to ask this?"
"You know I love the very ground you tread on."
"Is that all you have to tell me?"
"Is not that enough?"
"No—it is not enough!" she replied with flashing eyes. "Between us stand
the barriers of eternity!"
He paled.
"Do not dismiss me like this. It is far more cruel than you know. If
you kill my hope, you leave me a prey to the devils of jealousy and
madness,—the evil things of your own creation! Come back to me! I only
ask the love you gave me once,—the love you thought you gave me,—a
grain, a crumb."
She turned her face away.
"Never again! Never again!"
The fevered blood raced swiftly from his cheek. For a moment he watched
her in silence, his eyes like slits in his hard, pale face, then he
turned on his heel and laughed aloud.
A shudder she could not repress crept over the woman’s soft, white skin.
"Benilo!" she called to him. He turned and came slowly back.
"Benilo," she continued nervously, "release me from this wager! I
cannot go on—I cannot. If he is bent upon leaving the world, let him
retire in peace and do not stir the misery which lies couchant in the
hidden depths of his soul. He has suffered enough,—more than
enough,—more than should fall to one man’s lot. Do not drive me to
madness,—I cannot do it—I cannot."
"Your thoughts are only for him. For me you have nothing," he replied
fiercely.
"I owe him everything—nothing to you!"
"Then go to him, to release you,—I will not!"
"I cannot do it! Be merciful!"
The Chamberlain bowed and answered mockingly.
"It rests with you!"
"With me?"
"Acknowledge your defeat!"
"What do you mean?" she asked with rising fear.
Benilo shrugged his shoulders.
"We made a wager—the loser pays."
"But the forfeit?" she cried in terror. "You would not claim—you would
not chain me to you for ever?"
He regarded her with a slow triumphant smile and answered cruelly:
"Forever? At one time the thought had less terrors for you!"
She disregarded his sarcasm, continuing in the same plaintive tone of
entreaty, which was music in Benilo’s ear.
"But surely—you do not mean it! You would not profit by a woman’s angry
folly. I was mad,—insane,—I knew not what I said, what I did! Benilo,
I will admit defeat,—failure,—anything,—only release me from this
fearful wager. I ask you as a man,—have pity on me!"
"What pity have you lavished on me?"
"Were you deserving of pity?"
"My love—"
"Your love! What is your love, but the lust of the wild beast?" she
exclaimed, flying into a passion, but instantly checking herself.
"Think of it, Benilo," she urged in desperation, "I could conquer, if I
would. Once Eckhardt lays eyes on me, I can lead him to my will. Never
can I forget the look he gave me when I faced him before my own tomb in
the churchyard of San Pancrazio. Never will that wild expression of
despair and longing, which spoke to me from his mute eyes, fade from my
memory. Whether he believed that I was a pale, mocking phantom—what he
imagined that I was, I know not—I could win him, if I would."
"Then win him!" snarled Benilo, through his straight thin lips.
"No! No!" she cried piteously. "Eckhardt is noble. He believed in
me,—he trusted me. He believes me dead. He has no inkling of the vile
thing I am! I listened to his prayer to the Virgin—once more he asked
to see the face of the woman he had loved above everything on earth.
And you ask me to tear the veil from his eyes and drag him down into the
sloth and slime of my existence! His faith falls upon me like a knotted
scourge,—his love—a blow upon my guilty head. He gave me life-long love
in payment for a lie; he gave me love unwavering and true beyond the
grave. When I think of it all—I long to die of shame! You caused me to
believe he was dead,—that he had fallen defending the Eastern March. I
thanked Heaven for the message; I envied him his eternal rest. It was
one of your black deceits,—perhaps one of your mildest. Let it pass!
But again to enter into his life—No! no!" she moaned. "By the God of
Love—I will not!"
She gave a wild moan and covered her face with her hands. Benilo looked
on in silence, scarce crediting the proof of sight and sound.
Once—twice he moved his lips, ere speech would flow.
"You have but to choose," he said. "Come to me—my wife or concubine,—I
care not which, and I pledge you my word, he shall die! I have but
spared him until I sounded your humour!"
She shivered, and raised her hands as if to conjure away some
apparition.
"No—no—never!" she gasped. "You would not dare! You would not dare!
You are but frightening me! Have pity on me and let me go!"
"I do not detain you! Go if you will, but remember the wager!"
Her head drooped, while Benilo drew nearer, bending his exultant eyes on
her wilted form, and in the passion which mastered him, he grasped her
wrists and drew her hands apart, then kissed her passionately upon the
lips.
With a hunted cry, she wrenched herself away, and leaping backward,
faced him, her voice choked with panting fury:
"Fool! Devil! Coward! Could you not respect a woman’s grief for the
degradation you have forced upon her? Dog! I might have paid your
forfeit had I died of shame! But now—I will not!" She snapped her
fingers in his face. "This for your wager! This for an oath to you—the
vermin of the earth!"
Benilo took a backward step, awed by the flaming madness in her eyes.
"Take care!" he growled threateningly.
"The vermin that crawls in the dust, I say," she reiterated panting,
"the dust—the dust! Better a thousand deaths than the brute love you
offer! Between us it is a duel to the death! I will win him back,—if I
have to barter my evil beauty for eternal damnation,—if our entwined
souls burn to crisp in purgatory,—I will win him back, revealing myself
to him the foul thing I am,—and by way of contrast sing your praises, my
Lord Benilo—believe me,—the devils themselves shall be wroth with
jealousy at my song."
There was something in the woman’s eye, which staggered the Chamberlain.
"You would not dare!" he exclaimed aghast.
"I dare everything! You have challenged me and now your coward soul
quails before the issue!—You would have me recede,—go! I’ve done with
you!"
"Not yet," Benilo replied, with his sinister drawl—edging nearer the
woman. "I have something else to say to you! Your words are but air!
You have measured your strength with mine and failed! Go to your old
time love! Tell him you found a conscience,—tell him where you found
it,—and see if he allows you leisure to confess all your other
peccadilloes, trifling though they be! Still—the risk is equal. I have
a mind to take the chance! Once more, Theodora,—confess yourself
defeated,—acknowledge that the champion is beyond your reach—be mine—and
the wager shall be wiped out!"
She recoiled from him, raising her hands in unfeigned horror and cried:
"Never—never."
Benilo shrugged his shoulders.
"As you will!"
"Then you would have me make him untrue to his vows? You would have me
add this sin too, to my others?"
He laughed sardonically, while he feasted his eyes on her great beauty.
"It will not add much to the burden, I ween."
She gave him one look, in which fear mingled with contempt and turned to
go, when with a spring, stealthy as the panther’s, he overtook her, and
pinning down her arms, bent back the proud head and once more pressed
his lips upon the woman’s.
With a cry like a wounded animal she released herself, pushed him back
with the strength of her vigorous youth and spat in his face.
"Do you still desire me?" she hissed with flaming eyes.
He sprang at her with a furious oath, but his outstretched fingers
grasped the air. Theodora had vanished. Recoiling from the towering
forms of the Africans, who guarded the corridor leading to her
apartments, Benilo staggered blindly back into the dark deserted halls.
Here he found himself face to face with Hezilo the harper, who seemed to
rise out of the shadows like some ill-omened phantom.
"If you waver now," the harper spoke with his strange unimpassioned
voice,—"you are lost!"
The Chamberlain stopped before the harper’s arresting words.
"What can I do?" he groaned with a deep breath. "My soul half sinks
beneath the mighty burden I have heaped upon it, it quails before the
fatal issue."
"You have measured your strength with the woman’s," replied the harper.
"She has felt the conquering whip-hand. Onward! Unflinchingly!
Relentlessly! She dare not face the final issue!"
"I need new courage, as the dread hour approaches!" Benilo replied, his
breath coming fast between his set teeth. "And from your words, your
looks, I drink it!"
"Then take it from this also: If now you fail hardly the grave would be
a refuge."
Benilo peered up at his strange counsellor.
"Man or devil,—who are you to read the depths of the soul of man?" he
queried amazed, vainly endeavouring to penetrate the vizor, which shaded
the harper’s face.
"Perhaps neither," a voice answered which seemed to come from the
remotest part of the great hall, yet it was Hezilo the harper, who
spoke, "Perchance some spirit, permitted to return to earth to goad man
to his final and greatest fall."
"It shall be as you say!" Benilo spoke, rousing himself. "Onward!
Relentlessly! Unflinchingly!"
He staggered from the hall.
"Perhaps I too should have flagged and failed, had not one thought
whispered hope to me in the long and solitary hours which fill up the
interstices of time," muttered the harper, gazing after the
Chamberlain’s vanishing form.
The voices died to silence. The pale light of dawn peered into the
deserted hall.
*CHAPTER XIV*
*THE PHANTOM AT THE SHRINE*
At last the evening had come, when Eckhardt was for ever to retire from
the world, to spend the remainder of his days in prayers and penances,
within the dismal walls of the cloister. The pontiff himself was to
officiate at the high ceremony, which was to close the last chapter in
the great general’s life. Daylight was fading fast, and the faint
light, which still glimmered through the western windows of St. Peter’s
Basilica had long since lost its sunset ruddiness and was little more
than a pale shadow. The candles, their mighty rival departed, blazed
higher now in merry fitfulness, delighting to play in grotesque imagery
over the monkish faces, which haunted the gloom.
One end of the Basilica was now luminous with the pale glow of
innumerable slender tapers of every length, ranged in gradated order
round the altar. Their mellow radiance drove the gloom a quarter of the
way down the cathedral. The massive bronze doors at the farther end
were still shut and locked. The only way of entering the church was
through the sacristy, by way of the north transepts, to which only the
monks had access. No sound that should ring out within these mighty
walls to-night could reach the ears of those who might be in the streets
without.
Meanwhile the quiescent echoes of the vast Basilica were disturbed by
fitful murmurs from the Sacristy. Far in the distance, from the north
transept, might be distinguished light footfalls. Slowly a double file
of monks entered the church, walking to the rhythm of a subdued
processional chant, which rose through the sombre shadows of the aisles.
At the same time the great portals of the Basilica were thrown open to
the countless throngs, which had been waiting without and which now,
like waters released from the impediment of a dam, rushed into the
immense area, waiting to receive them.
The rumour of Eckhardt’s impending consecration had added no little to
the desire of the Romans to be present at a spectacle such as had not
within the memory of man fallen to their lot to behold, and it seemed as
if all Rome had flocked to the ancient Basilica to witness the great and
touching ordeal at which the youthful Pontiff himself was to officiate.
Seemingly interminable processions of monks, bearing huge waxen tapers,
of choristers, acolytes and incense-bearers, with a long array of
crosses and other holy emblems continued to pour into the Basilica. The
priests were in their bright robes of high-ceremony. The choristers
chanted a psalm as they passed on and the incense bearers swung their
silver censers.
The Pontiff’s face was a rarely lovely one to look upon; it was that of
a mere youth. His chin was smooth as any woman’s and the altar cloth
was not as white as his delicate hands. The halo of golden hair, which
encircled his tonsure, gave him the appearance of a saint.
Marvellously, indeed, did stole, mitre and staff become the delicate
face and figure of Bruno of Carinthia, and if there was some incongruity
between the spun gold of his fair hair and the severity of the mitre,
which surrounded it, there was none in all that assembly to note it.
At the door, awaiting the pontifical train, stood the venerable Gerbert
of Aurillac, impressive in his white and gold dalmatica against the red
robes of the chapter. Preceded by two cardinals the Pontiff mounted the
steps, entering through the great bronze portals of the Basilica, which
poured a wave of music and incense out upon the hushed piazza. Then
they closed again, engulfing the brilliant procession.
The chant ceased and the monks silently ranged themselves in a close
semi-circle about the high-altar. There was a brief and impressive
silence, while the deep, melodious voice of the Archbishop of Rheims was
raised in prayer. The monks chanted the Agnus Dei, then a deep hush of
expectation fell upon the multitudes.
The faint echoes of approaching footsteps now broke the intense silence
which pervaded the immense area of the Basilica. Accompanied by two
monks, Eckhardt slowly strode down the aisle, which the reverential
tread of millions had already worn to unevenness. In an obscured niche
he had waited their signal, racked by doubts and fears, and less
convinced than ever that the final step he was about to take would lead
to the desired goal. From his station he could distinguish faint
silhouettes of the glittering spars in the vaulting, and the sculptured
chancel, twisted and beaten into fantastic shapes and the line of ivory
white Apostles. As he approached the monks gathered closely round the
chancel, where, under the pontifical canopy, stood the golden chair of
the Vicar of Christ.
Eckhardt did not raise his eyes. Once only, as in mute questioning, did
his gaze meet that of Gregory, then he knelt before the altar. His
ardent desire was about to be fulfilled. As this momentous time
approached, Eckhardt’s hesitation in taking the irrevocable step seemed
to diminish—and gradually to vanish. He was even full of impatient joy.
Never did bridegroom half so eagerly count the hours to his wedding, as
did the German leader the moments which were for ever to relieve him of
that gnawing pain that consumed his soul. In the broken fitful slumber
of the preceding night he had seen himself chanting the mass. To be a
monk seemed to him now the last and noblest refuge from the torments
which gnawed the strings of his heart. At this moment he would have
disdained the estate of an emperor or king. There was no choice left
now. The bridge leading into the past was destroyed and Eckhardt
awaited his anointment more calmly.
Gregory’s face was grave and to a close observer it would have appeared
to withhold approval from that which added greater glory to the Church,
as if anticipating proportionately greater detriment for the state. As
Eckhardt knelt in silent prayer, all but entranced in religious ecstasy,
he noted not the nearness of Benilo, who watched him like a tiger from
the half gloom of his station. The hush in the Basilica was well-nigh
oppressive. The Romans, who had flocked hither to witness the uncommon
sight of a victorious leader abandoning the life at a court for the
cassock of a monk, and perhaps inwardly calculating the immense
consequences of a step so grave, waited breathlessly until that step
should be accomplished. Those whose sympathies lay with the imperial
party were filled with grave misgivings, for if Eckhardt’s example found
imitators in the German host, the cause of the emperor would grow weaker
in proportion as the prestige of the Romans and the monks increased.
The benediction had been pronounced. The Communion in both kind had
been partaken. The palms of Eckhardt had been anointed with consecrated
oil, and finally the celebration of the Holy Rite had been offered up in
company with the officiating Cardinal.
It was done. There remained little more than the cutting of the
tonsure, and from the world, which had once claimed him—from the world
to which he still unconsciously clung with fevered pulses,—Eckhardt was
to vanish for ever. As the officiating Cardinal of San Gregorio
approached the kneeling general, the latter chanced to raise his head.
A deadly pallor overspread his features as his eyes gazed beyond the
ecclesiastic at one of the great stone pillars, half of which was wrapt
in dense gloom. The ceremony, so splendid a moment ago, seemed to fade
before the aspect of those terrible eyes, which peered into his own from
a woman’s face, pale as death. Throughout the church darkness seemed
suddenly to reign, The candles paled in their sconces of gold before the
glare of those eyes, calculated to make or mar the destinies of man.
Against the incense saturated gloom, her beauty shone out like a
heavenly revelation; she seemed herself the fountain of light, to give
it rather than to receive it. For a moment Eckhardt lowered his gaze,
little doubting but that the apparition was some new temptation of the
fiend, to make him waver at the decisive moment. The ceremony
proceeded. But when after a few moments, not being able to withstand
the lure, he looked up again, he saw her glittering in a bright
penumbra, which dazzled him like the burning disk of the sun. And as he
gazed upon the strange apparition, tall with the carriage of a goddess,
her eyes darting rays like stars, winging straight for his heart—and she
the very image of his dead wife, just as she had appeared to him on that
memorable night in the churchyard of San Pancrazio,—he hardly knew
whether the flame that lighted those orbs came from heaven to strengthen
his resolve, or from hell, to foil it. But from devil or angel
assuredly it came.
Her white teeth shone in the terrible smile, with which she regarded
him. The smooth alabaster skin of her throat glistened with a pearly
sheen. Her white robe, falling from her head to her feet, straight as
the winding sheet of death, matched the marble pallor of her complexion,
and her hands, seemingly holding the shroud in place, were as white as
fresh fallen snow.
As Eckhardt continued to gaze upon her, he felt the floodgates of his
memory re-open; he felt the portals of the past, which had seemed locked
and barred, swing back upon their hinges, grating deep down in his soul.
And with the sight of the phantom standing before him, so life-like, so
beautiful, all the mad longing bounded back into his heart. Gripped by
a terrible pain, he heard neither the chant, nor the words of the
Cardinal. Everything around him seemed to fade, but the terrible being
still held his gaze with those deep and marvellous eyes, that had all
the brightness and life of the sapphire seas.
Eckhardt felt he was being carried far from the sphere of the cloister
into a world at whose gates new desires were knocking. While he
mechanically muttered the responses to the queries, which the Cardinal
put to him, his whole soul began to rise in arms against the words his
tongue was uttering. A secret force seemed to drag them from him, he
felt the gaze of the thousands weighing upon him like a cope of lead.
Yet it seemed that no one in all that vast assembly heeded the strange
apparition, and if there appeared any hesitancy in Eckhardt’s responses,
or a strange restlessness in his demeanour, it was charged to the
consciousness of the momentous change, the responsibility of the
irrevocable step, crushing life, ambition and hope.
But the countenance of the mysterious apparition did not change as the
ceremony progressed. Steadfastly, with tender and caressing gaze she
seemed to regard him, her whole soul in her straining eyes. With an
effort, which might have moved a mountain, Eckhardt strove to cry out,
that he would never be a monk. It was in vain. His tongue clove to the
roof of his mouth. Not even by sign could he resist. Wide awake, he
seemed to be in the throes of one of those nightmares, wherein one
cannot utter the words on which life itself depends. The apparition
seemed instinctively to read and to comprehend the torture, which racked
Eckhardt’s breast. And the glance she cast upon him seemed so fraught
with the echoes of despair, that it froze his heart to the core.
Was it indeed but an apparition?
Was this terrible semblance to his dead wife more than a mere accident?
The chalice, with the blood of Christ, trembled in Eckhardt’s hand. He
was about to pass it to his lips. But try as he might, he could not
avert his gaze. Those terrible eyes, the marble calm of the face of his
dead wife seemed to draw him onward,—onward.—Forgotten was church, and
ceremony, and vow; forgotten everything before that phantom from beyond
the grave. It held him with a power which mocked to scorn every effort
to escape its spell. The apparition lured him on, as almost
imperceptibly it began to recede, without once abandoning its gaze.
A wild shriek re-echoed through the high-vaulted dome of the Basilica of
St. Peter. It was the shriek of a madman, who has escaped his guards,
but fears to be overtaken. The golden chalice fell from Eckhardt’s
nerveless grasp, spilling its contents over the feet of the Cardinal of
San Gregorio who raised his hands in unfeigned dismay and muttered an
anathema. Then, with a white, wet face, Eckhardt staggered blindly to
his feet, groping, with outstretched arms, toward the apparition—which
seemed to recede farther and farther away into the gloom.
The hush of death had fallen upon the assembly. The monk Cyprianus
raised aloft his arms, as though invoking divine interposition and
exorcising the fiend. His eyes, the eyes of the assembled thousands and
the stare of Benilo, the Chamberlain, followed the direction of
Eckhardt’s outstretched arms. Suddenly he was seen to pause before one
of the massive pillars, pale as death, mumbling strange words,
accompanied by stranger gestures. Then he gazed about like one waking
from a terrible dream—the spot where the apparition had mocked him but a
moment ago was deserted! Had it been but another temptation of the
fiend?
But no! It was impossible. This woman had made him utterly her own;
her glance had sufficed to snap asunder the fetters of a self-imposed
yoke, as though her will, powerful even after death, had suddenly passed
upon him. Though he saw her not at the present moment, he had but to
close his eyes, to see her as distinctly as if she were still present in
the body. And in that moment Eckhardt felt all the horrors of the path
he was about to choose, the dead and terrible aspect of the life he was
about to espouse. To be a monk, to crawl till death in the chill shade
of the cloister, to see none save living spectres, to watch by the
nameless corpses of folks unknown, to wear his raiment for his coffin’s
pall—a terrible dread seized him. One brief hour spent before an altar
and some gabbled words were about to cut him off for ever from the
society of the living. With his own hand he was about to seal the stone
upon his tomb, and turn the key in the lock of the door of Life.
Like a whirlwind these thoughts passed through Eckhardt’s brain. Then
he imagined once more that he saw the eyes of his dead wife gazing upon
him, burning into the very depths of his soul. What made their aspect
so terrible to him, he was not just then in the frame to analyze. Some
mysterious force, which had left the sweetness of her face unmarred,
seemed to have imparted something to her eyes that inspired him with an
unaccountable dread.
As he paused thus before the pillar, pressing his icy hands to his
fevered temples, vainly groping for a solution, vainly endeavouring to
break the fetters which bound his will and seemed to crush his strength,
there broke upon his ears the loud command of the officiating monk, to
return and bid the Fiend desist. These words broke the deadly spell
which had benumbed his senses and caused him to remain riveted to the
spot, where the phantom had hovered. His sunken eyes glared as those of
a madman, as he slowly turned in response to the monk’s behest. The hot
breath came panting from between his parched lips. Then, without
heeding the ceremony, without heeding the monks or the spectators who
had flocked hither to witness his consecration, Eckhardt dashed through
the circle of which he had formed the central figure and, ere the amazed
spectators knew what happened or the monks could stem his precipitate
flight, the chief of the imperial hosts rushed out of the church in his
robes of consecration and vanished from sight.
So quickly, so unexpectedly did it all happen, that even the officiating
Cardinal seemed completely paralyzed by the suddenness of Eckhardt’s
flight. There was no doubt in the mind of Cyprianus that the Margrave
had gone mad and his whispered orders sent two monks speeding after the
demented neophyte. Deep, ominous silence hovered over the vast area of
the Basilica. It seemed as if the very air was fraught with deep
portent, and ominous forebodings of impending danger filled the hearts
of the assembled thousands. The people knelt in silent prayer and
breathless expectation. Would Eckhardt return? Would the ceremony
proceed?
Among all those, who had so eagerly watched the uncommon spectacle of
whose crowning glory they were about to see themselves deprived, there
was but one to whom the real cause of the scene which had just come to a
close, was no mystery. Benilo alone knew the cause of Eckhardt’s flight.
To the last moment he had triumphed, convinced that no temptation could
turn from his chosen path a mind so stern as Eckhardt’s. But when the
effect of the mysterious vision upon the kneeling general became
apparent, when his restlessness grew with every moment, up to the
terrible climax, accentuated by his madman’s yell, when, unmindful of
the monk’s admonition—he saw him rush out of the church in his
consecrated robes—then Benilo knew that the general would not return.
For the time all the insolent boastfulness of his nature forsook him and
he shivered as one seized with a sudden chill. Without awaiting what
was to come, unseen and unnoticed amidst the all-pervading
consternation, the Chamberlain rushed out of the Basilica by the same
door through which Eckhardt had gained the open.
Under his canopy sat the Vice-Gerent of Christ, surrounded by the
consecrated cardinals and bishops and the monks of the various orders.
Without an inkling of the true cause prompting Eckhardt’s precipitate
flight Gregory had witnessed the terrible scene, which had just come to
a close. But inwardly he rejoiced. For only when every opposition to
Eckhardt’s mad desire had appeared fruitless, had the Pontiff acquiesced
in granting to him the special dispensation, which shortened the time of
his novitiate to the limit of three days.
But it was not a matter for the moment, for Gregory himself was to
partake of the Communion and the monk Cyprianus, who was to perform the
holy office, a tribute to the order whose superior he was, had just
blessed the host. In his consecrated hand the wine was to turn into the
blood of Christ, Gregory had just partaken of the holy wafer. Now the
monk placed the golden tube in the golden chalice and, drawing his cowl
deeply over his forehead, passed the other end of the tube to the
Pontiff.
Gregory placed the golden tube to his lips, and as he sipped the wine,
changed into blood, the two cardinals on duty approached the sacred
throne, a torch in one hand, a small bundle of tow in the other.
According to custom they set the tow on fire.
Again the unison chant of the monks resounded; the assembled thousands
lying prostrate in prayer.
Suddenly there arose a strange bustle round the pontifical canopy.
Suppressed murmurs broke the silence. Monks were to be seen rushing
hither and thither. Gregory had fainted! The monk Cyprianus seemed
vainly endeavouring to revive him. For a moment the crowds remained in
awe-struck silence, then, as if the grim spectre of Death had visibly
appeared amongst them, the terror-stricken worshippers rushed out of the
Basilica of St. Peter and soon the terrible rumour was rife in the
streets of Rome. Pope Gregory the Fifth was dying.
*CHAPTER XV*
*THE DEATH WATCH*
The sun had sunk to rest and the noises of the day were dying out, one
by one. The deep hush of the hour of dusk settled once more over the
city, shaken to its very depths by the terrible catastrophe and upheaved
by the fanaticism of the monks, who roused the populace to a paroxysm of
frenzy and fear which gave way to pandemonium itself, when the feelings
of the masses, strung to their utmost tension, leaped into the opposite
extreme. Crescentius had remained shut up in Castel San Angelo, but the
monk Cyprianus could be seen stalking through the city at the hour of
dusk, and whosoever met him crossed himself devoutly, and prayed to have
time for confession, when the end was nigh.
The importance of the impending change impressed itself upon every mind.
The time when worldly power alone could hope to successfully cope with
the crying evils of a fast decaying age, of a world, grown old and stale
and rotten, upon which had not yet fallen the beam of the Renaissance,
was not yet at hand, and the fatal day of Canossa had not yet illumined
the century with its lurid glare.
Therefore Otto had chosen Bruno, the friend of his boyhood, for the
highest honours in Christendom, Bruno, one in mind, one in soul with
himself, and the Conclave had by its vote ratified the imperial choice.
But Bruno himself had not wished the honour. While he shared the high
ideals of his royal friend he lacked that confidence in himself, which
was so essential a requirement for the ruler whose throne swayed on the
storm-tossed billows of the Roman See. Bruno was of a rather
retrospective turn of mind, and it was doubtful, whether he would be
able to carry out the sweeping reforms planned by Theophano’s idealistic
son, and regarded with secret abhorrence by the Italian cardinals. Only
with the aid of the venerable Gerbert had Gregory consented to enter
upon the grave duties awaiting him at the head of the Christian world at
a time when that world seemed to totter in its very foundations. And he
had paid the penalty, cut down in the prime of life.
In the Vatican chapel on a bier, round which were burning six wax
candles in silver-sticks, lay the fast decaying body of Gregory V.
Terrible rumours concerning the Pontiff’s death were abroad in the city.
The doors of the Pope’s private apartments had been found locked from
within. The terrified attendants had not ventured to return to the
Vatican until the gray morning light of the succeeding day broke behind
the crests of the Apennines. They had broken down the door, rumour had
it, but to recoil from the terrible sight which met their eyes. On his
bed lay the dead Pontiff. The head and right arm almost touched the
floor, as if in the death-struggle he had lost his balance. Traces of
burnt parchment on the floor and an empty phial on the table beside him
intensified, rather than cleared up the mystery. And as they
approached, terror-stricken, and endeavoured to lift the body, the right
arm almost severed itself from the trunk at their touch, and the body
was fast turning black. The handsome features of the youth were gray
and drawn, his hair clammy and dishevelled and the open eyes stared
frightfully into space as if vainly searching for the murderer.
Whatever Gerbert’s suspicions were when, too late, he arrived in the
death chamber, no hint escaped his lips. Under his personal care the
body of the hapless youth was prepared for interment, then he hurriedly
convoked the Conclave and ordered the gates of Rome closed against any
one attempting to leave the city.
The Vatican chapel was hung with funereal tapestry. Everywhere were seen
garlands of flowers entwined with branches of cypress. In the middle of
the chapel stood the bier, covered with black velvet. A choir of monks,
robed in vestments of black damask, was chanting the last Requiem. The
Cardinal of Sienna was conducting the last rites. As the echoes of the
chant died away under the vaulted arches, a monk approached the bier,
and sprinkled the corpse with holy water. The Cardinal pronounced the
benediction; the monk bent slightly over the body when a drop from the
forehead of the dead Pontiff rebounded to his face. He shuddered and
hastily retreated behind the monks, who formed into the recessional.
Only two remained in the chapel. Contrary to all custom they
extinguished the candles which had burnt down half-way. The smaller
ones they left to flicker out, until they should pitifully flare up
once, more, then to go out in the great darkness like the soul of man,
when his hour has come.
The last and only one to remain within the chapel to hold the
death-watch with the Pontiff, was Eckhardt, the Margrave. Wrapt in his
dark fancies he sat beside the bier. After his precipitate flight all
memory of what succeeded had vanished. Exhausted and tottering he had
found himself in the palace on the Caelian Mount, where he shut himself
up till the terrible tidings of the Pontiff’s death penetrated to the
solitude of his abode. Now it seemed to him that the moment he would
set foot in the streets of Rome, some dark and fearful revelation
awaited him. Since that night, when the strange apparition had drawn
him from the altars of Christ, had caused him to renounce the vows his
lips were about to pronounce, a terrible fear and suspicion had gripped
his soul. The presentiment of some awful mystery haunted him night and
day, as he brooded over the terrible fascination of those eyes, which
had laid their spell upon him, the amazing resemblance of the apparition
to the wife of his soul, long dead in her grave. And the more he
pondered the heavier grew his heart within him, and he groped in vain
for a ray of light on his dark and lonely path,—vainly for a guiding
hand, to conduct him from the labyrinth of doubt and fear into the
realms of oblivion and peace. The Margrave’s senses reeled from the
heavy fumes of flowers and incense, which filled the Basilica. The
light from a cresset-lantern on the wall, contending singly with the
pale mournful rays of the moon, which cast a dim light through the long
casement, over pillars and aisles, fell athwart his pallid face. The
terrible incidents of the past night, which had thrown him back into the
throes of the world, and had snuffed out the Pontiff’s life, weighed
heavily upon him, and for the nonce, the commander abandoned every
attempt to clear the terrible mystery which enshrouded him. He almost
despaired of combating the spectre single-handed, and now the one man,
who might by counsel and precept have guided his steps, had been struck
down by the assassin’s hand.
The sanctity of the place, the solemnity of the hour, and the deep
silence around were well calculated to deepen the melancholy mood of the
solitary watcher. Weird were the fancies that swept over his mind,
memories of a long forgotten past, and dim, indistinct plans for the
future, till at length, wearied with his own reflections over that
saddest of all earthly enigmas, what might have been, he seated himself
on a low bench beside the bier. The moonbeams grew fainter and more
faint, as the time wore on, and the sharp distinction between light and
shadow faded fast from the marble floor.
Thicker and thicker drooped the shadows round the bier of the dead
Pontiff. The silence seemed to deepen. The moon was gone. Save for
the struggling rays of the cresset-lantern above him, the blackness of
night closed round the solemn and ghostly scene.
The scent of flowers and the fumes of incense weighed heavily on
Eckhardt’s senses. Vainly did he combat the drowsiness; the silence,
the dim light and the heavy fumes at last laid their benumbing spell
upon him and lulled him to sleep. His head fell back and his eyes
closed.
But his sleep was far from calm. Weird dreams beset him. Again he lived
over the terrible ordeal of the preceding night. Again he saw himself
surrounded, hemmed in by a vast concourse. Again he saw the phantom at
the shrine, the phantom with Ginevra’s face,—Ginevra’s eyes; again he
heard her strange luring words. The wine spilled from the sacred
chalice looked like blood on the marble stairs of the altar. He heard
his own voice, strange, unearthly; gripped by a choking sensation he
rushed from the crowded Basilica, the air of which seemed to stifle
him,—rushed in pursuit of the phantom with Ginevra’s face,—Ginevra’s
eyes. At the threshold of the church a hand seized his own,—a woman’s
hand. How long, since he had felt a woman’s hand in his own! It was
cold as the skin of a serpent, yet it burnt like fire. And the hand
drew him onward, ever onward. There was no resisting the gaze of those
eyes which burnt into his own.
A deep azure overspread the sky. The trees were clothed in the raiment
of spring. Blindly he staggered onward. Blindly he followed his
strange guide through groves, fragrant with the perfumes of flowers,—the
air seemed as a bower of love. The hand drew him onward with its chill,
yet burning touch. The way seemed endless. Faster and faster grew their
speed. At last they seemed to devour the way. The earth flitted beneath
them as a gray shadow. The black trees fled in the darkness like an
army in rout. They delved into glens, gloomy and chill. The
night-birds clamoured in the forest deeps; will-o’-the-wisps gleamed
over stagnant pools and now and then the burning eyes of spectres
pierced the gloom, who lined a dark avenue in their nebulous shrouds.
And the hand drew him onward—ever onward! Neither spoke. Neither
questioned. At last he found himself in a churchyard. The scent of
faded roses hovered on the air like the memory of a long-forgotten love.
They passed tombstone after tombstone, gray, crumbling, with defaced
inscriptions; the spectral light of the moon in its last quarter dimly
illumined their path till at last they reached a stone half hidden
behind tall weeds and covered with ivy, moss and lichen. The earth had
been thrown up from the grave, which yawned to receive its inmate. Owls
and bats flocked and flapped about them with strange cries; the foxes
barked their answer far away and a thousand evil sounds rose from the
stillness. As they paused before the yawning grave he gazed up into his
companion’s face. Pale as marble Ginevra stood by his side, the long
white shroud flowing unbroken to her feet. Through the smile of her
parted lips gleamed her white teeth, as she pointed downward, to the
narrow berth, then her arms encircled his neck like rings of steel; her
eyes seemed to pierce his own, he felt unable to breathe, he felt his
strength giving way, together they were sinking into the night of the
grave—
A shrill cry resounded through the silence of the Basilica. Awakened by
the terrible oppression of his dream,—roused by the sound of his own
voice, Eckhardt opened his eyes and gazed about, fearstruck and
dismayed. After a moment or two he arose, to shake off the spell, which
had laid its benumbing touch upon him, when he suddenly recoiled, then
stood rooted to the spot with wild, dilated eyes. At the foot of the
Pontiff’s bier stood the tall form of a woman. The fitful rays of the
cresset-lantern above him illumined her white, flowing garb. A white
transparent veil drooped from her head to her feet; but the diaphanous
texture revealed a face pale and beautiful, and eyes which held him
enthralled with their slumbrous, mesmeric spell. Breathless with horror
Eckhardt gazed upon the apparition; was it but the continuation of his
dream or was he going mad?
As the phantom slowly began to recede into the shadows, Eckhardt with a
supreme effort shook off the lethargy which benumbed his limbs. He
dared remain no longer inert, he must penetrate the mystery, whatever
the cost, whatever the risk. With imploring, outstretched arms he
staggered after the apparition,—if apparition indeed it was,—straining
his gaze towards her slowly receding form—and so absorbed was he in his
pursuit, that he saw not the shadow which glided into the mortuary
chapel. Suddenly some dark object hurled itself against him; quick as a
flash, and ere he could draw a second breath, a dagger gleamed before
Eckhardt’s eyes; he felt the contact of steel with his iron
breast-plate, he heard the weapon snap asunder and fall at his feet, but
when he recovered from his surprise, the would-be assassin, without
risking a second stroke, had fled and the apparition seemed to have
melted into air. Eckhardt found himself alone with the dead body of the
Pontiff.
With loud voice he called for the sentry, stationed without, and when
that worthy at last made his appearance, his heavy, drooping eyelids and
his drowsy gait did not argue in favour of too great a watchfulness.
Making the sentry doff his heavy iron shoes, Eckhardt bade him secure a
torch, then he made the round of the chapel, preceded by his stolid
companion. The Margrave’s anxiety found slight reflex in the coarse
features of his subordinate, who understood just enough of what was
wanted of him to comprehend the disappointment in his master’s
countenance. As every door was locked and bolted, the only supposition
remaining was that the bravo had discovered some outlet from within.
But Eckhardt’s tests proved unavailing. The floor and the walls seemed
of solid masonry which to penetrate seemed impossible. The broken blade
offered no clue either to the author or perpetrator of this deed of
darkness, and after commanding the sentry to keep his watch for the
remainder of the night, inside, Eckhardt endeavoured once more to
compose himself to rest, while the man-at-arms stretched his huge limbs
before the pontifical bier.
The bells of St. Peter’s chimed shrill and loud as a mighty multitude,
greater even than that of the preceding night, swept within its portals
toward the chapel of Boniface VIII. There, filling every inch of space,
only the more fortunate of the crowd gained a glimpse of the coffin,
which had been closed, for the corpse was decaying fast, the effect of
the terrible and mysterious poison which had been mixed in the holy
wine. At length, as the solemn chant of the choristers began to swell
through the edifice, preluding the celebration of the Death Mass for the
departed Pontiff, a silence as of the tomb pervaded the vast edifice.
Thus the day wore on,—thus the day departed.
The solemn chant had died away. The sun of another day had set.
The funeral cortege set in motion. Fifty torches surrounded the bier
and so numerous were the lamps in the windows of the streets through
which the funeral procession passed, so abundant the showers of roses
which poured upon the bier, that the people declared it surpassed the
procession Corpus Domini.
Interchanging solemn hymns, the cortege arrived at last before the
church of San Pietro in Montorio, where the body was to be placed in the
niche provisionally appointed, where it was to remain till the death of
the succeeding pope should consign it to its final place of rest.
The ceremony ended, the people dispersed. Few loiterers remained on the
pavement of the church. The sacristan announced that it was about to be
closed, and waiting until, as he thought, all had departed, he turned
the ponderous doors on their hinges and shut them with a crash. The
report, reverberating from arch to arch, shook the ancient sepulchre
through its every angle. The lamps, which at wide intervals burned
feebly before the shrines of the saints, lent additional solemnity and
awe to the obscurity of the place. One torch was left to light a narrow
circle round the entrance to the crypt.
Silence had succeeded when out of the shadow of the tomb there passed
two figures, who upon entering the narrow circle of light emanating from
the dim, flickering taper, faced each other in mute amazement and
surprise.
"What are you doing here?" spoke the one, in the garb of a monk, as they
stood revealed to each other in the half gloom.
With a gesture of horror and dismay the other, a woman, wrapt in a dark
mantle, which covered her tall and stately form from head to foot,
turned away from him.
"I give you back the question," she replied, dread and fear in her
tones.
"My presence here concerns the dead," said the monk.
"They say, the hand of the dead Pontiff has touched his murderer."
The monk paled. For a moment he almost lost his self-control.
"He had to die some way," he replied with a shrug.
"Monster!" she exclaimed, recoiling from him, as if she had seen a snake
in her path.
"He travelled in godly company," said the monk Cyprianus with a dark
laugh. "An entire Conclave will welcome him at the gates of Paradise.
Why are you here?" the monk concluded, a shade of suspicion lingering in
his tones.
"Am I accountable to you?" flashed Theodora.
"Being what you are through my intercession,—perhaps," replied the monk.
She measured him with a look of unutterable contempt.
"Because the prying eyes of a perjured wretch, who screened his vileness
behind the cassock of the monk, dared to offend the majesty of Death and
to disturb the repose of the departed, you come to me like some
importunate slave dissatisfied with his hire? You dare to constitute
yourself my guardian, to call Theodora a thing of your creation? Take
care! You speak to a descendant of Marozia. I have had enough of
whimpering monks. For the service demanded of you in a certain hour you
have been paid. So clear the way, and trouble me no more!"
The monk did not stir.
"The fair Theodora has not inherited Ginevra’s memory," he said with a
sneer. "The gold was to purchase the repose of Ginevra’s soul."
Theodora shuddered, as if oppressed with the memories of the past.
"Candles and masses," she said, as one soliloquizing. "How signally
they failed!"
The monk shrugged his shoulders.
"If a thousand Aves, and tapers six foot long fail in their
purpose,—what undiscovered penance could perform the miracle?"
There was something in the gleam of the monk’s eye which brought
Theodora to herself.
"What do you want of me?" she questioned curtly.
"The fulfilment of your pledge."
"You have been paid."
The monk waved his hands.
"’Tis not for gold, I have ventured this—"
And he pointed to the crypts below.
She recoiled from him, regarding him with a fixed stare.
"What do you want of me?" she again asked with a look, in which hate and
wonder struggled for the mastery.
"The new Conclave will be made up of your creatures. Their choice must
fall—on me!"
"On the perjured assassin?" shrieked the woman. "Out of my way! I’ve
done with you!"
The monk stirred not. From his drawn white face two eyes like glowing
coals burnt into those of the woman.
"Remember your pledge!"
"Out of my way, assassin! Dare you so high? The chair of St. Peter
shall never be defiled by such a one—as you!"
"And thus Theodora rewards the service rendered to Ginevra," the monk
said, breathing hard, and making a step towards her. She watched him
narrowly, her hand concealed under her cloak.
"Dare but to touch the hem of this robe with your blood-stained hands—"
Cyprianus retreated before the menace in her eyes.
"I thought I had lived too long for surprises," he said calmly. "Yet,
considering that I bear here in this bosom a secret, which one, I know,
would give an empire to obtain,—Cyprianus can be found tractable."
With a last glance at the woman’s face, stony in its marble-cold
disdain, the monk turned and left the church through the sacristy. For
a moment Theodora remained as one spell-bound, then she drew her mantle
more closely about her and left the sepulchre by an exit situated in an
opposite direction. No sooner had her footsteps died to silence when
two shadowy forms sped noiselessly through the incense-saturated dusk of
S. Pietro in Montorio, pausing on the threshold of the door, through
which the monk Cyprianus had gained the open.
"I need that man!" whispered the taller into the ear of his companion,
pointing with shadowy finger to the swiftly vanishing form of the monk.
The other nodded with a horrid grin, which glowed upon his visage like
phosphorus upon a skull.
With a quick nod of understanding, the Grand Chamberlain and John of the
Catacombs quitted the steps of S. Pietro in Montorio.
Darkness fell.
Night enveloped the trembling world with her star embroidered robe of
dark azure.
*CHAPTER XVI*
*THE CONCLAVE*
A vast concourse surrounded the portals of the Vatican. It seemed as if
the entire population of Rome, from the Porta del Popolo to the
Coliseum, from the baths of Diocletian to Castel San Angelo, had
assembled by appointment in the Piazza of St. Peter. For so dense was
the multitude, that its pressure filled the adjacent thoroughfares, the
crowds clinging round columns, winding along the broken outlines of the
walls, and grouping themselves among the ruins of temples and fallen
porticoes.
The eyes of all were fixed upon that wing of the pontifical palace where
the Conclave, hurriedly convoked, was assembled, and as Gregory V had
now been dead sixteen days, the cardinals were proceeding with the
election of a new Pope. Never possibly, from the hour when the first
successor of St. Peter mounted the throne of the Apostle, had there been
exhibited so much unrest and disquietude as there was in this instance
to be observed among the masses. The rumour that Gregory had died of
poison had proved true, and the Romans had been seized with a strange
fear, urging all ranks towards the Vatican or Monte Cavallo, according
as the scarlet assembly held its sittings in one place or another.
During the temporary interregnum, the Cardinal of Sienna, president of
the Apostolic Chamber, had assumed the pontifical authority.
For three days the eyes of the Romans had been fixed upon a chimney in
the Vatican, whence the first signal should issue, proclaiming the
result of the pending election. Yet at the hour when the Ave Maria
announced the close of day, a small column of smoke, ascending like a
fleecy cloud of vapour to the sky, had been the only reward for their
anxiety, and with cries mingled with shouts of menace, discordant
murmurs of raillery and laughter the crowds had each day dispersed. For
the smoke announced that the Romans were still without a Pontiff, that
the ballot-list had been burnt, and that the Sacred College had not yet
chosen a successor to Gregory.
The day had been spent in anxious expectation. Hour passed after hour,
without a sign either to destroy or to excite the hope, when the first
stroke of five was heard. Slowly the bells tolled the hour, every note
falling on the hearts of the people, whose anxious gaze was fixed on the
chimney of the Vatican. The last stroke sounded; its vibrations faintly
fading on the silent air of dusk, when a thunderous clamour, echoing
from thousands of throats, shook the Piazza of St. Peter, succeeded by a
death-like silence of expectation as with a voice, loud and penetrating,
Cardinal Colonna, who had stepped out upon the balcony, announced to the
breathless thousands:
"I announce to you tidings of great joy: Gerbert of Aurillac, Archbishop
of Rheims, Bishop of Ravenna and Vice-Chancellor of the Church, has been
elected to the exalted office of Pontiff and has ascended the chair of
St. Peter under the name of Sylvester II."
As the Cardinal finished his announcement a monk in the grey habit of
the Penitent friars was seen to pale and to totter, as if he were about
to fall. Declining the aid of those endeavouring to assist him he
staggered through the crowds, covering his face with his arms and was
soon lost to sight.
The thunderous applause at the welcome tidings was followed by sighs of
relief, as the people retired to their houses and hovels. The place,
where a few minutes before a nation seemed collected, was again
deserted, save for a few groups, composed of such whom curiosity might
detain or others who, residing in the immediate neighbourhood, were less
eager to depart. Even these imperceptibly diminished, and when the hour
of eight was repeated from cloisters and convents, the lights in the
houses gradually disappeared, save in one window of the Vatican, whence
a lamp still shed its fitful light through the nocturnal gloom.
*Book the Second*
*The Sorceress*
"As I came through the desert, thus it was
As I came through the desert: I was twain;
Two selves distinct, that cannot join again.
One stood apart and knew but could not stir,
And watched the other stark in swoon and her;
And she came on and never turned aside,
Between such sun and moon and roaring tide:
And as she came more near,
My soul grew mad with fear."
—_James Thomson_.
*CHAPTER I*
*THE MEETING*
Not many days after, in the still noontide of mellow autumn, a small
band of horsemen drew towards Rome. They rode along the Via Appia,
between the ancient tombs; all about them, undulant to the far horizon,
stretched a brown wilderness dotted with ruins. Ruins of villas, of
farms, of temples, with here and there a church or a monastery, that
told of the newer time. Olives in scant patches, a lost vineyard, a
speck of tilled soil, proved that men still laboured amid this vast and
awful silence, but rarely did a human figure meet the eye. Marshy ground
and stagnant pools lay on either hand, causing them to glance sadly at
those great aqueducts, which had in bygone ages carried water from the
hills into Rome.
They rode in silence, tired with their journey, occupied with heavy or
anxious thoughts. Otto, King of the Germans, impatient to arrive, was
generally a little ahead of the rest of the company. The pallor of his
smooth and classic face was enhanced by the coarse military cloak, dark
and travel-stained, which covered his imperial vestments. A lingering
expression of sadness was revealed in his eyes, and his lips were
tightly compressed in wordless grief, for the tidings of the untimely
death of the Pontiff, the friend of his youth and his boyhood days, had
reached him just after his departure from the shrines of St. Michael in
Apulia. Dark hints had been contained in the message, which Sylvester
II, Gregory’s chosen successor and Otto’s former teacher, had despatched
to the ruler of the Roman world, urging his immediate return,—for the
temper of the Romans brooked no trifling, their leaders being ever on
the alert for mischief.
Earthworks and buildings of military purpose presently appeared,
recalling the late blockade; churches and oratories told them they were
passing the sacred ground of the Catacombs, then they trotted along a
hollow way and saw before them the Appian gate. Only two soldiers were
on guard; these, not recognizing the German king, took a careless view
of the travellers, then let them pass without speaking.
At the base of the Aventine the cavalcade somewhat slackened its pace.
Slowly they ascended the winding road, until they reached the old wall
of Servius Tullius. Here Otto reined in his charger, pausing, for a
moment, to observe the view. To the west and south-west stretched the
brown expanse of the Campagna, merging into the distant gray of the
Roman Maremma, while beyond that point a clear blue line marked the
Ionian Sea. Beneath them the Tiber wound its coils round St.
Bartholomew’s Island, the yellow water of the river, stirred into faint
ripples by the breeze, looking from the distance like hammered brass.
Beyond the Tiber rose the Janiculan Mount, behind which the top of the
Vatican hill was just visible. To southward the view was bounded by the
Church of Santa Prisca above them and far off rose the snow-capped cone
of Soracté. Northeast and east lay the Palatine and Esquiline with the
Campaniles of Santa Maria Maggiore and San Pietro in Vincoli. Over the
Caelian Mount they could see the heights of the Sabine hills, and
running their eyes along the Appian way, they could almost descry the
Alban lake. At a sign from their sovereign the cavalcade slowly set in
motion. Passing the monastery of St. Jerome and its dependencies, the
three churches of the Aventine, Santa Sabina, Santa Maria Aventina and
St. Alexius, the imperial cavalcade at last drew rein before the gates
of Otto’s Golden Palace on the Aventine.
Again in his beloved Rome, Otto’s first visit was to Bruno’s grave. He
had dismissed his attendants, wishing to be alone in his hour of grief.
Long he knelt in tears and silent prayers before the spot, which seemed
to contain half his young life, then he directed his steps towards the
Basilica of St. Peter, there to conclude his devotions.
It was now the hour of Vespers.
The area of St. Peters was filled with a vast and silent crowd, flowing
in and out of the Confessor’s station, which was in the subterranean
chapel, that contains the Apostle’s tomb, the very lode-stone of
devotion throughout the Christian word.
After having finished his devotions, Otto was seized with the desire to
seek the confessor, in order to obtain relief from the strange
oppression which hovered over him like a presentiment of evil. Taking
his station in line with a number of penitents, in the dusky passage
leading to the confessional, the scene within was now and then revealed
to his gaze for the short space of a moment, when the bronze gates
opened for the entrance or exit of some heavily burdened sinner. The
tomb was stripped of all its costly ornaments, and lighted only by the
torches of some monks, whose office it was to interpret the
Penitentiarius, whenever occasion arose. These torches shed a mournful
glow over the dusk, suiting the place of sepulchre of martyred saints.
On the tomb itself stood an urn of black marble, beneath which was an
alabaster tablet, on which was engraved the prophecy concerning the
Millennium and the second coming of Christ, and the conditions of
penance and prayer, which were to enable the faithful to share in and
obtain its benefits. Only now and then, when the curtain waved aside,
the person of the Grand Penitentiarius became visible, his hands rigidly
clasped, and his usually pale and stern visage overspread with even a
darker haze of its habitual gloom.
While Otto was anxiously waiting his turn to be admitted to the presence
of the Confessor, the gates of the confessional suddenly swung open and
a woman glided out. She was closely veiled and in his mental absorption
Otto might scarcely have noticed her at all, but for the singular
intensity of the gaze, with which the monk followed her retreating form.
As she passed the German King in the narrow passage, her veil became
entangled and she paused to adjust it. As she did so, her features were
for the brief space of a moment revealed to Otto, and with such an air
of bewilderment did he stare at her, that she almost unconsciously
raised her eyes to his. For a moment both faced each other, motionless,
eye in eye—then the woman quickened her steps and hastened out. After
she had disappeared, Otto touched his forehead like one waking from a
trance. Never, even in this city of beautiful women, had he seen the
like of her, never had his eyes met such perfection, such exquisite
beauty and loveliness. She combined the stately majesty of a Juno with
the seductive charms of Aphrodite. In dark ringlets the silken hair
caressed the oval of her exquisite face, a face of the soft tint of
Parian marble, and the dark lustrous eyes gave life to the classic
features of this Goddess of Mediæval Rome. Before she vanished from
sight, the woman, seemingly obeying an impulse not her own, turned her
head in the direction of Otto. This was due perhaps to the strange
discrepancy between his face and his attire, or to the presence of one
so young and of appearance so distinguished among the throngs which
habitually crowded the confessional.
How long he stood thus entranced, Otto knew not, nor did he heed the
curious gaze of those who passed him on entering and leaving the
confessional. At last he roused himself, and, oblivious of his station
and rank, flew down the dark, vaulted passage at such a speed as almost
to knock down those who encountered him in his headlong pursuit of the
fair confessionist. It was more than a matter of idle curiosity to him
to discover, if possible, her station and name, and after having
attracted to himself much unwelcome attention by his rash and
precipitate act, he gradually fell into a slower pace. He reached the
end of the dark passage in time to see what he believed to be her
retreating form vanish down a corridor and disappear in one of the
numerous side-chapels. Concluding that she had entered to perform some
special devotion, he resolved to await her return.
Considerable time elapsed. At last, growing impatient, Otto entered the
chapel. He found it draped throughout with black, an altar in the
center, dimly illumined. Some monks were chanting a Requiem, and before
the altar there knelt a veiled woman, apparently under the spell of some
deep emotion, for Otto heard her sob when she attempted to articulate
the responses to the solemn and pathetic litany, which the Catholic
church consecrates to her dead.
But the German King’s observation suffered an immediate check.
