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 runaway 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, outwitted 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.
Her touch, though the hand was cool, seemed to burn, but Theodora's touch affected the other woman likewise for she said:
"There is evil enough in the palm of your hand to destroy the world! We are well met, you and I. You are worthy of my confidence. These fingers would pick the fruit off the forbidden tree, for men to eat and die! Lady Theodora—I may some day teach you the great secret—meanwhile I will show you that I possess it!"
With these words she walked to the chest, took from it an ebony casket and laid it upon the table.
"There is death enough in this casket," she said, "to kill every man and woman in Rome!"
Theodora fastened her gaze upon it, as if she would have drawn out the secret of its contents by the very magnetism of her eyes. For, even while Sidonia was speaking, a thought flashed through her visitor's mind—a thought which almost made her forget the purpose on which she had come. She laid her hands upon it caressingly, trembling, eager to see its contents.
"Open it!" said Sidonia. "Touch the spring and look!"
Theodora touched the little spring. The lid flew back and there flashed from it a light which for a moment dazzled her by its very brilliancy. She thrust the cabinet from her in alarm, imagining she inhaled the odor of some deadly perfume.
"Its glitter terrifies me!" she said. "Its odor sickens."
"Your conscience frightens you," sneered Sidonia.
Theodora rose to her feet, her face pale, her eyes alight with a strange fire.
"This to me?" she flashed.
For a moment the two women faced each other in a white silence.
A strange smile played upon Sidonia's lips.
"The Aqua Tofana in the hands of a coward is a gift as fatal to its possessor as to its victim!"
"You are brave to speak such words to Theodora!"
Sidonia gave her an inscrutable glance.
"Why should I fear you? Even without these,—woman to woman," she replied, as she drew the casket to herself and took out a phial, gilt and chased with strange symbols.
Sidonia took it up and immediately the liquid was filled with a million sparks of fire. It was the Aqua Tofana, undiluted, instantaneous in its effect, and not medicable by antidotes. Once administered there was no more hope for its victim than for the souls of the damned who have received the final judgment. One drop of the sparkling water upon the tongue of a Titan would blast him like Jove's thunderbolt, shrivel him up to a black, unsightly cinder.
This terrible water was rarely used alone by the poisoners, but it formed the basis of a hundred slower potions which ambition, fear or hypocrisy, mingled with the element of time, and colored with the various hues and aspects of natural disease.
Theodora had again taken her seat and leaned towards Sidonia, supporting her chin in the palm of her hands, as she bent eagerly over the table, drinking in every word as the hot sand of the desert drinks in the water that falls upon it.
"What is that?" she pointed to a phial, white as milk and seemingly harmless, and while she questioned, her busy brain worked with feverish activity. The Aqua Tofana she had used when she struck down Roxana and her too talkative lover on the night of the feast in her garden. But now she required a different concoction to complete the vengeance on her rival.
"This is called Lac Misericordiae," replied Sidonia. "It brings on painless consumption and decay! It eats the life out of man or woman, while the moon empties and fills. The strong man becomes a skeleton. Blooming maidens sink to their graves blighted and bloodless. Neither saint or sacrament can arrest its doom. This phial"—and she took another from the cabinet, replacing the first—"contains innumerable griefs that wait upon the pillows of rejected and heartbroken lovers, and the wisest mediciner is mocked by the lying appearances of disease that defy his skill and make a mock of his wisdom."
There was a moment's silence. At last Theodora spoke.
"Have you nothing that will cause fear—dread—madness—ere it strikes the victim dumb forever more? Something that produces in the brain those dreadful visions—horrid shapes—peopling its chambers where reason once held sway?"
For a moment Sidonia and Theodora held each other's gaze, as if each were wondering at the wickedness of the other.
"This," Sidonia said at last, taking out a curiously twisted bottle, containing a clear crimson liquid and sealed with the mystic Pentagon, "contains the quintessence of mandrakes, distilled in the alembic, when Scorpio rules the hour. It will produce what you desire."
"How much of it is required to do this thing?"
"Three drops. Within six hours the unfailing result will appear."
"Give it to me!"
"You possess rare ingenuity, Lady Theodora," said Sidonia, placing her hand in that of her caller. "If Satan prompts you not, it is because he can teach you nothing, either in love or stratagem."
She shut up her infernal casket, leaving the phial of distilled mandrakes, shining like a ruby in the lamp light, upon the table. By its side lay a bag of gold.
Theodora arose. The eyes of the two women flashed in lurid sympathy as they parted, and Sidonia accompanied her visitor to the door.
As she did so a heavy curtain in the background parted and the white face of Basil peered into the empty room.
After a brief interval Sidonia returned.
Her face had again assumed its forbidding aspect as, removing the phials and seemingly addressing no one, she said:
"We are alone now!"
At the next moment Basil stood in the chamber. His eyes burned with a feverish lustre, and there was a horror in his countenance which he strove in vain to conceal.
"This must not be," he said hoarsely. "Why did you give her this devil's brew?"
And staggering up to the table he gripped the soft white wrist of the woman with fingers of steel.
Sidonia's eyes narrowed as she gazed into those of the man.
"Do you love that one, too?" she said, wrenching herself free. "Or have you lied to her as you have lied to me?"
"Your voice sounds like the cry from a dark gallery that leads to Hell," Basil replied. "You, alone, have I loved all these years, and for your fell beauty have I risked all I have done and am about to do!"
"Fear speaks in your voice," Sidonia replied with a cruel smile upon her lips. "You are in my power, else had you long ago consigned me to a place whence there is no return. With me the secret of another's death would go to the grave."
"Nay, you do not understand!" Basil interposed. "The woman who has aroused Theodora's maddened jealousy is nothing to me. But I have other plans concerning her—she must be saved!"
"Other plans?" replied Sidonia darkly. "What other plans? What sort of woman is she who can arouse the jealousy of Theodora?"
"White and cold as the snows of the North."
"A stranger in Rome?"
"The wife of one whose days are numbered, if I rightly read the oracle."
"What is this plan?" Sidonia insisted.
"She is to be delivered to Hassan Abdullah, as reward for his aid in the great stroke that is about to fall."
In the distance whimpered a bell.
"And, when the hour tolls—the hour of which you have so often prated—when you sit in the high seat of the Senator of Rome—where then will I be, who have watched your power grow and have aided it in its upward flight?"
Basil's face lighted up with the fires within.
"Where else but by my side? Who dares defy us and the realms of the Underworld?"
"Who, indeed?" Sidonia replied with a dark, inscrutable glance into Basil's face. "Perchance I should not love you as I do were you not as evil as you are good to look upon! I love you, even though I know your lying lips have professed love to many others, even though I know that Theodora has kindled in you all the evil passions of your soul. Beware how you play with me!"
She threw back her wide sleeves and two dazzling white arms encircled Basil's neck.
"Await me yonder," she then turned to her visitor, pointing to a chamber situated beyond the curtain. "We will talk this matter over!"
Basil retired and Sidonia busied herself, replacing the different phials in the ebony chest.
After having assured herself that everything was in its place, she picked up the lamp and disappeared behind the curtain in the background.
