the lone house, to enter unobserved and to conceal himself in the
shadows. What he had witnessed, had exercised a terrible fascination
over him, and he was determined to see to an end the devilish rites
about to be performed by the personage, in quest of whom he had come.
The chamber in which he found himself was in perfect keeping with the
horrible ceremonial about to be performed. In one corner lay a
mouldering heap of skulls, bones and other fragments of mortality; in
the other a pile of broken coffins, emptied of their tenants and reared
on end. But what chiefly attracted his attention, was a ghastly
collection of human limbs blackened with pitch, girded round with iron
hoops and hung like meat in a shamble against the wall. There were two
heads, and although the features were scarcely distinguishable owing to
the liquid in which they had been immersed, they still retained a
terrible expression of agony. These were the quarters of two priests
recently executed for conspiracy against the Pontiff, which had been
left there pending their final disposition. The implements of execution
were scattered about and mixed with the tools of the sexton, while in
the centre of the room stood a large wooden frame supported by rafters.
On this frame, bespattered with blood and besmeared with pitch, the body
was now placed. This done, the one who seemed to be the moving spirit
of the two, placed the lantern beside it, and as the light fell upon its
livid features, sullied with earth, and exhibiting traces of decay,
Crescentius was so appalled by the sight, that he revealed his presence
by a half suppressed outcry. Seeing the futility of further
concealment, he stepped into the light of the lantern and was about to
speak, when he heard the older address his assistant, neither of whom
evinced the least surprise at his presence, while he pointed toward him:
"Look! It is the very face! The bronzed and strongly marked
features,--the fierce gray eye--the iron frame of the figure we beheld
in the show-stone! Thus he looked, as we tracked his perilous course."
"You know me then?" asked the intruder uneasily.
"You are the Senator of Rome!"
"You spoke of my perilous course! How have you learned this?"
"By the art that reveals all things! And in proof that your thoughts
are known to me, I will tell you the inquiry you would make before it is
uttered. You came here to learn whether the enterprise in which you are
engaged will succeed."
"Such was my intent," replied Crescentius. "From the reports about you,
I will freely admit, I regarded you as an impostor! Now I am convinced
that you are skilled in the occult science and would fain consult you on
the future. What is the meaning of this?" he continued pointing to the
corpse before him.
"I expected you!" was the conjurer's laconic reply.
"How is that possible?" exclaimed Crescentius. "It is only within the
hour, that I conceived the thought,--and only the events of this evening
prompted it."
"I know all!" replied Dom Sabbat. "Yet I would caution you: beware, how
you pry into the future. You may repent of your rashness, when it is
too late."
"I have no fear! Let me know the worst!" replied Crescentius.
The conjurer pointed to the corpse.
"That carcass having been placed in the ground without the holy rites of
burial, I have power over it. As the witch of Endor called up Samuel,
as is recorded in Holy Writ,--as Erichtho raised up a corpse, to reveal
to Sextus Pompejus the event of the Pharsalian war,--as the dead maid
was brought back to life by Appollonius of Thyana,--so I, by certain
powerful incantations will lure the soul of this corpse for a short
space into its former abode, and compel it to answer my questions. Dare
you be present at the ceremony?"
"I dare!" replied the Senator of Rome.
"So it be!" replied Dom Sabbat. "You will need all your courage!" and
he extinguished the light.
An awful silence ensued in the charnel-house, broken only by a low
murmur from the conjurer who appeared to be reciting an incantation. As
he proceeded, his tones became louder and his voice that of command.
Suddenly he paused and seemed to await a response. But as none was
made, greatly to the disappointment of Crescentius, whose curiosity,
despite his fears, was raised to the highest pitch, cried:
"Blood is wanting to complete the charm!"
"If that be all, I will speedily supply the deficiency," replied the
Senator, bared his left arm and, drawing his poniard, pricked it
slightly with the point of the weapon.
"I bleed now!" he cried.
"Sprinkle the corpse with the blood," commanded Dom Sabbat.
"The blood is flowing upon it!" replied Crescentius with a shudder.
Upon this the conjurer began to mutter an incantation in a louder and
more authoritative tone than before. His assistant added his voice, and
both joined in a sort of chorus, but in a jargon entirely unintelligible
to the Senator.
Suddenly a blue flame appeared above their heads, and slowly descending,
settled upon the brow of the corpse, lighting up the sunken cavities of
the eyes and the discoloured and distorted features.
"She moves! She moves!" shouted the Senator frantically. "She moves!
She is alive."
"Be silent!" cried Dom Sabbat, "else mischief may ensue!"
And again he started his incantation.
"Down on your knees!" he exclaimed at length with terrible voice. "The
spirit is at hand."
There was a rushing sound and a stream of white, dazzling light shot
down upon the corpse, which emitted a hollow groan. In obedience to Dom
Sabbat's demand Crescentius had prostrated himself on the ground, but he
kept his gaze steadily fixed on the body, which, to his infinite
amazement, slowly arose until it stood erect upon the frame. There it
remained perfectly motionless, with the arms close to the sides and the
habiliments torn and dishevelled. The blue light still retained its
position upon the brow and communicated a horrible glimmer to the
features. The spectacle was so dreadful, that Crescentius would have
averted his eyes, but he was unable to do so. The conjurer and his
familiar meanwhile continued their invocations, until, as it seemed to
the Senator, the lips of the corpse moved and a voice of despair
exclaimed: "Why have you called me?"
"To question you about the future!" replied Dom Sabbat rising.
"Speak and I will answer," replied the corpse.
"Ask her,--but be brief;--her time is short," said Dom Sabbat,
addressing the Senator. "Only as long as that flame burns, have I power
over her!"
"What is her name?" questioned the Senator.
"Marozia!"
The Senator's hand went to his forehead; he tottered and almost fell.
But he caught himself.
"Spirit of Marozia," he cried, "if indeed thou standest before me, and
some demon has not entered thy frame to delude me,--by all that is holy,
and by every blessed saint do I adjure thee to tell me, whether the
scheme, on which I am now engaged for the glory of Rome, will prosper?"
"Thou art mistaken, Johannes Crescentius," returned the corpse. "Thy
scheme is not for the glory of Rome!"
"I will not pause to argue this point," continued the Senator. "Will the
end be successful?"
"The end will be death," replied the corpse.
"To the King--or to myself?"
"To both!"
"Ha!" ejaculated Crescentius, breathing hard. "To both!"
"Proceed if you have more to ask,--the flame is expiring," cried the
conjurer.
"And--Stephania?" But he could not utter the question. He felt like one
choking.
But before the question was formed, the light vanished and a heavy sound
was heard, as of the body falling on the frame.
"It is over!" said Dom Sabbat
"Can you not summon her again?" asked Crescentius, in a tone of deep
disappointment. "I must know that other."
"Impossible," replied the conjurer. "The spirit has flown and cannot be
recalled. We must commit the body to the earth!"
"My curiosity is excited,--not satisfied," said the Senator. "Would it
were to occur again!"
"Thus it is ever," replied Dom Sabbat. "We seek to know that which is
forbidden, and quench our thirst at a fount, which but inflames our
curiosity the more. You have embarked on a perilous enterprise;--be
warned, Senator of Rome! If you continue to pursue it, it will lead you
to perdition."
"I cannot retreat," replied Crescentius. "And I would not, if I could.
Death to both of us:--this at least is atonement!"
"I warn you again,--if you persist, you are lost!"
"Impossible,--I cannot retreat;--I could not, if I would! By no
sophistry can I clear my conscience of the ties imposed upon it. I have
sworn never to desist from the execution of this scheme, never--never!
And so resolved am I, that if I stood alone in this very hour--I would
go on."
"You stand alone!"
No one knew whence the voice had come. The three stood appalled.
A deep groan issued from the corpse.
"For the last time,--be warned!" expostulated Dom Sabbat.
"Come forth!" cried Crescentius rushing towards the door. "This place
stifles me!" And he unbolted the door and threw it wide open, stepping
outside.
The moon was shining brightly from a deep blue azure. Before him stood
the old church of St. Damian bathed in the moonlight. The Senator gazed
abstractedly at the venerable structure, then he re-entered the
charnel-house, where he found the conjurer and his companion employed in
placing the body of the excommunicated denizen of Castel San Angelo into
a coffin, which they had taken from a pile in the corner. He immediately
proffered his assistance and in a short space the task was completed.
The coffin was then borne toward the grave, at the edge of which it was
laid, while the Dom Sabbat mumbled a strange Requiem over the departed.
This ended, it was laid into its shallow resting place, and speedily
covered with earth.
When all was ready for their departure, Dom Sabbat turned to the Senator
of Rome, bidding him farewell. Declining the proffered gold, he
observed:
"If you are wise, my lord, you will profit by the awful warning you have
this night received."
"Who are you?" the Senator questioned abruptly, trying to peer through
the cowl which the adept of the black arts had drawn over his face,
"since the devils obey your beck?"
The conjurer laughed a soundless laugh.
"Of dominion over devils I am innocent--since I rule no men!"
At the entrance of the churchyard, Crescentius parted from the conjurer
and his associate, about whose personality he had not troubled himself,
and returned in deep rumination to Castel San Angelo.
No sooner had the Senator of Rome departed, than the conjurer's familiar
tore the trappings from his person and stood revealed to his companion
as Benilo, the Chamberlain.
"Dog! Liar! Impostor," he hissed into Dom Sabbat's face, while kicking
and buffeting him. "Marozia has been dead some fifty years. How dare
you perpetrate this monstrous fraud? Was it this I bade you tell the
Senator of Rome?"
Dom Sabbat cringed before the blows and the flaming madness in the
Chamberlain's eyes. Folding his arms over his chest and bending low he
replied with feigned contrition:
"It was not for me to compel the spirit's answer! And as for the
corpse, 'twas Marozia's. Thus read you the devil's favour. Until
blessed by the holy rite, the body cannot return to its native dust."
"Then it was Marozia's spirit we beheld?" Benilo queried with a shudder,
as they left the churchyard.
"Marozia's spirit," replied Dom Sabbat. "Yet who would raise a fabric
on the memory of a lie?"
*CHAPTER XII*
*THE HERMITAGE OF NILUS*
Stephania's sleep had been broken and restless. She tossed and turned
in her pillows and pushed back the hair from her fevered cheeks and
throbbing temples in vain. It was weary work, to lie gazing with eyes
wide open at the flickering shadows cast by the night-lamp on the
opposite wall. It was still less productive of sleep to shut them tight
and to abandon herself to the visions thus evoked, which stood out in
life-like colours and refused to be dispelled.
Do what she would to forget him, to conjure up some other object in her
soul, there stood the son of Theophano, towering like a demi-god over
the mean, effeminate throng of her countrymen. Her whole being had
changed in the brief space of time, since first they had met face to
face. Then the woman's heart, filled with implacable hatred of that
imperial phantom, which had twice wrested the dominion of Rome from the
Senator's iron grasp, filled with hatred of the unwelcome intruder, had
given one great bound for joy at the certainty that he was hers,--hers
to deal with according to her desire,--that he had not withstood the
vertigo of her fateful beauty. With the first kiss she had imprinted on
his lips, she had dedicated him to the Erynnies,--it was not enough to
vanquish, she must break his heart. Thus only would her victory be
complete.
What a terrible change had come over her now! All she possessed, all
she called her own, she would gladly have given to undo what she had
done. For the first time, as with the lightning's glare, the terrible
chasm was revealed to her, at the brink of which she stood. Strange
irony of fate! Slowly but surely she had felt the hatred of Otto vanish
from her heart. He had bared his own before her, she had penetrated the
remotest depths of his soul. She had read him as an open book. And as
she revolved in her own mind the sordid aspirations of those she called
her countrymen, the promptings of tyrants and oppressors,--thrown in the
scales against the pure and lofty ideals of the King,--a flush of shame
drove the pallor from her cheeks and caused hot tears of remorse to well
up from the depths of her eyes.
For the first time the whole enormity of what she had done, of the
scheme to which she had lent herself, flashed upon her, and with it a
wave of hot resentment rushed through her heart. Her own blind hate and
the ever-present consciousness of the low estate to which the one-time
powerful house of Crescentius had fallen, had prompted her to accept the
trust, to commit the deed for which she despised herself. Would the
youth, whom she was to lead the sure way to perdition, have chosen such
means to attain his ends? And what would he say to her at that fatal
moment, when all his illusions would be shattered to atoms, his dreams
destroyed and his heart broken? Would he not curse her for ever having
crossed his path? Would he not tear the memory of the woman from his
heart, who had trifled with its most sacred heavings? He would die, but
she! She must live--live beside the man for whom she had sinned, for
whose personal ends she had spun this gigantic web of deception. Otto
would die:--he would not survive the shock of the revelation. His
sensitive, finely-strung temperament was not proof against such
unprecedented treachery. What the Senator's shafts and catapults had
failed to achieve,--the Senator's wife would have accomplished! But the
glory of the deed? "Gloria Victis," he had said to her when she pointed
the chances of defeat. "Gloria Victis"--and she must live!
Otto loved her;--with a love so passionate and enduring that even death
would mock at separation.--They would belong to each other ever after.