A verger came forward on those soundless shoes, which all vergers seem
to have, and little guessing the person or quality of the intruder
informed him of the woman’s desire, that none should be admitted during
the celebration of the mass. Otto stared his informant in the face, as
if he were at a loss to comprehend his meaning, and the latter repeated
his request somewhat more slowly, under the impression that the
stranger’s seeming lack of understanding was due to his unfamiliarity
with the speaker’s barbarous jargon.
Otto slowly retreated and deferring his intended visit to the chapel of
the Confessor to an hour more opportune, left the Basilica. As he
recalled to himself, trace after trace, line upon line, that exquisite
face, whose creamy pallor was enhanced by the dark silken wealth of her
hair, and from whose perfect oval two eyes had looked into his own,
which had caused his heart-beats to stop and his brain to whirl, he
could hardly await the moment when he should learn her name, and perhaps
be favoured with the assurance that her visit on that evening was not
likely to have been her last to the Confessor’s shrine.
Imbued with this hope, he slowly traversed the streets of Rome,
experiencing a restful, even animating contentment in breathing once
more the atmosphere of the thronging city, of being once more in a great
center of humanity. At a familiar corner sat an old man with an iron
tripod, over which, by a slow fire, he roasted his chestnuts, a sight
well remembered, for often had he passed him. He threw him some coins
and continued upon his way. Beyond, at his shop-door stood a baker,
deep in altercation with his patrons. From an alley came a wine-vender
with his heavy terra-cotta jars. Before an osteria a group of pifferari
piped their pastoral strains. A few women of the sturdy, low-browed
Contadini-type hastened, basket-laden, homeward. A patrol of
men-at-arms marched down the Navona, while up a narrow tortuous lane
flitted a company of white-robed monks, bearing to some death-bed the
last consolation of the church.
Otto had partaken of no food since morning and nature began to assert
her rights. Finding himself at the doorway of an inn for wayfarers,
with a pretentious coat-of-arms over the entrance, he entered
unceremoniously, and seated himself apart from the rather questionable
company which patronized the Inn of the Mermaid. Here the landlord, a
burly Calabrian, served his unknown guest with a most questionable
beverage, faintly suggestive of the product of the vintage, and viands
so strongly seasoned that they might have undertaken a pilgrimage on
their own account.
For these commodities, making due allowance for his guest’s abstracted
state of mind, the uncertainty of the times and the crowded state of the
city, the host of the Mermaid only demanded a sum equal to five times
the customary charge, which Otto paid without remonstrance, whereupon
the worthy host of the Mermaid called to witness all the saints of the
calendar, that he deserved to spend the remainder of his life in a
pig-sty, for having been so moderate in his reckoning.
As one walking in a dream, Otto returned to his palace on the Aventine.
Had he wavered in the morning, had the dictates of reason still ventured
to assert themselves—the past hour had silenced them for ever. Before
his gaze floated the image of her who had passed him in the Basilica.
At the thought of her he could hear the beating of his own heart.
Rome—the dominion of the earth—with that one to share it—delirium of
ecstasy! Would it ever be realized! Then indeed the dream of an
earthly paradise would be no mere fable!
*CHAPTER II*
*THE QUEEN OF NIGHT*
A week had passed since Otto’s arrival in Rome. Eckhardt, wrapped in
his own dark fancies, had only appeared at the palace on the Aventine
when compelled to do so in the course of his newly resumed duties. The
terrible presentiment which had haunted him night and day since he left
the gray, bleak winter skies of his native land, had become intensified
during the past days. Day and night he brooded over the terrible
fascination of those eyes which had laid their spell upon him, over the
amazing resemblance of the apparition to the one long dead in her grave.
And the more he pondered the heavier grew his heart within him, and
vainly he groped for a ray of light upon his dark and lonely path,
vainly for a guiding hand to conduct him from the labyrinth of doubt and
fear.
It had been a warm and sultry day. Towards evening dark clouds had
risen over the Tyrrhene Sea and spread in long heavy banks across the
azure of the sky. Sudden squalls of rain swept down at short intervals,
driving the people into shelter. All the life of the streets took
refuge in arcades or within dimly lighted churches. Soon the slippery
marble pavements were deserted, and the water from the guttered roofs
dripped dolefully into overflowing cisterns. A strange atmosphere of
discomfort and apprehension lay over the city.
The storm increased as evening fell. From the seclusion of the gloomy
chamber he occupied in the old weather-beaten palace of the Pierleoni,
Eckhardt looked out into the growing darkness. The clouds chased each
other wildly and the driving rain obliterated every outline.
How long he had thus stood, he did not know. A rattle of hailstones
against the window, a gust of wind, which suddenly blew into his face,
and the lurid glare of lightning which flashed through the
ever-deepening cloud-bank, roused Eckhardt from his reverie to a sense
of reality. The lamp on the table shed a fitful glare over the
surrounding objects. Now the deep boom of thunder reverberating through
the hills caused him to start from his listless attitude. Just as he
turned, the lamp gave a dismal crackle and went out, leaving him in
Stygian gloom. With an exclamation less reverent than expressive,
Eckhardt groped his way through the darkness, vainly endeavouring to
find a flint-stone. A flash of lightning which came to his aid not only
revealed to him the desired object, but likewise a tall, shadowy form
standing on the threshold. From the dense obscurity which enshrouded
him, Eckhardt could not, in the intermittent flashes of lightning, see
the stranger’s features, but a singular, and even to himself quite
inexplicable perversity of humour, kept him silent and unwilling to
declare his presence, although he instinctively felt that the strange
visitor, whoever he was, had seen him. Meanwhile the latter advanced a
pace or two, paused, peered through the gloom and spoke with a voice
strangely blended with deference and irony:
"Is Eckhardt of Meissen present?"
Without once taking his eyes from the individual, whose dark form now
stood clearly revealed in the lightning flashes, which followed each
other at shorter intervals, the same strange obstinacy stiffened
Eckhardt’s tongue, and concealed in the gloom, he still held his peace.
But the stranger drew nearer, till in height and breadth he seemed
suddenly to overshadow the Margrave, and once again the voice spoke:
"Is Eckhardt of Meissen present?"
"I am here!" the latter replied curtly, rising out of the darkness, and
striking the flint-stones, he succeeded, after some vain efforts, in
relighting the lamp. As he did so, a tremendous peal of thunder shook
the house and the stranger precipitately retreated into the shadow of
the doorway.
"You are the bearer of a message?" Eckhardt turned towards him, with
unsteady voice. The stranger made no move to deliver what the other
seemed to expect.
"Everything in death has its counterpart in life," he replied with a
calm, passionless voice which, by its very absence of inflection,
thrilled Eckhardt strangely. "If you have the courage—follow me!"
Without a word the Margrave placed upon his head a skullcap of linked
mail, and after having adjusted his armour, turned to the mysterious
messenger.
"Who bade you speak those words?"
"One you have seen before."
"Where?"
"Your memory will tell you."
"Her name?"
"You will hear it from her own lips."
"Where will you lead me?"
"Follow me and you will see."
"Why do you conceal your face?"
"To hide the blush for the thing called man."
The stranger’s enigmatic reply added to Eckhardt’s conviction that this
night of all was destined to clear the mystery which enshrouded his
life.
A mighty struggle, such as he had never before known, seemed to rend his
soul, as with throbbing heart he followed his strange guide on his
mysterious errand. Thus they sped through the storm-swept city without
meeting one single human being. At the top of the Esquiline they came
to a momentary standstill, for the storm raged with a force that nothing
could resist. Leaning for a moment against a ruined portico, Eckhardt
gazed westward over the night-wrapt city. In the driving rain he could
scarcely distinguish the huge structures of the Flavian Amphitheatre and
the palaces on the Capitoline hill. The Janiculan Mount stood out like
a darker storm-cloud against the lowering sky, and the air was filled
with a dull moan and murmur like the breathing of a sleeping giant. On
the southern slope of the hill the wind attacked them with renewed fury,
and the blasts howled up the Clivus Martis and the Appian Way. The
region seemed completely deserted. Only a solitary travelling chariot
rolled now and then, clattering, over the stones.
The road gradually turned off to the right. The dark mass to their left
was the tomb of the Scipios and there in front, hardly visible in the
darkness of night, rose the arch of Drusus, through which their way led
them. Eckhardt took care to note every landmark which he passed, to
find the way, should occasion arise, without his guide. The latter,
constantly preceding him, took no note of the Margrave’s scrutiny, but
continued unequivocally upon his way, leaving it to Eckhardt to follow
him, or not.
A blinding flash of lightning illumined the landscape far away to the
aqueducts and the Alban hills, followed by a deafening peal of thunder.
The uproar of the elements for a time shook Eckhardt’s resolution.
Just then he heard the clanging of a gate.
An intoxicating perfume of roses and oleander wooed his bewildered
senses as his guide conducted him through a labyrinthine maze of winding
paths. Only an occasional gleam of lightning revealed to the Margrave
that they traversed a garden of considerable extent. Now the shadowy
outlines of a vast structure, illumined in some parts, appeared beyond
the dark cypress avenue down which they strode at a rapid pace.
Suddenly Eckhardt paused, addressing his guide: "Where am I, and why am
I here?"
The stranger turned, regarding him intently. Then he replied:
"I have nothing to add to my errand. If you fear to follow me, there is
yet time to retreat."
Had he played upon a point less sensitive, Eckhardt might have turned
his back even now upon the groves, whose whispering gloom was to him
more terrible than the din of battle, and whose mysterious perfumes
exercised an almost bewildering effect upon his overwrought senses.
A moment’s deliberation only and Eckhardt replied:
"Lead on! I follow!"
He was now resolved to penetrate at every hazard the mystery which
mocked his life, his waking hours and his dreams.
On they walked.
Here and there, from branch-shadowed thickets gleamed the stone-face of
a sphinx or the white column of an obelisk, illumined by the lightnings
that shot through the limitless depth of the midnight sky. The storm
rustled among the arched branches, driving the dead and dying leaves in
a mad whirl through the wooded labyrinth.
At last, Eckhardt’s strange guide stopped before a cypress hedge of
great height, which loomed black in the night, and penetrating through
an opening scarce wide enough for one man, beckoned to Eckhardt to
follow him. As the latter did so he stared in breathless bewilderment
upon the scene which unfolded itself to his gaze.
The cypress hedge formed the entrance to a grotto, the interior of which
was faintly lighted by a crystal lamp of tenderest rose lustre.
For a moment Eckhardt paused where he stood, then he touched his head
with both hands, as if wondering if he were dreaming or awake. If it
was not the work of sorcery, if he was not the victim of some strange
hallucination, if it was not indeed a miracle—what was it? He gazed
round, awe-struck, bewildered. His guide had disappeared.
The denizen of the grotto, a woman reclining on a divan, like a goddess
receiving the homage of her worshippers, was the image of the one who
had gone from him for ever, and the longer his gaze was riveted on this
enchanting counterfeit of Ginevra, the more his blood began to seethe
and his senses to reel.
Slowly he moved toward the enchantress, who from her half-reclining
position fixed her eyes in a long and questioning gaze upon the
new-comer, a gaze which thrilled him through and through. He dared not
look into those eyes, which he felt burning into his. His head was
beginning to spin and his heart to beat with a strange sensation of
wonderment and fear. Never till this hour had he seen Ginevra’s equal in
beauty, and now that it broke on his vision, it was with the face, the
form, the hair, the eyes, the hands, of the woman so passionately loved.
Only the face was more pale—even with the pallor of death, and there was
something in the depths of those eyes which he had never seen in
Ginevra’s. But the light, the perfume, the place and the seductive
beauty of the woman before him, garbed as she was in a filmy,
transparent robe of silvery tissue, which clung like a pale mist about
the voluptuous curves of her body, flowing round her like the glistening
waves of a cascade, began to play havoc with his senses.
"Welcome, stranger, in the Groves of Enchantment," she spoke, waving her
beautiful snowy arms toward her visitor. "I rejoice to see that your
courage deserves the welcome."
There was an undercurrent of laughter in her musical tones, as she
pointed to a seat by her side. Unable to answer, unable to resist,
Eckhardt moved a few paces nearer. His brain whirled. For a moment
Ginevra’s image seemed forgotten in the contemplation of the rival of
her dead beauty. A wild, desperate longing seized him. On a sudden
impulse he turned away, in a dizzy effort to escape from the mesmeric
gleam of those sombre, haunting eyes, which pierced the very depths of
his soul. Fascinated, at the same time repelled, his very soul yearned
for her whose embrace he knew was destruction and he was filled with a
strange sudden fear. There was something terrible in the steadfast
contemplation which the woman bestowed upon him,—something that seemed
to lie outside the pale of human passions, and the pallor of her
exquisite face seemed to increase in proportion as the devouring fire of
her eyes burnt more intensely.
"Are you afraid of me?" she laughed, raising her arms and holding them
out toward him.
Still he hesitated. His breast heaved madly as his eyes met those,
which swam in a soft languor, strangely intoxicating. Her lips parted in
a faint sigh.
"Eckhardt," she said tremulously, "Eckhardt."
Then she paused as if to watch the effect of her words upon him.
Mute, oppressed by indistinct hovering memories, Eckhardt fed his gaze
on her seductive fairness, but a terrible pain and anguish gnawed at his
heart. Not only the face, even the voice was that of Ginevra.
"Everything in death has its counterpart in life:"—
That had been the pass-word to her presence.
One devouring look—and forgetting all fear and warning and all presence
of mind he rushed towards that flashing danger-signal of beauty, that
seemed to burn the very air encompassing it, that living image of his
dead wife, and with wild eyes, outstretched arms and breathless
utterance, he cried: "Ginevra!"
She whom he thus called turned toward him, as he came with the air of a
madman upon her, and her marvellous loveliness, as she raised her dark
eyes questioningly to his, checked his impetuous haste, held him
tongue-tied, bewildered and unmanned.
And truly, nothing more beautiful in the shape of woman could be
imagined than she. Her fairness was of that rare and subtle type which
has in all ages overwhelmed reason, blinded judgment and played havoc
with the passions of men.
Well did she know her own surpassing charm and thoroughly did she
estimate the value of her fatal power to lure and to madden and to
torture all whom she chose to make the victim of her almost resistless
attraction. Her hair, black as night, was arranged loosely under a
jewelled coif. Her eyes, large and brilliant, shone from under brows
delicately arched. Her satin skin was of the creamy, colourless,
Southern type, in startling contrast to the brilliant scarlet of the
small bewitching mouth.
Beautiful and delicate as the ensemble was, there was in that enchanting
face a lingering expression, which a woman would have hated and a man
would have feared.
"Ginevra!" Eckhardt cried, then he checked himself, for, her large eyes,
suddenly cold as the inner silence of the sea, surveyed him freezingly,
as though he were some insolently obtrusive stranger. But her face was
pale as that of a corpse.
"Ginevra!" he faltered for the third time, his senses reeling and he no
longer master of himself. "Surely you know me—Eckhardt,—him whose name
you have just called! Speak to me, Ginevra—speak! By all the love I
have borne for you—speak, Ginevra,—speak!"
A shadow flitted through the background and paused behind Theodora’s
couch. Neither had seen it, though Theodora shuddered as if she had
felt the strange presence of something uncalled, unbidden.
A strange light of mockery, or of annoyance, gleamed in the woman’s
eyes. Her crimson lips parted, showing two rows of even, small white
teeth, then a gleam of amusement shot athwart her face, raising the
delicately pencilled corners of the eye-brows, as she broke into a soft
peal of careless mocking laughter.
"I am not Ginevra," she said. "Who is Ginevra? I am Theodora—the Queen
of Love."
Again, as she saw his puzzled look, she gave way to her silvery, mocking
mirth, while her eyes flung him a glittering challenge to approach.
Eckhardt had recovered partial control over his feelings and met her
taunting gaze steadfastly and with something of sadness. His face had
grown very pale and all the warmth and rapture had died out of his
voice, when he spoke again.
"I am Eckhardt," he said quietly, with the calm of a madman who argues
for a fixed idea,—"and you are Ginevra—or her ghost—I know not which.
Why did you return to the world from your cold and narrow bed in the
earth and shun the man who worships you as one worships an idol? Is it
for some transgression in the flesh that your soul cannot find rest?"
An ominous shuffling behind her caused Theodora to start. She turned her
head as if by chance and when again she faced Eckhardt, she was as pale
as death. Noting her momentary embarrassment, Eckhardt made a resolute
step toward her, catching her hands in his own. He was dazed.
"Is this your welcome back in the world, Ginevra?" he pleaded with a
passionate whisper. "Have you no thought what this long misery apart
from you has meant? Remember the old days,—the old love,—have
pity—speak to me as of old."
His voice in its very whisper thrilled with the strange music that love
alone can give. His eyes burnt and his lips quivered. Suddenly he
seemed to wake to a realization of the scene. He had been mocked by a
fatal resemblance to his dead wife. His heart was heavy with the
certainty, but the spell remained.
Without warning he threw himself on his knees, holding her unresisting
hands in his.
"Demon or Goddess," he faltered, and his voice, even to his own ears,
had a strange sound. "What would you have with me? Speak, for what
purpose did you summon me? Who are you? What do you want with me?"
Her low laugh stirred the silence into a faint tuneful echo.
"Foolish dreamer," she murmured half tenderly, half mockingly. "Is it
not enough for you to know that you have been found worthy to join the
few chosen ones to whom this earthly paradise is not a book with seven
seals? Like your sad-eyed, melancholy countrymen, you would analyze the
essence of love and try to dissolve it into its own heterogeneous
particles. If you were given the choice of the fairest woman you would
descend into the mouldering crypts of the past, to unearth the first and
last Helen of Troy. Ah! Is it not so? You Northmen prefer a
theoretical attachment to the body of living, breathing, loving woman?"
He looked at her surprised, perplexed, and paused an instant before he
made reply. Was she mocking him? Did she speak truth?
"Surely so peerless an enchantress, with admirers so numerous, cannot
find it worth her while to add a new worshipper to the idolatrous
throng?" he answered.
"Ah! Little you know," she murmured indolently, with a touch of cold
disdain in her accents. "My worshippers are my puppets, my slaves!
There is not a man amongst them," she added, raising her voice, "not a
man! They kiss the hand that spurns their touch! As for you," she
added, leaning forward, so that the dark shower of her hair brushed his
cheek and her drowsy eyes sank into his own, "As for you—you are from
the North.—I love a nature of strongly repressed and concentrated
passion, of a proud and chilly temper. Like our volcanoes they wear
crowns of ice, but fires unquenchable smother in their depths.
And—might not at a touch from the destined hand the flame in your heart
leap forth uncontrolled?"
Eckhardt met the enchantress’ look with one of mingled dread and
intoxication. She smiled, and raising a goblet of wine to her lips,
kissed the brim and gave it to him with an indescribably graceful
swaying gesture of her whole form, which resembled a tall white lily
bending to the breeze. He seized the cup eagerly and drank thirstily
from it. Again her magic voice, more melodious than the sounds of
Æolian harps thrilled his ears and set his pulses to beating madly.
"But you have not yet told me," she whispered, while her head drooped
lower and lower, till her dark fragrant tresses touched his brow, "you
have not yet told me that you love me?"
Was it the purple wine that was so heavy on his senses? Heavier was the
drowsy spell of the enchantress’ eyes. Eckhardt started up. His heart
ached with the memory of Ginevra, and a dull pang shot through his soul.
But the spell that was upon him was too heavy to be broken by human
effort. Nothing short of the thunder of Heaven could save him now.
Theodora’s words chimed in his ear, while her hands clasped his own with
their soft, electrifying touch. With a supreme effort he endeavoured to
shake off the spell, into whose ravishment he was being slowly but
surely drawn, his efforts at resistance growing more feeble and feeble
every moment.
Again the voice of the Siren sent its musical cadence through his brain
in the fateful question:
"Do you love me?"
Eckhardt attempted to draw back, but could not.
Entwining her body with his arms, he devoured her beauty with his eyes.
From the crowning masses of her dusky hair, over the curve of her white
shoulders and bosom, down to the blue-veined feet in the glistening
sandals, his gaze wandered hungrily, searchingly, passionately. His
heart beat with wild, mad desire, but, though his lips moved, no words
were audible.
She too, was silent, apparently watching the effect of her spell upon
him, sure of the ultimate fateful result. In reality she listened
intently, as if expecting some unwelcome intrusion, and once her dark
fear-struck eyes tried to penetrate the deep shadows of the grotto. She
had heard something stir,—and a mad fear had seized her heart.
Eckhardt, unconscious of the woman’s misgivings, gazed upon her as one
dazed. He felt, if he could but speak the one word, he would be saved
and yet—something warned him that, if that word escaped his lips, he
would be lost. Half recumbent on her couch, Theodora watched her victim
narrowly. A smile of delicate derision parted her lips, as she said:
"What ails you? Are you afraid of me? Can you not be happy, Eckhardt,"
she whispered into his brain, "happy as other men,—and loved?"
She bent toward him with arms outstretched. Closely she watched his
every gesture, endeavouring, in her great fear, to read his thoughts.
"I cannot," he replied with a moan, "alas—I cannot!"
"And why not?" the enchantress whispered, bending closer toward him.
She must make him her own, she must win the terrible wager; from out of
the gloom she felt two eyes burning upon her with devilish glee. She
preferred instant death to a life by the side of him she hated with all
the strength of a woman’s hate for the man who has lied to her, deceived
her, and ruined her life. Noting the fateful effect of her
blandishments upon him, she threw herself with a sudden movement against
Eckhardt’s breast, entwining him so tightly with her arms that she
seemed to draw the very breath from him. Her splendid dark eyes, ablaze
with passion, sank into his, her lips curved in a sweet, deadly smile.
Roused to the very height of delirium, Eckhardt wound his arms round
Theodora’s body. A dizziness had seized him. For a moment
Ginevra—past, present and future seemed forgotten. Closer and closer he
felt himself drawn towards the fateful abyss—slowly the enchantress was
drawing him onward,—until there would be no more resistance,—all flaming
delirium, and eternal damnation.
With one white arm she reached for the goblet, but ere her fingers
touched it, a shadowy hand, that seemed to come from nowhere and belong
to no visible body, changed the position of the drinking vessels.
Neither noted it. Theodora kissed the brim of the first goblet and
started to sip from its contents when a sudden pressure on her shoulder
caused her to look up. Her terror at what she saw was so great that it
choked her utterance. Two terrible eyes gazed upon her from a white,
passion-distorted face, which silently warned her not to drink. So great
was her terror, that she noticed not that Eckhardt had taken the goblet
from her outstretched hand, and putting it to his lips on the very place
where the sweetness of her mouth still lingered, drained it to the
dregs.
Wild-eyed with terror she stared at the man before her. A strange
sensation had come over him. His brain seemed to be on fire. His
resistance was vanquished. He could not have gone, had he wished to.
The night was still. The silence was rendered even more profound by the
rustling of the storm among the leaves.
Suddenly Eckhardt’s hand went to his head. He started to rise from his
kneeling position, staggered to his feet, then as if struck by lightning
he fell heavily against the mosaic of the floor.
With a wild shriek of terror, Theodora had risen to her feet—then she
sank back on the couch staring speechlessly at what was passing before
her. The gaunt form of a monk, clad in the habit of the hermits of
Mount Aventine, had rushed into the grotto, just as Eckhardt fell from
the effect of the drug. Lifting him up, as if he were a mere toy, the
monk rushed out into the open and disappeared with his burden, while
four eyes followed him in speechless dread and dismay.
*CHAPTER III*
*THE ELIXIR OF LOVE*
It was late on the following evening, when in the hermitage of Nilus of
Gaëta, Eckhardt woke from the death-like stupor which had bound his
limbs since the terrible scenes of the previous night. Thanks to the
antidotes applied by the friar as soon as he reached the open, the
deadly effect of the poison had been stemmed ere it had time to
penetrate Eckhardt’s system, but even despite this timely precaution,
the benumbing effect of the drug was not to be avoided, and during the
time when the stupor maintained its sway Nilus had not for a moment
abandoned the side of his patient. A burning thirst consumed him, as he
awoke. Raising himself on his elbows and vainly endeavouring to
reconcile his surroundings, the monk who was seated at the foot of his
roughly improvised bed rose and brought him some water. It was Nilus
himself, and only after convincing himself that the state of the
Margrave’s condition was such as to warrant his immediately satisfying
the flood of inquiries addressed to him, did the hermit go over the
events of the preceding night, starting from the point where Eckhardt
had lost consciousness and his own intervention had saved him.
Eckhardt’s hand went to his head which still felt heavy and ached. His
brain reeled at the account which Nilus gave him, and there was a
choking dryness in his throat when the friar accused Theodora of the
deed.
"For such as she the world was made. For such as she fools and slaves
abase themselves," the monk concluded his account. "Pray that your eyes
may never again behold her accursed face."
Eckhardt made no reply. What could he say in extenuation of his
presence in the groves? And by degrees, as consciousness and memory
returned, as he strained his reasoning faculties in the endeavour to
find some cause for the woman’s attempt to poison him, after having
mocked him with her fatal likeness to Ginevra—his most acute logic could
not reconcile her actions. For a moment he tried to persuade himself
that he was in a dream, and he strove in vain to wake from it. It was
amazing in what brief time and with what vividness all that could render
death terrible, and this death of all most terrible, rushed upon his
imagination. Despite the languor and inertness which still continued,
one terrible certainty rose before him. Far from having solved the
mystery, it had intensified itself to a degree that seemed to make any
further attempt at solution hopeless. During the twilight consciousness
of his senses numerous faces swam around him,—but of all these only one
had remained with him, Ginevra’s pale and beautiful countenance, her
sweet but terrible eyes. But the ever-recurring thought was
madness.—Ginevra was dead.
But the hours spent in the seclusion of the friar’s hermitage were not
entirely lost to Eckhardt. They ripened a preconceived and most
fantastic plan in his mind, which he no sooner remembered, than he began
to think seriously of its execution.
A second night spent in Nilus’s hermitage had sufficiently restored
Eckhardt’s vitality to enable him to leave it on the following morning.
After having taken leave of the monk, confessing himself his debtor for
life, the Margrave chose the road toward the Imperial palace, as his
absence was likely to give rise to strange rumours, which might retard
or prevent the task he had resolved to accomplish. He was in a state
bordering on nervous collapse, when he reached the gates of the palace,
where the Count Palatine, in attendance, ushered him into an ante-room
pending his admission to Otto’s presence. Eckhardt’s thoughts were
gloomy and his countenance forbidding as he entered, and he did not
notice the presence of Benilo, the Chamberlain. When the latter glanced
up from his occupation, his countenance turned to ashen hues and he
stared at the leader of the imperial hosts as one would at an apparition
from the beyond. The hands, which held a parchment, strangely
illuminated, shook so violently that he was compelled to place the
scroll on the table before him. Eckhardt had been so wrapt in his own
dark ruminations that he saw and heard nothing, thus giving Benilo an
opportunity to collect himself, though the stereotyped smile on the
Chamberlain’s lips gave the lie to his pretense of continuing interested
in the contents of the chart which lay on the table before him.
But Benilo’s restlessness, his eagerness to acquaint himself with the
purpose of Eckhardt’s visit, did not permit him to continue the task in
which the general’s entrance had found him engaged. The Chamberlain
seemed undaunted by Eckhardt’s apparent preoccupation of mind.
"We have just achieved a signal victory," he addressed the Margrave
after a warm greeting, which was to veil his misgivings, while his
unsteady gaze roamed from the parchment on the table to Eckhardt’s
clouded brow. "The Byzantine ceremonial will be henceforth observed at
the Imperial court."
"What shall it all lead to?" replied Eckhardt wearily.
"To the fulfilment of the emperor’s dream," Benilo replied with his
blandest smile, "his dream of the ten-fold crown of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus."
"I thought the Saxon crown weighed heavily enough."
"That is because your crown is material," Benilo deigned to expound,
"not the symbolic crown of the East, which embodies all the virtues of
the gold and iron. It was a stupendous task which confronted us—but
together we have solved the problem. In the Graphia, after much vain
research and study, and in the ’Origines’ of Isidor, we found that which
shall henceforth constitute the emblem of the Holy Roman Empire; not the
Iron Crown of Lombardy, nor the Silver Crown of Aix-la-Chapelle, nor the
Golden Crown of Rome—but all three combined with the seven of the East."
"Ten crowns?" exclaimed Eckhardt aghast. "On the emperor’s frail brow?"
"Nay," spoke Benilo, with the same studied smile upon his lips, while he
relinquished not for a moment the basilisk gaze with which he followed
every movement of the Margrave. "Nay! They oppress not the brow of the
anointed. The Seven Crowns of the East are: The crown of Ivy, the crown
of the Olive, the crown of Poplar Branches and Oak, the crown of
Laurels, the Mitra of Janus, the crown of the Feathers of the Pea-fowl,
and last of all the crown set with diamonds, which Diocletian borrowed
from the King of the Persians and whereon appeared the inscription:
’Roma Caput Mundi Regit Orbis Frena Rotundi.’"
Eckhardt listened half dazed to this exhibition of antiquarian learning
on the part of the Chamberlain. What were these trifles to avail the
King in establishing order in the discordant chaos of the Roman world?
But Benilo was either in excellent spirits over the result of his
antiquarian researches which had made him well nigh indispensable to
Otto, and into which he condescended to initiate so unlettered an
individual as Eckhardt; or he tormented the latter with details which he
knew wearied the great leader, to keep his mind from dwelling on
dangerous matters. Thus continuing his information on these lines with a
suave air of superiority, he cited the treatise of Pigonius concerning
the various modes of triumph and other antiquated splendours as
enumerated in the Codex, until Eckhardt’s head swam with meaningless
titles and newly created offices. Even an admiral had been appointed:
Gregory of Tusculum. In truth, he had no fleet to command, because
there existed no fleet, but the want had been anticipated. Then there
were many important offices to be filled, with names long as the ancient
triumphal course; and would not the Romans feel flattered by these
changes? Would they not willingly console themselves with the loss of
their municipal liberties, knowing that Hungary, and Poland, Spain and
Germany were to be Roman provinces as of old?
Eckhardt saw through it all.
Knowing Otto’s fantastic turn of mind, Benilo was guiding him slowly but
surely away from life, into the wilderness of a decayed civilization,
whose luring magic was absorbing his vital strength. Else why this
effort to rear an edifice which must crumble under its own weight, once
the architect was removed from this hectic sphere?
With the reckless enthusiasm of his character the imperial youth had
plunged into the deep ocean of learning, to whose shores his studies
with Benilo conducted him. The animated pictures which the ponderous
tomes presented, into whose dust and must he delved, the dramatic
splendour of the narrative in which the glowing fancies of the
chroniclers had clothed the stirring events of the times, deeply
impressed his susceptible mind, just as the chords of Æolian harps are
mute till the chance breeze passes which wakes them into passionate
music. Gerbert, now Sylvester II, had no wish to stifle nor even to
stem this natural sensibility, but rather to divert its energies into
its proper channels, for he was too deeply versed in human science not
to know that even the eloquence of religion is cold and powerless,
unless kindled by those fixed emotions and sparkling thoughts which only
poetical enthusiasm can strike out of the hard flint of logic.
But now the activity of Otto’s genius, lacking the proper channels,
vented its wild profusion in inert speculation and dreamy reverie.
Indistinct longings ventured out on that shimmering restless sea of love
and glory, which his imagination painted in the world, a vague yearning
for the mysterious which was hinted at in that mediæval lore.
All things were possible in those legends. No scent of autumn haunted
the deep verdure of those forests, even the harsh immutable laws of
nature seemed to yield to their magic. Death and Despair and Sorrow
were but fore-shadowed angels, not the black fiends of Northern imagery.
Their heroes and heroines died, but reclining on beds of violets, the
songs of nightingales sweetly warbling them to rest.
And the son of the Greek princess resented fiercely any intrusion in to
his paradise. It was a thankless task to recall him to the hour and to
reality.
The appearance of a page, who summoned Eckhardt into Otto’s presence,
put an end to Benilo’s effusive archæology, and as the Margrave
disappeared in the emperor’s cabinet, Benilo wondered how much he knew.
What transpired during his protracted audience remained for the present
the secret of those two. But when Eckhardt left the palace, his brow
was even more clouded than before. While his conference with Otto had
not been instrumental in dissipating the dread misgivings which tortured
his mind, he had found himself face to face with the revelation that a
fraud had been perpetrated upon him. For Otto disclaimed all knowledge
of signing any order which relieved Eckhardt of his command, flatly
declaring it a forgery. While its purpose was easy to divine, the
question remained whose interest justified his venturing so desperate a
chance? Eckhardt parted from his sovereign with the latter’s full
approval of the course his leader intended to pursue, and so far from
granting him the dispensation once desired, Otto did not hesitate to
pronounce the vision which had interposed at the fatal moment between
Eckhardt and the fulfilment of his desire, a divine interposition.
Slowly the day drew to a close. The eve of the great festival
approached.
When darkness finally fell over the Capitoline hill, the old palace of
the Cæsars seemed to waken to a new life. In the great reception hall a
gorgeous spectacle awaited the guests. The richly dressed crowds buzzed
like a swarm of bees. Their attires were iridescent, gorgeous in
fashions borrowed from many lands. The invasion of foreigners and the
enslavement of Italy could be read in the garbs of the Romans. The
robes of the women, fashioned after the supreme style of Constantinople,
hanging in heavy folds, stiff with gold and jewels, suggested rather
ecclesiastical vestments. The hair was confined in nets of gold.
Stephania, the consort of the Senator of Rome, was by common accord the
queen of the festival which this night was to usher in. Attracting, as
she did on every turn, the eyes of heedless admirers, her triumphant
beauty seemed to have chosen a fit device in the garb which adorned her,
some filmy gossamer web of India, embroidered with moths burning their
wings in flame.
Whether or no she was conscious of the lavish admiration of the Romans,
her eyes, lustrous under the dark tresses, were clear and cold; her
smile calm, her voice, as she greeted the arriving guests, melodious and
thrilling like the tones of a harp. Amid the noise and buzz, she seemed
a being apart, alien, solitary, like a water lily on some silent
moon-lit pool. At last a loud fanfare of trumpets and horns announced
the arrival of the German king. Attended by his suite the son of
Theophano, whose spiritualized beauty he seemed to have inherited,
received the homage of the Senator of Rome, the Cavalli, Caetani,
Massimi and Stephaneschi. Stephania was standing apart in a more remote
part of the hall, surrounded by women of the Roman nobility. Her face
flushed and paled alternately as she became aware of the commotion at
the entrance. The airy draperies of summer, which revealed rather than
concealed her divine beauty, gave her the appearance of a Circe,
conquering every heart at sight.
As she slowly advanced toward the imperial circle, with the three
appropriate reverences in use, the serene composure of her countenance
made it seem as if she had herself been born in purple. But as Otto’s
gaze fell upon the consort of the Senator of Rome, he suddenly paused, a
deep pallor chasing the flush of joy from the beardless face. Was she
not the woman he had met at the gates of the confessional? A great pain
seized his heart as the thought came to him, that she of whom he had
dreamed ever since that day, she in whose love he had pictured to
himself a heaven, was the consort of another. Before him stood
Stephania, the wife of his former foe, the wife of the Senator of Rome.
And as he gazed into her large limpid eyes, at the exquisite contour of
her head, at the small crimson lips, the clear-cut beauty of the face,
of the tint of richest Carrara marble, Otto trembled. Unable to speak a
word, fearful lest he might betray his emotions, he seized the white,
firm hand which she extended to him with a bewitching smile.
"So we are to behold the King’s majesty, at last," she said with a voice
whose very accent thrilled him through and through. "I thought you were
never going to do us that honour,—master of Rome, and master—of Rome’s
mistress."
Her speech, as she bent slightly toward him, whispering rather than
speaking the last words, filled Otto’s soul with intoxication. Stunned
by the manner of his reception, her mysterious words still ringing in
his ears, Otto muttered a reply, intelligible to none but herself,
nerving his whole nature to remain calm, though his heart beat so loudly
that he thought all present must hear its wild throbs even through his
imperial vestments.
As slowly, reluctantly he retreated from her presence, to greet the rest
of the assembled guests, Otto marked not the meaning-fraught exchange of
glances between the Senator of Rome and his wife. The smiles of the
beautiful women around him were as full of warning as the scowls of a
Roman mob. Once or twice Otto gazed as if by chance in the direction of
Stephania. Each time their eyes met. Truly, if the hatred of
Crescentius was a menace to his life, the favour of Stephania seemed to
summon him to dizzy, perilous heights.
At last the banquet was served, the company seated and amidst soft
strains of music, the festival took its course. Otto now had an
opportunity to study in detail the galaxy of profligate courtiers and
beauties, which shed their glare over the sunset of Crescentius’s reign.
But so absorbed was he in the beauty of Stephania, that, though he
attempted to withdraw his eyes, lest their prolonged gaze should attract
observation, still they ever returned with increased and devouring
eagerness to feast upon her incomparable beauty, while with a strange
agony of mingled jealousy and anger he noted the court paid to the
beautiful wife of Crescentius by the Roman barons, chief among them
Benilo. It seemed, as if the latter wanted to urge the king to some
open and indiscreet demonstration by the fire of his own admiration,
and, dear as he was to his heart, Otto heaved a sigh of relief at the
thought that he had guarded his secret, which if revealed, would place
him beyond redemption in the power of his enemy, the Senator.
Stephania herself seemed for the nonce too much absorbed in her own
amusements to notice the emotions she had evoked in the young king of
the Germans. But when she chanced to turn her smiling eyes from the
Senator, her husband, she suddenly met the ardent gaze of Otto riveted
upon her with burning intensity. The smile died on her lips and for a
moment the colour faded from her cheeks. Otto flushed a deep crimson
and played in affected indifference with the tassels of his sword, and
for some moments they seemed to take no further heed of each other.
What happened at the banquet, what was spoken and the speakers, to Otto
it was one whirling chaos. He saw nothing; he heard nothing. The gaze
of Stephania, the wife of Crescentius, had cast its spell over him and
there was but one thought in his mind,—but one dream in his heart.
At the request of some one, some of the guests changed their seats.
Otto noted it not. Peals of laughter reverberated through the high
arched Sala; some one recited an ode on the past greatness of Rome,
followed by loud applause; to Otto it was a meaningless sound. Suddenly
he heard his own name from lips whose tones caused him to start, as if
electrified.
Stephania sat by his side. Crescentius seemed conversing eagerly with
some of the barons. Raising her arm, white as fallen snow, she poured a
fine crimson wine into a goblet, until it swelled to the golden brim.
There was a simultaneous bustle of pages and attendants, offering fruits
and wine to the guests, and Otto mechanically took some grapes from a
salver which was presented to him, but never for a moment averted his
gaze from Stephania, until she lifted the goblet to her lips.
"To thee!" she whispered with a swift glance at Otto, which went to his
heart’s core. She sipped from the goblet, then, bending to him, held it
herself to his lips. His trembling hands for a moment covered her own
and he drank strangely deep of the crimson wine, which made his senses
reel, and in the trance in which their eyes met, neither noticed the
sphinx-like expression on the face of Benilo, the Grand Chamberlain.
But if the wine, of which Otto had partaken with Stephania, was not in
reality compounded of magic ingredients, the most potent love philtre
could scarcely have been more efficacious. For the first time it seemed
as if he had yielded up his whole soul and being to the fascination of
marvellous beauty, and with such loveliness exhausting upon him all its
treasures of infinite charm, wit and tenderness, stirred by every motive
of triumph and rivalry,—even if a deceptive apology had not worked in
his own mind, it would scarcely have been possible to resist the spell.
The banquet passed off in great splendour, enlivened by the most
glittering and unscrupulous wit. Thousands of lamps shed their
effulgence on the scene, revealing toward the end a fantastic pageant,
descending the grand stair-case to some equally strange and fantastic
music. It was a procession of the ancient deities; but so great was the
illiterate state of mind among the Romans of that period, that the ideas
they represented of the olden time were hopelessly perplexed and an
antiquarian, had there been one present, would have thrown up his hands
in despair at the incongruous attire of the pagan divinities who had
invaded the most Christian city. During this procession Otto’s eyes for
the third time sought those of Stephania. She seemed to feel it, for
she turned and her lips responded with a smile.
The night passed like some fantastic dream, conjured up from fairy land.
And Otto carried his dreaming heart back to the lonely palace on the
Aventine.
*CHAPTER IV*
*THE SECRET OF THE TOMB*
While the revelling on the Capitoline hill was at its height, Eckhardt
had approached Benilo and drawing him aside, engaged him in lengthy
conversation. The Chamberlain’s countenance had lost its studied calm
and betrayed an amazement which vainly endeavoured to vent itself in
adequate utterance. He appeared to offer a strenuous opposition to
Eckhardt’s request, an opposition which yielded only when every argument
seemed to have failed. At last they had parted, Eckhardt passing
unobserved to a terrace and gaining a path that led through an orange
grove behind the Vatican gardens. A few steps brought him to a gate,
which opened on a narrow vicolo. Here he paused and clapped his hands
softly together. The signal was repeated from the other side and
Eckhardt thereupon lifted the heavy iron latch, which fastened the gate
on the inner side and, passing out, carefully closed it behind him. Here
he was joined by another personage wrapt in a long, dark cloak, and
together they proceeded through a maze of dark, narrow and unfrequented
alleys. Lane after lane they traversed, all unpaved and muddy. Another
ten minutes’ walk between lightless houses, whose doors and windows were
for the most part closed and barred, and they reached an old time-worn
dwelling with a low unsightly doorway. It was secured by strong
fastenings of bolts and bars, as though its tenant had sufficient
motives for affecting privacy and retirement. The very nature of his
calling would however have secured him from intrusion either by day or
by night, from any one not immediately in need of his services. For
here lived Il Gobbo, the grave digger, a busy personage in the Rome of
those days. Eckhardt and his companion exchanged a swift glance as they
approached the uncanny dwelling; eyeless, hoary with vegetation, rooted
here and there, the front of the house gave no welcome. Eckhardt
whispered a question to his companion, which was answered in the
affirmative. Then he bade him knock. After a wait of brief duration,
the summons was answered by a low cough within. Shuffling footsteps
were heard, then the unbarring of a door, followed by the creaking of
hinges, and the low bent figure of an old man appeared. Il Gobbo, the
grave digger wore a loose gray tunic, which reached to his knees. What
was visible of his countenance was cadaverous and ashen gray, as that of
a corpse. His small rat-like eyes, whose restless vigilance argued some
deficiency or warping of the brain, a tendency, however remote, to
insanity, scrutinized the stranger with marked suspicion, while a long
nose, curving downward over a projecting upper lip, which seemed in
perpetual tremor, imbued his countenance with something strangely
Mephistophelian.
In a very few words Eckhardt’s companion requested the grave digger to
make ready and follow them, and that worthy, seeing nothing strange in a
summons of this sort, complied at once, took pick and spade, and after
having locked and barred his habitation, asked his solicitor to which
burial grounds he was to accompany them.
"To San Pancrazio," was Eckhardt’s curt reply. The silence had become
almost insufferable to him, and something in the manner of his speech
caused the grave digger to bestow on him a swift glance. Then he
preceded them in silence on the well-known way.
It was a wonderful night.
There was not a breath of air to stir the dying leaves of the trees.
The clouds, which had risen at sunset in the West, had vanished, leaving
the sky unobscured, arching deep blue over the yellow moon.
As they approached the Ripetta, the grave digger suddenly paused and,
facing the Margrave and his companion, inquired where the corpse was
awaiting them.
A strange, jarring laugh broke from Eckhardt’s lips.
"Never fear, my honest friend! It is a very well conditioned corpse,
that will play us no pranks and run away. Corpses do sometimes—so I
have been told. What think you, honest Il Gobbo?"
The grave digger bestowed a glance upon his interlocutor, which left
little doubt as to what he thought of his patron’s sanity, then he
crossed himself and hastened onward. The Tiber lay now on their left,
and an occasional flash revealed the turbid waves rolling down toward
the sea in the moonlight. Eckhardt and his companion exchanged not a
word, as silently they strode behind their uncanny guide. On their left
hand now appeared the baths of Caracalla, their external magnificence
slowly crumbling to decay, waterless and desolate. Towering on their
right rose the Caelian hill in the moonlight, covered with ruins and
neglected gardens. The rays of the higher rising moon fell through the
great arches of the Neronian Aqueduct and near by were the round church
of St. Stephen and a cloister dedicated to St. Erasmus. As they
proceeded over the narrow grass-grown road, the silence which
encompassed them was as intense as among the Appian sepulchres. At the
gate of San Sebastiano, all traces of the road vanished. A winding path
conducted them through a narrow valley, the silence of which was only
broken by the occasional hoot of an owl, or the flitting across their
path of a bat, which like an evil thought, seemed afraid of its own
shadow. Then they passed the ancient church of Santa Ursula, which for
many years formed the center of a churchyard. The path became more
sterile and desolate with every step, only a few dwarfish shrubs
breaking the monotony, to make it appear even more like a wilderness,
until they came upon a ruined wall, and following its course for some
distance, reached a heavy iron gate. It gave a dismal, creaking sound as
Il Gobbo pushed it open and entered the churchyard of San Pancrazio in
advance of his companions.
Pausing ere he continued upon a way as yet unknown to him, he again
turned questioningly toward his mysterious summoners, for as far as his
eye could reach in the bright moonlight, he could discover no trace of a
funeral cortege or ever so small number of mourners. Instead of
satisfying Il Gobbo’s curiosity, Eckhardt briefly ordered him to follow
him, and the grave digger, shaking his head with grave doubt, followed
the mysterious stranger, who seemed so familiar with this abode of
Death. They traversed the churchyard at a rapid pace, until they
reached a mortuary chapel situated in a remote region. Here Eckhardt
and his companion paused, and the former, turning about and facing Il
Gobbo, pointed to a grave in the shadows of the chapel.
"Know you this grave?" the Margrave accosted the grave digger, pointing
to the grass-plot at his feet.
The grave digger seemed to grope through the depths of his memory; then
he bent low as if to decipher the inscription on the stone, but this
effort was in so far superfluous, as he could not read.
"Here lies one Ginevra,—the wife of the German Commander—"
He paused, again searching his memory, but this time in vain.
"Eckhardt," supplied the Margrave himself.
"Eckhardt—Eckhardt," the grave digger echoed, crossing himself at the
sound of the dreaded name.
"Open the grave!" Eckhardt broke into Il Gobbo’s babbling, who had been
wondering to what purpose he had been brought here.
Il Gobbo stared up at the speaker as if he mistrusted his hearing, but
made no reply.
"Open the grave!" Eckhardt repeated, leaning upon his sword.
Il Gobbo shook his head. No doubt the man was mad; else why should he
prefer the strange request? He looked questioningly at Eckhardt’s
companion, as if expecting the latter to interfere. But he moved not.
A strange fear began to creep over the grave digger.
"Here is a purse of gold, enough to dispel the qualms of your
conscience," Eckhardt spoke with terrible firmness in his tones,
offering Il Gobbo a leather purse of no mean size. But the latter
pushed it back with abhorrence.
"I cannot—I dare not. Who are you to prefer this strange request?"
"I am Eckhardt, the general! Open the grave!"
Il Gobbo cringed as though he had been struck a blow from some invisible
hand.
"I dare not—I dare not," he whined, deprecating the proffered gift.
"The sin would be visited upon my head.—It is written: Disturb not the
dead."
A terrible look passed into Eckhardt’s face.
"Is this purse not heavy enough? I will add another."
"It is not that—it is not that," Il Gobbo replied, almost weeping with
terror. "I dread the vengeance of the dead! They will not permit the
sacrilege to pass unpunished."
"Then let the punishment fall on my head!" replied Eckhardt with
terrible voice. "Take your spade, old man, for by the Almighty God who
looks down upon us, you will not leave this place alive, unless you do
as you are told."
The old grave digger trembled in every limb. Helplessly he gazed about;
imploringly he looked up into the face of Eckhardt’s immobile companion,
but he read nothing in the eyes of these two, save unrelenting
determination. Instinctively he knew that no argument would avail to
deter them from their mad purpose.
Eckhardt watched the old man closely.
"You dug this grave yourself, three years ago," he then spoke in a tone
strangely mingled of despair and irony. "It is a poor grave digger who
permits his dead to leave their cold and narrow berth and go forth among
the living in the form they bore on earth! It has been whispered to
me," he continued with a terrible laugh, "that some of your graves are
shallow. I would fain be convinced with my own eyes, just to be able to
give your calumniators the lie! Therefore, good Il Gobbo, take up your
spade with all speed, and imagine, as you perform your task, that you
are not opening this grave to disturb the repose of her who sleeps
beneath the sod, but preparing a reception to one still in the flesh!
Proceed!"
The last word was spoken with such menace that the grave digger
reluctantly complied, and taking up the spade, which he had dropped, he
pushed it slowly into the sod. Leaning silently on his sword, his face
the pallor of death, Eckhardt and his companion watched the progress of
the terrible work, watched one shovel of earth after the other fly up,
piling up by the side of the grave; watched the oblong opening grow
deeper and deeper, till after a breathless pause of some duration the
spade of the grave digger was heard to strike the top of the coffin.
Il Gobbo, who all but his head stood now in the grave, looked up
imploringly to Eckhardt, hoping that at the last moment he would desist
from the terrible sacrilege he was about to commit. But when he read
only implacable determination in the commander’s face, he again turned
to his task and continued to throw up the earth until the coffin stood
free and unimpeded in its narrow berth.
"I cannot raise it up," the old man whined. "It is too heavy."
"We will assist you! Out it shall come if all the devils in hell clung
to it from beneath. Bring your ropes and bring them quickly! Hear
you?" thundered Eckhardt in a frenzy. His self-enforced calm was fast
giving way before the terrible ordeal he was passing through.
"Would it not be safer to go down and open the lid?" questioned
Eckhardt’s companion, for the first time breaking the silence.
"There is not room enough,—unless the berth is widened," Eckhardt
replied. Then he turned to Il Gobbo, who was slowly scrambling out of
the grave.
"Widen the berth—we will come down to you!"
The grave digger returned to his task; then after a time, which seemed
eternity to those waiting above, his head again appeared in the opening.
One shovel of earth after another flew up at the feet of Eckhardt and
his companion. Again and again they heard the spade strike against the
coffin, till at last something like a groan out of the gloom below
informed them that the task had been accomplished.
"Have you any tools?" Eckhardt shouted to Il Gobbo.
"None to serve that end," stammered the grave digger.
"Then take your spade and prise the lid open!" cried Eckhardt. He was
trembling like an aspen, and his breath came hard through his
half-closed lips. The expression of his face and his demeanour were
such as to vanquish the last scruples of Il Gobbo, who belaboured the
coffin with much good will, which was mocked by the result, for it
seemed to have been hermetically sealed.
After waiting some time in deadly, harrowing suspense, Eckhardt
addressed his companion.
"I hate to abase my good sword for such a purpose,—but the coffin shall
be opened." And without warning he bounded down into the grave, while
Il Gobbo, thinking his last moment at hand, had dropped pick and spade,
and stood, more dead than alive, at the foot of the grave.
Picking up the grave digger’s spade, Eckhardt dealt the coffin such a
terrific blow that he splintered its top to atoms. A second blow
completely severed the lid, and it lurched heavily to one side, lodging
between the coffin and the earth wall.
The ensuing silence was intense.
The moon, which had risen high in the heavens, illumined with her beams
the chasm in which Eckhardt stood, bending over the coffin. What his
eyes beheld was too terrible for words to express. Only one tress of
dark silken hair had escaped the dread havoc of death, which the open
coffin revealed. It was a sight such as would cause the blood to freeze
in the veins of the bravest. It was the visible execution of the
judgment pronounced in the garden of Eden: "Dust thou art, and to dust
thou shall return."
Only one dark silken tress of all that splendour of body and youth!
Eckhardt leaped from the grave and stood aside, leaving it for his
companion to give his final instructions to Il Gobbo, the grave digger,
and the reward for his night’s labour.
As they strode from the churchyard of San Pancrazio, neither spoke. The
havoc of death, which Eckhardt’s eyes had beheld, the contrast between
the image of Ginevra, such as it lived in his memory, and the sight
which had met his eyes, had re-opened every wound in his heart. No beam
of hope, no thought of heavenly mercy, penetrated the night of his soul.
His heart seemed steel-cased and completely walled up. He could not
even shed a tear. One hour had worked a dreadful transformation.
Silently the Margrave and his companion left the churchyard. Silently
they turned toward the city. At the base of Aventine, Benilo parted
from Eckhardt, himself more dead than alive, promising to see him on the
following day. He dared not trust himself even to ask Eckhardt what he
had seen. There would be time enough when his terrible frenzy had
subsided.