Deep midnight silence reigned in the gorge of Mount Aventine.
[CHAPTER VIII]
IN TENEBRIS
Another day had gone down the never returning tide of time. The sun was sinking in a rosy bed of quilted clouds. All day long Hellayne had sat brooding in her chamber, unable to shake off the lethargy of despair that bound and benumbed her limbs, rousing herself at long intervals just sufficiently to wring her hands for very anguish, without even the faintest ray of hope to pierce the black night of her misery.
Just as a white border of light had been visible on the edge of the dark cloud that hung over her, just as she had refound the man whose love was the very breath of her existence, her evil star had again flamed in the ascendant and, losing him anew, she had utterly lost herself. She struggled with her thoughts, as a drowning man amid tossing waves, groping about in the dark for a plank to float upon, when all else has sunk in the seas around him.
She had hardly touched the food which Persephoné herself had brought to her. Yet it seemed to her the Circassian had regarded her strangely, as she placed the viands before her. She had tried to frame a question, but her lips seemed to refuse the utterance, and at last Persephoné had departed, with the mocking promise to return later, to inquire how the Lady Hellayne had spent the day.
Now it seemed to her as if a poison breath of evil was slowly permeating the narrow confines of her chamber. Something she had never before experienced was floating before her vision, was creeping into her brain, was booming in her ears, was turning her blood to ice.
Was it the voiceless echo of an ill-omened incantation, handed down through generations of poisoners and witches from the time of pagan Rome?
"Hecaten voco,
Voco Tisiphonem,
Spargens avernales aquas,
Te morti devoveo; te diris ago."
Was she going mad?
Hellayne's hands went to her forehead.
"I think I am sane," she said to herself, "at least—as yet."
Would Heaven not come to her aid? She was but a weak woman who in vain—too often in vain—had tried to snatch a few moments of happiness from life. Ah! If Death knew what a service he would render her! But no! She would brace her heart strings more than ever. She would renew her fight with dusk and madness. She would face and challenge each mad phantom—make it speak—reveal itself,—or she would break the silence of that monstrous place at least with her own voice. Though flesh was weak she would be strong to-night—but—ah God! here they came trooping out of the night.
She cowered back, shuddering, her eyes fixed on the dusky depths of the chamber.
It was the blue one—the one whose limbs and cheeks seemed made of pale blue ice. She felt her limbs growing numb. But she would bar its way.
The finger of the freezing shape was on its lip. Did it mean that it was dumb? Well, then, let it speak by signs. The dim blue rays that draped its silence quaked like aspens.
"Who are you?" she forced herself to speak. "Are you Hate? You shake your head? Are you Despair? No? Not that? Then you must be Fear!"
The figure nodded with a horrible grin.
"Fear of what?"
The phantom passed its finger slowly across its throat.
She held on to the panelling to keep from falling. Her woman's strength had bounds. But she recovered herself and forced herself to speak.
"Ah!" she said, "it is this she contemplates? How soon? I needs must know. How many twilights have I still to live, before they sink my body in yonder lotus pond?"
The phantom held up three fingers.
"Only three," Hellayne babbled like a child, talking to herself. "Well—pass upon your way, phantom.—You have given me all you had to give—three dusks to rise to Heaven."
She raised her eyes in prayer and a strange rapture came into her face. But it vanished suddenly—and once more she stared, shuddering, into the gloom.
For craze and hell still prevailed.
Look, there it came!
What new and monstrous phantom was swaying and groping towards her? A headless monk!—The air grew black with horror. Horror shrivelled her skin, was raising the roots of her hair.
It was for her he was groping. Her wits were beginning to leave her. She had to move this way and that to avoid him. She felt, if he only touched her, madness would win the day. And he groped and groped, and she seemed to feel him near to her.
"Away! Away!" she shrieked. But she was wasting her breath. He had neither eyes to see nor ears to hear.
And he groped and groped, as if he felt her already under his vague, white hands.
"Help—God!" she shrieked.
Nature could not cope with such shapes as these!
And Hellayne fell forward in a swoon.
It was late in the night when she regained consciousness. She opened her eyes. The shapes of dusk had gone. She was alone—alone on the stone floor of the chamber. Everything was still in the long dusky gallery beyond. Perhaps it was all over for the night, and yet—what was there upon the threshold?
"Oh, my God! my God!" she cried. "Let me die—only not this horror!"
There the phantom stood. Its scarlet mantle glimmered almost black. She dared not turn her back. She dared not shut her eyes. He made neither sign, nor beck, nor nod. But, like a crazy shadow, he circled round and round her, soundlessly, as if he were treading on velvet.
"Keep off—keep off!" she shrieked. "Protect me, oh my God! Madness is closing in upon me!"
And with a sudden, desperate movement she rushed at the phantom to tear the crimson mask from its face.
Her arms penetrated empty air.
With a moan she sank upon the floor. Her arms spread out, she lay upon her face.
The swoon held her captive once more.
But the dream was kinder to Hellayne than life.
She stood upon a rocky promontory in her own far-off land of Provence.
Before her spread the peace of the wide, glimmering sea.
What are these golden columns through which the water glistens?
A man stood within the ruins of a great temple, the sea before him, violet hills behind. From the summit of an island mountain in the bay the lilt of a tender song was drifting upwards.
And, as he sang, the great sea stirred. It heaved, it writhed, it rose. With onward movement, as of a coiling serpent, the whole vast liquid brilliance rushed upon the temple. Mighty billows of beryl curved and broke in sheets of white foam.
"Fear nothing," said the man. "Your river has found the sea!"
It was Tristan's voice.
From the distance came the faint tolling of a bell, forlorn, as from a forest chapel, infinitely sweet and tremulous. In a faint light, like a mountain mist at dawn, the whole scene faded away, and Hellayne was in a garden—a rose garden. She had been there before, but how different it all was. She was being smothered in roses. Flame roses every one—curled into fiery petal whorls, dancing in the garden dusk under a red, red sky.
Ah! There it is again, the terrible face, leering from among the branches, the face that froze the blood in her veins, that made her heart turn cold as ice and filled her soul with horror.
It is the Count Laval. He is seeking her, seeking her everywhere. Horns are peering out from under his scarlet cap, and he has long claws.
Now she is fleeing through the rose garden, faster, faster, ever faster. But he is gaining upon her. From bosquet to bosquet, from thicket to thicket; she hears his approaching steps. Now she can almost feel his breath upon her neck.
At last he has overtaken her.
Now he is circling round her, nearer and nearer, extending his hands towards her, while she follows his movement with horror-stricken eyes.
But her strength, her body, are paralyzed.
As his hands close round her throat, his eyes gloating with dull malice, she covers her face with her hands and falls with a shriek.
And as she lies there before him, dead, he looks down upon her with a strange smile upon his lips and casts his scarlet mantle over her.
Once more Hellayne is in the throes of a swoon.
[CHAPTER IX]
THE CONSPIRACY
It was a night, moonless and starless. Deep silence brooded over the city. Not a ray of light was in the sky. A dense fog hung like a funeral pall over the Seven Hills, and a ceaseless, changeless drizzle was sinking from the heavy clouds whose contours were indistinguishable in the nocturnal gloom. The Tiber hardly moaned within his banks. The city fires hissed and smouldered away under the descending rain, soon to be extinguished altogether.