It was not theirs to choose. It seemed to her as if they had been
destined for each other from the begin of time, as if their souls had
been one, even before their birth. And all the trust reposed in her,
all the love given to her--how was she about to requite them? Were her
countrymen worthy the terrible sacrifice? Was Crescentius, her husband?
Had his rule ennobled him? Had his rule ennobled the Romans? Were the
motives not purely personal?
She knew she had gone too far to recede. And even if she would, nothing
could now save the German King. The avalanche which had been started
could not be stopped. The forces arrayed against Teutonic rule now
defied the control of him who had evoked them. How could she save the
King?
Salvation for him lay only in immediate flight from Rome! The very
thought was madness. He would never consent. Not all his love for her
could prompt a deed of cowardice. He would remain and perish,--and his
blood would be charged to her account in the book of final judgment.
How long were these dreadful hours! They seemed never ending like
eternity. A moan broke from Stephania's lips. She hid her burning face
in her white arms. Oh, the misery of this fatal love! There was no
resisting it, there was no renouncing it;--ever present in her soul,
omnipotent in her heart, it would not even cease with death; yea,
perhaps this was but the beginning.--Would she survive the terrible hour
of the final trial, when, a second Delilah, she called the Philistines
down upon her trusting foe? She moaned and tossed as in the agues of a
fever and only towards the gray dawn of morning she fell into a fitful
slumber.
The preparations for his last rebellion against German rule had kept the
Senator of Rome within the walls of the formidable keep, which since the
days of Vitiges, the Goth, had defied every assault, no matter who the
assailant. Crescentius had succeeded in repairing the breaches in the
walls and in strengthening the defences in a manner, which would cause
every attempt to carry the mausoleum by storm to appear an undertaking
as mad as it was hopeless. He had augmented his Roman garrison, swelled
by the men-at-arms of the Roman barons pledged to his support, by Greek
auxiliaries, drawn from Torre del Grecco, and under his own personal
supervision the final preparations were being pushed to a close. His
activity was so strenuous that he appeared to be in the vaults and the
upper galleries of Castel San Angelo at the same time. He had been
seized with a restlessness which did not permit him to remain long on
any one spot. But the terrible misgivings which filled his heart with
drear forebodings, which, now it was too late to recede, caused him to
tremble before the final issue, drove the Senator of Rome like a madman
through the corridors of the huge mausoleum. Had he in truth lost the
love of his wife? Then indeed was the victory of the son of Theophano
complete. He had robbed him of all, but life--a life whose last spark
should ignite the funeral torches for the King and,--if it must be--for
Rome.
The day was fading fast, when Crescentius mounted the stairs which led
to Stephania's apartments. His heart was heavy with fear. This hour
must set matters right between them;--in this hour he must know the
worst,---and from her own lips. She would not fail him at the final
issue, of that, as he knew her proud spirit, he was convinced. But what
availed that final issue, if he had lost the one jewel in his crown,
without which the crown itself was idle mockery?
Stephania's apartments were deserted. Where was his wife? She never
used to leave the Castello without informing him of the goal of her
journey. Times were uncertain and the precaution well justified. With
loud voice the Senator of Rome called for Stephania's tirewoman.
Receiving no immediate reply, a terrible thought rushed through his
head. Perhaps she was even now with him,--with Otto! In its
undiminished vividness the scene at the Neptune temple arose before him.
What availed it to rave and to moan and to shriek? Was it not his own
doing,--rather the counsel of one who perhaps rejoiced in his
discomfiture? Crescentius' hand went to his head. Was such black
treachery conceivable? Could Benilo,---but no! Not even the fiend
incarnate would hatch out such a plot, tossing on a burning pillow of
anguish in sleepless midnight.
He was about to retrace his steps below, when the individual desired,
Stephania's tirewoman, appeared and informed the Senator that her
mistress had but just left, to seek an interview with her confessor. A
momentary sigh of relief came from the lips of Crescentius. His fears
had perhaps been groundless. Still he felt the imperative necessity to
obtain proof positive of her innocence or guilt. Thus only could his
soul find rest.
Stephania had gone to her confessor. Fate itself would never again
throw such an opportunity in his way. And he made such good speed,
that, when he came within sight of the ruins of the baths of Caracalla,
he perceived by the advancing torches, which the guards accompanying her
litter carried, that she had not yet reached her destination.
Approaching closer, he saw them halt near the ruins and in a few moments
a woman, wrapt in a dark mantilla, stepped from her litter, received by
a bubbling, gesticulating monk, in whom the Senator immediately
recognized Fra Biccocco, the companion of Nilus. Escorted by him, she
walked hastily into the ruins, and was soon lost to sight in their
intricate windings.
Recalling the observations he had made on a previous visit, Crescentius
wound his way from the rear to the same point, so that none of
Stephania's retinue, who were laughing and chatting among themselves,
discerned him or even discovered his presence. Then he rapidly threaded
his way to the chamber through which Fra Biccocco and Stephania had just
passed, boldly followed them into the clearing, from which Nilus' cell
was reached, and concealed himself in the long grass until Biccocco
returned from the hermit's cell. Then he approached the monk's
hermitage and took up his post of observation in the shadows, out of
sight but able to hear every word which would be exchanged between Nilus
and his confessor.
The monk of Gaeta had been far from anticipating a visitor at this late
hour. Seated at his stone table, he had been reading some illuminated
manuscript, when he suddenly laid down the scroll and listened. The
perfect stillness of the deserted Aventine permitted some breathings of
remote music from the distant groves of Theodora to strike his ear, and
after listening for a time, he arose and traversed his cell with rapid
steps. He was about to reseat himself and to continue his disquisition
by the pale, flickering light of the candle burning before a crucifix,
when voices were audible and Biccocco entered, having scarcely time to
announce Stephania, ere she followed.
"Good even, Father,--be not startled,--I was returning from my gardens
of Egeria and I have brought your altar some of its choicest flowers,"
she said in a hushed and timid voice, while at the same time she offered
the monk some beautiful white roses of a late bloom. "Moreover, I would
speak a few words alone with you,--alone with you,--Father
Biccocco,--with your permission."
Biccocco, looking at her, as she threw back her mantle from her
shoulders, respectfully prepared to obey, almost wondering that there
could be on earth anything so wondrously beautiful as this woman.
"Biccocco, I command thee, stay!" exclaimed Nilus starting up. "I would
say--nay, daughter--is it thou? I knew not at first,--my sight is
dim--Biccocco, let no one trouble me--but tears? What ails our gentle
penitent? Has she forgotten a whole string of Aves? Or what heavier
offence? It was but yesterday I counselled thee,--but a few hours are
so much to a woman.--Wherefore glow thy cheeks with the fires of shame?
Biccocco--leave us!"
"Father, I have sinned--yea, grievously sinned in these few hours, since
I have seen thee," said Stephania, when the restraint of Biccocco's
presence was removed, little suspecting what listener had succeeded. "I
have sinned and I repent,--but even in my offence lies my greatest
chastisement."
"Art well assured, that it is remorse, and not regret?" replied the
hermit of Gaeta. "Thy sex often mistakes one for the other. But what
is the matter? Surely it might not prevent thee from taking thy needful
rest, might bide the light of day, to be told,--to be listened
to,--yet--thou art strangely pale!"
"I have been mad, father, crazed,--I know not what I have done! I dare
not look upon thee, and tell thee! Let me arrange my flowers in thy
chalice, while I speak," replied Stephania, hiding her face in the
fragrant bundle.
"Not so!" replied the monk. "Eye and gesture often confess more than
the apologizing lip! Kneel in thy wonted place! No other attitude
becomes thy dignity or mine;--for either thou kneelest to the servant of
God or thou debasest thyself before the brother of man!"
Stephania complied instantly, and Nilus, throwing himself back in his
chair, fixed his eyes on the crucifix before him, without even glancing
at the penitent.
"Father--you had warned me of all the ills that would befall," she
began, almost inaudibly, "but I longed to see him at my feet,--and
more,--much more!"
"What is all this?" said the monk turning very pale and glancing at his
fair penitent with a degree of fierceness mingled with surprise.
"Ah! You know not what a woman feels,--when--when--" She paused,
breathing hard.
"Hast thou then committed a deadly sin? Some dark adultery of the
soul?" exclaimed Nilus. "Nay, daughter," he continued, as she shrank
within herself at his words, "I speak too harshly now! But what more
hast to say? Time wears--and this soft cheek should be upon the down,
or its sweetness will not bloom as freshly as some of its rivals, at
dawn. Thou see'st this hermitage, from which thou wouldst lure me,
yields some recollections to brighten its desolation and gloom. What is
it thou wouldst say?"
Stephania stared for a moment into the monk's face, at a loss to grasp
his meaning. At last she stammered.
"Yet--I but intended to win him to--some silly tryst,--wherein I
intended to deride his boyish passions."
"And he refused thy lures and thou art vexed to have escaped perdition?"
said the monk, more mildly.
"Nay--for he came!"
"He came! Jest not in a matter like this! He came? Thou knowest of all
mankind I have reasons to wish this youth well,--this one at least!"
said Nilus somewhat incoherently.
"He came,--once,--twice,--many times! He came, I say, and---"
"What of him? Thou hast not had him harmed for trusting his enemy?"
Stephania's cheek took the hues of marble.
"Harmed? I would rather perish myself than that he should come to
harm."
Nilus was silent for a moment or two, and Stephania, as if to take
courage, timidly took his hand, holding it between her own.
"I must needs avow my whole offence," she stammered, "he came,--and--"
"Why dost pause, daughter?" questioned the monk, with penetrating look.
"Nay--but hear me!" continued Stephania. "I first intended but to win
his confidence,--then,--having drawn him out--expose him to the just
laughter of my court."
"A most womanly deed! But where did this meeting take place?"
"In the Grottos of Egeria!"
"In the Grottos of Egeria!" the monk repeated aghast.
"And then," she continued with a great sadness in her tone, "I never
felt so strangely mad,--I would have him share some offence, to justify
the clamour I had provided, scarcely I know how to believe it now
myself.--I did to his lips,--what I now do to your hand."
And she kissed the monk's yellow hand with timid reverence.
"Thou! Thou! Stephania,--the wife of Crescentius, and not yet set in
the first line of the book of shame!" shouted the monk, convulsively
starting at every word of his own climax. "Begone--begone! The vessel
is full, even to overflowing!--Tell me no more,--tell me no more!"
"Your suspicion indeed shows me all my ignominy," said Stephania,
groping for his hand, which he had snatched furiously away. "But he
only suffered it,--because he guessed not my intent in the darkness."
"In the darkness?"
"In the darkness."
"Deemest thou it possible to clasp the plague and to evade the
contagion?" questioned the monk. "Woman, I command thee, stop! Stop
ere the condemning angel closes the record!"
Stephania raised her head petulantly.
"Monk, thou knowest not all! During all this meeting the Senator of
Rome was present in the Grotto and watched us from one of the ivy
hollows in the cave!"
"The Senator of Rome!" exclaimed the monk with evident amazement. "How
came he there?"
"By contrivance!"
"I do not understand!"
"It was at his behest that I have done the deed, to further his vast
projects, call it his ambition, if you will--to which the King is the
stumbling block. Ask me no more,--for I will not answer!"
Nilus seemed struck dumb by the revelation.
"Take comfort, daughter, he cannot,--he cannot--" whispered the monk,
bending over her and speaking in so low a tone that the devouring
listener could not distinguish one word.
For a time not a word was to be heard, Nilus inclining his ear to
Stephania's lips, whose confession was oft times broken by sobs.
"Tell me all,--all!" said the monk.
"As the fatal hour approaches the strength begins to forsake me,--I
cannot do it!" she groaned.
"Yet he is the enemy of Rome, so you say," the monk said mockingly.
"He is the friend of Rome and--I love him!"
In a shriek the last words broke from her lips.
"Domine an me reliquisti!" shouted the monk. "Some sign now--some
sign--or--"
His raving exclamation was cut short by a sound not unlike the oracle
implored. A large block of stone, dislodged by a sudden and violent
movement of the unseen listener, rolled with a hollow rumble down into
the vaults below.
The monk started up from the benediction which he was bending forward to
pronounce, almost dashed Stephania away, rushed to his altar and casting
himself prostrate before the divine symbol which adorned it, he muttered
in a frantic ecstasy of devotion:
"Gloria Domino! Gloria in Excelsis! Blessed be Thy name for ever and
ever! Praise ye the Lord! He saves in the furnace of fire!"
Stephania gazed in mute amazement at the monk. His frantic appeal and
its apparent fulfilment had struck dismay into her soul, and when at
length he raised himself, and turned towards her, she could hardly find
words to speak.
But Nilus waved his hand.
"Go now, Stephania," he commanded. "Go! I will devise some fitting
penance at more leisure."
"But, Father--my request."
"Ay, truly," he replied, with supreme melancholy. "Is it not the wont
of the world to throw away the flower, when we have withered it with our
evil breath?"
"But I cannot do it,--I cannot do it," Stephania moaned, raising her
hands imploringly to the monk.
"It is for a mightier than Nilus to counsel," the monk spoke mournfully.