As Eckhardt continued upon his way, he grew more calm. The feast of
Death, which he had dared to break into, while for a time completely
stupefying him with its horrors, seemed at least to have brought proof
positive, that whoever Ginevra’s double, it was not Ginevra returned to
earth. There was much in that thought to comfort his soul, and after
the fresh air of night had cooled his fevered brow, saner reflections
began to gain sway over his whirling brain.
But they did not endure. What he had seen proved nothing. Another body
might have been substituted in the coffin. The supposition was
monstrous indeed—yet even the wildest surmises seemed justified when
thrown in the scales against the fatal likeness of the woman who had
drawn him from the altars of Christ, had frustrated his design to become
a monk, and had, as he believed, attempted his life. Could he but find
the monk who had conducted the last rites! He had searched for him in
every cloister and sanctuary in Rome, yet all those of whom he inquired
disclaimed all knowledge of his abode. Several times the thought had
recurred to Eckhardt of returning to the Groves, to seek a second
interview with the woman, and thus for ever to silence his doubts. But
a strange dread had assailed and restrained him from the execution.
There was something in the woman’s eyes he had never seen in Ginevra’s,
and he felt that he would inevitably succumb, should he ever again stand
face to face with her. He almost wished that he had followed Benilo’s
advice,—that he had refrained from an act prompted by frenzy and
despair. Vain regrets! He must find the monk, if he was still in Rome.
Though everything and everybody seemed to have conspired against him
nothing should bend him from his course.
*CHAPTER V*
*THE GROTTOS OF EGERIA*
For the following day the Senator of Rome had arranged a Festival of
Pan, and the place appointed for the divertissement was one which the
Seneschal of the Decameron might have chosen as fit for the reception of
his luxurious masters, where every object was in harmony with the
delicious and charmed existence which they had devised in defiance of
Death. Arcades of vines, bright with the gold and russet foliage of
autumn, ascended in winding terraces to a height, on which they
converged, forming a spacious canopy over an expanse of brightest
emerald turf, inlaid with a mosaic of flowers. In the centre there was
a fountain, which sent its spray to a great height in the clear air,
refreshing soul and body with the harmony of its waters. Between the
interstices of the vines, magnificent views of the whole surrounding
country were offered to the eye, to which feature perhaps, or to the
effect of a dazzling variety of late roses, which grew among the vines,
and the lofty cypresses which made the elevation a conspicuous object in
every direction, it owes its present designation of Belvedere.
Stephania’s spell had worked powerfully on its intended victim.
Surrounded by everything which could kindle the fires of Love and
stimulate the imagination, exposed to the influence of her marvellous
beauty and the infinite charm of her individuality, Otto was devoured by
a passion, which hourly increased, despite the struggle which he put
forth to resist it. Stephania’s absence had taught him how necessary
she had become to his existence, and although he was well informed that
she rarely quitted Castel San Angelo, he was yet tortured by the wildest
fancies, entirely oblivious that he had given all his youth, his love,
his heart to a beautiful phantom,—the wife of another, who could never
be his own. And though he endeavoured to reason with his madness,
though he questioned himself where it would lead to, in what strange
manner he had absorbed the poison which rioted in his system, it was of
no avail. The dictates of Fate vanquish the paltry laws of mortals.
This love had come to him unbidden—uncalled. Why must the soul remain
for ever isolated when the unbounded feast of beauty was spread to all
the senses? And was it not too late to retreat? It was the last trump
of the tempter.
He won.
As he approached the Minotaurus, Otto’s hope brightened with the tints
of the rainbow. For the first time since his return from Monte Gargano
he had discarded his usual cumbrous habiliments, and though his garb was
still that prescribed by the court ceremonial, it added much to display
his princely person to advantage. Confiding much more in the secrecy of
his movements than in the protection of his attendants, Otto had left
the palace on the Aventine unobserved and arrived in the vale of Egeria
with a whirl of passion and a rush of recollections, which not only took
from him all power, but every wish of resistance,—a far more dangerous
symptom.
Stephania’s duenna was in waiting and informed him that the latter had
dismissed her ladies to amuse themselves at their pleasure in the
gardens, while Stephania herself was wreathing a garland for the evening
in the Egerian Grotto, which formed the centre of the fantastic
labyrinth called the Minotaurus, from an antique statue of the monster
which adorned it. Slipping a ring of great value on the old dame’s
finger, as a testimony, he said, of his gratitude, for watching over her
mistress, Otto hastened onward. His heart beat so heavily when he came
within view of the rose-matted arches leading to the ancient grotto,
that he was obliged to pause to recover his breath. At that moment a
voice fell upon his ear, but it was not the voice of Stephania, and with
a feeling almost of suffocation in the intensity of his passion, Otto
drew aside the foliage to ascertain whether or not his senses had belied
him.
The figure of the Minotaurus was cast in bronze, a monstrous bull,
crouched, head to the ground, on the marble pavement of the temple.
Passing the statue, Otto made for the grotto indicated by his guide,
and, raising the tapestry of ivy, which concealed it, disappeared
within. Guided by the warm evening light to its entrance, he hesitated
as if apprehending some treachery. Then, with quick determination he
groped his way into the cavern, paused somewhat suddenly and looked
about.
It was deserted, but a faint glimmer lured him to the background, where
a fountain gleamed in the purple twilight.
"Rash mortal," said a voice, in tones that made his heart jump to his
throat, "I think you are now as near as devout worshippers are wont to
approach to my waves, though, as one of the initiated, the vestal nymphs
of these caves bid you very welcome."
"I have kept my faith," Otto replied, pausing before the veiled
apparition which sat on the rim of the fountain. "But your veil hides
you as effectually from my gaze as a mountain."
His agitation betrayed itself in his wavering tones.
"Are you afraid," she asked, noting his hesitancy, "lest I should prove
the fiend who tempted Cyprianus?"
"All fears redouble in the darkness. Let me see your face!"
"Why have you come here?"
"Why have you summoned me?"
"Perhaps to test your courage."
"I fear nothing!"
"One word of mine, one gesture,—and you are my prisoner."
Otto remained standing. His face was pale, but no trace of fear
appeared thereon.
"I trust you."
"I am a Roman,—and your enemy! I am the enemy of your people!"
"I trust you!"
"Suppose I had lured you hither to end for ever this unbearable state?"
"I trust you!"
Stephania’s eyes cowered beneath Otto’s gaze. Rising abruptly she
averted her head, but every trace of colour had left her face as she
raised the veil. Then she turned slowly and extended her hand. Otto
grasped it, pressing it to his lips in an ecstasy of joy, then he drew
her down to the seat she had abandoned, kneeling by her side.
For a moment she gazed at him thoughtfully.
"What do you want of me?" she then asked abruptly.
"I would have you be my friend," he stammered, idol-worship in his eyes.
"Is a woman’s friendship so rare a commodity, that you come to me?" she
replied, drawing her hand from him.
"I have never known woman’s love nor friendship,—and it is yours I
want."
Stephania drew a long breath. Truly,—it required no effort on her part
to lead him on. He made her task an easy one. Yet there rose in her
heart a spark of pity. The complete trust of this boy-king was to the
wife of Crescentius a novel sensation in the atmosphere of doubt and
suspicion in which she had grown up. It was almost a pity to shatter
the temple in which he had placed her as goddess.
The mood held sway but a moment, then with a cry of delirious gayety,
she wrote the word "Friendship" rapidly on the water.
"Look," she said, "scarcely a ripple remains! That is the end. Let us
but add another word, ’Farewell’—and let the trace it shall leave tell
when we shall meet again."
The words died on Otto’s lips. He could not fathom the lightning change
which had come over her. With mingled sadness and passion he gazed upon
the lovely face, so pale and cold.
"Let us not part thus," he stammered.
Stephania had risen abruptly, shaking herself free of his kneeling form.
"What is it all to lead to?" she questioned.
Otto rose slowly to his feet. Reeling as if stunned by a blow, he
staggered after her.
"Do not leave me thus," he begged with outstretched arms.
Stephania started away from him, as if in terror.
"Do not touch me,—as you are a man—"
Otto’s hand went to his head. Was he waking? Was he dreaming? Was
this the same woman who had but a moment ago—
He had not time to think out the thought.
He felt his neck encircled by an airy form and arms, and lips whose
sweetness made his senses reel were breathlessly pressed upon his own.
But for an evanescent instant the sensation endured.
A voice whispered low: "Otto!"
When he tried to embrace the mocking phantom he grasped the empty air.
He rushed madly forward, but at this instant there arose a wild uproar
and clamour around him. The silver moon on the fountain burst into a
blaze of whirling light, which illumined the whole grotto. The shrill
summons of a bell was to be heard as from the depths of the fountain,
and suddenly the verdant precincts were crowded with a most
extraordinary company, shouting, hooting, laughing, yelling, and waving
torches. Satyrs, nymphs, fauns, and all varieties of sylvan deities
poured out of every nook and cranny by which there was an entrance, all
shrieking execration on the profaner of the sacred solitudes and
brandishing sundry weapons appropriate to their qualities. The satyrs
wielded their crooked staves, the fauns their stiff pine-wreaths, the
nymphs their branches of oak, and a loud clamour arose. But by far the
most formidable personages were a number of shepherds with huge
boar-spears, who made their appearance on every side.
"Pan! Pan!" shouted a hundred voices. "Come and judge the mortal who
has dared to profane thy solitudes. Echo—where is Pan?"
Distant and faint the cry came back:
"Pan! Where is Pan?"
For a moment Otto stood rooted to the spot, believing himself in all
truth surrounded by the rural gods of antiquity. He stared at the scene
before him as on some strange sorcery. But suddenly a suspicion rushed
upon him that he was betrayed, either to be made the jest of a company
of carnival’s revellers, or, perhaps, the object of vengeance of the
Senator of Rome.
Gazing round with a quick fear in his heart, at finding himself thus
completely surrounded, and meditating whether to attempt a forcible
escape, he was startled by the shrill shriek of sylvan pipes and
attended by a riotous company of satyrs, Pan on his goat-legs hobbled
into the grotto, the satyrs playing a wild march on their oaken reeds.
"Silence! Where is the guilty nymph who has lured the mortal hither?"
shouted the sylvan god.
"Egeria! Egeria!" resounded numerous accusing voices.
"At thine old tricks again luring wisdom whither it should least come?"
questioned Pan, severely. "Yes, hide thyself in thy blushing waves!
But the mortal,—where is he?"
"Here! Here!" exclaimed the nymphs with one voice. "Had it been old
Silenus or one of his satyrs,—we had not wondered."
"The King! the King!" resounded on all sides amidst a general outburst
of laughter.
Otto became more and more convinced that the scene had been enacted to
mock him, and though he did not understand the drift of their purpose,
at which Stephania had doubtlessly connived, a cold hand seemed to
clutch his heart.
"In very truth, you have the laughing side of the jest," he turned to
the Sylvan god. "But if you will confront me with the nymph, I will
prove that at least we ought to share in equal punishment," Otto
concluded his defence, endeavouring to make the best of his dangerous
position.
"This shall not be!" exclaimed a nymph near by. "Bring him along and
our queen shall judge him."
Ere Otto could give vent to remonstrance, he found himself hemmed in by
the shepherds with their spears. His doubts as to the ultimate purpose
of the revellers seemed now to call for some imperative decision, but
while he remembered the dismal legends of these haunts, his lips still
tingled with the magic fire of Stephania’s kiss and it seemed impossible
to him that she could really mean to harm him. Still he had grave
misgivings, when suddenly a mocking voice saluted him and into the cave
strode Johannes Crescentius, Senator of Rome,—apparently from the valley
without, a smiling look of welcome on his face.
"Fear nothing, King Otto," he said jovially. "Your sentence shall not
be too severe. Your forfeit shall be light, if you will but discover
and point out to us the nymph who usurped the part of Egeria, that we
may further address ourselves to her for her reprehensible conduct."
The feelings with which Otto listened to this beguiling and perhaps
perfidious statement may be imagined. But he replied with great
presence of mind.
"It were a vain effort indeed to recognize one nymph from another in the
gloom. Lead on then, since it is the Senator of Rome who guarantees my
immunity from the fate of Orpheus."
Marching like a prisoner of war and surrounded by the shepherd spearmen,
Otto affected to enter into the spirit of the jest and suffered himself
quietly to be bound with chains of ivy which the least effort could snap
asunder. The moment he stepped forth from the grotto his path was beset
by a multitude of the most extraordinary phantoms. The surrounding
woods teemed with the wildest excrescences of pagan worship; statues
took life; every tree yielded its sleeping Dryad; strange melodies
resounded in every direction; Nayades rose in the stream and laughingly
showered their spray upon him. With a cheerful hunting blast Diana and
her huntresses appeared on an overhanging rock and darted blunt arrows
with gilded heads at him, until he arrived at an avenue of lofty elms,
whose overarching branches, filigreed by the crimson after-glow of
departing day, resembled the interior of a Gothic cathedral and formed a
natural hall of audience fit for the rural divinities. Bosquets of
orange trees, whose ivory tinted blossoms gleamed like huge pearls out
of the dark green of the foliage, wafted an inexpressibly sweet perfume
on the air.
The vista terminated in an open, semi-circular court, surrounded by
terraces of richest emerald hue, in the midst of which rose an
improvised throne. The rising moon shone upon it with a light, like
that of a rayless sun, and Otto discovered that the terraces were
thronged with a splendid court, assembled round a woman who occupied the
throne.
As the prisoner approached, environed by his grotesque captors, laughter
as inextinguishable as that which shook the ancient gods of Olympus on a
similar occasion, resounded among the occupants of the terrace.
Continuing his forced advance, Otto discovered with a strange beating of
the heart in the splendidly attired queen, Stephania, the wife of
Crescentius.
A bodice of silver-tissue confined her matchless form, which with every
heave of her bosom threw iridescent gleams, and a diadem which shone as
with stars, so bright were its jewels, flashed upon her brow.
She looked a queen indeed, and but for the ivory pallor of her face it
would have been impossible to guess that she was in any way concerned
with the object of the strange pageant, which now approached her throne.
The sphinx-like countenance of the Senator of Rome seemed to evince no
very great enthusiasm in the frolic; the invited guests appeared not to
know how to look, and took their cue from the Lord of Castel San Angelo.
When Otto was at last brought face to face with his fair judge, his own
pallor equalled that of Stephania, and both resembled rather two marble
statues than beings of flesh and blood. Stephania’s lips were tightly
compressed, and when Pan recited his accusation, complaining of an
attempt to profane his solitudes and to misguide one of his chastest
nymphs, so far from overwhelming the culprit with the laughing raillery
of which she was mistress and an outburst of which all seemed to expect,
Stephania was silent and kept her eyes fixed on the ground, as if she
feared to raise them and to meet Otto’s burning gaze.
"Answer, King of the Germans," urged Crescentius with a smile, "else you
are lost!"
"The charges are too vague," Otto replied. "Let Pan, if he has any
witness, of what has happened, allege particulars—and if he does—by his
crooked staff, even my accusers shall acquit me without denial on my
part."
General mutterings and suppressed laughter followed this singular
defence, during which Stephania’s countenance took all the pallid tints,
which the return of his consciousness and dignity had chased from Otto’s
cheeks.
But she did not think it wise to prolong the scene.
"Since the august offender," she said hastily and without lifting her
long silken lashes, "cannot discover among my retinue the nymph who
enticed him into the grotto, I pronounce this sentence upon him: ’Let
his ignorance be perpetual.’"
Then she invited him to a seat in the circle over which she presided and
her graciousness obviously caused Otto’s spirits to rise, for, starting
up, as it were, into new existence at the word, he took his station in a
manner which enabled him to see Stephania’s face and her glorious eyes.
At the beck of her hand there now approached a band of musicians and the
effect of their harmonies beneath the hushed and now star-resplendent
skies was inexpressibly delicious. The dreams of Elysium seemed to be
realized. These indeed seemed to be the happy fields, in the atmosphere
of which the delighted spirit was consoled for every woe, and as Otto
almost unwittingly gazed upon the woman before him, so passionately
loved and to him lost for ever; as he marked the languor and melancholy
which had stolen over her countenance, he could hardly restrain himself
from throwing himself and all he called his, at her feet.
Emperor and king though he was,—the one jewel he craved lay beyond the
confines of his dominion.
After the conclusion of the serenade, the nymphs of Stephania’s retinue
showered their flowers upon the sylvan gods, who eagerly scrambled over
them, when Stephania started up, as from a dream.
"How is this?" she hurriedly exclaimed, "I still hold my flowers? And
you are all matched by the chances of the fragrant blossoms? But King
Otto is likewise without his due share, and so it would seem that fate
would have him my companion at the collation awaiting us. Therefore, my
lords and ladies, link hands as the flow’ry oracles direct. I shall
follow last with my exalted guest."
Otto did not remark the quick glance which flashed between Crescentius
and his wife. The ladies of Stephania’s retinue immediately conformed
to the expressed wish of the hostess by taking the arms of the cavaliers
who had chanced upon their flowers.
A number of pages, beautiful as cupids, lighted the way with torches
which flamed with a perfumed lustre, and the procession moved anew
towards the grotto, where, during their absence, a repast had been
spread. But the last couple had preceded them some twenty paces, ere
Stephania, without raising her eyes, took Otto’s motionless arm.
The memory of all that had passed, a natural feeling of embarrassment on
both sides, prolonged the silence between them. Stephania doubtlessly
fathomed his thoughts, for she smiled with a degree of timidity not
unmingled with doubt, as she broke the silence.
The question, though softly spoken, came swift as a dart and equally
unexpected.
"Have you ever loved, King Otto?"
Otto looked up with a start into her radiant face.
He had anticipated some veiled rebuke for his own strange conduct,
anything,—not this.
He breathed hard, then he replied:
"Until I came to Rome, I never gazed on beauty that won from me more
than the applause of the eye, which a statue or a painting, equally
beautiful, might have claimed."
She nodded dreamily.
"I have heard it said that the blue-eyed, sunny-haired maidens of your
native North make us Romans appear poor in your sight!"
"Not so! The red rose is not discarded for the white. The contrast
only heightens the beauty."
"I have heard it said," Stephania continued, choosing a circuitous path
instead of the direct one her guests had taken, "that you Teutons have
ideals even, while you starve on bread and water. And I have been told
that, were you permitted to choose for your life’s companion the most
beautiful woman on earth, you would hie yourselves into the gray ages of
the world’s dawn for the realization of your dreams. Has your ideal
been realized, since you have established your residence in Rome, King
Otto?"
There was a brief pause, then he replied, looking straight ahead:
"Love comes more stealthily than light, of which even the dark cypresses
are enamoured in your Italian noondays."
"You evade my question."
"What would you have me say?"
She gave him a quick glance, which set his pulses to throbbing wildly
and sent the hot blood seething through his veins.
"Is your heart free, King Otto?"
A drear sense of desolation and loneliness came over the youth.
"Free," he replied almost inaudibly.
She gave a little, nervous laugh.
"But how know you that, surrounded by such loveliness, as that which you
have this very night witnessed in my circle, your hour may not strike at
last?"
Otto raised his eyes to those of the woman by his side.
"Fair lady, beautiful as Love’s oracle itself, my heart is in little
danger even from your fairest satellites. But mistake not my meaning.
I am not insusceptible to the fever of the Gods! Love I have sought
under all forms and guises! And if I found it not, if I have listened
to its richest eloquence as to some song in a foreign tongue, which my
heart understood not,—it is not that I have lacked the soul for love.
Love I found not, though phantoms I have eagerly chased in this troubled
dream of life. What avails it, to contend with one’s destiny? And this
is mine!"
Stephania laughed.
"You speak like some hoary anchorite from the Thebaide. Truly, now I
begin to understand, why your chroniclers call you the ’Wonder-child of
the World.’ Lover, idealist, and cynic in one!"
"Nay—you wrong me! Cynic I am not! My mother was a princess of Greece.
The fairest woman my eyes ever gazed upon—save one! She died in her
youth and beauty, following my father, the emperor, into his early
grave. I was left alone in the world, alone with the monks, alone in
the great gloom of our tall and spectral pines! The monks understood
not my craving for the sun and the blue skies. The whiter snows of
Thuringia chilled my heart and froze my soul! I longed for Rome—I
craved for the South. My dead mother’s blood flows in my veins. Hither
I came, braving the avalanches and the fever and the wrath of the
electors, I came, once more to challenge the phantoms of the past from
their long forgotten tombs, to make Rome—what once she was—the capital
of the earth. Rome’s dream is Eternity!"
Stephania listened in silence and with downcast eyes.
Never had the ear of the beautiful Roman heard words like these. The
illiteracy, vileness, and depravity of her own countrymen never perhaps
presented itself to her in so glaring a contrast, as when thrown into
comparison with the ideal son of the Empress Theophano and Otto II, of
Saracenic renown. His words were like some strange music, which flatters
the senses, that try in vain to retain their harmonies.
There was a pause during which neither spoke.
Otto thought he felt the soft pressure of Stephania’s arm against his
own.
"You spoke of one who alone might challenge the dead empress in point of
fairness," the woman spoke at last and her voice betrayed an emotion
which she vainly strove to conceal. "Who is that one?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Theophano’s beauty was renowned. Even our poets sing of her."
"I will tell you at some other time."
"Tell me now!"
"We are approaching the grotto. Your guests are waiting."
"Tell me now!"
"Crescentius is expecting us. He will be wondering at our tardiness."
"Tell me now!"
Otto breathed hard.
"Oh, why do you ask, Stephania, why do you ask?"
"Who is the woman?"
The question fell huskily from her lips.
The answer came, soft as a zephyr that dies as it passes:
"Stephania!"
Quickening their steps they reached the grotto, without daring to face
each other. The woman’s heart throbbed as impetuously as that of the
youth, as they found themselves at the entrance of the Grotto of Egeria
in a blaze of light, emanating from innumerable torches artfully
arranged among the stalactites, which diffused brilliant irradiations.
The sumptuous dresses of the nobles and barons blazed into view; the
spray from the fountain leaped up to a great height and descended in
showers of liquid jewels of iridescent hues.
A collation of fruits and wines wooed the appetite of the guests on
every hand. Sweet harmonies floated from the adjoining groves, and,
amidst a general buzz of delight and admiration, Stephania took her seat
at the festal board between the Senator of Rome and the German king.
The flower of beauty, wit and magnificence of the Senator’s Roman court
had been culled to grace this festival, for there was no one present,
who was not remarked for at least one of these attributes, some even by
the union of all. The most beautiful women of Rome surrounded the
consort of the Senator, who outshone them all. Even envy could not deny
her the crown.
Nevertheless, and for the first time, perhaps, Stephania seemed to
misdoubt the supremacy and power of her great beauty, and while she
affected being absorbed in other matters, her eye watched with devouring
anxiety every glance of her exalted guest, whose feverish vivaciousness
betrayed to her his inmost thoughts.
The Senator’s countenance was that of the Sphinx of the desert. He
appeared neither to see nor to hear.
Otto meanwhile, in order to remove from his path the terrible temptation
which he felt growing with every instant, in order to divert Eckhardt’s
attention, who he instinctively felt was watching his every gesture, and
to stifle any possible suspicions, which Crescentius might entertain,
affected to be struck with the appearance of one of Stephania’s ladies,
who resembled her in stature and in the colour of her hair. He
intentionally mistook her for the fairy in the grotto, laughingly
challenging her acquaintance, which she as merrily denied, declaring
herself to be the wife of one of the barons present. But Otto would not
be convinced and attached himself to her with a zeal, which brought on
both many pointed jests on the part of the assembled revellers.
Stephania immediately observed the ruse, but as her eye met that of the
Senator, an unaccountable terror seized her. She turned away and
pretended to join her guests in their merriment. Among those present
were some of the most imaginative and prolific minds of an age,
otherwise dark and illiterate, yet the brilliant play and coruscations
of Stephania’s wit, the depth of some of the glittering remarks which
fell from her lips, were not surpassed by any. At times she exhibited a
tone of recklessness almost bordering on defiance and mockery, the
lightning’s power to scorch as well as to illumine, but when relapsing
into what appeared her more natural mood, it was scarcely possible to
resist the grace and seductiveness of her manner. Even the doctrines,
which half in gayety, half in haughty acceptance of the character
assigned to her on this evening, she promulgated, full of poetical
epicureanism, fell with so sweet a harmony from her lips, that saints
could not have wished them mended.
Otto, meanwhile, continued to play his serf-assigned part, but he lost
not a single word or gesture of Stephania and his fervour towards his
chosen partner rose in proportion with Stephania’s gayety. But he did
not fail to observe that her siren-smile was directed towards himself
and his soul drank in the beams of her beauty, as the palm-tree absorbs
the fervid suns of Africa, motionless with delight.
While gayety and convivial enjoyment seemed at their height, Eckhardt
strode from the grotto, unobserved by the revellers and entered a
secluded path leading into the remoter regions of the park. Otto’s
predilection for the wife of the Senator of Rome had escaped him as
little as had her own seeming coquetry, and he had looked on in silence,
until, seized with profound disgust, he could bear it no longer.
What he had always feared was coming to pass.
When the Romans could no longer vanquish their foes on the field of
battle, they destroyed them with their women.
The gardens which Eckhardt traversed resembled the fabled treasure-house
of Aladdin. Every tree glistened with sparkling clusters of red, blue
and green lights, every flowerbed was bordered with lines and circles of
iridescent globes, and the fountains tossed up spiral columns of amber,
rose and amethyst spray against the transparent azure of the summer
skies, in which a lustrous golden moon shone full.
But a madness seemed suddenly to have seized the revellers.
No one knew whither Crescentius had gone.
No one knew who was a dancer, a flute-player, a noble.
Satyrs and fauns fell to chasing nymphs with shouting. Everywhere
laughter and shouts were heard, whispers and panting breaths. Darkness
covered certain parts of the groves. Truly it was a long time, since
anything similar had been seen in Rome.
Roused and intoxicated by the contamination, the fever had at last
seized Otto. Rushing into the forest, he ran with the others. New
flocks of nymphs swarmed round him every moment. Seeing at last a band
of maidens led by one arrayed as Diana, he sprang to it, intending to
scrutinize the goddess more closely. They encircled him in a mad whirl,
and, evidently bent upon making him follow, rushed away the next moment
like a herd of deer. But he stood rooted to the spot with wildly
beating heart.
A great yearning, such as he had never felt before, seized him at that
moment and the love for Stephania rushed to his heart as a tremendous
tidal wave. Never had she seemed to him so pure, so dear, so beloved,
as in that forest of frenzied madness. A moment before he had himself
wished to drink of that cup, which drowned past and present; now he was
seized with repugnance and remorse. He felt stifled in this unholy air;
his eyes sought the stars, glimmering through the interstices of the
interwoven branches.
A shadow fell across his path.
He turned. Before him stood Eckhardt, the Margrave.
"I have seen and heard," he spoke in response to Otto’s questioning
gaze. "King of the Germans, I have enough of Rome, enough of feasts,
enough of conquests. I am stifling. I cannot breathe in this accursed
air. Command the return beyond the Alps. On these siren rocks your
ship will founder! Rome is no place for you!"
Otto stared at the man as if he feared he had lost his senses.
"King of the Germans," Eckhardt continued, "on my knees I entreat you—at
the risk of your displeasure,—return beyond the Alps! See what has
become of you! See what a woman has made of you, you, the son of the
vanquisher of the Saracens!"
He stretched out his arms entreatingly, as if to lead him away.
Otto covered his face with both hands.
"And I love only her in the wide, wide world," he muttered.
At this juncture a light, elastic step resounded on the gravel path.
Benilo stepped into the clearing.
"Stephania awaits the king in the pavillion."
Eckhardt laid his hands on Otto’s shoulders, straining his eyes in
silent entreaty into those of the King.
"Do not go!" he begged.
Otto winced, but the presence of Benilo caused him to shake himself free
of the Margrave’s restraining hand.
"Stephania is waiting," he stammered.
"Then you will not grant my request?" Eckhardt spoke with quivering
voice.
"In Rome we live,—in Rome we die!"
Taking Benilo’s arm he hastened away, leaving Eckhardt to ponder over
his prophetic words.
For a moment the Margrave remained, straining his gaze after Otto’s
retreating form.
His heart was heavy,—heavy to breaking. Dared he enter the arena
against the Sorceress of Rome? He laughed aloud.
There are moments when the tragedy of our own life is almost amusing.
*CHAPTER VI*
*BEYOND THE GRAVE*
Eckhardt turned to go, but he had barely moved, when, as if risen from
the earth, there stood before him the tall, veiled form of a woman, who
whispered, flooding his face with her burning breath:
"I love you! Come! No one will see us!"
Eckhardt trembled in every limb. He would have known that voice, even
if it had spoken to him from the depths of the grave. The heavy veil
which shrouded the woman’s face prevented him from scrutinizing her
features.
"Who are you?" he stammered, just to say something. Swift as thought she
threw her arms round him, but to recede as swiftly.
"Hurry! See how lonely it is! I love you! Come!"
"Who are you?"
"Can you not guess?"
He stretched out his arms toward her, but she gambolled before him, as a
butterfly, flitting from flower to flower.
"Night of Love—night of madness," she whispered. "To-night, if you but
will it, the secret is yours!"
Her voice thrilled him through and through. The perfume of the
Poppy-flower sank benumbing into his heart. It was her voice,—it was
her form,—was it but a mocking phantom,—what was it? Again she
approached him.
"Lift the veil!" she spoke in a voice of command.
With trembling hand he started to obey, when the leaves of the nearest
myrtle-bush began to rustle.
Eckhardt heard nothing, saw nothing.
As Benilo stepped into the moonlight, the apparition vanished like a
dream phantom, but from the distance her laugh was heard, strange in
some way, and ominous.
Eckhardt rushed after the fading vision like a madman.
Would it mock him for ever, wherever he was, wherever he went?
How long he had followed it, in headlong, breathless pursuit, as on that
fateful eve, when it had lured him from the altars of Christ, he knew
not. When he at last desisted from the mad and fruitless chase, he
found himself at the base of the Capitoline Hill. Here were scattered
the ruins of the old Mamertine prisons, once a series of cells rising in
stages against the rock to a considerable height. Here were the baths
of Mamertius, where Jugurtha, the Numidian, was starved. There Simon
Bar Gioras, the Jew, was strangled, he, who to the last maintained the
struggle against the victorious son of Vespasian. In the cell to the
right Appius Claudius, the Triumvir, was said to have committed suicide.
Another cell reëchoed from the clangour of the chains of Simon Petrus.
It was not a region where men tarried long, and few relished the fare of
the low taverns, which were strung along the gray wall of Servius
Tullius. For weird and dismal wails were at times to be heard in clear
moonlight nights, and the region of the Capitoline Hill, cut by the old
Gemonian stairs, was in ill repute, as in the days of Republican Rome.
He had not gone very far when he found himself before the entrance of a
cavern, and Eckhardt’s attention was caught by a strange red glow as
from some fire within. As he gazed it died out, and he was left in
doubt, whether it was an illusion of his imagination, or some phenomenon
peculiar to the spot. The prisoners of the Roman state were no longer
conveyed hither for safe-keeping, but confined in the dismal dungeons of
Torre di Nona and Corte Savella. The glimmer he had seen could not
therefore emanate from the cell of some unfortunate, here awaiting his
sentence. Vainly he strained his gaze. All was darkness again within,
and although the moon was high in a clear sky, set with innumerable
stars, their distant glimmer could not penetrate the murky depths.
Eckhardt waited some minutes and the glimmer reappeared. What urged him
onward to explore the cause of the strange light he could not have told.
Still he dared not venture into the gloom without the aid of a torch.
Quickly resolved he retraced his steps towards the few scattered houses,
near the ancient wall, entered a dimly lighted, evil-smelling shop,
purchased torch and flints and returned to the entrance of the cavern.
After lighting his torch he entered slowly and carefully, marking every
step he took in the dust and sand, which covered the ground of the cave.
The farther he advanced the more singular grew the spectacle which
greeted his gaze.
The cavern was of great extent, composed of enormous masses of rocks,
seemingly tossed together in chaotic confusion, and glittering all over
in the blaze of innumerable irradiations, as with serpents of coloured
light, so singularly brilliant and twisted were the stalactites which
clustered within. There was one rock, in which a strong effort of the
imagination might have shaped resemblance to a crucifix. Fastened to
this by an iron rivet, a chain and a belt round his waist, lay the form
of a man, apparently in a deadly swoon, as if exhausted from the
struggle against the massive links. Some embers still burned near the
prisoner and had probably been the means of attracting Eckhardt’s
attention.
Startled by the strange sight which encountered his gaze, Eckhardt
eagerly surveyed the person of the prisoner. He appeared a man who had
passed his prime, and his frame betokened a scholar rather than an
athlete. His head being averted, Eckhardt was not able to scan his
features.
At first Eckhardt was inclined to attribute the prisoner’s plight to an
attack by outlaws who had stripped him, and then, to secure secrecy and
immunity, had left him to his fate. But a second consideration
staggered this presumption, for as he raised his torch above the man’s
head, he discovered the tonsure which proclaimed him a monk, and what
bandit, ever so desperate, would perpetrate a deed, which would consign
his soul to purgatory for ever more? Besides, what wealth had a friar
to tempt the avidity of a bravo?
Vainly puzzling his brain, as to the probable authorship of a deed, as
dark as the identity of the hapless creature, thus securely fettered to
the stone, he looked round. There was no vestige of drink or food;
perhaps the man was starved and slowly expiring in the last throes of
exhaustion. His breath came in rasping gasps and the short-cropped
raven-blue hair slightly tinged with gray heightened the cadaverous
tints of the body, which was of the colour of dried parchment.
The sudden flow of light, which flooded his eyes, perhaps long
unaccustomed thereto, caused the prostrate man to writhe and to start
from his swoon. His eyes, deeply sunk in their sockets, and flashing a
strange delirious light, stared with awe and fear into the flame of the
torch.
But no sooner had he encountered Eckhardt’s gaze than he uttered a cry
of dismay and would have relapsed into his swoon, had not the Margrave
grasped him by the shoulder in an effort to support the weak, tottering
body. But the cry had startled him, and so great was Eckhardt’s dismay,
that his fingers relaxed their hold and the man fell back, striking his
head against the rock.
"I am dying—fetch me some water," he begged piteously and Eckhardt
stepped outside of the cavern and filled his helmet from a well, whose
crystal stream seemed to pour from the fissures of the Tarpeian rock.
This he carried to the hapless wretch, raising his head and holding it
to his lips. The prisoner drank greedily and stammered his thanks in a
manner as if his tongue had swollen too big for his mouth.
There was a breathless silence, then Eckhardt said:
"I have sought you long—everywhere. How came you in this plight?"
The monk looked up. In his eyes there was a great fear.
"Pity—pity!" he muttered, vainly endeavouring to raise himself.
Eckhardt’s stern gaze was his sole reply.
The ensuing silence seemed to both an eternity.
The monk could not bear the Margrave’s gaze, and had closed his eyes.
"What of Ginevra?"
Slowly the words fell from Eckhardt’s lips.
The monk groaned. His limbs writhed and strained against the chains
that fettered him to the rock. But he made no reply.
"What of Ginevra?" Eckhardt repeated inexorably.
Still there came no answer.
Eckhardt stooped over the prostrate form like a spirit of vengeance
descended from on high and so fiercely burned his gaze upon the monk
that the latter vainly endeavoured to turn away his face. He could feel
those eyes, even though his own were closed.
"You stand in the shadow of death," Eckhardt spoke, "You will never
leave this cavern alive! Answer briefly and truthfully,—and I will have
your body consigned to consecrated earth and masses said for your soul.
Remain obdurate and rot where you lie, till the trumpet blast of
resurrection day chases the worms from their loathsome feast!"
The dying man answered with a groan.
"What of Ginevra?" Eckhardt questioned for the third time.
The monk breathed hard. A tremor shook his limbs as he gasped:
"Ginevra—lives."
Eckhardt’s hands went to his head. He closed his eyes in mortal agony
and for a moment nothing but his heavy breathing was to be heard in the
cavern. When he again looked down upon the prostrate man, he saw his
lips turn purple, saw the film of death begin to cover his eyes. How
much there was to be asked. How brief the time!
"You chanted the Requiem over the body of Ginevra, knowing her to be
among the living?"
The monk nodded feebly.
Eckhardt’s breath came hard. His breast heaved, as if it must burst and
his hand shook so violently that some of the hot pitch from the taper
struck the prisoner on the shoulder. He writhed with a groan.
"What prompted the hellish deceit?" Eckhardt continued. "Did she not
have my love?"
The monk shook his head.
"It was not enough. It was not enough!"
"What more had I to give?"
"Marozia’s inheritance—the emperor’s tomb!"
"Marozia’s inheritance?" Eckhardt repeated, like one in a dream. "The
emperor’s tomb? What madness is this? She never hinted at a wish
unfulfilled."
"She asked you never to lift the veil from her past!"
The monk’s words fell like a thunderbolt on Eckhardt’s head.
"How came you by this knowledge?" he questioned aghast.
"Give me some water—I am choking," gasped the monk.
Again Eckhardt held the helmet to his lips, while he prayed that the
spark of life might remain long enough in that enfeebled body, to clear
the mystery, at whose brink he stood.
The monk drank greedily, and when his thirst seemed appeased the water
ran out of the corners of his mouth. He again relapsed into a swoon; he
heard Eckhardt’s questions, but lacked strength to answer.
Stooping over him, Eckhardt grasped him by the shoulder and shook him
mercilessly. He must not die, until he knew all.
A terrible certainty flashed through his mind.
This monk knew what was to him a seven times sealed book.
He had repeated to him Ginevra’s wish,—now, nor heaven nor hell should
turn him from his path.
"I thought,—Marozia’s descendants were all dead," he said, fear and
hesitation in his tones.
The monk feebly shook his head.
"One lives,—the deadliest of the flock."
A chill as of death seemed to benumb Eckhardt’s limbs.
"One lives," he gasped. "Her name?"
Delirium seemed to have seized the prostrate wretch. He mumbled strange
words while his fingers were digging into the sand, as if he were
preparing his own grave.
"Her name!" thundered Eckhardt into the monk’s ear.
The latter raised himself straight up and stared at the Margrave with
dead, expressionless eyes.
"In the world, Ginevra,—beyond the grave—Theodora!"
"Theodora!" A groan broke from Eckhardt’s lips.
"And is this her work?"
He pointed to the monk’s chains, and the iron rivets driven into the
rocks.
The monk shook his head. The spark of life flickered up once more.
"Five days without food,—without water,—left here to perish—by a
villain—whom the lightnings of heaven may blast—the betrayer of God and
of man,—I am dying,—remember,—burial—masses—"
The monk fell back with a gasp. The death-rattle was in his throat.
Eckhardt knelt by his side, raised his head and tried to stem the
fleeting tide of life.
"His name! His name!" he shrieked, mad with fear, anguish and despair.
"His name! Oh God, let him live but long enough for that,—his name?"
It was too late.
The spark of life had gone out. The murderer of Gregory stood before a
higher bar of judgment.
There was a long silence in the rock caves under the Gemonian Stairs.
Nothing was to be heard, save the hard breathing of the despairing man.
He saw it all now,—all, but the instigator, the abettor of the terrible
crime against him. If Ginevra was indeed the last link in that long
chain of infamy, which had held its high revels in Castel San Angelo
during the past decades, she could never hope to come into her own
without some potent ally. The thought lay very near, that she might be
intriguing in this very hour to regain the lost power of Marozia. But a
second consideration at least staggered this theory. It rather seemed
as if the man on whom she had relied for the realization of her terrible
ambition had deceived her, after he had made her his own,—or had in some
way failed to keep his pledge,—until, in the endeavour to find the
support she required, she had sunk from the arms of one into those of
another.
A wild shriek resounded through the cavern.
Eckhardt trembled at the sound of his own despair.
Like a caged, wild beast he paced up and down in the darkness.
The torch had fallen from his grasp and continued to glimmer on the
sand.
Had it lain within his power he would have shaken down the mighty rock
over his head and buried himself with the hapless victim chained to the
stone.
In vain he tried to order his chaotic thoughts.
Monstrous deception she had practised upon him!
All her endearments, all her caresses, her kisses, her whisperings of
love,—were they but the threads of the one vast fabric of a lie?
It seemed too monstrous to be true; it seemed too monstrous to grasp!
And all for what?
The fleeting phantom of dominion, which must vanish as it
came—unsatisfied.
How long he remained thus, he knew not. His torch had well nigh burnt
down when at length he roused himself from his deadly stupor. Groping
his way to the entrance of the cave, he stepped into the open.
Like one dazed he returned to his palace.
But he could not sleep.
Profound were the emotions, which were awakened in his bosom, as he set
foot within his chamber. Scenes of other days arose before him with the
vividness of reality. He beheld himself again in the full vigour of
manhood, ardent, impassioned, blessed with the hand of the woman he
loved and anticipating a cloudless future. He beheld her as she was
when he first called her his own, young, proud, beautiful. Her accents
were those of endearment, her looks tenderness and love. They smote him
now like a poniard’s point driven to his very heart. He did not think
he could have borne a pang so keen and live.
Why,—he asked in despair—could not the past be recalled or for ever
cancelled? Why could not men live their loves over again, to repair,
what they might have omitted, neglected and regain their lost happiness?
Pressing his hands before his eyes, he tried to shut out the beautiful,
agonizing vision.
It could not be excluded.
Staggering towards a chair, he sank upon it, a prey to unbearable
anguish. Avenging furies beset him and lashed him with whips of steel.
He could not rest. He strode about the room. He even thought of
quitting the house, denouncing himself as a madman for having come here
at all. But where was he to go? He must endure the tortures. Perhaps
they would subside. Little hope of it.
He walked to the fire-place. The air of autumn was chill without. The
embers, still glowing with a crimson reflection, had sunk in the grate.
Aye—there he stood, where he had stood years ago, and oh, how unlike his
former self! How different in feeling! Then he had some youth left, at
least, and hope. Now he was crushed by the weight of a mystery which
haunted him night and day. Could he but quit Rome! Could he but induce
the king to return beyond the Alps. Little doubt, that under the immense
gray sky, which formed so fitting a cupola for his grief, his soul might
find rest. Here, with the feverish pulses of life beating madly round
him, here, vegetating without purpose, without aim, he felt he would
eventually go mad. He had inhaled the poison of the poppy-flower:—he
was doomed.
Eckhardt did not attempt to court repose. Sleep was out of the question
in his present wrought-up state of mind. Then wherefore seek his couch
until he was calmer?
Calmer!
Could he ever be calm again, till his brain had ceased to work and his
heart to beat? Should he ever know profound repose until he slept the
sleep of death?
Yet what was to insure him rest even within the tomb? Might he not
encounter her in the beyond,—a thing apart from him through all
eternity? During the brief period while he had cherished the thought of
disappearing from the world for ever, he had pondered over many
problems, which neither monk nor philosophers had been able to solve.
Could we but know what would be our lot after death!
There was a time, when he had rebelled against the thought that our
footsteps are filled up and obliterated, as we pass on, like in a
quicksand.
There was a time, he could not bear to think, that yesterday was indeed
banished and gone for ever,—that a to-morrow must come of black and
endless night.
And now he craved for nothing more than annihilation, complete
unrelenting annihilation. He knew not what he believed. He knew not
what he doubted. He knew not what he denied.
He was on the verge of madness.
And the devil was busy in his heart, suggesting a solution he had
hitherto shunned. The thought filled him with dread, tossing him to and
fro on a tempestuous sea of doubt and yet pointing to no other refuge
from black despair.
He strove to resist the dread suggestion, but it grew upon him with
fearful force and soon bore down all opposition.
If all else failed—why not leap over the dark abyss?
A dreadful calm succeeded his agitation. It was vain to puzzle his
brain with a solution of the problem which confronted him, a problem
which mocked to scorn his efforts and his prayers.
He closed his eyes, vainly groping for an escape from the dreadful
labyrinth of doubt, and sinking deeper and deeper into rumination.
Nature at last asserted her rights, and he fell into fitful, uneasy
slumbers, in which all the misery of his life seemed to sweep afresh
through his heart and to uproot the remotest depths of his tortured
soul.
When Eckhardt woke from his stupor, the gray dawn was breaking. As he
started up, a face which had appeared against the window quickly
vanished. Was it but part of his dream or had he seen Benilo, the
Chamberlain?
*CHAPTER VII*
*ARA COELI*
It was not till late that night, that Otto found himself alone. He had
at last withdrawn from the maddening revelry. Silence was falling on
the streets of Rome and the dimness of midnight upon the sky, through
which blazing meteors had torn their brilliant furrows. After
dismissing his attendants, the son of Theophano sat alone in the lonely
chamber of his palace on the Aventine. A sense of death-like desolation
had come over him. Never had the palace seemed so vast and so silent.
And he—he, the lord of it all—he had no loving heart to turn to, no one,
that understood him with a woman’s intuition. The waves of destiny
seemed to close over him and the circumstances of his past rose poignant
and vivid before his fading sight.
But uppermost in his soul was the certainty that he could not further
behold Stephania with impunity. When he recalled the meeting in the
Minotaurus and the subsequent events of the evening, he lost all peace
of mind. What then would be the result of a new meeting? What would
become of him, should he thereafter find himself unable to contain his
passion in darkness and in silence? Would he exhibit to the world the
ridiculous spectacle of an insane lover, or would he, by some unheedful
action, bring down upon himself the disdainful pity of the woman, unable
as he was to resist the vertigo of her fascination?
He gazed out into the moonlit night. The ancient monuments stood out
mournful and deserted as a line of tombs. The city seemed a graveyard,
and himself but a disembodied ghost of the dead past.
Gradually the hour laid its tranquillizing hush upon him. By degrees,
with the dim light of the candles, he grew drowsy. His mental images
became more and more indistinct, and he gradually drifted away into the
land of dreams. After a time he was awakened by a light that shone upon
his face. Starting up, Otto was for a moment overcome by a strange
sensation of faintness, which vanished as he gazed into the face of
Benilo, whom his anxiety had carried to the side of the King after
having in vain searched for him among the late revellers on the
Capitoline hill.
Otto smiled at the expression of anxiety in the Roman’s face.
"’Twas naught, save that I was weary," he replied to Benilo’s concerned
inquiry. "’Tis many a week since we revelled so late. But perchance
you had best leave me now, that I may rest."
Benilo withdrew and Otto fell into a fitful slumber filled with hazy
visions, in which the persons of Crescentius and Stephania were
strangely mingled, melting rapidly from one into the other.
He slept later than usual on the following day. When the shadows of
evening began to fall over the undulating expanse of the Roman Campagna,
Otto left the palace on the Aventine by a postern gate. This hour he
wished to be free from all affairs of state, from all intrusions and
cares. This hour he wished fitly to prepare himself for the great work
of his life. In the dreamy solitude he would question his own heart as
to his future course with regard to Stephania.
The evening was serene and fair. The brick skeletons of arches, vaults
and walls glowed fiery in the rays of the sinking sun. Among olives and
acanthus was heard the bleating of sheep and the chirrup of the
grasshopper.
Otto descended the tangled foot-path on the northern slope of the
Aventine, not far from the gardens of Capranica, and soon reached the
foot of the Capitoline hill, the ruins of the temple of Saturnus, the
place where in the days of glory had stood the ancient Forum. From the
arch of Septimius Severus as far as the Flavian Amphitheatre the Via
Sacra was flanked with wretched hovels. Their foundations were formed
of fragments of statues, of the limbs and torsos of Olympian gods. For
centuries the Forum had been a quarry. Christian churches languished on
the ruins of pagan shrines. Still lofty columns soared upward through
the desolation, carrying sculptured architraves, last traces of a
vanished art. Here a feudal tower leaned against the arch of Titus;
beside it a tavern befouled the fallen columns, the marble slabs, the
half defaced inscription. Behind it rose the arch, white and pure, less
shattered than the remaining monuments. The sunlight streaming through
it from the direction of the Capitol lighted up the bas-relief of the
Emperor’s triumph, the malodorous curls of smoke from the tavern
appearing like clouds of incense.
Otto’s heart beat fast as, turning once more into the Forum, he heard
the dreary jangling of bells from the old church of Santa Maria
Liberatrice, sounding the Angelus. It seemed to him like a dirge over
the fallen greatness of Rome. Half unconsciously he directed his steps
toward the Coliseum. Seating himself on the broken steps of the
Amphitheatre, he gazed up at the blue heavens, shining through the gaps
in the Coliseum walls.
Sudden flushes of crimson flamed up in the western horizon. Slowly the
sun was sinking to rest. A pale yellow moon had sailed up from behind
the stupendous arches of Constantine’s Basilica, severing with her disk
a bed of clouds, transparent and delicately tinted as sea-shells. The
three columns in front of Santa Maria Liberatrice shone like phantoms in
the waning light of evening. And the bell sounding the Christian
Angelus seemed more than ever like a dirge over the forgotten Rome of
the past.
Wrapt in deep reveries, Otto continued upon his way. He had lost all
sense of life and reality. It was one of those moments when time and
the world seem to stand still, drifting away on those delicate
imperceptible lines that lie between reality and dream-land. And the
solitary rambler gave himself up to the half painful, half delicious
sense of being drawn in, absorbed and lost in infinite imaginings, when
the intense stillness around him was broken by the peals of distant
convent bells, ringing with silvery clearness through the evening calm.
Suddenly Otto paused, all his life-blood rushing to his heart.
At the lofty flight of stairs, by which the descent is made from Ara
Coeli, stood Stephania.
She had come out of the venerable church, filled with the devout
impressions of the mass just recited. The chant still rang in her ears
as she passed down the long line of uneven pillars, which we see to-day,
and across the sculptured tombs set in the pavement which the
reverential tread of millions has worn to smooth indistinctness. Now
the last rays of the sun flooded all about her, mellowing the tints of
verdure and drooping foliage, and softening the outlines of the Alban
hills.
As she looked down she saw the German king and met his upturned gaze.
For a moment she seemed to hesitate. The sunlight fell on her pale face
and touched with fire the dark splendour of her hair. Slowly she
descended the long flight of stairs.
They faced each other in silence and Otto had leisure to steal a closer
look at her. He was struck by the touch of awe which had suddenly come
upon her beauty. Perhaps the evening light spiritualized her pure and
lofty countenance, for as Otto looked upon her it seemed to him that she
was transformed into a being beyond earthly contact and his heart sank
with a sense of her remoteness.
Timidly he lifted her hand and pressed his lips upon it.
Silence intervened, a silence freighted with the weight of suspended
destinies. There was indeed more to be felt between them, than to be
said. But what mattered it, so the hour was theirs? The narrow kingdom
of to-day is better worth ruling than the widest sweep of past and
future, but not more than once does man hold its fugitive sceptre. Otto
felt the nearness of that penetrating sympathy, which is almost a gift
of divination. The mere thought of her had seemed to fill the air with
her presence.
Steadily, searchingly, she gazed at the thoughtful and earnest
countenance of Otto, then she spoke with a touch of domineering
haughtiness:
"Why are you here?"
He met her gaze eye in eye.
"I was planning for the future of Rome,—and dreaming of the past."
She bent her proud head, partly in acknowledgment of his words, partly
to conceal her own confusion.
"The past is buried," she replied coldly, "and the future dark and
uncertain."
"And why may it not be mine,—to revive that past?"
"No sunrise can revive that which has died in the sunset glow."
"Then you too despair of Rome ever being more than a memory of her dead
self?"
She looked at him amusedly.
"I am living in the world—not in a dream."
Otto pointed to the Capitoline hill.
"Yet see how beautiful it is, this Rome of the past!" he spoke with
repressed enthusiasm. "Is it not worth braving the dangers of the
avalanches that threaten to crush rider and horse—even the wrath of your
countrymen, who see in us but unbidden, unwelcome invaders? Ah! Little
do they know the magic which draws us hither to their sunny shores from
the gloom of our Northern forests! Little they know the transformation
this land of flowers works on the frozen heart, that yearns for your
glowing, sun-tinted vales!"
"Why did you come to Rome?" she questioned curtly. "To remind us of
these trifles,—and incidentally to dispossess us of our time-honoured
rights and power?"
Otto shook his head.
"I came not to Rome to deprive the Romans of their own,—rather to
restore to them what they have almost forgotten—their glorious past."
"It is useless to remind those who do not wish to be reminded," she
replied. "The avalanche of centuries has long buried memory and
ambition in those you are pleased to call Romans. Desist, I beg of you,
to pursue a phantom which will for ever elude you, and return beyond the
Alps to your native land!"
"And Stephania prefers this request?" Otto faltered, turning pale.
"Stephania—the consort of the Senator of Rome."
There was a pause.
