CHAPTER XIV

THE PHANTOM OF THE LATERAN

It still lacked a few minutes of midnight when Tristan arrived at the

Lateran. The guard had been set in all the chapels, as on the night

when he had kept the watch before.

Without confiding his purpose to any one, he traversed the silent

corridors until he came to the chapel where he was to watch all night.

The men-at-arms were posted outside the door. A lamp was burning in the

corridor, and strict orders had been given that no person whatsoever

was to pass into the chapel.

After assuring himself that all was secure, Tristan seated himself in a

chair which stood in the centre of the chapel.

The place was dim and ghostly. A red lamp burnt before the Blessed

Sacrament, and from the roof of the chapel hung another lamp of bronze.

The light was turned low, but it threw a slight radiance upon portions

of the mosaic of the floor.

Tristan unbuckled his sword and placed it ready to hand. The whole of

the Basilica was hushed in sleep. There was a heaviness and oppression

in the air, and no sound broke the stillness in the courts of the

palace.

Memory flared up and down like the light of a lamp, as Tristan pondered

over the changes and vicissitudes of his life, with all its miseries

and heart-aches, as he thought of the future and of Hellayne. Danger

encompassed them on every side. But there had been even greater

terrors when he had plucked her from the very grip of Death, from the

midst of her foes.

And then he began to pray, pray for Hellayne's happiness and safety,

and his whispering voice sounded as if a dry leaf was being blown over

the marble floor, and when it ceased the silence fell over him like a

cloak, enveloping him in its heavy, stifling folds.

He had been on guard in the Lateran before, but the silence had never

seemed so deep as it was now. His mind, heated and filled with the

events of the past days, would not be tranquil. And yet there was a

deadly fascination in this profound silence, in which it seemed his own

mind and the riot of his thoughts were living and awake.

What, if even now some lurking danger were approaching through the

thousand corridors and anterooms of the palace! For on this night the

enemies of Christ were abroad, silently unfurling the sable banners of

Hell.

The thought was almost unbearable. It was not fear which Tristan felt,

rather a restlessness he was unable to control. Although the night was

no hotter than usual, perspiration began to break out upon his face,

and he felt athirst. The fumes of incense that permeated the chapel,

increased his drowsiness.

With something of an effort Tristan strode to the door and opened it.

In the corridor two men-at-arms were on guard, one standing against

the wall, the other walking slowly to and fro. The men reported that

all was well, and that no one had passed that way. Tristan closed the

door and returned inside. He walked up the chapel's length and then,

his drawn sword beside him on the marble, knelt in prayer before the

Blessed Sacrament which he had come to guard.

There, for a little, his confused and restless mind found peace.

But not for long.

A drowsiness more heavy and insistent than any he had ever known

began to assail him. It billowed into his brain, wave after wave. It

assailed him with an irresistible, physical assault. He fought against

it despairingly and hopelessly, knowing that he would be vanquished.

Once, twice, sword in hand, as though the long blade could help him in

the fight, he staggered up and down the chapel. Then, with a smothered

groan, he sank into the chair, the sword slipping from his grasp. He

felt as if deep waters were closing over him. There was a sound like

dim and distant drums in his ears, a sensation of sinking, lower, ever

lower,--then utter oblivion.

And now silence reigned, silence more intense than his mind had ever

known.

The red lamp burned before the Host. The lamp in the centre of the

chapel threw a dim radiance upon the bowed form of Tristan, whose sword

crossed the mosaics of the floor.

Silence there was in the whole circuit of the Lateran.

Even the Blessed Father, prisoner in his own chamber, was asleep. The

domestic prelates, the whole vast ecclesiastical court were wrapt in

deep repose.

In the chapel of St. Luke the silence was broken by the deep breathing

of Tristan. It was not the breathing of a man in healthy sleep. It

was a long-drawn catching at the breath, then once more a difficult

inhalation. The men-at-arms outside in the corridor heard nothing of

it. The sound was confined to the interior alone.

The ceiling of the chapel was painted, and the various panels were

divided by gilded oak beadings.

Almost in the centre, directly above where Tristan reposed in leaden

slumber, was a panel some two feet square, which represented in faint

and faded colors the martyrdom of St. Sebastian.

Suddenly, without a sound, the panel parted.

If the sleeper had been awake he would have seen almost at his feet a

swaying ladder of silk rope, which for a moment or two hissed back and

forth over the tesselated floor.

Now the dark square in the painted ceiling became faintly illumined.

In its dim oblong a formless shape centred itself. The faint hiss from

the end of the silken rope ladder recommenced and down the ladder from

the roof of the chapel descended a formless spectre, with incredible

swiftness, with incredible silence.

The spider had dropped from the centre of its web. It had chosen the

time well. It was upon its business.

The trembling of the rope ladder ceased. Without a sound the black

figure emerged into the pale light thrown by the central lamp. The

figure was horrible. It was robed in deepest black, and as it made a

quick bird-like movement of the head, the face, plucked as from some

deadly nightmare, was so awful that it seemed well that Tristan was

unconscious.

The High Priest of Satan stood in the chapel of the Lateran. His quick,

dexterous fingers ran over Tristan's sleeping form. Then he nodded

approvingly.

There was a soft pattering of steps and now the black form passed out

of the circle of light and emerged into the red light of the lamp,

which burned before the altar.

Above, upon the embroidered frontal, were the curtains of white silk

edged with gold--the gates of the tabernacle.

A long, lean arm, hardly more than a bone, drew apart the curtains.

Mingling with the heavy breathing of the sleeping man there was a sharp

sound, most startling in the intense silence.

It was a bestial snarl of satisfaction. It was followed by abominable

chirpings of triumph, cold, inhuman, but real.

Tristan slept on. The men-at-arms kept their faithful watch. In the

whole of the Lateran Palace no one knew that the High Priest of Satan

was prowling through the precincts and had seized upon his awful prey.

He thrust the Holy Host into a silver box, and placed it next to his

bosom. Then he drew a wafer of the exact size and shape of the stolen

Host from the pocket of his robe. Gliding over to Tristan he thrust

this unconsecrated wafer into his doublet.

Then the black bat-like thing mounted to the ceiling. The lemon-colored

light reappeared for a moment. In its glare the dark phantom looked

terrific, like a fiend from Hell. The rope ladder moved silently

upwards, and the painted panel with the arrow-pierced Sebastian dropped

soundlessly into its place.

The red lamp burnt in front of the tabernacle. But the chapel was empty

now.

At dawn the unexpected happened.

The guards, expecting to be relieved, found themselves face to face

with a special commission, come to visit the Lateran. It consisted

of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Ravenna, the Cardinal of Orvieto, the

Prefect of the Camera and Basil the Grand Chamberlain.

After having made the rounds they at last arrived before the chapel of

St. Luke. They found the two men-at-arms stationed at the door, alert

at their post. The men were exhausted; their faces appeared grey and

drawn in the morning light, but they reported that no one had passed

into the chapel, nor had they seen anything of Tristan since midnight,

when he had questioned them.

The doors of the chapel were locked. Tristan held the keys. Repeated

knocks elicited no response.

The Archbishop of Ravenna looked anxiously at the Prefect of the Camera.

"I do not like this, Messer Salviati," he said in a low voice. "I fear

there is something wrong here."

"Beat upon the door more loudly," the Prefect turned to one of the

halberdiers, and the man struck the solid oak with the staff of his

axe, till the whole corridor, filled with the ghostly advance light of

dawn, rang and echoed with the noise.

The Prefect of the Camera turned to the Archbishop.

"It would seem the Capitano has fallen asleep. That is not a thing he

ought to have done--but as the chapel seems inviolate we need hardly

remain longer."

And he looked inquiringly at the Grand Chamberlain.

The latter shook his head dubiously.

"I fear the Capitano can hardly be asleep, since we have called him so

loudly," he said, looking from the one to the other. "I would suggest

that the door of the chapel be forced."

They were some time about it. The door was of massive oak, the lock

well made and true. A man-at-arms had been despatched to another part

of the Lateran to bring a locksmith who, for nearly half an hour,

toiled at his task.

It was accomplished at last and the four entered the chapel.

It stretched before them, long, narrow, almost fantastic in the grey

light of morning.

The painted ceiling above held no color now. The mosaics of the

floor were dead and lifeless. In the centre of the chapel, with face

unnaturally pale, sat Tristan, huddled up in the velvet chair. By his

side lay his naked sword.

The lamp which was suspended from the centre of the ceiling had almost

expired.

In front of the altar the wick, floating on the oil, in its bowl of red

glass, gave almost the only note of color against the grey.

As they entered the chapel, the four genuflected to the altar. And

while the Prefect and Basil went over to where Tristan was sleeping in

his chair, and stood about with alarmed eyes, the Cardinal of Orvieto

and the Archbishop of Ravenna approached the tabernacle with the proper

reverences, parted the curtains and staggered back, indescribable

horror in their faces.

The Holy Host had disappeared.

The priests stared at each other in terror. What did it mean? Again the

Body of Our Lord had been taken from His resting-place. The captain of

the guard was asleep in his chair. Verily the demons were at work once

more and Hell was loosed again.

The Archbishop of Ravenna began to weep. He covered his face with his

hands. As he knelt upon the altar steps, great tears trickled through

his trembling fingers, while he sent up prayers to the Almighty that

this sacrilege might be discovered and its perpetrators brought to

justice. On either side of him knelt the priests who had come into the

chapel after them. Their hearts were filled with fear and sorrow.

The Cardinal of Ravenna rose at last.

His old, lean face shone with holy anger and sorrow.

"An expiatory service will be held in this chapel before noon," he

addressed those present. "I shall myself say Mass here. Meanwhile the

whole of the palace must be aroused. Somewhere the emissaries of Satan

have in their possession the Blessed Sacrament. See that the secret

Judas does not escape us!"

Almost upon his words there came a loud wail of anguish from the centre

of the chapel where Tristan was still huddled in his chair.

Basil had opened the doublet at his neck, as if to give him air, and

the Prefect of the Camera, who was standing by, clapped his hands to

his temples, and groaned like a soul in torment.

The two ecclesiastics hurried down from the altar steps.

Upon the lining of Tristan's doublet there lay the large round wafer,

which every one present believed to be the consecrated Host.

The Cardinal-Archbishop reverently took the wafer from Tristan and held

it up in two hands.

The men-at-arms sank to their knees with a rattle and ring of

accoutrement.

Every one knelt.

Then in improvised procession, His Eminence restored the wafer to the

tabernacle.

Tristan was dragged out of the chapel.

In the corridor horror-stricken men-at-arms buffeted him into some

sort of consciousness. His bewildered ears caught the words: "To San

Angelo," as he staggered between the men-at-arms as one in the thrall

of an evil dream, leaving behind him a nameless fear and horror among

the monks, priests and attendants at the Lateran.

END OF BOOK THE THIRD

BOOK THE FOURTH

CHAPTER I

THE RETURN OF THE MOOR

In a domed chamber of the Emperor's Tomb there sat two personages

engaged in whispered conversation, Basil and a weird hooded phantom

that seemed part of the dread shadows which crowded in upon the room,

quenching the dying light of day. Deep silence reigned. Only the

monotonous tread of the sentries broke the stillness as they made the

rounds above them.

It was Basil who spoke.

"All is going well! We shall prevail! We shall set up the throne of

Ebony in the stead of the Cross. I bow to your wisdom, my master! The

promised reward shall not fail you!"