"Thou standest on the brink of a precipice, from which nothing but the
direct intervention of Heaven can save thee! Pray to the Immaculate One
for enlightenment, and if the words of a monk have weight with thee,
even against him, thou callest thy lord before the world,--desist, ere
thou art engulfed in the black abyss, which yawns at thy feet.--When he
is dead, it will be too late!"
And raising his lamp, to escort Stephania to her litter, the monk and
the woman left the chamber, and Crescentius had barely time to conceal
himself behind the boulders ere they appeared and passed by him, the
monk anxiously guiding every step of his penitent.
The moon was sinking, when Stephania arrived at Castel San Angelo.
Taking the candle from the hands of the page, who had awaited her return
with sleepy eyes, she dismissed him and passed into the lofty hall, dark
and chill as a cellar, beyond which lay the Senator's, her husband's,
apartments. She swiftly traversed the hall,--then she hesitated. No
doubt he was asleep. What good was there in waking him? As she turned
to retrace her steps to her own chamber, a strange and eerie gust of
wind swept shrieking round the battlements, howled in the chimney,
invaded the chamber with icy breath and almost extinguished the candle.
Then there was a great hush. It seemed to her she could hear distant
music from the Aventine, the murmur of voices, the sound of iron chains
from the vaults below. To this,--or to death,--she had consigned the
son of Theophano, the boy-king, who loved her.--To this?--Anguish and
terror seized her soul. She felt, she must not move--must not look.
There it stood,--blacker than the investing darkness,--its head
bent,--shrouded in the cowl of a monk. What was it? Once before she
had seen it,--then it had faded away in the gloom. But misfortune rode
invariably in its wake. She tried to scream, to call the page, but her
voice choked in her throat. She staggered toward the door; her limbs
refused to support her;--groaning she covered her eyes. Otto down
there,--or dead,--why had she never thought of it before? Now the monk
made a step toward her; the face had nothing corpse-like in it, nothing
appalling, yet she felt a freezing and unearthly cold; almost fainting
she staggered up the narrow winding stairs. And entering her lofty
chamber Stephania fell unconscious upon her couch.
After Crescentius had returned from the hermitage of Nilus, he gave
strict orders to the guards of Castel San Angelo to admit no one, no
matter who might crave an audience, and entering his own chamber, he
lighted a candle. He had seen and heard, and he knew that the heart of
his wife had gone from him for ever! At the terrible certainty he grew
dizzy. A fearful price he had paid for his perfidy,--and now, there was
no one in all the world he could trust. He dared not speak. He dared
not even breathe his anguish. She must never know that he knew all,--no
one must know. His lips must be sealed. The world should never point
at him,--for this at least!
But terrible as his suffering must be his vengeance. He who had robbed
him of his priceless gem, the wife of his soul, all he loved on
earth,--he should languish and rot under her very chambers, where she
might nightly hear his groans, without daring to plead for him. There
was no further time for parley. The stroke must fall at once! Too long
had he tarried. The Rubicon was passed.
Pacing up and down the gloomy chamber, Crescentius paused before the
sand-clock. It was near midnight. Yet sleep was far from caressing his
aching lids, as far as balm from his aching heart. He raised the candle
in an unconscious effort, to go to his wife's apartment. He lingered.
Then he placed the candle down again and seated himself in a chair. His
gaze fell upon a broad stain on the floor and like one fascinated he
followed its least meander to a distance of several feet from the door,
when suddenly a form met his eyes, whether the off-spring of his
delirious fancy or one of those inexplicable and tremendous phenomena,
which are incapable of human solution, while the secrets of death remain
such. His garb was that of a monk; the face bore the awful pallor of
the tomb, and a mournful tenderness seemed to struggle with the rigidity
of death. The phantom, if such it was, stood perfectly motionless
between Crescentius and the couch, in a few moments it grew indistinct
and finally faded into air.
It was then only, that Crescentius recovered breath and life, and
staggered back to his chair. A few moments' rally persuaded him that
what he had seen had been merely the illusion of his excited organs.
But a dreadful longing for death assailed him, a longing like that which
prompts men to leap when they gaze down a precipice. He rose,--again
the phantom seemed there,--this time distinct and clear. Terror rendered
him motionless; the room seemed to whirl round, a million lights danced
in his eyes, then he sank back covering his face with his hands.
When he again opened his eyes, his brain seemed shooting with the
keenest darts of pain. He endeavoured to pray, but could not. His
ideas rushed confusedly through each other. The taper was fast sinking
in the socket, and it seemed as if his mind would sink with it. He
emptied a goblet of wine which stood upon the table, and strove to
remember what he intended to do. It seemed a vain effort and he fell
back in his chair into a semi-conscious doze. An hour might have passed
thus, when he became aware of a slight crackling noise in his ears and
starting with a sensation of cold he looked round. The fire in the
chimney had burnt into red embers, and though his own form was lost in
the shadow of the chimney, the rest of the room was faintly illumined by
the crimson glow from the grate.
Suddenly he saw the tapestry figure of some mythical deity opposite his
own seat stir; the tapestry swelled out, then a head appeared, which
peered cautiously round. The body soon followed the head, and
Crescentius rose with a sigh of relief as he stood face to face with
Benilo. The Chamberlain's face was pale; his eyes, with their unsteady
glow, showed traces of wakefulness. He took from his doublet a scroll
which he placed into the outstretched hand of the Senator of Rome.
Mechanically Crescentius unrolled it. His hands trembled as he
superficially swept its contents.
"The barons pledge their support,--not a name is missing," Benilo broke
the silence in hushed tones.
"What is it to be?" questioned Crescentius.
"I speak for the extreme course and for Rome. For attack--sudden and
swift!"
There was a pause, Crescentius stared into the dying embers.
"Are all your plans complete?"
"The Romans wait impatiently upon my words. At the signal all Rome will
rise to arms!"
"But how about the Romans? Can they be depended upon?"
"I move them at the raising of my hand!"
There was another pause.
Crescentius appeared strangely abstracted.
"But what of Otto? What of Eckhardt? Do they scent the wind from
Castel San Angelo?"
"As for the Saxon cherub," Benilo replied with a disgusting smile, "he
is dreaming of his--"
He did not finish the sentence, for Crescentius cast such a terrible
look upon him, that the blood froze in the traitor's veins, and his eyes
sank before those blazing upon him. After a moment's hesitation he
continued, the shadow of a forced smile hovering round his thin,
quivering lips:
"When he is dead, we shall cause the Wonder-child to be canonized!"
But Crescentius was in no jocular mood.
"Have you chosen your men?" he queried curtly.
"They will be stationed in the labyrinth of the Minotaurus," Benilo
replied. "At the signal agreed upon, they will rush forth and seize the
King--"
As he spoke those words the Chamberlain gazed timidly into the Senator's
face.
"The signal will not fail," Crescentius replied firmly.
"Is the mausoleum prepared to withstand an assault?" Benilo questioned
guardedly.
"The hidden balistae have been disinterred. My Albanian stradiotes and
the Romagnole guards occupy the chief approaches. The upper galleries
are reserved for our Roman allies. They will never scale these walls
while Crescentius lives. Remember--the gates of Rome are to be closed.
We will smother the Saxon under our caresses! I must have Otto dead or
alive! Revenge and Death are now written on my standards! Up with the
flag of rebellion and perdition to the emperor and his hosts!"
The gray dawn was peeping into the windows of the Senator's chamber,
when Crescentius sought his couch for a brief and fitful repose.
*CHAPTER XIII*
*THE LION OF BASALT*
It was midnight of a dark and still evening on the Tiber and peace had
for the most part descended upon the great city. The lamps in the houses
were extinguished and the challenges of the watch alone were now and
then to be heard. The streets were deserted, for few ventured abroad
after night fall. Sluggishly the turbid tide of the Tiber rolled
towards ancient Portus. The moon was hidden behind heavy cloudbanks,
and when now and then it pierced a rift in the nebulous masses, it shed
a spectral light over the silent hills, but to plunge them back into
abysmal darkness.
The bells from distant cloisters and convents were pealing the midnight
hour when out of the gloom of the waters there passed a light skiff
wherein were seated two men, closely wrapped in their long, dark cloaks.
The one seated on the prow was bent almost double with age, and his long
beard swept the bottom of the skiff. He appeared indifferent to his
surroundings and stared straight before him into the darkness, while his
companion, constantly on the alert, never seemed to take his eyes from
the boatman who plied his oars in silence, causing the frail craft to
descend the river with great swiftness.
At last they made for the shore. An extensive mansion loomed out of the
gloom, which seemed to be the goal of their journey. Obeying the
whispered directions of the taller of his passengers, the boatman
steered his craft under a dark archway, whence a flight of stairs led up
to the door, of what appeared to be a garden pavilion. Swiftly the
sculler shot under the arch and in another moment drew up by the stairs.
Leaning heavily on the arm of his companion the soothsayer alighted from
the skiff with slow and uncertain steps and after ascending the
water-stairs his guide knocked three times at the door of the pavilion.
It was instantly opened and an African in fantastic livery, who seemed
to fill the office of Cubicular, beckoned them to enter. With all the
signs of exhaustion and the weariness of his years weighing heavily upon
him, the conjurer dropped into a seat, paying no heed whatever to his
surroundings nor to his companion, who had withdrawn into the shadows,
while he awaited the arrival of the woman, who had called on his skill.
He had not long to wait.
Noiselessly a door opened and the majestic and graceful form of a woman
glided into the pavilion, robed in a long black cloak and closely
veiled. She motioned to the attendants to withdraw and to the
astrologer to approach.
"Most learned doctor of astral science," she said in a soft clear voice
of command, "you have brought me the calculations which your learning
has enabled you to make as to the future of the persons whose nativities
were supplied to you?"
The astrologer had been seized with a sudden violent fit of coughing and
some moments elapsed ere he seemed able to speak.
So low and weak were his tones, that the woman could not understand one
word he uttered, and she began to exhibit unequivocal signs of
impatience, when the conjurer's voice somewhat improved.
"The horoscopes," he said in a strangely jarring tone, "are the most
wonderful that our science has ever revealed to me. They indicate most
amazing changes of life, and signs of imminent peril."
"You speak of one,--or of both?"
"Of both!"
"Give me the details of each horoscope!"
The astrologer nodded.
Theodora watched him from behind her veil as closely as he did her, for
ever and anon he stole furtive glances at her and was immediately seized
with his cough.
His voice grated strangely in her ear as he spoke.
"The first, whose nativity I have calculated, is that of one born thirty
years, one hundred and seventeen days, and ten hours from this moment.
It was a birth under the sign of the Serpent, at an hour charged with
vast possibilities for the future. At that instant the Zodiac was moved
by portentous lights and the earth shook with tremors as I have
ascertained in the records of our art!"
"What are the signs of the future?" the woman interrupted the speaker.
"What is past and gone, we all know, even without the aid of your
profound wisdom. What of the future, I ask?" she concluded imperiously.
"I hate to impart to you what I have found," said the astrologer
cringing. "It is terrible. The declination of the house of Death
stands close to the right ascension of the house of Life!"
Theodora gave a sudden start. For a moment she seemed to lose her
self-control. Her piercing eyes seemed to look the astrologer through
and through, though he had shrunk back into the wide girth of his
mantle.
"Give me the scroll!"
She stretched out a hand white as alabaster to take the parchment
whereon the astrologer had marked the rise and fall of the star records.
But, as if seized with a sudden fear, she withdrew the hand ere the man
of the stars could comply with her request.
"The second horoscope!" she spoke imperiously.
Again a long fit of coughing prevented the astrologer from speaking.
When it subsided, he said with profound solemnity, watching her
expression intently from between his half-closed lids:
"That other, whose nativity you have sent to me, shall find
death,--death, sudden and shameful--"
She stood rigid as a statue.
"Tell me more!" she gasped. "Tell me more!"
"He will die hated,--unlamented,--despised--"
She drew a deep breath.
"When shall that be?"
"There is at this moment a most ominous sign in the heavens," replied
the astrologer shrinking within himself. "Venus, who rules the skies is
obscured by too close attendance upon a lower and less honourable star."
Theodora held her breath.
"What comes after?" she whispered.
"The lore of astral combinations does not reveal such things. But
palmistry may aid, where the constellations fail. Deign to let me trace
the lines in the palm of your hand."
Flinging aside her last reserve, Theodora in her eagerness held out her
palm to the astrologer. He bent over it, without touching it, shaking
his head, and muttering:
"The line of life,--the line of love,--the line of death--"
As the astrologer pronounced the last word, his hand grasped with a
vice-like grip the one whose lines he had pretended to read, while with
the other, which had dropped the supporting staff, he pushed back the
loose sleeve of her gown, baring her arm almost to the shoulder,
constantly muttering:
"The line of Death,--the line of Death,--the line of Death!"
When Theodora first felt the tightening grip on her wrist, she tried to
withdraw her hand, but her strength was not equal to the task. She felt
the benumbing pressure of what she imagined were the astrologer's
fleshless claws, but when, with a motion almost too swift for one bent
with age and infirmity, he laid bare to the shoulder the marble
whiteness of her arm, she thought he had gone mad. But when the
astrologer's trembling finger pointed to the red birthmark on her arm,
just below her shoulder, resembling the claw of a raven, constantly
muttering: "The line of Death--the line of Death," she uttered a
piercing shriek for help, vainly endeavouring to shake him off.