It was about the second watch of the night when two men, wrapped in dark mantles that covered them from head to foot, quitted the monastery of San Lorenzo and were immediately swallowed up by the darkness.
The night by this time was more dismal than ever. The wind began to rise, and its fitful gusts howled round the stern old walls of the monastery, or rustled in the laurels and cypresses by which it was surrounded. The great gates were shut and barred. Hardly a light was to be seen along the entire range of buildings.
Suddenly a postern gate opened, and what appeared to be a monk, drawing his black cowl completely over his head, came forth and hurried along in the direction of the river.
Tristan and his companion, emerging from their hiding-place, followed at the farthest possible distance which allowed them to retain sight of their quarry. Through a succession of the worst and narrowest by-lanes of the city they tracked him to the Tiber's edge.
Here, dark as it was, a boat was ready for launching. Five or six persons were standing by, who seemed to recognize and address the monk. Keeping in the shadows of the tall, ill-favored houses, the twain contrived to approach near enough to hear somewhat that was said.
"The light over yonder has been burning this half hour," said one of the men.
"I could not come before," said he in the monk's habit. "I was followed by two men. I threw them out, however, before I reached the monastery of San Lorenzo. But—by all the saints—lose no more time! We have lost too much, as it is."
He entered the boat as he spoke. It was pushed out into the water, and in another moment the measured sound of oars came to their ears.
Odo of Cluny turned to his companion.
"Tell me, did he who spoke first and mentioned the light yonder on St. Bartholomew's Island—a light there is yonder, sure enough—did he resemble, think you, one we know?"
"Both in voice and form," replied Tristan.
"My thoughts point the same way as yours!"
"I should know that voice wherever I heard it," Tristan muttered under his breath. "But what of the light?"
Dimly through the mist the red glow was discernible.
"It beams from the deserted monastery," Odo replied after a pause.
"Can we put across?" Tristan queried.
"The question is not so much to find a boat as a landing-place, where we shall not be seen."
"There is a boat lying yonder. If my eyes do not deceive me, the boatman lies asleep on the poop."
"Know you aught of the men who rowed down the river?" Odo turned to the boatman, after he had aroused him.
The latter stared uncomprehendingly into the speaker's face.
"I know of no men. I fell asleep for want of custom. It is a God-forsaken spot," he added, rubbing his eyes. "Who would want a boat on a night like this?"
"We require even such a commodity," Odo replied.
The boatman returned a dull, unresponsive glance and did not move from his improvised couch.
"Take your oars and row us to the Tiber Island," Odo said sternly, "unless you would bring upon yourself the curse of the Church. We have a weighty matter that brooks no delay. And have a care to avoid that other boat which has preceded yours. We must not be seen."
Something in Odo's voice seemed to compel, and soon they were afloat, the boatman bending to his oars. They drifted through the dense mist and soon a dilapidated flight of landing stairs hove in sight, leading up to the deserted monastery.
"Had we chosen the usual landing-place, we should have found two boats moored there—I saw them as we turned." Odo turned to his companion. "Yet we dare not land here. We should be seen from the shore."
Directing their Charon to row his craft higher up, Odo soon discovered the place of which he was in quest. It was a little cove. The rocks which bordered it were slippery with seaweed, and in that misty obscurity offered no very safe footing.
Here the boat was moored, and Odo and his companion clambered slowly, but steadily, over the rocks and, in a few moments, had made good their landing.
Having directed the boatman to await their call in the shadow of the opposite bank, where he might remain unseen, they continued to grope their way upward, till they reached the angles of a wall which converged here, sheltered by a projecting pent house. Voices were heard issuing from within.
"We must have ample security, my lord," said a speaker, whose voice Odo recognized as the voice of Basil. "You require of us to do everything. You exact ties and pledges and hostages, and you offer nothing."
"I am desirous of sparing, as much as may be, the blood of my men," replied the person addressed. "Rome must be my lord's without conflict."
"That may—or may not be," said the first speaker. "But so much you may say to the Lord Ugo. If he expects to reconquer Rome, he will need all the forces he can summon."
"A wiser man than you or I, my lord, has said: 'Never force a foe to stand at bay,'" interposed a third. "Reject our offers, and we, whom you might have for your friends, you will have for your most bitter and determined foes. Accept our terms, and Rome, together with the Emperor's Tomb, is yours!"
"What terms are contained in this paper?" queried Ugo's emissary.
"They are not very difficult to remember!" returned the Grand Chamberlain. "But I might as well repeat them here. First—the revenues of all the churches to flow to the Holy See."
"Proceed."
"Utmost security of life, person and property to those who are aiding our enterprise."
"It is well," said the voice. "So much I can vouch for, my lord. Is that all?"
"All—as far as conditions go," returned the third speaker.
"It is not all, by St. Demetrius," cried Basil. "I claim the office I am holding with all its privileges and appurtenances, to give no account to any one of the past or the future."
"What of the present?" interposed the voice.
"You never could imagine that I perilled my neck only to secure your lord in his former possessions, which he so cowardly abandoned," said Basil contemptuously. "I claim the hand of the Lady Theodora—"
"Theodora?" cried the envoy of Ugo of Tuscany, turning fiercely upon the speaker. "Surely you are mad, my lord, to imagine that the Lord Ugo would peril his reign with the presence of this woman within the same walls that witnessed the regime of her sister—"
"Mind your own business, my lord," interposed Basil. "What the man thinks who fled from Castel San Angelo at the first cry of revolt, the man who slunk away like a thief in the night, is nothing to me. We make the conditions. It is for him to accept or reject them, as he sees fit."
A rasping voice, speaking a villainous jargon, made itself heard at this juncture.
"What of my Saracens, mighty lord?" Hassan Abdullah, for no lesser than the great Mahometan chieftain was the speaker, turned to the Grand Chamberlain. "I, too, am desirous of sparing the blood of my soldiers and, insofar as lies within my power, that of the Nazarenes also. For it is written in the book: Slavery for infidels—but death only for apostates."
"Our compact is sealed beyond recall," Basil made reply.
"Then you will deliver the woman into my hands?"
There was a pause.
"She shall be delivered into the hands of Hassan Abdullah! And he will sail away with his white-plumed bird—the fairest flower of the North—and the ransom of a city."
"Yet I do not know the lady's name," said the Saracen. "This I should know—else how may she heed my call?"
"Those who love her call her Hellayne."
At the name Tristan started so violently that the monk caught his arm in a grip of steel.
"Silence—if you value your life," Odo enjoined.
"When and where is she to be delivered into my hands?" Hassan Abdullah continued.
"The place will be made known to you, my lord," Basil replied, "when the Emperor's Tomb hails its new master."
"Here is an infernal plot," Odo whispered into Tristan's ear, "spawned up by the very Prince of Darkness."
"What can we do?" came back the almost soundless reply. "Hellayne to be delivered over to this infidel dog! Nay, do not restrain me, Father—"
"There are six to two of us," Odo interposed. "Silence! Some one speaks."