Through the overhanging branches glimmered the pale disk of the moon. A
soft breeze stirred the leaves of the trees. There was a hushed
breathlessness in the air. Fantastic, dream-like, light and shadows
played on the majestic tide of the Tiber, and all over the high summits
of the hills mysterious shapes, formed of purple and gray mists, rose up
and crept softly downward, winding in and out the valleys, like
wandering spirits, sent on some hidden, sorrowful errand.
Gazing up wistfully, Stephania saw the look of pain in Otto’s face.
"I ask what I have," she said softly, "because I know the temper of my
countrymen."
"What would you make of me?" he replied. "On this alone my heart is
set. Take it from me,—I would drift an aimless barque on the tide of
time."
She shook her head but avoided his gaze.
"You aim to accomplish the impossible. Crows do not feed on the living,
and the dead do not rise again. Ah! How, if your miracle does not
succeed?"
Otto drew himself up to his full height.
"Gloria Victis,—but before my doom, I shall prove worthy of myself."
Suddenly a strange thought came over him.
"Stephania," he faltered, "what do you want with me?"
"I want you to be frankly my foe," exclaimed the beautiful wife of
Crescentius. "You must not pass by like this, without telling me that
you are. You speak of a past. Sometimes I think it were better, if
there had been no past. Better burn a corpse than leave it unburied.
All the friends of my dreams are here,—their shades surround us,—in
their company one grows afraid as among the shroudless dead. It is
impossible. You cannot mean the annihilation of the past, you cannot
mean to be against Rome—against me!"
Otto faced her, pale and silent, vainly striving to speak. He dared not
trust himself. As he stepped back, she clutched his arm.
"Tell me that you are my enemy," she said, with heart-broken challenge
in her voice.
"Stephania!"
"Tell me that you hate me."
"Stephania—why do you ask it?"
"To justify my own ends," she replied. Then she covered her face with
her hands.
"Tell me all," she sobbed. "I must know all. Do you not feel how near
we are? Are you indeed afraid to speak?"
She gazed at him with moist, glorious eyes.
Striding up and down before the woman, Otto vainly groped for words.
"Otto," she approached him gently, "do you believe in me?"
"Can you ask?"
"Wholly?"
"What do you mean?"
"I thought,—feared,—that you suffered from the same malady as we
Romans."
"What malady?"
"Distrust."
There was a pause.
"The temple is beautiful in the moonlight," Stephania said at last.
"They tell me you like relics of the olden time. Shall we go there?"
Otto’s heart beat heavily as by her side he strode down the narrow path.
They approached a little ruined temple, which ivy had invaded and
overrun. Fragments lay about in the deep grass. A single column only
remained standing and its lonely capital, clear cut as the petals of a
lily, was outlined in clear silhouette against the limpid azure.
At last he spoke—with a voice low and unsteady.
"Be not too hard on me, Stephania, for my love of the world that lies
dead around us. I scarcely can explain it to you. The old simple
things stir strange chords within me. I love the evening more than the
morning, autumn better than spring. I love all that is fleeting, even
the perfume of flowers that have faded, the pleasant melancholy, the
golden fairy-twilight. Remembrance has more power over my soul than
hope."
"Tell me more," Stephania whispered, her head leaning back against the
column and a smile playing round her lips. "Tell me more. These are
indeed strange sounds to my ear. I scarcely know if I understand them."
He gazed upon her with burning eyes.
"No—no! Why more empty dreams, that can never be?"
She pointed in silence to the entrance of the temple.
Otto held out both hands, to assist her in descending the sloping rock.
She appeared nervous and uncertain of foot. Hurriedly and agitated,
anxious to gain the entrance she slipped and nearly fell. In the next
moment she was caught up in his arms and clasped passionately to his
heart.
"Stephania—Stephania," he whispered, "I love you—I love you! Away with
every restraint! Let them slay me, if they will, by every death my
falsehood deserves,—but let it be here,—here at your feet."
Stephania trembled like an aspen in his strong embrace, and strove to
release herself, but he pressed her more closely to him, scarcely
knowing that he did so, but feeling that he held the world, life,
happiness and salvation in this beautiful Roman. His brain was in a
whirl; everything seemed blotted out,—there was no universe, no
existence, no ambition, nothing but love,—love,—love,—beating through
every fibre of his frame.
The woman was very pale.
Timidly she lifted her head. He gazed at her in speechless suspense; he
saw as in a vision the pure radiance of her face, the star-like eyes
shining more and more closely into his. Then came a touch, soft and
sweet as a rose-leaf pressed against his lips and for one moment he
remembered nothing. Like Paris of old, he was caught up in a cloud of
blinding gold, not knowing which was earth, which heaven.
For a moment nothing was to be heard, save the hard breathing of these
two, then Otto held Stephania off at an arm’s length, gazing at her, his
soul in his eyes.
"You are more beautiful than the angels," he whispered.
"The fallen angels," was her smiling reply.
Then with a quick, spontaneous movement she flung her bare arms round
his neck and drew him toward her.
"And if I did come toward you to prophesy glory and the fulfilment of
your dreams?" she murmured, even as a sibyl. "You alone are alive among
the dead! What matters it to me that your love is hopeless, that our
wings are seared? My love is all for the rejected! I love the proud and
solitary eagle better than the stained vulture."
He felt the fire of the strange insatiate kiss of her lips and reeled.
It seemed as if the Goddess of Love in the translucence of the moon, had
descended, embracing him, mocking to scorn the anguish that consumed his
heart, but to vanish again in the lunar shadows.
"Stephania—" he murmured reeling, drunk with the sweetness of her lips.
Never perhaps had the beautiful Roman bestowed on mortal man such a
glance, as now beamed from her eyes upon the youth. The perfume of her
hair intoxicated his senses. Her breath was on his cheek, her sweet
lips scarce a hand’s breath from his own.
Had Lucifer, the prince of darkness, himself appeared at this moment, or
Crescentius started up like a ghost from the gaping stone floor,
Stephania could scarcely have changed as suddenly as she did, to the
cold impassive rigidity of marble. Following the direction of her stony
gaze, Otto beheld emerging as it were from the very rocks above him a
dark face and mailed figure, which he recognized as Eckhardt’s. Whether
or not the Margrave was conscious of having thus unwittingly interrupted
an interview,—if he had seen, his own instincts at once revealed to him
the danger of his position. Eckhardt’s countenance wore an expression of
utter unconcern, as he passed on and vanished in the darkness.
For a moment Otto and Stephania gazed after his retreating form.
"He has seen nothing," Otto reassured her.
"To-morrow," she replied, "we meet here again at the hour of the
Angelas. And then," she added changing her tone to one of deepest
tenderness, "I will test your love,—your constancy,—your loyalty."
They faced each other in a dead silence.
"Do not go," he faltered, extending his hands.
She slowly placed her own in them. It was a moment upon which hung the
fate of two lives. Otto felt her weakness in her look, in the touch of
her hands, which shivered, as they lay in his, as captive birds. And
the long smothered cry leaped forth from his heart: What was crown,
life, glory—without love! Why not throw it all away for a caress of
that hand? What mattered all else?
But the woman became strong as he grew weak.
"Go!" she said faintly. "Farewell,—till to-morrow."
He dropped her hands, his eyes in hers.
Giving one glance backward, where Eckhardt had disappeared, Stephania
first began to move with hesitating steps, then seized by an
irresistible panic, she gathered up her trailing robe and ran
precipitately up the steep path, her fleeting form soon disappearing in
the moonlight.
Otto remained another moment, then he too stepped out into the clear
moonlit night. In silent rumination he continued his way toward the
Aventine.
Past and future seemed alike to have vanished for him. Time seemed to
have come to a stand-still.
Suddenly he imagined that a shadow stealthily crossed his path. He
paused, turned—but there was no one.
Calmly the stars looked down upon him from the azure vault of heaven.
And like a spider in his web, Johannes Crescentius sat in Castel San
Angelo.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*THE GOTHIC TOWER*
Deep quiet reigned in the city, when a man, enveloped in a mantle, whose
dimly shadowed form was outlined against the massive, gray walls of
Constantine’s Basilica glided slowly and cautiously from among the
blocks of stone scattered round its foundations and advanced to the
fountain which then formed the centre of the square, where the Obelisk
now stands. There he stopped and, concealed by the obscurity of the
night and the deeper shadows of the monument, glanced furtively about,
as if to be sure that he was unobserved. Then drawing his sword, he
struck three times upon the pavement, producing at each stroke light
sparks from its point. This signal, for such it was, was forthwith
answered. From the remote depths of the ruins the cry of the
screech-owl was thrice in succession repeated, and, guided by the
ringing sound, a second figure emerged from the weeds, which were in
some places the height of a man. Obeying the signal of the first comer,
the second, who was likewise enveloped in a mantle, silently joined him
and together they proceeded half-way down the Borgo Vecchio, then turned
to the right and entered a street, at the remote extremity of which
there was a figure of the Madonna with its lamp.
Onward they walked with rapid steps, traversed the Borgo Santo Spirito
and followed the street Della Lingara to where it opens upon the church
Regina Coeli. After having pursued their way for some time in silence
they entered a narrow winding path, which conducted them through a
deserted valley, the silence of which was only broken by the occasional
hoot of an owl or the fitful flight of a bat. In the distance could be
heard the splashing of water from the basin of a fountain, half obscured
by vines and creepers, from which a thin, translucent stream was pouring
and bubbling down the Pincian hillsides in the direction of Santa
Trinita di Monte.
They lost themselves in a maze of narrow and little frequented lanes,
until at last they found themselves before a gray, castellated building,
half cloister, half fortress, rising out of the solitudes of the
Flaminian way, before which they stopped. Over the massive door were
painted several skeletons in the crude fashion of the time, standing
upright with mitres, sceptres and crowns upon their heads, holding
falling scrolls, with faded inscriptions in their bony grasp.
The one, who appeared to be the moving spirit of the two, knocked in a
peculiar manner at the heavy oaken door. After a wait of some duration
they heard the creaking of hinges. Slowly the door swung inward and
closed immediately behind them. They entered a gloomy passage. A
number of owls, roused by the dim light from the lantern of the warden,
began to fly screeching about, flapping their wings against the walls
and uttering strange cries. After ascending three flights of stairs,
preceded by the warden, whose appearance was as little inviting as his
abode, they paused before a chamber, the door of which their guide had
pushed open, remaining himself on the threshold, while his two visitors
entered.
"How is the girl?" questioned the foremost in a whisper, to which the
warden made whispered reply.
Beckoning his companion to follow him, the stranger then passed into the
room, which was dimly illumined by the flickering light of a taper.
Throwing off his mantle, Eckhardt surveyed with a degree of curiosity
the apartment and its scanty furnishings. Nothing could be more dreary
than the aspect of the place. The richly moulded ceiling was festooned
with spiders’ webs and in some places had fallen in heaps upon the
floor. The glories of Byzantine tapestry had long been obliterated by
age and time. The squares of black and white marble with which the
chamber was paved were loosened and quaked beneath the foot-steps and
the wide and empty fireplace yawned like the mouth of a cavern.
Straining his gaze after the harper who was bending over a couch in a
remote corner of the room, Eckhardt was about to join him when Hezilo
approached him.
"Would you like to see?" he asked, his eyes full of tears.
Eckhardt bowed gravely, and with gentle foot-steps they approached a bed
in the corner of the room, on which there reposed the figure of a girl,
lying so still and motionless that she might have been an image of wax.
Her luxurious brown hair was spread over the pillow and out of this
frame the pinched white face with all its traces of past beauty looked
out in pitiful silence. One thin hand was turned palm downward on the
coverlet, and as they approached the fingers began to work convulsively.
Hezilo bent over her, and touched her brow with his lips.
"Little one," he said, "do you sleep?"
The girl opened her sightless eyes, and a faint smile, that illumined
her face, making it wondrously beautiful, passed over her countenance.
"Not yet," she spoke so low that Eckhardt could scarcely catch the
words, "but I shall sleep soon."
He knew what she meant, for in her face was already that look which
comes to those who are going away. Hezilo looked down upon her in
silence, but even as he did so a change for the worse seemed to come to
the sick girl, and they became aware that the end had begun. He tried
to force some wine between her lips, but she could not swallow, and now,
instead of lying still, she continued tossing her head from side to
side. Hezilo was undone. He could do nothing but stand at the head of
the bed in mute despair, as he watched the parting soul of his child sob
its way out.
"Angiola—Angiola—do not leave me—do not go from me!" the harper cried in
heart-rending anguish, kneeling down before the bed of the girl and
taking her cold, clammy hands into his own. Impelled by a power he
could not resist, Eckhardt knelt and tried to form some words to reach
the Most High. But they would not come; he could only feel them, and he
rose again and took his stand by the dying girl.
She now began to talk in a rambling manner and with that strength which
comes at the point of death from somewhere; her voice was clear but with
a metallic ring. What Eckhardt gathered from her broken words, was a
story of trusting love, of infamous wrong, of dastardly crime. And the
harper shook like a branch in the wind as the words came thick and fast
from the lips of his dying child. After a while she became still—so
still, that they both thought she had passed away. But she revived on a
sudden and called out:
"Father,—I cannot see,—I am blind,—stoop down and let me whisper—"
"I am here little one, close—quite close to you!"
"Tell him,—I forgive— And you forgive him too—promise!"
The harper pressed his lips to the damp forehead of his child but spoke
no word.
"It is bright again—they are calling me—Mother! Hold me up—I cannot
breathe."
Hezilo sank on his knees with his head between his hands, shaken by
convulsive sobs, while Eckhardt wound his arm round the dying girl, and
as he lifted her up the spirit passed. In the room there was deep
silence, broken only by the harper’s heart-rending sobs. He staggered
to his feet with despair in his face.
"She said forgive!" he exclaimed with broken voice. "Man—you have seen
an angel die!"
"Who is the author of her death?" Eckhardt questioned, his hands so
tightly clenched, that he almost drove the nails into his own flesh.
If ever words changed the countenance of man, the Margrave’s question
transformed the harper’s grief into flaming wrath.
"A devil, a fiend, who first outraged, then cast her forth blinded, to
die like a reptile," he shrieked in his mastering grief. "Surely God
must have slept, while this was done!"
There was a breathless hush in the death-chamber.
Hezilo was bending over the still face of his child. The dead girl lay
with her hands crossed over her bosom, still as if cut out of marble and
on her face was fixed a sad little smile.
At last the harper arose.
Staggering to the door he gave some whispered instructions to the
individual who seemed to fill the office of warden, then beckoned
silently to Eckhardt to follow him and together they descended the
narrow winding stairs.
"I will return late—have everything prepared," the harper at parting
turned to the warden, who had preceded them with his lantern. The
latter nodded gloomily, then he retraced his steps within, locking the
door behind him.
Under the nocturnal starlit sky, Eckhardt breathed more freely. For a
time they proceeded in silence, which the Margrave was loth to break.
He had long recognized in the harper the mysterious messenger who in
that never-to-be-forgotten night had conducted him to the groves of
Theodora, and who he instinctively felt had been instrumental in saving
his life. Something told him that the harper possessed the key to the
terrible mystery he had in vain endeavoured to fathom, yet his thoughts
reverted ever and ever to the scene in the tower and to the dead girl
Angiola, and he dreaded to break into the harper’s grief.
They had arrived at the place of the Capitol. It was deserted. Not a
human being was to be seen among the ruins, which the seven-hilled city
still cloaked with her ancient mantle of glory. Dark and foreboding the
colossal monument of the Egyptian lion rose out of the nocturnal gloom.
The air was clear but chill, the starlight investing the gray and
towering form of basalt with a more ghostly whiteness. At the sight of
the dread memory from the mystic banks of the Nile, Eckhardt could not
suppress a shudder; a strange oppression laid its benumbing hand upon
him.
Involuntarily he paused, plunged in gloomy and foreboding thoughts, when
the touch of the harper’s hand upon his shoulder caused him to start
from his sombre reverie.
Drawing the Margrave into the shadow of the pedestal, which supported
the grim relic of antiquity, Hezilo at last broke the silence. He spoke
slowly and with strained accents.
"The scene you were permitted to witness this night has no doubt
convinced you that I have a mission to perform in Rome. Our goal is the
same, though we approach it from divergent points. They say man’s fate
is pre-ordained, irrevocable, unchangeable—from the moment of his birth.
A gloomy fantasy, yet not a baseless dream. By a strange succession of
events the thread of our destiny has been interwoven, and the knowledge
which you would acquire at any cost, it is in my power to bestow."
"Of this I felt convinced, since some strange chance brought us face to
face," Eckhardt replied gloomily.
"’Twas something more than chance," replied the harper. "You too felt
the compelling hand of Fate."
"What of the awful likeness?" Eckhardt burst forth, hardly able to
restrain himself at the maddening thought, and feeling instinctively
that he should at last penetrate the web of lies, though ever so finely
spun.
The harper laid a warning finger on his lips.
"You deemed her but Ginevra’s counterfeit?"
"Ginevra! Ginevra!" Eckhardt, disregarding the harper’s caution,
exclaimed in his mastering agony. "What know you of her? Speak! Tell
me all! What of her?"
"Silence!" enjoined his companion. "How know we what these ruins
conceal? I guided you to the Groves at the woman’s behest. What
interest could she have in your destruction?"
Eckhardt was supporting himself against the pedestal of the Egyptian
lion, listening as one dazed to the harper’s words. Then he broke into a
jarring laugh.
"Which of us is mad?" he cried. "Wherein did I offend the woman? She
plied but the arts of her trade."
"You are speaking of Ginevra," replied the harper.
"Ginevra," growled Eckhardt, his hair bristling and his eyes flaming as
those of an infuriated tiger while his fingers gripped the hilt of his
dagger.
"You are speaking of Ginevra!" the harper repeated inexorably.
With a moan Eckhardt’s hands went to his head. His breast heaved; his
breath came and went in quick gasps.
"I do not understand,—I do not understand."
"You made no attempt to revisit the Groves," said the harper.
Eckhardt stroked his brow as if vainly endeavouring to recall the past.
"I feared to succumb to her spell."
"To that end you had been summoned."
"I have since been warned. Yet it seemed too monstrous to be true."
"Warned? By whom?"
"Cyprianus, the monk!"
The harper’s face turned livid.
"No blacker wretch e’er strode the streets of Rome. And he confessed?"
"A death-bed confession, that makes the devils laugh," Eckhardt replied,
then he briefly related the circumstances which had led him into the
deserted region of the Tarpeian Rock and his chance discovery of the
monk, whose strange tale had been cut short by death.
"He has walked long in death’s shadow," said the harper. "Fate was too
kind, too merciful to the slayer of Gregory."
There was a brief pause, during which neither spoke. At last the harper
broke the silence.
"The hour of final reckoning is near,—nearer than you dream, the hour
when a fiend, a traitor must pay the penalty of his crimes, the hour
which shall for ever more remove the shadow from your life. The task
required of you is great; you may not approach it as long as a breath of
doubt remains in your heart. Only certainty can shape your unrelenting
course. Had Ginevra a birth-mark?"
Eckhardt breathed hard.
"The imprint of a raven-claw on her left arm below the shoulder."
Hezilo nodded. A strange look had passed into his eyes.
"There is a means—to obtain the proof."
"I am ready!" replied Eckhardt with quivering lips.
"If you will swear on the hilt of this cross, to be guarded by my
counsel, to let nothing induce you to reveal your identity, I will help
you," said the harper.
Eckhardt touched the proffered cross, nodding wearily. His heart was
heavy to breaking, as the harper slowly outlined his plan.
"The woman has been seized by a mortal dread of her betrayer,—the man
who wrecked her life and yours. No questions now,—this is neither the
hour or the place! In time you shall know, in time you shall be free to
act! Acting upon my counsel, she has bid me summon to her presence a
sooth-sayer, one Dom Sabbat, who dwells in the gorge between Mounts
Testaccio and Aventine. To him I am to carry these horoscopes and
conduct him to the Groves on the third night before the full of the
moon."
The harper’s voice sank to a whisper, while Eckhardt listened
attentively, nodding repeatedly in gloomy silence.
"On that night I shall await you in the shadows of the temple of Isis.
There a boat will lie in waiting to convey us to the water stairs of her
palace."
The harper extended his hand, wrapping himself closer in his mantel.
"The third night before the full of the moon!" he said. "Leave me now, I
implore you, that I may care for my dead. Remember the time, the place,
and your pledge!"
Eckhardt grasped the proffered hand and they parted.
The harper strode away in the direction of the gorge below Mount
Aventine, while Eckhardt, oppressed by strange forebodings, shaped his
course towards his own habitation on the Caelian Mount.
Neither had seen two figures in black robes, that lingered in the
shadows of the Lion of Basalt.
No sooner had Eckhardt and Hezilo departed, than they slowly emerged,
standing revealed in the star-light as Benilo and John of the Catacombs.
For a moment they faced each other with meaning gestures, then they too
strode off in the opposite directions, Benilo following the harper on
his singular errand, while the bravo fastened himself to the heels of
the Margrave, whom he accompanied like his own shadow, only
relinquishing his pursuit when Eckhardt entered the gloomy portals of
his palace.
*CHAPTER IX*
*THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER*
While these events transpired in Rome, a feverish activity prevailed in
Castel San Angelo. In day time the huge mausoleum presented the same
sullen and forbidding aspect as ever but without revealing a trace of
the preparations, which were being pushed to a close within. Under
cover of night the breaches had been repaired; huge balistae and
catapults had been placed in position on the ramparts, and the fortress
had been rendered almost impregnable to assault, as in the time of
Vitiges, the Goth.
Events were swiftly approaching the fatal crisis. While Otto languished
in the toils of Stephania, whose society became more and more
indispensable to him, while with pernicious flattery Benilo closed the
ear of the king to the cries of his German subjects and estranged him
more and more from his leaders, his country, and his hosts, while
Eckhardt vainly strove to arouse Otto to the perils lurking in his utter
abandonment to Roman councillors and Roman polity, the Senator of Rome
had introduced into Hadrian’s tomb a sufficiently strong body of men,
not only to withstand a siege, but to vanquish any force, however
superior to his own, to frustrate any assault, however ably directed.
While the German contingents remained on Roman soil he dared not engage
his enemy in a last death-grapple for the supremacy over the Seven
Hills, which Otto’s war-worn veterans from the banks of the Elbe and
Vistula had twice wrested from him. The final draw in the great game
was at hand. On this day the envoys of the Electors would arrive in
Rome to demand Otto’s immediate return to his German crown-lands, whose
eastern borders were sorely menaced by the ever recurring inroads of
Poles and Magyars. In the event of Otto’s refusing compliance with the
Electoral mandate, Count Ludeger of the Palatinate was to relieve
Eckhardt of his command and to lead the German contingents back across
the Alps.
But it was no part of the Senator’s policy to permit Otto to return.
For while there remained breath in the youth, Rome remained the Fata
Morgana of his dreams, and Crescentius remained the vassal of
Theophano’s son. He could never hope to come into his own as long as
the life of that boy-king overshadowed his own. Therefore every
pressure must be brought to bear upon the headstrong youth, to defy the
Electoral mandate, to rebuff, to offend the Electoral envoys. Then, the
great German host recalled, Eckhardt relieved of his command, Otto
isolated In a hostile camp, Stephania should cry the watchword for his
doom. The inconsiderable guard remaining would be easily vanquished and
the son of Theophano, utterly abandoned and deserted, should fall an
easy prey to the Senator’s schemes, a welcome hostage in the dungeons of
Castel San Angelo, for him to deal with according to the dictates of the
hour. The task to urge Otto to this fatal step had been assigned to
Benilo, but Crescentius was prepared for all emergencies arising from
any unforeseen turn of affairs. He had gone too far to recede. If now
he quailed before the impending issue, the mighty avalanche he had
started would hurl him to swift and certain doom.
Since that fateful hour, when in a moment of unaccountable weakness
Crescentius had listened to Benilo’s serpent-wisdom, and had arrayed his
own wife against the German King, the Senator of Rome had seen but
little of Stephania. The preparations for the impending revolt of the
Romans, in whose fickle minds his emissaries found a fertile soil for
the seed of treason and discontent, engaged him night and day. He
seemed present at once on the ramparts, in the galleries and in the
vaults of his formidable keep. But when chance for a fleeting moment
brought the Senator face to face with his consort, the meaning-fraught
smile on the lips of Stephania seemed to assure him that everything was
going well. Otto was lost to the world. Heaven and earth seemed alike
blotted out for him in her presence. Together they continued to stroll
among the ruins, while Stephania poured strange tales into the youth’s
ear, tales which crept to his brain, like the songs of the Sirens that
lure the mariner among the crimson flowers of their abode. And Eckhardt
despised the Romans too heartily to fear them, and even therein he
revealed the heel of Achilles.
If the present day was gained, the Senator’s diplomacy would carry
victory from the field, and Benilo had well plied his subtle arts. Yet
Crescentius was resolved to attend in person the audience of the envoys.
He would with his own ears hear the King’s reply to the Electors. If
Benilo had played him false? He hardly knew why a lingering suspicion
of the Chamberlain crept into his mind at all. But he shook himself
free of the thought, which had for a moment clouded the future with its
sombre shadow.
As the Senator of Rome hurriedly traversed the galleries of the vast
mausoleum, he suddenly found himself face to face with Stephania.
Her face was pale and her eyes revealed traces of tears.
At the first words she uttered, Crescentius paused, surprise and
gladness in his eyes.
"We are well met, my lord," she said, after a brief greeting, an
unwonted tremor vibrating in her tones. "I have sought you in vain all
the morning. Release me from the task you have imposed upon me! I
cannot go on! I am not further equal to it. It is a game unworthy of
you or me!"
The surprise at her words for a moment choked the Senator’s utterance
and almost struck him dumb.
"Imposed upon?" he replied. "I thought you had accepted the mission
freely. Is the boy rebellious?"
"On the contrary! Were he so, perhaps I should not now prefer this
request. He is but too pliant."
"He has made your task an easy one," Crescentius nodded meaningly.
"He has laid his whole soul bare to me; not a thought therein, ever so
remote, which I have not sounded. I can not stand before him. My brow
is crimsoned with the flush of shame. He gave me truth for a
lie,—friendship for deceit. He deserves a better fate than the Senator
of Rome has decreed for him."
Crescentius breathed hard.
"The weakness does you honour," he replied after a pause. "Perchance I
should have spared you the task. I placed him in your hands, because I
dared trust no one else. And now it is too late—too late!"
"It is not too late," replied Stephania.
Crescentius pointed silently to the ramparts, where a score of men were
placing a huge catapult in position.
"It is not too late!" she repeated, her cheeks alternately flushing and
paling. "To-day, my lord informed me, the King stands at the Rubicon.
To-day he must choose, If it is to be Rome, if Aix-la-Chapelle. If he
elects to return to the gray gloom of his northern skies, to the sombre
twilight of his northern forests, let him go, my lord,—let him go! Much
misery will be thereby averted,—much heart-rending despair!"
Crescentius had listened in silence to Stephania’s pleading. There was a
brief pause, during which only his heavy breathing was heard.
"His choice is made," he replied at last in a firm tone.
"I do not understand you, my lord!"
The Senator regarded his wife with singularly fixed intentness.
"The toils of the Siren Rome are too firm to be snapped asunder like a
spider’s web."
She covered her face with her hands. Her breath came and went with
quick, convulsive gasps.
"It is shameful—shameful—" she sobbed. "Had I never lent myself to the
unworthy task! How could you conceive it, my lord, how could you? But
it was not your counsel! May his right hand wither, who whispered the
thought into your ear!"
Crescentius winced. He felt ill at ease.
"Is it so hard to play the confessor to yonder wingless cherub?" he said
with a forced smile.
Stephania straightened herself to her full height.
"When I undertook the shameless task, I believed the son of Theophano a
tyrant, an oppressor, his hands stained with the best of Roman blood!
Such your lying Roman chroniclers had painted him. I gloried in the
thought, to humble a barbarian, whose vain-glorious, boastful insolence
meditated new outrages upon us Romans. Yet his is a purer, a loftier
spirit, than is to be found in all this Rome of yours! Were it not
nobler to acknowledge him your liege, than to destroy him by woman’s
wiles and smiles?"
"I cannot answer you on these points," Crescentius spoke after a pause,
during which the olive tints of his countenance had faded to ashen hues.
"I regard those dreams, whose mock-halo has blinded you, in a different
light. It is the wise man who rules the state,—it is the dreamer who
dashes it to atoms. We have gone too far! I could not release
you,—even if I would!"
Stephania breathed hard. Her hands were tightly clasped.
"It can bring glory to neither you, nor Rome," she said in a pleading
voice. "Let him depart in peace, my lord, and I will thank you to my
dying hour!"
"How know you he wishes to depart?"
"How know you he wishes to remain?"
"His destiny is Rome. Here he will live—and here he will die!" the
Senator spoke with slow emphasis. "But we have not yet agreed upon the
signal," he continued with cold and merciless voice. "After the
departure of the envoys you will lead the King into his favourite
haunts, the labyrinth of the Minotaurus, to the little temple of
Neptune. There I will in person await him. When you see the gleam of
spearpoints in the thickets, you will wave your kerchief with the cry:
’For Rome and Crescentius.’ No harm shall befall the youth,—unless he
resist. He shall have honourable conduct to the guest chamber, prepared
for him,—below."
And Crescentius pointed downward with the thumb of his right hand.
Stephania’s bosom rose and fell in quick respiration.
"I am not accustomed to prefer a request and be denied," she said
proudly, her face the pallor of death. "Is this your last word, my
lord?"
Crescentius met her gaze unflinchingly.
"It is my last," he replied. "Yet one choice remains with you: You may
betray the King,—or the Senator of Rome!"
He turned to go, but something whispered to him to stay. At that moment
he despised himself for having imposed upon his wife a task, against
which Stephania’s loftier nature had rebelled and he inwardly cursed the
hour which had ripened the seed and him, who had sown it. Gazing after
Stephania’s retreating form, all the love he bore her surged up into his
heart as he cried her name.
Arrested by his voice, Stephania turned and paused for a moment swift as
thought, but in that moment she seemed to read the very depths of his
soul and the utter futility of further entreaty. Without a word she
ascended the spiral stairway leading to the upper galleries and
re-entered her own apartments, while with long and wistful gaze
Crescentius followed the vanishing form of his wife.
And it seemed as if the Senator’s prophecy was to be fulfilled. At the
reading of the Electoral manifesto, Otto had been seized with an
uncontrollable fit of rage. He had torn the document to shreds and cast
its fragments at the feet of the Bavarian duke, who acted as spokesman
for his colleagues, the dukes of Thuringia, Saxony and Westphalia.
Neither the arguments of the Electoral envoys, nor the violent
denunciations of Eckhardt, who aired his hatred of Rome in language
never before heard in the presence of a sovereign, could stand before
Benilo’s eloquent pleading. On his knees the Chamberlain implored the
King not to abandon Rome and his beloved Romans. Vainly the German
dukes pointed to the dangers besetting the realm, vainly to the
inadequate defences of the Eastern March. With a majesty far above his
years, Otto declared his supreme will to make Rome the capital of the
earth, and to restore the pristine majesty of the Holy Roman Empire.
Rome was his destiny. Here he would live, and here he would die. Rome
was pacified. He required no longer the presence of the army. Let
Bavaria and Saxony defend their own boundaries as best they might; let
the Count Palatine lead his veteran hosts across the Alps. He would
remain. This his reply to the Electors.
On the eve of that eventful day the German dukes departed, while the
Count Palatine proceeded to Tivoli, to prepare the great armament for
their winter march across the Alps. It had come to pass as Crescentius
had predicted. The die was cast. Rome, the Siren, had conquered.
In the night following these events, Rome in her various quarters
presented a strange aspect of secret activity.
In the fortresses of the Cavalli and Caetani lights flitted to and fro
through the gratings in the main court. Benilo, the Chamberlain, might
be seen stealing from the postern gate. Towards the ruins of the
Coliseum men whose dress bespoke them of the lowest rank, were seen
creeping from lanes and alleys. From these ruins at a later hour,
glided again the form of the Grand Chamberlain. Later yet,—when a gray
light is breaking in the east, the gates of Rome, by St. John Lateran,
are open. Benilo is conversing with the Roman guard. The mountains are
dim with a mournful and chilling haze when Benilo enters the palace on
the Aventine.
*CHAPTER X*
*THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE*
Shaken to the inmost depths of his soul by a storm of forebodings, hope,
fear and passion, Otto had shaken himself free from the throng of
flattering friends and courtiers and had sought the solitude of his own
chamber. He had dismissed the envoys of the Electors with the
unalterable reply that he would not return to his gloomy Saxon-land.
Let the Saxon dukes defend the borders of the realm, let them keep Poles
and Slavs in check. His own destiny was Rome. Here he would live, and
here he would die. Deeply offended, the German envoys had departed.
The consequences might be far-reaching indeed. Tearing off his
accoutrements and all insignia of office and rank, Otto flung himself on
his couch in solitary seclusion. All had been against him,—save Benilo.
Benilo alone understood him. Benilo alone encouraged the young king to
follow out his destiny. Benilo alone had pointed out that the earth
might be governed from the ancient seat of empire without detriment to
any of the nations of the Holy Roman Empire. Benilo alone had
demonstrated the necessity of Otto’s presence in his chosen capital,
whose heterogeneous elements would obey no lesser authority.
Weary and torn by conflicting emotions he at last sank down before the
image of Mary and prayed to the Mother of God to guide his steps in the
dark wilderness in which he found himself entangled. Thus transported
out of himself far beyond the vociferous pageant of that exhausting day,
Otto gave himself with all the mystical fervour of his Hellenic nature
to visions of the future.
Thus the evening approached. Long before the hour appointed he slowly
bent his steps towards the little temple of Neptune, crowning the
olive-clad summits of Mount Aventine and overlooking the vale of Egeria
and the meandering course of the Tiber. The clouds above, beautiful
with changing sunset tints, mottled the broken surface of the river with
hues of bronze and purple between the leaves of the creeping
water-plants, which clogged the movement of the stream. On the
river-bank the rushes were starred with iris and ranunculus.
The sun was declining in the horizon. A solemn stillness, like the
presage of some divine event, held the pulses of the universe. A soft
rose crept into the shimmer of the water, cresting the summits of far
off Soracté. The transient, many-tinted glories of the autumn sunset
were reflected in opalescent lights on the waves of the Tiber, and swept
the landscape in one dazzling glow of gold and amber, strangely blending
with the gold and russet of the autumn foliage. The floating smell of
flowers invisible hovered on the air; a mystic yearning seemed to
pervade all nature in that chill, melancholy odour, that puts men in
mind of death. The soft masses of leaves decayed caused a brushing
sound under the feet of the lonely rambler.
Round him in the silent woods burnt the magnificent obsequies of
departing summer.
Fire-flies moved through the embalmed air, like the torches of unseen
angels. The late roses exhaled their mystic odour, and silently like
dead butterflies, here and there a wan leaf dropped from the branches.
At every step the wood became more lonely. It was as untroubled by any
sound as an abandoned cemetery. Birds there were few, the shade of the
laurel-grove being too dense and no song of theirs was heard. A
grasshopper began his shrill cry, but quickly ceased, as if startled by
its own voice. Insects alone were humming faintly in a last slender ray
of sunlight, but ventured not to quit its beam for the neighbouring
gloom. Sometimes Otto trended his path along wider alleys bordered by
titanic walls of weird cypress, casting dark shade as a moonless night.
Here and there subterranean waters made the moss spongy. Streams ran
everywhere, chill as melted snow, but silently, with no tinkling
ripples, as if muted by the melancholy of the enchanted wood. Moss
stifled the sound of the falling drops and they sank away like the tears
of an unspoken love.
For a moment; Otto lingered among a tangle of elder-bushes. The oblique
sun rays filtering through the dense laurel became almost lunar, as if
seen through the smoke of a funeral torch.
Along the edge of the road goats were contentedly browsing and a rugged
sun-burnt little lad with large black eyes was driving a flock of geese.
Storm clouds lined with gold were rising in the North over the unseen
Alps, and high up in the clear sky there burned a single star.
Deep in thought, Otto passed the walls of the cloisters of St. Cosmas.
Onward he walked as in the memory of a dream.
Through the purple silence came faintly the chant of the monks:
"Fac me plagis vulnerari
Pac me cruce inebriari
Ob amorem Filii."
At last the Ionic marble columns, softly steeped in the warmth of
departing day, came into sight. Silence and coolness encompassed him.
The setting sun still cast his glimmer on the capitals of the columns
whose fine, illumined scroll work, contrasted with the penumbral shadows
of the interior, seemed soft and bright as tresses of gold.
A hand softly touched Otto’s shoulder. A voice whispered:
"If you would know all—come! Come and I will tell you the secret which
never yet I have uttered to mortal man."
In the departing light, veiled by the thick cypresses and pale as the
moon-beams, just as in the Egerian wilderness in the whiteness of
summer-lightnings, she put her face close to his, her face white as
marble, with its scarlet lips, its witch-like eyes.
On they walked in silence, hand in hand.
On they walked along the verge of a precipice, where none have walked
before, resisting the vertigo and the fatal attraction of the abyss. If
they should prove unequal to the strain,—overstep the magic circle?
Stephania was pale and trembled. She smiled,—but the smile troubled
him, he scarce knew why. He tried to think it was the melancholy,
caused by the wild and stormy look of the sunset and the loud cawing of
the hereditary rooks, which seemed to croak an everlasting farewell to
life and hope in the oaks of the convent.
Must he repulse the love that surged up to him in resistless waves?
Must he renounce the near for the far-away, the ideal, whose embodiment
she was, for the commonplace?
Slowly the sun sank to rest in a sea of crimson and gold, a fiery
funeral of foliage and flowers.
A clock boomed from a neighbouring tower. The heavy measured clang
vibrated long through the stillness, quivering In the air, like a
warning knell of fate.
Softly she drew him into the dusk of the pagan temple, drew him down
beside her on one of the scattered fragments of antiquity, a dog-eared
God of black Syenite from Egypt, which had shared the fate of its Latin
equals.
But he could not sit beside—her.
Abruptly he rose; standing before her, the passion of the long fight
surged up in him. Stephania sat motionless, and for a time neither
spoke.
At last Otto broke the silence. His voice was strained as if he were
suffering some great pain.
"I have come!" he said. "I have cut every bridge between present and
past! I am here.—Have you thought of my appeal?"
"Oh, why do you torture me?" she replied half sobbing, "I venture to ask
for a delay, and you arraign me as though I stood at the bar of
judgment."
"It is our day of judgment," he replied. "It is the day when life
confronts us with our own deeds,—when we must answer for them, when we
must justify them. For if we are but triflers, we cannot stand in the
face either of heaven or of hell!"
He bent down and took her hands in his.
"Stephania," he said, "I too have doubted, I too have wavered:—give me
but one word of assurance,—my love for you is a wound which no eternity
can cure."
She broke from him, to hide her weeping.
"Have you thought of the forfeit?" she faltered after a time.
"I would not forego the doom!—You alone are my light in this dark
country of the world. Do not stifle the voice in your heart with
reasons—"
"Reasons! Reasons!" she interrupted. "What does the heart know of
reasons! Mine has long forgotten their pleadings—else, were I here?"
Something in her voice and gesture was like a lightning flash over a
dark landscape. In an instant he saw the pit at his feet.
"What then," he faltered, "is this to lead to?"
"Some one has been with you," she said quickly. "These words were not
yours."
He rallied with a fault smile.
"A pretext for not heeding them."
"Eckhardt has been with you! He has maligned me to you!"
"He has warned me against you!"
She turned very pale.
"And you heeded?"
"I am here, Stephania!"
The subtle perfume clinging to her gown mounted to his brain, choking
back reason and resistance.
"Yet again I ask you, what is this to lead to? I am afraid of the
future as a child of the dark!"
She held his hands tightly clasped.
"Oh!" she sobbed, "why will you torture me? I have borne much for our
love’s sake—but to answer you now is to relive it and I lack the
strength."
He held her hands fast, his eyes in hers.
"No, Stephania," he said, "your strength never failed you when there was
call on it, and our whole past calls on it now! Eckhardt tells me that
the Romans hate me,—that they resent the love I bear them—oh, if it were
true!"
Stephania gazed at him with wide astonished eyes.
"Ah! It is this then," she said with a sigh of relief. "A moment’s
thought must show you what passions are here at work. You must rise
above such fears. As for us,—no one can judge between us, but
ourselves. Shake off these dread fancies! There lies but one goal
before us. You pointed the way to it once. Surely you would not hold
me back from it now?"
Gently she drew him down by her side. Through the crevices in the roof
glimmered the evening star.
She saw the conflict, which raged within him, the instinct to break away
from her, who could never more be his own. She saw the fear which bound
him to her,—she saw the great love he bore her, and she knew that he was
hers soul and body, her instrument, her toy,—her lover if she so willed.
He spoke to her of his childhood in the bleak northern forests; of the
black pines of Thuringia, of the snow-drifts, which froze his heart; of
the sad sea horizons brooding infinitely away; of the gloomy abbey of
Merséburg, in the Saxon-land, where the great Emperor Otto, his
grandsire, was sleeping towards the day of resurrection, where under the
abbot’s guidance he had first been initiated into the magic of a sunnier
clime. He spoke to her of his Greek mother, the Empress Theophano,
whose great beauty was only rivalled by her own, and of that eventful
night, when he descended into the crypts of Aix-la-Chapelle and opened
the tomb of Charlemagne, then dead almost two hundred years. He told
her how he had fought against this mad, unreasoning love, which had at
first sight of her crept into his heart, urging naught in palliation of
his offence, but like a flagellant laying bare his tortured flesh to a
self-inflicted scourge. He begged her to decide for him, to guide him,
lonely antagonist of destiny—dared he ask for more? She was the wife of
the Senator of Rome.
As he ceased speaking, Otto covered his face with his hands, but
Stephania drew them down and held them firmly in her own. Truly, if it
was victory to accomplish the end, by drawing out a loving, confiding
heart, the victory was with the vanquished. And with the memory of the
compact she had sealed a wondrous pity flashed through the woman’s soul,
a mighty longing, to lift the son of the Greek Princess up into joyous
peace! No thought of evil marred her pure desire,—alas! She knew not at
that moment, that even in that pity lay his direst snare, and hers.
The decisive moment was at hand. In the thickets before the temple her
eye discerned the gleam of spear-points. For a moment a violent tremor
passed through her body. She had hardly strength sufficient to maintain
her presence of mind, and her face was pale as that of a corpse.
Would she, a second Delilah, deliver Otto to her countrymen—the Romans?
It was some time ere she felt sufficiently composed to speak. Her throat
was dry and she seemed to choke.
Otto remarked her discomfiture, far from guessing its cause.
"I will fetch you some water," he said, starting up to leave the temple.
Quick as lightning she had arisen, holding him back.
"It is nothing," she whispered nervously. "Do not leave me!"
And he obeyed.
Stephania closed her eyes as if to exclude the sight of the
spear-points.
"Otto," she said softly, after a pause, for the first time calling him
by his name, "I fear there is one great lesson you have never learned."
"And what is this lesson?"
"That, what you are doing for the Romans might also be done for you! Is
there no heart to share your sorrow, to help you bear the pain of
disappointment, which must come to you sooner or later? You told me,
you had never loved before we met—"
He nodded assent.
"Never—Never!"
"Ah! Then you do not know. You seek for light, where the sun can never
shine! Striving for the highest ideals of mankind we can rise from the
black depths of doubt but by one ladder,—that of a woman’s love!"
Again the dreadful doubt assailed him.
"If you mean—that,—oh, do not speak of it, Stephania! The wound is
already past healing."
She bent towards him and rested her head upon his shoulders.
"And yet I must,—here—and to you."
"No—no—no!" he muttered helplessly and turned away. The words of
Eckhardt rushed and roared through his memory: "Once you are hers,—no
human power can save you from the abyss."
But Eckhardt hated the Romans as one hates a scorpion, a basilisk.
Stephania relinquished not her victim. He must be hers, body and soul,
ere she shrieked the fatal word.—The warm blood hurtling through her
veins quenched the last pitying spark.
"Ah!" she said with a sigh. "You have never known the tenderness of a
woman’s smile,—the touch of a woman’s hand,—her soft caress,—the sound
of her voice,—that haunts you everywhere,—waking,—in your dreams—"
"Stephania!" he gasped, and rose as if to flee from her, but she held
him back.
"You have never known the ear that listens for your footsteps,—the lips
that meet your own in a long, passionate kiss,—the kiss that thrills—and
burns—and maddens—"
"Stephania—in mercy—cease!"
Again he attempted to rise, again she drew him down.
"You are not like other men—Otto! Will you always live so lonely,—so
companionless,—with no one to love you with that lasting love, for which
your whole soul cries out?"
Shivering he raised his arms as if to shut the sight of her from his
dazzled gaze. Again, though fainter, Eckhardt’s terrible warning
knocked at the gates of his memory. But her purring voice with its low
melodious roll, wooed his listening heart till the doors of reason
tottered on their hinges. And the end—what would be the end?
"Tell me no more," he gasped, "tell me no more! I cannot listen! I
dare not listen! You will destroy me! You will destroy us both!"
Her lips parted in a smile,—that fateful smile, which caused his soul to
quake. Her fine nostrils quivered, as she bent towards him.
"You cannot?" she said. "You dare not? Will you pass the cup untasted,
the cup that brims with the crimson joy of love? Is there none in all
the world to take you by the hand,—to lead you home?"
With a cry half inarticulate he sprang toward her,—his fierce words
tumbling from delirious lips:
"Yes,—there is one,—there is one,—one who could lift me up till my soul
should sing in heavenly bliss,—one who could bring to me forgetfulness
and peace,—one who could change my state of exalted loneliness to a
delirium of ecstasy,—one who could lead me, wherever she would—could I
but lay my head on her breast,—touch her lips,—call her mine—"
Stephania stretched out her white, bare arms that made him dizzy. He
stood before her quivering with hands pressed tightly against his
throbbing temples. One moment only.—Half risen from her seat, her eye
on the gleaming spear-points in the thicket, she seemed to crouch
towards him like some beautiful animal, then a half choked out cry broke
from his lips, as their eyes looked hungrily into each others, and they
were clasped in a tight embrace. Stephania’s arms encircled Otto’s neck
and she pressed her lips on his in a long, fervid kiss, which thrilled
the youth to the marrow of his bone.
At that moment a curtain of matted vines, which divided the vestibule of
the little temple from its inner chambers was half pushed aside by a
massive arm, wrapped with scales of linked mail. Standing behind them,
Crescentius witnessed the embrace and withdrew without a word.
Was Stephania not overacting her part?
He waited for the signal.
No signal came.
Then a terrible revelation burst upon the Senator’s mind.
Johannes Crescentius had lost the love of his wife.
After a time the spear-points disappeared.
The Senator of Rome saw his own danger and the forces arrayed against
him. He was no longer dealing with statecraft. The weapon had been
turned. With a smothered outcry of anguish he slowly retraced his
steps.
Neither had seen the silent witness of their embrace.
Silence had ensued in the temple.
Each could feel the tremor in the soul of the other.
After a time Otto stumbled blindly into the open. Stephania remained
alone in rigid silence.
In frozen horror she stared into the dusk.
"The game is finished,—I have won,—oh, God forgive me—God forgive me!"
she moaned. "Otto ... Otto ... Otto ..."
* * * * *
"If you would know all,—come at midnight to the churchyard near Ponte
Sisto," whispered a voice close by his side, as Crescentius staggered
towards the Aelian bridge.
He felt a hand upon his shoulder, turned, and saw, like some ill-omened
ghost in the wintry twilight, a lean pale face staring into his own.
In the darkness, under the dense shadows of the cypress-trees he could
not distinguish the features of his companion, who wore the habit of a
monk.
But when Crescentius turned to reply, he was alone.
"Christ too prayed a human prayer for a miracle: Father, let this cup
pass from me!" he muttered, continuing upon his way.
With eyes on the ground he strode along the narrow walk, skirting the
Tiber, in whose turbid waves no stars were reflected. And scarce
consciously he repeated to himself:
"As like as a man and his own phantom,—his own phantom."
He passed the bridge and entered the mausoleum of the Flavian emperor.
Rapidly he ascended to his own chamber.
The candle was burning low.
Up and down he paced in the endeavour to order his thoughts. But no
order would come into the chaotic confusion of his mind.
What was the dominion of Rome to him now?
What the dominion of the Universe?
What devil in human shape had counselled the act in the seeds of which
slumbered his own destruction?
The flame of the dying candle flickered and grew dim.
Had Stephania returned?
He heard no steps, no sound in her chamber.
At the memory of what he had seen, a groan broke from his lips.
How he hated that boy, who after wresting from him the dominion of the
city, had stolen from him the love of his wife!
Stolen? Had it not been thrust upon him? What mortal could have
resisted the temptation? He would die—thus it was written in the
stars;—but Stephania would weep for him—
On tip-toe the Senator stole to the chamber of his wife. The door stood
ajar. The chamber was empty.
The candle flared up for the last time, lighting up the gloom. Then it
sank down and went out.
Crescentius was alone in the darkness.
*CHAPTER XI*
*THE INCANTATION*
It was near the hour of midnight when a figure, muffled and concealed in
an ample mantle left Castel San Angelo. The guards on duty did not
challenge it and after crossing the Aelian bridge, it traversed the
deserted thoroughfares until it reached the Flaminian way, which it
entered. Avoiding the foot-path near the river, the figure moved
stealthily along the farther side of the road, which, as far as could be
discerned by the glimpses of the moon which occasionally shone forth
from a bank of heavy clouds, was deserted. A few sounds arose from the
banks of the river and there was now and then a splash in the water or a
distant cry betokening some passing craft. Otherwise profound silence
reigned. The low structures and wharfs on the opposite bank could be
but imperfectly discerned, but the moonlight fell clear upon the
mausoleum of Augustus and the adjacent church of St. Eufemia. The same
glimmer also ran like a silver-belt across the stream and revealed the
gloomy walls of the Septizonium. The world of habitations beyond this
melancholy stronghold was buried in darkness.
After crossing Ponte Sisto the muffled rambler entered a churchyard,
which seemed to have been abandoned for ages. The moon was now shining
brightly and silvered the massive square watchtowers, the battlements,
and pinnacles with gorgeous tracery. Crescentius had hardly set foot on
the moss-grown path, when two individuals wrapped in dark, flowing
mantles, whose manner was as mysterious as their appearance, glided
stealthily past him.
They seemed not to have noticed his presence but pursued their way
through the churchyard, creeping beneath the shadow of a wall in the
direction of some low structure, which appeared to be a charnel-house
situated at its north-western extremity. Before this building grew a
black and stunted yew-tree. Arrived at it, they paused to see whether
they were observed. They did not notice the unbidden visitor, who had
concealed himself behind a buttress. One of the two individuals who
seemed bent by great age then unlocked the door of the charnel-house and
brought out a pick-axe and a spade. Then both men proceeded some little
distance from the building and began to shovel out the mould from a
grass-grown grave.
Determined to watch their proceeding, Crescentius crept towards the
yew-tree, behind which he ensconced himself. The bent and decrepit one
of the two meanwhile continued to ply his spade with a vigour that
seemed incomprehensible in one so far stricken in years and of such
infirm appearance. At length he paused, and kneeling within the shallow
grave endeavoured to drag something from it. His assistant, apparently
younger and possessed of greater vigour, knelt to lend his aid. After
some exertion they drew forth the corpse of a woman which had been
interred without a coffin and apparently in the habiliments worn during
life. Then the two men raised the corpse, and conveyed it to the
charnel-house. After having done so, one of them returned to the grave
for the lantern and, upon returning, entered the building and closed and
fastened the door behind him.
Crescentius had chosen the moment when one of the two individuals left
the lone house, to enter unobserved and to conceal himself in the
shadows. What he had witnessed, had exercised a terrible fascination
over him, and he was determined to see to an end the devilish rites
about to be performed by the personage, in quest of whom he had come.
The chamber in which he found himself was in perfect keeping with the
horrible ceremonial about to be performed. In one corner lay a
mouldering heap of skulls, bones and other fragments of mortality; in
the other a pile of broken coffins, emptied of their tenants and reared
on end. But what chiefly attracted his attention, was a ghastly
collection of human limbs blackened with pitch, girded round with iron
hoops and hung like meat in a shamble against the wall. There were two
heads, and although the features were scarcely distinguishable owing to
the liquid in which they had been immersed, they still retained a
terrible expression of agony. These were the quarters of two priests
recently executed for conspiracy against the Pontiff, which had been
left there pending their final disposition. The implements of execution
were scattered about and mixed with the tools of the sexton, while in
the centre of the room stood a large wooden frame supported by rafters.