A shadow dashed between the two, neither knew whence it came.
The astrologer saw the gleam of a dagger before his eyes, felt its point
strike against the corselet of mail beneath his cloak, felt the weapon
rebound and snap asunder, the fragments falling at his feet, and
releasing the woman, who stood like an image of stone, he dropped his
cloak and supporting staff, and clove with one blow of his short
double-edged sword the skull of his assailant to the neck. With a
piercing shriek Theodora rushed from the Pavilion, followed in mad
breathless pursuit by the pseudo-astrologer, who had dropped his false
beard with his other disguises and stood revealed to her terror-stricken
gaze as Eckhardt, the Margrave.
Without heeding the warning cry of Hezilo, his companion, he was bent
upon taking the woman. In the darkness he could hear the rush of her
frightened footsteps through the corridors; he seemed to gain upon her,
when her giant Africans rushing through another passage came between the
Margrave and his intended victim. Three steps did he make through the
press and three of her guards fell beneath his sword. But a stranger in
the labyrinth of the great pavilion, he could hardly hope to gain his
end, even if unimpeded, and Theodora's formidable body-guard still
outnumbered him three to one. Eckhardt's doom would have been sealed
had not at that very moment Hezilo appeared in the passage behind him
and laid an arresting hand upon his arm.
Before the harper's well-known presence the Africans fell back, raising
their dead from the blood-stained floor and skulking back into the dusk
of the corridor.
"You have no time to lose," urged the harper. "Follow me!--Speak
not,--question not. Remember your compact and your oath."
Eckhardt turned upon his guide like a lion at bay. His face was pale as
that of a corpse. His blood-shot eyes stared, as if they must burst
from their sockets; his hair bristled like that of a maniac.
"What care I?" he growled fiercely. "Compact or oath--what care I?"
"There are other considerations at stake," replied Hezilo calmly. "You
promised to be guided by my counsel. The hour of final reckoning is not
yet at hand."
Eckhardt's breast heaved so violently, that it almost deprived him of
the faculty of speech.
"Must I turn back at the very gates of fulfilment?" he burst forth at
last. But sheathing his weapon he reluctantly followed the harper and,
retracing their steps, they re-entered the Pavilion. In the slain
boatman they recognized the ghastly features of John of the Catacombs,
though the bravo's skull was literally cloven in twain and a strange
dread seized upon them at the terrible revelation. Eckhardt stood by
idly, while the harper insisted upon removing the body, and wrapping his
ghastly burden in his blood-stained monkish gown, showed small
repugnance to carrying the bravo's carcass to the landing, where he
fastened a short iron chain to the gruesome package and dropped it into
the muddy waves of the Tiber.
Dark clouds swept over the face of the moon and the chill wind of autumn
moaned dismally through the spectral pines, as the boat, propelled by
the sturdy arms of Hezilo, flew up stream over the murky, foam-crested
waves.
An icy hand seemed to grip Eckhardt's heart. The words wrung from the
dying wretch in the rock-caves under the Gemonian stairs had proved
true. In baring Theodora's left arm his eyes had fallen upon the
well-remembered birthmark resembling the raven claw. The terrible
revelation had for the nonce almost upset his reason, and caused him
prematurely to drop his mask. All clarity of thought, all fixedness of
purpose had deserted him; he felt as one stunned by the blinding blow of
a maze. Dazed he stared before him into the gloom of the autumnal
night; his hair dishevelled, his eyelids swollen, his lips compressed.
He could not have uttered a word had his life depended upon it. His
tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth; his brow was fevered,
yet his hands were cold as ice. At last then he had stood face to face
with the awful mystery, which had mocked his waking hours, his
dreams,--a mystery, even now but half guessed, but half revealed. He
tried to recall fragments of the monk's tale. But his brain refused to
work, steeped in the apathy of despair. The future hour must give birth
to the considerations of the final step, to the closing chapters of his
life. Yet he felt that delay would engender madness; long brooding had
shaken his reason and swift action alone could now save it from
tottering to a hopeless fall.
The frail craft shot round the elbow-like bend of the Tiber at the base
of Aventine when Hezilo for the first time broke the silence. He had
refrained from questioning or commenting on the result of their visit to
the Groves. Now, pointing to the ramparts of Castel San Angelo he
whispered into Eckhardt's ear:
"Are your forces beyond recall?"
Eckhardt stared up into the speaker's face, as if the latter had
addressed him in some strange tongue. Only after Hezilo had repeated
his question, Eckhardt roused himself from the lethargy, which benumbed
his senses and gazed in the direction indicated by the harper.
An errant moonbeam illumined just at this moment the upper galleries of
Hadrian's tomb. Straining his gaze towards the ramparts of the
formidable keep, Eckhardt strove to discover a reason for Hezilo's
warning. But the moon disappeared behind a bank of clouds and at that
moment the sculler ran in shore.
Unconsciously his hand tightened round the hilt of his sword.
"The earth breeds hard men and weak men," he muttered. "The gods can but
laugh at them or grow wroth with them. As for these Romelings,--they are
not worth destroying. They will perish of themselves."
"The hour is close at hand, when everything shall be known to you,"
Hezilo turned to Eckhardt at parting. "But three days remain to the
full of the moon."
Weary and sick at heart Eckhardt grasped the harper's proffered hand, as
they parted.
But he was in no mood to return within the four walls of his palace. He
was as one upon whom has descended a thunder bolt from Heaven.
The terrible revelation deprived him of his senses, of his energies, of
the desire to live,--and there was little doubt that this would have
been Eckhardt's last night on earth, had there not remained one purpose
to his life.
How small did even that appear by the magnitude of the crime, which had
been visited upon his head. The how and why and when remained as great
a mystery to him as ever. Eckhardt's memory roamed back into the years
of the past. He tried to recall every word Ginevra had spoken to him; he
tried to recall every wish her lips had expressed, he tried to recall
every unstinted caress. And with these memories there rose up before
his inner eye Ginevra's image and with it there welled up from his heart
an anguish so great, that it drove the nails of his fingers deep into
the flesh of his clenched hands.
He remembered her strange request never to inquire into her past, but to
love her and let his trust be the proof of his love. Then there came
floating faintly, like phantoms on the dark waves of his memory, her
inordinate desire for power, hinted rather than expressed,--then
darkness swallowed, everything else. Only boundless anguish remained,
fathomless despair. After a while his feelings suffered a reverse; they
changed to a hate of the woman as great as his love had been,--a hate
for the fateful siren, Rome, who had deprived him of all that was
dearest to him on earth.
Bending his solitary steps towards the Capitol, he saw the veil-like
mists gathering above the wild grass, which waves above the palaces of
the Caesars. On a mound of ruins he stood with folded arms musing and
intent. In the distance lay the melancholy tombs of the Campagna and
the circling hills faintly outlined beneath the pale starlight. Not a
breeze stirred the dark cypresses and spectral pines. There was
something weird in the stillness of the skies, hushing the desolate
grandeur of the earth below.
He had not gone very far when a shadow fell across his path. Looking up
he again found himself by the staircase of the Lion of Basalt. The
weird relic from the banks of the Nile filled him with a strange dread.
With a shudder he paused. Was it the ghastly and spectral light or did
the face of the old Egyptian monster wear an aspect as that of life?
The stony eye-balls seemed bent upon him with a malignant scowl and as
he passed on and looked behind they appeared almost preternaturally to
follow his steps. A chill sank into his heart when the sound of
footsteps arrested him and Eckhardt stood face to face with the hermit
of Gaeta. He beckoned to the monk to accompany him, vainly endeavouring
to frame the question, which hovered on his lips. The monk joined him
in silence. After walking some little way Nilus suddenly paused, fixing
his questioning gaze on the brooding face of his companion. Then a
strange expression passed into his eyes.
"Life is full of strange surprises. Yet we cling to it, just to keep
out of the darkness through which we know not the way."
Sick at heart Eckhardt listened. How little the monk knew, he thought,
and Nilus was staggered at the haggard expression of the Margrave's
face, as he stumbled blindly and giddily down the moonlit avenue beside
him.
"Would I had never seen her!" Eckhardt groaned. "In what a fair
disguise the fiend did come to tempt my soul!"
He paused. The monk drew him onward.
"Come with me to my hermitage! Thou art strangely excited and do what
thou mayest,--thou must follow out thy destiny! Hesitate not to confide
in me!"
"My destiny!" Eckhardt replied. "Monk, do not mock me! If thou hast
any mystic power, read my soul and measure its misery. I have no
destiny, save despair."
The monk regarded him strangely.
"Because a woman is false and thy soul is weak, thou needest not at once
make bosom friends with despair. It is a long time since I have been in
the world. It is a long time since I have abjured its vanities. Let
him who has withstood the terrible temptation, cast the first stone.
For the flesh is weak and the sin is as old as the world; And perchance
even the monk may be able to counsel, to guide thee in some
matters,--for verily thou standest on the brink of a precipice."
"I am well-nigh mad!" Eckhardt replied wearily. "Were there but a ray
of light to guide my steps."
Nilus pointed upward.
"All light flows from the fountain-head of truth. Be true to thyself!
Life is duty! In its fulfilment alone can there be happiness,--and in
the renunciation of that, which has been denied us by the Supreme
Wisdom. No more than thou canst reverse the wheel of time, no more
canst thou compel that dark power, Fate. And at best--what matters it
for the short space of this earthly existence? For believe me, the End
of Time is nigh,--and in the beyond all will be as if it had never
been."
Nilus paused and their eyes met. And in silence Eckhardt followed the
monk among the ruins of the latter's abode.
As the morning dawned, some fishermen dragging their nets off St.
Bartholomew's island pulled up from the muddy waves the body of an old
man clad in the loose garb of a monk. But as the day grew older a new
crime and fresh scandal filled Forum and wine shops and the incident was
forgotten ere night-fall.
*CHAPTER XIV*
*THE LAST TRYST*
The great clock on the tower of San Sebastian struck the second hour of
night. The air was so pure, so transparent, that against the horizon
the snow-capped summit of Soracte was visible, like a crown of
glittering crystal. Mysteriously the stars twinkled in the fathomless
blue of the autumnal night. Procession after procession traversed the
city. From their torches smoky spirals rose up to the starry skies.
The pale rays of the moon, the crimson glare of the torches, illumined
faces haggard with fear, seamed with anxiety and dread. Despite the late
hour, the people swarmed like ants, occupying every point of vantage,
climbing lantern poles and fallen columns, armed with clubs, halberds,
scythes, pitchforks and staves. Here and there strange muffled forms
were to be seen mingling with the crowds, whispering here and there a
word into the ear of a chance passerby and vanishing like phantoms into
the night.
Among the many abroad in the city at this hour was Eckhardt. He
mistrusted the Romans, he mistrusted the Senator, he mistrusted the
monks. The fire of his own consuming thoughts would not permit him to
remain within the four walls of his palace. Like a grim spectre of the
past he stalked through Rome, alone, unattended. How long would the
terrible mystery of his life continue to mock him? How much longer must
he bear the awful weight which was crushing his spirit with its
relentless agony? What availed his presence in Rome? The king had long
ceased to consult him on matters of state; Benilo and Stephania
possessed his whole ear--and Eckhardt was no longer in his counsels.
With a degree of anxiety, which he had in vain endeavoured to dispel,
Eckhardt had watched the growing intimacy between his sovereign and the
Senator's wife. Time and again he had, even at the risk of Otto's
fierce displeasure, warned the King against the danger lurking behind
Stephania's mask of friendship. Wearied and exasperated with his
importunities, Otto had asserted the sovereign, and Eckhardt's lips had
remained sealed ever since, though his watchfulness had not relaxed one
jot, and even while he endeavoured to lift the veil, which enshrouded
his own life, he remained circumspect and on the alert, true to his
promise to the Empress Theophano, now in her grave.
The sounds which on this night fell from every side on Eckhardt's ear
were not of a nature to dispel his misgivings of the Roman temper. As
by a subtle intuition he felt that they were ripe for a change, though
when and whence and how it would come he could not guess. His own mood
was as dark as the sky-gloom lowering over the Seven Hills. Rome had
made of him what he was, Rome had poisoned his life with the viper-sting
of Ginevra's terrible deed, and now he longed for nothing more than for
some great event, which would toss him into the foaming billows of
strife, therein to sink and to go under for ever.
Drawing his mantle closer about him and lowering the vizor of his
helmet, Eckhardt slowly made his way through the congested throngs. He
had not proceeded very far, when he felt some one pluck him by the
mantle. Turning abruptly and shaking himself free, from what he
believed to be the clutches of a beggar, he was about to dismiss the
offender with an oath, when to his surprise he beheld a woman dressed in
the garb of a peasant, but clearly disguised, as her speech gave the lie
to her affectation of low birth.
"You are Eckhardt, the Margrave?" she asked timidly.
"I am Eckhardt," the general replied curtly.
"Then lose no time to save him, else he will run into perdition as sure
as yonder moon shines down upon us. Oh! He knows not the dangers that
beset him;--on my knees I implore you---save him!"