As he spoke, the thin, black arm of his vis-a-vis trembled for a moment

in the ample folds of his black gown. Then, with a quick, bird-like

movement, a thin hand, twisted like a claw, wrinkled and yellow, was

stretched out towards the Grand Chamberlain.

On the second finger of this claw there was a ring. Basil bent and

kissed it.

Basil began to speak in his ordinary, conversational tone, but there

was a strange gleam in his eyes.

"It has been accomplished," he said. "They tell me all Rome is astir!"

The voice that replied seemed to come from a great distance; the lips

of the waxen face hardly moved. They parted, that was all.

"It has been done! I took it myself! It was the Host which the Cardinal

of Ravenna had consecrated on that morning."

"And you were not seen?"

"I was not," came the whispered reply. "As a measure of precaution I

wore the mask which I use to go about the churches at night. I met no

one."

"Is it here?" Basil queried eagerly.

"It is not here," replied the voice. "It must be kept until the night

of the great consecration, when Lucifer himself shall sit upon the

ebony throne and demand his bride--his stainless dove. Where is she

now?"

The light had faded out of Basil's eyes, and his face was ashen.

"One has been found, worthy of even as fastidious a master as he, whom

we both serve. Well-nigh had she escaped us, had not one who never

fails me tracked her on that fatal night, when her body lay in her

coffin ready to be consecrated to the Nameless one."

From the eyeless sockets of the shadow-mask a phosphorescent gleam shot

towards the Grand Chamberlain.

"What of the man?"

"The wafer was discovered on a certain captain of the guard who hath

crossed my path to his undoing once too often. The Church herself shall

pronounce sentence upon him--through me!"

"And--that other?"

There was a pause.

"Her husband!--He deems her dead, nor grieves he overmuch, believing,

as he does, that her love was another's--even his whom I have marked

for certain doom. I have it in my mind to try what a jest will do for

him."

The lurid tone of the speaker seemed to impress even his shadowy

companion.

"A jest?"

"He shall attend the great ceremony," Basil explained. "And he shall

behold the stainless dove. When is it to be?" he added after a pause.

"When is it to be?"

"Six nights hence--on the night of the full moon."

"And then you shall give to me that which I crave, and the forfeit

shall be paid."

"The forfeit shall be paid," the voice re-echoed from the shadows, and

to Basil it seemed as if the damp, cold breath from an open grave had

been wafted to his cheeks.

Like a phantom that sinks back into the night of the grave, whence it

had emerged, Bessarion vanished from the chamber. In his place stood

Hormazd, who had noiselessly entered through a panel in the wall.

Basil greeted him with a silent nod.

"What of the messenger?" he turned to the Oriental.

"He returns within the hour," replied the voice.

"What are his tidings?" Basil queried eagerly. "Is Alberic in the land

of shadows, where she dwells who gave him birth?"

"Sent by the same relentless hand across the Styx," the cowled figure

spoke, yet Basil knew not whether it was a question or a statement.

He gave a start.

"Tell me, how are secrets known to you at which Hell itself would

pale?" he turned with unsteady tone to his companion.

"Those of the shadows commune with the shadows," came the enigmatical

reply. "Is everything prepared?"

"When the brazen tongue from the Capitol tolls the hour, the blow shall

fall," Basil replied. "Hassan Abdullah and his Saracens are anchored

off the port of Ostia. The Epirotes and Albanians in the Senator's

service are bribed to our cause. Rome is in the throes of mortal

terror. Even the Monk of Cluny is under the spell, and has ceased

to arraign the Scarlet Woman of Babylon. The dread of the impending

judgment day will succor our cause. And--once installed within these

walls as master of Rome--with Theodora by my side--you shall have full

sway, to do whatever your dark fancies may prompt. You shall have a

chamber and a laboratory and be at liberty to roam at will through your

devil's kitchen."

The cowled figure gave a silent nod, but, before he could speak, the

door leading into the chamber opened as from the effect of a violent

gust of wind, and a shapeless form, that seemed half human, half ape,

flew at Basil's feet, who recoiled as if a ghost had arisen before him

from the floor.

For a moment Basil stared from Daoud the Moor to his shadowy visitor,

then he bade the runner arise and commanded him in some Eastern tongue

to unburden himself.

With many protestations of his devotion the monster produced a bundle

which Basil had not noted, owing to the swiftness with which the

African had entered the chamber. Panting, with deft, though trembling

fingers, Daoud untied the cords and a bloody head, severed from its

trunk, rolled upon the floor of the chamber, and lay still at Basil's

feet. It had lost all human semblance and exhaled the putrid odor of

the grave.

Basil started to his feet, staring from the Moor to Hormazd.

"Dead--" his pale lips stammered. Then, turning to his dark companion,

he added by way of encouragement to himself:

"You gave me truth!"

Daoud was cowering on the floor, his eyes staring into the shadows,

where hovered the Persian's almost invisible form.

A nod from Basil caused him to rise.

"Away with it!" shrieked the Grand Chamberlain overcome with terror.

"See that no one sets eyes upon it!"

The Moor wrapped the severed head into the blood-stained cloth and

darted from the chamber.

Then Basil turned to his visitor.

"In six days Rome shall hail a new master! Let then the sable banners

of Hell be unfurled and the Nameless Presence rejoice upon his ebony

throne! And now do you come with me into the realms of doom that gape

below, that your eyes may be gladdened by that which is in store for

you!"

Taking up a torch, Basil lighted it with the aid of two flints and the

twain trooped out of the chamber into the shadowy corridor leading into

the crypts of the Emperor's Tomb.

CHAPTER II

THE ESCAPE FROM SAN ANGELO

Hidden away in some secret vault of the great honey-colored Mausoleum

Tristan found himself when the men-at-arms had departed, and he had

regained his full senses. Color had faded out of everything. The

rock walls were lifeless and grey. The immense silence of the tomb

surrounded him. The rayless gloom was without relief, save what sparse

light filtered through a narrow grated window so high in the wall that

nothing could be seen from below, save the sky.

The torture of it all he could have endured very well. There was

something greater. It was the thought of Hellayne. This dreadful

uncertainty swung like a bell in his brain, cut through the fibre

of his being. And when these thoughts came over him in his lone

confinement he beat his hands upon the stone and wept.

They had placed him in a cell, which seemed to have been hollowed out

of the Travertine rock. It was small, built in the thickness of the

mighty Roman walls. Tristan set his teeth hard, prepared to endure. He

knew well enough what it meant. He would be confined in this living

tomb till his enemies thought his spirit was broken, and then he would

be summoned before a tribunal of the Church.

Once a day, and once only, the door of his cell opened. By the smoky

light of a torch, his gaoler pushed a pitcher of water and a machet of

bread into his prison. Then the red light died and darkness and silence

supervened. Yet it was not the ordinary darkness which men know.

Through the haunted chambers of Tristan's mind fantastic forms began

to chase each other, evil things to uncoil themselves and raise their

heads. More and more drearily the burden of the days began to press

upon him. What availed heroic endurance?

But it was not only darkness, nor was it only despair. Nor was it

only silence. It was a strange impalpable something which haunted his

restless, enforced vigil; a dim inchoate nothingness, that drove him to

the verge of madness. Though day draped the sky with blue and golden

banners, to tell the sons of men that Night was past and they need not

longer fear, for Tristan darkness was not a transient thing, but an

awful negation of hope.

All of this Tristan could have endured, had not the thought of Hellayne

unnerved him utterly.

She was safe--so he hoped--in the Convent of Santa Maria in Trastevere.

But, as hour succeeded hour, his assurance began to pale. Everything

had been arranged with the Abbess. But--had she indeed eluded her

pursuers? The empty coffin had no doubt long been discovered. Did they

believe she was dead, or did the hand who had dealt the blow in the

dark, the vigilant eye that had pursued her every step, plot further

mischief?

He thought of Odo of Cluny. The monk was influential, but there was, at

this hour, in Rome, one even more powerful, and he doubted not but that

by his agency the wafer had been placed into his doublet, though the

events of that fateful night from the time he had entered the Lateran,

were like a black blot upon his memory.

Had Odo even sought admission to his cell? Did he, too, believe him

guilty? Had his ears, too, been poisoned by the monstrous lie? To him

he might indeed have turned; of him he might have received assurance

of Hellayne's fate; and in return he might have reassured her who was

pining at the Convent of Santa Maria in Trastevere.

But, was she ignorant indeed of what was happening in the seven-hilled

city of Rome? Would not the rumor of the terrible outrage committed at

the Lateran knock even at the silent walls of the convent? A captain of

the Senator's guard caught red-handed in the perpetration of a crime

too heinous for the human mind to conceive!

He reviewed his own life, the close of which seemed very near at hand.

Free from cunning and that secret conceit which is peculiarly alarming

to natures that know themselves to be, in all practical matters,

confounded and confused, he had, in a short time, found himself placed

upon the world's greatest stage, a world little fit for dreamers and

for dreams. He had been plunged into the inner circles of the mighty

struggle, impending between Powers of Light and the Powers of Darkness,

upon a sea he knew not how to navigate, and upon whose cliffs his ship

had stranded.

One evening, when the cold greyness of an early twilight had enveloped

the city, and from the darkening sky every now and then was heard a

sound of approaching thunder, Tristan, counting the weary hours of his

unbroken solitude, which he could but measure by the appearance and

departure of his gaoler, had been more restless than usual. He had

hoped to be summoned for early trial before those high in the Church,

when, in Odo of Cluny, he would find an advocate, who alone might save

him from his doom. But nothing had happened. Nothing had broken the

dreary, maddening monotony, save now and then the shriek and curses of

a maddened fellow-prisoner, or the moans of a wretch who was dying of

thirst or hunger.

Whoever the powers that dominated his life, they evidently had not

decreed his immediate death, as if they were rejoicing in the torture

of false hopes which each recurrent day waked in his breast, and which

each departing day extinguished. The food never varied, and the water

intended for the cleansing of his body was so sparse that he had to

husband it as a precious possession till the gaoler refilled the bronze

ewer on the succeeding day.

When waking from feverish, troubled slumbers, broken by the squeaking

of the rats that scurried over the filthy floor of his dungeon, and

other presences that caused him to pray for a speedy death from this

slow torture, he found himself nevertheless listening for the approach

of the gaoler who, after dispensing his bounty, departed as he had

come, silent as the tomb, without making reply to Tristan's queries.

Escape, to all appearances, seemed quite beyond the scope of

possibility. Yet, with failing hopes, the spirit of Tristan seemed to

rise. Had not his good fortune been with him ever since he arrived at

Rome? Had he not, by some miraculous decree of destiny, again met the

woman he loved better than all the world? And then, they had left him

his dagger. After all, not such wretched company in his present plight.

It was on the eve of the third day when the voices of men coming down

the night-wrapt passage struck his wakeful ear.

In one of the speakers he recognized Basil.

"And you are quite sure no one saw you enter?" he said to his companion.

"No one!" came the snarling reply. "Nevertheless--they are on my track.

I breathe the air of the gibbet which burns my throat."

"And you are positive no one recognized you?" spoke the silken voice.

"No one."

"Take courage, Hormazd. Then there is little danger, yet you should

take care that no one may see you. We are surrounded by spies."

"Do you not trust Maraglia?"

"I trust none! You will therefore remain a short time concealed in this

subterranean passage."