It was the voice of the envoy of Ugo of Tuscany.
"Although it seems like a taunt, to fling into the face of my lord the sister of the woman who was the cause of his defeat—"
"His coward soul was the cause of the Lord Ugo's defeat," Basil interposed hotly. "In the dark of night, by means of a rope he let himself down from his lair, to escape the wrath of the fledgling he had struck for an unintentional affront. Did the Lord Ugo even inquire into the fate of the woman who perished miserably in the dungeons of the Emperor's Tomb?"
"Let us not be hasty," interposed another. "The Lord Ugo will listen to reason."
"The conditions are settled," Basil replied. "On the third night from to-night!"
The conspirators rose and, emerging from the ruined refectory, made their way down to their boat.
Soon the sound of oars, becoming fainter and fainter, informed the listeners that the company had departed.
Tristan's face was very white.
"What is to be done?" he turned pathetically to the monk who stood brooding by his side. "I almost wish I had let my fate overtake me—"
"Do not blaspheme," Odo interposed. "Sometimes divine aid is nearest when it seems farthest removed. In three days the blow is to fall! In three days Rome is to be turned over to the infidels who are ravaging our southern coasts, and the Tuscan is once more to hold sway in the Tomb of the former Master of the World. But not he—Basil will rule, for Ugo has his hands full in Ivrea. With Basil Theodora will lord it from yonder castello. He will let the Lord Ugo burn his hands and he will snatch the golden fruit. I will pray that this feeble hand may undo their dark plotting."
"What is Rome to me? What the universe?" Tristan interposed, "if she whom I love better than life is lost to me?"
The monk turned to him laying his hand upon his shoulder.
"You have been miraculously delivered from the very jaws of death. You will save the woman you love from dishonor and shame."
Odo pondered for a pace then he continued:
"There is one in Rome—who is encompassing your destruction. The foul crime in the Lateran of which you were the victim is but another proof of the schemes of the Godless, who have desecrated the churches of Christ for their hellish purposes. We must find their devil's chapel, hidden somewhere beneath the soil of Rome. None shall escape."
"How will you bring this about, Father?" Tristan queried despairingly.
"The soldiers of the Church have not been bribed," Odo replied. "Listen, my son, and do you as I direct. On to-morrow's eve Theodora gives one of her splendid feasts. Go you disguised. Watch—but speak not. Listen—but answer not. Who knows but that you may receive tidings of your lost one? As for myself, I shall seek one whose crimes lie heavily upon him, one who trembles with the fear of death, at whose door he lies—Il Gobbo—the bravo. His master has dealt him a mortal wound to remove the last witness of his crimes. Come to me on the second day at dusk."
Emerging from the shadows of the wall, Tristan hailed the boatman, and a few moments later they were being rowed towards a solitary spot near the base of the Aventine, where they paid and dismissed their Charon and disappeared among the ruins.
[CHAPTER X]
THE BROKEN SPELL
Again there was feasting and high revels in the palace of Theodora on Mount Aventine. Colored lanterns were suspended between the interstices of orange and oleander trees; and incense rose in spiral coils from bronze and copper vessels, concealed among leafy bowers. The great banquet hall was thronged with a motley crowd of Romans, Greeks, men from the coasts of Africa and Iceland, Spaniards, Persians, Burgundians, Lombards, men from the steppes of Sarmatia, and the amber coast of the Baltic. Here and there groups were discussing the wines or the viands or the gossip of the day.
The guests marvelled at the splendor, wealth and the variegated mosaics, the gilded walls, the profusion of beautiful marble columns and the wonderfully groined ceiling. It was a veritable banquet of the senses. The outwitted radiance of the hall with its truly eastern splendor captivated the eye. From remote grottoes came the sounds of flutes, citherns and harps, quivering through the dreaming summer night.
On ebony couches upon silver frames, covered with rare tapestries and soft cushions, the guests reclined. Between two immense, crescent-shaped tables, made of citron wood and inlaid with ivory, rose a miniature bronze fountain, representing Neptune. From it spurted jets of scented water, which cooled and perfumed the air.
Not in centuries had there been such a feast in Rome. Mountain, plain and the sea had been relentlessly laid under tribute, to surrender their choicest towards supplying the sumptuous board.
Nubian slaves in spotless white kept at the elbows of the guests and filled the golden flagons as quickly as they were emptied. A powerful Cyprian wine, highly spiced, was served. Under its stimulating influence the revellers soon gave themselves up to the reckless enjoyment of the hour.
As the feast proceeded the guests cried more loudly for flagons of the fiery ecobalda. They quaffed large quantities of this wine and their faces became flushed, their eyes sparkled and their tongues grew more and more free. The temporary restraint they had imposed upon themselves gradually vanished. In proportion as they partook of the fiery vintage their conviviality increased.
The roll-call was complete. None was found missing. Here was the Lord of Norba and Boso, Lord of Caprara. Here was the Lord Atenulf of Benevento, the Lord Amgar, from the coasts of the Baltic; here was Bembo the poet, Eugenius the philosopher and Alboin, Lord of Farfa. Here was the Prefect of Rome and Roger de Laval. He, too, had joined the throng of idolators at the shrine of Theodora. The Lord Guaimar of Salerno was there, and Guido, Duke of Spoleto.
The curtain at the far end of the banquet hall slowly parted.
On the threshold stood Theodora.
Silent, rigid, she gazed into the hall.
Like a sudden snow on a summer meadow, a white silence fell from her imagination across that glittering, gleaming tinselled atmosphere. Everywhere the dead seemed to sit around her, watching, as in a trance, strange antics of the grimacing dead.
A vision of beauty she appeared, radiantly attired, a jewelled diadem upon her brow. By her side appeared Basil, the Grand Chamberlain.
When her gaze fell upon the motley crowd, a disgust, such as she had never known, seized her.
She seated herself on the dais, reserved for her, and with queenly dignity bade her guests welcome.
Basil occupied the seat of honor at her right, Roger de Laval at her left.
Had any one watched the countenances of Theodora and of Basil he would have surprised thereon an expression of ravening anxiety. To themselves they appeared like two players, neither knowing the next move of his opponent, yet filled with the dire assurance that upon this move depended the fate of the house of cards each has built upon a foundation of sand.
At last the Count de Laval arose and whirled his glass about his head.
"Twine a wreath about your cups," he shouted, "and drink to the glory of the most beautiful woman in the world—the Lady Theodora."
They rose to their feet and shouted their endorsement till the very arches seemed to ring with the echoes. His initiative was received with such favor by the others that, fired with the desire to emulate his example, they fell to singing and shouting the praise of the woman whose beauty had not its equal in Rome.
Theodora viewed the scene of dissipation with serenity and composure, and, by her attitude she seemed, in a strange way, even tacitly to encourage them to drink still deeper. Faster, ever faster, the wine coursed among the guests. Some of them became more and more boisterous, others were rendered somnolent and fell forward in a stupor upon the silken carpets.
Theodora, whose restlessness seemed to increase with every moment, and who seemed to hold herself in leash by a strenuous effort of the will, suddenly turned to Basil and whispered a question into his ear.