"When I understand the meaning of your gibberish, doubt not I will serve
you! I pray you give me a glimpse of its purport," replied the
Margrave.
The woman seemed so entirely wrapt up in her own business that she did
not heed Eckhardt's question.
"I dare not whisper the secret to any one else,--and my Lord Benilo bade
me seek you in case of danger. And if you cannot move him from his mad
purpose, he is lost, for never was he so bent to have his own way. If
you come with me, you will find him waiting on the terrace,--and do your
best to lead him back,--else he will come to as evil an end as a wasp in
a bee's hive,--for all the honey!"
"And whom shall I find on the terrace?" asked Eckhardt with
ill-concealed impatience. He liked not the babbling crone. "Cease your
spurting and speak plainly, else go your way:--I am not for such as
you!"
"It wants but a moment--whom else but your King, for whom she has sent
under pretext of important business,--aye,--at this very hour and on the
terraces of the Minotaurus."
"Otto,--important business,--Minotaurus--" repeated Eckhardt. "Who has
sent for him?"
"Stephania."
Eckhardt shrugged his shoulders.
"What is it to me? Go your way, hoary pander,--what is it to me?
Hasten to him, who has paid you to tell this tale and get your ransom
from him! I wager, he knows the style of old!"
The woman did not move.
"Nay, my lord, that we all should go mad at one time," she sobbed with
evidently strong emotions, which were perhaps not caused by the motive
alleged. "Then I must away and fulfil his destiny,--for a man cannot
serve two masters,--nor a woman either."
There was something in the speaker's tone that caused a shadow of
apprehension to rise in Eckhardt's mind. Was there more behind all this
than she cared to confess? "Fulfil his destiny"--these words at least
were not her own. A grave fear seized him. Otto might be
ambushed,--carried away,--he might rot in Castel San Angelo, and no man
the wiser for it.
"Stay! I will go and cross the boy's path to his guilty paradise,"
repeated Eckhardt after permitting the woman to draw away from him at a
very slow and wistful pace and overtaking her with a couple of strides.
"Lead on, but do not speak! I have no tongue to answer you!"
The woman immediately took the well-known route towards the terraces of
the Minotaurus and soon they reached the spot. A covered archway at one
extremity admitted on a terrace, flanked on one side by a high dead wall
of the Vatican, on the other by a steep and precipitous slope, wooded
with orange trees and myrtle. This spot, little frequented in day time,
was deserted by night. The woman whispered that it was here, she
expected the King, and cautioning Eckhardt to remove him with all speed
from this danger zone, which offered no means of escape, she
precipitately retired, leaving Eckhardt alone to meditate upon what he
had heard, and to pursue his adventure in the darkness.
The Margrave hastened along the archway and peering into the shadows he
quickly discerned the slim outline of a man, wrapt in an ample cloak,
leaning against the dead wall at the end of the platform. His eyes
seemed fixed intently upon the heavens, while an expression of
impatience reigned uppermost in the pale, thoughtful face.
Eckhardt quickly approached the edge of the terrace, where he had
discovered Otto, and although the King kept his face averted, he could
scarcely hope to escape recognition.
"Otto--the King--can it be?" Eckhardt said with feigned surprise, as he
faced the youth. "I beg your majesty's pardon,--are you a lodger in
yonder palace or how chances it that you are here alone,--unattended?"
"Ay--since you know me," replied Otto with a forced smile, "I will not
deny my name nor business either. The ladies of the Senator's court are
fair, and an ancient crone whispered to me at my devotions to Our Lady,
on this terrace and at this hour, if I prayed heartily, I should have
good news. Matter enough, I ween, to stir one's curiosity, but,--I
fear,--I should be alone."
The blood surged thickly through Eckhardt's brain. He could scarcely
breathe, as he listened to this falsehood and for a few moments he gazed
in silence on the flushed and paling visage of the youth.
At last he spoke.
"Is it possible that the air of Rome can even change a nature like yours
to utter a falsehood? My liege,--you are not yourself!" Eckhardt
exclaimed, discarding all reserve, for he knew there was no time to be
lost. And if perchance the fair serpent that had lured him hither was
nigh, his words should strike her heart with shame and dismay. "It is to
Stephania you go,--it is Stephania, whom you await!"
There was a brief pause during which a hectic flush chased the deep
pallor from Otto's face, as he passively listened to the unaccustomed
speech.
"Stephania," he repeated absently, and suffering his cloak to drop aside
in his absorption, he revealed the richness and splendour of the garb
beneath.
"The wife of the Senator of Rome!" Eckhardt supplemented sternly.
"And what if it be?" Otto responded with mingled petulancy and
confusion. "What if the Senator's consort has vouchsafed me a private
audience?"
"Are you beside yourself, King Otto? You venture into this place
alone,--unattended,--to please some woman's whim,--a woman who is
playing with you,--and will lead you to perdition?"
"How dare you arraign your King and his deeds?" Otto exclaimed fiercely.
"I am here to save you--from yourself! You know not the consequences of
your deed!"
"Let them be what they will! I am here, to abide them!"
Eckhardt crossed his arms over his broad chest as he regarded the
offspring of the vanquisher of the Saracens with mingled scorn and pity.
"The spell is heavy upon you, here among the crimson and purple flowers,
where the Siren sings you to destruction," he said with forced calmness.
"But you shall no longer listen to her voice, else you are lost.
Otto,--Otto,--away with me! We will leave this accursed spot and Rome
together--for ever! There is no other refuge for you from the spell of
the Sorceress."
"Not for all the lands on which the sun sets to-night will I refuse
obedience to Stephania's call," Otto replied. "You sorely mistake your
place and presume too much on the authority placed into your hands by
the august Empress, my mother. But attempt not to exercise mastery over
your King or to bend him to your will and purpose--for he will do as he
chooses!"
"It has come to this then," replied Eckhardt without stirring from the
spot and utterly disregarding Otto's increasing nervousness. "It has
come to this! Are there no chaste and fair maidens in your native land?
Maidens of high birth and lineage, fit to adorn an emperor's couch?
Must you needs come hither,--hither,--to this thrice accursed spot, to
love an alien, to love a Roman, and of all Romans, a married woman--the
wife of your arch-enemy, the Senator? Are you blind, King Otto? Can
you not see the game? You alone--of all? Deem you the proud, merciless
Stephania, the consort of the Senator, who hates us Teutons more than he
does the fiend himself,--would meet you here in this secluded spot, with
her husband's knowledge,--with her husband's connivance,--simply to
listen to your dreams and vagaries? Can you not see that you are but her
dupe? King Otto, you have refused to listen to my warnings:--there is
sedition rife in Rome. Retire to the Aventine, bar the gates to every
one,--I have despatched my fleetest messenger to Tivoli to recall our
contingents,--before dawn my Saxons shall hammer at the gates of Rome!"
Otto gazed at the speaker as if the latter addressed him in some unknown
tongue.
"Sedition in Rome?" he replied like one wrapt in a dream. "You are mad!
The Romans love me! Even as I do them! I will not stir an inch! I
remain!"
Eckhardt breathed hard. He must carry his point; he felt oppressed by
the sense of a great danger.
"And thus it befalls," he said laughing aloud with the excess of
bitterness, "that to this hour I owe the achievement of knowing the
cause why you have declined the demands of the Electors; that I can bear
to them the answer to their importunities; that in this hour I have
learned the true reason of your refusing to listen to your German
subjects, who crave your return, who love you and your glorious house!
You say you will remain! Revel then in your Eden, until she is weary of
you and Crescentius spares her the pains of the finish."
"What are you raving?" exclaimed Otto furiously.
"You are mad for love, King Otto, and a frenzied lover is the worst of
fools!"
The King blushed, with the consciousness either of his innocence or
guilt.
"Since you accuse me," he spoke more calmly, but a strange fire burning
in his eyes, "I do not deny it,--Stephania requested a meeting on
matters pertaining to Rome, and I have come! And here," Otto continued,
inflexible determination ringing in his tones--"and here I will await
her, if all hell or the swords of Rome barred the way. Do you hear me,
Eckhardt? Too long have I been the puppet of the Electors. Too long
have I suffered your tyranny. My will is supreme,--and who so defies
it, is a traitor!"
Eckhardt gazed fixedly into his sovereign's eyes.
"King Otto! Is it possible that you beguile yourself with these
specious pretexts? That you assail the honour of those who have
followed you hither, who have twice conquered Rome for you? Ay,--no one
so blind as he who will not see! I tell you, Stephania is luring you
into the betrayal of your honour,--perhaps that of the Senator,--who
knows? I tell you she is deceiving you! Or,--if she pretends to love,
it is to betray you! You cannot resist her magic,--it is not in
humanity to do so, were it thrice subdued by years of fasting. If you
repel her now, your victory will be bought with your destruction! Her
undying hatred will mark you her own! But if you succumb you are
lost,--the Virgin herself could not save you! You shall not remain!
You shall not meet her,--not as long as the light of these eyes can
watch over your credulous heart!"
Otto had advanced a step. Vainly groping for words to vent his wrath,
he paced up and down before the trusted leader of his hosts.
At last he paused directly before him.
"My Lord Eckhardt," he said, "it might content you to rake amidst the
slime of the city for matter, with which to asperse a pure and beautiful
woman,--as for myself, while my hand can clutch the hilt of a sword, you
shall not!" he exclaimed, yielding at last to the voice of his fiery
nature.
"Strike then," Eckhardt replied, raising his arms. "I have no weapon
against my King!"
Otto pushed the half drawn sword back into the scabbard.
"For this," he said, "you shall abide a reckoning."
"Then let it be now!" Eckhardt exclaimed in a wild jeering tone. "Go
and bid Stephania arm her champion, one against whom I may enter the
lists, and I swear to you, that from his false breast I will tear the
truth, which you refuse to accept, coming from your friends! But I am
not in a mood to be trifled with. You shall not remain, King Otto, and
I swear by these spurs, I will rather kill your paramour, than to see
you betrayed to the doom which awaits you."
"Are life and death so absolutely in the hands of the Margrave of
Meissen?" replied Otto in a towering rage. "In the face of your
defiance I will tarry here and abide my fortune."
And clutching Eckhardt's mantle, in his wrath, his eye met the eye of
the fearless general.
With a jerk the latter freed himself from Otto's grasp.
"A fool in love: A thing that men spurn and women deride."
Otto's face turned deadly pale.
"You dare? This to your King?"
"I dare everything to save you--everything! Otto--the Romans mistrust
you! They love you no longer! They are ripe for a change! The longer
you tarry, the fiercer will be the strife. Crescentius would rather
destroy the whole city than let it be permanently wrested from his
power. You have been his dupe,--hark--do you hear those voices?"
"Of all my enemies he is the one sincere."
"Then he were the more dangerous! A fanatic is always more powerful
than a knave. Do you hear these voices, King Otto?"
Otto was pacing the terrace with feverish impatience.
"I hear nothing! I hear nothing! Go--and leave me!"
"And know you sold,--betrayed,--by that--"
A shadow crossed his path, noiseless on the velvety turf.
Before them stood Stephania.
"Finish your words, my Lord Eckhardt," she said facing the Margrave.
"Pray, let not my presence mellow your speech."
"And it shall not!" retorted Eckhardt hotly.
"And it shall!" thundered Otto rushing upon him. "Upon your life,
Eckhardt, one insult and--"
Stephania laid a tranquillizing finger on Otto's arm.
"I have heard all," she said, pale as marble, but smiling. "And I
forgive."
"You have heard his accusation--and you forgive, Stephania?" cried Otto,
gazing incredulously into her eyes.
"You had faith in me--I thank you--Otto!" she replied softly, and
sweeping by Eckhardt, she extended both hands to the King. He grasped
them tightly within his own and, bending over them, pressed his fevered
lips upon them.
Suddenly all three raised their heads and listened.
A sound not unlike a distant trumpet blast, rent the stillness of night,
seemed to swell with the echoes from the hills, then died away.
"What is this?" the German leader questioned, puzzled.
"The monks are holding processions,--the streets are swarming with the
cassocks,--their chants can be heard everywhere."
Stephania gazed at Otto, as she answered Eckhardt's question.
The Margrave scrutinized her intently.
"I knew not the Senator loved the black crows so well, as to furnish
music to their march," he replied slowly. Then he turned to the woman.
"Hear me, Stephania! You see me here, but you know not that I have
ordered all my men-at-arms to attend me at the gates below! If the
King's foolish passion and blind trust have been the means to execute
your hellish design, know that with my own hand I will avenge your
remorseless treachery, for I will slay you if aught befall him in this
night, and hang your lord, the Senator of Rome, from the ramparts of
Castel San Angelo,--I swear it by the Five Wounds!"
For a moment Stephania stood petrified with terror and unable to utter a
single word in response. Then she turned to Otto.
"This man is mad! Order him begone,--or I will go myself. He frightens
me!"
She made a movement as if to depart, but Otto, divining her intention,
barred the way.
"Stephania--remain!" he entreated. "Our general is but prompted by an
over great zeal for our welfare," he concluded, restraining himself with
an effort. Then breathing hard, he extended his arm, and with flaming
eyes spoke to Eckhardt:
"Go!"