"Subterranean?"

There was a note of terror in the Oriental's voice.

"That is to say--the vaults! Here you will find honorable and pleasant

company, who will not betray you. You will find straw in abundance and

each day Maraglia will bring you something to eat. Go slowly. How do

you like the abode?"

"Not even the devil can find me here."

"No one will find you here!"

"No one knows where I am," Hormazd interposed dubiously.

"Nor ever shall."

"It is of no consequence. So I am safe."

"You are safe enough. Lower your head and take care not to stumble over

the threshold. Here--this side--enter."

"Enter," re-echoed the other. Then there was a pause.

"It is very evident, you are afraid--"

"Afraid? No--but I am thinking we always know when we enter such

places--never when we shall leave them."

"How? Did I not say to-morrow night?"

"But if you should not come for me?"

"What profit would your death be to me? Where shall I find another

wizard to bring to foretell the death of another Alberic?"

Tristan gave an audible gasp at these words. He felt his limbs grow

numb. Had his ears heard aright? Surely they had not. Some demon had

mocked him, to drive him mad. Ere he could regain his mental balance,

the voice of the Grand Chamberlain's companion again struck his ear.

"But if you should not come, my lord?"

"You could scream!"

"What would that avail?"

"Mind you--I might have to stay here myself for sheltering such a

patriarch as you."

"Nevertheless--to guard against all risks--leave the door open--"

He entered, but the door turned immediately upon its hinges.

"My Lord Basil--" shrieked Hormazd, "the door is shut--"

"I stumbled against it."

"Bring a light--open the door--" came a muffled voice from within.

"I shall soon return."

"Do not forget the light."

"Light!--Ay! You shall not want for light,--if what I say be not false:

Et lux perpetua luceat eis," chanted the Grand Chamberlain in Requiem

measure, as he strode away.

Silence, deep and sepulchral, succeeded. Tristan cowered on the floor,

his face covered with his hands. If what he had overheard was true,

he, too, was lost. What had happened? Who was the Grand Chamberlain's

companion?

Now Hormazd began to scream and rave in the darkness. Terrible

execrations broke from the Oriental's lips, as he hurled his body

against the iron bars of his prison cell. Demoniacal yells waked the

silent echoes. The other prisoners, alarmed and rendered restless, soon

joined in, and soon the dark vaults of the Emperor's Tomb resounded

with a veritable pandemonium, a chorus of the damned that caused

Tristan to put his fingers to his ears lest he, too, go mad.

At nine o'clock that night the last visit was to be paid the prisoners.

At nine o'clock Maraglia, the Castellan, came, attended by the

guard, which waited outside. The Castellan was in a state of nervous

excitement. As he entered Tristan's cell he looked about, as if he

dreaded a listener, then he approached his prisoner and whispered

something into his ear.

For a moment Tristan knew not what has happening to him. Was he alone

with a mad man and was Maraglia too possessed?--

The Castellan, to prove his assertion that he was a bat, began

forthwith to squeak, and waved his arms, as if they were wings.

Curious stories were told about Maraglia. No one knew, why he had

retained his post so long amidst ever recurring changes, and it was

whispered that he was subject to strange possessions of the mind. He

faced his prisoner nervously, fingering a poniard in his belt. Tristan

watched his every gesture.

A little foam came out of the corners of Maraglia's lips. He wrung his

hands and his voice rose into a sort of shriek. He jerked his head half

round towards the men-at arms outside in the gallery. The screams of

Hormazd continued.

"It is the Ape of Antichrist," he whispered to Tristan. "I have a mind

to try conclusions with him. Close the door."

Tristan's wits, preternaturally sharpened in his predicament put words

in his mouth which he seemed unable to account for. He had heard rumors

of the Castellan. Perchance he might turn his madness to account.

"I can tell you much," he said. "But not here! But one thing I

perceive. You are approaching one of your bad spells."

Maraglia shrank back against the door. His face was pale as death.

"Then you know?" he squeaked.

Tristan nodded. The torch which the Castellan had placed in an iron

holder that projected from the wall, was burning low and the resinous

fumes filled the cell.

"Something I know--but not all! Yet, I believe I can cure you--"

"I am about to turn into a bat! And when I go abroad I scream like

a bat--in a thin, high pitched tone. And I flap my arms--and fly

away--thus--"

Tristan nodded wisely.

"I know the symptoms--they are of Satan. Nevertheless, I can cure you."

"Without conference with the evil powers?"

Tristan pondered.

"You shall not imperil your soul! But--take heed! It is well that you

have spoken to me of these matters. For, from feeling that you are a

bat, a bat you will become."

Maraglia was pale as a ghost.

"Then I was just in the nick of time?"

"You are already half immersed," Tristan replied in a deep and menacing

tone. "Take heed lest you be utterly drowned."

The Castellan shivered as one in an ague.

"Every Friday at midnight the Black Mass is said by one Bessarion, that

is of unthinkable age--a hideous wizard and High Priest of Satan. It is

he who has cast the spell over me."

Hope mounted high in Tristan. The alert confidence of his companion

animated him and he felt almost as if the great ordeal was over. A

distant bell was tolling. Its tones came in muffled cadence into the

night wrapt corridors of the Emperor's Tomb.

Nevertheless he shivered at the Castellan's confession. Maraglia, then,

was under the spell of this Wizard of Hell.

"I have seen him stalking through these galleries," he turned to his

gaoler. "But I possess a spell which renders him harmless. He cannot

touch me--nor breathe his evil breath into my soul. I can compel him to

take away the spell he has cast over you--that is, if you so wish it."

The Castellan squeaked and waved his arms.

"You would do this for me?"

"If you will not betray me. For only a more powerful spell than that

which he possesses can take away the curse he has put upon you."

"Ah! If you would do this! It is coming upon me now. I am going mad. I

am a bat!"

And Maraglia squeaked like a whole company of dusky mice, and flapped

his arms as if he were about to fly away.

"This very night will I do it," Tristan replied. "But you must help me."

"What can I do?"

Tristan cast all upon one throw.

"Remove your guards from this corridor and leave me a light and a rope."

"It is but reasonable," Maraglia returned. "I will fetch them. When

appears the wizard?"

"At midnight! See that I am not disturbed."

Maraglia nodded. Fear had almost deprived him of his senses.

"Last time I saw him he came from yonder corridor," Tristan informed

the Castellan.

"That may not be!" the latter replied. "Unless he hath wings. This

passage leads to the ramparts."

"It is possible I have been confused by the darkness," Tristan replied

pensively. "Nevertheless, I will oblige you, Messer Maraglia."

The Castellan retired with many manifestations of his gratitude,

leaving Tristan in possession of a lantern, a candle and a coil of rope.

It was midnight.

The sharp click of a flint upon steel was repeated several times

before a spark fell upon the tinder and it caught with a blue, ghostly

flicker. There were strange reflections in Tristan's cell. Curious

steely lights played upon him.

Then the candle ignited. The glow widened out. Tristan peered about

cautiously. The door of his cell had been left unfastened by Maraglia.

He had no fear of his prisoner escaping. No one had ever escaped from

these vaults, except to certain death.

He crept out into the corridor. It was dark as in the realms of the

underworld. The silence of the tomb prevailed. After a time the passage

made a sharp turn at right angles. A cooler air blew upon his face,

wafted through an unbarred embrasure, beyond which showed a star-lit

night without a moon, but not wholly dark.

Drawing himself up into the embrasure he stood at last upon a broad

sill of stone. A cool breeze eddied around him. He was at an immense

height. A vast portion of Rome lay below. The Tiber seemed like a river

of lead. Far away to the left the dark cypresses of the Pincian Hill

cut into the night sky in sombre silhouette. He was above the tombs of

Hadrian and Caracalla.

Tristan shivered despite himself as he fastened the rope he had secured

from the unwary Castellan to the stone ledge. It was not fear; but that

actual, physical shrinking, which induces nausea, had him in its grip.

"There is Rome," he said to himself with a savage chuckle.

He made a stirrup loop and curved it round a boss of antique tile,

which stretched above the abyss like a gargoyle. Then, with infinite

precaution, he lowered the coil of rope.

Dawn was already heralded in the East. A faint grey light appeared in

the direction of the Alban Hills. From over the Esquiline came the

shrill trumpeting of a cock.

There was a horrible moment as Tristan's hands left the roof edge and

he fell a foot to grasp the rope. He curled his legs about it, got it

between his crossed feet and began to let himself down. The sinews of

his arms seemed to creak. Once he passed an open window and distinctly

heard the snores of the men-at-arms who were sleeping within. The

descent seemed interminable. As seen from above, had there been any one

to watch him, his form grew less and less. From a man it seemed to turn

into an ape; from an ape as a night bird groping down the Mausoleum's

side; from a bird it dwindled to a spider, spinning downward on a taut

thread. Up there, on the height, the rope groaned and creaked upon

the curved tile from which it hung. But tile and fibre held. Once his

feet rested upon a leaden water pipe and he clung and swayed, glad of

a momentary release from the frightful strain upon his arms. That was

almost the last conscious sensation. Clinging to the rope he came down

quick and more quickly. His arms rose and fell with the precision of a

machine. At last he felt his feet upon solid ground, where he reeled

and staggered like a drunken man.

He had traversed a hundred thirty-five feet of air.

CHAPTER III

THE LURE

For three whole days Hellayne consumed herself waiting for Tristan, and

she began to feel listless and dispirited. She had long acknowledged

to herself the necessity of his presence, and how much his love

had influenced her thoughts and actions ever since she had known

him--a period that now seemed of infinite length. She found herself

perpetually recalling the origin and growth of this love. She dwelt

with a strange pleasure on her terrible plight, when, believing she was

dead, he had remained with her body. As evening approached she strolled

down to the Tiber, with a strange persistency and the vague expectation

of Tristan's return. She now trusted him utterly, since that last and

most potent proof of his love for her.

On the first day this dreamy, imaginative existence was delightful.

The region of the Trastevere at the period of our story was but

sparsely populated, and the great convent, with its church of Santa

Maria, dominated the lowly fisher huts, scattered over its precincts.

Hellayne, during these quiet evening hours, when only the sounds of

far-off chimes from churches and convents smote the silence with their

silver tongues, and during which hours the Abbess of Santa Maria

permitted her to leave the silent walls of her asylum for a short walk

to the Tiber's edge, rarely ever saw a human being. Only at dusk, when

the fishermen and boatmen returned from their daily routine, she saw

them pass in the distance, like phantoms that come and go and vanish in

the evening glow.

On the second day there came a feeling of want; the consciousness that

there was a void which it would be a great happiness to fill. This

grew to a longing for those hours which had glided by so quickly and

sweetly. At intervals there came the startling thought: if she should

never see him again! Then her heart stopped beating, and her cheek

paled with the thought of the bare possibility.

Thus the third day sped, and when Hellayne still remained without

tidings from Tristan her anxiety slowly changed to a great fear.

She could hardly contain herself during the long hours of the day,

and though she spent hours and hours in prayer for his return, her

heart seemed to sink under the weight of her fear and sorrow. She

was alone--alone in Rome--exposed to dangers which her great beauty

rendered even more grave than those that beset an ordinary person.

She feared lest Basil was scouring the city for the woman who had

so mysteriously baffled his desires, and she dreaded the hatred of

Theodora, whose infatuation for her lover had rather increased than

diminished in the face of Tristan's resistance. How long would he be

able to withstand, if Theodora had decreed his undoing?