A silent nod came in response and the next moment a clash of cymbals, stormily persistent, roused the revellers from their stupor. Then, like a rainbow garmented Peri, floating easefully out of some far-off sphere of sky-wonders, an aerial maiden shape glided into the full lustre of the varying light, a dancer nude, save for the glistening veil that carelessly enshrouded her limbs, her arms and hands being adorned with circlets of tiny golden bells which kept up a melodious jingle as she moved. And now began the strangest music, music that seemed to hover capriciously between luscious melody and harsh discord, a wild and curious medley of fantastic minor suggestions in which the imaginative soul might discover hints of tears and folly, love and madness. To this uncertain yet voluptuous measure the glittering girl dancer leaped forward with a startling abruptness and, halting as it were on the boundary line between the dome and the garden beyond, raised her rounded arms in a snowy arch above her head.
Her pause was a mere breathing spell in duration. Dropping her arms with a swift decision, she hurled herself into the giddy mazes of a dance. Round and round she floated, like an opal-winged butterfly in a net of sunbeams, now seemingly shaken by delicate tremors, as aspen leaves are shaken by the faintest wind, now assuming the most voluptuous eccentricities of posture, sometimes bending down wistfully as though she were listening to the chanting of demon voices underground, and again, with her waving white hands, appearing to summon spirits to earth from their wanderings in the upper air. Her figure was in perfect harmony with the seductive grace of her gestures; not only her feet, but her whole body danced, her very features bespoke abandonment to the frenzy of her rapid movement. Her large black eyes flashed with something of fierceness as well as languor; and her raven hair streamed behind her like a darkly spread wing.
Wild outbursts of applause resounded uproariously through the hall.
Count Roger had drawn nearer to Theodora. His arms encircled her body.
Theodora bent over him.
"Not to-night! Not to-night! There are many things to consider. To-morrow I shall give you my answer."
He looked up into her eyes.
"Do you not love me?"
His hot breath fanned her cheeks.
Theodora gave a shrug and turned away, sick with disgust.
"Love—I hardly know what it means. I do not think I have ever loved."
Laval sucked in his breath between his teeth.
"Then you shall love me! You shall! Ever since I have come to Rome have I desired you! And the woman lives not who may gainsay my appeal."
She smiled tauntingly.
He had seized her hand. The fierceness of his grip made her gasp with pain.
"And whatever brought you to Rome?" she turned to him.
"I came in quest of one who had betrayed my honor."
"And you found her?"
"Both!" came the laconic reply.
"How interesting," purred Theodora, suffering his odious embrace, although she shuddered at his touch.
"And, man-like, you were revenged?"
"She has met the fate I had decreed upon her who wantonly betrayed the honor of her lord."
"Then she confessed?"
"She denied her guilt. What matter? I never loved her. It is you I love! You, divine Theodora."
And, carried away by a gust of passion, he drew her to him, covering her brow, her hair, her cheeks with kisses. But she turned away her mouth.
She tried to release herself from his embrace.
Roger uttered an oath.
"I have tamed women before—ay—and I shall tame you," he sputtered, utterly disregarding her protests.
She drew back as far as his encircling arms permitted.
"Release me, my lord!" she said, her dark eyes flashing fire. "You are mad!"
"No heroics—fair Theodora— Has the Wanton Queen of Rome turned into a haloed saint?"
He laughed. His mouth was close to her lips.
Revulsion and fury seized her. Disengaging her hands she struck him across the face.
There was foam on his lips. He caught her by the throat. Now he was forcing her beneath his weight with the strength of one insane with uncontrollable passion.
"Help!" she screamed with a choking sensation.
A shadow passed before her eyes. Everything seemed to swim around her in eddying circles of red. Then a gurgling sound. The grip on her throat relaxed. Laval rolled over upon the floor in a horrible convulsion, gasped and expired.
Basil's dagger had struck him through, piercing his heart.
Slowly Theodora arose. She was pale as death. Her guests, too much engaged with their beautiful partners, had been attracted to her plight but by her sudden outcry.
They stared sullenly at the dead man and turned to their former pursuits.
Theodora clapped her hands.
Two giant Nubians appeared. She pointed to the corpse at her feet. They raised it up between them, carried it out and sank it in the Lotus lake. Others wiped away the stains of blood.
Basil bent over Theodora's hands, and covered them with kisses, muttering words of endearment which but increased the discord in her heart.
She released herself, resuming her seat on the dais.
"It is the old fever," she turned to the man beside her. "You purchase and I sell! Nay"—she added as his lips touched her own—"there is no need for a lover's attitude when hucksters meet."
Though the guests had returned to their seats, a strange silence had fallen upon the assembly. The rhythmical splashing of the water in the fountain and the labored breathing of the distressed wine-Bibbie's seemed the only sounds that were audible for a time.
"But I love you, Theodora," Basil spoke with strangely dilated eyes. "I love you for what you are, for all the evil you have wrought! You, alone! For you have I done this thing! For you Alberic lies dead in some unknown glen. For you have I summoned about us those who shall seat you in the high place that is yours by right of birth."
Theodora was herself again. With upraised hand, that shone marble white in the ever-changing light, she enjoined silence.
"What of that other?" she said, while her eyes held those of the man with their magic spell.
"What other?" he stammered, turning pale.
"That one!" she flashed.
At that moment the curtain parted again and into the changing light, emitted by the great revolving globe, swayed a woman. At first it seemed a statue of marble that had become animated and, ere consciousness had resumed its sway, was slowly gaining life and motion, still bound up in the dream existence into which some unknown power had plunged her.
As one petrified, Basil stared at the swaying form of Hellayne. A white transparent byssus veil enveloped the beautiful limbs. Her wonderful bare arms were raised above her head, which was slightly inclined, as in a listening attitude. She seemed to move unconsciously as under a spell or as one who walks in her sleep. Her eyes were closed. The pale face showed suffering, yet had not lost one whit of its marvellous beauty.
The revellers stared spellbound at what, to their superstitious minds, seemed the wraith of slain Roxana returned to earth to haunt her rival.
Suddenly, without warning, the dark-robed form of a man dashed from behind a pillar. No one seemed to have noted his presence. Overthrowing every impediment, he bounded straight for Hellayne, when he saw the lithe form snatched up before his very eyes and her abductor disappear with his burden, as if the ground had swallowed them.
It seemed to Tristan that he was rushing through an endless succession of corridors and passages, crossing each other at every conceivable angle, in his mad endeavor to snatch his precious prey from her abductor when, in a rotunda in which these labyrinthine passages converged, he found himself face to face with an apparition that seemed to have risen from the floor.
Before him stood Theodora.
Her dark shadow was wavering across the moonlit network of light. The red and blue robes of the painted figures on the wall glowed about her like blood and azure, while the moonlight laid lemon colored splashes upon the varied mosaics of the floor.
His pulses beating furiously, a sense of suffocation in his throat, Tristan paused as the woman barred his way.
"Let me pass!" he said imperiously, trying to suit the action to the word.
But he had not reckoned with the woman's mood.
"You shall not," Theodora said, a strange fire gleaming in her eyes.
"Where is Hellayne? What have you done with her?"