"I go!" the general replied with heavy heart. "If anything unusual
happens in this night, King Otto, remember my words--remember my
warning. My men are stationed at the wicket, through which you came.
There is no other exit,--save to perdition. I leave you--may the Saints
keep you till we meet again!"
With these words Eckhardt gathered his mantle about him and stalked
away, leisurely at first, as if to lull to sleep every inkling of
suspicion in Stephania, then faster and faster, and at last he fairly
flew up the winding road of Aventine. Those whom he met shied out of
his path, as if the fiend himself was coming towards them and shaking
their heads in grave wonder and fear, muttered an Ave and told their
beads.
Strange noises were in the air. The chants of the monks were
intermingled with the fierce howls and shrieks of a mob, harangued by
some demagogue, who fed their discontentment with arguments after their
own heart. Everywhere Eckhardt met skulking countenances, scowling
faces, while half-suppressed oaths fell on his ear. Arrived on the
Aventine he immediately ordered Haco, Captain of the Imperial Guards, to
his presence.
"Bridle your charger and ride to Tivoli as if ten thousand devils were
on your heels," he said, handing the young officer an order he had
hurriedly and barbarously scratched on a fragment of parchment. "Pass
through the Tiburtine gate and return with sunrise,--life and death
depend upon your speed!"
Withdrawing immediately, Haco saddled his charger and soon the echoes of
his horse's hoofs died away in the distance, while Eckhardt hurriedly
entered the palace.
After he had vanished from the labyrinth of the Minotaurus, Otto and
Stephania faced each other for a moment in silence. The Southern night
was very still. The noises from the city had died down. By countless
thousands the stars shone in the deep, fathomless heavens.
It was Otto who first broke the heavy silence.
"Stephania," he said, "why are you here to-night?"
"What a strange question," she replied, "and from you."
"Yes--from me! From me to you. Is it because--"
He paused as if oppressed by some great dread. He dared not trust
himself to speak those words in her hearing.
"Is it because I love you?" she complemented the sentence, drawing him
down beside her. But the seed of doubt Eckhardt had planted in his
heart had taken root.
"Stephania," he said with a strange voice, without replying directly to
her question. "I have trusted in you and I will continue to trust in
you, even despite the whisperings of the fiend,--until with my own eyes
I behold you faithless. Eckhardt has been with me all day," he continued
with unsteady voice, "he has warned me against you, he has warned me to
place no trust in your words, that you are but the instrument of
Crescentius; that he has organized a mutiny; that he but awaits your
signal for my destruction. He has warned me that you have planned my
seizure and selected this spot, to prevent intervention. Stephania,
answer me--is it so?"
For a moment the woman gazed at him in dread silence, unable to speak.
"Did you believe?" she faltered at last with averted gaze, very pale.
"I am here!" he replied.
Stephania laughed nervously.
"I had forgotten!" she stammered. "How good of you!"
Otto regarded her with silent wonder, not unmingled with fear, for her
countenance betrayed an anxiety he had never read in it before. And
indeed her restlessness and terror seemed to increase with every moment.
She answered Otto's questions evidently without knowing what she said,
and her gaze turned frequently and with a devouring expression of
anxiety and dread toward Castel San Angelo. Maddened and desperate with
her own perfidy, she began to ruminate the most violent extremities,
without perceiving one exit from the labyrinth of guile. The
significance of Otto's question, his earnestness and his faith in
herself put the crown on her misery. Her eyes grew dim and her senses
were failing. Her limbs quaked and for a moment she was unable to speak.
Otto bent over her in positive fear. The pale face looked so deathlike
that his heart quailed at the thought of life,--life without her.
"I cannot bear it--I cannot bear it," he muttered, holding her hands in
his tight grasp.
It seemed as if she had read his inmost, unspoken thoughts.
"And yet it must come at last!" she replied softly, as from the depths
of a dream. "What is this short span of life for such love as ours?
And,--had we even everything we could crave, all the world can
give,--would there not be a sting in each moment of happiness at the
thought--"
She paused. Her head drooped.
"My happiness is to be with you," he stammered. "I cannot count the
cost!"
"Think you that I would count the cost?" she said. "And you love me
despite of all those dreadful things, which he--Eckhardt--has poured
into your ear?" she continued with low, purring voice.
"Love you--love you!" he repeated wildly. "Oh, I have loved you all my
life, even before I saw you,--are you not the embodied form of all those
vague dreams of beauty, which haunted my earliest childhood? That
beauty, which I sought yearningly, but oh! so vainly in all things, that
breathe the divine essence: the lustrous darkness of night, the glories
of sunset, the subtle perfume of the rose, the all-reflecting ocean of
poetry in which the Universe mirrors itself? In all have I found the
same deep void, which only love can fill. Not love you," he continued
covering both hands he held in his with fevered kisses, "oh, Stephania,
I love you better than myself,--better than all things,--here and
hereafter."
Almost paralyzed with fear she listened to his mad pleading.
"And can nothing--nothing,--destroy this love you have for me?" she
faltered.
He took her yielding form in his arms. He drew her closer and closer to
his heart.
"Nothing,--nothing,--nothing."
"I love you--Otto--" she whispered deliriously.
"To the end, dearest,--to the end!"
From a tavern at the foot of the hill the sounds of high revelry were
borne up to them. The air was filled with the odour of dead leaves and
dying creation, that subtle premonition of the end to come.
"And you have anxiously waited my coming?" she said, hiding her face in
his arms.
"Oh, Stephania! The hour-glass, with which passion measures a lover's
impatience, is a burning torch to his heart."
Supreme stillness intervened again.
Stephania raised her head like a deer in covert, listening for the
hunters, listening for the baying of the hounds, coming nearer and
nearer. Gladly at this moment would she have given her life to undo
what she had done. But it was too late. Even this expiation would not
avail! There was nothing now to do, but to nerve herself for that
supreme moment, when all would be severed between them for aye and ever;
when she would stand before him the embodiment of deception; when he
would spurn her as one spurns the reptile, that repays the caressing
hand with its deadly sting; when he would curse her perhaps,--cast from
him for ever the woman who had cut the thread of the life he had laid at
her feet--and all, for what?
That Johannes Crescentius, the Senator of Rome might again come into his
own, that he might again lord the rabble which now skulked through the
streets to avenge some imaginary wrong on the head of the youth, whose
love for them was to be the pass word for his destruction.
And Johannes Crescentius was her husband and lord. He loved her with as
great a love as his nature was capable of, and whatever faults might be
laid at the door of his regime, if faults they could even be termed in a
lawless, feudal age, that knew no right save might,--to her he had never
been untrue.
Stephania endeavoured to persuade herself that, what she had done, she
had done for the good of Rome. Monstrous deception! She despised the
mongrel rabble too heartily to even have raised a finger in its behalf.
If they starved, would Crescentius give them bread? If they
froze--would Crescentius clothe them? Then there remained but the
question, should a Roman govern Rome, or the alien,--the foreigner. Was
it for her to decide? How unworthy the cause of the sacrifice she was
about to bring on the altar of her happiness. But which ever way the
tongue of the scales inclined,--it was too late!
Otto had buried his head on Stephania's bosom. She had encircled it
with her arms and with gentle fingers that sent a delirium through his
brain, she stroked his soft brown hair, while the cry of Delilah hovered
on her lips.
He looked up into her eyes.
"Stephania,--why are you here to-night?" he whispered again, and he felt
the tremor which quivered through her body.
"I came to bring you the answer which you craved at our last meeting,"
she replied softly. "Can you guess it?"
"Then you have chosen," he gasped, as if he were suddenly confronted
with the crisis in his existence, when that which he held dearest must
either slip away from him for ever or remain his through all eternity.
"I have chosen!" she whispered, her arms tightening round him, as if she
would protect him against all the world.
"Kiss me," she moaned.
One delirious moment their lips met. They remained locked in tight
embrace, lip to lip, heart to heart.
There was a brief breathless silence.
Suddenly the great bell of the Capitol rolled in solemn and majestic
sounds upon the air, and was answered from all the belfries of Rome.
But louder than the pealing tocsin, above the wild screaming and
clanging of the bells rose the piercing cry:
"Death to the Saxon! Death to the King!"
They both raised their heads and listened. With wild-eyed wonder Otto
gazed into Stephania's eyes. The marble statues around them were hardly
as white as her features.
"What is this?" he questioned.
There was a stir in the depths of the streets below. Shouts and jeers
of strident voices were broken by authoritative commands. The tramp of
mailed feet was remotely audible, but above all the hubbub and din rose
the cry:
"Death to the Saxon! Death to the King!"
When the first peals of the great bell quivered on the silent night air,
Stephania had, with a low wail, encircled Otto's head with her arms,
pressed him closely to her, as if to shield him from harm. Then, as
louder and wilder the iron tongues shrieked defiance through the air,
as, turning her head, she saw the fatal spear points of the Albanians
gleaming through the thicket, she suddenly shook him off. With a
stifled outcry, she rose to her feet; so abruptly that Otto staggered
and would have fallen, had he not in time caught himself with the aid of
a branch.
To the King it gave the impression of a wild hideous dream. Like one
dazed, he stared first at the woman, then down the declivity.
Directly beneath where he stood a scribe was haranguing the crowds,
descanting on the ancient glory of the Romans and exhorting his
listeners to exterminate all foreigners. From Castel San Angelo came an
incessant sound of trumpets, which, mingling with the brazen roar of
bells seemed to shake the earth. Torches lighted the streets with their
smoky crimson glare. People hurried hither and thither, jostling,
pushing, trampling upon each other like black shadows, like living
phantoms. The fiery glow, the voices of the angry mob, the pealing of
the bells,--they all struck Stephania's heart with a thousand talons of
remorse and shame. Fearstruck and trembling, she gazed into the pale
face of Theophano's son.
Otto was watching the distant pandemonium as one would gaze upon some
strange, hideous ceremonial of occult meaning,--then he turned slowly to
Stephania.
For a moment they faced each other in silence, then he stroked the
disordered hair from his forehead like one waking from a dream.
"You have betrayed me."
Her lips were tightly compressed; she made no reply.
The next moment he was on his knees before her.
"Forgive me, forgive me," he faltered, "I knew not what I said!"
She breathed hard. For a moment she closed her eyes in mortal anguish.
"Then you still believe in me?" She spoke hardly above a whisper.
"With all my heart," he replied, grasping her hands and covering them
with kisses. For a moment she suffered him to exhaust his endearments,
then she jerked them away from him.
"Then bid your hopes and dreams farewell and scatter your faith to the
winds," she shrieked, almost beside herself with the memory of her vow
and its consequences. "You are betrayed,--and I have betrayed you!"
Otto had staggered to his feet and gazed upon the beautiful apparition
who faced him like some avenging fury, as if he thought that she had
gone suddenly mad. For a moment she paused, as if summoning supreme
energy for the execution of her task, as if to lash herself into a
paroxysm sufficient to make her forget those accusing eyes and his
all-mastering love.
"I have betrayed you, Kong Otto! I, Stephania, a woman! Ah! You
believed my words! You were vain enough to imagine that the wife of the
Senator of Rome could love you,--you,--her greatest foe, you, the Saxon,
the alien, the intruder, who came here to rob us of our own, to wrest
the sceptre from the rightful lord of the Seven Hills. You hoped
Stephania would aid you to realize your mad dreams! How
unsophisticated, how deliciously innocent is the King of the Germans!
Know then that I have lied to you, when I feigned interest in your
cause, know that I have lied to you when I professed to love you! Love
you," she cried, while her heart was breaking with every word she hurled
against him, who listened to her speech in frozen terror. "Love you!
Fool! And you were mad enough to believe it! Do you hear those bells?
Do you hear the great tocsin from the Capitol? Do you hear the alarums
from the ramparts of Castel San Angelo? They are calling the Romans to
arms! They are summoning the Romans to revolt! Do you hear those
shouts? Death to the Germans? They are for you,--for you,--for you!"
Again she paused, breathing hard, collecting all her woman's strength to
finish what she had begun.
The end had come,--her task must be finished.
Her voice now assumed its natural tones, the more dreadful in their
import, as she spoke in the old deep, soulful accents.
"I have lulled you to sleep," she continued, breaking the bridge, which
led back into the past, span by span,--"that the Senator of Rome may
once again come into his own! I have pretended interest in your monkish
fancies, that Rome may once more shake off the invader's accursed yoke.
I am a Roman, King Otto,--and I hate you,--hate you with every beat of
my heart, that beats for Rome. King Otto, you are doomed."
He had listened to her words with wide, wondering eyes, his heart frozen
with terror and anguish, his face pale as that of a corpse, returned
from its grave. He heard voices in the distance and the tread of armed
feet coming nearer and nearer. Yet he stirred not. His tongue clove to
the roof of his mouth. There were strange rushing sounds in his ears,
like mocking echoes of Stephania's words.
At last his lips moved, while with a desperate effort he tried to shake
off the spell.
"May God forgive you, Stephania," he gasped like a drowning man, reeled
and caught himself, gazing upon her with delirious, burning eyes.
Closer and closer came the tramp of mailed feet.