There were moments when a mad jealousy and despair surged up in

Hellayne's heart, yet she hesitated to confide her fears and anxiety

to the Abbess, voicing only her disquietude at Tristan's prolonged

absence. Then only the latter informed Hellayne of a strange rumor

which had found its way into the Trastevere. Three nights ago a

terrible sacrilege had been committed at the Lateran, during the small

hours of the night, and on the following morning, during an inspection

by some high prelates of the Church, the criminal had been discovered

in the person of a captain of the Senator's guard, who had but recently

arrived in Rome, and had been placed in high command by the Senator

himself, whom he had so cruelly betrayed.

Three nights ago! It was on the night of the terrible crime from whose

consequences she had been saved just in the nick of time. With painful

minuteness Hellayne recalled, or tried to recall, every incident,

every detail, every utterance of her lover. But there was nothing at

which she could clutch save--but it was sheer madness. Surely it was

some horrid nightmare. Again she sought the Abbess, later in the day,

questioning her regarding the name of him who had been taken in the

commission of so heinous an offence. It was some time ere the Abbess

could recall a name strange in her own land, and Hellayne, with the

persistency of desperation, withheld any aid, so as not to offer a clue

to the one she dreaded to hear. But the strain proved too great. Almost

with a shriek she demanded to know if, perchance, the name was Tristan.

The Abbess regarded her questioner strangely. "Tristan is the name. Do

you know this man, my child?"

Hellayne was on the point of fainting. Everything grew black before her

eyes, and she would have fallen, had not the Abbess supported her.

"A countryman of mine," she said, dreading lest by revealing their

connection she might herself be held in custody. "He came to Rome on

a pilgrimage. Surely there is some horrible mistake! He could not! He

could not!"

The Abbess placed an arm round the trembling girl.

"If he can prove that he is innocent, the Cardinal-Archbishop will

not suffer a hair of his head to be touched," she tried to console

Hellayne whose head rested on her shoulder. She seemed utterly crushed.

Surely--it was too monstrous--too unbelievable. Yet as the moments sped

on, an icy, sickening fear gripped her heart. She recalled an incident

of that last evening with Tristan which, but for what had happened or

was rumored to have happened, she would have utterly ignored. She had

noted her lover's restlessness, and his apparent haste in leaving her

at the convent gates. She recalled now that he repeatedly glanced at

the moon and did, at one time, comment upon the lateness of the hour.

He had not seemed anxious to prolong their tete-a-tete, and he had not

been heard from in three days. Surely, no matter where he was, he could

have sent a message, verbal or otherwise. And the crime had happened

during the small hours of the night--after he had left her! It was too

horrible to ponder upon!

That there was some dreadful mystery which surrounded this deed of

darkness and Tristan's share therein, Hellayne did not question. But

how was she, a woman, a stranger, alone in Rome, to aid in clearing it

up and reveal her lover's innocence? There was no doubt in her mind,

but that he was the victim of some devilish conspiracy--perchance a

thread of that same web which had entangled her to her undoing. But how

to convince the Cardinal-Archbishop of Tristan's innocence, when the

facts surrounding the terrible discovery were unknown to her?

"This man is, no doubt, very dear to you," said the Abbess at last.

Hellayne shrank before the questioner and averted her face. But the

Abbess was resolved to know more, once her suspicions were aroused.

"Could it perchance be he who brought you here three nights ago--your

brother?" she queried with a kind, though penetrating glance at the

woman who was trembling like an aspen, her face colorless, her eyes

dimmed with tears.

A silent nod convinced the Abbess of the truth of her surmise. She

stroked Hellayne's silken hair.

"It is a dreadful crime of which he stands accused, one for which there

is no remission--no pardon here or hereafter," she said sorrowfully.

"He is innocent," sobbed Hellayne. "He is as pure as the light, as the

flowers. There is some dreadful mistake. He must be saved before it is

too late! Oh--dear mother--could you not intercede for him with His

Eminence?"

The Abbess regarded her as if she thought her protege had suddenly

lost her reason. To intercede with the Cardinal-Archbishop for one who

stood committed of so heinous an offence, taken in the very act,--one

who, perchance, was implicated in all those other terrible outrages

committed in the various sanctuaries of Rome! Nevertheless she made

allowance for Hellayne's hysterical plea.

"Has he never mentioned these matters to you?" She queried kindly,

hoping to draw the girl out.

"What matters?" Hellayne queried, with wide eyes, and the question

convinced the Abbess that the woman knew nothing.

"These dark practices," replied the Abbess. "For this is not the first

offence. Even within this very moon cycle the Holy Host has been taken

from the Church of Our Blessed Lady yonder. And all efforts to discover

the guilty one have failed."

"I had not heard of it," said Hellayne. "I have not been long in Rome.

Nor has he. About a month, I should say."

"A month?"

"And he knew nothing of this. Nor knew he even one person in this whole

city."

"Wherefore then came he?"

Hellayne explained and the Abbess listened. Hellayne's account, which

was impersonal, impressed her protectress in so far as she knew she

spoke truth. For, if here was an impostor, it was the cleverest she had

ever faced and, while a stranger to the world and to worldly affairs,

the stamp of truth was too indelibly written upon Hellayne's brow to

even permit of the shadow of a doubt. Perhaps it was for this reason

the Abbess refrained from questioning her farther, for she had been

somehow curious of the relation between the woman and the man who had

brought her here.

Here was matter for thought indeed. For, if the man was guilty and,

notwithstanding Hellayne's protestations, the Abbess was in her own

mind convinced that the Cardinal-Archbishop of Ravenna could not be

deceived in matters of this kind, what was to become of the woman he

had placed in her charge? There were also other matters equally grave

which oppressed the Abbess' mind. Hellayne's connection with one

who had committed the unspeakable crime might militate against her

remaining at the convent. Yet she hesitated to send her out into the

world, unprotected and alone.

For a time there was silence. Hellayne, utterly exhausted from the

recital of a past, which had reopened every wound in her heart, causing

it to bleed anew, anxious, afraid, doubting and wondering how far her

protectress might go, stood before the woman who seemed to hold in her

hand both her own fate and that of her lover.

"I will retire to my cell and pray to the Blessed Virgin for light to

guide my steps," the Abbess said at last, laying her hand on Hellayne's

head. "Do not venture away too far," she enjoined, "and come to me

after the Ave Maria. Perchance I may then know what to counsel."

Hellayne bowed her head and kissed the hem of the Abbess' robe.

After she had left, Hellayne remained standing where she was,

transfixed with anxiety and grief.

What forces of gloom and evil encompassed her on all sides? The man to

whom she had given her youth and beauty, who had plucked the flower

which others had vainly desired, instead of cherishing the gift she

had bestowed upon him, had trampled the delicate blossom in the dust.

He, to whom her heart belonged ever since she had power to think,

was doomed for a deed too terrible to name. She had been ruthlessly

sacrificed by the one, and now the other had failed her, and a third

tried to encompass her ruin. And she was alone--utterly alone!

What was she to do? To request an audience of the Cardinal-Archbishop

was little short of madness. In her own heart Hellayne doubted

seriously that the Abbess would concern herself any further about her

or her distress. Nevertheless she felt that something must be done.

This inertia which was creeping over her would drive her mad. But first

of all she must know the nature of the charge placed against the man

she loved before she would determine what to do. In vain she taxed her

tired brain for a ray of hope in the encompassing gloom.

The long lights of the afternoon crossed and recrossed the sanctuary

of Santa Maria in Trastevere when Hellayne, after an hour of fervent

prayer, emerged from its portals and took the direction of the Tiber,

where she sat on her accustomed seat and brooded over her misery.

At last the sunset came. The ashen color of the olive trees flashed out

into silver. The mountain peaks of distant Alba became faintly flushed

and phantom fair as, in a tempest of fire, the sun sank to rest. The

forests of ilex and arbutus on the Janiculum Hill seemed to tremble

with delight as the long red heralds touched their topmost boughs. The

whole landscape seemed to smile farewell to departing day.

As she sat there, Hellayne's attention was attracted to a woman who had

paused near the river's edge. There was nothing remarkable either in

her carriage or apparel. It was a wrinkled hag, swart, snake-locked,

cowled, her dress jingling with sequins, her right hand clawed upon a

crooked staff. She appeared, in fact, just an old Levantine hoodie-crow

of the breed which was familiar enough in Rome in those cataclysmic

days, when all sorts of queer, tragic fowl were being driven northward

from over seas before the tidal wave of invading Islam. Her speech as

well as her manners and dress betrayed Oriental origin.

As she hobbled up to where Hellayne was seated she stopped and asked

some trifling question about her way, which Hellayne pointed with some

hesitation, explaining that she was herself a stranger in Rome, and

knew not the direction of the city.

The old crone seemed interested.

"In yonder cloister--yet not of it?" she queried, pointing with the

crooked staff to the convent walls that towered darkly behind them in

the evening dusk.

Her penetration startled Hellayne.

"How did you guess, old mother?" she queried with a look of awe, which

was not unremarked by the other.

"Ay--there is lore enough under these faded locks of mine to turn the

foulest cesspool in Rome as clear as crystal, or to change this staff

whereon I lean into a thing that creeps and hisses," she said with a

low laugh.

Hellayne shrank back from her with a gesture of dismay. Believing

implicitly in their power, she felt a deadly fear of those who

professed the black arts.

The old woman read her thoughts.

"My daughter," she said, "be not afraid of the old woman's secret

gifts. Mine is a harmless knowledge, gained by study of the scrolls of

wise men, in my own native land. Fear not, I say, for I, who have pored

over those mystic characters till me eyes grew dim, can read your sweet

pale face as plainly as the brazen tablets in the Forum, and I can see

in it sorrow and care and anxiety for one you love."

Hellayne gave a start.

It was true! But how had the old crone found it out! She glanced

wistfully at her companion, and the latter, satisfied she was on the

right track, proceeded to answer that questioning glance.--

"You think he is in danger, or in grief," she continued mysteriously,

"and you wonder why he does not come. What would you not give, my poor

child, to see him this very moment--to look into his face--his eyes.

And I can show him to you, if you will. I am not ungrateful, even for a

slight service."

The blood mounted to Hellayne's brow, and a strange light kindled in

her eyes, while a soft radiance swept over her face such as comes

into every countenance when the heart vibrates with an illusion to

its happiness, as though the silver cord thrilled to the touch of an

angel's wing. It was no clumsy guess of the wise woman to infer that

the woman before her loved.

"What mean you?" asked Hellayne eagerly. "How can you show him to me?

What do you know of him? Where is he? Is he safe?"

The wise woman smiled. Here was a bird flying blindly into the net.

Take her by her affections, there would be little difficulty in the

capture.

"He is in danger--in grave danger," she replied. "But you could save

him, if you only knew how. He might be happy, too, if he would.

But--with another!"

To do Hellayne justice, she heard only the first sentence.

"In grave danger," she repeated. "I knew it! And I could save him! Oh,

tell me where he is, and what I can do for him?"

The wise woman pulled a small mirror from her bosom.

"I cannot tell you," she replied. "But I can show him to you. Only not

here, where the shadow of any chance passer-by might destroy the charm.

