heart will be hard, even to me, a sinner. Come."
He turned as if to lead the way, then paused and spoke to her again.
"Perpetua," he said. "Your trust in the fool"--the girl noticed that he
shuddered as he spoke, and she wondered--"your trust in the fool is not
unwisely placed. In the name of that trust, ask me, I pray you, no
questions of my past. Let us believe between us that the fool
Diogenes"--and again the convulsive shudder wrung him--"was newly born
to-day."
"I will do as you wish," she answered, full of amazement at the change
which had come to his warped wits.
He took her hand and guided her through the streets of Syracuse to the
little church by the sea. The moon shone brightly on them as they went,
the moon which swayed Syracuse, making lovers kiss, poets dream,
philosophers sigh, children sport, dogs bay. It guided them, benignly,
to their goal.
XIII
THE CHURCH BY THE SEA
The moon which had shone upon the flight of Perpetua had waxed and
waned, and her successor ruled the night in the pride of her first
quarter. Early one morning in the new month one of Lycabetta's women,
Lysidice, amber-haired, slender-limbed, with eyes like sapphires, was
wandering in the flower-market of Syracuse, seeking the loveliest blooms
for her mistress. Lycabetta loved Lysidice above her fellows, for her
slim, boyish body, for her quaint, virginal air; she had not yet tired
of the morning sport when Lysidice came from the flower-market and
pelted her with many colored blossoms. So as Lysidice, eager to please,
went hither and thither, seeking ever the best, her attention was
attracted by the sight of a man in a friar's robe, who was buying white
roses at a stall. Though friars did not often buy roses in the Syracuse
flower-market, the thing was not in itself passing strange, but the
fancy of Lysidice, arrested at first by the contrast between the friar
in his humble robe, with all that it suggested of denial, and the glory
of the brilliant blooms about him, noted that the friar kept his cowl so
close about his face as to conceal it completely from view.
The mere fact that the man in thus muffling himself seemed to indicate a
desire not to be seen was enough to spur the curiosity of Lysidice into
a determination to see. She tiptoed through the flower-stalls and
fruit-stalls; she ambushed behind piles of melons; she peeped through
clusters of grapes and bunches of lilies. The friar was choosing the
loveliest of the white roses; he was eager to choose only the loveliest;
as he stooped over them in his eagerness, a little breeze caught for a
moment the cowl that hooded him, filled out its folds, and showed a
momentary glimpse of features that Lysidice remembered well, the
features of the fool who had fled from the house of Lycabetta a month
before, bearing with him the girl from the hills and leaving behind him
the terror of the plague. In a moment the friar's lean hand had pulled
the hood close again about his cheeks, about his chin, but the glimpse
had been enough for Lysidice.
What news would be so welcome to Lycabetta, languorous Lycabetta, as
news of the whereabouts of the fool who had caused her so many hours of
mortal anguish. Lysidice shivered still in the warm air at the thought
of that night when all in the palace of pleasure believed themselves to
be plague-stricken, and of the slow relief that came with day and the
assurances of the physicians that Hildebrand had at last found strength
to seek. There was no plague in the city; the fool had befooled them
finely, carrying off his prize and disappearing into an obscurity so
profound that no searches could unearth him. And now chance would seem
to have given him to Lysidice.
Lilting the burden of a love-song, she passed by the stall where the
friar stood, and saw, without seeming to see, how the friar dragged his
hood closer about his face and bent lower over the roses. It would never
do for her, she knew well enough, to attempt to follow the fool to his
hiding-place. Her bright robes were not made to play the spy in. She
strolled unconcernedly to the end of the market, and at the foot of a
pillar she saw a small boy leisurely devouring a vast cantle of melon.
She beckoned the boy into the cover of a country cart that had carried
fruit and vegetables to the market, and from that intrenchment she
pointed out to him the friar who was now bearing away his roses, bade
the boy follow him, and promised him a silver piece if he would come
back with news of the friar's destination. The boy understood and
trotted off after the unconscious friar.
Lysidice had not to wait long for knowledge. In a few minutes the boy
came back and told her what she wanted to know; the friar had
disappeared within the doors of a little church by the sea-shore, not
many yards distant, a church under the charge of an austere religious,
Father Hieronymus. Delighted, Lysidice gave the urchin his piece of
silver and scurried hot-foot home.