On this frame, bespattered with blood and besmeared with pitch, the body
was now placed. This done, the one who seemed to be the moving spirit
of the two, placed the lantern beside it, and as the light fell upon its
livid features, sullied with earth, and exhibiting traces of decay,
Crescentius was so appalled by the sight, that he revealed his presence
by a half suppressed outcry. Seeing the futility of further
concealment, he stepped into the light of the lantern and was about to
speak, when he heard the older address his assistant, neither of whom
evinced the least surprise at his presence, while he pointed toward him:
"Look! It is the very face! The bronzed and strongly marked
features,—the fierce gray eye—the iron frame of the figure we beheld in
the show-stone! Thus he looked, as we tracked his perilous course."
"You know me then?" asked the intruder uneasily.
"You are the Senator of Rome!"
"You spoke of my perilous course! How have you learned this?"
"By the art that reveals all things! And in proof that your thoughts
are known to me, I will tell you the inquiry you would make before it is
uttered. You came here to learn whether the enterprise in which you are
engaged will succeed."
"Such was my intent," replied Crescentius. "From the reports about you,
I will freely admit, I regarded you as an impostor! Now I am convinced
that you are skilled in the occult science and would fain consult you on
the future. What is the meaning of this?" he continued pointing to the
corpse before him.
"I expected you!" was the conjurer’s laconic reply.
"How is that possible?" exclaimed Crescentius. "It is only within the
hour, that I conceived the thought,—and only the events of this evening
prompted it."
"I know all!" replied Dom Sabbat. "Yet I would caution you: beware, how
you pry into the future. You may repent of your rashness, when it is
too late."
"I have no fear! Let me know the worst!" replied Crescentius.
The conjurer pointed to the corpse.
"That carcass having been placed in the ground without the holy rites of
burial, I have power over it. As the witch of Endor called up Samuel,
as is recorded in Holy Writ,—as Erichtho raised up a corpse, to reveal
to Sextus Pompejus the event of the Pharsalian war,—as the dead maid was
brought back to life by Appollonius of Thyana,—so I, by certain powerful
incantations will lure the soul of this corpse for a short space into
its former abode, and compel it to answer my questions. Dare you be
present at the ceremony?"
"I dare!" replied the Senator of Rome.
"So it be!" replied Dom Sabbat. "You will need all your courage!" and
he extinguished the light.
An awful silence ensued in the charnel-house, broken only by a low
murmur from the conjurer who appeared to be reciting an incantation. As
he proceeded, his tones became louder and his voice that of command.
Suddenly he paused and seemed to await a response. But as none was
made, greatly to the disappointment of Crescentius, whose curiosity,
despite his fears, was raised to the highest pitch, cried:
"Blood is wanting to complete the charm!"
"If that be all, I will speedily supply the deficiency," replied the
Senator, bared his left arm and, drawing his poniard, pricked it
slightly with the point of the weapon.
"I bleed now!" he cried.
"Sprinkle the corpse with the blood," commanded Dom Sabbat.
"The blood is flowing upon it!" replied Crescentius with a shudder.
Upon this the conjurer began to mutter an incantation in a louder and
more authoritative tone than before. His assistant added his voice, and
both joined in a sort of chorus, but in a jargon entirely unintelligible
to the Senator.
Suddenly a blue flame appeared above their heads, and slowly descending,
settled upon the brow of the corpse, lighting up the sunken cavities of
the eyes and the discoloured and distorted features.
"She moves! She moves!" shouted the Senator frantically. "She moves!
She is alive."
"Be silent!" cried Dom Sabbat, "else mischief may ensue!"
And again he started his incantation.
"Down on your knees!" he exclaimed at length with terrible voice. "The
spirit is at hand."
There was a rushing sound and a stream of white, dazzling light shot
down upon the corpse, which emitted a hollow groan. In obedience to Dom
Sabbat’s demand Crescentius had prostrated himself on the ground, but he
kept his gaze steadily fixed on the body, which, to his infinite
amazement, slowly arose until it stood erect upon the frame. There it
remained perfectly motionless, with the arms close to the sides and the
habiliments torn and dishevelled. The blue light still retained its
position upon the brow and communicated a horrible glimmer to the
features. The spectacle was so dreadful, that Crescentius would have
averted his eyes, but he was unable to do so. The conjurer and his
familiar meanwhile continued their invocations, until, as it seemed to
the Senator, the lips of the corpse moved and a voice of despair
exclaimed: "Why have you called me?"
"To question you about the future!" replied Dom Sabbat rising.
"Speak and I will answer," replied the corpse.
"Ask her,—but be brief;—her time is short," said Dom Sabbat, addressing
the Senator. "Only as long as that flame burns, have I power over her!"
"What is her name?" questioned the Senator.
"Marozia!"
The Senator’s hand went to his forehead; he tottered and almost fell.
But he caught himself.
"Spirit of Marozia," he cried, "if indeed thou standest before me, and
some demon has not entered thy frame to delude me,—by all that is holy,
and by every blessed saint do I adjure thee to tell me, whether the
scheme, on which I am now engaged for the glory of Rome, will prosper?"
"Thou art mistaken, Johannes Crescentius," returned the corpse. "Thy
scheme is not for the glory of Rome!"
"I will not pause to argue this point," continued the Senator. "Will the
end be successful?"
"The end will be death," replied the corpse.
"To the King—or to myself?"
"To both!"
"Ha!" ejaculated Crescentius, breathing hard. "To both!"
"Proceed if you have more to ask,—the flame is expiring," cried the
conjurer.
"And—Stephania?" But he could not utter the question. He felt like one
choking.
But before the question was formed, the light vanished and a heavy sound
was heard, as of the body falling on the frame.
"It is over!" said Dom Sabbat
"Can you not summon her again?" asked Crescentius, in a tone of deep
disappointment. "I must know that other."
"Impossible," replied the conjurer. "The spirit has flown and cannot be
recalled. We must commit the body to the earth!"
"My curiosity is excited,—not satisfied," said the Senator. "Would it
were to occur again!"
"Thus it is ever," replied Dom Sabbat. "We seek to know that which is
forbidden, and quench our thirst at a fount, which but inflames our
curiosity the more. You have embarked on a perilous enterprise;—be
warned, Senator of Rome! If you continue to pursue it, it will lead you
to perdition."
"I cannot retreat," replied Crescentius. "And I would not, if I could.
Death to both of us:—this at least is atonement!"
"I warn you again,—if you persist, you are lost!"
"Impossible,—I cannot retreat;—I could not, if I would! By no sophistry
can I clear my conscience of the ties imposed upon it. I have sworn
never to desist from the execution of this scheme, never—never! And so
resolved am I, that if I stood alone in this very hour—I would go on."
"You stand alone!"
No one knew whence the voice had come. The three stood appalled.
A deep groan issued from the corpse.
"For the last time,—be warned!" expostulated Dom Sabbat.
"Come forth!" cried Crescentius rushing towards the door. "This place
stifles me!" And he unbolted the door and threw it wide open, stepping
outside.
The moon was shining brightly from a deep blue azure. Before him stood
the old church of St. Damian bathed in the moonlight. The Senator gazed
abstractedly at the venerable structure, then he re-entered the
charnel-house, where he found the conjurer and his companion employed in
placing the body of the excommunicated denizen of Castel San Angelo into
a coffin, which they had taken from a pile in the corner. He immediately
proffered his assistance and in a short space the task was completed.
The coffin was then borne toward the grave, at the edge of which it was
laid, while the Dom Sabbat mumbled a strange Requiem over the departed.
This ended, it was laid into its shallow resting place, and speedily
covered with earth.
When all was ready for their departure, Dom Sabbat turned to the Senator
of Rome, bidding him farewell. Declining the proffered gold, he
observed:
"If you are wise, my lord, you will profit by the awful warning you have
this night received."
"Who are you?" the Senator questioned abruptly, trying to peer through
the cowl which the adept of the black arts had drawn over his face,
"since the devils obey your beck?"
The conjurer laughed a soundless laugh.
"Of dominion over devils I am innocent—since I rule no men!"
At the entrance of the churchyard, Crescentius parted from the conjurer
and his associate, about whose personality he had not troubled himself,
and returned in deep rumination to Castel San Angelo.
No sooner had the Senator of Rome departed, than the conjurer’s familiar
tore the trappings from his person and stood revealed to his companion
as Benilo, the Chamberlain.
"Dog! Liar! Impostor," he hissed into Dom Sabbat’s face, while kicking
and buffeting him. "Marozia has been dead some fifty years. How dare
you perpetrate this monstrous fraud? Was it this I bade you tell the
Senator of Rome?"
Dom Sabbat cringed before the blows and the flaming madness in the
Chamberlain’s eyes. Folding his arms over his chest and bending low he
replied with feigned contrition:
"It was not for me to compel the spirit’s answer! And as for the
corpse, ’twas Marozia’s. Thus read you the devil’s favour. Until
blessed by the holy rite, the body cannot return to its native dust."
"Then it was Marozia’s spirit we beheld?" Benilo queried with a shudder,
as they left the churchyard.
"Marozia’s spirit," replied Dom Sabbat. "Yet who would raise a fabric
on the memory of a lie?"
*CHAPTER XII*
*THE HERMITAGE OF NILUS*
Stephania’s sleep had been broken and restless. She tossed and turned
in her pillows and pushed back the hair from her fevered cheeks and
throbbing temples in vain. It was weary work, to lie gazing with eyes
wide open at the flickering shadows cast by the night-lamp on the
opposite wall. It was still less productive of sleep to shut them tight
and to abandon herself to the visions thus evoked, which stood out in
life-like colours and refused to be dispelled.
Do what she would to forget him, to conjure up some other object in her
soul, there stood the son of Theophano, towering like a demi-god over
the mean, effeminate throng of her countrymen. Her whole being had
changed in the brief space of time, since first they had met face to
face. Then the woman’s heart, filled with implacable hatred of that
imperial phantom, which had twice wrested the dominion of Rome from the
Senator’s iron grasp, filled with hatred of the unwelcome intruder, had
given one great bound for joy at the certainty that he was hers,—hers to
deal with according to her desire,—that he had not withstood the vertigo
of her fateful beauty. With the first kiss she had imprinted on his
lips, she had dedicated him to the Erynnies,—it was not enough to
vanquish, she must break his heart. Thus only would her victory be
complete.
What a terrible change had come over her now! All she possessed, all
she called her own, she would gladly have given to undo what she had
done. For the first time, as with the lightning’s glare, the terrible
chasm was revealed to her, at the brink of which she stood. Strange
irony of fate! Slowly but surely she had felt the hatred of Otto vanish
from her heart. He had bared his own before her, she had penetrated the
remotest depths of his soul. She had read him as an open book. And as
she revolved in her own mind the sordid aspirations of those she called
her countrymen, the promptings of tyrants and oppressors,—thrown in the
scales against the pure and lofty ideals of the King,—a flush of shame
drove the pallor from her cheeks and caused hot tears of remorse to well
up from the depths of her eyes.
For the first time the whole enormity of what she had done, of the
scheme to which she had lent herself, flashed upon her, and with it a
wave of hot resentment rushed through her heart. Her own blind hate and
the ever-present consciousness of the low estate to which the one-time
powerful house of Crescentius had fallen, had prompted her to accept the
trust, to commit the deed for which she despised herself. Would the
youth, whom she was to lead the sure way to perdition, have chosen such
means to attain his ends? And what would he say to her at that fatal
moment, when all his illusions would be shattered to atoms, his dreams
destroyed and his heart broken? Would he not curse her for ever having
crossed his path? Would he not tear the memory of the woman from his
heart, who had trifled with its most sacred heavings? He would die, but
she! She must live—live beside the man for whom she had sinned, for
whose personal ends she had spun this gigantic web of deception. Otto
would die:—he would not survive the shock of the revelation. His
sensitive, finely-strung temperament was not proof against such
unprecedented treachery. What the Senator’s shafts and catapults had
failed to achieve,—the Senator’s wife would have accomplished! But the
glory of the deed? "Gloria Victis," he had said to her when she pointed
the chances of defeat. "Gloria Victis"—and she must live!
Otto loved her;—with a love so passionate and enduring that even death
would mock at separation.—They would belong to each other ever after.
It was not theirs to choose. It seemed to her as if they had been
destined for each other from the begin of time, as if their souls had
been one, even before their birth. And all the trust reposed in her,
all the love given to her—how was she about to requite them? Were her
countrymen worthy the terrible sacrifice? Was Crescentius, her husband?
Had his rule ennobled him? Had his rule ennobled the Romans? Were the
motives not purely personal?
She knew she had gone too far to recede. And even if she would, nothing
could now save the German King. The avalanche which had been started
could not be stopped. The forces arrayed against Teutonic rule now
defied the control of him who had evoked them. How could she save the
King?
Salvation for him lay only in immediate flight from Rome! The very
thought was madness. He would never consent. Not all his love for her
could prompt a deed of cowardice. He would remain and perish,—and his
blood would be charged to her account in the book of final judgment.
How long were these dreadful hours! They seemed never ending like
eternity. A moan broke from Stephania’s lips. She hid her burning face
in her white arms. Oh, the misery of this fatal love! There was no
resisting it, there was no renouncing it;—ever present in her soul,
omnipotent in her heart, it would not even cease with death; yea,
perhaps this was but the beginning.—Would she survive the terrible hour
of the final trial, when, a second Delilah, she called the Philistines
down upon her trusting foe? She moaned and tossed as in the agues of a
fever and only towards the gray dawn of morning she fell into a fitful
slumber.
The preparations for his last rebellion against German rule had kept the
Senator of Rome within the walls of the formidable keep, which since the
days of Vitiges, the Goth, had defied every assault, no matter who the
assailant. Crescentius had succeeded in repairing the breaches in the
walls and in strengthening the defences in a manner, which would cause
every attempt to carry the mausoleum by storm to appear an undertaking
as mad as it was hopeless. He had augmented his Roman garrison, swelled
by the men-at-arms of the Roman barons pledged to his support, by Greek
auxiliaries, drawn from Torre del Grecco, and under his own personal
supervision the final preparations were being pushed to a close. His
activity was so strenuous that he appeared to be in the vaults and the
upper galleries of Castel San Angelo at the same time. He had been
seized with a restlessness which did not permit him to remain long on
any one spot. But the terrible misgivings which filled his heart with
drear forebodings, which, now it was too late to recede, caused him to
tremble before the final issue, drove the Senator of Rome like a madman
through the corridors of the huge mausoleum. Had he in truth lost the
love of his wife? Then indeed was the victory of the son of Theophano
complete. He had robbed him of all, but life—a life whose last spark
should ignite the funeral torches for the King and,—if it must be—for
Rome.
The day was fading fast, when Crescentius mounted the stairs which led
to Stephania’s apartments. His heart was heavy with fear. This hour
must set matters right between them;—in this hour he must know the
worst,—-and from her own lips. She would not fail him at the final
issue, of that, as he knew her proud spirit, he was convinced. But what
availed that final issue, if he had lost the one jewel in his crown,
without which the crown itself was idle mockery?
Stephania’s apartments were deserted. Where was his wife? She never
used to leave the Castello without informing him of the goal of her
journey. Times were uncertain and the precaution well justified. With
loud voice the Senator of Rome called for Stephania’s tirewoman.
Receiving no immediate reply, a terrible thought rushed through his
head. Perhaps she was even now with him,—with Otto! In its undiminished
vividness the scene at the Neptune temple arose before him. What
availed it to rave and to moan and to shriek? Was it not his own
doing,—rather the counsel of one who perhaps rejoiced in his
discomfiture? Crescentius’ hand went to his head. Was such black
treachery conceivable? Could Benilo,—-but no! Not even the fiend
incarnate would hatch out such a plot, tossing on a burning pillow of
anguish in sleepless midnight.
He was about to retrace his steps below, when the individual desired,
Stephania’s tirewoman, appeared and informed the Senator that her
mistress had but just left, to seek an interview with her confessor. A
momentary sigh of relief came from the lips of Crescentius. His fears
had perhaps been groundless. Still he felt the imperative necessity to
obtain proof positive of her innocence or guilt. Thus only could his
soul find rest.
Stephania had gone to her confessor. Fate itself would never again
throw such an opportunity in his way. And he made such good speed,
that, when he came within sight of the ruins of the baths of Caracalla,
he perceived by the advancing torches, which the guards accompanying her
litter carried, that she had not yet reached her destination.
Approaching closer, he saw them halt near the ruins and in a few moments
a woman, wrapt in a dark mantilla, stepped from her litter, received by
a bubbling, gesticulating monk, in whom the Senator immediately
recognized Fra Biccocco, the companion of Nilus. Escorted by him, she
walked hastily into the ruins, and was soon lost to sight in their
intricate windings.
Recalling the observations he had made on a previous visit, Crescentius
wound his way from the rear to the same point, so that none of
Stephania’s retinue, who were laughing and chatting among themselves,
discerned him or even discovered his presence. Then he rapidly threaded
his way to the chamber through which Fra Biccocco and Stephania had just
passed, boldly followed them into the clearing, from which Nilus’ cell
was reached, and concealed himself in the long grass until Biccocco
returned from the hermit’s cell. Then he approached the monk’s
hermitage and took up his post of observation in the shadows, out of
sight but able to hear every word which would be exchanged between Nilus
and his confessor.
The monk of Gaëta had been far from anticipating a visitor at this late
hour. Seated at his stone table, he had been reading some illuminated
manuscript, when he suddenly laid down the scroll and listened. The
perfect stillness of the deserted Aventine permitted some breathings of
remote music from the distant groves of Theodora to strike his ear, and
after listening for a time, he arose and traversed his cell with rapid
steps. He was about to reseat himself and to continue his disquisition
by the pale, flickering light of the candle burning before a crucifix,
when voices were audible and Biccocco entered, having scarcely time to
announce Stephania, ere she followed.
"Good even, Father,—be not startled,—I was returning from my gardens of
Egeria and I have brought your altar some of its choicest flowers," she
said in a hushed and timid voice, while at the same time she offered the
monk some beautiful white roses of a late bloom. "Moreover, I would
speak a few words alone with you,—alone with you,—Father Biccocco,—with
your permission."
Biccocco, looking at her, as she threw back her mantle from her
shoulders, respectfully prepared to obey, almost wondering that there
could be on earth anything so wondrously beautiful as this woman.
"Biccocco, I command thee, stay!" exclaimed Nilus starting up. "I would
say—nay, daughter—is it thou? I knew not at first,—my sight is
dim—Biccocco, let no one trouble me—but tears? What ails our gentle
penitent? Has she forgotten a whole string of Aves? Or what heavier
offence? It was but yesterday I counselled thee,—but a few hours are so
much to a woman.—Wherefore glow thy cheeks with the fires of shame?
Biccocco—leave us!"
"Father, I have sinned—yea, grievously sinned in these few hours, since
I have seen thee," said Stephania, when the restraint of Biccocco’s
presence was removed, little suspecting what listener had succeeded. "I
have sinned and I repent,—but even in my offence lies my greatest
chastisement."
"Art well assured, that it is remorse, and not regret?" replied the
hermit of Gaëta. "Thy sex often mistakes one for the other. But what
is the matter? Surely it might not prevent thee from taking thy needful
rest, might bide the light of day, to be told,—to be listened
to,—yet—thou art strangely pale!"
"I have been mad, father, crazed,—I know not what I have done! I dare
not look upon thee, and tell thee! Let me arrange my flowers in thy
chalice, while I speak," replied Stephania, hiding her face in the
fragrant bundle.
"Not so!" replied the monk. "Eye and gesture often confess more than
the apologizing lip! Kneel in thy wonted place! No other attitude
becomes thy dignity or mine;—for either thou kneelest to the servant of
God or thou debasest thyself before the brother of man!"
Stephania complied instantly, and Nilus, throwing himself back in his
chair, fixed his eyes on the crucifix before him, without even glancing
at the penitent.
"Father—you had warned me of all the ills that would befall," she began,
almost inaudibly, "but I longed to see him at my feet,—and more,—much
more!"
"What is all this?" said the monk turning very pale and glancing at his
fair penitent with a degree of fierceness mingled with surprise.
"Ah! You know not what a woman feels,—when—when—" She paused,
breathing hard.
"Hast thou then committed a deadly sin? Some dark adultery of the
soul?" exclaimed Nilus. "Nay, daughter," he continued, as she shrank
within herself at his words, "I speak too harshly now! But what more
hast to say? Time wears—and this soft cheek should be upon the down, or
its sweetness will not bloom as freshly as some of its rivals, at dawn.
Thou see’st this hermitage, from which thou wouldst lure me, yields some
recollections to brighten its desolation and gloom. What is it thou
wouldst say?"
Stephania stared for a moment into the monk’s face, at a loss to grasp
his meaning. At last she stammered.
"Yet—I but intended to win him to—some silly tryst,—wherein I intended
to deride his boyish passions."
"And he refused thy lures and thou art vexed to have escaped perdition?"
said the monk, more mildly.
"Nay—for he came!"
"He came! Jest not in a matter like this! He came? Thou knowest of all
mankind I have reasons to wish this youth well,—this one at least!" said
Nilus somewhat incoherently.
"He came,—once,—twice,—many times! He came, I say, and—-"
"What of him? Thou hast not had him harmed for trusting his enemy?"
Stephania’s cheek took the hues of marble.
"Harmed? I would rather perish myself than that he should come to
harm."
Nilus was silent for a moment or two, and Stephania, as if to take
courage, timidly took his hand, holding it between her own.
"I must needs avow my whole offence," she stammered, "he came,—and—"
"Why dost pause, daughter?" questioned the monk, with penetrating look.
"Nay—but hear me!" continued Stephania. "I first intended but to win
his confidence,—then,—having drawn him out—expose him to the just
laughter of my court."
"A most womanly deed! But where did this meeting take place?"
"In the Grottos of Egeria!"
"In the Grottos of Egeria!" the monk repeated aghast.
"And then," she continued with a great sadness in her tone, "I never
felt so strangely mad,—I would have him share some offence, to justify
the clamour I had provided, scarcely I know how to believe it now
myself.—I did to his lips,—what I now do to your hand."
And she kissed the monk’s yellow hand with timid reverence.
"Thou! Thou! Stephania,—the wife of Crescentius, and not yet set in
the first line of the book of shame!" shouted the monk, convulsively
starting at every word of his own climax. "Begone—begone! The vessel is
full, even to overflowing!—Tell me no more,—tell me no more!"
"Your suspicion indeed shows me all my ignominy," said Stephania,
groping for his hand, which he had snatched furiously away. "But he
only suffered it,—because he guessed not my intent in the darkness."
"In the darkness?"
"In the darkness."
"Deemest thou it possible to clasp the plague and to evade the
contagion?" questioned the monk. "Woman, I command thee, stop! Stop
ere the condemning angel closes the record!"
Stephania raised her head petulantly.
"Monk, thou knowest not all! During all this meeting the Senator of
Rome was present in the Grotto and watched us from one of the ivy
hollows in the cave!"
"The Senator of Rome!" exclaimed the monk with evident amazement. "How
came he there?"
"By contrivance!"
"I do not understand!"
"It was at his behest that I have done the deed, to further his vast
projects, call it his ambition, if you will—to which the King is the
stumbling block. Ask me no more,—for I will not answer!"
Nilus seemed struck dumb by the revelation.
"Take comfort, daughter, he cannot,—he cannot—" whispered the monk,
bending over her and speaking in so low a tone that the devouring
listener could not distinguish one word.
For a time not a word was to be heard, Nilus inclining his ear to
Stephania’s lips, whose confession was oft times broken by sobs.
"Tell me all,—all!" said the monk.
"As the fatal hour approaches the strength begins to forsake me,—I
cannot do it!" she groaned.
"Yet he is the enemy of Rome, so you say," the monk said mockingly.
"He is the friend of Rome and—I love him!"
In a shriek the last words broke from her lips.
"Domine an me reliquisti!" shouted the monk. "Some sign now—some
sign—or—"
His raving exclamation was cut short by a sound not unlike the oracle
implored. A large block of stone, dislodged by a sudden and violent
movement of the unseen listener, rolled with a hollow rumble down into
the vaults below.
The monk started up from the benediction which he was bending forward to
pronounce, almost dashed Stephania away, rushed to his altar and casting
himself prostrate before the divine symbol which adorned it, he muttered
in a frantic ecstasy of devotion:
"Gloria Domino! Gloria in Excelsis! Blessed be Thy name for ever and
ever! Praise ye the Lord! He saves in the furnace of fire!"
Stephania gazed in mute amazement at the monk. His frantic appeal and
its apparent fulfilment had struck dismay into her soul, and when at
length he raised himself, and turned towards her, she could hardly find
words to speak.
But Nilus waved his hand.
"Go now, Stephania," he commanded. "Go! I will devise some fitting
penance at more leisure."
"But, Father—my request."
"Ay, truly," he replied, with supreme melancholy. "Is it not the wont
of the world to throw away the flower, when we have withered it with our
evil breath?"
"But I cannot do it,—I cannot do it," Stephania moaned, raising her
hands imploringly to the monk.
"It is for a mightier than Nilus to counsel," the monk spoke mournfully.
"Thou standest on the brink of a precipice, from which nothing but the
direct intervention of Heaven can save thee! Pray to the Immaculate One
for enlightenment, and if the words of a monk have weight with thee,
even against him, thou callest thy lord before the world,—desist, ere
thou art engulfed in the black abyss, which yawns at thy feet.—When he
is dead, it will be too late!"
And raising his lamp, to escort Stephania to her litter, the monk and
the woman left the chamber, and Crescentius had barely time to conceal
himself behind the boulders ere they appeared and passed by him, the
monk anxiously guiding every step of his penitent.
The moon was sinking, when Stephania arrived at Castel San Angelo.
Taking the candle from the hands of the page, who had awaited her return
with sleepy eyes, she dismissed him and passed into the lofty hall, dark
and chill as a cellar, beyond which lay the Senator’s, her husband’s,
apartments. She swiftly traversed the hall,—then she hesitated. No
doubt he was asleep. What good was there in waking him? As she turned
to retrace her steps to her own chamber, a strange and eerie gust of
wind swept shrieking round the battlements, howled in the chimney,
invaded the chamber with icy breath and almost extinguished the candle.
Then there was a great hush. It seemed to her she could hear distant
music from the Aventine, the murmur of voices, the sound of iron chains
from the vaults below. To this,—or to death,—she had consigned the son
of Theophano, the boy-king, who loved her.—To this?—Anguish and terror
seized her soul. She felt, she must not move—must not look. There it
stood,—blacker than the investing darkness,—its head bent,—shrouded in
the cowl of a monk. What was it? Once before she had seen it,—then it
had faded away in the gloom. But misfortune rode invariably in its
wake. She tried to scream, to call the page, but her voice choked in
her throat. She staggered toward the door; her limbs refused to support
her;—groaning she covered her eyes. Otto down there,—or dead,—why had
she never thought of it before? Now the monk made a step toward her;
the face had nothing corpse-like in it, nothing appalling, yet she felt
a freezing and unearthly cold; almost fainting she staggered up the
narrow winding stairs. And entering her lofty chamber Stephania fell
unconscious upon her couch.
After Crescentius had returned from the hermitage of Nilus, he gave
strict orders to the guards of Castel San Angelo to admit no one, no
matter who might crave an audience, and entering his own chamber, he
lighted a candle. He had seen and heard, and he knew that the heart of
his wife had gone from him for ever! At the terrible certainty he grew
dizzy. A fearful price he had paid for his perfidy,—and now, there was
no one in all the world he could trust. He dared not speak. He dared
not even breathe his anguish. She must never know that he knew all,—no
one must know. His lips must be sealed. The world should never point
at him,—for this at least!
But terrible as his suffering must be his vengeance. He who had robbed
him of his priceless gem, the wife of his soul, all he loved on
earth,—he should languish and rot under her very chambers, where she
might nightly hear his groans, without daring to plead for him. There
was no further time for parley. The stroke must fall at once! Too long
had he tarried. The Rubicon was passed.
Pacing up and down the gloomy chamber, Crescentius paused before the
sand-clock. It was near midnight. Yet sleep was far from caressing his
aching lids, as far as balm from his aching heart. He raised the candle
in an unconscious effort, to go to his wife’s apartment. He lingered.
Then he placed the candle down again and seated himself in a chair. His
gaze fell upon a broad stain on the floor and like one fascinated he
followed its least meander to a distance of several feet from the door,
when suddenly a form met his eyes, whether the off-spring of his
delirious fancy or one of those inexplicable and tremendous phenomena,
which are incapable of human solution, while the secrets of death remain
such. His garb was that of a monk; the face bore the awful pallor of
the tomb, and a mournful tenderness seemed to struggle with the rigidity
of death. The phantom, if such it was, stood perfectly motionless
between Crescentius and the couch, in a few moments it grew indistinct
and finally faded into air.
It was then only, that Crescentius recovered breath and life, and
staggered back to his chair. A few moments’ rally persuaded him that
what he had seen had been merely the illusion of his excited organs.
But a dreadful longing for death assailed him, a longing like that which
prompts men to leap when they gaze down a precipice. He rose,—again the
phantom seemed there,—this time distinct and clear. Terror rendered him
motionless; the room seemed to whirl round, a million lights danced in
his eyes, then he sank back covering his face with his hands.
When he again opened his eyes, his brain seemed shooting with the
keenest darts of pain. He endeavoured to pray, but could not. His
ideas rushed confusedly through each other. The taper was fast sinking
in the socket, and it seemed as if his mind would sink with it. He
emptied a goblet of wine which stood upon the table, and strove to
remember what he intended to do. It seemed a vain effort and he fell
back in his chair into a semi-conscious doze. An hour might have passed
thus, when he became aware of a slight crackling noise in his ears and
starting with a sensation of cold he looked round. The fire in the
chimney had burnt into red embers, and though his own form was lost in
the shadow of the chimney, the rest of the room was faintly illumined by
the crimson glow from the grate.
Suddenly he saw the tapestry figure of some mythical deity opposite his
own seat stir; the tapestry swelled out, then a head appeared, which
peered cautiously round. The body soon followed the head, and
Crescentius rose with a sigh of relief as he stood face to face with
Benilo. The Chamberlain’s face was pale; his eyes, with their unsteady
glow, showed traces of wakefulness. He took from his doublet a scroll
which he placed into the outstretched hand of the Senator of Rome.
Mechanically Crescentius unrolled it. His hands trembled as he
superficially swept its contents.
"The barons pledge their support,—not a name is missing," Benilo broke
the silence in hushed tones.
"What is it to be?" questioned Crescentius.
"I speak for the extreme course and for Rome. For attack—sudden and
swift!"
There was a pause, Crescentius stared into the dying embers.
"Are all your plans complete?"
"The Romans wait impatiently upon my words. At the signal all Rome will
rise to arms!"
"But how about the Romans? Can they be depended upon?"
"I move them at the raising of my hand!"
There was another pause.
Crescentius appeared strangely abstracted.
"But what of Otto? What of Eckhardt? Do they scent the wind from
Castel San Angelo?"
"As for the Saxon cherub," Benilo replied with a disgusting smile, "he
is dreaming of his—"
He did not finish the sentence, for Crescentius cast such a terrible
look upon him, that the blood froze in the traitor’s veins, and his eyes
sank before those blazing upon him. After a moment’s hesitation he
continued, the shadow of a forced smile hovering round his thin,
quivering lips:
"When he is dead, we shall cause the Wonder-child to be canonized!"
But Crescentius was in no jocular mood.
"Have you chosen your men?" he queried curtly.
"They will be stationed in the labyrinth of the Minotaurus," Benilo
replied. "At the signal agreed upon, they will rush forth and seize the
King—"
As he spoke those words the Chamberlain gazed timidly into the Senator’s
face.
"The signal will not fail," Crescentius replied firmly.
"Is the mausoleum prepared to withstand an assault?" Benilo questioned
guardedly.
"The hidden balistae have been disinterred. My Albanian stradiotes and
the Romagnole guards occupy the chief approaches. The upper galleries
are reserved for our Roman allies. They will never scale these walls
while Crescentius lives. Remember—the gates of Rome are to be closed.
We will smother the Saxon under our caresses! I must have Otto dead or
alive! Revenge and Death are now written on my standards! Up with the
flag of rebellion and perdition to the emperor and his hosts!"
The gray dawn was peeping into the windows of the Senator’s chamber,
when Crescentius sought his couch for a brief and fitful repose.
*CHAPTER XIII*
*THE LION OF BASALT*
It was midnight of a dark and still evening on the Tiber and peace had
for the most part descended upon the great city. The lamps in the houses
were extinguished and the challenges of the watch alone were now and
then to be heard. The streets were deserted, for few ventured abroad
after night fall. Sluggishly the turbid tide of the Tiber rolled
towards ancient Portus. The moon was hidden behind heavy cloudbanks,
and when now and then it pierced a rift in the nebulous masses, it shed
a spectral light over the silent hills, but to plunge them back into
abysmal darkness.
The bells from distant cloisters and convents were pealing the midnight
hour when out of the gloom of the waters there passed a light skiff
wherein were seated two men, closely wrapped in their long, dark cloaks.
The one seated on the prow was bent almost double with age, and his long
beard swept the bottom of the skiff. He appeared indifferent to his
surroundings and stared straight before him into the darkness, while his
companion, constantly on the alert, never seemed to take his eyes from
the boatman who plied his oars in silence, causing the frail craft to
descend the river with great swiftness.
At last they made for the shore. An extensive mansion loomed out of the
gloom, which seemed to be the goal of their journey. Obeying the
whispered directions of the taller of his passengers, the boatman
steered his craft under a dark archway, whence a flight of stairs led up
to the door, of what appeared to be a garden pavilion. Swiftly the
sculler shot under the arch and in another moment drew up by the stairs.
Leaning heavily on the arm of his companion the soothsayer alighted from
the skiff with slow and uncertain steps and after ascending the
water-stairs his guide knocked three times at the door of the pavilion.
It was instantly opened and an African in fantastic livery, who seemed
to fill the office of Cubicular, beckoned them to enter. With all the
signs of exhaustion and the weariness of his years weighing heavily upon
him, the conjurer dropped into a seat, paying no heed whatever to his
surroundings nor to his companion, who had withdrawn into the shadows,
while he awaited the arrival of the woman, who had called on his skill.
He had not long to wait.
Noiselessly a door opened and the majestic and graceful form of a woman
glided into the pavilion, robed in a long black cloak and closely
veiled. She motioned to the attendants to withdraw and to the
astrologer to approach.
"Most learned doctor of astral science," she said in a soft clear voice
of command, "you have brought me the calculations which your learning
has enabled you to make as to the future of the persons whose nativities
were supplied to you?"
The astrologer had been seized with a sudden violent fit of coughing and
some moments elapsed ere he seemed able to speak.
So low and weak were his tones, that the woman could not understand one
word he uttered, and she began to exhibit unequivocal signs of
impatience, when the conjurer’s voice somewhat improved.
"The horoscopes," he said in a strangely jarring tone, "are the most
wonderful that our science has ever revealed to me. They indicate most
amazing changes of life, and signs of imminent peril."
"You speak of one,—or of both?"
"Of both!"
"Give me the details of each horoscope!"
The astrologer nodded.
Theodora watched him from behind her veil as closely as he did her, for
ever and anon he stole furtive glances at her and was immediately seized
with his cough.
His voice grated strangely in her ear as he spoke.
"The first, whose nativity I have calculated, is that of one born thirty
years, one hundred and seventeen days, and ten hours from this moment.
It was a birth under the sign of the Serpent, at an hour charged with
vast possibilities for the future. At that instant the Zodiac was moved
by portentous lights and the earth shook with tremors as I have
ascertained in the records of our art!"
"What are the signs of the future?" the woman interrupted the speaker.
"What is past and gone, we all know, even without the aid of your
profound wisdom. What of the future, I ask?" she concluded imperiously.
"I hate to impart to you what I have found," said the astrologer
cringing. "It is terrible. The declination of the house of Death
stands close to the right ascension of the house of Life!"
Theodora gave a sudden start. For a moment she seemed to lose her
self-control. Her piercing eyes seemed to look the astrologer through
and through, though he had shrunk back into the wide girth of his
mantle.
"Give me the scroll!"
She stretched out a hand white as alabaster to take the parchment
whereon the astrologer had marked the rise and fall of the star records.
But, as if seized with a sudden fear, she withdrew the hand ere the man
of the stars could comply with her request.
"The second horoscope!" she spoke imperiously.
Again a long fit of coughing prevented the astrologer from speaking.
When it subsided, he said with profound solemnity, watching her
expression intently from between his half-closed lids:
"That other, whose nativity you have sent to me, shall find
death,—death, sudden and shameful—"
She stood rigid as a statue.
"Tell me more!" she gasped. "Tell me more!"
"He will die hated,—unlamented,—despised—"
She drew a deep breath.
"When shall that be?"
"There is at this moment a most ominous sign in the heavens," replied
the astrologer shrinking within himself. "Venus, who rules the skies is
obscured by too close attendance upon a lower and less honourable star."
Theodora held her breath.
"What comes after?" she whispered.
"The lore of astral combinations does not reveal such things. But
palmistry may aid, where the constellations fail. Deign to let me trace
the lines in the palm of your hand."
Flinging aside her last reserve, Theodora in her eagerness held out her
palm to the astrologer. He bent over it, without touching it, shaking
his head, and muttering:
"The line of life,—the line of love,—the line of death—"
As the astrologer pronounced the last word, his hand grasped with a
vice-like grip the one whose lines he had pretended to read, while with
the other, which had dropped the supporting staff, he pushed back the
loose sleeve of her gown, baring her arm almost to the shoulder,
constantly muttering:
"The line of Death,—the line of Death,—the line of Death!"
When Theodora first felt the tightening grip on her wrist, she tried to
withdraw her hand, but her strength was not equal to the task. She felt
the benumbing pressure of what she imagined were the astrologer’s
fleshless claws, but when, with a motion almost too swift for one bent
with age and infirmity, he laid bare to the shoulder the marble
whiteness of her arm, she thought he had gone mad. But when the
astrologer’s trembling finger pointed to the red birthmark on her arm,
just below her shoulder, resembling the claw of a raven, constantly
muttering: "The line of Death—the line of Death," she uttered a piercing
shriek for help, vainly endeavouring to shake him off.
A shadow dashed between the two, neither knew whence it came.
The astrologer saw the gleam of a dagger before his eyes, felt its point
strike against the corselet of mail beneath his cloak, felt the weapon
rebound and snap asunder, the fragments falling at his feet, and
releasing the woman, who stood like an image of stone, he dropped his
cloak and supporting staff, and clove with one blow of his short
double-edged sword the skull of his assailant to the neck. With a
piercing shriek Theodora rushed from the Pavilion, followed in mad
breathless pursuit by the pseudo-astrologer, who had dropped his false
beard with his other disguises and stood revealed to her terror-stricken
gaze as Eckhardt, the Margrave.
Without heeding the warning cry of Hezilo, his companion, he was bent
upon taking the woman. In the darkness he could hear the rush of her
frightened footsteps through the corridors; he seemed to gain upon her,
when her giant Africans rushing through another passage came between the
Margrave and his intended victim. Three steps did he make through the
press and three of her guards fell beneath his sword. But a stranger in
the labyrinth of the great pavilion, he could hardly hope to gain his
end, even if unimpeded, and Theodora’s formidable body-guard still
outnumbered him three to one. Eckhardt’s doom would have been sealed
had not at that very moment Hezilo appeared in the passage behind him
and laid an arresting hand upon his arm.
Before the harper’s well-known presence the Africans fell back, raising
their dead from the blood-stained floor and skulking back into the dusk
of the corridor.
"You have no time to lose," urged the harper. "Follow me!—Speak
not,—question not. Remember your compact and your oath."
Eckhardt turned upon his guide like a lion at bay. His face was pale as
that of a corpse. His blood-shot eyes stared, as if they must burst
from their sockets; his hair bristled like that of a maniac.
"What care I?" he growled fiercely. "Compact or oath—what care I?"
"There are other considerations at stake," replied Hezilo calmly. "You
promised to be guided by my counsel. The hour of final reckoning is not
yet at hand."
Eckhardt’s breast heaved so violently, that it almost deprived him of
the faculty of speech.
"Must I turn back at the very gates of fulfilment?" he burst forth at
last. But sheathing his weapon he reluctantly followed the harper and,
retracing their steps, they re-entered the Pavilion. In the slain
boatman they recognized the ghastly features of John of the Catacombs,
though the bravo’s skull was literally cloven in twain and a strange
dread seized upon them at the terrible revelation. Eckhardt stood by
idly, while the harper insisted upon removing the body, and wrapping his
ghastly burden in his blood-stained monkish gown, showed small
repugnance to carrying the bravo’s carcass to the landing, where he
fastened a short iron chain to the gruesome package and dropped it into
the muddy waves of the Tiber.
Dark clouds swept over the face of the moon and the chill wind of autumn
moaned dismally through the spectral pines, as the boat, propelled by
the sturdy arms of Hezilo, flew up stream over the murky, foam-crested
waves.
An icy hand seemed to grip Eckhardt’s heart. The words wrung from the
dying wretch in the rock-caves under the Gemonian stairs had proved
true. In baring Theodora’s left arm his eyes had fallen upon the
well-remembered birthmark resembling the raven claw. The terrible
revelation had for the nonce almost upset his reason, and caused him
prematurely to drop his mask. All clarity of thought, all fixedness of
purpose had deserted him; he felt as one stunned by the blinding blow of
a maze. Dazed he stared before him into the gloom of the autumnal
night; his hair dishevelled, his eyelids swollen, his lips compressed.
He could not have uttered a word had his life depended upon it. His
tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth; his brow was fevered,
yet his hands were cold as ice. At last then he had stood face to face
with the awful mystery, which had mocked his waking hours, his dreams,—a
mystery, even now but half guessed, but half revealed. He tried to
recall fragments of the monk’s tale. But his brain refused to work,
steeped in the apathy of despair. The future hour must give birth to the
considerations of the final step, to the closing chapters of his life.
Yet he felt that delay would engender madness; long brooding had shaken
his reason and swift action alone could now save it from tottering to a
hopeless fall.
The frail craft shot round the elbow-like bend of the Tiber at the base
of Aventine when Hezilo for the first time broke the silence. He had
refrained from questioning or commenting on the result of their visit to
the Groves. Now, pointing to the ramparts of Castel San Angelo he
whispered into Eckhardt’s ear:
"Are your forces beyond recall?"
Eckhardt stared up into the speaker’s face, as if the latter had
addressed him in some strange tongue. Only after Hezilo had repeated
his question, Eckhardt roused himself from the lethargy, which benumbed
his senses and gazed in the direction indicated by the harper.
An errant moonbeam illumined just at this moment the upper galleries of
Hadrian’s tomb. Straining his gaze towards the ramparts of the
formidable keep, Eckhardt strove to discover a reason for Hezilo’s
warning. But the moon disappeared behind a bank of clouds and at that
moment the sculler ran in shore.
Unconsciously his hand tightened round the hilt of his sword.
"The earth breeds hard men and weak men," he muttered. "The gods can but
laugh at them or grow wroth with them. As for these Romelings,—they are
not worth destroying. They will perish of themselves."
"The hour is close at hand, when everything shall be known to you,"
Hezilo turned to Eckhardt at parting. "But three days remain to the
full of the moon."
Weary and sick at heart Eckhardt grasped the harper’s proffered hand, as
they parted.
But he was in no mood to return within the four walls of his palace. He
was as one upon whom has descended a thunder bolt from Heaven.
The terrible revelation deprived him of his senses, of his energies, of
the desire to live,—and there was little doubt that this would have been
Eckhardt’s last night on earth, had there not remained one purpose to
his life.
How small did even that appear by the magnitude of the crime, which had
been visited upon his head. The how and why and when remained as great
a mystery to him as ever. Eckhardt’s memory roamed back into the years
of the past. He tried to recall every word Ginevra had spoken to him; he
tried to recall every wish her lips had expressed, he tried to recall
every unstinted caress. And with these memories there rose up before
his inner eye Ginevra’s image and with it there welled up from his heart
an anguish so great, that it drove the nails of his fingers deep into
the flesh of his clenched hands.
He remembered her strange request never to inquire into her past, but to
love her and let his trust be the proof of his love. Then there came
floating faintly, like phantoms on the dark waves of his memory, her
inordinate desire for power, hinted rather than expressed,—then darkness
swallowed, everything else. Only boundless anguish remained, fathomless
despair. After a while his feelings suffered a reverse; they changed to
a hate of the woman as great as his love had been,—a hate for the
fateful siren, Rome, who had deprived him of all that was dearest to him
on earth.
Bending his solitary steps towards the Capitol, he saw the veil-like
mists gathering above the wild grass, which waves above the palaces of
the Cæsars. On a mound of ruins he stood with folded arms musing and
intent. In the distance lay the melancholy tombs of the Campagna and
the circling hills faintly outlined beneath the pale starlight. Not a
breeze stirred the dark cypresses and spectral pines. There was
something weird in the stillness of the skies, hushing the desolate
grandeur of the earth below.
He had not gone very far when a shadow fell across his path. Looking up
he again found himself by the staircase of the Lion of Basalt. The
weird relic from the banks of the Nile filled him with a strange dread.
With a shudder he paused. Was it the ghastly and spectral light or did
the face of the old Egyptian monster wear an aspect as that of life?
The stony eye-balls seemed bent upon him with a malignant scowl and as
he passed on and looked behind they appeared almost preternaturally to
follow his steps. A chill sank into his heart when the sound of
footsteps arrested him and Eckhardt stood face to face with the hermit
of Gaëta. He beckoned to the monk to accompany him, vainly endeavouring
to frame the question, which hovered on his lips. The monk joined him
in silence. After walking some little way Nilus suddenly paused, fixing
his questioning gaze on the brooding face of his companion. Then a
strange expression passed into his eyes.
"Life is full of strange surprises. Yet we cling to it, just to keep
out of the darkness through which we know not the way."
Sick at heart Eckhardt listened. How little the monk knew, he thought,
and Nilus was staggered at the haggard expression of the Margrave’s
face, as he stumbled blindly and giddily down the moonlit avenue beside
him.
"Would I had never seen her!" Eckhardt groaned. "In what a fair
disguise the fiend did come to tempt my soul!"
He paused. The monk drew him onward.
"Come with me to my hermitage! Thou art strangely excited and do what
thou mayest,—thou must follow out thy destiny! Hesitate not to confide
in me!"
"My destiny!" Eckhardt replied. "Monk, do not mock me! If thou hast
any mystic power, read my soul and measure its misery. I have no
destiny, save despair."
The monk regarded him strangely.
"Because a woman is false and thy soul is weak, thou needest not at once
make bosom friends with despair. It is a long time since I have been in
the world. It is a long time since I have abjured its vanities. Let
him who has withstood the terrible temptation, cast the first stone.
For the flesh is weak and the sin is as old as the world; And perchance
even the monk may be able to counsel, to guide thee in some matters,—for
verily thou standest on the brink of a precipice."
"I am well-nigh mad!" Eckhardt replied wearily. "Were there but a ray
of light to guide my steps."
Nilus pointed upward.
"All light flows from the fountain-head of truth. Be true to thyself!
Life is duty! In its fulfilment alone can there be happiness,—and in
the renunciation of that, which has been denied us by the Supreme
Wisdom. No more than thou canst reverse the wheel of time, no more
canst thou compel that dark power, Fate. And at best—what matters it
for the short space of this earthly existence? For believe me, the End
of Time is nigh,—and in the beyond all will be as if it had never been."
Nilus paused and their eyes met. And in silence Eckhardt followed the
monk among the ruins of the latter’s abode.
As the morning dawned, some fishermen dragging their nets off St.
Bartholomew’s island pulled up from the muddy waves the body of an old
man clad in the loose garb of a monk. But as the day grew older a new
crime and fresh scandal filled Forum and wine shops and the incident was
forgotten ere night-fall.
*CHAPTER XIV*
*THE LAST TRYST*
The great clock on the tower of San Sebastian struck the second hour of
night. The air was so pure, so transparent, that against the horizon
the snow-capped summit of Soracté was visible, like a crown of
glittering crystal. Mysteriously the stars twinkled in the fathomless
blue of the autumnal night. Procession after procession traversed the
city. From their torches smoky spirals rose up to the starry skies.
The pale rays of the moon, the crimson glare of the torches, illumined
faces haggard with fear, seamed with anxiety and dread. Despite the late
hour, the people swarmed like ants, occupying every point of vantage,
climbing lantern poles and fallen columns, armed with clubs, halberds,
scythes, pitchforks and staves. Here and there strange muffled forms
were to be seen mingling with the crowds, whispering here and there a
word into the ear of a chance passerby and vanishing like phantoms into
the night.
Among the many abroad in the city at this hour was Eckhardt. He
mistrusted the Romans, he mistrusted the Senator, he mistrusted the
monks. The fire of his own consuming thoughts would not permit him to
remain within the four walls of his palace. Like a grim spectre of the
past he stalked through Rome, alone, unattended. How long would the
terrible mystery of his life continue to mock him? How much longer must
he bear the awful weight which was crushing his spirit with its
relentless agony? What availed his presence in Rome? The king had long
ceased to consult him on matters of state; Benilo and Stephania
possessed his whole ear—and Eckhardt was no longer in his counsels.
With a degree of anxiety, which he had in vain endeavoured to dispel,
Eckhardt had watched the growing intimacy between his sovereign and the
Senator’s wife. Time and again he had, even at the risk of Otto’s
fierce displeasure, warned the King against the danger lurking behind
Stephania’s mask of friendship. Wearied and exasperated with his
importunities, Otto had asserted the sovereign, and Eckhardt’s lips had
remained sealed ever since, though his watchfulness had not relaxed one
jot, and even while he endeavoured to lift the veil, which enshrouded
his own life, he remained circumspect and on the alert, true to his
promise to the Empress Theophano, now in her grave.
The sounds which on this night fell from every side on Eckhardt’s ear
were not of a nature to dispel his misgivings of the Roman temper. As
by a subtle intuition he felt that they were ripe for a change, though
when and whence and how it would come he could not guess. His own mood
was as dark as the sky-gloom lowering over the Seven Hills. Rome had
made of him what he was, Rome had poisoned his life with the viper-sting
of Ginevra’s terrible deed, and now he longed for nothing more than for
some great event, which would toss him into the foaming billows of
strife, therein to sink and to go under for ever.
Drawing his mantle closer about him and lowering the vizor of his
helmet, Eckhardt slowly made his way through the congested throngs. He
had not proceeded very far, when he felt some one pluck him by the
mantle. Turning abruptly and shaking himself free, from what he
believed to be the clutches of a beggar, he was about to dismiss the
offender with an oath, when to his surprise he beheld a woman dressed in
the garb of a peasant, but clearly disguised, as her speech gave the lie
to her affectation of low birth.
"You are Eckhardt, the Margrave?" she asked timidly.
"I am Eckhardt," the general replied curtly.
"Then lose no time to save him, else he will run into perdition as sure
as yonder moon shines down upon us. Oh! He knows not the dangers that
beset him;—on my knees I implore you—-save him!"
"When I understand the meaning of your gibberish, doubt not I will serve
you! I pray you give me a glimpse of its purport," replied the
Margrave.
The woman seemed so entirely wrapt up in her own business that she did
not heed Eckhardt’s question.
"I dare not whisper the secret to any one else,—and my Lord Benilo bade
me seek you in case of danger. And if you cannot move him from his mad
purpose, he is lost, for never was he so bent to have his own way. If
you come with me, you will find him waiting on the terrace,—and do your
best to lead him back,—else he will come to as evil an end as a wasp in
a bee’s hive,—for all the honey!"
"And whom shall I find on the terrace?" asked Eckhardt with
ill-concealed impatience. He liked not the babbling crone. "Cease your
spurting and speak plainly, else go your way:—I am not for such as you!"
"It wants but a moment—whom else but your King, for whom she has sent
under pretext of important business,—aye,—at this very hour and on the
terraces of the Minotaurus."
"Otto,—important business,—Minotaurus—" repeated Eckhardt. "Who has
sent for him?"
"Stephania."
Eckhardt shrugged his shoulders.
"What is it to me? Go your way, hoary pander,—what is it to me? Hasten
to him, who has paid you to tell this tale and get your ransom from him!
I wager, he knows the style of old!"
The woman did not move.
"Nay, my lord, that we all should go mad at one time," she sobbed with
evidently strong emotions, which were perhaps not caused by the motive
alleged. "Then I must away and fulfil his destiny,—for a man cannot
serve two masters,—nor a woman either."