Terror struck, Stephania gazed into Otto's face. The fiercest
denunciation would not have so completely unnerved her as the simple
words of the youth. She almost succumbed under the weight of her
anguish.
"Fly,--King Otto,--fly,--save yourself," she gasped, staggering toward
him in the endeavour to shake off the fatal torpor which had seized his
limbs. But he saw her not, he heard not her warning. Listlessly he
gazed into space.
But had those who rushed down the avenue been his enemies and death his
certain lot, there would not have been time for flight.
Stephania heaved a sigh of relief as in their leader she recognized the
Margrave of Meissen, followed by a score or more of the Saxon guard.
Her own fate she never gave a thought.
"Do you hear those sounds?" thundered the gaunt German leader, rushing
with drawn sword upon the scene and pausing breathlessly before
Stephania's victim. "Do you hear the great bell of the Capitol, King
Otto? All Rome is in revolt! Did I not warn you against the wiles of
the accursed sorceress, who, like a vampire fed on your heart's blood?
But by the Almighty God, she shall not live to enjoy the fruits of her
hellish treason."
And suiting the action to the word, Eckhardt rushed upon Stephania, who
stood calmly awaiting his onslaught and seemed to invite the stroke
which threatened her life, for her lips curled in haughty disdain and
her gaze met Eckhardt's in lofty scorn.
The sight of her peril accomplished what Stephania's efforts had failed
to do. Swift as thought Otto had hurled himself between Eckhardt and
his intended victim.
"Back," he thundered with flaming eyes. "Only over my dead body lies
the way to her!"
Eckhardt's arm dropped, while a wrathful laugh broke from his lips.
"You are magnificent, King Otto! Defend the woman who has foully
betrayed you! Be it so! We have no time for argument. Her life is
forfeited and by the Eternal God, Eckhardt never broke his oath. Follow
me! We must reach the Aventine, ere the Roman rabble bar the way. We
are not strong enough to break through their numbers and they swarm like
ants."
Otto stirred not.
Calmly he gazed at the Margrave, as if the danger did in no wise concern
him. And while Eckhardt stamped his feet in impotent rage, mingling a
score or more pagan imprecations with the very unchristian oaths he
muttered between his clenched teeth, Otto turned to Stephania. His
voice was calm and passionless as one's who has emerged from a terrible
ordeal and has nothing more to lose, nothing more to fear.
"What will you do?" he said. "The streets are no safe thoroughfare for
you in this night."
"I know not,--I care not," she replied with dead voice, from which all
its bewitching tones had faded.
"Then you must come with us!" he said. "My men shall safely conduct you
to Castel San Angelo. You have the word of their King!"
"By the flames of purgatory! Are you stark mad, King Otto?" roared
Eckhardt, almost beside himself with rage. "Come with us she shall, but
as hostage for Crescentius,--and eye for eye,--tooth for tooth!"
He did not finish. Otto waved his hand petulantly.
"The King of the Germans has pledged his word for Stephania's safe
conduct, and the King of the Germans will be obeyed," he spoke, his
voice the only calm and passionless thing in all the storm and uproar,
which assailed them on all sides. "Through the secret passage lies her
only safety. She cannot go as she came!"
Eckhardt's eyes fairly blazed with rage.
"Secret passage!" he roared, nervously gripping the hilt of his enormous
sword. "Secret passage? Are you raving, King Otto? What secret
passage?"
But vainly did the Margrave endeavour to make his gestures explain his
denial. Otto cared not, if indeed he noted them at all.
He beckoned to Stephania.
"Come with us!" he spoke in the same apathetic, listless tone. "Fear
nothing. You have the word of the German King,--he has never broken
it!"
Whether the terrible reproach implied in his words increased the
stifling anguish in her heart, whether she dared not trust herself to
speak, Stephania silently turned to go. But divining her intent, Otto
caught at her mantle.
"Now by all the fiends!" shouted Eckhardt, unable longer to restrain
himself, dashing between Stephania and the King and severing the
latter's hold on the woman--"Since your heart is set upon it, I will not
harm the--"
He paused involuntarily.
For from Otto's eyes there flashed upon him such a terrible look that
even the old, practiced warrior stepped back abashed.
"Speak the word and I will slay you with my own hands!" spoke the son of
Theophano, and for a moment subject and king faced each other in the
dread silence with flaming eyes, and faces from which every trace of
colour had faded.
Eckhardt lowered his weapon.
His countenance betrayed untold anxiety.
"You invite certain destruction, King Otto," he remonstrated with
subdued voice. "What matters it, if her countrymen do slay her? One
serpent the less in Rome! Your mercy leads you to perdition,---what
mercy has she shown to you?"
Otto had relapsed into his former state of apathy.
"She goes with us," he said like an automaton, that knows but one
speech. "Through the secret passage lies her only safety."
"She will betray it and you and all of us," growled the German leader,
whose very beard seemed to bristle with wrath at Otto's obstinacy.
Otto shrugged his shoulders.
"I have spoken!"
"Guards, close round!" thundered Eckhardt. "And every dog of a Roman
who approaches upon any pretext whatsoever,--strike him dead without
word or parley!"
The Saxon spearmen who had guarded the approach to the avenue gathered
hurriedly round them. For at that moment the great bell of the Capitol,
whose tolling had ceased for a time, began its clamour anew and the
shouts of the masses, subdued and hushed during the interval, rose with
increased fury. They drowned the great sob of anguish, which had welled
up from Stephania's heart, but when Otto, his attention distracted for
the nonce by the uproar, turned round, the woman had gone.
Nor did Eckhardt, inwardly rejoicing over the revelation, grant him one
moment's respite. Surrounded by his trusty Saxon spears, Otto felt
himself hurried along towards the gates of his palace, which they
reached in safety, the insurrection having not yet spread to that
region.
Vainly had he strained his gaze into the haze of the moonlit night. The
end had come,--Stephania had gone.
When he reached his chamber, Otto sank senseless on the floor.
*CHAPTER XV*
*THE STORM OF CASTEL SAN ANGELO*
The sun of autumn hung a bloody circle over Rome, but seemed to give
neither light nor warmth. The city itself presented a seething cauldron
of rebellion. The gates had been closed against the advancing Germans
and when, with the first streak of dawn, Haco had arrived under the
Marian hill with the contingents from Tivoli, they found themselves
before a city, which had to be reconquered ere they could even join the
comparatively weak garrison on the Aventine, where Otto was a prisoner
in his own palace. During the night Eckhardt had assayed to reach a
place of concealment on the Tiburtine road, where he awaited the arrival
of his forces, which he had immediately marshalled in their respective
positions. Castel San Angelo rested on an impregnable rock, but
Eckhardt had sworn a terrible oath, that he would scale its walls before
the sun of another day rose behind the Alban hills; and although a rain
of arrows and bolts, so dense and deadly that it threatened to break the
line of the assailants, was poured into the German ranks, it did not
stay their determined advance.
The first line of assault consisted of heavy-armed foot-soldiers with
round bucklers, short swords and massive battle-axes. Forming in close
phalanx, these men of gigantic size, in hauberks and round helmets,
fixed shield to shield like an iron wall, advanced in dense array to the
charge. They were led on the right wing by the imperial guard, whose
huge statures, fair long hair and gleaming halberds formed a strange
contrast to the lighter arms and the more pliant forms of the defenders
of Castel San Angelo.
The Roman army, which the Senator had stationed round the base of his
formidable stronghold, could not withstand the shock of this tremendous
phalanx, so far heavier in arms and numbers, and with all their courage
and skill they wavered and broke into flight. Many were precipitated
into the Tiber and drowned miserably within sight of their helpless
comrades; most of them were mowed down by the pursuing German cavalry or
shot by the German archers.
After the terrible defeat of the Senator's army by the first line of
Eckhardt's battle-array, the squadrons of the second line of battle
spread over the plain, preparatory to the last and final assault. The
vast stronghold of the Senator looked as proud and menacing as ever;
reared upon its almost impenetrable granite-foundation it formed even at
this date one of the most powerful fortresses of Western Europe. Its
huge battlements were defended with a long chain of covered towers, from
which Albanian bowmen shot down every living thing, that approached the
circuit of its walls. Every attempt to scale the lofty stronghold with
ladders had during former sieges been beaten off with fearful loss,
after desperate combats at all hours of day and night. Although he had
twice stormed the walls of Rome, Eckhardt had never succeeded in
capturing the fortress, which he must call his own, who would be master
of the Seven Hills. But the wrath of the Margrave defied every
obstacle, laughed to scorn every impediment which might retard his
vengeance upon the cursed rabble of Rome, those mongrel curs, with whom
rebellion was a pastime and for whom oaths existed but to be broken.
All day long the Germans had hurled themselves against the massive
walls, sustaining terrible losses, while those within the city were
equally severe. All day long they had plied their huge catapults, which
hurled masses of rock and iron into the city and fortress, keeping up an
incessant bombardment. They also used the balista, an immense fixed
cross-bar, which shot bolts with extraordinary force and precision upon
the battlements, whereon nothing living could stand exposed without
certain destruction.
Seated motionless on his coal-black charger, like some dark spirit of
revenge, plainly visible from the ramparts of Castel San Angelo,
Eckhardt directed the assault of his army at this point, or that,
according as the situation required. Many an arrow and stone struck the
ground close by his side, but he seemed to bear a charmed existence and
never stirred an inch from his chosen vantage ground. Already had a
breach been made in one or two places in the base of the walls, yet had
he not given the order to break into the city, but seemed to watch for
some weak spot in the defences. It was verging towards evening. The
besiegers could hear the cries and the rage of those within the walls,
who dared not remain in the streets during the terrific rain of iron and
stones hurled by the German machines. Despite their strenuous efforts,
Castel San Angelo hurled defiance into the teeth of the Margrave, who
demanded its surrender, and the task of capturing the stronghold,
otherwise than by starving the garrison, seemed to hold out smaller
promise with every moment, as the sun hurried on his western course.
The sky became overcast and the night bade fair to be stormy.
During the assaults of the day, Eckhardt had many times strained his
gaze towards the road leading to Tivoli, as if he expected some succour
from that direction, when, as the sun was sinking in a crimson haze, a
cloud of dust met the general's gaze and at the same moment a thunderous
shout rose from the imperial hosts. Drawn by twelve oxen, there
appeared at the edge of the plain a new engine of assault, which
Eckhardt had ordered constructed, anticipating an emergency, such as the
present. It had remained with the host in Tivoli, and despite the
comparatively short distance, it had required almost twenty-four hours
to draw it over the sloping ground to Rome. It was a tower of three
stages, constructed of massive beams, protected by frames and hides and
crowned with a stout roof. It was now being rolled forward on broad
heavy wheels to afford means of scaling the walls. As it slowly
approached the ramparts of Castel San Angelo, the assault of the
Germans, renewed on the whole line of the walls with redoubled fury,
presented a terrific sight. The catapults and balistae were pouring
stones, bolts and arrows on the defenders; the whizzing of the missiles,
the shouts of the assailants, answered by furious yells from the walls,
the roar of the flames, as here and there a house near the city walls
caught fire from burning pitch, made a truly infernal din.
"The turret is within twenty feet of the walls,--on a level with the
ramparts,--fifteen,--ten feet,---down with the scaling bridge!" shouted
Haco, who was standing by the side of Eckhardt. Crashing, the gang-way
went from the front of the pent house. But as he spoke, the soft earth,
whereon the turret stood, gave way. The gang-way fell short, the turret
toppled and split. The besieged hurled on it bolts, rocks, boiling
pitch and fire balls, and presently it collapsed with a sudden crash and
fell in a heap, mangling and burying the men inside it and beneath it,
and at once it blazed up, a mass of burning timber.
"It is, as I feared," said Eckhardt. "No turret lofty enough to overtop
these walls can be brought up to work on ground like this. We must
resort to the catapults! Let all be brought into action at once!"
The destruction of the great, movable turret, on the success of which
such hopes and fears had been placed, caused the ranks of assailants and
defenders to pause for a space, while both were watching the spectacle
of the blazing pile. A lull ensued in the storm of battle, during which
Eckhardt, while he seemed to direct his men towards a certain point near
the walls, never released his gaze from Castel San Angelo. Then he gave
a whispered order to Haco, who set off at once on its execution. An
appalling crash rent the sky, as the German machines began their
simultaneous attack on the walls of Rome, while a storming-column,
forming under their protection, rushed forth towards the gates of the
city. The strain on the mind of Eckhardt, who alone knew the intense
crisis of that moment, was almost unbearable. He must succeed this very
night; for on the morrow the peremptory order of the Electors would
recall his forces beyond the Alps. There would be no respite; there
could be no resistance. His only salvation lay in their undaunted
courage and their ignorance of the impending decree.
The evening grew more and more sultry.
At intervals a gust came flying, raising the white dust and rustling in
the dying leaves. It passed by, leaving the stillness on the Aventine
more still than before. Nothing was to be heard, save the dull,
seemingly subterranean growls of thunder, and against this low
threatening and sullen roar the pounding of Eckhardt's catapults against
the walls. At times a flash broke across the clouds; then all stood out
sharp and clear against the increasing darkness. Only the watchfires of
Castel San Angelo were reflected in the sluggish tide of the Tiber, from
which rose noisome odours of backwater, rotting fern leaves and decaying
wood.