Let us turn aside into yonder ruins. There is no one near, and you

shall gaze without interruption into the face of him you love--"

It was but a short way off, though the ruins which surrounded it

made the place lonely and secluded. Had it been twice the distance

however, Hellayne would have accompanied her new acquaintance for

Tristan's sake, in the eagerness to obtain tidings of his fate. As she

approached the ruins she could not repress a faint sigh, which was not

lost on her companion.

"It was here you parted," she said. "It is here you shall see him

again."

This was scarcely a random shaft, for it required little penetration

to discover that Hellayne had some tender association connected with a

spot, the solitude of which appealed to her in so great a degree.

Nevertheless the utterance convinced Hellayne of her companion's

supernatural power and, though it roused alarm, it excited curiosity to

a still greater degree.

"Take the mirror in your hand," whispered the wise woman, when they

reached the portico, casting a searching glance around. "Shut your eyes

while I speak the charm that calls him three times over, and then look

steadily on its surface till I have counted ten."

Hellayne obeyed these instructions implicitly. Standing in the centre

of the ruin with the mirror in her hand, she shut her eyes and listened

intently to the low solemn tones of the woman's chanting, while from

the deep shadows of the ruin there stole out a muffled form and at the

same time a half dozen sbirri rose from their different hiding places

among the ruins.

Ere the incantation had been twice repeated, the leader threw a scarf

over Hellayne's head, muffling her so completely that an outcry was

impossible.

Resistlessly she felt herself taken up and carried to a chariot, which

was waiting a short space away. A moment later the driver whipped the

horses into a gallop and the vehicle with its occupants and burden

disappeared in the gathering dusk.

CHAPTER IV

A LYING ORACLE

It was an eventful night in Rome and, although for that reason well

adapted to deeds of violence, the tumult and confusion exacted great

caution from those who wished to proceed without interruption along the

streets.

A storm had burst as out of a clear sky, and was sweeping in its fury

throughout a large portion of the city. Like all similar outbreaks, it

gathered force from many sources unconnected with its original course.

Rome was the theatre that night of a furious strife between the great

feudal houses which lorded it over the city.

The Leonine city with its protecting walls did not exist until some

decades later. Thus, not only hordes of marauding Saracens, but Franks

and Teutons used to make occasional inroads to the very gates of the

city. On this evening Pandulph of Benevento, having taken umbrage at

some decision of the Sacred Consistory regarding the lands he held as

fief of the Church, conferring upon him a title which was disputed by

Wido of Prænesté, had broken into the city and a bloody and obstinate

conflict was being waged between his forces and the soldiers of the

Church. The Roman nobles, ever restless and ready to revolt alike from

the authority of the Emperor or of the Church, would not let this

glorious opportunity pass without reminding those in power that they

had built upon a volcano. They joined in the fray, some taking the

part of the invader, others of the Church.

An hour or two before sunset an undisciplined horde of mercenaries,

armed cap-a-pie, and formidable chiefly for the wild fury with which

they seemed inspired, attacked the Mausoleum of the Flavian Emperor.

The assailants, having no engines of war either for protection or

assault, suffered severely from the missiles showered upon them by the

besieged. Being repulsed after repeated assaults, they threw flaming

torches into the houses that lined the river on the opposite shore and

withdrew. From another quarter of the city a large body of Epirotes,

who had hoisted the standard of the Lord Gisulph of Salerno and had

already suffered one defeat, which rather roused their animosity

than quelled their ardor, were advancing in good order. Before the

Lateran they met the forces of Pandulph of Benevento, and a terrible

hand-to-hand encounter ensued. Nor was man the only demon on the scene.

Unsexed women with bare bosoms, wild eyes and streaming hair, the very

outcast of the Roman scum, their feet stained with blood, flew to and

fro, stimulating each other to fresh atrocities with wine, caresses and

ribald mirth. It was a feast of Death and Sin. She had wreathed her

white arms about the spectral king and crowned his fleshless head with

her gaudy garlands, wrapped him in a mantle of flame and pressed the

blood-red goblet to his lips, maddening him with her shrieks of wild,

mocking mirth, the while mailed feet trampled out the lives of their

victims on the flagstones of Rome.

Through a town in such a state of turmoil and confusion Tebaldo took

it upon himself to conduct in safety the prize he had succeeded in

capturing, not, it must be confessed, without many hearty regrets that

he had ever embarked on the enterprise.

It was indeed a difficult and perilous task. He had been compelled to

dismiss his men long ago, in order not to attract attention. There

was but room for himself and one stout slave, beside the charioteer

and his captive. The latter had struggled violently and required to be

held down by sheer force, nor, in muffling her screams, was it easy to

observe the happy medium between silence and suffocation. Also, it was

indispensable in the present state of lawlessness to avoid observation,

and the spectacle of a golden chariot with a woman prisoner, gagged

and veiled, the whole drawn by four spirited black steeds, was

not calculated to avoid suspicion and comment. Stefano, Tebaldo's

underling, had indeed suggested a litter, but this had been overruled

by his comrade on the score of speed, and now the congestion of the

streets made speed impossible. To be sure, this enabled his escort to

keep up with them at a distance, but a fight at this present moment

was little to Tebaldo's taste. The darkness which should have favored

him was dispelled by the numerous conflagrations in the various parts

of the city, and when the chariot was stopped and forced to run into

a by-street, to avoid a crowd running toward the Campo Marzo, Tebaldo

felt his heart sink within him in an access of terror such as even he

had rarely felt before.

Up one street, down another, avoiding the main thoroughfares, now

rendered impassable by the throngs, the charioteer directed his steeds

towards Basil's palace on the Pincian Hill.

Hellayne seemed to have either fainted, or resigned herself to her

fate, for she had ceased to struggle and cowered on the floor of

the chariot, silent and motionless. Tebaldo hoped his difficulties

were over, and promised himself never again to be concerned in such

an affair. Already he imagined himself safe on his patron's porch,

claiming his reward, when his advance was stopped by a pageant, which

promised a protracted and hazardous delay.

Winding its slow way along, with all the pomp and splendor attending

it, a procession of chariots crossed in front of Tebaldo's steeds,

and not a man in Rome would have dared to break in upon the train of

Theodora, who was abroad to view the strife of the factions, utterly

indifferent to the perils of the venture.

It may be that something whispered to Hellayne that, of the two perils

confronting her, what she contemplated was the lesser, and no sooner

did the car stop to let the chariots pass, than, tearing away the

bandage, she uttered a piercing scream, which brought it to a halt at

once, while Tebaldo, trying to wear a bold front, quaked in every limb.

At a signal from the woman in the first chariot her giant Africans

seized the shaking Tebaldo and surrounded his chariot. Already a crowd

of curious spectators was gathering, and the glare of the bonfires,

kindled here and there, shed its light on their dark, eager faces,

contrasting strangely with the veiled form of a woman, cold and

immobile as marble.

Two of the Africans seized Tebaldo, and buffeted him unceremoniously

to within a few paces of the occupant of the chariot. Here he stood,

speechless and trembling, anger and fear contending for the mastery,

which changed to dismay as the woman raised her veil with a hand

gleaming white as ivory.

"Do you know me?"

Whatever he had intended to say, the words died on Tebaldo's lips.

"The Lady Theodora!"

"You still have your wits about you," replied the woman. "Whom have you

there?"

The cold sweat stood on the brow of Basil's henchman.

"The run-away mistress of my lord," he said, looking from right to left

for some one to prompt him, some escape from the dilemma.

"Who is your master?" Theodora queried curtly.

"The Lord Basil--"

"The Lord Basil!" shrilled Theodora. "Indeed I knew not he had lost a

mistress. Yet I saw him within the hour and had speech with him."--

Stefano had meanwhile come up, composed and sedate, little guessing

the quality of his companion's interlocutor, with the air of a man

confident in the justice of his case.

"Where are you taking this woman?" Theodora queried.

Tebaldo attempted to speak, but Stefano anticipated him.

"To the palace of my Lord Basil on the Pincian Hill, noble lady," he

said with many obese bows. "Suffer us to proceed, for the streets are

becoming more unsafe every moment and our lord will not be trifled with

in matters of this kind."

"Indeed," Theodora interposed. "Is his heart so much set upon this

prize? Ho there, Bahram--Yussuff--bring the woman here!"

Tebaldo tried to worm himself out of the clutch of the black giants, in

order to prevent them from obeying Theodora's order, but he found the

situation hopeless and was about to address Theodora when the latter

bade him be silent.--

"The woman shall speak for herself," she said in a tone that suffered

no contradiction and, in another moment, Hellayne, lifted by four

muscular arms from the chariot of her abductors, stood, released of her

bandages, before Theodora.

All color left the Roman's face as she gazed into the pallid and

anguished features of the woman whom of all women on earth she feared

and hated most, the woman who dared to enter the arena with her for the

love of the one man whom she was determined to possess, if the universe

should crumble to atoms. Hellayne's fear upon beholding Theodora gave

way to her pride as she met the dark eyes of the Roman in which there

might have been a gleam of pity or a flash of scorn.

But, ere Hellayne could speak, finding herself, caught like a poor

hunted bird, in one net, ere she had well escaped the other, Theodora

turned to Tebaldo.

"Tell the Lord Basil, the woman he craves is under Theodora's roof,

and--if so he be inclined--he may claim her at my hands--"

The gleaming white arm went out, and ere Hellayne knew what happened,

she found herself raised into the second chariot, where sat a tall girl

of great beauty, Persephoné, the Circassian.

A signal to the charioteer and the pageant moved with slightly

increased speed towards the Aventine, while Tebaldo and Stefano,

out-witted and non-plussed, stared after the vanishing procession as if

they were encompassed by a nightmare. Then, simultaneously, they broke

out into such a chorus of vituperation that the by-standers shrank back

from them in horror, and they soon found themselves, their chariot

and its driver, almost the only human beings in the now deserted

thoroughfare.

Hellayne meanwhile sat, utterly dazed, next to Persephoné. Terrified by

the danger she had escaped, and scarcely reassured by the manner of her

rescue she seemed as one in a stupor, unable to think, unable to speak.

Persephoné regarded her with a strange fascination, not unmingled with

curiosity. Hellayne's fair and wonderful beauty appealed strangely to

the Circassian, while, with her native intuition, she wondered whether

Theodora's act was prompted by kindness or revenge.

Hellayne seemed, for the first time, to note her companion. Looking

into Persephoné's eyes she shuddered.

"Where are we going?" she whispered, gazing about in a state of

bewilderment, as the procession slowly wound up the slopes of the Mount

of Cloisters, and the broad ribbon of the Tiber gleamed below in the

moonlight.

A strange smile curved Persephoné's lips.

"To the Groves of Enchantment," she replied. "You are the guest of the

Lady Theodora."

Hellayne brushed back the silken hair from her brow as if she were

waking from a troubled dream.

She gave a swift glance to her companion, another to the winding road

and, suddenly rising from her seat, started to leap from the chariot.

Ere she could carry out her intent, she was caught in the Circassian's

arms.

A silent, but terrible struggle ensued. Notwithstanding her harrowing

experiences of the past days, despair had given back to Hellayne the

strength of youth. But in the lithe Circassian she found her match

and, after a few moments, she sank back exhausted, Persephoné's arms

encircling her like coils of steel, while her smiling eyes sank into

her own.

The palace of Theodora rose phantom-like from among its environing

groves in the moonlight, and the chariots dashed through the portals of

the outer court, which closed upon the fantastic procession.

