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 Gaeta

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 Soracte 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 Caesar 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 Caesar!

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

Merseburg, 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 Gaeta.

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 Caesars

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, Roxane 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 Roxane, 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,"

Roxane 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 Roxane,--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?"