The Piazza of St. Peter meanwhile presented a singular spectacle,
congested as it was with a multitude, which, in the glare of the
lightning, resembled one waving mass of heads,--a cornfield before it
has been swept by a tornado. It was an infuriated mob, which listened
to the harangue of Benilo, interrupting the same ever and ever with the
hysterical shout: "Death to the Saxon! Death to the Emperor!"
"Blood of St. John!" exclaimed an individual in the coarse brown garb of
a smith, "Why do we bellow here? Let us to the Aventine--to the
Aventine!"
His eye met that of Il Gobbo the grave-digger. He pounced upon him like
an eagle on his prey, shaking him by the shoulder.
"Gobbo! Dog! Assassin! Art deaf to good news! I tell thee, there is
strife in the city,--some new sedition! It may be that our friends have
conquered--down with the tyrant and oppressor! Down with the Saxon!
Down with everything!"
And he laughed--a hoarse, mad laughter.
"We Romans shall yet be free,--think of it, thou villain,--a thousand
curses on thee!"
The artisan had correctly interpreted the temper of the Romans, when he
raised his shout: To the Aventine! To the Aventine!
"Romans! We give our enemies red war! War to the knife!" screamed the
speaker at the conclusion of his harangue.
"Death to the Saxons! Death to the King!" came the answering yell.
In the midst of all this some partisan of the King ventured to reason
with the mob. It was impossible to distinguish in the ensuing melee,
but in the distance a man was being tossed and torn by the mob. For a
moment his white face rose above the sea of heads, with all the despair
which a drowning man shows, when it rises for the last time above the
waves, then it sank back and something mangled and shapeless was flung
out into the great Piazza, where it lay still.
"To the Aventine! To the Aventine!" shouted the mob, and armed with all
sorts of rude weapons they trooped off, brandishing their clubs and
staves and shouting confused maledictions.
Count Ludeger of the Palatinate, to whom Eckhardt had entrusted the
King's safety, had made sure that all approaches were locked and barred,
while he had disposed his spearmen and archers in such a manner as to
make it appear, in the case of assault, that he commanded a much
superior number, than were actually at his disposal.
The warlike Count Palatine, who, aroused on an alarm, had instantly
equipped himself with casque and sword, stood listening to what was
passing outside, sniffing the air and rolling his eyes as if he desired
nothing better than a conflict. Arranging his archers round the barred
gate, with the order to hold their bows in readiness, he descended to
the entrance which was surrounded by a howling mob, who demanded
admittance or, if denied, declared they would enter by force. After
having surveyed the assailants through a wicket, and having convinced
himself that they were of the baser class, he demanded to speak with the
leader of the mob. A surly individual, armed with a club, came boldly
forward and demanded to see the King.
"For what purpose?" asked the Count Palatine.
"That is,--as we choose!" replied the ruffian.
By this time the archers had mounted the roof of the palace, while Count
Ludeger stood in the foreground. To him the routing of such a rabble
seemed a task not worth speaking of, and it was not his intention to
parley. He dared not open the gates until he was prepared to act,
therefore mounting a balcony in the upper story of the palace, which
looked over the entrance, he stood fully visible from where the invaders
stood, whose numbers swelled with every moment. Then advancing to the
parapet, he made a signal, demanding silence, and spoke in a voice
audible to every ear in the throng:
"Dogs! You came hither thinking the palace was defenceless. You wish to
see the King. Off! Away with your foul odours and your yelping
throats! And if when you have turned tail, any cur among you dares bark
back, he shall pay for it with an arrow through his chine! Away with
you!"
The crowd seemed to waver and to look for their leader, but the Count
Palatine gave them little time. Raising his hand he waved a signal to
the archers. The low growling and snarling of the mob swelled to a yell
of terror, as three score or more of their number fell under the hail of
arrows. At the same moment the gate of the palace was thrown open and
the guards charged the Roman mob with drawn swords, mowing down all that
were in their path. Back fell the first rank of the rioters, pressing
against those in the rear, and with an outcry of terror the crowd
scattered in flight.
From the balcony of his palace, Otto had witnessed the scene which had
just come to a close. He saw hatred and vengeance around him in the
eyes of the populace. He knew himself to be hated, deserted, betrayed,
most unjustly, most cruelly, despite all he had done for the state and
the people. After the mob had departed, he retreated to his chamber.
Here his strength seemed utterly to forsake him. Calling his
attendants, they took from him his cloak, his diadem, and his sword of
state, they unlaced the imperial buskins and gilt mail, in which he was
encased. He seemed eager to fling from him his gilded trappings, while
his attendants watched him in perplexity and fear. He spoke not, nor
gave any sign.
At length Count Ludeger, presuming on his high office, broke the
silence.
"By the Mother of God, we pray you, shake off this grief and take heed
of the manifold perils which surround your throne and life. You are
surrounded with traitors, intrigues and plots! And the one--once
nearest to your heart is your greatest foe!"
Otto raised his head and glared at the speaker like a lion at bay, but
spoke not, and again covered his face and sank upon the couch.
The storm clouds gathering over Rome were scarce as dark as those on
Count Ludeger's brow. For a time intense silence prevailed. At last,
carried away by Otto's mute despair, the Curopalates ventured to
approach the King and whispered a word in his ear.
Otto looked up, pale, staring.
Count Ludeger advanced and knelt before the emperor.
"My liege--what shall I say to the Electors?"
There was a breathless silence.
Then Otto raised himself erect on his couch.
"Say to them,--that I will die in Rome--in Rome--"
He checked himself and looked round.
"Leave me! Begone all of you!" he said. "Set double guards at the
doors of this chamber and admit no one on pain of death.--I choose to be
alone to-night!"
"And may not I even share my sovereign's solitude?" questioned Benilo
with a look of feigned concern in his eyes.
"I wish to be alone!" Otto replied, then he beckoned Count Ludeger to
his side. After all had departed, the King turned to the Count
Palatine.
"Can we hold out?"
The Count's visage reflected deep gloom.
"All Rome is in the throes of revolt! All day Eckhardt has been
pounding the walls of Castel San Angelo--to no avail!"
"He will storm the traitor's lair," Otto replied, "but then?" he
questioned as one dream-lost.
Ludeger pointed to Northward. With a deep moan Otto's head drooped and
the scalding tears streamed down between his fingers.
Betrayed--betrayed! Not by Crescentius, his natural, his hereditary
foe, but by the woman whom he had loved, whom he had worshipped, whom he
still loved above all else on earth. What was the possession of Rome,
the rule of the universe, to him without her? He could picture to
himself no happiness away from her.
When Otto looked up, Count Ludeger was gone.
For a time there was stillness, deep, intense.
A dazzling flash of light, succeeded by a deafening peal of thunder,
that was like the wrath of a mighty God,--then came darkness, the
howling of the storm, the sobbing of bells tossed and broken by the
hurricane, into a wraith of dirge,--and now, as by some fantastic freak
of nature, as the wind rose higher and higher, the iron tongue of the
bell from the Capitol came wrangling and discordant through the air, as
if tortured by some demon of despair. But the howlings and the tempest
and the roar of the thunder had a third, most terrible ally to make that
night memorable in Rome. It was the wrath of Eckhardt, the Margrave, as
he marshalled his hosts to the assault. Terror-stricken the cowardly
Romans scattered before the iron avalanches that swept down upon them.
The scythe of the enraged mower made wide gaps in their lists and the
dead and dying strewed the field in every direction. Little did
Eckhardt care how many he mangled and maimed under the hoofs of his
iron-shod charger. Had all Rome been but one huge funeral pyre, he
would have exulted. Rome had not been kind to him and the hour of
vengeance was at hand at last!
The broken clangour of the bells of Rome, the bellowing of the thunder
through the valleys, the howling of the storm--and the shouts of the
storming files of his Germans struck Otto's ear in fitful pauses.
For this then he had journeyed to Rome! This was to be the end of the
dream!--The man he had trusted was a traitor! The woman whose kisses
still burnt upon his lips had sold, betrayed him. The candle sank lower
and the shadows deepened; but the tempest howled like a legion of demons
over the seven-hilled city of Rome.
What caused him to raise his head after a period of brooding, Otto knew
not, nor why the opposite wall with its drear flitting shadows held his
gaze spellbound. To his utter discomfiture and amazement he saw the
Venus panel noiselessly open, a shadow glided into the chamber and the
panel closed behind it.
Ere Otto could utter a word, Stephania stood before him.
He rose and receded before her, as one would before a spectre.
Hungrily, madly his eyes gazed into her pale face, despairingly. A
strange fire was alight in her orbs, as once more she stood face to face
with the youth, whose soul she had absorbed as the vampire the soul of
his victim.
With fingers tightly interlaced she stood before him, then, as he would
not speak, she said with a strange smile:
"You see,--I have come back."
He made no reply, but receded from her as some evil spirit to the
farthest nook of the chamber.
For a time she seemed at a loss how to proceed; when she spoke again,
there was a strange, jarring tone in her voice.
"Fear nothing!" she said, a great sadness vibrating in her speech. "I
came not hither to renew old scenes. What has been is past for ever!
Strange, that I had to come into your life, King Otto, or that you had
to cross the line of mine,--who is to blame? You have once told me that
you believe in a Force, called Fate. You have convinced me now,--even
if my own suffering had not."
"How came you here?" Otto spoke, hardly above a whisper.
Stephania pointed below.
"Through the secret passage!"
Otto started.
"Mother of Christ!" he exclaimed. "Had they seen you they would have
killed you."
A smile of disdain curved her lips.
"I should have welcomed the release."
"But what do you want here--and at this hour?"
"Your Saxons are storming Castel San Angelo. By a feigned attack they
lured its defenders to a part of the ramparts, where no real danger
threatened, but to scale the walls on their rear. Send a messenger to
Eckhardt to desist. Crescentius is ready to treat for honourable
terms."
If there was indeed truth in her words, the message was lost on him, to
whom it was conveyed. His heart was dead to the voice of gladness, as
it was dead to any added pang of misery.
"Thrice the Senator of Rome has broken his word! His fate lies with
himself!" he replied with a shrug.
Stephania's pallor deepened.
She stared at Otto out of large fear-struck eyes.
"You would not give him over to your Saxons?" she spoke impulsively.
"They will take him without that!"
"Castel San Angelo has never been taken,--it shall never be taken! King
Otto! Think how many of your best soldiers will be crushed and mangled
in the assault,--be merciful!"
"Has Crescentius been merciful to me? I came not hither to deprive him
of his own.--I have not struck at the root of his life.--He has taken
from me the faith in all that is human and divine,--and through you! A
noble game you have played for my soul! You have won, Stephania! But
the blood of Crescentius be on his own head!"
There was a lull in the uproar of the elements without; but new banks of
threatening clouds were hurrying from the West, gathering like armies of
vengeful spirits over the Seven-Hilled City, and shutting off every
breath of air.
An oppression throbbing with nameless fears was upon them,--a hush, as
if life had ceased.
Stephania, urged by a strange dread, had stepped to the high oval window
whence a view of Castel San Angelo was to be obtained. And as she gazed
out into the night with wildly throbbing heart, she grew faint and
wide-eyed for terror. A dull roar, like muffled thunder, ceaselessly
recurring, the terrible shouts of Eckhardt's Saxons reached her ear.
Would the walls withstand their assault, ere she returned, or would the
defenders yield under the terrible hail of iron and leave the Senator of
Rome to his doom? Like knells of destiny boom upon boom resounded
through the wail of the rising gale.
She pressed her hands despairingly against her temples, as if to calm
their tempestuous throbbing, and her lips muttered a prayer, while
broken voices came through the storm,-- fragments of a chant from
near-by cloisters:
"Ave Maria--Gratia Plena--Summa parens clementiae--Nocte surgentes--"
Otto had tiptoed to the doors of the chamber and after carefully
listening had locked them. The order he had given to admit no one would
secure for him a few moments of immunity from interruption from without.
Supporting himself against a casement he endeavoured to master the awful
agony, which upheaved his soul at the sight of the woman who had played
with his holiest affections; he tried to speak once, twice, but his
tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He thought he would choke.
The brazen blast of a trumpet from the battlements of Castel San Angelo
caused him to approach and to step behind Stephania. In the now almost
continuous glare of the lightning troops could be seen moving slowly
along the walls and base of the fortress. The air pealed with
acclamations. A thousand arrows from Frisian bowmen swept the defenders
from the walls. The battlements were left naked; ladders were raised,
ropes were slung, axes were brandished; of every crevice and projection
of the wall the assailants availed themselves; they climbed on each
other's shoulders, they leaped from point to point; torches without
number were now showered on every thing that was combustible. At length
a stockade near the central defence took fire.
They fought no longer in darkness. The flames rolled sheet on sheet
upon their heads, mingling their glare with that of the blazing horizon.
But the issue was no longer doubtful. Castel San Angelo was doomed. No
longer it vindicated its claim to being impregnable. The defenders,
reduced in number, exhausted by the ever and ever renewed and desperate
attacks, staring in the face of certain defeat, were becoming visibly
disheartened.