CHAPTER V

BITTER WATERS

The dawn was creeping over the Sabine mountains when Tristan, after

having made good his escape from the dungeons of Castel San Angelo,

reached the hermitage of Odo of Cluny on distant Aventine.

Fatigued almost to the point of death, bleeding and bruised, only his

unconquerable will had urged him on towards safety.

His first impulse, after crossing the bridge of San Angelo, was to go

to the Convent of Santa Maria in Trastevere. He abandoned this plan

upon saner reflection. Doubtlessly all Rome was instructed regarding

the crime of which he stood accused. Recognition meant arrest and a

fate he dared not think of. Tears forced themselves into Tristan's

eyes, tears of sheer despair and hopelessness. Now, that he was free,

he dared not follow the all-compelling impulse of his heart, assuage

the craving of his soul, to learn if Hellayne was safe.

After a few moments rest in the shadow of a doorway he set out to seek

the one man in all Rome to whom he dared reveal himself.

Not a soul seemed astir. Dim dusk hovered above the high houses beyond

the Tiber, between whose silent chasms Tristan, dreading the echo of

his own footsteps, made his way towards the Church of the Trespontine.

Thus, after a circuitous route through waste and desert spaces, he

reached the Benedictine's hermitage.

Odo stared at the early visitor as if a ghost had arisen from the floor

before him. He had just concluded his devotions and Tristan, fearing

lest the Monk of Cluny might believe in his guilt, lost no time in

stating his case, pouring forth a tale so fantastic and wild that his

host could not but listen in mingled horror and amaze.

Beginning with the moment when he had been informed of Hellayne's

sudden death, he omitted not a detail up to the time of his escape

from the dungeon, which to him meant nothing less than the antechamber

of death. Minutely he dwelt upon his watch in the Lateran, laying

particular stress upon the deadly drowsiness, which had gradually

overtaken him, binding his limbs as with cords of steel. Graphically he

depicted his awakening, when he found himself surrounded by the high

prelates of the Church who faced him with the supposed evidence of a

crime of which he knew nothing. And lastly he repeated almost word for

word the strange discourse he had overheard in his dungeon between

Basil and the Oriental.

A ghastly pallor flitted over the features of Odo of Cluny at the

latter intelligence.

"If this be true indeed--if Alberic is dead--woe be to Rome! It is too

monstrous for belief, and yet--I have suspected it long."

For a time Odo relapsed into silence, brooding over the tidings of

doom, and Tristan, though many questions struggled for utterance,

waited in anxious suspense.

At last the monk resumed.

"I see in this the hand of one who never strikes but to destroy. The

blow falls unseen, yet the aim is sure. I have not been idle, yet do I

not hold in my hand all the threads of the dark web that encompasses

us. Of the crime of which you stand accused I know you to be innocent.

Nevertheless--you dare not show yourself in Rome. Your escape from

your dungeon once discovered, not a nook or corner of Rome will remain

unsearched. They dare not let you live, for your existence spells their

doom. They will not look for you in this hermitage. It has many secret

winding passages, and it will be easy for you to elude them. Therefore,

my son, school your soul to patience, for here you must remain till

we have assembled around the banner of the Cross the forces of Light

against the legions of Hell."

"What of the woman, Father, who is awaiting my return at the Convent of

Santa Maria in Trastevere?" Tristan turned to the monk in a pleading,

stifled voice. "Doubtless the terrible rumor has reached her ear."

He covered his face with his hands, while convulsive sobs shook his

whole frame.

Odo tried to soothe him.

"This is hardly the spirit I expected of one who has hitherto shown

so brave a front, and whose aim it is not to anticipate the blows of

chance."

"Nevertheless, Father, it is more than I can bear. I have no lust for

life, and care not what fate has in store for me, for my heart is heavy

within me, and all the fountains of my hopes are dried up, until I know

the fate of the Lady Hellayne--and know from her own lips that she does

not believe this devilish calumny."

A troubled look passed into Odo's face.

"If she still is at the convent of the Blessed Sisters of Trastevere

she is undoubtedly safe," he said, but there was something in his tone

which struck Tristan's ear with dismay.

"You are keeping something from me, Father," he said falteringly. "Tell

me the worst! For this anxiety is worse than death. Where is the Lady

Hellayne? Is she--dead?"

"Would she were," replied the monk gloomily. "I wished to spare you the

tidings! She was taken from the convent on some pretext--the nature of

which I know not. At present she is at the palace of Theodora on Mount

Aventine."

Tristan sat up as if electrified.

"At the palace of Theodora?" he cried. "How is this known to you?"

"Little transpires in Rome which I do not know," Odo replied darkly.

"It seems that those whom the Lord Basil entrusted with the task of

abducting the woman were in turn outwitted by Theodora who, in rescuing

her from a fate worse than death at the hands of the Grand Chamberlain,

has perchance consigned her to one equally, if not more, cruel."

A moan broke from Tristan's lips. Then he was seized with a terrible

fit of rage.

"Then it is Theodora's hand that has sundered us in the flesh as her

witches' beauty had estranged our hearts. More merciless than a beast

of prey she did not strike Hellayne with death, so that I might have

sentinelled her hallowed tomb, and with her sweet memory for company

might have watched for the coming of my own hour to join her again! I

have lost my love--my honor--my manhood--at the hands of a wanton."

Odo tried for a time, though in vain, to calm him by reminding him that

Hellayne would rather suffer death than dishonor. As regarded himself,

he was convinced that Theodora would have moved heaven and earth to

have set him free, had not his supposed crime concerned the Church and

the Cardinal-Archbishop was adamant.

"Oft, in my visions," he concluded, speaking lower, as if his mind

strove with some vague elusive memory, "have I heard the voice of

Theodora's doom cried aloud. A cruel fate is yours indeed--and we can

but pray to the saints that the worst may be averted from the woman who

has suffered so much."

"Something must be done," Tristan interposed, his fierce mood gaining

the mastery over every other feeling. "I care not if the minions of

the devil take me back to the prison that leads to death, so I snatch

her prey from this arch-courtesan of the Aventine."

Odo laid a detaining hand upon his arm.

"Madman! You are but planning your own destruction. And, if you die,

wherein will it benefit the woman who is left to her fate? You are weak

from the night's work and your nerves are overwrought. Follow me into

the adjoining room even though the repast be meagre. We will devise

some means to rescue the Lady Hellayne from the powers of darkness and,

trusting in Him who died that we may live, we shall succeed."

Pointing to the drooping form of the crucified Christ on the opposite

wall of his improvised oratory, Odo beckoned to Tristan to follow him,

and the latter accompanied the Benedictine into the adjoining rock

chamber, where he did ample justice to the frugal repast which Odo

placed before him, and of which the monk himself partook but sparingly.

CHAPTER VI

FROM DREAM TO DREAM

Theodora's sleep had been broken and restless. She tossed and turned

upon her pillow. It was weary work to lie gazing with eyes wide open

at the fantastic shadows cast by the flickering night lamp. It was

still less productive of sleep to shut them tight and abandon herself

to the visions thus created which stood out in life-like colors and

refused to be dispelled. Do what she would to forget him, Tristan ever

and ever stood before her, towering like a demigod above the mean,

effeminate throng that surrounded her. She could no longer analyze her

feelings. She believed herself to be bewitched. She had not reached

the prime of womanhood without having sounded, as she thought, every

chord of the human heart. Descendant from a family of courtesans, such

as had ruled Rome during the tenth century, she had tasted every cup,

as she thought, that promised gratification and excitement. She had

been flattered, courted, loved, admired. Yet she had remained utterly

cold to all these experiences, and none of her lovers could boast that

her passion had endured beyond the hour. The terrible fascination she

exercised over all men made them slaves in her hands, blind instruments

of her will. But, as the years went by, the utter disgust she felt with

these hordes of beasts that thronged her bowers, was only equalled by

a mad desire for power, a struggle, which alone could bring to her

oblivion. To rule had become a passion with the woman, who had no heart

interest that made life worth living. The fleeting passion for Basil

had long ceased to kindle a responsive fire in her veins. Fit but to

be her tool, she was determined to rid herself of him as soon as her

ambition should have been realized.

Suddenly the unbelievable had come to pass. She had met a man. Not one

of those crawling, fawning reptiles who nightly desecrated her groves,

but a man who might have steered her life into different channels, who

might have directed the flight of her soul to regions of light, instead

of chaining it to the dark abyss among the shadows. It was a new

sensation altogether. This intense and passionate longing she had never

felt before. But in its novelty it was absolutely painful. For the man

whom she craved with all the fibres of her being, to whom her soul went

out as it had never gone out to mortal, had scorned her.

Her fame had proved more potent than her beauty.

Tristan's continued indifference had roused in her all the demons

in her nature. Her first impulse had been revenge at any price. Her

compact with Basil was the fruit of her first madness. Even now she

would have rescinded it had Tristan but shown a softer, kindlier

feeling towards her. Some incongruous whim had prompted her to choose

for her instrument the very man whom in her heart she loathed, whose

attentions were an insult to her. For, in her own heart, Theodora held

herself to be some God-decreed thing, like the Laides and Thaides and

Phrynes of old. She could not escape her destiny.

With all her self-command Theodora's feelings had almost overpowered

her. Ever since the tidings of Tristan's supposed crime and captivity

had reached her ear, she had taxed her brain, though in vain, to

bring about his rescue. For once her efforts were baffled and she met

a resistance which all the tigerish ferocity of her nature could

not overcome. Tristan was in the custody of the Church. In his guilt

Theodora did not believe, rather did she suspect foul play at the hands

of one of whom she would demand a terrible reckoning. She thought of

Tristan night and day, and she was determined to save him, whatever the

hazard,--save him for herself and her love. Her spies were at work, but

meanwhile she must sit idly by and wait--wait, though the blood coursed

like lava through her veins. She dared confide in none, nor could she

even have speech with the man she loved. She had managed to curb her

feelings and to preserve an outward calm, while Persephoné prepared her

for repose. The latter was much puzzled by her mistress's mood, but she

retired to her own couch carefree, while Theodora writhed in an agony

such as she had never known before.

Yet, fate had been kind to her,--kinder than she had dared to hope.

By some fatal throw of chance the woman Tristan loved--her rival--had

fallen into her hands. While this circumstance did not in itself take

the sting of Tristan's insult from the wound, she would, at least, be

revenged upon the cause of her suffering.

When, on that memorable evening at the Arch of the Seven Candles, she

had first met Hellayne face to face, when first the truth had flashed

upon her and she knew herself rejected for that white lily from the

North, a hatred such as she had never known had crept into her heart,

a hatred to which fresh fuel was added from the consciousness of her

rival's beauty, her strength, her youth. With all the fire of her

southern temperament she longed to meet this woman, to conquer her, to

take from her the man she loved.

Morning brought in its wake its unfailing accession of

clear-sightedness and practical resolve. Long before she rose she had

made up her mind where and how to strike. Nothing remained but to

choose the weapon and to put a keener edge upon the steel.

When Persephoné came to assist her mistress, she wondered how the mood

of the evening had passed. While attiring Theodora, the Circassian

could not but wonder at the marvellous beauty of this woman who had

bent the hearts of men to her desires like wind blown reeds, only

to break them and cast them at their feet. Only on the previous day

a new wooer had entered the lists; a man rude of speech and manner,

vain withal and self-satisfied, had laid gifts at Theodora's feet.