Robert, on his side--for the friar was, indeed, he who wore the fool's
face--had seen Lysidice as she passed him, and had pulled his cowl
closer about his face. He did not think she had seen him, deceived by
her indifferent air and gait, and when he left the market bearing his
burden of white roses, though he glanced behind him now and then, he saw
nothing of Lycabetta's woman, and believed himself in security. It was,
therefore, with a contented mind that he pushed open a doorway in the
little church by the sea, and passed from the bright sunlight into the
cool shade of the pillared place.
With a contented mind! A month had wrought great changes in him. On the
night when the two fugitives sped through the darkness and threw
themselves on the protection of Father Hieronymus, Robert's brain,
reeling from rebellion and despair to surrender, was too distraught to
entertain much else than the wild desire to save Perpetua. But in the
mild twilight of the holy place, under the calm authority of Hieronymus,
there came to him a strength, a courage of a kind that he had never
known before. Hieronymus had welcomed the suppliants. The church
communicated through its crypt with some of the many catacombs that
pierced the hills of Syracuse into a labyrinth; in one of these it was
easy to conceal Perpetua with safety and with some degree of comfort. As
for the fool, the church just needed a sacristan; a friar's robe was
soon found and fitted; a brown hood concealed the ugly, haggard face,
and the cripple Diogenes, who had been Robert the King, became the
willing, patient servant of the little church by the sea.
Robert stood there in the church newly importuned by the memories of a
month that had seemed at once as brief as a noon-day dream and yet to
stretch into an age-long quiet. He recalled the gentle gravity with
which Hieronymus had listened to the tale of flight, and had forgiven
him in the name of Heaven for a fraud that had saved from dishonor the
body of a Christian maid. He recalled the gentle strength with which
Hieronymus had silenced him when he told for the last time his wild tale
of transformation, and declared that he was Robert of Sicily. The rest
of his memories were of peaceful hours of service, starred by golden
moments of sight of Perpetua, of speech with Perpetua. A strange
resignation came to reign in his fevered brain. He had been King--surely
he had been King--but now he was no longer King; it had pleased Heaven
to cast him from his kingship and to lead him in his degradation to
thoughts and deeds undreamed of in his hours of greatness. There were
times when he could wellnigh believe, dreamily, that what those nearest
to him, Perpetua and Hieronymus, believed was indeed the truth, and that
he was in very fact the fool Diogenes, who had lain in the maleficent
moonlight on the mountain summit, and dreamed in his madness that he was
the lord of Sicily. Moments truly came of fierce rebellion, but they
were fewer now, and even while they racked him, the thought of Perpetua
brought with it resignation to his fate. She had taught him the meaning
of service, of patience, of love.
Quietly he set down his basket of roses; quietly he took from a corner a
broom, and, opening the door that gave upon the sea, he reverently swept
the little church. As he worked at his humble toil, he mused on the
doings of him who was now King of Sicily, how point by point, in his
tyrannies, he followed out the plans that had been hatched in Robert's
head. How would it end for Perpetua--how would it end for Sicily? He
scarcely thought to ask how it would end for himself. Sometime, when it
could be safely done, Perpetua should escape to Italy; he would be with
her as her servant, his hands would toil for her. Already he had learned
to weave baskets, and it was with the money that he got through
Hieronymus for these that he had bought the roses which were to adorn
the altar of the church.
As he thought, his task was ended, the floor of the little church was
clean.
"Swept," he murmured to himself as he laid his broom aside, and taking
up the basket of white roses proceeded to set them tenderly upon the
altar.
"Garnished," he murmured again, as he stepped back a little way and
regarded his handiwork with a greater pleasure than he had ever known,
in days now dim as dreams, in the pageants and the festals of Naples.
The little church was now the kingdom in which he lived, not as king,
but as its lowliest servitor; yet he breathed in it a spirit of content
such as he had never known before. Those solemn pillars, those gloomy
spaces, those narrow staircases set in the thickness of the walls, were
the landmarks, were the confines of his home. The colored light that
poured through the windows of painted glass, mottling the stone flooring
with splendid patches of yellow and blue and red, gave the gray place to
his sad eyes a pomp beyond the pride of courts. Here and there in the
darkness dim lamps burned, the beacons for him of inexpressible havens.