Theodora regarded him calmly from under drooping lashes.
"That I will tell you," she said with a mocking voice. "It was my good fortune to rescue her from the claws of one who has again got her into his power. Her mind is gone, my Lord Tristan! Be reconciled to your fate!"
"Surely you cannot mean this?" Tristan gasped, his face under the monk's cowl pale as death, while his eyes stared unbelievingly into those of the woman.
"Is not what you have seen, proof that I speak truth?" Theodora interposed, slightly veiled mockery in her tone.
"Then this is your deed," Tristan flashed.
Theodora gave a shrug.
"What if it were?"
"She is in Basil's power?"
"An experienced suitor."
"Woman, why have you done this thing to me?"
His hands went to his head and he reeled like a drunken man.
Theodora laid her hands on Tristan's shoulders.
"Because I want you—because I love you, Tristan," she said slowly, and her wonderful face seemed to become illumined as it were, from within. "Nay—do not shrink from me! I know what you would say! Theodora—the courtesan queen of Rome! You deem I have no heart—no soul. You deem that these lips, defiled by the kisses of beasts, cannot speak truth. Yet, if I tell you, Tristan, that this is the first and only time in my life that I have loved, that I love you with a love such as only those know who have thirsted for it all their lives, yet have never known but its base counterfeit; if I tell you—that upon your answer depends my fate—my life—Tristan—will you believe—will you save the woman whom nothing else on earth can save?"
"I do not believe you," Tristan replied.
Theodora's face had grown white to the lips.
"You shall stay—and you shall listen to me!" she said, without raising her voice, as if she were discoursing upon some trifling matter, and Tristan obeyed, compelled by the look in her eyes.
Theodora felt Tristan's melancholy gaze resting upon her, as it had rested upon her at their first meeting. Was not he, too, like herself, a lone wanderer in this strange country called the world! But his manhood had remained unsullied. How she envied and how she hated that other woman to whom his love belonged. Softly she spoke, as one speaks in a dream.
She had gone forth in quest of happiness—happiness at any price. And she had paid the forfeit with a poisoned life. The desire to conquer had eclipsed every other. The lure of the senses was too mighty to be withstood. Yet how short are youth and life! One should snatch its pleasures while one may.
How fleet had been the golden empty days of joy. She had drained the brimming goblet to the dregs. If he misjudged her motive, her self-abasement, if he spurned the love she held out to him, the one supreme sacrifice of her life had been in vain. She would fight for it. Soul and body she would throw herself into the conflict. Her last chance of happiness was at stake. The poison, rankling in her veins, she knew could not be expelled by idle sophisms. Life, the despot, claimed his dues. Had she lived utterly in vain? Not altogether! She would atone, even though the bonds of her own forging, which bound her to an ulcered past, could be broken but by the hand of that crowned phantom: Death.
Now she was kneeling before him. She had grasped his hands.
"I love you!" she wailed. "Tristan, I love you and my love is killing me! Be merciful. Have pity on me. Love me! Be mine—if but for an hour! It is not much to ask! After, do with me what you will! Torture me—curse me before Heaven—I care not—I am yours—body and soul.—I love you!"
Her voice vibrated with mad idolatrous pleading.
He tried to release himself. She dragged herself yet closer to him.
"Tristan! Tristan!" she murmured. "Have you a heart? Can you reject me when I pray thus to you? When I offer you all I have? All that I am, or ever hope to be? Am I so repellent to you? Many men would give their lives if I were to say to them what I say to you. They are nothing to me—you alone are my world, the breath of my existence. You, alone, can save me from myself!"
Tristan felt his senses swooning at the sight of her beauty. He tried to speak, but the words froze on his lips. It was too impossible, too unbelievable. Theodora, the most beautiful, the most powerful woman in Rome was kneeling before him, imploring that which any man in Rome would have deemed himself a thousand fold blessed to receive. And he remained untouched.
She read his innermost thoughts and knew the supreme moment when she must win or lose him forever was at hand.
"Tristan—Tristan," she sobbed—and in the distant grove sobbed flutes and sistrum and citherns—"say what you will of me; it is true. I own it. Yet I am not worse than other women who have sold their souls for power or gold. Am I not fair to look upon? And is all this beauty of my face and form worthless in your eyes, and you no more than man? Kill me—destroy me—I care naught. But love me—as I love you!" and in a perfect frenzy of self-abandonment she rose to her feet and stood before him, a very bacchante of wild loveliness and passion. "Look upon me! Am I not more beautiful than the Lady Hellayne? You shall not—dare not—spurn such love as mine!"
Deep silence supervened. The expression of her countenance seemed quite unearthly; her eyes seemed wells of fire and the tense white arms seemed to seek a victim round which they might coil themselves to its undoing.
The name she had uttered in her supreme outburst of passion had broken the spell she had woven about him.
Hellayne—his white dove! What was her fate at this moment while he was listening to the pleadings of the enchantress?
Theodora advanced towards him with outstretched arms.
He stayed her with a fierce gesture.
"Stand back!" he said. "Such love as yours—what is it? Shame to whosoever shall accept it! I desire you not."
"You dare not!" she panted, pale as death.
"Dare not?"
But she was now fairly roused. All the savagery in her nature was awakened and she stood before him like some beautiful wild animal at bay, trembling from head to foot with the violence of her passion.
"You scorn me!" she said in fierce, panting accents, that scarcely rose above an angry whisper. "You make a mockery of my anguish and despair—holding yourself aloof with your prated virtue! But you shall suffer for it! I am your match! You shall not spurn me a third time! I have humbled myself in the dust before you, I, Theodora—and you have spurned the love I have offered you—you have spurned Theodora—for that white marble statue whom I should strangle before your very eyes were she here! You shall not see her again, my Lord Tristan. Her fate is sealed from this moment. On the altars of Satan is she to be sacrificed on to-morrow night!"
Tristan listened like paralyzed to her words, unable to move.
She saw her opportunity. She sprang at him. Her arms coiled about him. Her moist kisses seared his lips.
"Oh Tristan—Tristan," she pleaded, "forgive me, forgive! I know not what I say! I hunger for the kisses of your lips, the clasp of your arms! Do you know—do you ever think of your power? The cruel terrible power of your eyes, the beauty that makes you more like an angel than man? Have you no pity? I am well nigh mad with jealousy of that other whom you keep enshrined in your heart! Could she love, like I? She was not made for you—I am! Tristan—come with me—come—"
Tighter and tighter her arms encircled his neck. The moonbeams showed him her eyes alight with rapture, her lips quivering with passion, her bosom heaving. The blood surged up in his brain and a red mist swam before his eyes.
With a supreme effort Tristan released himself. Flinging her from him, he rushed out of the rotunda as if pursued by an army of demons. If he remained another moment he knew he was lost.
A lightning bolt shot down from the dark sky vault close beside him as he reached the gardens, and a peal of thunder crashed after in quick succession.
It drowned the delirious outburst of laughter that shrilled from the rotunda where Theodora, with eyes wide with misery and madness, stared as transfixed down the path where Tristan had vanished in the night.
[CHAPTER XI]
THE BLACK MASS
The night was sultry and dismal.