Roger de Laval was the great man's name. He came from some far away,

fabled land, and it was rumored that he had come to Rome to seek his

truant wife. Having surprised her in the arms of her lover, whom she

had followed, he had killed both. Such a temper was to the liking

of Persephoné, and, as her soft white fingers played around her

mistress' throat, in the endeavor to fasten her rose-colored tunic, she

could hardly restrain herself from encircling that white throat and

strangling the woman who had spurned the attentions of one for whose

love she would have sacrificed her soul.

"What of the Lady Hellayne?" Theodora broke the heavy silence.

"She remains in the chamber which the Lady Theodora has assigned to

her." Persephoné replied.

"Are the eunuchs at their post?"

"Before her door and beneath her windows."

Theodora gave a nod.

"Bring the Lady Hellayne here!"

"The Lady Theodora has not breakfasted."

"I know! Yet I would not delay this meeting longer."

Persephoné hesitated.

"The Lady Hellayne is in a perilous mood--"

"I should love nothing better than to find her so," Theodora replied,

extending her two snowy arms, whose steely strength Persephoné knew

so well. "I long for the conflict with this marble statue as I have

never longed for anything in my life. I could find it in my heart to

be happy if she destroyed me with those white hands that rival mine,

if she but stepped out of her reserve, her marble calm, if her soul

ignited from mine."

"If I know aught about her kind, the Lady Theodora will do well to be

wary," Persephoné replied demurely.

The covert taunt had its instantaneous effect.

"Deem you I fear this white siren from the North?" Theodora flashed,

regarding herself in the bronze mirror and brushing a stray lock of

hair from her white brow.

"What will you do with her, Lady Theodora?" Persephoné purred.

Theodora's face was very white.

"There are times when nothing but the physical touch will satisfy. And

now go and fetch hither the Lady Hellayne that I may hear from her own

lips how she fared under the roof of her rival."

Persephoné departed from the room, while Theodora arose and, stepping

to the casement, looked out into the blossoming gardens that encircled

her palace.

Her beauty was regal indeed, as she stood there brooding, her bare arms

dropping by her side. But for the expression of the eyes, in which

a turmoil of passion seemed to seethe, the wonderful face in repose

would have seemed that of an angel rather than a woman meditating the

destruction of another.

After a time Persephoné returned. By her side walked Hellayne.

Her beauty seemed even enhanced by the expression of suffering revealed

in the depths of her blue eyes. She wore a dark robe, almost severe in

its straight lines. The loose sleeves revealed her white arms. Her hair

was tied in a Grecian knot.

At a sign from Theodora Persephoné left the room.

For a moment the two women faced each other in silence, fixing each

other with their gaze, each trying to read the thoughts of the other.

It was Hellayne who spoke.

"The Lady Theodora has desired my presence."

"It was my anxiety for your welfare, Lady Hellayne," Theodora replied,

inviting her to a seat, while she seated herself opposite her visitor.

"After the trying experiences of yesterday I do not wonder at the

shadows that creep under your eyes. They but prove that my anxiety was

well founded. May I ask if you rested well?"

"I owe you thanks, Lady Theodora, for your timely aid," Hellayne

replied in cold, passionless accents. "They tell me I was in dire

straits, though I cannot conceive who should care to abduct one who

would so little repay the effort."

"Enough to infatuate him, whoever he was, with a beauty as rare as it

is wonderful," Theodora replied, forced to an expression of her own

admiration at the sight of the exquisite face, the white throat, the

wonderful arms and hands of her rival. "I but did what any woman would

do for another whose life she saw imperilled. Your wonderful youth

and strength will soon restore you to your former self. Deign then to

accept the hospitality of this abode until such a time."

There was a pause during which each seemed to search the soul of the

other.

It was Hellayne who spoke.

"I thank you, Lady Theodora. Nevertheless I intend to depart at the

earliest. I can picture to myself the anxiety of the Blessed Sisters of

Santa Maria in Trastevere at my mysterious disappearance."

"You intend taking holy orders?"

Theodora's question was pregnant with a strange wonder.

A negative gesture came in response.

"The convent proved a haven of refuge to me when I was sorely tried."

"Yet--you cannot return there," Theodora interposed. "You would not

be safe. Know you from whose minions my Africans rescued you on yester

eve?"

Hellayne's wide eyes were silent questioners.

"Then listen well and ponder. You were in the power of the Lord Basil.

And that which he desires he usually obtains."

Hellayne covered her face with her hands.

"The Lord Basil!"

"You know him, Lady Hellayne?"

"Slightly. He was wont to call upon the man I once called my husband."

"The man you deserted for another."

Hellayne's eyes glittered like steel.

"That is a matter which concerns only myself, Lady Theodora," she said

coldly. "You saved my honor--perchance my life. For this I thank you. I

shall depart at once."

She walked to the door, opened it and recoiled.

Before it stood two Africans with gleaming scimitars.

White to the lips, Hellayne closed the door and faced Theodora.

"Lady Theodora--why are these there?"

Theodora's smouldering gaze met the fire in the other woman's eyes.

"Those who come to the bowers of Theodora, remain," she said slowly.

"Am I to understand that you will detain me by force within these walls

of infamy?"

"Your language is a trifle harsh, fairest Lady Hellayne," Theodora

replied mockingly. "Your over-wrought nerves must bear the burden of

the blame. Yet, whatever it may please you to call the place where

Theodora dwells, always remember, I am Theodora. You have heard of me

before."

"Yes--I have heard of you before!"

The calm and cutting contempt which lingered in these words stung

Theodora like a whip-lash.

"You know then, Lady Hellayne, it is your will against mine! We have

met before!"

"You mean to detain me here, against my will?"

"Whether I detain you or no--shall depend upon yourself. We are two

women--young,--beautiful--passionate--determined to win that which we

deem our happiness. I will be plain with you. All the reverses and

heartaches of months and days are wiped out in this glorious moment

when I hold you here in my power. For once my guardian angel, if I can

still boast of one, has been kind to me. He has delivered you into my

hands--and I shall bend or break you!"

Hellayne listened to this outburst of passion with outward calm, though

her heart beat so wildly that she thought the other woman must hear it

through the deadly silence which prevailed for a space.

"You will bend or break me, Lady Theodora?" Hellayne replied with a

pathetic shrug. "There is nothing that you could do that would even

leave a memory. I have suffered that in life which makes you to me but

the nightmare of an evil dream."

"We shall see, Lady Hellayne," Theodora replied, her passion kindling

at the other woman's calm.

"What then is the ransom you desire, Lady Theodora?" Hellayne continued

sardonically. "A woman of your kind desires but one thing--and gold I

do not possess--"

Theodora's eyes scanned Hellayne's pale face.

"Lady Hellayne," she said slowly, "of all the things in heaven or on

earth there is but one I desire: Tristan,--the man you love--the man

who loves you with a passion so idolatrous that, did I possess but the

one thousandth atom of what he gives to your ice cold heart, I should

deem myself blessed above all women on earth. Give him to me--renounce

him--and you are free to go wherever your fancy may lead you."

Hellayne regarded the speaker as if she thought she had gone mad.

"Give him to you?" she said, hardly above a whisper, but her tone stung

Theodora to the quick.

"To me!" she said. "Look at me! Am I not beautiful? Am I not created

to make man happy? What woman may match herself with me? Even your

pale beauty, Lady Hellayne, is but as a disembodied wraith as compared

to mine. To me! To me! You are young, Lady Hellayne. What can the

sacrifice matter to you? To you it can mean little. There are other

men with whom you may be happy. For me it spells salvation--or eternal

doom! For I love him, I love him with my whole heart and soul, love

him as never I loved the thing called man before! He has shown to me

one glimpse of heaven, and now I mean to have him, to atone for a

past that was my evil inheritance, to taste life ere I too descend

to those shadowy regions whence there is no return. Lady Hellayne,"

she continued, hardly noting the expression of horror and loathing

that had crept into Hellayne's countenance. "You have heard of

me--you know who I am--and what! Those who went before me were the

same, generations, perchance. It rankles in our blood. But there is

salvation--even for such as myself. To few it comes, but I have seen

the star. It is the love of a man, pure and true. Where such a one

is found, even the darkness of the grave is dispelled. I have lived

and loved, Lady Hellayne! I have been loved as few women have. I have

hurled myself into this mad whirlpool to forget--but forget I could

not. Man, the beast, is ever ready to drag the woman who cries for life

and its true meaning back into the mire. He alone of all has spurned

me--he alone has resisted the deadly lure of my charms. Never have I

spoken to woman before as I am speaking to you, Lady Hellayne. Hear my

prayer!--Renounce him!"

Hellayne stared mute at the speaker, as if her tongue refused her

utterance. Was she going mad? Theodora, the courtesan queen of

Rome, trying to obtain salvation by taking from her her lover? She

could almost have found it in her heart to laugh aloud. A death-bed

repentance that made the devils laugh! In her virginal purity Hellayne

could not fathom what was going on in the soul of a woman who had

suddenly awakened to the terror of her life and was snatching at the

last straw to save herself from drowning in the cesspool of vice.

Theodora, with her woman's intuition, saw what was going on in the

other woman's soul. She noted the slow transformation from amazement to

horror, and from horror to defiance. She saw Hellayne slowly raising

herself to her full height, and approaching her, who had risen, until

her breath fanned her cheek.

"Give him to you, Lady Theodora? Surely you must be mad to even dream

of so monstrous a thing."

She was very white, and her hands were clenched as if she forcibly

restrained herself from flying at her opponent's throat.

Theodora's self-restraint was slowly waning. She knew she had pleaded

in vain. She knew Hellayne did not understand, or, if she understood,

did not believe.

She spoke calmly, yet there was something in her voice that warned

Hellayne of the impending storm.

"Listen, Lady Hellayne," she said. "You are alone in Rome! At the mercy

of any one who desires you! Your lover is accused of the most heinous

crime. He has taken the consecrated wafer from the chapel in the

Lateran and, who knows, from how many other churches in Rome."

Hellayne's eyes sank into those of the other woman.

"No one knows better than yourself, Lady Theodora, how utterly false

and infamous this accusation is. Tristan is a devout son of the Church.

His whole life bears testimony thereof."

"If the Consistory pronounce him guilty, who will believe him

innocent?" came the mocking reply.

"His God--his conscience--and I," Hellayne replied quietly.

"Will that save his life--which is forfeit?" Theodora interposed.

"Where is he? Oh, where is he?"

For a moment Hellayne gave way to her emotions.

"He lies in the vaults of Castel San Angelo," Theodora replied,

"awaiting his doom."

"Oh, God! Oh, God!" Hellayne moaned, covering her face with her hands

and sobbing convulsively.

"His rescue--though difficult of achievement--lies with you," Theodora

said, veiling her inmost feelings. She was staking all on the last

throw.

"With me?" Hellayne turned to her piteously.

"I will tell you," Theodora interposed, placing her white hands on

Hellayne's shoulders. "The Consistory has spoken--" she lied--"and no

power on earth can save your lover from his doom save--myself!"

"How may that be?"

"I know the ways of the Emperor's Tomb. Its denizens obey me! If you

love him as I do you will bring the sacrifice and save his life."

"Oh, save him if you can, Lady Theodora," Hellayne prayed, her hands

closing round Theodora's wrists. "Save him--save him."