There was something in the speaker’s tone that caused a shadow of
apprehension to rise in Eckhardt’s mind. Was there more behind all this
than she cared to confess? "Fulfil his destiny"—these words at least
were not her own. A grave fear seized him. Otto might be
ambushed,—carried away,—he might rot in Castel San Angelo, and no man
the wiser for it.
"Stay! I will go and cross the boy’s path to his guilty paradise,"
repeated Eckhardt after permitting the woman to draw away from him at a
very slow and wistful pace and overtaking her with a couple of strides.
"Lead on, but do not speak! I have no tongue to answer you!"
The woman immediately took the well-known route towards the terraces of
the Minotaurus and soon they reached the spot. A covered archway at one
extremity admitted on a terrace, flanked on one side by a high dead wall
of the Vatican, on the other by a steep and precipitous slope, wooded
with orange trees and myrtle. This spot, little frequented in day time,
was deserted by night. The woman whispered that it was here, she
expected the King, and cautioning Eckhardt to remove him with all speed
from this danger zone, which offered no means of escape, she
precipitately retired, leaving Eckhardt alone to meditate upon what he
had heard, and to pursue his adventure in the darkness.
The Margrave hastened along the archway and peering into the shadows he
quickly discerned the slim outline of a man, wrapt in an ample cloak,
leaning against the dead wall at the end of the platform. His eyes
seemed fixed intently upon the heavens, while an expression of
impatience reigned uppermost in the pale, thoughtful face.
Eckhardt quickly approached the edge of the terrace, where he had
discovered Otto, and although the King kept his face averted, he could
scarcely hope to escape recognition.
"Otto—the King—can it be?" Eckhardt said with feigned surprise, as he
faced the youth. "I beg your majesty’s pardon,—are you a lodger in
yonder palace or how chances it that you are here alone,—unattended?"
"Ay—since you know me," replied Otto with a forced smile, "I will not
deny my name nor business either. The ladies of the Senator’s court are
fair, and an ancient crone whispered to me at my devotions to Our Lady,
on this terrace and at this hour, if I prayed heartily, I should have
good news. Matter enough, I ween, to stir one’s curiosity, but,—I
fear,—I should be alone."
The blood surged thickly through Eckhardt’s brain. He could scarcely
breathe, as he listened to this falsehood and for a few moments he gazed
in silence on the flushed and paling visage of the youth.
At last he spoke.
"Is it possible that the air of Rome can even change a nature like yours
to utter a falsehood? My liege,—you are not yourself!" Eckhardt
exclaimed, discarding all reserve, for he knew there was no time to be
lost. And if perchance the fair serpent that had lured him hither was
nigh, his words should strike her heart with shame and dismay. "It is to
Stephania you go,—it is Stephania, whom you await!"
There was a brief pause during which a hectic flush chased the deep
pallor from Otto’s face, as he passively listened to the unaccustomed
speech.
"Stephania," he repeated absently, and suffering his cloak to drop aside
in his absorption, he revealed the richness and splendour of the garb
beneath.
"The wife of the Senator of Rome!" Eckhardt supplemented sternly.
"And what if it be?" Otto responded with mingled petulancy and
confusion. "What if the Senator’s consort has vouchsafed me a private
audience?"
"Are you beside yourself, King Otto? You venture into this place
alone,—unattended,—to please some woman’s whim,—a woman who is playing
with you,—and will lead you to perdition?"
"How dare you arraign your King and his deeds?" Otto exclaimed fiercely.
"I am here to save you—from yourself! You know not the consequences of
your deed!"
"Let them be what they will! I am here, to abide them!"
Eckhardt crossed his arms over his broad chest as he regarded the
offspring of the vanquisher of the Saracens with mingled scorn and pity.
"The spell is heavy upon you, here among the crimson and purple flowers,
where the Siren sings you to destruction," he said with forced calmness.
"But you shall no longer listen to her voice, else you are lost.
Otto,—Otto,—away with me! We will leave this accursed spot and Rome
together—for ever! There is no other refuge for you from the spell of
the Sorceress."
"Not for all the lands on which the sun sets to-night will I refuse
obedience to Stephania’s call," Otto replied. "You sorely mistake your
place and presume too much on the authority placed into your hands by
the august Empress, my mother. But attempt not to exercise mastery over
your King or to bend him to your will and purpose—for he will do as he
chooses!"
"It has come to this then," replied Eckhardt without stirring from the
spot and utterly disregarding Otto’s increasing nervousness. "It has
come to this! Are there no chaste and fair maidens in your native land?
Maidens of high birth and lineage, fit to adorn an emperor’s couch?
Must you needs come hither,—hither,—to this thrice accursed spot, to
love an alien, to love a Roman, and of all Romans, a married woman—the
wife of your arch-enemy, the Senator? Are you blind, King Otto? Can
you not see the game? You alone—of all? Deem you the proud, merciless
Stephania, the consort of the Senator, who hates us Teutons more than he
does the fiend himself,—would meet you here in this secluded spot, with
her husband’s knowledge,—with her husband’s connivance,—simply to listen
to your dreams and vagaries? Can you not see that you are but her dupe?
King Otto, you have refused to listen to my warnings:—there is sedition
rife in Rome. Retire to the Aventine, bar the gates to every one,—I
have despatched my fleetest messenger to Tivoli to recall our
contingents,—before dawn my Saxons shall hammer at the gates of Rome!"
Otto gazed at the speaker as if the latter addressed him in some unknown
tongue.
"Sedition in Rome?" he replied like one wrapt in a dream. "You are mad!
The Romans love me! Even as I do them! I will not stir an inch! I
remain!"
Eckhardt breathed hard. He must carry his point; he felt oppressed by
the sense of a great danger.
"And thus it befalls," he said laughing aloud with the excess of
bitterness, "that to this hour I owe the achievement of knowing the
cause why you have declined the demands of the Electors; that I can bear
to them the answer to their importunities; that in this hour I have
learned the true reason of your refusing to listen to your German
subjects, who crave your return, who love you and your glorious house!
You say you will remain! Revel then in your Eden, until she is weary of
you and Crescentius spares her the pains of the finish."
"What are you raving?" exclaimed Otto furiously.
"You are mad for love, King Otto, and a frenzied lover is the worst of
fools!"
The King blushed, with the consciousness either of his innocence or
guilt.
"Since you accuse me," he spoke more calmly, but a strange fire burning
in his eyes, "I do not deny it,—Stephania requested a meeting on matters
pertaining to Rome, and I have come! And here," Otto continued,
inflexible determination ringing in his tones—"and here I will await
her, if all hell or the swords of Rome barred the way. Do you hear me,
Eckhardt? Too long have I been the puppet of the Electors. Too long
have I suffered your tyranny. My will is supreme,—and who so defies it,
is a traitor!"
Eckhardt gazed fixedly into his sovereign’s eyes.
"King Otto! Is it possible that you beguile yourself with these
specious pretexts? That you assail the honour of those who have
followed you hither, who have twice conquered Rome for you? Ay,—no one
so blind as he who will not see! I tell you, Stephania is luring you
into the betrayal of your honour,—perhaps that of the Senator,—who
knows? I tell you she is deceiving you! Or,—if she pretends to love,
it is to betray you! You cannot resist her magic,—it is not in humanity
to do so, were it thrice subdued by years of fasting. If you repel her
now, your victory will be bought with your destruction! Her undying
hatred will mark you her own! But if you succumb you are lost,—the
Virgin herself could not save you! You shall not remain! You shall not
meet her,—not as long as the light of these eyes can watch over your
credulous heart!"
Otto had advanced a step. Vainly groping for words to vent his wrath,
he paced up and down before the trusted leader of his hosts.
At last he paused directly before him.
"My Lord Eckhardt," he said, "it might content you to rake amidst the
slime of the city for matter, with which to asperse a pure and beautiful
woman,—as for myself, while my hand can clutch the hilt of a sword, you
shall not!" he exclaimed, yielding at last to the voice of his fiery
nature.
"Strike then," Eckhardt replied, raising his arms. "I have no weapon
against my King!"
Otto pushed the half drawn sword back into the scabbard.
"For this," he said, "you shall abide a reckoning."
"Then let it be now!" Eckhardt exclaimed in a wild jeering tone. "Go
and bid Stephania arm her champion, one against whom I may enter the
lists, and I swear to you, that from his false breast I will tear the
truth, which you refuse to accept, coming from your friends! But I am
not in a mood to be trifled with. You shall not remain, King Otto, and
I swear by these spurs, I will rather kill your paramour, than to see
you betrayed to the doom which awaits you."
"Are life and death so absolutely in the hands of the Margrave of
Meissen?" replied Otto in a towering rage. "In the face of your
defiance I will tarry here and abide my fortune."
And clutching Eckhardt’s mantle, in his wrath, his eye met the eye of
the fearless general.
With a jerk the latter freed himself from Otto’s grasp.
"A fool in love: A thing that men spurn and women deride."
Otto’s face turned deadly pale.
"You dare? This to your King?"
"I dare everything to save you—everything! Otto—the Romans mistrust
you! They love you no longer! They are ripe for a change! The longer
you tarry, the fiercer will be the strife. Crescentius would rather
destroy the whole city than let it be permanently wrested from his
power. You have been his dupe,—hark—do you hear those voices?"
"Of all my enemies he is the one sincere."
"Then he were the more dangerous! A fanatic is always more powerful
than a knave. Do you hear these voices, King Otto?"
Otto was pacing the terrace with feverish impatience.
"I hear nothing! I hear nothing! Go—and leave me!"
"And know you sold,—betrayed,—by that—"
A shadow crossed his path, noiseless on the velvety turf.
Before them stood Stephania.
"Finish your words, my Lord Eckhardt," she said facing the Margrave.
"Pray, let not my presence mellow your speech."
"And it shall not!" retorted Eckhardt hotly.
"And it shall!" thundered Otto rushing upon him. "Upon your life,
Eckhardt, one insult and—"
Stephania laid a tranquillizing finger on Otto’s arm.
"I have heard all," she said, pale as marble, but smiling. "And I
forgive."
"You have heard his accusation—and you forgive, Stephania?" cried Otto,
gazing incredulously into her eyes.
"You had faith in me—I thank you—Otto!" she replied softly, and sweeping
by Eckhardt, she extended both hands to the King. He grasped them
tightly within his own and, bending over them, pressed his fevered lips
upon them.
Suddenly all three raised their heads and listened.
A sound not unlike a distant trumpet blast, rent the stillness of night,
seemed to swell with the echoes from the hills, then died away.
"What is this?" the German leader questioned, puzzled.
"The monks are holding processions,—the streets are swarming with the
cassocks,—their chants can be heard everywhere."
Stephania gazed at Otto, as she answered Eckhardt’s question.
The Margrave scrutinized her intently.
"I knew not the Senator loved the black crows so well, as to furnish
music to their march," he replied slowly. Then he turned to the woman.
"Hear me, Stephania! You see me here, but you know not that I have
ordered all my men-at-arms to attend me at the gates below! If the
King’s foolish passion and blind trust have been the means to execute
your hellish design, know that with my own hand I will avenge your
remorseless treachery, for I will slay you if aught befall him in this
night, and hang your lord, the Senator of Rome, from the ramparts of
Castel San Angelo,—I swear it by the Five Wounds!"
For a moment Stephania stood petrified with terror and unable to utter a
single word in response. Then she turned to Otto.
"This man is mad! Order him begone,—or I will go myself. He frightens
me!"
She made a movement as if to depart, but Otto, divining her intention,
barred the way.
"Stephania—remain!" he entreated. "Our general is but prompted by an
over great zeal for our welfare," he concluded, restraining himself with
an effort. Then breathing hard, he extended his arm, and with flaming
eyes spoke to Eckhardt:
"Go!"
"I go!" the general replied with heavy heart. "If anything unusual
happens in this night, King Otto, remember my words—remember my warning.
My men are stationed at the wicket, through which you came. There is no
other exit,—save to perdition. I leave you—may the Saints keep you till
we meet again!"
With these words Eckhardt gathered his mantle about him and stalked
away, leisurely at first, as if to lull to sleep every inkling of
suspicion in Stephania, then faster and faster, and at last he fairly
flew up the winding road of Aventine. Those whom he met shied out of
his path, as if the fiend himself was coming towards them and shaking
their heads in grave wonder and fear, muttered an Ave and told their
beads.
Strange noises were in the air. The chants of the monks were
intermingled with the fierce howls and shrieks of a mob, harangued by
some demagogue, who fed their discontentment with arguments after their
own heart. Everywhere Eckhardt met skulking countenances, scowling
faces, while half-suppressed oaths fell on his ear. Arrived on the
Aventine he immediately ordered Haco, Captain of the Imperial Guards, to
his presence.
"Bridle your charger and ride to Tivoli as if ten thousand devils were
on your heels," he said, handing the young officer an order he had
hurriedly and barbarously scratched on a fragment of parchment. "Pass
through the Tiburtine gate and return with sunrise,—life and death
depend upon your speed!"
Withdrawing immediately, Haco saddled his charger and soon the echoes of
his horse’s hoofs died away in the distance, while Eckhardt hurriedly
entered the palace.
After he had vanished from the labyrinth of the Minotaurus, Otto and
Stephania faced each other for a moment in silence. The Southern night
was very still. The noises from the city had died down. By countless
thousands the stars shone in the deep, fathomless heavens.
It was Otto who first broke the heavy silence.
"Stephania," he said, "why are you here to-night?"
"What a strange question," she replied, "and from you."
"Yes—from me! From me to you. Is it because—"
He paused as if oppressed by some great dread. He dared not trust
himself to speak those words in her hearing.
"Is it because I love you?" she complemented the sentence, drawing him
down beside her. But the seed of doubt Eckhardt had planted in his
heart had taken root.
"Stephania," he said with a strange voice, without replying directly to
her question. "I have trusted in you and I will continue to trust in
you, even despite the whisperings of the fiend,—until with my own eyes I
behold you faithless. Eckhardt has been with me all day," he continued
with unsteady voice, "he has warned me against you, he has warned me to
place no trust in your words, that you are but the instrument of
Crescentius; that he has organized a mutiny; that he but awaits your
signal for my destruction. He has warned me that you have planned my
seizure and selected this spot, to prevent intervention. Stephania,
answer me—is it so?"
For a moment the woman gazed at him in dread silence, unable to speak.
"Did you believe?" she faltered at last with averted gaze, very pale.
"I am here!" he replied.
Stephania laughed nervously.
"I had forgotten!" she stammered. "How good of you!"
Otto regarded her with silent wonder, not unmingled with fear, for her
countenance betrayed an anxiety he had never read in it before. And
indeed her restlessness and terror seemed to increase with every moment.
She answered Otto’s questions evidently without knowing what she said,
and her gaze turned frequently and with a devouring expression of
anxiety and dread toward Castel San Angelo. Maddened and desperate with
her own perfidy, she began to ruminate the most violent extremities,
without perceiving one exit from the labyrinth of guile. The
significance of Otto’s question, his earnestness and his faith in
herself put the crown on her misery. Her eyes grew dim and her senses
were failing. Her limbs quaked and for a moment she was unable to speak.
Otto bent over her in positive fear. The pale face looked so deathlike
that his heart quailed at the thought of life,—life without her.
"I cannot bear it—I cannot bear it," he muttered, holding her hands in
his tight grasp.
It seemed as if she had read his inmost, unspoken thoughts.
"And yet it must come at last!" she replied softly, as from the depths
of a dream. "What is this short span of life for such love as ours?
And,—had we even everything we could crave, all the world can
give,—would there not be a sting in each moment of happiness at the
thought—"
She paused. Her head drooped.
"My happiness is to be with you," he stammered. "I cannot count the
cost!"
"Think you that I would count the cost?" she said. "And you love me
despite of all those dreadful things, which he—Eckhardt—has poured into
your ear?" she continued with low, purring voice.
"Love you—love you!" he repeated wildly. "Oh, I have loved you all my
life, even before I saw you,—are you not the embodied form of all those
vague dreams of beauty, which haunted my earliest childhood? That
beauty, which I sought yearningly, but oh! so vainly in all things, that
breathe the divine essence: the lustrous darkness of night, the glories
of sunset, the subtle perfume of the rose, the all-reflecting ocean of
poetry in which the Universe mirrors itself? In all have I found the
same deep void, which only love can fill. Not love you," he continued
covering both hands he held in his with fevered kisses, "oh, Stephania,
I love you better than myself,—better than all things,—here and
hereafter."
Almost paralyzed with fear she listened to his mad pleading.
"And can nothing—nothing,—destroy this love you have for me?" she
faltered.
He took her yielding form in his arms. He drew her closer and closer to
his heart.
"Nothing,—nothing,—nothing."
"I love you—Otto—" she whispered deliriously.
"To the end, dearest,—to the end!"
From a tavern at the foot of the hill the sounds of high revelry were
borne up to them. The air was filled with the odour of dead leaves and
dying creation, that subtle premonition of the end to come.
"And you have anxiously waited my coming?" she said, hiding her face in
his arms.
"Oh, Stephania! The hour-glass, with which passion measures a lover’s
impatience, is a burning torch to his heart."
Supreme stillness intervened again.
Stephania raised her head like a deer in covert, listening for the
hunters, listening for the baying of the hounds, coming nearer and
nearer. Gladly at this moment would she have given her life to undo
what she had done. But it was too late. Even this expiation would not
avail! There was nothing now to do, but to nerve herself for that
supreme moment, when all would be severed between them for aye and ever;
when she would stand before him the embodiment of deception; when he
would spurn her as one spurns the reptile, that repays the caressing
hand with its deadly sting; when he would curse her perhaps,—cast from
him for ever the woman who had cut the thread of the life he had laid at
her feet—and all, for what?
That Johannes Crescentius, the Senator of Rome might again come into his
own, that he might again lord the rabble which now skulked through the
streets to avenge some imaginary wrong on the head of the youth, whose
love for them was to be the pass word for his destruction.
And Johannes Crescentius was her husband and lord. He loved her with as
great a love as his nature was capable of, and whatever faults might be
laid at the door of his regime, if faults they could even be termed in a
lawless, feudal age, that knew no right save might,—to her he had never
been untrue.
Stephania endeavoured to persuade herself that, what she had done, she
had done for the good of Rome. Monstrous deception! She despised the
mongrel rabble too heartily to even have raised a finger in its behalf.
If they starved, would Crescentius give them bread? If they froze—would
Crescentius clothe them? Then there remained but the question, should a
Roman govern Rome, or the alien,—the foreigner. Was it for her to
decide? How unworthy the cause of the sacrifice she was about to bring
on the altar of her happiness. But which ever way the tongue of the
scales inclined,—it was too late!
Otto had buried his head on Stephania’s bosom. She had encircled it
with her arms and with gentle fingers that sent a delirium through his
brain, she stroked his soft brown hair, while the cry of Delilah hovered
on her lips.
He looked up into her eyes.
"Stephania,—why are you here to-night?" he whispered again, and he felt
the tremor which quivered through her body.
"I came to bring you the answer which you craved at our last meeting,"
she replied softly. "Can you guess it?"
"Then you have chosen," he gasped, as if he were suddenly confronted
with the crisis in his existence, when that which he held dearest must
either slip away from him for ever or remain his through all eternity.
"I have chosen!" she whispered, her arms tightening round him, as if she
would protect him against all the world.
"Kiss me," she moaned.
One delirious moment their lips met. They remained locked in tight
embrace, lip to lip, heart to heart.
There was a brief breathless silence.
Suddenly the great bell of the Capitol rolled in solemn and majestic
sounds upon the air, and was answered from all the belfries of Rome.
But louder than the pealing tocsin, above the wild screaming and
clanging of the bells rose the piercing cry:
"Death to the Saxon! Death to the King!"
They both raised their heads and listened. With wild-eyed wonder Otto
gazed into Stephania’s eyes. The marble statues around them were hardly
as white as her features.
"What is this?" he questioned.
There was a stir in the depths of the streets below. Shouts and jeers
of strident voices were broken by authoritative commands. The tramp of
mailed feet was remotely audible, but above all the hubbub and din rose
the cry:
"Death to the Saxon! Death to the King!"
When the first peals of the great bell quivered on the silent night air,
Stephania had, with a low wail, encircled Otto’s head with her arms,
pressed him closely to her, as if to shield him from harm. Then, as
louder and wilder the iron tongues shrieked defiance through the air,
as, turning her head, she saw the fatal spear points of the Albanians
gleaming through the thicket, she suddenly shook him off. With a
stifled outcry, she rose to her feet; so abruptly that Otto staggered
and would have fallen, had he not in time caught himself with the aid of
a branch.
To the King it gave the impression of a wild hideous dream. Like one
dazed, he stared first at the woman, then down the declivity.
Directly beneath where he stood a scribe was haranguing the crowds,
descanting on the ancient glory of the Romans and exhorting his
listeners to exterminate all foreigners. From Castel San Angelo came an
incessant sound of trumpets, which, mingling with the brazen roar of
bells seemed to shake the earth. Torches lighted the streets with their
smoky crimson glare. People hurried hither and thither, jostling,
pushing, trampling upon each other like black shadows, like living
phantoms. The fiery glow, the voices of the angry mob, the pealing of
the bells,—they all struck Stephania’s heart with a thousand talons of
remorse and shame. Fearstruck and trembling, she gazed into the pale
face of Theophano’s son.
Otto was watching the distant pandemonium as one would gaze upon some
strange, hideous ceremonial of occult meaning,—then he turned slowly to
Stephania.
For a moment they faced each other in silence, then he stroked the
disordered hair from his forehead like one waking from a dream.
"You have betrayed me."
Her lips were tightly compressed; she made no reply.
The next moment he was on his knees before her.
"Forgive me, forgive me," he faltered, "I knew not what I said!"
She breathed hard. For a moment she closed her eyes in mortal anguish.
"Then you still believe in me?" She spoke hardly above a whisper.
"With all my heart," he replied, grasping her hands and covering them
with kisses. For a moment she suffered him to exhaust his endearments,
then she jerked them away from him.
"Then bid your hopes and dreams farewell and scatter your faith to the
winds," she shrieked, almost beside herself with the memory of her vow
and its consequences. "You are betrayed,—and I have betrayed you!"
Otto had staggered to his feet and gazed upon the beautiful apparition
who faced him like some avenging fury, as if he thought that she had
gone suddenly mad. For a moment she paused, as if summoning supreme
energy for the execution of her task, as if to lash herself into a
paroxysm sufficient to make her forget those accusing eyes and his
all-mastering love.
"I have betrayed you, Kong Otto! I, Stephania, a woman! Ah! You
believed my words! You were vain enough to imagine that the wife of the
Senator of Rome could love you,—you,—her greatest foe, you, the Saxon,
the alien, the intruder, who came here to rob us of our own, to wrest
the sceptre from the rightful lord of the Seven Hills. You hoped
Stephania would aid you to realize your mad dreams! How
unsophisticated, how deliciously innocent is the King of the Germans!
Know then that I have lied to you, when I feigned interest in your
cause, know that I have lied to you when I professed to love you! Love
you," she cried, while her heart was breaking with every word she hurled
against him, who listened to her speech in frozen terror. "Love you!
Fool! And you were mad enough to believe it! Do you hear those bells?
Do you hear the great tocsin from the Capitol? Do you hear the alarums
from the ramparts of Castel San Angelo? They are calling the Romans to
arms! They are summoning the Romans to revolt! Do you hear those
shouts? Death to the Germans? They are for you,—for you,—for you!"
Again she paused, breathing hard, collecting all her woman’s strength to
finish what she had begun.
The end had come,—her task must be finished.
Her voice now assumed its natural tones, the more dreadful in their
import, as she spoke in the old deep, soulful accents.
"I have lulled you to sleep," she continued, breaking the bridge, which
led back into the past, span by span,—"that the Senator of Rome may once
again come into his own! I have pretended interest in your monkish
fancies, that Rome may once more shake off the invader’s accursed yoke.
I am a Roman, King Otto,—and I hate you,—hate you with every beat of my
heart, that beats for Rome. King Otto, you are doomed."
He had listened to her words with wide, wondering eyes, his heart frozen
with terror and anguish, his face pale as that of a corpse, returned
from its grave. He heard voices in the distance and the tread of armed
feet coming nearer and nearer. Yet he stirred not. His tongue clove to
the roof of his mouth. There were strange rushing sounds in his ears,
like mocking echoes of Stephania’s words.
At last his lips moved, while with a desperate effort he tried to shake
off the spell.
"May God forgive you, Stephania," he gasped like a drowning man, reeled
and caught himself, gazing upon her with delirious, burning eyes.
Closer and closer came the tramp of mailed feet.
Terror struck, Stephania gazed into Otto’s face. The fiercest
denunciation would not have so completely unnerved her as the simple
words of the youth. She almost succumbed under the weight of her
anguish.
"Fly,—King Otto,—fly,—save yourself," she gasped, staggering toward him
in the endeavour to shake off the fatal torpor which had seized his
limbs. But he saw her not, he heard not her warning. Listlessly he
gazed into space.
But had those who rushed down the avenue been his enemies and death his
certain lot, there would not have been time for flight.
Stephania heaved a sigh of relief as in their leader she recognized the
Margrave of Meissen, followed by a score or more of the Saxon guard.
Her own fate she never gave a thought.
"Do you hear those sounds?" thundered the gaunt German leader, rushing
with drawn sword upon the scene and pausing breathlessly before
Stephania’s victim. "Do you hear the great bell of the Capitol, King
Otto? All Rome is in revolt! Did I not warn you against the wiles of
the accursed sorceress, who, like a vampire fed on your heart’s blood?
But by the Almighty God, she shall not live to enjoy the fruits of her
hellish treason."
And suiting the action to the word, Eckhardt rushed upon Stephania, who
stood calmly awaiting his onslaught and seemed to invite the stroke
which threatened her life, for her lips curled in haughty disdain and
her gaze met Eckhardt’s in lofty scorn.
The sight of her peril accomplished what Stephania’s efforts had failed
to do. Swift as thought Otto had hurled himself between Eckhardt and
his intended victim.
"Back," he thundered with flaming eyes. "Only over my dead body lies
the way to her!"
Eckhardt’s arm dropped, while a wrathful laugh broke from his lips.
"You are magnificent, King Otto! Defend the woman who has foully
betrayed you! Be it so! We have no time for argument. Her life is
forfeited and by the Eternal God, Eckhardt never broke his oath. Follow
me! We must reach the Aventine, ere the Roman rabble bar the way. We
are not strong enough to break through their numbers and they swarm like
ants."
Otto stirred not.
Calmly he gazed at the Margrave, as if the danger did in no wise concern
him. And while Eckhardt stamped his feet in impotent rage, mingling a
score or more pagan imprecations with the very unchristian oaths he
muttered between his clenched teeth, Otto turned to Stephania. His
voice was calm and passionless as one’s who has emerged from a terrible
ordeal and has nothing more to lose, nothing more to fear.
"What will you do?" he said. "The streets are no safe thoroughfare for
you in this night."
"I know not,—I care not," she replied with dead voice, from which all
its bewitching tones had faded.
"Then you must come with us!" he said. "My men shall safely conduct you
to Castel San Angelo. You have the word of their King!"
"By the flames of purgatory! Are you stark mad, King Otto?" roared
Eckhardt, almost beside himself with rage. "Come with us she shall, but
as hostage for Crescentius,—and eye for eye,—tooth for tooth!"
He did not finish. Otto waved his hand petulantly.
"The King of the Germans has pledged his word for Stephania’s safe
conduct, and the King of the Germans will be obeyed," he spoke, his
voice the only calm and passionless thing in all the storm and uproar,
which assailed them on all sides. "Through the secret passage lies her
only safety. She cannot go as she came!"
Eckhardt’s eyes fairly blazed with rage.
"Secret passage!" he roared, nervously gripping the hilt of his enormous
sword. "Secret passage? Are you raving, King Otto? What secret
passage?"
But vainly did the Margrave endeavour to make his gestures explain his
denial. Otto cared not, if indeed he noted them at all.
He beckoned to Stephania.
"Come with us!" he spoke in the same apathetic, listless tone. "Fear
nothing. You have the word of the German King,—he has never broken it!"
Whether the terrible reproach implied in his words increased the
stifling anguish in her heart, whether she dared not trust herself to
speak, Stephania silently turned to go. But divining her intent, Otto
caught at her mantle.
"Now by all the fiends!" shouted Eckhardt, unable longer to restrain
himself, dashing between Stephania and the King and severing the
latter’s hold on the woman—"Since your heart is set upon it, I will not
harm the—"
He paused involuntarily.
For from Otto’s eyes there flashed upon him such a terrible look that
even the old, practiced warrior stepped back abashed.
"Speak the word and I will slay you with my own hands!" spoke the son of
Theophano, and for a moment subject and king faced each other in the
dread silence with flaming eyes, and faces from which every trace of
colour had faded.
Eckhardt lowered his weapon.
His countenance betrayed untold anxiety.
"You invite certain destruction, King Otto," he remonstrated with
subdued voice. "What matters it, if her countrymen do slay her? One
serpent the less in Rome! Your mercy leads you to perdition,—-what
mercy has she shown to you?"
Otto had relapsed into his former state of apathy.
"She goes with us," he said like an automaton, that knows but one
speech. "Through the secret passage lies her only safety."
"She will betray it and you and all of us," growled the German leader,
whose very beard seemed to bristle with wrath at Otto’s obstinacy.
Otto shrugged his shoulders.
"I have spoken!"
"Guards, close round!" thundered Eckhardt. "And every dog of a Roman
who approaches upon any pretext whatsoever,—strike him dead without word
or parley!"
The Saxon spearmen who had guarded the approach to the avenue gathered
hurriedly round them. For at that moment the great bell of the Capitol,
whose tolling had ceased for a time, began its clamour anew and the
shouts of the masses, subdued and hushed during the interval, rose with
increased fury. They drowned the great sob of anguish, which had welled
up from Stephania’s heart, but when Otto, his attention distracted for
the nonce by the uproar, turned round, the woman had gone.
Nor did Eckhardt, inwardly rejoicing over the revelation, grant him one
moment’s respite. Surrounded by his trusty Saxon spears, Otto felt
himself hurried along towards the gates of his palace, which they
reached in safety, the insurrection having not yet spread to that
region.
Vainly had he strained his gaze into the haze of the moonlit night. The
end had come,—Stephania had gone.
When he reached his chamber, Otto sank senseless on the floor.
*CHAPTER XV*
*THE STORM OF CASTEL SAN ANGELO*
The sun of autumn hung a bloody circle over Rome, but seemed to give
neither light nor warmth. The city itself presented a seething cauldron
of rebellion. The gates had been closed against the advancing Germans
and when, with the first streak of dawn, Haco had arrived under the
Marian hill with the contingents from Tivoli, they found themselves
before a city, which had to be reconquered ere they could even join the
comparatively weak garrison on the Aventine, where Otto was a prisoner
in his own palace. During the night Eckhardt had assayed to reach a
place of concealment on the Tiburtine road, where he awaited the arrival
of his forces, which he had immediately marshalled in their respective
positions. Castel San Angelo rested on an impregnable rock, but
Eckhardt had sworn a terrible oath, that he would scale its walls before
the sun of another day rose behind the Alban hills; and although a rain
of arrows and bolts, so dense and deadly that it threatened to break the
line of the assailants, was poured into the German ranks, it did not
stay their determined advance.
The first line of assault consisted of heavy-armed foot-soldiers with
round bucklers, short swords and massive battle-axes. Forming in close
phalanx, these men of gigantic size, in hauberks and round helmets,
fixed shield to shield like an iron wall, advanced in dense array to the
charge. They were led on the right wing by the imperial guard, whose
huge statures, fair long hair and gleaming halberds formed a strange
contrast to the lighter arms and the more pliant forms of the defenders
of Castel San Angelo.
The Roman army, which the Senator had stationed round the base of his
formidable stronghold, could not withstand the shock of this tremendous
phalanx, so far heavier in arms and numbers, and with all their courage
and skill they wavered and broke into flight. Many were precipitated
into the Tiber and drowned miserably within sight of their helpless
comrades; most of them were mowed down by the pursuing German cavalry or
shot by the German archers.
After the terrible defeat of the Senator’s army by the first line of
Eckhardt’s battle-array, the squadrons of the second line of battle
spread over the plain, preparatory to the last and final assault. The
vast stronghold of the Senator looked as proud and menacing as ever;
reared upon its almost impenetrable granite-foundation it formed even at
this date one of the most powerful fortresses of Western Europe. Its
huge battlements were defended with a long chain of covered towers, from
which Albanian bowmen shot down every living thing, that approached the
circuit of its walls. Every attempt to scale the lofty stronghold with
ladders had during former sieges been beaten off with fearful loss,
after desperate combats at all hours of day and night. Although he had
twice stormed the walls of Rome, Eckhardt had never succeeded in
capturing the fortress, which he must call his own, who would be master
of the Seven Hills. But the wrath of the Margrave defied every
obstacle, laughed to scorn every impediment which might retard his
vengeance upon the cursed rabble of Rome, those mongrel curs, with whom
rebellion was a pastime and for whom oaths existed but to be broken.
All day long the Germans had hurled themselves against the massive
walls, sustaining terrible losses, while those within the city were
equally severe. All day long they had plied their huge catapults, which
hurled masses of rock and iron into the city and fortress, keeping up an
incessant bombardment. They also used the balista, an immense fixed
cross-bar, which shot bolts with extraordinary force and precision upon
the battlements, whereon nothing living could stand exposed without
certain destruction.
Seated motionless on his coal-black charger, like some dark spirit of
revenge, plainly visible from the ramparts of Castel San Angelo,
Eckhardt directed the assault of his army at this point, or that,
according as the situation required. Many an arrow and stone struck the
ground close by his side, but he seemed to bear a charmed existence and
never stirred an inch from his chosen vantage ground. Already had a
breach been made in one or two places in the base of the walls, yet had
he not given the order to break into the city, but seemed to watch for
some weak spot in the defences. It was verging towards evening. The
besiegers could hear the cries and the rage of those within the walls,
who dared not remain in the streets during the terrific rain of iron and
stones hurled by the German machines. Despite their strenuous efforts,
Castel San Angelo hurled defiance into the teeth of the Margrave, who
demanded its surrender, and the task of capturing the stronghold,
otherwise than by starving the garrison, seemed to hold out smaller
promise with every moment, as the sun hurried on his western course.
The sky became overcast and the night bade fair to be stormy.
During the assaults of the day, Eckhardt had many times strained his
gaze towards the road leading to Tivoli, as if he expected some succour
from that direction, when, as the sun was sinking in a crimson haze, a
cloud of dust met the general’s gaze and at the same moment a thunderous
shout rose from the imperial hosts. Drawn by twelve oxen, there
appeared at the edge of the plain a new engine of assault, which
Eckhardt had ordered constructed, anticipating an emergency, such as the
present. It had remained with the host in Tivoli, and despite the
comparatively short distance, it had required almost twenty-four hours
to draw it over the sloping ground to Rome. It was a tower of three
stages, constructed of massive beams, protected by frames and hides and
crowned with a stout roof. It was now being rolled forward on broad
heavy wheels to afford means of scaling the walls. As it slowly
approached the ramparts of Castel San Angelo, the assault of the
Germans, renewed on the whole line of the walls with redoubled fury,
presented a terrific sight. The catapults and balistae were pouring
stones, bolts and arrows on the defenders; the whizzing of the missiles,
the shouts of the assailants, answered by furious yells from the walls,
the roar of the flames, as here and there a house near the city walls
caught fire from burning pitch, made a truly infernal din.
"The turret is within twenty feet of the walls,—on a level with the
ramparts,—fifteen,—ten feet,—-down with the scaling bridge!" shouted
Haco, who was standing by the side of Eckhardt. Crashing, the gang-way
went from the front of the pent house. But as he spoke, the soft earth,
whereon the turret stood, gave way. The gang-way fell short, the turret
toppled and split. The besieged hurled on it bolts, rocks, boiling
pitch and fire balls, and presently it collapsed with a sudden crash and
fell in a heap, mangling and burying the men inside it and beneath it,
and at once it blazed up, a mass of burning timber.
"It is, as I feared," said Eckhardt. "No turret lofty enough to overtop
these walls can be brought up to work on ground like this. We must
resort to the catapults! Let all be brought into action at once!"
The destruction of the great, movable turret, on the success of which
such hopes and fears had been placed, caused the ranks of assailants and
defenders to pause for a space, while both were watching the spectacle
of the blazing pile. A lull ensued in the storm of battle, during which
Eckhardt, while he seemed to direct his men towards a certain point near
the walls, never released his gaze from Castel San Angelo. Then he gave
a whispered order to Haco, who set off at once on its execution. An
appalling crash rent the sky, as the German machines began their
simultaneous attack on the walls of Rome, while a storming-column,
forming under their protection, rushed forth towards the gates of the
city. The strain on the mind of Eckhardt, who alone knew the intense
crisis of that moment, was almost unbearable. He must succeed this very
night; for on the morrow the peremptory order of the Electors would
recall his forces beyond the Alps. There would be no respite; there
could be no resistance. His only salvation lay in their undaunted
courage and their ignorance of the impending decree.
The evening grew more and more sultry.
At intervals a gust came flying, raising the white dust and rustling in
the dying leaves. It passed by, leaving the stillness on the Aventine
more still than before. Nothing was to be heard, save the dull,
seemingly subterranean growls of thunder, and against this low
threatening and sullen roar the pounding of Eckhardt’s catapults against
the walls. At times a flash broke across the clouds; then all stood out
sharp and clear against the increasing darkness. Only the watchfires of
Castel San Angelo were reflected in the sluggish tide of the Tiber, from
which rose noisome odours of backwater, rotting fern leaves and decaying
wood.
The Piazza of St. Peter meanwhile presented a singular spectacle,
congested as it was with a multitude, which, in the glare of the
lightning, resembled one waving mass of heads,—a cornfield before it has
been swept by a tornado. It was an infuriated mob, which listened to
the harangue of Benilo, interrupting the same ever and ever with the
hysterical shout: "Death to the Saxon! Death to the Emperor!"
"Blood of St. John!" exclaimed an individual in the coarse brown garb of
a smith, "Why do we bellow here? Let us to the Aventine—to the
Aventine!"
His eye met that of Il Gobbo the grave-digger. He pounced upon him like
an eagle on his prey, shaking him by the shoulder.
"Gobbo! Dog! Assassin! Art deaf to good news! I tell thee, there is
strife in the city,—some new sedition! It may be that our friends have
conquered—down with the tyrant and oppressor! Down with the Saxon!
Down with everything!"
And he laughed—a hoarse, mad laughter.
"We Romans shall yet be free,—think of it, thou villain,—a thousand
curses on thee!"
The artisan had correctly interpreted the temper of the Romans, when he
raised his shout: To the Aventine! To the Aventine!
"Romans! We give our enemies red war! War to the knife!" screamed the
speaker at the conclusion of his harangue.
"Death to the Saxons! Death to the King!" came the answering yell.
In the midst of all this some partisan of the King ventured to reason
with the mob. It was impossible to distinguish in the ensuing mêlée,
but in the distance a man was being tossed and torn by the mob. For a
moment his white face rose above the sea of heads, with all the despair
which a drowning man shows, when it rises for the last time above the
waves, then it sank back and something mangled and shapeless was flung
out into the great Piazza, where it lay still.
"To the Aventine! To the Aventine!" shouted the mob, and armed with all
sorts of rude weapons they trooped off, brandishing their clubs and
staves and shouting confused maledictions.
Count Ludeger of the Palatinate, to whom Eckhardt had entrusted the
King’s safety, had made sure that all approaches were locked and barred,
while he had disposed his spearmen and archers in such a manner as to
make it appear, in the case of assault, that he commanded a much
superior number, than were actually at his disposal.
The warlike Count Palatine, who, aroused on an alarm, had instantly
equipped himself with casque and sword, stood listening to what was
passing outside, sniffing the air and rolling his eyes as if he desired
nothing better than a conflict. Arranging his archers round the barred
gate, with the order to hold their bows in readiness, he descended to
the entrance which was surrounded by a howling mob, who demanded
admittance or, if denied, declared they would enter by force. After
having surveyed the assailants through a wicket, and having convinced
himself that they were of the baser class, he demanded to speak with the
leader of the mob. A surly individual, armed with a club, came boldly
forward and demanded to see the King.
"For what purpose?" asked the Count Palatine.
"That is,—as we choose!" replied the ruffian.
By this time the archers had mounted the roof of the palace, while Count
Ludeger stood in the foreground. To him the routing of such a rabble
seemed a task not worth speaking of, and it was not his intention to
parley. He dared not open the gates until he was prepared to act,
therefore mounting a balcony in the upper story of the palace, which
looked over the entrance, he stood fully visible from where the invaders
stood, whose numbers swelled with every moment. Then advancing to the
parapet, he made a signal, demanding silence, and spoke in a voice
audible to every ear in the throng:
"Dogs! You came hither thinking the palace was defenceless. You wish to
see the King. Off! Away with your foul odours and your yelping
throats! And if when you have turned tail, any cur among you dares bark
back, he shall pay for it with an arrow through his chine! Away with
you!"
The crowd seemed to waver and to look for their leader, but the Count
Palatine gave them little time. Raising his hand he waved a signal to
the archers. The low growling and snarling of the mob swelled to a yell
of terror, as three score or more of their number fell under the hail of
arrows. At the same moment the gate of the palace was thrown open and
the guards charged the Roman mob with drawn swords, mowing down all that
were in their path. Back fell the first rank of the rioters, pressing
against those in the rear, and with an outcry of terror the crowd
scattered in flight.
From the balcony of his palace, Otto had witnessed the scene which had
just come to a close. He saw hatred and vengeance around him in the
eyes of the populace. He knew himself to be hated, deserted, betrayed,
most unjustly, most cruelly, despite all he had done for the state and
the people. After the mob had departed, he retreated to his chamber.
Here his strength seemed utterly to forsake him. Calling his
attendants, they took from him his cloak, his diadem, and his sword of
state, they unlaced the imperial buskins and gilt mail, in which he was
encased. He seemed eager to fling from him his gilded trappings, while
his attendants watched him in perplexity and fear. He spoke not, nor
gave any sign.
At length Count Ludeger, presuming on his high office, broke the
silence.
"By the Mother of God, we pray you, shake off this grief and take heed
of the manifold perils which surround your throne and life. You are
surrounded with traitors, intrigues and plots! And the one—once nearest
to your heart is your greatest foe!"
Otto raised his head and glared at the speaker like a lion at bay, but
spoke not, and again covered his face and sank upon the couch.
The storm clouds gathering over Rome were scarce as dark as those on
Count Ludeger’s brow. For a time intense silence prevailed. At last,
carried away by Otto’s mute despair, the Curopalates ventured to
approach the King and whispered a word in his ear.
Otto looked up, pale, staring.
Count Ludeger advanced and knelt before the emperor.
"My liege—what shall I say to the Electors?"
There was a breathless silence.
Then Otto raised himself erect on his couch.
"Say to them,—that I will die in Rome—in Rome—"
He checked himself and looked round.
"Leave me! Begone all of you!" he said. "Set double guards at the
doors of this chamber and admit no one on pain of death.—I choose to be
alone to-night!"
"And may not I even share my sovereign’s solitude?" questioned Benilo
with a look of feigned concern in his eyes.
"I wish to be alone!" Otto replied, then he beckoned Count Ludeger to
his side. After all had departed, the King turned to the Count
Palatine.
"Can we hold out?"
The Count’s visage reflected deep gloom.
"All Rome is in the throes of revolt! All day Eckhardt has been
pounding the walls of Castel San Angelo—to no avail!"
"He will storm the traitor’s lair," Otto replied, "but then?" he
questioned as one dream-lost.
Ludeger pointed to Northward. With a deep moan Otto’s head drooped and
the scalding tears streamed down between his fingers.
Betrayed—betrayed! Not by Crescentius, his natural, his hereditary foe,
but by the woman whom he had loved, whom he had worshipped, whom he
still loved above all else on earth. What was the possession of Rome,
the rule of the universe, to him without her? He could picture to
himself no happiness away from her.
When Otto looked up, Count Ludeger was gone.
For a time there was stillness, deep, intense.
A dazzling flash of light, succeeded by a deafening peal of thunder,
that was like the wrath of a mighty God,—then came darkness, the howling
of the storm, the sobbing of bells tossed and broken by the hurricane,
into a wraith of dirge,—and now, as by some fantastic freak of nature,
as the wind rose higher and higher, the iron tongue of the bell from the
Capitol came wrangling and discordant through the air, as if tortured by
some demon of despair. But the howlings and the tempest and the roar of
the thunder had a third, most terrible ally to make that night memorable
in Rome. It was the wrath of Eckhardt, the Margrave, as he marshalled
his hosts to the assault. Terror-stricken the cowardly Romans scattered
before the iron avalanches that swept down upon them. The scythe of the
enraged mower made wide gaps in their lists and the dead and dying
strewed the field in every direction. Little did Eckhardt care how many
he mangled and maimed under the hoofs of his iron-shod charger. Had all
Rome been but one huge funeral pyre, he would have exulted. Rome had
not been kind to him and the hour of vengeance was at hand at last!
The broken clangour of the bells of Rome, the bellowing of the thunder
through the valleys, the howling of the storm—and the shouts of the
storming files of his Germans struck Otto’s ear in fitful pauses.
For this then he had journeyed to Rome! This was to be the end of the
dream!—The man he had trusted was a traitor! The woman whose kisses
still burnt upon his lips had sold, betrayed him. The candle sank lower
and the shadows deepened; but the tempest howled like a legion of demons
over the seven-hilled city of Rome.
What caused him to raise his head after a period of brooding, Otto knew
not, nor why the opposite wall with its drear flitting shadows held his
gaze spellbound. To his utter discomfiture and amazement he saw the
Venus panel noiselessly open, a shadow glided into the chamber and the
panel closed behind it.
Ere Otto could utter a word, Stephania stood before him.
He rose and receded before her, as one would before a spectre.
Hungrily, madly his eyes gazed into her pale face, despairingly. A
strange fire was alight in her orbs, as once more she stood face to face
with the youth, whose soul she had absorbed as the vampire the soul of
his victim.
With fingers tightly interlaced she stood before him, then, as he would
not speak, she said with a strange smile:
"You see,—I have come back."
He made no reply, but receded from her as some evil spirit to the
farthest nook of the chamber.
For a time she seemed at a loss how to proceed; when she spoke again,
there was a strange, jarring tone in her voice.
"Fear nothing!" she said, a great sadness vibrating in her speech. "I
came not hither to renew old scenes. What has been is past for ever!
Strange, that I had to come into your life, King Otto, or that you had
to cross the line of mine,—who is to blame? You have once told me that
you believe in a Force, called Fate. You have convinced me now,—even if
my own suffering had not."
"How came you here?" Otto spoke, hardly above a whisper.
Stephania pointed below.
"Through the secret passage!"
Otto started.
"Mother of Christ!" he exclaimed. "Had they seen you they would have
killed you."
A smile of disdain curved her lips.
"I should have welcomed the release."
"But what do you want here—and at this hour?"
"Your Saxons are storming Castel San Angelo. By a feigned attack they
lured its defenders to a part of the ramparts, where no real danger
threatened, but to scale the walls on their rear. Send a messenger to
Eckhardt to desist. Crescentius is ready to treat for honourable
terms."
If there was indeed truth in her words, the message was lost on him, to
whom it was conveyed. His heart was dead to the voice of gladness, as
it was dead to any added pang of misery.
"Thrice the Senator of Rome has broken his word! His fate lies with
himself!" he replied with a shrug.
Stephania’s pallor deepened.
She stared at Otto out of large fear-struck eyes.
"You would not give him over to your Saxons?" she spoke impulsively.
"They will take him without that!"
"Castel San Angelo has never been taken,—it shall never be taken! King
Otto! Think how many of your best soldiers will be crushed and mangled
in the assault,—be merciful!"
"Has Crescentius been merciful to me? I came not hither to deprive him
of his own.—I have not struck at the root of his life.—He has taken from
me the faith in all that is human and divine,—and through you! A noble
game you have played for my soul! You have won, Stephania! But the
blood of Crescentius be on his own head!"
There was a lull in the uproar of the elements without; but new banks of
threatening clouds were hurrying from the West, gathering like armies of
vengeful spirits over the Seven-Hilled City, and shutting off every
breath of air.
An oppression throbbing with nameless fears was upon them,—a hush, as if
life had ceased.
Stephania, urged by a strange dread, had stepped to the high oval window
whence a view of Castel San Angelo was to be obtained. And as she gazed
out into the night with wildly throbbing heart, she grew faint and
wide-eyed for terror. A dull roar, like muffled thunder, ceaselessly
recurring, the terrible shouts of Eckhardt’s Saxons reached her ear.
Would the walls withstand their assault, ere she returned, or would the
defenders yield under the terrible hail of iron and leave the Senator of
Rome to his doom? Like knells of destiny boom upon boom resounded
through the wail of the rising gale.
She pressed her hands despairingly against her temples, as if to calm
their tempestuous throbbing, and her lips muttered a prayer, while
broken voices came through the storm,— fragments of a chant from near-by
cloisters:
"Ave Maria—Gratia Plena—Summa parens clementiae—Nocte surgentes—"
Otto had tiptoed to the doors of the chamber and after carefully
listening had locked them. The order he had given to admit no one would
secure for him a few moments of immunity from interruption from without.
Supporting himself against a casement he endeavoured to master the awful
agony, which upheaved his soul at the sight of the woman who had played
with his holiest affections; he tried to speak once, twice, but his
tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He thought he would choke.
The brazen blast of a trumpet from the battlements of Castel San Angelo
caused him to approach and to step behind Stephania. In the now almost
continuous glare of the lightning troops could be seen moving slowly
along the walls and base of the fortress. The air pealed with
acclamations. A thousand arrows from Frisian bowmen swept the defenders
from the walls. The battlements were left naked; ladders were raised,
ropes were slung, axes were brandished; of every crevice and projection
of the wall the assailants availed themselves; they climbed on each
other’s shoulders, they leaped from point to point; torches without
number were now showered on every thing that was combustible. At length
a stockade near the central defence took fire.
They fought no longer in darkness. The flames rolled sheet on sheet
upon their heads, mingling their glare with that of the blazing horizon.
But the issue was no longer doubtful. Castel San Angelo was doomed. No
longer it vindicated its claim to being impregnable. The defenders,
reduced in number, exhausted by the ever and ever renewed and desperate
attacks, staring in the face of certain defeat, were becoming visibly
disheartened.
Spellbound, both viewed the spectacle, which unfolded itself to their
awe-struck gaze. But there was no flush of victory in Otto’s face, no
gladness in his eyes as, sick at the sight, he turned away. His eyes
returned to the woman whose half-averted face shone out in the glow of
the conflagration. Never had it seemed to him so mystic, so unearthly,
so fair.
The storm was drawing nearer; the thunder bellowed louder through the
heavens, the lightning flashes grew ever brighter; the great bell from
the Capitol, the lesser bells of Rome, still shrieked forth their
insistent clamour on the sultry air.
She silently drew near him, fixing him with her wondrous eyes.
At that moment the lightning rent the clouds and flashed on her pale
face. A peal of thunder, now quite overhead, shook earth and sky,
rolling through the air in majestic reverberations. Slowly it died away
into the great silence, now again rent and broken by the German
catapults, by the renewed shouts of the defenders and assailants. Up to
this moment Stephania had still hoped that Castel San Angelo would defy
the united assaults of the storming Saxons; suddenly, however, a shriek
broke from her lips, she turned away from the window and hid her face in
her hands. Then she rushed to where Otto was witnessing the progress of
the assault and fell on her knees before him.
"Save him!" she moaned, raising her white clasped hands in despairing
entreaty. "Save him! Save him!"
He raised her and, looking into her face, he read therein remorse and
helpless entreaty. He knew that the moment was irrevocable for both,
final and solemn as death. He felt he must break the pregnant silence,
yet no word came to his lips. The more he forced his will, to find a
solution, the more conscious he became of his own powerlessness and the
depth of the abyss which must divide them for ever more.
"Save him, Otto—save him!" she moaned, stretching out her arms towards
him,—"You alone can—you alone."
He receded from her.
"I could not save him, even if I would!"
But the woman became frantic in her fear.
The consciousness of the terrible wrong which Crescentius had suffered
at her hands, though the most subtle scrutiny of her heart failed to
accuse her of a deed, unworthy herself, the unwitting instrument of
Fate, added to her despair. She must save the Senator of Rome, even if
she should herself pay the penalty of the crime of high treason, of
which he stood accused.