Portions of the walls were covered with votive offerings--little models
of ships that had been set there by sailors, grateful for succor in
storm and escape from shipwreck, wreaths and pictures and crosses and
images of saints, emblems all of a simple piety that his racked spirit
was slowly learning to understand. In front of him was the altar with
its image of Our Lady of the Sea, curiously and beautifully wrought in
silver, the figure of the Divine Woman on a space of tumbling sea. At
the left of the altar, in a niche in the wall hard by, stood the most
precious relic of the church, a huge iron cross more than seven feet in
height, which had been carried on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem by the
founder of the church. On the right of the altar was the golden railing
and gateway on which the eyes of Robert always rested in joy, for behind
it lay the space of sanctuary, the spot where Perpetua had found a
shelter from her enemies. Yet close to this railing rose a pillar, the
sight of which always had power to banish any joy from Robert's eyes.
Down its length hung a thick rope running through iron rings set in the
stone-work. That rope conducted to a bell on the roof of the church.
That bell had been set there in the spring of the reign of King Robert
the Good for this purpose, that if any man in his kingdom thought he was
wrongly used by its King, he had but to drag at the rope to set the
great bell ringing, whose sound, tolling over the city, called all good
citizens together to hear and decide upon the complaint of the subject
against the King. In such a benignant spirit had Sicily been ruled in
the days of Robert the Good.
One white rose remained in his fingers. He lifted it to his lips and
kissed it reverently. Then he laid it down before the gilded gateway of
the sanctuary, with the thought in his mind that perhaps her foot might
touch it as she passed and make it sacred. Then he lit a taper at a
lamp, and in obedience to the order given him by Father Hieronymus the
previous night, he carried the tiny flame to each of the candles on the
altar, till all were lighted. This task done, he prostrated himself on
the steps before the shrine and prayed aloud.
"Heaven," he supplicated--"Heaven, against whom I have sinned so deeply,
hear my prayer for the white child who has led Thy light into my dark.
Shield her from danger. Keep holy her who is holy."
As his voice died away into silence, he still knelt with bent head and
clasped hands, so steeped in penitential thoughts that he did not hear
the sea-door open, did not hear the entrance of a man, grizzled,
bronzed, eagle-faced, ascetic, clad in the brown robe of his order.
Father Hieronymus paused for a moment, seeing with gratification the
kneeling figure before the altar. It would be the sweetest triumph of a
life of ceaseless struggle with the Prince of the Power of the Air to
save alive the soul of the distracted fool.
XIV
THE EXILES
Hieronymus advanced to the kneeling figure. "My son," he said, gently.
Robert leaped to his feet at the sound of the familiar voice, and moved
to meet Hieronymus.
"Father, when we came to you a month ago and begged for shelter, I told
you how I lied to save the girl, pretending to be plague-stricken."
Hieronymus inclined his head. "And I absolved you."
Robert spoke in a lower voice, almost a whisper. "I told you, too, that
I was Sicily, Robert himself, lapped in this hideous shape."
Hieronymus raised a warning hand. "Does that delusion still vex you?" he
asked, sadly.
Robert bowed his head. "My spirit is free from many delusions," he
whispered; "but I did not tell you that I, unlovely as I am, I love
Perpetua. Her hand has led me, her voice has inspired me. If ever I be
saved she will have saved me."
The grave face of Hieronymus looked kindly pity upon the fool in the
friar's gown.
"God chooses the time and the way. An earthly love may win the grace of
Heaven."
Robert sighed. "My hopeless love is happy service. Daily my spirit
creeps a little nearer to the light."
Hieronymus beat his breast.
"Daily the tyrant of Sicily grows more wicked, reeling like a madman
from crime to crime. The island groans beneath him more piteously than
the imprisoned Titan groans beneath Mount Etna."
Robert turned away from Hieronymus with a bitter sigh. "God forgive me,"
he said to himself, "for he does the deeds I meant to do!"
Hieronymus did not heed the agitation of his companion; he stood as if
listening to some distant sound. "Son, do you hear...?" he questioned.
Robert came swiftly to his side, listened, heard, and answered: "The
measured tread of many feet. They seem to walk mournfully over my
heart."
"Look out, my son," Hieronymus commanded, "and tell me what you see."
Robert opened the door that gave upon the sea, looked out, and answered,
sadly: "A company of men and women, all in black. They seem weighed down
with sorrow."