Dense black clouds rolled over the Roman Campagna, burning blue in the flashes of jagged lightnings and the low boom of distant thunder reverberated ominously among the hills and valleys of Rome, when three men, cloaked and wearing black velvet masks, skirted the huge mediæval wall with which Pope Leo IV had girdled the gardens of the Vatican and, passing along the fortified rampart which surrounded the Vatican Hill, plunged into the trackless midnight gloom of deep, branch-shadowed thickets.
Not a word was spoken between them. Silently they followed their leader, whose tall, dark form was revealed to them only among the dense network of trees and the fantastic shapes of the underbrush, when a flash of white lightning flamed across the limitless depths of the midnight horizon.
Not a sound broke the stillness, save the menacing growl of the thunder, the intermittent soughing of the wind among the branches, or the occasional drip-drip of dewy moisture trickling tearfully from the leaves, mingling with the dreamy, gurgling sound of the fountains, concealed among bosquets of orange and almond trees.
From time to time, as they proceeded upon their nocturnal errand, the sounds of their footsteps being swallowed up by the soft carpet of moss, they caught fleet glimpses of marble statues, gleaming white, like ghosts, from among the tall dark cypresses, or the shimmering surface of a marble-cinctured lake, mirrored in the sheen of the lightnings.
The grove they traversed assumed by degrees the character of a tropical forest. Untrodden by human feet, it seemed as though nature, grown tired of the iridescent floral beauty of the environing gardens, had, in a sudden malevolent mood, torn and blurred the fair green frondage and twisted every bud awry, till the awkward, misshapen limbs resembled the contorted branches of wind-blown trees. Great jagged leaves covered with prickles and stained with blotches as of spilt poison, thick brown stems, glistening with slimy moisture and coiled up like the sleeping bodies of snakes, masses of blue and purple fungi, and blossoms seemingly of the orchid-species, some like fleshly tongues, others like the waxen yellow fingers of a dead hand, protruded spectrally through the matted foliage, while all manner of strange overpowering odors increased the swooning oppressiveness of the sultry, languorous air.
Arrived at a clearing they paused.
In the distance the Basilica of Constantine was sunk in deep repose. All about them was the pagan world. Goat-footed Pan seemed to peer through the interstices of the branches. The fountains crooned in their marble basins. Centaurs and Bacchantes disported themselves among the flowering shrubs and, dark against the darker background of the night, the vast ramparts of Leo IV seemed to shut out light and life together.
The Prefect of the Camera turned to his companions, after peering cautiously into the thickets.
"We must wait for the guards," he said in a whisper. "It were perilous to proceed farther without them."
Tristan's hand tightened upon his sword-hilt. There were tears in his eyes when he thought of Hellayne and all that was at stake, the overthrow of the enemies of Christ. He had, in a manner, conquered the terrible fear that had palsied heart and soul as they had started out after nightfall. Now, taking his position as he found it, since he felt that his fate was ruled by some unseen force which he might not resist, he was upheld by a staunch resolution to do his part in the work assigned to him and thereby to merit forgiveness and absolution.
Notwithstanding the enforced calm that filled his soul, there were moments when, assailed by a terrible dread, lest he might be too late to prevent the unspeakable crime, his energies were almost paralyzed. Silent as a ghost he had traversed the grove by the side of his equally silent companions, more intent upon his quarry than the patient, velvet-footed puma that follows in the high branches of the trees the unsuspecting traveller below.
Was it his imagination, was it the beating of his own heart in the silence that preceded the breaking of the storm; or did he indeed hear the dull throbbing of the drums that heralded the approach of the crimson banners of Satan?
The wind increased with every moment. The thunder growled ever nearer. The heavens were one sheet of flame. The trees began to bend their tops to the voice of the hurricane. The air was hot as if blown from the depths of the desert. As the uproar of the elements increased, strange sounds seemed to mingle with the voices of the storm. Black shadows as of dancing witches darkened the clearing, spread and wheeled, interlaced and disentwined. In endless thousands they seemed to fly, like the withered and perishing leaves of autumn.
Involuntarily Tristan grasped the arm of the Monk of Cluny.
"Are these real shapes—or do my eyes play me false?" he faltered, an expression of terror on his countenance, such as no consideration of earthly danger could have evoked.
"To-night, my son, we are invincible," replied the monk. "Trust in the Crucified Christ!"
Across the plaisaunce, washed white by the sheen of the lightnings, there was a stir as of an approaching forest. Tristan watched as in the throes of a dream.
A few moments later the little band was joined by the newcomers, masked, garbed in sombre black and heavily armed, three-score Spaniards, trusted above their companions for their loyalty and allegiance to Holy Church. Among them Tristan recognized the Cardinal-Archbishop of Ravenna, the Bishop of Orvieto and the Prefect of Rome.
Odo of Cluny noted Tristan's shrinking at the sight of the two men who had been present when the terrible accusation had been hurled against him on that fatal morning—the accusation in the Lateran, which had launched him in the dungeons of Castel San Angelo.
He comforted the trembling youth.
"They know now that the charge was false," he said. "To-night we shall conquer. We shall set our foot upon Satan's neck."
Withdrawing under the shelter of the trees, regardless of the increasing fury of the storm, the leaders held whispered consultation.
Before them, set in the massive wall, appeared a door not more than five feet high, studded with large nails.
The Prefect of Rome bent forward and inserted a gleaming piece of steel in the keyhole. After a wrench or two, which convinced the onlookers that the door had been long in disuse, it swung inward with a groan. The Prefect, with a muttered imprecation, beckoned his followers to enter, and when they were assembled in what appeared to be a courtyard, he took pains to close the door himself, to avoid the least noise that might reach the ear of those within the enclosure.
At the far end of this courtyard a shadowy pavilion arose, culled from the Stygian gloom by the sheen of the lightnings. It seemed to have been erected in remote antiquity. A circular structure of considerable extent, its ruinous exterior revealed traces of Etruscan architecture. No one dared set foot in it, for it was rumored to be the abode of evil spirits. Its interior was reported to be a network of intricate galleries, leading into subterranean chambers, secret and secluded places into which human foot never strayed, for, not unlike the catacombs, it was well-nigh impossible to find the exit from its labyrinthine passages without the saving thread of Ariadné.
At a signal from the Prefect of the Camera all stopped. Heavy drops of rain were falling. The hurricane increased in fury.
It was a weird scene and one the memory of which lingered long after that eventful night with Tristan.
Black cypresses and holm-oaks formed a dense wall around the pavilion on two sides. In the distance the white limbs of some pagan statues could be seen gleaming through the dark foliage. And, as from a subterranean cavern, a distant droning chant struck the ear now and then with fateful import.
Now the Prefect of Rome threw off his cloak. The others did likewise. Their masks they retained.
"There is a secret entrance, unknown even to these spawns of hell, behind the pavilion," he addressed his companions in a subdued tone, hardly audible in the shrieking of the storm. "It is concealed among tall weeds and has long been in disuse. The door is almost invisible and they think themselves safe in the performance of their iniquities below."