"You will not have it said that you crushed your foe under your heels,"
she cried. "You are too kind, too generous,—Otto! The Senator’s
resistance is broken. He could not rise a fourth time, if he would—you
have conquered. Otto,—for my sake,—by the memory of the past—"
He raised his arms. Now he was himself.
"Stop!" he said. "Why conjure up that memory which you have so cruelly
poisoned and defiled? There was nothing,—even to life itself,—that I
would not have given to you in exchange for your love—"
"But that it was not mine to give!" she moaned. "Can you not see?"
"You should have remembered that, ere you slowly but surely wove your
net of deception round my heart. I loved you! Foe of mine, as I knew
you to be, I trusted you! See, how you have requited this trust! See,
what you have made of me! You but entered my life to wreck it! Once I
loved the hours and the days and the nights and the stars, now my heart
is a burnt-out volcano. And you who have taken all my life from me, now
come to me crying for mercy for him, who showed such wondrous mercy for
me! And you too—you! Did no pity ever enter your heart, when you saw
that you were mercilessly chaining my life to despair? And after you
revealed yourself his instrument,—Stephania, are you so mad as to think,
that I would save the man who insidiously wrecked my life?"
Almost frozen with horror Stephania had listened to the voice she loved
so well. The card she had played, the appeal to his generous nature,
had lost. She might have foreseen it. But her wondrous beauty still
exercised its fatal spell. The moments were flying. She must save
Crescentius from Eckhardt’s wrath.
"You once told me that you loved me," she spoke with choked, dry throat.
"You accuse me of having deceived you—ah! how little versed you are in
reading a woman’s heart!"
And approaching him as of old, she took his hands into hers.
"What do you mean?" Otto replied, while her touch sent the hot blood
hurtling through his veins. "Some new conceit, to gain your end?"
She shook her head, while she gazed despairingly toward the Senator’s
last defence.
"This is not the time," she gasped. "On every moment hangs a life!
Otto, save him! Save him for my sake! Can you not see that I love you?
Think you, else I should be here? Can you not see that this is my last
atonement? Oh, do not let me be guilty of this too! Save him,—save
him, ere it is too late!" she moaned, kneeling without releasing his
hands, on which she rested her head. "Save him,—save him, King Otto—or
his blood be on your head!"
"On my head? On my head?" exclaimed Otto. "Heaven that has witnessed
your unfathomable treachery can never ratify this invocation! Never!
Never!"
She glanced up despairingly.
"Otto—he knows all! All! I saw it in his looks—though he never
spoke.—He knows—that—I love you!"
"Then you do love me?" Otto replied with large wondering eyes.
"Ask your own heart,—it will answer for mine!"
"Then if you love me,—be mine,—my wife,—my queen!"
"How can I answer you at this moment, how can I? Look yonder,—the
stockades are afire,—your Saxons are scaling the walls,—-Otto,—will you
have it said that you killed him to possess me?"
He snatched his hands away from her.
"But how can I save him, Stephania?—Collect your woman’s wit! How can
I?"
"Oh, how they swarm on the parapets!" she moaned. "Mercy, King Otto,—ere
it be too late!"
"Let not the King know the mercy in Otto’s heart," he replied between
irresolution and resentment. "But how can I reach Eckhardt? And think
you my messenger would move him? Think you, he would listen to me?"
"You are the sovereign! The King! Have you none that you can send,
that you can trust? None, fleet of foot and discreet?"
Otto pondered.
Stephania’s gaze was riveted on his face, as the eye of the criminal
about to be condemned, hangs on the countenance of his judge, who speaks
the sentence. At this moment loud shouts came through the storm. The
Germans were hoisting new ladders for the assault. In the glare of the
conflagration and the incessant lightning they could be discerned
swarming like ants.
Castel San Angelo appeared doomed indeed.
Otto pushed Stephania into a recess, then he made one bound towards the
door. In the anteroom sat Benilo, the Chamberlain. His usually placid
countenance seemed in the throes of a tremendous strain. Which way
would the scales sink in the balance? A straw might turn the tide of
Fate. Benilo waited. He held the last card in the great game. He would
only play it at the last moment.
As Otto appeared on the threshold, he glanced up, then arose hurriedly.
"Victory is crowning your arms, King Otto!" he fawned, pointing in the
region of the assault. "Soon your hereditary foe will be a myth—a—"
Otto waved his hand impatiently.
"Hasten to Castel San Angelo,—take the secret passage!—You may yet
arrive in time to place this order in Eckhardt’s hands!—Hurry—on every
moment hangs a life."
"A life," gasped the Chamberlain. "Whose life?"
"The Senator’s!"
"Ah! It is the order for his execution!" Benilo extended his hand, to
receive the scroll, while a strange fire gleamed in his eyes. He had
waited wisely.
"It is the order for Eckhardt,—to spare him! Hasten! Lose not a moment!
Through the secret passage!"
Benilo stared in Otto’s face as if he thought he had gone mad.
"Spare Crescentius? Your enemy? Spare the viper, that has thrice stung
you with its poison fang?"
"I implore you by our friendship,—go!—I will explain all to you at a
fitter hour;—now there is not time."
"Spare Crescentius!" Benilo repeated as if he were still unable to grasp
the meaning.
"The Senator’s men will lay no impediment in your way,—and to my Germans
you are known.—You will,—you must—arrive in time—I pray you hasten—be
gone—"
A sudden light of understanding seemed to flash athwart Benilo’s pale
features. Through the open door he had seen a woman’s gown.
Snatching up his skull-cap, he placed the order intrusted to him inside
his doublet.
"I hasten," he spoke. "Not a moment shall be lost!"
And rushing out of the chamber, he disappeared.
Stephania had listened in awestruck wonder. What was the friend of the
Senator, the man who had counselled the uprising, doing in the imperial
ante-chamber at this hour? But,—perchance this was but another mesh in
the great web of intrigue, which the Romans had spun round their
unsuspecting foes. Perhaps,—she trembled, as she thought out the
thought,—he was to seize the King, if Crescentius was victorious. He
had never left the youth.—Had the Chamberlain become his sovereign’s
jailer? The ideas rushed confusedly through her brain, where but the
one faint hope still glimmered, that Crescentius would escape his doom.
When Otto entered, she held out both hands to him.
"How can I thank you!"
He warded them off, and stepped to the window, whence the progress of
the assault could be watched in the intermittent flashes of lightning.
The raging storm had temporarily drowned the signals and cries of the
combatants, but though the clouds hung low and heavily freighted over
the city, not a drop of rain fell. The lightning became more incessant;
soon it seemed as if the entire horizon was ablaze and the thunder
bellowed in one continuous roar over the Seven Hills.
Stephania had stepped to Otto’s side.
"I must go," she said with indescribable mournfulness in her tones. "My
place is by his side! Living—or dead! Farewell, King Otto, and
forgive—if you can!"
She stretched out her hands towards him. It seemed to him, as if a dark
veil was suddenly drawn before his eyes. Despite the lightning there was
nothing but a great darkness around him. His victory would cause a
wider, more abysmal gulf between them than his defeat.
If she went from him in this hour, he knew they would never meet on
earth again.
At her words he turned and vainly endeavouring to steady his voice, he
spoke.
"Stephania,—I cannot let you go! Remain here, until the worst is over!
It would mean certain death to you, if my men discovered you,—and
perhaps you would hardly escape a similar fate at the hands of your own
countrymen."
She shook her head.
"My place is by his side,—no matter what befall! If I am killed,—never
was death more welcome! Farewell, Otto—farewell—"
Her voice broke. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed
piteously.
He drew them down with gentle force.
"It is not my purpose to detain you here! All I ask of you, is to wait,
until my order has had time to reach Eckhardt. After the Senator has
yielded,—you may go to him,—I will then myself have you escorted to
Castel San Angelo. For the sake of the past,—wait!"
"The past! The past! That can never, never be revived!" she moaned.
"Oh, that I were dead, that I were dead!"
He took her in his arms.
"My love,—my own,—I cannot hear you speak thus—take courage! I have
long forgiven you!"
Her head rested on his shoulders. For a moment they seemed to have
forgotten the world and all around them.
Suddenly the rush of mailed feet resounded in the ante-room. The door of
the chamber was unceremoniously thrust open and Haco, captain of the
imperial guard, entered the apartment, recoiling almost as quickly as he
had done so, at the unexpected sight which met his gaze.
"How dare you?" Otto accosted him with flaming eyes, while Stephania had
retreated into the shadows, covering her face, which was pale as death,
with her hands.
Eckhardt’s envoy prostrated himself before the King.
"I crave the King’s pardon—it was my Lord Eckhardt’s command to carry
straight and unannounced the tidings to the King’s ear—your hosts have
stormed Castel San Angelo! Your enemy is no more!"
"Rise!" thundered Otto, while Stephania had rushed with a pitiful moan
of anguish from her retreat, and was gazing at the messenger, as if life
and death sat on his lips. "What do you mean?"
But ere the man could answer, a terrible shriek by his side caused Otto
to start. Stephania had rushed to the window. Following the direction
of her gaze, his heart sank within him with the weight of his own
despair.
A body was seen swinging from the ramparts,—it needed neither soothsayer
nor prophet to explain what had befallen.
Eckhardt had kept his oath.
"When the imperial Chamberlain told him that you were here with the
King," Haco addressed the woman, who stared with wide-eyed despair from
one to the other, "Crescentius charged in person the invading hosts.
Struck down twice, he staggered again to his feet, fighting like a
madman in the face of certain death and against fearful odds. When he
fell the third time, Eckhardt ordered him suspended from the
battlements—to save him the trouble of rising again!" the captain
concluded in grim humour.
"What of my pardon for the Senator?" gasped Otto.
"I know of no pardon," replied Haco.
"The pardon of which Benilo was the bearer," Otto repeated.
Haco stared at the King, as if he thought him demented.
"It was the order for the Senator’s execution, which the Chamberlain
placed in Eckhardt’s hand," he replied, "to take place immediately upon
his capture."
"Ah! This is your work then!" Stephania broke the terrible silence,
which hung over them like suspended destinies,—creeping towards Otto and
pointing to the ramparts of Castel San Angelo, on which the imperial
standard was being hoisted. "This you have done to me!—You have lied to
me, detaining me here when I should have been with him,—whose dying hour
I have filled with a despair that all eternity cannot alleviate,—let me
go—I tell you, let me go! Fiend! traitor,—let me go!"
She fought him in wild despair.
Otto had barred her way. Releasing her, he looked straight into her
eyes.
"Your own heart tells you, Stephania, this is the work of a traitor,—not
mine!"
She gazed at him one moment. She knew his words to be true. But she
would not listen to the voice of reason, when her conscience doubly
smote her.
"Let me go!" she shrieked. "Let me go! My place is by the side of him
you have foully slain,—murdered—after luring me away from him in his
dying hour."
"You know not what you say, Stephania. Your grief has maddened you! Is
not the word of the King assurance enough, that he himself is the victim
of some as yet unfathomable deceit? By the memory of my mother I swear
to you—I never wrote that order! Remain here until I hear from
Eckhardt,—your safety—"
"Who tells you that I wish to be saved?" she cried like a lioness at
bay. "Remain here with you, whose hands are stained with his blood?
Not another moment! You have no claim on Stephania! A crimson gulf has
swallowed up the past and his shade divides us in death as it has
divided us in life! You shall never boast that you have conquered the
wife of the Senator of Rome!"
"Stephania."
He raised his arms entreatingly.
She sprang at him to gain the entrance to the Venus panel, which he
covered with his person. For a moment he held her at bay, then she
pushed him aside, rushed past him and disappeared in the dark passage,
the door of which closed behind her with a sharp clang. She vanished in
the subterranean gloom.
Haco had silently witnessed the scene.
Otto seemed to have forgotten his presence, when turning he found
himself face to face with the trusty Saxon.
"Did you say—execution?" he addressed the man, his brain whirling.
"Signed by the King!" came the laconic reply.
"You may go! Bid Eckhardt repair hither at the earliest!"
Haco departed. Broken in mind and spirit Otto remained alone. Victory
had crowned his cause,—but Death reigned in his heart.
*CHAPTER XVI*
*THE FORFEIT*
Crescentius was dead. Stephania’s fate was left to the surmise of the
victors. Since she had parted from Otto in that eventful night, no one
had seen the beautiful wife of the luckless Lord of Castel San Angelo.
Eckhardt was gloomier than ever. The storm of the ancient mausoleum had
been accomplished with a terrible loss to the victors. The Romans, awed
for a time into submission, showed ever new symptoms of dissatisfaction,
and it was evident that in the event of a new outbreak, the small band
constituting the emperor’s bodyguard would not be able to hold out
against the enmity of the conquered. The monkish processions continued
day and night, and as the Millennium drew nearer and nearer the frenzied
fervour of the masses rose to fever height. Fear and apprehension
increased with the impending hour, the hour that should witness the End
of Time and the final judgment of God. Since the storm of Castel San
Angelo, Otto had locked himself in his chamber in the palace on the
Aventine. No one save Benilo, Eckhardt and Sylvester, the silver-haired
pontiff, had access to his person. Benilo had so far succeeded in
purging himself from the stain of treason, which clung to him since the
summary execution of Crescentius, that he had been entirely restored
into Otto’s confidence and favour. It was not difficult for one, gifted
with his consummate art of dissimulation, to convince Otto, that in the
heat of combat, the passions inflamed to fever-heat, his general had
mistaken the order; and Eckhardt, when questioned thereon, exhibited
such unequivocal disgust, even to the point of flatly refusing to
discuss the matter, that Benilo appeared in a manner justified, the more
so, as the order itself could not be produced against him, Eckhardt
having cast it into the flames. His vengeance had not however been
satisfied with the death of Crescentius alone, for on the morning after
the capture of the fortress, eleven bodies were to be seen swinging from
the gibbets on Monte Malo, the carcasses of those who in a fatal hour
had pledged themselves to the Senator’s support.
So far the Chamberlain’s victory seemed complete.
Crescentius and the barons inimical to his schemes were destroyed.
There now remained but Otto and Eckhardt, and a handful of Saxons; for
the main body of the army had marched Northward with Count Ludeger of
the Palatinate, who had exhausted every effort to induce Otto to follow
him. Had Crescentius beaten off Eckhardt’s assault, Benilo would in
that fatal night have consigned his imperial friend to the dungeons of
Castel San Angelo. For this he had assiduously watched in the
ante-chamber. At a signal a chosen body of men stationed in the gardens
below were to seize the German King and hurry him through the secret
passage to Hadrian’s tomb.
There now remained but one problem to deal with. With the removal of
the last impediment, arrived on the last stepping stone to the
realization of his ambition, Benilo could offer Theodora what in the
delirium of anticipated possession he had promised, with no intention of
fulfilling. He had not then reckoned with the woman’s terrible temper,
he had not reckoned with the blood of Marozia. She had by stages roused
her discarded lover’s jealousy to a delirium, which had vented itself in
the mad wager, which he must win—or perish.
But one day remained until the full of the moon, but one day within
which Theodora might make good her boast. Benilo, who had her carefully
watched, knew that Eckhardt had not revisited the groves, he had even
reason to believe that Theodora had abandoned every effort to that end.
Was she at last convinced of the futility of her endeavour? Or had she
some other scheme in mind, which she kept carefully concealed? The
Chamberlain felt ill at ease.
As for Eckhardt, he should never leave the groves a living man. Victor
or vanquished, he was doomed. Then Otto was at his mercy. He would
deal with the youth according to the dictates of the hour.
When Benilo had on that morning parted from Otto in the peristyle of the
"Golden House" on the Aventine, he knew that sombre exultation, which
follows upon triumph in evil. Hesitancies were now at an end. No longer
could he be distracted between two desires. In his eye, at the memory
of the woman, for whom he had damned himself, there glowed the fire of a
fiendish joy. Not without inner detriment had Benilo accustomed himself
for years to wear a double face. Even had his purposes been pure, the
habit of assiduous perfidy, of elaborate falsehood, could not leave his
countenance untainted. A traitor for his own ends, he found himself
moving in no unfamiliar element, and all his energies now centred
themselves upon the achievement of his crime, to him a crime no longer
from the instant that he had irresistibly willed it.
On fire to his finger-tips, he could yet reason with the coldest clarity
of thought. Having betrayed his imperial friend so far, he must needs
betray him to the extremity of traitorhood. He must lead Eckhardt on to
the fatal brink, then deliver the decisive blow which should destroy
both. But a blacker thought than any he had yet nurtured began to stir
in his mind, raising its head like a viper. Could he but discover
Stephania! Then indeed his triumph would be complete!
On that point alone Otto had maintained a silence as of the grave even
towards the Chamberlain, to whom he was wont to lay bare the innermost
recesses of his soul. Never in his presence had he even breathed
Stephania’s name. Yet Benilo had seen the wife of the Senator in the
King’s chamber in the eventful night of the storm of Castel San Angelo,
and his serpent-wisdom was not to be decoyed with pretexts, regarding
the true cause of Otto’s illness and devouring grief.
But lust-bitten to madness, the thoughts uppermost in Benilo’s mind
reverted ever to the wager,—to the woman. Theodora must be his, at any,
at every cost. But one day now remained till the hour;—he winced at the
thought. Vainly he reminded himself that even therein lay the greater
chance. How much might happen in the brief eternity of one day; how
much, if the opportunities were but turned to proper account. But was
it wise to wait the fatal hour? He had not had speech with Theodora
since she had laid the whip-lash on his cheek. The blow still smarted
and the memory of the deadly insult stung him to immediate action. Once
more he would bend his steps to her presence; once more he would try
what persuasion might do; then, should fortune smile upon him, should
the woman relent, he would have removed from his path the greater peril,
and be prepared to deal with every emergency.
How he lived through the day he knew not. Hour after hour crawled by,
an eternity of harrowing suspense. And even while wishing for the day’s
end, he dreaded the coming of the night.
While Benilo was thus weighing the chances of success, Theodora sat in
her gilded chamber brooding with wildly beating heart over what the
future held in its tightly closed hand. The hour was approaching, when
she must win the fatal wager, else—she dared not think out the thought.
Would the memory of Eckhardt sleep in the cradle of a darker memory,
which she herself must leave behind? As in response to her unspoken
query a shout of laughter rose from the groves and Theodora listened
whitening to the lips. She knew the hated sound of Roxané’s voice; with
a gesture of profound irritation and disgust, she rose and fled to the
safety of her remotest chamber, where she dropped upon an ottoman in
utter weariness. Oh! not to have to listen to these sounds on this
evening of all,—on this evening on which hung the fate of her life! Her
mind was made up. She could stand the terrible strain no longer. One
by one she had seen those vanish, whom in a moment of senseless folly
she had called her friends. Only one would not vanish; one who seemed
to emerge hale from every trap, which the hunter had laid,—her
betrayer,—her tormentor, he who on this very eve would feast his eyes on
her vanquished pride, he, who hoped to fold her this very night in his
odious embrace. The very thought was worse than death. To what a life
had his villainy, his treachery consigned her! Days of anguish and
fear, nights of dread and remorse! Her life had been a curse. She had
brought misfortune and disaster upon the heads of all, who had loved
her; the accursed wanton blood of Marozia, which coursed through her
veins, had tainted her even before her birth. There was but one
atonement—Death! She had abandoned the wager. But she had despatched
her strange counsellor, Hezilo, to seek out Eckhardt and to conduct him
this very night to her presence. How he accomplished it, she cared not,
little guessing the bait he possessed in a knowledge she did not
suspect. She would confess everything to him,—her life would pay the
forfeit;—she would be at rest, where she might nevermore behold the
devilish face of her tormentor.
With a fixed, almost vacant stare, her eyes were riveted on the door, as
if every moment she expected to see the one man enter, whom she most
feared in this hour and for whom she most longed.
"This then is the end! This the end!" she sobbed convulsively, setting
her teeth deep into the cushions in which she hid her face, while a
torrent of scalding tears, the first she had shed in years, rushed from
her half-closed eyelids.
From the path she had chosen, there led no way back into the world.
She had played the great game of life and she had lost.
She might have worn its choicest crown in the love of the man whom she
had deceived, discarded, betrayed, and now it was too late.
But if Eckhardt should not come?
If the harper should not succeed?
Again she relapsed into her reverie. She almost wished his mission
would fail. She almost wished that Eckhardt would refuse to again
accompany him to the groves. Again she relived the scene of that night,
when he had laid bare her arm in the search for the fatal birth-mark.
The terrible expression which had passed into his eyes had haunted her
night and day. A deadly fear of him seized her.
She dared not remain. She dared not face him again. The very ground
she trod seemed to scorch her feet. She must away.
The morrow should find her far from Rome.
The thought seemed to imbue her with new energy and strength. How she
wished this night were ended! Again the shouts and laughter from the
gardens beneath her window broke on her ear. She closed the blinds to
exclude the sounds. But they would not be excluded. Ever and ever they
continued to mock her. The air was hot and sultry even to suffocation:
still she must prepare the most necessary things for her journey, all
the precious gems and stones which would be considered a welcome
offering at any cloister. These she concealed in a mantle in which she
would escape unheeded and unnoticed from these halls, over which she had
lorded with her dire, evil beauty.
She had scarcely completed her preparations when the sound of footsteps
behind the curtain caused her to start with a low outcry of fear.
Everything was an object of terror to her now and she had barely
regained her self-possession when the parting draperies revealed the
hated presence of Benilo.
For a moment they faced each other in silence.
With a withering smile on his thin, compressed lips, the Chamberlain
bowed.
"I was informed you were awaiting some one," he said with ill-concealed
mockery in his tones. "I am here to witness your conquest, to pay my
forfeit,—or to claim it."
Theodora with difficulty retained her composure; yet she endeavoured to
appear unconcerned and to conceal her purpose. Her eyelids narrowed as
she regarded the man who had destroyed her life. Then she replied:
"There is no wager."
Benilo started.
"What do you mean?"
"There was once a man who betrayed his master for thirty pieces of
silver. But when his master was taken, he cast the money on the floor
of the temple, went forth and hanged himself."
"I do not understand you."
A look of unutterable loathing passed into her eyes.
"Enough that I might have reconquered the man,—the love I once despised,
had I wished to enter again into his life, the vile thing I am—"
Benilo leered upon her with an evil smile.
"How like Ginevra of old," he sneered. "Scruples of conscience, that
make the devils laugh."
She did not heed him. One thought alone held uppermost sway in her
mind.
"To-morrow," she said, "I leave Rome for ever."
With a stifled curse the Chamberlain started up.
"With him? Never!"
"I did not say with him."
"No!" he retorted venomously. "But for once the truth had trapped the
falsehood on your tongue."
She ignored his brutal speech. He watched her narrowly. As she made no
reply he continued:
"Deem you that I would let you go back to him, even if he did not spurn
you, the thing you are? You think to deceive me by telling me that the
hot blood of Marozia has been chilled to that of a nun? A lie! A
thousand lies! Your virtue! This for the virtue of such as you," and he
snapped his fingers into her white face. "The virtue of a serpent,—of a
wanton—"
There was a dangerous glitter in her eyes.
Her voice sounded hardly above a whisper as she turned upon him.
"Monster, you—who have wrecked my life, destroyed its holiest ties and
glory in the deed! Monster, who made my days a torture and my nights a
curse! I could slay you with my own hands!"
He laughed; a harsh grating laugh.
"What a charming Mary of Magdala!"
Her voice was cold as steel.
"Benilo,—I warn you—stop!"
But his rage, at finding himself baffled at the last moment, caused the
Chamberlain to overstep the last limits of prudence and reserve. With
the stealthy step of the tiger he drew nearer.
"You tell me in that lying, fawning voice of yours that to-morrow you
will leave Rome,—to go to him? To give him the love which is
mine,—mine—by the redeemed gauge of the sepulchre? And I tell you, you
shall not! Mine you are,—and mine you shall remain! Though," he
concluded, breathing hard, "you shall be meek enough, when, learning
from my own lips what manner of saint you are, he has cast you forth in
the street, among your kind! And I swear by the host, I will go to him
and tell him!"
She advanced a step towards him, her eyes glowing with a feverish
lustre. Her white hands were upon her bosom as if to calm its
tempestuous heaving.
He heeded it not, feasting his eyes on her great beauty with the
inflamed lust of the libertine.
"I will save you the trouble," she said calmly, "I will tell him
myself."
"And what will you tell him? That he has espoused one of the harlot
brood of Marozia, one, who has sold his honour—defiled his bed—"
"And slain the fiend who betrayed her!"
A wild shriek, a tussle,—a choked outcry,—she struck—once, twice,
thrice:—for a moment his hands wildly beat the air, then he reeled
backward, lurched and fell, his head striking the hard marble floor.
The bloody weapon fell from Theodora’s trembling hands.
"Avenged!" she gasped, staring with terrible fascination at the spot
where he lay.
Benilo had raised himself upon his arm, filing his wild bloodshot eyes
on the woman. He attempted to rise,—another moment, and the death
rattle was in his throat. He fell back and expired.
There was no pity in Theodora’s eyes, only a great, nameless fear as she
looked down upon him where he lay. It had grown dark in the chamber.
The blue moon-mist poured in through the narrow casement, and with it
came the chimes from remote cloisters, floating as it were on the
silence of night, cleaving the darkness, as it is cloven by a falling
star. Theodora’s heart was beating, as if it must break. Lighting a
candle she softly opened the door and made her way through a labyrinth
of passages and corridors in which her steps re-echoed from the high
vaulted ceilings. Farther and farther she wandered away from the
inhabited part of the building, when her ear suddenly caught a metallic
sound, sharp, like the striking of a gong.
For a moment she remained rooted to the spot, staring straight before
her as one dazed. Then she retraced her steps towards the Pavilion,
whence came singing voices and sounds of high revels.
Sometime after she had left her chamber, two Africans entered it, picked
up the lifeless body of the Chamberlain, and, after carrying it to a
remote part of the building, flung it into the river.
The yellow Tiber hissed in white foam over the spot, where Benilo sank.
The mad current dragged his body down to the slime of the river-bed,
picked it up again in its swirl, tossed it in mocking sport from one
foam-crested wave to another, and finally flung it, to rot, on some
lonely bank, where the gulls screamed above it and the gray foxes of the
Maremmas gnawed and snapped and snarled over the bleached bones in the
moonlight.
*CHAPTER XVII*
*NEMESIS*
While these events, so closely touching his own life, transpired in the
Groves of Theodora, while a triple traitor met his long-deferred doom,
and a trembling woman cowered fear-struck and tortured by terrible
forebodings in her chambers, Eckhardt sat in the shaded loggia of his
palace, brooding over the great mystery of his life and its impending
solution; meditating upon his course in the final act of the weird
drama. But one resolution stood out clearly defined in all the chaos of
his thoughts. He would not leave Rome ere he had broken down behind him
every bridge leading back into the past.
It had been a day such as the oldest inhabitants of Rome remembered none
at this late season. The very heavens seemed to smoke with heat. The
grass in the gardens was dry and brittle, as if it had been scorched by
passing flames. A singularly profound stillness reigned everywhere,
there being not the slightest breeze to stir the faintest rustle among
the dry foliage.
How long Eckhardt had thus been lost in vague speculations on the
impending crisis of his life he scarcely knew, when the sound of
footsteps approaching over the gravel path caused him to shake off the
spell which was heavy upon him, and to peer through the interstices of
the vines in quest of the new-comer who wore the garb of a monk, the
cowl drawn over his face either for protection against the heat, or to
evade recognition. Yet no sooner had he set foot in the vineshaded
loggia, than Eckhardt arose from his seat, eager, breathless.
"At last!" he gasped, extending his hand, which the other grasped in
silence. "At last!"
"At last!" said Hezilo.
The word seemed fraught with destinies.
"Is the time at hand?" queried Eckhardt.
"To-night!"
A groan broke from the Margrave’s lips.
"To-night!"
Then he beckoned his visitor to a seat.
"I have come to fulfil my promise," spoke Hezilo.
"Tell me all!"
Hezilo nodded; yet he seemed at a loss how to commence. After a pause he
began his tale in a voice strangely void of inflection, like that of an
automaton gifted with speech.
Dwelling briefly on the events of his own life from the time of his
arrival in Rome with the motherless girl Angiola, on her chance meeting
with Benilo and the latter’s pretence of interest in his child, Hezilo
touched upon the Chamberlain’s clandestine visits at the convent, where
he had placed her, upon the girl’s strange fascination for the courtier,
the latter’s promises and advances, culminating in Angiola’s abduction.
After having betrayed his credulous victim, the Chamberlain had revealed
himself the fiend he was by causing her to be concealed in an old ruin,
and, to secure immunity for himself, he had her deprived of the sight of
her eyes. In a voice resonant with the echoes of despair, Hezilo
described the long and fruitless hunt for his lost child, of whose
whereabouts the disconsolate nuns at the convent disclaimed all
knowledge, till chance had guided him to the place of Angiola’s
concealment, in the person of an old crone, whom he had surprised among
the ruins of the ill-famed temple of Isis, whither she carried food to
the blind girl at certain hours of the day. At the point of his dagger
he had forced a confession and by a sufficiently large bribe purchased
her silence regarding his discovery. The rest was known to Eckhardt, who
had witnessed Angiola’s rescue from her dismal prison, as he had been
present in her dying hour.
There was a long silence between them. Then Hezilo continued his
account. Step for step he had fastened himself to the heels of the
betrayer of his child, whose name the crone had revealed to him. Again
and again he might have destroyed the libertine, had he not reserved him
for a more summary and terrible execution. He had discovered Benilo’s
illicit amour with one Theodora, a woman of great beauty but of
mysterious origin, who had established her wanton court at Rome. As a
wandering minstrel Hezilo had found there a ready welcome, and had in
time gained her confidence and ear.
Eckhardt’s senses began to reel as he listened to the revelations now
poured into his ears. Much, which the confession of the dying wretch in
the rock-caves under the Gemonian stairs had left obscure, was now
illumined, as a dark landscape by lightnings from a distant cloud-bank.
Ginevra’s smouldering discontent with Eckhardt’s seeming lack of
ambition, her inordinate desire for power,—the Chamberlain’s covert
advances and veiled promises, aided by his chance discovery of her
descent from Marozia; their conspiracy, culminating in the woman’s
simulated illness and death; the substitution of a strange body in the
coffin, which had been sealed under pretence of premature
decay,—Ginevra’s flight to a convent, where she remained concealed till
after Eckhardt’s departure from Rome:—from stage to stage Hezilo
proceeded in his strange unimpassioned tale, a tale which caused his
listener’s brain to spin and his senses to reel.
The monk conducting the last rites, having chanced upon the fraud, had
been promised nothing less than the Triple Tiara of St. Peter as reward
for his silence and complicity, as soon as Ginevra should have come into
her own. Continuing, Hezilo touched upon Ginevra’s reappearance in Rome
under the name of Theodora; on the Chamberlain’s betrayal of the woman.
He dwelt on the events leading up to the wager and the forfeit, the
woman’s share in luring Eckhardt from the Basilica, and Benilo’s attempt
to poison him at the fateful meeting in the Grotto. He concluded by
pointing out the Chamberlain’s utter desperation and the woman’s mortal
fear,—and Eckhardt listened as one dazed.
Then Hezilo briefly outlined his plans for the night.
Eckhardt’s destruction had been decreed by the Chamberlain and nothing
short of a miracle could save him. The utmost caution and secrecy were
required. Benilo, whose attention would be divided between Theodora and
Eckhardt, was to be dealt with by himself. The blood of his child cried
for vengeance. Thus Eckhardt would be free to settle last accounts with
the woman.
Burying his head in his hands the strong man wept like a disconsolate
child, his whole frame shaken by convulsive sobs, and it was some time,
ere he regained sufficient composure to face Hezilo.
"It will require all your courage," said the harper, rising to depart.
"Steel your heart against hope or mercy! I will await you at sunset at
the Church of the Hermits."
And without waiting the Margrave’s reply, Hezilo was gone.
Eckhardt felt like one waking from a terrible dream, the oppression of
which remains after its phantoms have vanished. The suspense of waiting
till dusk seemed almost unendurable. Now that the hour seemed so nigh,
the dread hour of final reckoning, there was a tightening agony at
Eckhardt’s heart, an agony that made him long to cry out, to weep, to
fling himself on his knees and pray, pray for deliverance, for oblivion,
for absolute annihilation. Walking up and down the vineshaded loggia,
he paused now and then to steal a look at the flaming disk of the sun,
that seemed to stand still in the heavens, while at other times he
stared absently into the gnarled stems, in whose hollow shelter the
birds slept and the butterflies drowsed.
Even as the parted spirit of the dead might ruthfully hover over the
grave of its perished mortal clay, so Eckhardt reviewed his own forlorn
estate, torturing his brain with all manner of vain solutions.
This night, then,—the night which quenched the light of this agonizing
day, must for ever quench his doubts and fears. He drew a long breath.
A great weariness weighed down his spirit. An irresistible desire for
rest came over him. The late rebellion, brief but fierce, the constant
watch at the palace on the Aventine, the alarming state of the young
King, who was dying of a broken heart, the futility of all counsel to
prevail upon him to leave this accursed city, the lack of a friend, to
whom he might confide his own misgivings without fear of betrayal,—all
these had broken down his physical strength, which no amount of bodily
exertion would have been able to accomplish.
After a time he resumed his seat, burying his head in his hands.
The air of the late summer day was heavy and fragrant with the peculiar
odour of decaying leaves, and the splashing of the fountain, which sent
its crystal stream down towards Santa Maria del Monte, seemed like a
lullaby to Eckhardt’s overwrought senses. Night after night he had not
slept at all; he had not dared to abandon the watch on Aventine for even
a moment. Now nature asserted her rights.
Lower and lower drooped his aching lids and slowly he was beginning to
slip away into blissful unconsciousness. How long he had remained in
this state, he scarcely knew, when he was startled, as by some unknown
presence.
Rousing himself with an effort and looking up, he was filled with a
strange awe at the phenomenon which met his gaze. Right across the
horizon that glistened with pale green hues like newly frozen water,
there reposed a cloud-bank, risen from the Tyrrhene Sea, black as the
blackest midnight, heavy and motionless like an enormous shadow fringed
with tremulous lines of gold.
This cloud-bank seemed absolutely stirless, as if it had been thrown, a
ponderous weight, into the azure vault of heaven. Ever and anon silvery
veins of lightning shot luridly through its surface, while poised, as it
were immediately above it, was the sun, looking like a great scarlet
seal, a ball of crimson fire, destitute of rays.
For a time Eckhardt stood lost in the contemplation of this fantastic
sky-phenomenon. As he did so, the sun plunged into the engulfing
darkness. Lowering purple shadows crept across the heavens, but the
huge cloud, palpitating with lightnings, moved not, stirred not, nor
changed its shape by so much as a hair’s breadth.
It appeared like a vast pall, spread out in readiness for the state
burial of the world, the solemn and terrible moment: The End of Time.
Fascinated by an aspect, which in so weird a manner reflected his own
feelings, Eckhardt looked upon the threatening cloud-bank as an evil
omen. A strange sensation seized him, as with a hesitating fear not
unmingled with wonder, he watched the lightnings come and go.
A shudder ran through his frame as he paced up and down the
white-pillared Loggia, garlanded with climbing vines, roses and passion
flowers, dying or decayed.
"Would the night were passed," he muttered to himself, and the man who
had stormed the impregnable stronghold of Crescentius quailed before the
impending issue as a child trembles in the dark.
At the hour appointed he traversed the solitary region of the
Trastevere. The vast silence, the vast night, were full of solemn
weirdness. The moon, at her full, soared higher and higher in the
balconies of the East, firing the lofty solitudes of the heavens with
her silver-beams. But immobile in the purple cavity of the western
horizon there lay that ominous cloud, nerved as it were with living
lightnings, which leaped incessantly from its centre, like a thousand
swords, drawn from a thousand scabbards.
The deep booming noise of a bell now smote heavily on the silence.
Oppressed by the weight of unutterable forebodings, Eckhardt welcomed
the sound with a vague sense of relief. At the Church of the Hermits he
was joined by the harper and together they rapidly traversed the region
leading to the Groves. In the supervening stillness their ears caught
the sound of harptones, floating through the silent autumnal night.
The higher rising moon outlined with huge angles of light and shadow the
marble palaces, which stood out in strong relief against a transparent
background and the Tiber, wherein her reflections were lengthened into a
glittering column, was frosted with silvery ripples.
At last they reached the entrance of the groves.
"Be calm!" said Eckhardt’s guide. "Let nothing that you may see or hear
draw you from the path of caution. Think that, whatever you may suffer,
there are others who may suffer more! Silence! No questions now!
Remember—here are only foes!"
The harper spoke with a certain harsh impatience, as if he were himself
suffering under a great nervous strain, and Eckhardt, observing this,
made no effort to engage him in conversation, aside from promising to be
guided by his counsel. He felt ill at ease, however, as one entering a
labyrinth from whose intricate maze he relies only on the firm guidance
of a friend to release him.
They now entered the vast garden, fraught with so many fatal memories.
At the end of the avenue there appeared the well-remembered pavilion,
and, avoiding the main entrance, the harper guided Eckhardt through a
narrow corridor into the great hall.
A faint mist seemed to cloud the circle of seats and the high-pitched
voices of the revellers seemed lost in infinite distance. In no mood to
note particulars, Eckhardt’s gaze penetrated the dizzy glare, in which
ever new zones of light seemed to uprear themselves, leaping from wall
to wall like sparkling cascades. As in the throes of a terrible
nightmare he stood riveted to the spot, for at that very moment his eyes
encountered a picture which froze the very life-blood in his veins.
In the background, revealed by the parting draperies there stood,
leaning against one of the rose-marble columns, the image of Ginevra.
Her robe of crimson fell in two superb folds from the peaks of her bosom
to her feet. The marble pallor of her face formed a striking contrast
to the consuming fire of her eyes, which seemed to rove anxiously,
restlessly over the diminished circle of her guests. The most execrable
villain of them all,—Benilo,—had at her hands met his long-deferred
doom. Those on whom she had chiefly relied for the realization of her
strange ambition now swung from the gibbets on Monte Malo,—their
executioner Eckhardt. Strange irony of fate! From those remaining, who
polluted the hall with their noisome presence, she had nothing to hope,
nothing to fear.
And this then was the end!
It required Hezilo’s almost superhuman efforts to restrain Eckhardt from
committing a deed disastrous in its remotest consequences to himself and
their common purpose. For in the contemplation of the woman who had
wrecked his life, a tide of such measureless despair swept through
Eckhardt’s heart, that every thought, every desire was drowned in the
mad longing to visit instant retribution on the woman’s guilty head and
also to close his own account with life. But the mood did not endure.
A strange delirium seized him; the woman’s siren-beauty entranced and
intoxicated him like the subtle perfume of some rare exotic; mingled
love and hate surged up in his heart; he dared not trust himself, for
even though he resented, he could not resist the fatal spell of former
days. The absence of Benilo, of whose doom he was ignorant, inspired the
harper with dire misgivings. After peering with ill-concealed
apprehension through the shadowy vistas of remote galleries, he at last
whispered to Eckhardt, to follow him, and they were entering a dimly
lighted corridor, leading into the fateful Grotto, which Eckhardt had
visited on that well-remembered night, when a terrific event arrested
their steps, and caused them to remain rooted to the spot.
A blinding, circular sweep of lightning blazed through the windows of
the pavilion, illumining it from end to end with a brilliant blue glare,
accompanied by a deafening crash and terrific peal of thunder which
shook the very earth beneath. A flash of time,—an instant of black,
horrid eclipse,—then, with an appalling roar, as of the splitting of
huge rocks, the murky gloom was rent, devoured and swept away by the
sudden bursting forth of fire. From twenty different parts of the great
hall it seemed at once to spring aloft in spiral coils. With a wild cry
of terror those of the revellers who had not outright been struck dead
by the fiery bolt, rushed towards the doors, clambering in frenzied fear
over the dead, trampling on the scorched disfigured faces of the dancing
girls, on whose graceful pantomime they had feasted their eyes so short
a time ago.
There was no safety in the pavilion, which a moment had transformed into
a seething furnace. Volumes of smoke rolled up in thick, suffocating
clouds, and the crimson glare of the flames illumined the dark night-sky
far over the Aventine.
Half mad with fear from the shrieks and groans of the dying, which
resounded everywhere about her, Theodora stood rooted to the spot, still
clinging to the great column. Over her face swept a strange expression
of loathing and exultation. Her eyes wandered to the red-tongued
flames, that leaped in eddying rings round the great marble pillars,
creeping every second nearer to the place where she stood, and in that
one glance she seemed to recognize the entire hopelessness of rescue and
the certainty of death.
For a moment the thought seemed terrifying beyond expression. None had
thought of her,—all had sought their own safety! She laughed a laugh of
uttermost, bitter scorn.
At last she seemed to regain her presence of mind. Turning, she started
to the back of the great pavilion, with the manifest object of reaching
some private way of egress, known but to herself. But her intention was
foiled. No sooner had she gone back than she returned—this exit too was
a roaring furnace. In terrible reverberations the thunder bellowed
through the heavens, which seemed one vast ocean of flame; the elements
seemed to join hands in the effort at her destruction:—So be it! It
would extinguish a life of dishonour, disgrace and despair.
A haughty acceptance of her fate manifested itself in her stonily
determined face. It would be atonement—though the end was terrible!
Suddenly she heard a rush close by her side. Looking up, she beheld the
one she dreaded most on earth to meet, saw Eckhardt rushing blindly
towards her through smoke and flames, crying frantically:
"Save her! Save her!"
Her wistful gaze, like that of a fascinated bird, was fixed on the
Margrave’s towering stature.
She tarried but a moment.
At the terrible crisis, on one side a roaring furnace,—on the other the
man whom of all mortals she had wronged past forgiveness, her courage
failed her. Remembering a secret door, leading to a tower, connected
with a remote wing of the pavilion, where she might yet find safety, she
dashed swift as thought through the panel, which receded at her touch,
and vanished in the dark corridor beyond. Without heeding the dangers
which might beset his path, Eckhardt flew after her through the gloom,
till he found himself before a spiral stairway, at the terminus of the
passage. A faint glimmer of light from above penetrated the gloom, and
following it, he was startled by a faint outcry of terror, as on the
last landing, to which he madly leaped, he found himself once more face
to face with the woman, whom even at this moment he loved more in the
certainty of having lost her, than ever in the pride and ecstasy of
possession.
Seemingly hemmed in by an obstacle, the nature, which he knew not, she
stood before him paralyzed with horror. As his hand went out towards
her, the gesture seemed to break the spell, and uttering a despairing
shriek, she sprang towards a door behind the landing and rushed out.
Eckhardt’s breath stopped.
A moment,—he heard an outcry of inexpressible horror,—a struggle, then a
hollow dash. Hardly conscious of his own actions he uttered a shrill
whistle, when the door of the tower was broken down, and the stairs were
suddenly crowded with the soldiers of the imperial guard, whom the
conflagration had brought to the scene.
"What woman was that?" exclaimed their leader, pointing to the place
whence Theodora had made the fatal leap.
"Whoever she is—she must be dashed to pieces," replied his companion,
rushing up the stairs to the trap-door and throwing his lighted torch
down the murky depths. But the light was soon lost in the profound
gloom.
"A rope! A rope! She must not, she shall not die thus!" cried Eckhardt
in mad, heart-rending despair.
"Here is one, but it is not long enough!" exclaimed the captain of the
guard, hardly able to conceal his mortification at finding himself face
to face with his general.
"Hark! She groans! Help! Help me!" exclaimed Eckhardt, and tearing
his cloak into strips, he fastened them together. The work was swiftly
completed. These strips fastened to the rope and securely knotted,
Eckhardt tied around his waist, and though the leader of the men-at-arms
sought to dissuade him from his desperate purpose, he started down,
clinging and swinging over a dreadful depth.
The captain of the guard swung the torch down after him as far as
possible, but soon the light grew misty, the voices above indistinct,
and it seemed to Eckhardt as if he were encompassed by a black mist.
Still he continued his descent. His next sensation was that of an
intolerable stench and a burning heat in the hand, caused no doubt by
friction with the rope. A difficulty in breathing, increased darkness
and singing noises in his ears were successive sensations; he began to
feel dizzy and a dread assailed him, that he was about to swoon and
abandon his hold. Suddenly he felt the last notch of the rope and, not
knowing what depth remained, argued that any further effort was in vain.
Extending first one arm, then another, he groped wildly about, striving
to shout for light; but his voice died in the gloom. Gasping and almost
stifled as he was, he made one last desperate effort, when suddenly his
groping hand grasped something, which appeared to him either like hair
or weeds. At this critical moment the captain of the guard sent down a
lamp, which he had procured. It fell hissing in the mire, but it
afforded him sufficient light to see that the object of his search lay
buried in the slime, and that she was gasping convulsively. Eckhardt’s
strength was now almost spent, but this sight seemed to restore it all.
Noting a projecting ledge of stone lower down, he leaped upon it and was
thus obliged to abandon his hold on the rope. Eckhardt seized the woman
by the gown, dragged her from the mire and making a desperate leap,
regained the ledge, then signalled to those above to draw him up by
jerking the rope.
Motionless she lay on his arm and it was only by twisting it in a
peculiar manner round the rope, that he was enabled to support the
terrible burden. For a time they hung suspended over the abyss, yet
they were gradually nearing the top. If he could only endure the agony
of his twisted limbs a little longer, both were safe. He could not
shout, for he felt that suffocation must ensue; his eyes and ears seemed
bursting as from some stunning weight; and a deadly faintness seemed to
benumb his limbs. Suddenly, as by some miracle, the burden seemed
lightened, though he felt it still reclining in his arms. A wonderful
support seemed to raise up his own sinking frame, then all grew bright
and numerous faces strained down on him. In a few moments he was on a
level with the floor and many arms stretched out, to help him land.
Heedless of the roaring sea of fire in the pavilion, they carried the
wretched woman to the landing, where they laid her on the floor,
attempting, for a time in vain, to restore her. She seemed suffering
from some severe internal injury and her lips bubbled with gore. At
length she opened her eyes and with a shriek of agony made signs that
she was suffocating and desired to be raised. Eckhardt, who stood
beside her, raised her, and as he did so, she regarded him with a wild
and piteous gaze and murmured his name in a tone which went to the heart
of all.
As he bent over her, she made a convulsive effort to rise.
"I have slain the fiend, who came between us—forgive me if you can—" she
muttered, then gasping: "Heaven have mercy on my soul!" she fell back
into Eckhardt’s arms.
At a sign from the Margrave the men-at-arms withdrew, leaving him alone
with his gruesome burden.
After they had descended, he bent over the prostrate form, he had loved
so well, touching with gentle fingers the soft, dark hair, which lay
against his breast. Once,—he recalled the mad delirium of holding her
thus close to his heart. Now there was something dreary, weird, and
terrible in what would under other conditions have been unspeakable
rapture. A chill as of death ran through him as he supported the dying
woman in his arms. Her silken robe, her perfumed hair, the cold contact
of the gems about her,—all these repelled him strangely; his soul was
groaning under the anguish, his brain began to reel with a nameless,
dizzy horror.
At last she stirred. Her body quivered in his hold, consciousness
returned for a brief moment, and, with a heavy sigh, she whispered as
from the depths of a dream:
"Eckhardt!"
A fierce pang convulsed the heart of the unhappy man. He started so
abruptly, that he almost let her drop from his supporting arms. But his
voice was choked; he could not speak.
A groan,—a convulsive shudder,—a last sigh,—and Theodora’s spirit had
flown from the lacerated flesh.
In silent anguish Eckhardt knelt beside the body of the woman, heedless
of the hurricane which raged without, heedless of the flames, which,
creeping closer and closer, began to lick the tower with their crimson
tongues. At last, aroused by the warning cries of the men-at-arms
below, Eckhardt staggered to his feet with the dead body, and scarcely
had he emerged from the tower, when a terrible roar, a deafening crash
struck his ear. The roof and walls of the great pavilion had fallen in
and millions of sparks hissed up into the flaming ether.
For a moment Eckhardt paused, stupefied by the sheer horror of the
scene. The pavilion was now but a hissing, shrieking pyramid of flames;
the hot and blinding glare almost too much for human eyes to endure.
Yet so fascinated was he with the sublime terror of the spectacle that
he could scarcely turn away from it. A host of spectral faces seemed to
rise out of the flames and beckon to him, to return,—when a tremendous
peal of thunder, rolling in eddying vibrations through the heavens,
recalled him to the realization of the moment, and gave the needful spur
to his flagging energies. Raising his aching eyes, Eckhardt saw
straight before him a gloomy archway, appearing like the solemn portal
of some funeral vault, dark and ominous, yet promising relief for the
moment. Stumbling over the dead bodies of Roxané and Roffredo and
several other corpses strewn among fallen blocks of marble, and every
now and then looking back in irresistible fascination on the fiery
furnace in his rear, he carried his lifeless burden to the nearest
shelter. He dared not think of the beauty of that dead face, of its
subtle slumbrous charm, and stung to a new sense of desperation he
plunged recklessly into the dark aperture, which seemed to engulf him
like the gateway of some magic cavern. He found himself in a circular,
roofless court, paved with marble, long discoloured by climate and age.
Here he tenderly laid his burden down, and kneeling by Ginevra’s side,
bid his face in his hands.
A second crash, that seemed to rend the very heavens, caused Eckhardt at
last to wake from his apathy of despair. A terrible spectacle met his
eyes. The east wall of the tower, in which Ginevra had sought refuge
and found death, had fallen out; the victorious fire roared loudly round
its summit, enveloping the whole structure in clouds of smoke and jets
of flame; whose lurid lights crimsoned the murky air like a wide Aurora
Borealis. But on the platform of the tower there stood a solitary human
being, cut off from retreat, enveloped by the roaring element, by a sea
of flame!
With a groan of anguish, Eckhardt fixed his straining eyes on the dark
form of Hezilo the harper, whom no human intervention could save from
his terrible doom. Whether his eagerness, to avenge his dead child or
her betrayer, had carried him too far, whether in his fruitless search
for the Chamberlain he had grown oblivious of the perils besetting his
path, whether too late he had thought of retreat,—clearly defined
against the lurid, flame-swept horizon his tall dark form stood out on
the crest of the tower;—another moment of breathless horrid suspense and
the tower collapsed with a deafening crash, carrying its lonely occupant
to his perhaps self-elected doom.
All that night Eckhardt knelt by the dead body of his wife. When the
bleak, gray dawn of the rising day broke over the crest of the Sabine
hills he rose, and went away. Soon after a company of monks appeared
and carried Theodora’s remains to the mortuary chapel of San Pancrazio,
where they were to be laid to their last and eternal rest.
*CHAPTER XVIII*
*VALE ROMA*
It was the eve of All Souls Day in the year nine hundred ninety
nine,—the day so fitly recalling the fleeting glories of summer, of
youth, of life, a day of memories and tributes offered up to the
departed.
Afar to westward the sun, red as a buckler fallen from Vulcan, still
cast his burning reflections. On the horizon with changing sunset tints
glowed the departing orb, brightening the crimson and russet foliage on
terrace and garden walls. At last the burning disk disappeared amid a
mass of opalescent clouds, which had risen in the west; the fading
sunset hues swooned to the gray of twilight and the breath of scanty
flowers, the odour of dead leaves touched the air with perfume faint as
the remembered pathos of autumn. No breeze stirred the dead leaves
still clinging to their branches, no sound broke the silence, save from
a cloister the hum of many droning voices. Now and then the air was
touched with the fragrance of hayfields, reclaimed here and there upon
the Campagna, and mists were slowly descending upon the snow-capped peak
of Soracté. In the dim purple haze of the distance the circle of walls,
a last vestige of the defence of the ancient world, stood a sun-browned
line of watch-towers against the horizon. From their crenelated ramparts
at long distances, a sentinel looked wearily upon the undulating stretch
of vacant, fading green.
In the portico of the imperial palace on the Aventine sat Eckhardt,
staring straight before him. Since the terrible night, which had
culminated in the crisis of his life, the then mature man seemed to have
aged decades. The lines in his face had grown deeper, the furrows on
his brow lowered over the painfully contracted eyebrows. No one had
ventured to speak to him, no one to break in upon his solitude. The
world around him seemed to have vanished. He heard nothing, he saw
nothing. His heart within him seemed to be a thing dead to all the
world,—to have died with Ginevra. Only now and then he gazed with
longing, wistful glances towards the far-off northern horizon, where the
Alps raised their glittering crests,—a boundary line, not to be
transgressed with impunity. Would he ever again see the green, waving
forests of his Saxon-land, would his foot ever again tread the
mysterious dusk of the glades over which pines and oaks wove their
waving shadows, those glades once sacred to Odhin and the Gods of the
Northland? Those glades undefiled by the poison-stench of Rome? How he
longed for that purer sphere, where he might forget—forget? Can we
forget the fleeting ray of sunlight, that has brightened our existence,
and departing has left sorrow and anguish and gloom?