"These," said Hieronymus, grimly, "are the noblest folk in Sicily,
flying into exile from the tyrant's lust and greed."
Robert stood motionless, frozen with sorrow.
"These," he said, in his heart, "are the just and righteous whom I meant
to vex and banish."
As in a dream he heard the voice of Hieronymus calling to him: "My son,
give me that iron cross, the cross of the founder of our church. They
shall salute it for the last time."
Robert, going to the wall where the relic stood, tried vainly to lift
the cross. Its weight mocked his efforts, and he turned, gasping and
trembling, to Hieronymus. "Father, I cannot. The sinews of the fool are
too feeble to lift it."
Hieronymus gave a cry of compassion.
"Forgive me. It is heavy, and taxes my strength to move."
In his turn he moved to the cross, lifted it with an effort from its
place, and carried it with difficulty to the altar, where he rested it
for the new-comers to see.
The ache in Robert's heart was crueler than the ache in Robert's arms.
"I was once so proud of my strength," he murmured.
He moved towards the altar, and seated himself on the lowest step,
huddled in grief, while Hieronymus, mounting to the altar, turned to
face the new-comers. Through the sea-door came a company of men and
women, all dressed in black, who ranged themselves, kneeling, in front
of the altar.
Hieronymus addressed the kneeling mourners. "My brethren, are ye going
forth into exile?"
An old man rose and spoke.
"From the land where I was born, from the soil where my father's fathers
sprang, I now must go a wanderer, houseless, penniless. Woe to the
wicked King!"
He knelt again.
Robert, where he crouched, muttered to himself, "I have sinned, I have
sinned, I have grievously sinned."
Next a young woman rose and spoke.
"I and these other women with me, we must fly from the land of our life
and of our love. For the honor of no woman is safe in the reign of
Robert the Bad, and the feet of good women go not in his halls. Woe to
the wicked King!"
She knelt again.
Robert, where he crouched, muttered to himself, "I have sinned, I have
sinned, I have grievously sinned."
A young man rose and spoke.
"No youth with a clean spirit can live in peace in Sicily. Only the man
who will sell his wife, the brother who will betray his sister, the
lover who will surrender his sweetheart, may find favor with the tyrant.
Woe to the wicked King!"
He knelt again.
Robert, where he crouched, muttered to himself, "I have sinned, I have
sinned, I have grievously sinned."
Robert's face was very pale, his body shook with anguish, and he
crouched more and more upon the steps of the altar.
A soldier rose and spoke.
"I am not squeamish; I have seen cities sacked, but I will not serve
this man-beast. I will carry my sword over-seas. I will follow the flag
of some gallant captain, and die remembering Sicily. Woe to the wicked
King!"
He knelt again.
Robert, where he crouched, muttered to himself, "I have sinned, I have
sinned, I have grievously sinned."
He heard Hieronymus give his benediction--"Benedicto vos in nomine
Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti." A thought came to Robert, he
crept to Hieronymus, plucking at his sleeve:
"Father," he whispered, "may I, who am so sore afflicted, speak to these
unhappy?"
Hieronymus rested his hand gently on Robert's shoulder as he again
addressed the kneeling figures.
"Brethren," he said, "lo, here is one of the tyrant's victims. Speak, my
son."
He moved aside a little to give Robert more space, resting his hand upon
the iron cross. Robert, his face hidden in his hood, addressed the
mourners.
"Brethren," he wailed, "I am the most unhappy soul in Sicily, for God
has cursed me with a fearful curse. At night I dream I am this wicked
King, and all day long the evil of his deeds grinds down my heart. But
in my misery I have heard words more sweet than honey, more fragrant
than myrrh, which if you will guard them in your hearts will be to you
as wells in the waste places, as orchards in the sand, as shade of palm
and strength of manna in the weary, hungry land. 'He hath put down the
mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree.'"
He would have fallen if Hieronymus's strong arms had not sustained him.
With one voice all the wanderers echoed his words.
"'He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low
degree.'"
The wanderers rose very slowly from their knees and went very slowly
out at the sea-door, followed by Hieronymus, who almost carried Robert
in his arms to the outer air.
For some minutes the little church was empty and dark and silent. Then a
side door opened and a woman and a man entered, coming from a quiet
street. The woman was Lycabetta; the man was Hildebrand. Hildebrand
looked curiously around him.