"I shall, if you will do this thing, I ask," Theodora replied, sinking

her dark orbs into the blue depths of Hellayne's.

"What am I to do?"

"It is easy. Here are stylus and tablet. Write to the Lord Basil

to meet you at the Groves of Theodora. A hint of love, passion,

promise--fulfillment of his desires--then give it to me. It shall save

your lover."

For a moment Hellayne stared wild-eyed at the woman. It was as if she

had heard a voice, the meaning of which she no longer understood.

Then, in her unimpassioned voice, she turned to Theodora.

"Only the fiend himself and Theodora could ask as much!"

The blood was coursing like a stream of lava through Theodora's veins.

Would Hellayne but step out of her reserve! Would she but abandon her

icy calm!

"Then you refuse?" she flashed.

"I defy you," Hellayne replied. "Do your worst! Rather would I see him

dead than defiled by such as you!"

"Would you, indeed?" Theodora returned with a deadly calm.

"Nevertheless, when first we met, he, for the mere asking, gave to me

a scarf of blue samite, a chased dagger, tokens from the woman he had

loved."

Theodora paused, to watch the effect of the poison shaft she had sped.

She saw by Hellayne's agonized expression that it had struck home.

"For the last time, Lady Hellayne, do my bidding!"

Hellayne had regained her self-possession. With a supreme effort she

fought down the pain in her heart.

"Never!" came the firm reply.

"Then I shall take him from you!"

"Deem you, I have aught to fear from such as you?" Hellayne said

slowly, the blue fire of her eyes burning on the pale face of Theodora.

"Deem you, that Tristan would defile his manhood with the courtesan

queen of Rome?"

A gasp, a choking outcry, and Theodora's white hands closed round

Hellayne's throat. Though their touch burnt her like fire, Hellayne did

not even raise her hands.

Fearlessly she gazed into Theodora's face.

"I am waiting," she said with the same passionless voice, but there was

something in her eyes that gave the other woman pause.

Theodora's hands fell limply by her side. What she read in Hellayne's

eyes had caused her, perchance, for the first time, to blanch.

She clapped her hands.

The door opened and Persephoné stood on the threshold.

She had listened, and not a word of their discourse had escaped her

watchful ears.

"The Lady Hellayne desires to return to her chamber," Theodora turned

to the Circassian, and without another word Hellayne followed her guide.

Yet, as she did so, her head was turned towards Theodora and in her

eyes was an expression so inscrutable that Theodora turned away with a

shudder, as the door closed behind their retreating forms, leaving her

alone with her overmastering agony.

CHAPTER VII

A ROMAN MEDEA

It was a moonless night.--

Deep repose was upon the seven hilled city. The sky was intensely dark,

but the stars shone out full and lustrous. Venus was almost setting.

Mars glowed red and fiery towards the zenith; the constellations seemed

to stand out from the infinite spaces behind them. Orion glittered like

a giant in golden armour; Cassiopeia shone out in her own peculiar

radiance and the Pleiades in their misty brightness.

A litter, borne by four stalwart Nubians, and preceded by two torch

bearers, slowly emerged from the gates of Theodora's palace and took

the direction of the gorge which divides the Mount of Cloisters from

Mount Testaccio.

Owing to the prevailing darkness which made all objects, moving and

immobile, indistinguishable, the inmates of the litter had not drawn

the curtains, so as to admit the cooling night air. There was a

fixedness in Theodora's look and a recklessness in her manner that

showed anger and determination. It struck Persephoné, who was seated

by her side, with a sort of terror, and for once she did not dare to

accost her mistress with her usual banter and freedom.

Theodora had spent the early hours of the evening in a half obscured

room, whose sable hangings seemed to reflect the unrest of her

soul. She had forbidden the lamps to be lighted, brooding alone in

darkness and solitude. Then she had summoned Persephoné, ordered her

litter-bearers and commanded them to take her to the house of Sidonia,

a woman versed in all manner of lore that shunned the light of day.

"It must be done! It shall be done!" she muttered, her white face

tense, her white hands clenched.

Suddenly her hand closed round Persephoné's wrist.

"She defies me, knowing herself in my power," she said. "We shall see

who shall conquer."

"The Lady Hellayne is as fearless of death, as yourself, Lady

Theodora," Persephoné replied. "Indeed, she seemed rather to desire it,

for no woman ever faced you with such defiance as did she when you put

before her the fatal choice."

Theodora's face shone ghostly in the nocturnal gloom.

"We shall see! She shall desire death a thousand fold ere she quits the

abode I have assigned to her. God! Not even Roxana had dared to say to

me what this one did."

"Nor would her shafts have struck so deep a wound," Persephoné

interposed with studied insolence.

Theodora's grip tightened round the girl's wrist.

"You admire the Lady Hellayne?" she said softly, but there was a gleam

in her eyes like liquid fire.

"As one brave woman admires another!" Persephoné replied fearlessly,

turning her beautiful face to the speaker.

"You may require all your courage some day to face another task,"

Theodora replied. "Beware, lest you tempt me to do what I might regret."

Persephoné turned white. Her bosom heaved. Her eyes met Theodora's.

"I shall welcome the ordeal with all my heart!"

Theodora relapsed into silence, oppressed by dark thoughts, the memory

of unresisted temptations, a chaotic world where black unscalable

rocks, like circles of the Inferno, hemmed her in on every side, while

devils whispered into her ears the words that gave shape and substance

to her desire to destroy her rival in the love of the one man whom, in

all her changeable life, she had truly desired.

"Deem you, that I have aught to fear from such as you? Deem you, that

Tristan would defile his manhood with the courtesan queen of Rome?"

The words still boomed in her ears, the words and the tone in which

they had been hurled in her face.

Even to this moment she knew not what restrained her from strangling

Hellayne. It seemed to her that only in a physical encounter could

she quench the hatred she bore this white, beautiful statue who never

raised her voice while the fire of her blue eyes seared her very soul.

A thousand frightful forms of evil, stalking shapes of death, came

and went before her imagination, which caused her to clutch first at

one, then at another of the dire suggestions that came in crowds which

overwhelmed her powers of choice. Then, like an inspiration from the

very depths of Hell, a thought flashed into her mind, and, no sooner

conceived, than she determined upon its execution.

The laboratory of the woman whom Theodora was seeking on this night was

in an old house midway in the gorge. In a deep hollow, almost out of

sight, stood a square structure of stone, gloomy and forbidding, with

narrow windows and an uninviting door. Tall pines shadowed it on one

side, a small rivulet twisted itself, like a live snake, half round it

on the other. A plot of green grass, ill-kept and teeming with noxious

weeds, fennel, thistle and foul stramonium, was surrounded by a rough

wall of loose stone; and here lived the woman who supplied all those

who desired her wares, and plied her nocturnal trade.

Sidonia was tall and straight, of uncertain age, though she might have

been reckoned at forty. The whiteness of her skin was enhanced by her

blue black hair and lustrous black eyes. Far from forbidding, she

exercised a sinister charm upon those who called upon her, and who

vainly tried to reconcile her trade with the traces of a great beauty.

Yet her thin, cruel lips never smiled, unless she had an object to gain

by assuming a disguise as foreign to her as light is to an angel of

darkness.

Hardly any known poison there was, which was not obtainable at her

hands. In a sombre chest, carved with fantastic figures from Etruscan

designs, were concealed the subtle drugs, cabalistical formulas and

alchemic preparations which were so greatly in demand during those

years of darkness.

In the most secret place of all were deposited, ready for use, a few

phials of a crystal liquid, every single drop of which contained the

life of a man, and which, administered in due proportion of time and

measure, killed and left no trace.

Here was the sublimated dust of the deadly night-shade which kindles

the red fires of fever and rots the roots of the tongue. Here was the

fetid powder of stramonium that grips the lungs like an asthma, and

quinia that shakes its victims like the cold hand of the miasma in

the Pontine Marshes. The essence of poppies, ten times sublimated, a

few grains of which bring on the stupor of apoplexy, and the sardonic

plant that kills its victims with the frightful laughter of madness

upon their countenance, were here. The knowledge of these and many

other cursed herbs, once known to Medea in the Colchian land, and

transplanted to Greece and Rome with the enchantments of their use, had

been handed down by a long succession of sorcerers and poisoners to the

woman, who seemed endowed by nature as the legitimate inheritrix of

this lore of Hell.

At last the litter of Theodora was set down by its swarthy bearers

before the threshold of Sidonia's house. Theodora alighted and, after

commanding the Africans to await her return, ascended the narrow stone

steps alone and knocked at the door. After a brief wait, shuffling

steps were heard from within, and a bent, lynx-eyed individual of

Oriental origin opened the door, inviting the visitor to enter. She was

ushered into a dusky hallway, in which brooded strange odors, thence

into a dimly lighted room, the laboratory of Sidonia.

Hardly had she seated herself when the woman entered and stood face to

face with Theodora.

The eyes of the two women instantly met in a searching glance that took

in the whole ensemble, bearing, dress and almost the very thoughts of

each other. In that one glance each knew and understood; each knew that

she could trust the other, in evil, if not in good.

And there was trust between them. The evil spirits that possessed their

hearts clasped hands, and a silent league was formed in their souls ere

a word had been spoken.

Sidonia wore a long, purple robe, totally unadorned. The sleeves were

wide, and revealed her white, bare arms. Her finely cut features were

crossed with thin lines of cruelty and cunning. No mercy was in her

eyes, still less on her lips, and none in her heart, cold to every

human feeling.

"The Lady Theodora is fair to look upon," Sidonia broke the silence.

"All women admit it; all men confess it." And her gaze swept the other

woman, who was clad in an ample black mantle which ended in a hood.

"Can you guess why I am here?" Theodora replied. "You are wise and know

a woman's desire better than she dares avow."

"Can I guess?" replied Sidonia, returning Theodora's scrutiny. "You

have many lovers, Lady Theodora, but there is one who does not return

your passion. And, you have a rival. A woman, more potent than

yourself, has, notwithstanding your beauty, entangled the man you love,

and you are here to win him back and to triumph over your rival. Is it

not so, Lady Theodora?"

"More than that," replied the other, clenching her white hands and

gazing into the eyes that met her own with a look of merciless triumph

at what she saw reflected therein. "It is all that--and more--"

Sidonia met her eager gaze.

"You would kill your rival!" she said with a smile upon her lips.

"There is death in your eyes--in your voice--in your heart! You

would kill the woman. It is good in the eyes of a woman to kill her

rival--and women like you are rare!"

"Your reward shall be great," Theodora said with an inquisitive glance

at the woman who had read her inmost thoughts.

"To kill woman or man were a pleasure even without the profit," replied

Sidonia, darkly. "I come from a race, ancient and terrible as the

Cæsars, and I hate the puny rabble. I have my own joy in making my hand

felt in a world I hate and which hates me!"

She held out her hands, as if the ends of her fingers were trickling

poison.

"Death drops on whomsoever I send it," she continued, "subtly,

secretly. The very spirits of air cannot trace whence it comes."

"I know you are the possessor of terrible secrets," Theodora replied,

fascinated beyond all her experiences with the woman and her trade.

"Such secrets never die," said the poisoner. "Few men, still fewer

women, are there who would not listen at the door of Hell to learn

them. Let me see your hand!"

Theodora complied with her abrupt demand and laid her beautiful white

hand into the no less beautiful one of the woman before her.