Eckhardt’s heart was heavy to breaking.
As evening wore on, it was evident, that there was some new, great
commotion in the city. From every quarter pillars of dun smoke rose up
in huge columns which, spreading fan-like, hung sullenly in the yellow
of the sunset. Houses were burning. Swords were out. In the distance
straggling parties could be seen, hurrying hither and thither.
"There is a devil’s carnival brewing, or I am forsworn," muttered the
Margrave as he arose and entered the palace. There he ordered every gate
to be closed and barricaded. He knew Roman treachery, and he knew the
weakness of the garrison.
The roar of the populace grew louder and nearer, minute by minute.
Eckhardt had hardly reached the imperial antechamber, ere the crest of
the Aventine fairly swarmed with a rebellious mob, whose numbers were
steadily increasing. Already they outnumbered the imperial guard a
hundred to one.
It soon became evident, that their clamour could not be appeased by
peaceful persuasion. Disregarding Eckhardt’s protests, Otto had made
one last effort to try the spell of his person upon the Romans;—but
hootings and revilings had been the only reply vouchsafed by the rabble
of Rome to the son of Theophano.
"Where is Benilo? We will speak to Benilo,—the friend of the people!"
they shouted, and when he failed to appear, they cried: "They have slain
him, as they slew Crescentius," and a shower of stones hailed against
the walls of the palace.
Otto escaped unscathed. Once more in his chamber he broke down. His
powers were waning; his resistance spent. The death of Crescentius,—the
loss of Stephania filled him with unutterable despair. He thought of
the mysterious death of Benilo, whose gashed body some fisherman had
discovered in the Tiber, and whose real character Eckhardt’s account of
his crimes and misdeeds had at last revealed to him. He knew now that
he had been the dupe of a traitor, who had systematically undermined the
lofty structure of his dreams, whose fall was to bury under its ruins
the last of the glorious Saxon dynasty,—a traitor, who had deliberately
set about to break the heart whose unspoken secret he had read. And
this was the end!
"Hark! The Romans are battering at the gates!" Haco, the captain of the
guard, addressed Eckhardt, entering breathlessly and unannounced.
"Where they shall batter long enough," Eckhardt growled fiercely. "The
gates are triple brass and bolted! Hold the yelping curs in check, till
we are ready!"
Haco departed and Eckhardt now prepared Otto for the necessity of
flight. All Rome was in arms against them! This time it was not the
Senator. The people themselves were bent upon Otto’s capture or death.
Resistance was madness. Without a word Otto yielded. Sick, body and
soul, he cared no longer. A slow fever seemed to consume him, since
Stephania had gone from him. The malady was past cure,—for he wished to
die. The mute grief of the stricken youth went to Eckhardt’s heart. Of
his own despair he dared not even think at this hour, when the destinies
of a dynasty weighed upon his shoulders, weighed him down:—he must get
Otto safely out of Rome—at any, at every cost.
"Hark, below!"
An uproar of voices and heavy blows against the portals rang up to their
ears.
Eckhardt seized a torch and, sword in hand, opened the secret panel.
"The back way,—the garden,—’tis for our lives!" he whispered to Otto,
who had hastily thrown a dark mantle over his person which might serve
to evade detention in case they met some chance straggler. The panel
closed behind them and Eckhardt locked every door in the long corridor,
through which they passed, to delay pursuit. They descended a flight of
stairs, and found themselves in a hall, which through a ruined portico,
terminated in a garden. Here Eckhardt extinguished the torch and they
paused and listened.
Before them lay a deserted garden with marble statues and weed-grown
terraces. The gravel walks were strewn with tiny twigs and leaves of
faded summer, and stained in places with a dark green mould. There was
the soft splash of water trickling from huge mossy vases, and here and
there through a break in the foliage, peered an arrowy shaft of
moonlight.
Here they were to await the arrival of Haco and his men. Suddenly the
glint of a halberd beyond the wall caught Eckhardt’s ever watchful eye;
he counted three in succession on the other side of the wall. The
Romans seemed bent to deprive them of their only way of flight.
Eckhardt glanced about. The wall on the western side seemed unguarded.
Here the Aventine fell in a steep declivity towards the Tiber. Eckhardt
perceived there was but one course and took it instantly.
At this moment Haco and his men-at-arms emerged with drawn swords from
the laurel thickets, in whose concealment they had awaited their leader
and King. Motioning to Otto and his companions to imitate his
movements, Eckhardt crouched down and stole cautiously along the edge of
the wall. Meanwhile the tumult without was increased by the hoarse
braying of a horn. Men could be seen rushing about with drawn swords or
any other weapons close at hand, staves, clubs and sticks, shouting and
yelling in direst confusion.
Amidst this uproar the small band reached the edge of the Tiber and
their repeated signals caused a boat rowed by a gigantic fellow to
approach. The oarsman, however, insisted on his pay before he would
take them across.
After they had safely reached the opposite shore they bound and gagged
the owner of the craft, to insure his secrecy. Then the party sped up a
narrow lane and paused before a ruinous house which, to judge from its
black and crumbling beams, seemed to have been recently destroyed by
fire. Here they waited until one of the party secured their steeds.
During all this time Otto had not spoken a word.
Now that he was about to mount the steed, which was to bear him from
Rome for ever, he turned with one last heart-breaking look toward the
city.
A desire, fierce as that of hunger, wearing as that of sleep, filled
him,—the desire of death.
At last he rode away with the others.
The night grew darker. The sky was full of clouds and the wind shrieked
through the spectral branches of the pines. The travellers pursued their
way along the well beaten tracks of the Flaminian Way, keeping a
constant look-out for surprises. They re-crossed the Tiber at a ford
above the city, and then only they brought their steeds to a more
leisurely gait.
Gradually the ground began to ascend.
A turn in the road brought them to a high plateau. Its rising knolls
were crowned with broad and ancient plane-trees, in the midst of which
towered a gibbet, from which swung the bodies of two malefactors,
recently executed. Otto shuddered at the omen. Death on every
turn,—death at every step. The moon at fitful intervals cast from
between the rifts in the clouds a feeble radiance upon desolate fields.
A company of hungry crows rose at the approach of the horsemen from the
stubble, filled the air with their cawing and flapped their way swiftly
out of sight. At that moment a horseman galloped past with great
rapidity, seeming eagerly to scan the cavalcade. He was closely muffled
and had vanished in the night, ere he could be hailed or recognized.
Rome swiftly vanished behind them. After passing the last scattered
houses on the outskirts, they finally reached the open Campagna. The
darkness increased and the night wore every appearance of proving a
dismal one. The wind was high and swept the clouds wildly over the face
of the moon.
In silence they proceeded on their way, until they espied a low range of
hills, white on the summits with lightning. A dense wood skirted the
road on the left for several miles. But as far as the eye could
penetrate the murky twilight, no human being, no human habitation
appeared.
In the ruins of an old monastery they spent the night, and for the first
in three, Otto slept. But his sleep did not refresh him, nor restore
his strength. Throughout his fitful slumbers, he saw the pale face of
Stephania, the face, which with so mad a longing he had dreamed into his
heart, the heart she had broken, but which loved her still.
Gloomily the morning light of the succeeding day broke upon the Roman
Campagna. The sun was hidden behind a lowering sky and fitful gusts of
wind swept the great, barren expanse. Undaunted, though their hearts
were filled with dire misgivings, the small band continued their march,
northward, ever northward,—towards the goal of their journey, the Castel
of Paterno, perched on the distant slopes of Soracté.
*Book the Third*
*Our Lady
of Death*
"As I came through the desert, thus it was,
As I came through the desert: From the right
A shape came slowly with a ruddy light,
A woman with a red lamp in her hand,
Bareheaded and barefooted on that strand.
A large black sign was on her breast that bowed,
A broad black band ran down her snow-white shroud.
That lamp she held, was her own burning heart,
Whose blood-drops trickled step by step apart."
—_James Thomson_.
*CHAPTER I*
*PATERNO*
The sun was nigh the horizon, and the whole west glowed with exquisite
colour, reflected in the watery moors of the Campagna, as a troop of
horsemen approached the high tableland skirting the Cimminian foothills.
Not a human being was visible for many miles around; only a few wild
fowl fluttered over the pools and reedy islets of the marshes and the
lake of Bolsena gleamed crimson in the haze of the sunset.
The boundless, undulant plain spread before them, its farms, villas and
aqueducts no less eloquent of death than the tombs they had passed on
the silent Via Appia. The still air and the deep hush seemed to speak
to man’s soul as with the voice of eternity. On the left of the
horsemen yawned a deep ravine, from which arose towering cliffs, crowned
with monasteries and convents. On their right lay the mountain chains
of the Abruzzi, resembling dark and troubled sea-waves, and to southward
the view was bounded by the billowy lines of the Sabine hills, rolling
infinitely away. Beyond they saw the villages scattered through the
gray Campagna and in the farthest distance the mountain shadows began to
darken over the roofs of ancient Tusculum and that second Alba which
rises in desolate neglect above the vanished palaces of Pompey and
Domitian.
It was the day on which is observed the poetic Festa dell’ Ottobrata, a
festival of pagan significance, with the archaic dance and garlanded
processions of harvest and vintage, when the townsfolk go out into the
country, to look upon the mellow tints of autumn, to walk in the
vineyards, to taste the purple grapes, and to breathe the fragrance,
filling the air with odours finer than the flavour of wine. The fields
were mellowed to yellow stubble and the creepers touched by the first
chill of autumn hung in crimson garlands along the russet hedges. Here
and there, among the stately poplars loomed up farmhouses with thatched
roofs, which from afar resembled pointed haystacks on the horizon. At
intervals among the crimson and russet leafage rose a spectral cypress,
like a sombre shadow. In the haze of the distance crooked olive-trees
raised their branches in tints of silver-gray. The air was still, but
for an occasional hum of insect life. The faint, white outlines of the
Apennines shone brilliant and glistening in the evening glow. The
travellers passed Camaldoli with its convents reared upon high, almost
inaccessible cliffs; the cloisters of Monte Cassino had vanished behind
them in silvery haze. They approached Paterno by a road skirted with
villas and gardens, with ancient statues and shady alleys. The
proximity of the mountains made the air chill; here and there a ray of
sunlight filtered through the branches of the plane-trees.
High Paterno towered above, among its rocks and steeps.
Ever since their flight from Rome, Otto had been in the throes of a
benumbing lethargy, which had deprived him of interest in everything,
even life itself. Vain had been his companions’ effort to rouse him
from his brooding state, vainly had they pointed out to him the beauties
of the landscape. Was it the ghost of Johannes Crescentius, the Senator
of Rome, that was haunting the son of Theophano?
After having crossed a swinging bridge, which swayed to and fro under
the weight of their iron mail, they arrived at a narrow causeway, above
which, like some contemplative spirit above the conflicting problems of
life, rose the cloisters, environing the ancient Castel of Paterno.
Eckhardt knocked at the barred gate with the hilt of his sword,
whereupon a monk appeared at the window of a tower above the portcullis,
and after reconnoitring, set some machinery in motion, by which the
portcullis was raised. They then found themselves in a long, narrow
causeway cut in the rock. The monk who had admitted them disappeared;
another ushered them into the great hall of the cloister. The air was
full of the lingering haze of License, and traces of devotional
paintings on the weather-beaten walls appeared like fragments of prayers
in a world-worn mind.
The hall had been made from a natural cavern and was of an exceedingly
gloomy aspect, being of great extent, with deep windows only on one
side, hewn in the solid granite. It was at intervals crossed by arches,
marking the termination of several galleries leading to remoter parts of
the monastery. In the centre was a long stone table, hewn from the rock;
a pulpit, supported on a pillar was similarly sculptured in the wall.
Five or six pine-wood torches, stuck at far intervals in the granite,
shed a dismal illumination through the gloom, enhanced rather than
diminished by the glow of red embers on a vast hearth at the farthest
extremity of the hall.
Eckhardt was about to prefer his request to the monk, who had conducted
them hither, when he was interrupted by the entrance of the abbot and a
long train of monks from their devotions. The monks advanced in solemn
silence, their heads sunk humbly on their breasts; their superior so
worn with vigils and fasts, that his gaunt and powerful frame resembled
a huge skeleton. He was the only one of the group who uttered a word of
welcome to his guests.
After having ordered Haco to attend to the wants of his lord, Eckhardt
sought a conference with the abbot on matters which lay close to his
heart. For his sovereign was ill—and his illness seemed to defy human
skill. The abbot listened to Eckhardt’s recital of the past events, but
his diagnosis was far from quieting the latter’s fears.
"You learn to speak and think very dismally among these great, sprawling
pine forests," Eckhardt said moodily, at the conclusion of the
conference.
"We learn to die!" replied the monk with melancholy austerity.
Consideration for his sovereign’s safety, however, prompted Eckhardt,
who had been informed that straggling bands of their pursuers had
followed them to the base of the hill, to continue that same night under
guidance of a monk, the ascent to the almost impregnable heighths of
Castel Paterno. Here Otto and his small band were welcomed by Count
Tammus, the commander, who placed himself and his men-at-arms at the
disposal of the German King.
*CHAPTER II*
*MEMORIES*
Otto found himself in a state chamber, whose gloomy vastness was
lighted, or rather darkened by one single taper. Through the high oval
windows in the deep recess of the wall peered an errant ray of
moonlight, which illumined the quaint monastic paintings on the walls,
and crossing the yellow candle-light, imbued them with a strange ghostly
glare.
When his host had ministered to his comfort and served him with the
frugal fare of the cloister, Otto hinted his desire for sleep, and his
trusty Saxons entered on their watch before their sovereign’s chamber.
At last, left alone, Otto listened with a heavy heart to the monotonous
tread of the sentries. It seemed to him as if he could now take a
survey of the events of his life, and pass sentence upon it with the
impartiality of the future chronicler. Recollection roused up
recollection; and as in a panorama, the scenes of his short, but
eventful career passed in review before his inner eye. He thought of
what he was, contrasting it painfully with all he might have been. The
image of the one being, for whom his soul yearned in its desolation,
with the blinding hunger of man for woman and woman’s love, rose up
before his eyes, and for the first time he thought of death,—death,—in
its full and ghastly actuality.
What was it, this death? Was it a sleep? Merely the absence, not the
privation of those powers and senses, called life? What sort of passage
must the thinking particle pass through, whatever it may be,—ere it
stood naked of its clay? The breaking of the eyes in darkness,—what then
succeeded? Would the thinking atom survive,—would it become the nothing
that it was?
The aspect of the chamber was not one to dispel the gloomy visions that
haunted him. It was scantily furnished in the crude style of the tenth
century, with massive tables and chairs. A curious tapestry of eastern
origin, representing some legend of the martyrs, divided it from an
adjoining cabinet serving at once as an oratory and sleeping apartment.
A low fire, burning in the chimney to dispel the miasmas of the marshes,
shed a crimson glow over the chamber and its lonely inmate.
For a long time those who watched before his door heard him walk
restlessly up and down. At last weariness came over him and he threw
himself exhausted into a chair. Then the haunting memory of Stephania
conjured up before his half-dreaming senses an alluring, shimmering Fata
Morgana—a castle on one of those far-away Apulian head-lands, with their
purpling hills in the background and the scent of strange flowers in the
air. On many a summer morning they should walk hand in hand through the
Laburnum groves, and find their love anew. But the amber sheen of the
landscape faded into the violet of night. The vision faded into
nothingness. A peal of thunder reverberated through the heavens,—Otto
started with a moan, rose, and staggered to his couch.
[Illustration: "The haunting memories of Stephania."]
He closed his eyes; but sleep would not come.
Where was she now? Where was Stephania? Weeks had passed, since they
had last met. It seemed an eternity indeed! He should have remained in
Rome, till he was assured of her fate! She had left him with words of
hatred, of scorn, bitter and cruel. And yet! How gladly he would have
saved the man, his mortal enemy, forsooth, had it lain in his power.
Gladly?—No! The man who had thrice forsworn, thrice broken his faith,
deserved his doom. Now he was dead. But Rome was lost. What mattered
it? There was but one devouring thought in Otto’s mind. Where was
Stephania? The mad longing for her became more intense with every
moment. Now that the worst had come to pass, now that the stunning blow
had fallen, he must rouse himself, he must rally. He must combat this
fever, which was slowly consuming him; he must find her, see her once
more on earth, if but to tell her how he loved her, her and no other
woman. Would the pale phantom of Crescentius still stand between
them,—still part them as of yore? Not if their loves were equal. His
hands were stainless of that blood. On the morrow he would despatch
Haco to Rome. Surely some one would have seen her; surely some one knew
where the wife of the Senator of Rome was hiding her sorrow,—her grief.
The dim light of the ceremonial lamp, which burned with a dull, veiled
flame before an image of the crucified Christ, flickered, as if fanned
by a passing breath.
There was deep silence in the king’s bed-chamber, and the drawn tapestry
shut out every sound from without.
Noiselessly a secret panel in the wall opened behind Otto’s couch.
Noiselessly it closed in the gray stone. Then an exquisite white hand
and arm were thrust through the draperies and the lovely face of
Stephania beamed on the sleeping youth. She was pale as death, but the
transparency of her skin and the absolute perfection of her form and
features made her the image of an Olympian Goddess. Her dark hair,
bound by a fillet of gold, enhanced the marble pallor of the exquisite
face.
Never had the wonderful eyes of Stephania seemed so full of fire and of
life. Stooping over the sleeper, she softly encircled his head with her
snowy arms and pressed a long kiss on the dry, fevered lips.
With a moan Otto opened his eyes. For a moment he stared as if he faced
an apparition from dream-land.—His breath stopped, then he uttered a
choked outcry of delirious joy, while his arms tightly encircled the
head which bent over him.
"At last! At last! At last! Oh, how I have longed, how I have pined
for you! Stephania—my darling—my love—tell me that you do not hate
me—but is it you indeed,—is it you? How did you come here—the
guards,—Eckhardt,—"
He paused with a terrible fear in his heart, ever and ever caressing the
dark head, the beloved face, whose eyes held his own with their magnetic
spell. She suffered his kisses and caresses while stroking his damp
brow with soothing hand. Then with a grave look she enjoined silence and
caution, crept to the door of the adjoining room and locked it from
within.
"They guard you so well, not a ghost could enter," she said with the
sweet smile of by-gone days.
He arose and drew the curtains closer. Then he sat down by her side.
"How came you here, Stephania?" he whispered with renewed fear and
dread. "If you are discovered,—God have mercy on you,—and me!"
She shook her head.
"I have followed you hither from Rome,—I passed you on the night of your
flight. Count Tammus, the commander of Paterno, at one time the friend
of the Senator of Rome, has offered me the hospitality of the castelio.
No one knows of my presence here, save an old monk, who believes me some
itinerant pilgrim, in search of the End of Time," she whispered with her
far-away look. "The End of Time."
"They say it is close at hand," Otto replied, holding her hands tightly
in his. "Oh, Stephania, how beautiful you are! That which has broken my
spirit, seems not to have touched your life!"
"My life is dead," she replied. "What remains,—remains through you.
Therefore time has lacked power. But that which has been and is no
more, stands immovable before my soul."
He gazed at her with large fear-struck eyes.
"Then—your heart is no longer mine?"
The grasp of the hands in his own tightened.
"Would I be here, silly dreamer? I love you—my heart knows no change.
It loved but once—and you!"
All the happiness, slumbering in the deep eyes of the son of Theophano,
burst forth as in a glorious aureole of light.
"Then you have never—"
She raised her hand forbiddingly.
"I could not give to him who is gone that which I gave to you! When we
first met I was your foe. I hated you with all the hate which a Roman
has for the despoiler of his lands. When I gave you my love,—which,
alas, was not mine to give, I did so, a powerless instrument of Fate.
Side by side have we trod life’s narrow path,—neither of us could turn
to right or left without standing accounted to the other. It was not
ours to say love this one or that other. We were brought together by
that same mysterious force, to which it is vain to cry halt. We knew,—I
knew,—that it must, sooner or later, carry us to doom and death; but
resistlessly the whirlwind had taken us up in its glistening cloud: Thus
are we lost;—you and I!"
He listened to her with a great fear in his soul.
"How cold your hands are, my love," he whispered. "Cold as if the flow
of blood had ceased. Can you feel how it rushes through my veins,—so
hot—so boiling hot?"
"You have the fever! Therefore my hands appear cold to you. But,—you
spoke truly,—in my hand is death,—and death is cold! Life I have
none,—you have taken it from me!"
"Stephania!"
It sounded like the last outcry of a broken heart.
"Why recall that which could not be averted? Were it mine to change it,
oh, that I could!"
"Do you really wish it?"
"I wish but your happiness. Can you doubt?"
"I do not doubt. I love you!"
"Stephania—my darling,—my all!"
And he kissed her eyes, her lips, her hair, and she suffered his
caresses as one wrapt in a blissful dream.
"I learned you were stricken with the fever,—the last defence left to us
by nature against our foes. I have come, to watch over you, to care for
you,—to nurse you back to health,—to life—"
"And you braved the dangers that beset your path on every turn?"
"How should I fear,—with such love in my heart for you!"
"Then you—will remain?" he whispered, his very life in his eyes.
"For a time," she answered, in a halting tone, which passed not
unremarked.
"And then?" he queried.
Her head sank.
"I know not!"
"Then I will tell you, my own love! We will return to Rome together,
you and I; Stephania, the empress of the West,—would not that reconcile
your Romans,—appease their hate?"
Stephania gazed for a moment thoughtfully at Otto, then she shook her
head.
"I fear," she replied after a pause, "we shall nevermore return to
Rome."
As she spoke, her soft fingers stroked caressingly the youth’s head,
which rested on her bosom, while her right hand remained tightly clasped
in his.
"I do not understand you," he said with a pained look.
"Do not let us speak of it now," she replied. "You are ill;—the fever
burns in your blood. It likes you well, this Roman fever,—and yet you
persist in returning hither ever and ever,—as to your destiny—"
"You are my destiny, Stephania! I cannot live without you! Had you not
come, I should have died! God, you cannot know how I love you, how I
worship you, how I worship the very air you breathe. Stephania! On
that terrible, never-to-be-forgotten day, when your words planted death
in my heart, he, who of all my Saxons hates you with a hatred strong and
enduring as death, warned me of you! ’Must you love a Roman,’ he said
to me—’and of all Romans, Stephania, the wife of the Senator? Once in
the toils of the Sorceress, you are lost! Nothing can save you.’—Can I
say to my heart, you shall love this one,—or you shall not love this
one? Shall I say to my soul, you shall harbour the image of this one,
but that other shall be to you even as a barred Eden, guarded by the
angel with the flaming sword? I have seen the maidens of my native
land; I have seen the women of Rome;—but my heart was never touched
until we met. My soul leaped forth to meet your own, when first we
stood face to face in the chapel of the Confessor. Stephania,—my love
for you is so great that I fear you."
"And why should you fear me? Were I here, did I not love you?"
"My life has been a wondrous one," he spoke after a pause. "From
dazzling sun-kissed heights I have been hurled into the blackest abyss
of despair. And what is my crime? Wherein have I sinned? I have loved
a woman,—a woman wondrous fair,—Stephania!"
"You have loved the wife of the Senator of Rome!"
His eyes drooped. For a time neither spoke.
"Thrice have I crossed the Alps, to see, to rule this fabled land,—and
now I want but rest,—peace,—Stephania—" he said with a heart-breaking
smile.
"You are tired, my love," replied the beautiful Roman. "From this hour,
I shall be your leech,—I shall be with you, to share your solitude,—to
watch over you till the dread fever is broken. And then—"
"And then?" he repeated with anxious look.
"But will you not weary of me?" she said, avoiding the question.
He drew her close to him.
"My sweetheart—-my own—"
"And you will not fear, you will trust and obey me?"
"Were you to give me poison with your own hands, I would drain the
goblet without fear or doubt."
Stephania had arisen. She was pale as death.
"If love were all!" she muttered. "If love were all!"
Then she drew the curtains closer and extinguished the light.
*CHAPTER III*
*THE CONSUMMATION*
Some weeks had elapsed since Otto’s arrival at Paterno. But the fever
which consumed the son of Theophano had not yielded to the skill of the
monkish mediciners, though a change for the better had been noticed
after the first night of the King’s arrival. But it lasted only a short
time and all the danger symptoms returned anew. The monks shook their
heads and the hooded disciples of Aesculapius conversed in hushed
whispers, regarding the strange ailment, which would not cede before
their antidotes. But they continued their unavailing efforts to save
the life of the last of the glorious Saxon dynasty, the grandson of the
vanquisher of the Magyars, the son of the vanquisher of the Saracens.
It was a bleak December evening.
At sunset a mist rose from the fields and the clouds grew heavier with
every hour. The rain-drops hung on the branches of the plane-trees,
until an occasional stir sent them pattering down.
Otto lay within, asleep.
In the door-way sat Eckhardt, muffled in a cloak. Near-by, half
recumbent under a blanket, the cowl drawn over his face, sat the leech,
his eyes fixed upon the log-fire on the hearth, as it sent showers of
sparks into the murky darkness. In their search for fire-wood the monks
had brought from the edge of a neighbouring mill-pond the debris of a
skiff, whose planks had for years been alternately soaked in water and
dried in the sun. When tossed upon the blaze of forest branches, these
fragments emitted an odour sweet as oriental spices and their flames
brightened with prismatic tints. But to the leech’s brooding gaze their
lurid embers seemed touched with the spell of some unholy incantation.
Without the sick-chamber two sentries, chilled and drowsy, leaned
against a column supporting the low vaulting, their halberds clasped
between their folded arms.
After a pause of some duration, Eckhardt arose and entering Otto’s
chamber bent over the couch on which he lay. After having convinced
himself by the youth’s regular breathing that he was resting and did not
require his attendance, the Margrave strode from the sick-chamber. The
fever was intermittent; now it came, now it left the youth’s body. But
the pale wan face and the sunken eyes gave rise to the gravest fears.
Night came swiftly and with it the intense hush deepened. Only the
pattering of rain-drops broke the stillness. In the sick-chamber
nothing was to be heard save the regular breathing of the sleeper.
Thus the hours wore on. After the monk and Eckhardt had departed for
the night, the secret panel opened noiselessly and Stephania entered the
apartment with a strange expression of triumph and despair in her look.
She glanced round, but her eyes passed unheedingly over their
surroundings; she saw only that there was no one in the chamber, that no
one had seen her enter. There was something utterly desperate in that
glance. Noiselessly she stepped to the narrow oval window gazing out
into the mist-veiled landscape.
But it seemed without consciousness.
A single thought seemed to have frozen her brain.
She stepped to Otto’s couch and for a moment bent over him.
Then she retreated, as if seized with a secret terror.
For a few moments she stood behind him, with closed eyes, her face
almost stony with dread and the fear of something unknown.
Near the bed there stood a pitcher which the monks replenished every
evening with water cold from a mountain spring. Approaching it, she
took a powder from her bosom and shook it into it, every grain. Then
she turned the pitcher round and round, to mix the fine powder, which
stood on the surface. Suddenly she started, and set it down, while
scalding tears slowly coursed down her pale cheeks. Desperate thoughts
crowded thickly on her brain, as her stony gaze was riveted on the
water, whose crystal clearness had not been clouded by the subtle
poison.
"Between us stands the shade of Crescentius," she muttered. "Still I can
not cease to love him,—each bound to each,—together, yet perpetually
divided,—our love a flower that the hand of death will gather."
Again there was a long, intense hush. She crept to Otto’s bed and knelt
down by his side, hiding her wet face on her bare arms.
"When he is dead," she continued speaking softly, so as not to wake him,
"the unpardonable sin will be condoned.—Otto, Otto,—how I love you,—if I
loved you less,—you might live—"
At these words he stirred in the cushions. A deep sigh came from his
lips, as if the mountain of a heavy dream had been lifted from his
breast.
She drew back terrified, but noting that he did not open his eyes, she
spoke with a moan of weariness:
"How often thus in my dreams have I seen his dead face—"
Again she bent over the sleeper. Now she could not discern a breath. A
strange dread seized her, and her face became as wan and haggard as that
of the fever-stricken youth. Obeying a sudden impulse she removed the
pitcher of water, placing it in a remote niche. Then she crept back to
Otto’s couch.
"Is he dead?" she whispered, as if seized by a strange delirium. "Is he
dead? I know not,—yet none knows,—but I! None,—but I!"
She gave a start, as if she had discovered a listener, glanced wildly
about the room, at each familiar object in the chamber, and met Otto’s
eyes.
She raised herself with a gasp of terror, as he grasped her hand.
"Who is dead?" he asked. "And who is it, that alone knows it?"
She stroked the soft fair hair from his clammy brow.
"You are delirious, my love," she whispered. "No one is dead;—you have
been dreaming."
"I thought I heard you say so," he replied wearily.
The horror and bewilderment at his awakening at this moment of all, when
she required all her strength for her purpose, left her dazed for a
moment.
The clock struck the second hour after midnight. The sound cut the air
sharply, like a stern summons. It seemed to demand: Who dares to watch
at this hour of death?
Otto had again closed his eyes. Delirium had regained its sway. He was
whispering, while his fingers scratched on the cover of his couch, as if
he were preparing his own grave.
Again he relapsed into a fitful slumber, filled with dreams and visions
of the past.
He stands at the banks of the Rhine. The night is still. The moon is
in her zenith, her yellow radiance reflected in the calm majestic tide
of the river. He hears the sighing, droning swish of the waters; the
sinuous dream-like murmuring of the waves resolving into tinkling
chimes, far-away and plaintive, that steal up to him in the moon mists,
ravishing his soul. In cadenced, languorous rhythm the song of the
Rhine-daughters weeps and wooes through the night; their shimmering
bodies gleam from the waters in a silvery sphere of light; they seem to
beckon to him—to call to him—to lure him back—
"Home! Home!" he cries from the depths of his dream; then his voice
becomes inarticulate and sinks into silence.
New phantoms crowded each other, a shifting phantasmagoria of the very
beings who at that dreadful hour were most vividly fixed in his mind.
And among them stood out the image of the woman, who was kneeling at his
side, the woman he loved above all women on earth. Again his lips
moved. He called her by name, with passionate words of love.
"Let me not die thus, Stephania! Leave me not in this dreary abyss!
Oh! Drive away those infernal spectres that stare in my face," and his
words became wild and confused, as all these phantoms seemed to rush on
him together, forming lurid groups, flaming and tremulous, like
prolonged flashes of lightning, but growing fainter and fainter as they
died away, when every faculty of the young sufferer seemed utterly
suspended.
Dark clouds passed over the moon.
The wind blew in fierce gusts, howling like an imprisoned beast between
the chinks of the wall. Then the night relapsed once more into silence,
and in intermittent pauses large drops of rain could be heard, splashing
from the height of the roof upon the ringing flagstones. To Stephania’s
listening ear it seemed like a dreadful pacing to and fro of spirits
meditating on the past. She dragged herself to a seat in a recess of
the wall, whence she could watch the sufferer and minister to his wants.
Another fit of delirium seized Otto. Restlessly he tossed on his
pillows. Again a dream murmured his own impending fate into his ears.
Again he is in Aix-la-Chapelle. Again he beholds Charlemagne seated
erect in his chair as in that memorable night when he visited the dead
emperor in the crypts. He touches the imperial vestments; the crown
glitters in the smoky flare of the torches. But through the heavy
Arabian perfumes of the emperor’s fantastic shroud penetrates the odour
of the corpse.
The night wore on.
Recovering consciousness, Otto knew by the dying candle, by the strokes
of the clocks from adjacent cloisters, that hours had passed into
eternity, and that it was long past midnight. It was very still. The
tread of the sentries was no longer heard. Through the window were seen
pale blue flashes of lightning in a remote cloudbank, as on that
memorable night in the temple of Neptune at Rome. The dull rumbling of
distant thunder seemed to come from the bowels of the earth.
His head ached, his mouth was parched, thirst tormented him. He dimly
remembered the pitcher of water. Who had removed it? Why had it been
taken away? He tried to rise, to drag himself to the wall, but his
strength was not equal to the task. He fell back in the cushions where
for a time he lay motionless. Then a moan broke from his lips, which
startled the figure seated by the bed. Opening his eyes Otto gazed into
the pale face of Stephania. She started up with a low cry,—as from a
trance. Waking and watching had benumbed her senses.
Now from her own suffering she lifted to Otto her face, wherein was
reflected the great love she bore him.
He looked at her with all the love of his soul in his eyes.
"I am dying," he spoke calmly, "I know it."
An outcry of mortal anguish broke from her lips.
"No, no, no!" she moaned, entwining him with her arms. "Otto, my
love—you will live,—live—live— Can you fancy us parted," she sobbed,
"one from the other for ever? Or can you go from me and leave me to the
great loneliness of the world? To me all on earth, but you, seems a
fleeting shadow; but in this hour, I think only of the greater pang of
my own fate, and pray that in another world I may be judged more
mercifully,—even by you."
For some moments they remained locked in close embrace.
"Kiss me!" he whispered hungrily. "Kiss me, Stephania!"
She drew back.
"My kisses are cold, Otto, cold as those of a dead love."
"Kiss me, Stephania," he moaned, "kiss me, even if your kisses were
death itself."
She breathed hard, as he held to her with all his might.
"A dead hand is drawing me downward, hold me up, Otto!" she gasped.
"Hold me up! Do not let me go! Do not let me go!"
And she kissed him, until he was almost delirious, drawing him close to
her heart.
"Now you are mine—mine—mine!" she whispered, kissing him again and
again, while his fingers were buried in the soft, silken wealth of her
hair.
"The hour is brief,—life is short and uncertain—oh, let the hour be
ours! Let us drain the glittering goblet to the dregs! Then we may
cast it from us and say we have been happy! Death has no terror for us!
I am thirsty, Stephania,—give me the pitcher."
She trembled in every limb.
"Do not let me go! Hold me, Otto,—do not let me go!" she almost
shrieked, entwining him so tightly with her arms that he could scarcely
breathe.
"I feel the fever returning—the water—Stephania—"
"Do not let me go!" she begged with mortal dread.
"I am burning up."
He struggled in her arms to rise, gasping:
"Water—Water!"
And he pointed to the niche, where he had espied the pitcher.
She almost dropped him, as raising himself he pushed her from him. Her
head swam giddily and she felt a feebleness in all her limbs; shudders
of icy cold ran through her, followed by waves of heat, that sickened
and suffocated her. But she paid little heed to these sensations.
Stephania felt death in her heart, she strove to sustain herself, but
failing in the effort, fell moaning across his couch.
Otto had fallen back on his pillows with eyes closed. He was spared the
sight of the terrible agony of the woman he loved. At last she clutched
the pitcher and staggering feebly forward, step by step, she pushed back
her hair from her brows and softly called his name.
He opened his eyes, but did not speak.
Trembling in every limb she bent over him and placing one hand under his
head raised him to a sitting posture, glancing fear-struck round the
chamber. She thought she had heard the tread of approaching steps.
Greedily Otto grasped the vessel, pressing his hot hands over the
woman’s which held it to his lips. Greedily he drank the poisoned
beverage, while a heart-breaking moan came from Stephania’s lips. He
heard it not. He sank back into the cushions, while she knelt down by
his side, weeping as if her heart would break.
The Senator of Rome was avenged.
Avenged? On whom? Whose tortures were the greater, if a spirit still
possessed the power to suffer? Alas! It was not the death of her lord
and husband she had avenged! She had sacrificed the love which filled
her heart to the Infernals!
While these reflections were whirling through her maddened brain, the
fatal poison was coursing serpent-like through Otto’s veins, and
creeping to his head. For a time he lay still; then he began to move
uneasily in his pillows, his breathing became laboured, he beat the
covers with his hands. Then he moaned, as in the last agony, and
Stephania, to whom every sound of suffering from his lips was as a
thousand deaths, knelt by his side, unable to avert her gaze from the
youth, dying by the hand he loved and trusted.
Fixedly she stared at the inert form on the bed. Then only the full
realization of her deed seemed to burst upon her brain. She clutched
despairingly at the cover, beneath which lay his restless form, his face
averted, the face she so loved, yet feared, to see.
"Otto!" she moaned, "Otto!"
Her voice broke. She suddenly withdrew her hands and looked at them in
horror, those white, beautiful hands, that had mixed the fatal draught.
Then with a bewildered, vacant smile she beamed on her victim.
Otto had lost consciousness. Nothing stirred in the chamber. Profound
silence reigned unbroken, save for the slow chime of a distant bell,
tolling the hour.
Was he dead? Had the light of the eyes, she loved so well, gone out for
ever?
Her hand hovered fearfully above him, as if to drive away the grim
spectre of death. At last, nerving herself with a supreme effort, she
touched with trembling hand the cover that hid him from view. Lifting
it tearfully, she turned it back softly,—softly, murmuring his name all
the time.
Then she stooped down close, and closer yet. Her red lips touched the
purple ones; she stroked the damp and clammy brow, and thrust her
fingers into his soft hair. A moan came from his lips. Then, fastening
her white robe more securely about her, and stepping heedfully on
tip-toe, she passed out of the chamber. With uncertain step she glided
along the corridor, a ghostly figure, with a white, spectral face and
fevered eyes. At the foot of the spiral stairway she paused, gazing
eagerly around.
Stepping to a low casement she peered into the night. Flickering lights
and shadows played without; the late moon had disappeared, leaving but a
silvery trail upon the sky, to faintly mark her recent passage among the
stars. Everything was still. Only the plaintive cry of an owl echoed
from afar. Her sandalled feet sounded on the stone-paved floor, like the
soft pattering of falling leaves in autumn. Unsteadily she moved along
the gray discoloured wall towards the secret panel, known but to
herself. Soon her perplexed wandering gaze found what it sought, and
Stephania disappeared, as if the stones had receded to receive her.
*CHAPTER IV*
*THE ANGEL OF THE AGONY*
The morning of the following day broke hazy and threatening. But as the
hours wore on, the sky, which had been overcast, brightened slowly and
in that instant’s change the earth became covered with a radiance of
sunshine and the heavens seemed filled with ineffable peace.
It was late in the day, when Otto woke from his lethargy. Hour after
hour he had raved without recovering consciousness. His breathing grew
weaker. He was thought to be in his last agony. Little by little the
vigour of his youth had reasserted itself, little by little he had
opened his eyes. His sight had become dimmed from the effects of the
poison, and his reason seemed to sway and to totter; the fevered flow of
blood, the wild beating of his temples, caused everything around him to
scintillate in a crimson haze and flit before his vision with fitful
dazzling gleams. But his eyes seemed fixed steadily in a remote recess
of the room.
Those surrounding his couch had believed him nearing dissolution, and
when he opened his eyes, Otto looked upon the faces of those who had
guided his steps ever since he set his foot upon Italian soil, Eckhardt,
Count Tammus, and Sylvester, the silver-haired pontiff who had come from
Rome. Their faces told him the worst. He attempted to raise himself in
his cushions, but his strength failed him, and he fell heavily back.
Anew his ideas became confused and his gaze resumed its former
fixedness.
His lips moved and Eckhardt, who bent over him, to listen, turned white
with rage.
"Again her accursed name," he growled, turning to the monk by his side.
"Stephania—where is Stephania?" moaned the dying youth.
A voice almost a shriek rent the silence.
"I am here,—Otto,—I am here!"
A shadow passed before the eyes of the amazed visitors in the
sick-chamber, a shadow which seemed to come out of the wall itself, and
the wife of the Senator of Rome staggered towards Otto’s couch, who made
a feeble effort to stretch out his hands toward her. He could not raise
them. They were like lead. She rushed to his side, ere Eckhardt could
prevent, and with a sob fell down before the couch and grasped them
tightly in her own.
The petrified amazement, which had pictured itself in the features of
those assembled, at the unexpected apparition, gave vent to a flurry of
whispers and conjectures during which Eckhardt, with face drawn and
white and haggard, had rushed through the outer chamber to the door.
"Guards!" he thundered, "Guards!"
Two spearmen appeared in the doorway.
"Seize this woman and throw her over the ramparts!" the Margrave said
with a voice whose calm formed a fearful contrast to the blazing fury in
his eyes.
The men-at-arms approached with hesitation, but Sylvester barred their
progress with uplifted arm.
"Vengeance is the Lord’s!" he turned to Eckhardt, whose eyes, aflame
with wrath, seemed the only living thing in his stony face.
A terrible laugh broke from the Margrave’s lips.
"His mad pleadings saved her once! Now, all the angels in heaven and
demons in hell combined shall not save her from her doom!" he replied to
the Pontiff. "Seize her, my men! She has killed your king! Over the
ramparts with her!"
They dared deny obedience no longer. Approaching the couch they laid
hands on the kneeling woman. But the sight of violence for a moment so
incensed the prostrate form in the cushions, that he started up, as he
had done in the vigour of his health.
With eyes glowing with fever and wrath, Otto leaped from the bed,
planting himself before the prostrate form of the woman.
"Back!" he cried. "The first who lays hand on her dies by my hand, a
traitor! Down on your knees before the Empress of the Romans!"
Terror and amazement accomplished Stephanie’s salvation.
Even Eckhardt was stunned. He knelt with the rest with averted face.
"Leave the room!" Otto turned to the men-at-arms, and with heads bowed
down they strode from the sick chamber and resumed their watch outside.
What did it all mean? The presence of the Senator’s wife at their
sovereign’s bedside, Eckhardt’s contradictory demeanour, Otto’s strange
words; mystified they shook their heads, glad the terrible task had been
spared them.
Otto’s exertion was followed by a complete collapse, and he fell back in
a swoon. After a time he seemed to rally. Without assistance he sat up
straight and rigid, and turned towards the woman, whose wan face and
sunken eyes made her fatal beauty all the more terrible.
"Tell me—shall I live till night?" he whispered.
And as she hid her face from him with a sob, he continued:
"Do not deceive me! I am not afraid!"
His voice broke. Every one in the room knelt down weeping. Sylvester
tried to answer, but in vain. Hiding his face in his hands, the pontiff
sobbed aloud.
"Softly—softly—" Otto whispered to Stephania, then turning towards the
sky he whispered:
"How beautiful!"
The morning clouds were growing rosy; the twilight had become warm and
mellow. The first beam of the sun appeared over the rim of the horizon.
The dying youth held his face with closed eyes towards the light. A
faint shiver ran through his body and with a last effort he stretched
out his arms, as if he would have rushed to meet the rising orb.
Suddenly he was seized by a convulsion; the veins swelled on neck and
temples.
"Water—water!" he gasped choking.
Stephania knew the symptoms. Pale as death she staggered to her feet,
filled a cup with clear spring water and held it to his lips.
Otto, grasping her hand with the cup, drank thirstily from the ice-cold
draught.
Then his head fell back. A last murmur came from his half-open lips:
"Stephania,—Stephania—"
Then his life went out. With a moan of heart-rending anguish she closed
his eyes. The face of the youth, kissed by the early rays of the
December sun, took on a look as of one sleeping. His soul, freed from
earthly love, had entered on its eternal repose.
Johannes Crescentius was avenged.
Eckhardt had watched the last moments of his king. In the awful
presence of Death, he had restrained a new outburst of passion against
the woman, who had so utterly made that dead youth her own. But he had
sworn a terrible oath to himself, that she should pay the penalty, if
that life went out,—it would be cancelling the last debt he owed on the
accursed Roman soil.
And no sooner had the light faded from Otto’s eyes, no sooner had they
been closed under the soft touch of Stephania’s hand, than Eckhardt
rushed anew to the door and the terrible voice of the Margrave thundered
through the stillness of the death-chamber:
"Guards! Throw this woman over the ramparts! She has killed your
King!"
Again the guards rushed into the chamber. The terrible denunciation had
stirred their zeal. Stephania, kneeling by Otto’s couch, never stirred,
but as the men-at-arms, over-awed by the spectacle that met their gaze,
paused for a moment, the sound of falling crystal, breaking on the
floor, startled the silver-haired pontiff.
He had seen enough.
Stepping between Stephania and her would-be slayers he waved them back.
Then he picked up a fragment of the empty flask.
"This phial," he spoke to Eckhardt, "is of the same shape and size as
one discovered in a witch’s grave, when they were digging the
foundations for the monastery of St. Jerome!"
And he strode towards the woman and laid his hands on her head.
"She will soon answer before a higher tribunal," said the monk of
Aurillac.
"Father," she whispered, holding the hands of the corpse in her own,
while her head rested on her arms,—"I cannot see,—stoop down,—and let me
whisper—"
"I am here, daughter, close—quite close to you."
He inclined his ear to her mouth and listened. But though her lips
moved, no words would come.
After a moment or two of intense stillness, she whispered, raising her
head.
"It is bright again! They are calling me! We will go together to that
far, distant land of peace. I am with you, Otto—hold me up, I cannot
breathe—"
Gently Sylvester lifted her head.
"Otto,—my own love—forgive—" she gasped. A convulsive shudder passed
through her body and she fell lifeless over the dead body of her victim.
Stephania’s proud spirit had flown.
Sylvester muttered the prayer for the departed, and staggered to his
feet.
Eckhardt pointed to her lifeless clay. In his livid face burnt
relentless, unforgiving wrath.
"Throw that woman over the ramparts!" he turned to his men. "She shall
not have Christian burial!"
Anew Sylvester intervened.
"Back!" he commanded the guards. "Judge not,—that ye may not be judged.
What has passed between those two—lies beyond the pale of human ken. He
alone, who has called, has the right to judge them! She died
absolved.—May God have mercy on her soul!"
As weeping those present turned to leave the death-chamber, Eckhardt
bent over the still, dead face of Otto.
"I will hold the death-watch," he turned to Sylvester. "Have the bier
prepared! To-morrow at dawn we start. We return to our Saxon-land,—we
go back across the Alps. In the crypts of Aix-la-Chapelle the grandson
of the great Otto shall rest; he shall sleep by the side of the great
emperor, whom he visited ere he came hither; Charlemagne’s phantom has
claimed him at last. Rome shall not have a lock of his hair!"
"As you say—so shall it be!" replied Sylvester, his gaze turning from
Otto to the lifeless clay of Stephania.
Softly he raised her dead body and laid it side by side with that of
Theophano’s son, joining their hands.
"Though they shall sleep apart in distant lands, their souls are one in
the great beyond, that holds no mysteries for the departed."
From the chapel of the cloister at the foot of the hill, stealing
through the solemn stillness of the December morning, came the chant of
the monks:
"Quando corpus morietur,
Fac ut animae donetur
Paradisi gloria."
*CHAPTER V*
*RETURN*
The Eve of the Millennium stood upon the threshold of Time.
The veiled sun of midwinter was rising and his early rays filled the
blue balconies of the East with curtains of gold. From the slopes of
Paterno a strange procession was to be seen winding its way down into
the plains below. It was the remnant of the German host, carrying the
bier with the body of the third Otto towards its distant, final
resting-place. Eckhardt and Haco jointly headed the mournful cortege,
which after reaching the plain, entered the northern road. Behind them
lay Civita Castellana, the walls of the ancient citadel towering high
above the town, which lay in the centre of a net-work of deep ravines.
To their right the Sabine hills extended in long, airy lines and the
wooded heights of Pellachio and San Gennaro rose to the south-east.
Before them Viterbo with her hundred towers lay dark and frowning inside
her bristling walls; and to northward, surmounted by its mighty
cathedral dome, on a conical hill, above the great lake of Bolsena, the
gray town of Montefiascone rose out of the wintry haze.
Continually harassed by the Romans the small band hewed their way
through their pursuers who abandoned their onslaughts only when the
Germans reached the Nera and beheld the Campanile of St. Juvenale rising
above Narni.
Slowly the imperial cortege passed through the ancient town and was soon
lost in the purple mists, which enshrouded mountain and valley.
Rome lay behind them, the source of their tears and sorrows.
Onward, ever onward they rode towards the glittering crests of the Alps,
the solemn twilight of the Hercynian forest, towards the distant banks
of the Rhine and the crypts of Aix-la-Chapelle.
THE END.
* * * * * * * *
*SMILES, A ROSE OF THE CUMBERLANDS*
_*By Eliot Harlow Robinson*_
_Author of "Man Proposes"_
_Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50_
Smiles is a girl that is sure to make friends. Her real name is Rose,
but the rough folk of the Cumberlands preferred their own way of
addressing her, for her smile was so bright and winning that no other
name suited her so well.
Smiles was not a native of the Cumberlands, and her parentage is one of
the interesting mysteries of the story. Young Dr. MacDonald saw more in
her than the mere untamed, untaught child of the mountains and when, due
to the death of her foster parents a guardian became necessary, he was
selected. Smiles developed into a charming, serious-minded young woman,
and the doctor’s warm friend, Dr. Bently, falls in love with her.
We do not want to detract from the pleasure of reading this story by
telling you how this situation was met, either by Smiles or Dr.
MacDonald—but there is a surprise or two for the reader.
_Press opinions on "Man Proposes":_
"Readers will find not only an unusually interesting story, but one of
the most complicated romances ever dreamed of. Among other things the
story gives a splendid and realistic picture of high social life in
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"It is well written; the characters are real people and the whole book
has ’go.’"—_Louisville Post_.
*TWEEDIE, THE STORY OF A TRUE HEART*
_*By Isla May Mullins*_
_Author of "The Blossom Shop Stories," etc._
_Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.65_
In this story Mrs. Mullins has given us another delightful story of the
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The Carlton family—lovable old Professor Carlton, and his rather wilful
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Many changes come to them while in the country, the greatest of which is
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"Unselfishness Incarnate." It is the type of story that will entertain
and amuse both old and young.
The press has commented on Mrs. Mullins’ previous books as follows:
"Frankly and wholly romance is this book, and lovable—as is a fairy tale
properly told. And the book’s author has a style that’s all her own,
that strikes one as praiseworthily original throughout."—_Chicago
Inter-Ocean_.
"A rare and gracious picture of the unfolding of life for the young
girl, told with a delicate sympathy and understanding that must touch
alike the hearts of young and old."—_Louisville (Ky.) Times_.
*ONLY HENRIETTA*
_*By Lela Horn Richards*_
_Author of "Blue Bonnet—Debutante," etc._
_Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50_
Henrietta was the victim of circumstances. It was not her fault that
her father, cut off from his expected inheritance because of his
marriage, was unexpectedly thrown upon his own resources, nor that he
proved to be a weakling who left his wife and daughter to shift for
themselves, nor that her mother took refuge in Colorado far away from
their New England friends and acquaintances. Youth, however, will
overcome much, and when Richard Bently appears in the mountains, life
takes on a new interest for Henrietta.
When her mother dies Henrietta goes to live with Mrs. Lovell, who knew
her father years ago in the little Vermont town. Mrs. Lovell determines
to do what she can to secure for Henrietta the place in society and the
inheritance that is rightfully hers. The means employed and the success
attained—but that’s the story.
"Only Henrietta" is written in the happy vein that has secured for Mrs.
Richards a host of friends and admirers, and is sure to duplicate the
earlier successes achieved for the young people by the Blue Bonnet
Series.
"The chief charm of the book is that it contains so much of human nature
and it is a book that will gladden the hearts of many girl readers
because of its charming air of comradeship and reality."—_The Churchman,
Detroit, Mich._
*THE AMBASSADOR’S TRUNK*
_*By George Barton*_
_Author of "The World’s Greatest Military Spies and
Secret Service Agents," "The Mystery of the
Red Flame," "The Strange Adventures
of Bromley Barnes," etc._
_Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.65_
Bromley Barnes, retired chief of the Secret Service, an important State
document, a green wallet, the Ambassador’s trunk—these are the
ingredients, which, properly mixed, and served in attractive format and
binding, produce a draught that will keep you awake long past your
regular bedtime.
Mr. Barton is master of the mystery story, and in this absorbing
narrative the author has surpassed his best previous successes.
"It would be difficult to find a collection of more interesting tales of
mystery so well told. The author is crisp, incisive and inspiring. The
book is the best of its kind in recent years and adds to the author’s
already high reputation."—_New York Tribune_.
"The story is full of life and movement, and presents a variety of
interesting characters. It is well proportioned and subtly strong in
its literary aspects and quality. This volume adds great weight to the
claim that Mr. Barton is among America’s greatest novelists of the
romantic school; and in many ways he is regarded as one of the most
versatile and interesting writers."—_Boston Post_.
*THE ROMANCES
OF*
*NATHAN GALLIZIER*
_Each, one volume, 12mo, cloth, illustrated, $2.00_
Castel del Monte
The Sorceress of Rome
The Court of Lucifer
The Hill of Venus
The Crimson Gondola
Under the Witches’ Moon
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