"Why have you brought me here?" he asked.
"Answer me first," Lycabetta replied. "How is the King?"
Hildebrand shrugged his shoulders. "Bloody of purpose, and yet
bloodless. Lustful of purpose, and yet loveless. In his prisons many
wait for death, but none perish; for the King has sworn that none shall
die before the fool Diogenes, and we cannot find the fool. The loveliest
women of Sicily have been torn from their homes to his palace, but they
have not seen the King, for he will love no woman until he has found the
girl Perpetua. And the girl cannot be found."
Lycabetta whispered in his ear:
"Listen; this morning in the flower-market my Lysidice noted a hooded
friar who bought white roses. A wind stirred his cowl and she saw the
face of Diogenes."
Hildebrand started.
"Was she sure?"
"'Tis no face to forget," Lycabetta answered; "though she swears it less
frightful than of old. She made no sign, but she bribed a child to
follow the false friar, and the brat ran him to earth here."
Hildebrand grinned savagely.
"If they be here, no fable of the plague shall save them this time."
Lycabetta caught him eagerly by the arm and drew him behind a concealing
pillar. She had seen the sea-door open and had seen a figure in a
friar's gown.
"Who is this?" she whispered triumphantly to Hildebrand.
Robert came through the sea-door. Inside the church he threw back his
hood and his face was plainly visible to the watchers, themselves
invisible, screened by the pillars and the gloom. Hildebrand pressed
Lycabetta's hand significantly. He had seen all he wanted to see. The
pair slipped quietly out by the door through which they had entered.
Robert advanced slowly to the altar and flung himself on the steps.
"Dear God," he prayed, "let not the guiltless suffer for my guilt.
Punish me to the top of my sin, but pity Sicily."
XV
THE HUNTER'S VOICE
Out of the shadow-land at the back of the altar emerged a white figure,
with a fair face and hair the color of flame. She moved unheard across
the pavement of the place of sanctuary; unheard she pushed open the
little golden wicket in the golden railing; unheard she noted the white
rose where it lay upon the ground, and, picking it up, lifted it to her
lips before she placed it in her girdle; unheard she moved to where
Robert lay in his agony before the altar.
"Friend," she whispered, softly.
Robert's consciousness awoke from its dark dreams. He rose and faced the
girl, naming her name with joy.
"Perpetua!"
Perpetua came close to him.
"You have been abroad. Have you any news of my father?"
Robert shook his head.
"He is still kept close in the palace; his sword is still idle. The King
has doomed many to death, but it seems that none shall die until the
fool dies--and they cannot find the fool," he added, with a grim laugh.
Perpetua looked at him with sad affection and said, earnestly, "I wish
you would fly from Sicily."
Robert answered her as earnestly, "I wish you would fly from Sicily."
"I will not leave my father."
"I will not leave you in danger."
Perpetua, smiling, gently chided. "All men live in danger through each
second of each minute. I do not know the color of fear."
Robert drew a little nearer to her and spoke with a warning voice.
"I fear for you. This morning I saw in the market-place one of the women
of Lycabetta. She did not see me, but to see her renewed my fear. If
danger should come here ring at this bell," and he pointed to the great
rope on the column by the altar. "It was set here by King Robert the
Good, that any man having cause of complaint against the King might ring
it and rouse all Syracuse to sit in judgment between sovereign and
subject. In all his reign no hand ever tugged at that cord."
Perpetua looked at it sadly. "Every hand in Syracuse might itch to clasp
it in the reign of Robert the Bad."
There were tears in Robert's eyes as he echoed her.
"Robert the Bad. You might have loved him," he said, after a short
silence.
Perpetua turned away, for now there were tears in her eyes. "Oh, I know
nothing of love," she said.
Robert saw her sadness and combated his own to cheer her. "Is it not
strange," he asked, "your loveliness knows nothing of love while my
unloveliness is cunning in love-wisdom? Year in and year out I have
watched the world a-wooing--shepherd and shepherdess under the hawthorn
hedge, knight and dame in the rose-bower, king and queen on the marble
terrace."
She turned to him again and there were now no tears in her eyes; grief
should not conquer her and she spoke brightly, entering into the spirit
of his speech.
"A prodigal preface. But what is the sum of all your wisdom?"