"How can we reach this pit of hell?" Tristan, quivering with ill-repressed excitement interposed at this juncture. He could hardly restrain himself. On every moment hung the life of the being dearer to him than all the world, and he chafed under the restraint like a restive steed. If they should be too late, even now!
But the Prefect retained his calm demeanor knowing what was at stake. It was not enough to locate the chapel of Satan. Those participating in the unholy rites must not be given the chance to escape. They must be taken, dead or alive, to the last man.
"We have with us one who is familiar with every nook in the city of Rome," the Prefect turned to the Cardinal-Archbishop of Ravenna. "Long have we suspected that all is not well in the deserted pavilion. But though we watched by day and by night nothing seemed to reward our efforts, until one stormy night a dreadful shape with the face of a devil came forth, and the sight so paralyzed those who watched from afar that they fled in dismay, believing it was the Evil One in person who had come forth from the bowels of the earth. From yonder door a dark corridor leads to a shaft whence it winds in a slight incline into the devil's chapel below. The latter is so situated that we can watch these outcasts at their devotions, unseen, our presence unguessed. This way! Let silence be the password. Keep in touch with each other, for the darkness is as that of the grave."
A flash of lightning that seemed to rend the very heavens enveloped them for a moment in its sulphureous glare, followed by a crash of thunder that shook the very earth. The hurricane shrieked, and the rain came down in torrents.
They had advanced to the very edge of the underbrush, stumbling over the heads and torsos of broken statues that lay among parasitic herbage. Monstrous decaying leaves curled upward, leprous in the lightnings. A poison mist seemed to hover over this lonely and deserted pleasure-house of ancient Pelasgian days.
Skirting the haunted pavilion, unmindful of the onslaught of the elements, they took a path so narrow that they could but advance in single file. This path had been cut and beaten by the Prefect's guards, for the weeds and underbrush luxuriated, until they mounted some ten feet against the walls of the pavilion.
They had now reached the back wall and proceeded in utter darkness broken only by the flashes of lightning. They passed through a half-ruined archway and at last came to a halt, prompted by those in front, whose progress had been stopped by, what the others guessed to be, the door. They had to work warily, to keep it from falling inward. At last the movement continued and they entered the night-wrapt corridor.
Tristan had taken his station directly behind the Prefect of Rome. The ecclesiastics, for their own protection, had been assigned the rear.
By the sheen of lightnings a pile of brushwood was revealed to the sight, which the Prefect, in a low tone, ordered to be cleared away, whereupon a circular opening appeared, like the entrance of a well.
The Prefect summoned the leaders around him.
For a moment they stood in silence and listened.
Between the peals of the thunder which rolled in terrifying echoes over the Seven Hills, the trained ear could distinguish a strange, droning sound that seemed to come from the bowels of the earth.
"Even now the Black Mass is commencing," he turned to Tristan. "We are but just in time."
After a pause he continued:
"We must proceed in darkness. The faintest glimmer might betray our presence. I shall lead the way. Let each follow warily. Let each be in touch with the other. Let all stop when I stop. We shall arrive in a circular gallery, whence we may all witness the abomination below. From this gallery several flights of winding stairs lead into the devil's chapel. Let us descend in silence. When you hear the signal—down the quick descent and—upon them!"
One by one they disappeared in the dark aperture. Their feet touched ground while they still supported themselves on their arms. They found themselves in a subterranean chamber, in impenetrable darkness, whose hot, damp murk almost suffocated the intruders.
Slowly, with infinite caution, in infinite silence, they proceeded. Every man stretched his hand before him to touch a companion.
The passage began to slant, yet the incline was gradual. Their feet touched soft earth which swallowed the sound of their steps. There was neither echo nor vibration, only murky silence and the night of the grave.
A low, droning sound, infinitely remote, a sound not unlike that of swarming bees heard at a great distance, was now wafted to their ears.
A shudder ran through that long chain of living men, who were carrying the Cross into the very abyss of Hell.
For they knew they were listening to the infernal choir, they were approaching the hidden chapel of Satan. The chant began to swell. Still they continued upon their descent.
The imprisoned air became hotter and murkier, almost suffocating in its miasmatic waves that assailed the senses and seemed to weigh like lead upon the brain.
Now the tunnel turned sharply at right angles and after proceeding some twenty or thirty paces in Stygian darkness, a faint crimson glow began suddenly to drive the nocturnal gloom before it, and they emerged in a gallery, terminating in a number of dark archways, from which narrow winding stairs led into the hall below. Small round apertures, resembling port-holes, permitted a glimpse into the chapel of Satan, and a weird, droning chant was rising rhythmically from the night-wrapt depths of the pavilion.
Following the example of the leader, they stole on tiptoe to the unglazed port-holes and gazed below, and eager, yet trembling, with the anticipation of the dread mysteries they were about to witness.
At first they could not see anything distinctly, owing to the crimson mist that seemed to come rolling into the chapel as from some furnace and their eyes, after having been long in the darkness, refused to focus themselves. But, by degrees, the scene became more distinct.
In the circular chapel below dim figures, robed in crimson, moved to and fro, bearing aloft perfumed cressets on metal poles, and in its flickering light an altar became visible, hung with crimson, the summit of which was lost in the gloom overhead. Here and there indistinct shapes were stretched in hideous contortions on the pavement, and as others drew nigh, these rose and, throwing back their heads, made the vault re-echo with deep-chested roaring.
Suddenly the metal bound gates of a low arched doorway, faintly discernible in the uncertain light, seemed to be unclosing with a slow and majestic movement, letting loose a flood of light in which the ghostly faces of the worshippers leapt into sudden clearness, men and women, all seemingly belonging to the highest ranks of society. The crimson garbs of the officiating priests showed like huge stains of blood against the dark-veined marble.
Tristan gazed with the rest, stark with terror. The blood seemed to freeze in his veins as his eyes swept the circular vault and rested at the shrine's farther end, where branching candlesticks flanked each the foot of two short flights of stairs that led up to the summit of the great altar, garnished at the corner with hideous masks, and sending up from time to time eddies of smoke, through the reek of which some two score of men watched the ceremony from above.
Dim shapes passed to and fro. The droning chant continued. At length a shapeless form evolved itself from the crimson mist, approached the altar and cast something upon it. Instantly a blaze of light flooded the shrine, and in its radiance a weazened, bat-like creature was revealed, garbed in the fantastic imitation of a priest's robes.
Approaching the infernal altar, upon which lay obscene symbols of horror, he mounted the steps and his figure melted into the gloom.
With the cold sweat streaming from his brow, with a shudder that almost turned him dizzy, Tristan recognized Bessarion. The High Priest of Satan sat upon the Devil's altar. There was stir and movement in the chapel. Then a deep silence supervened.
Petrifaction fell upon the assembly. All voices were hushed, all movement arrested. From the black throne, surrounded by terror, where sat the great Unknown, came a dull hoarse roar, like the roar of an earthquake.
The words were unintelligible to the champions of the Cross. They were answered by the Sorcerer's Confession, the hideous, terrible contortion of the Credo, and then Tristan's ears were assailed by the sounds he had heard on that fatal night, ere he lost consciousness, and again in the Catacombs of St. Calixtus, sounds meaningless in themselves, but fraught with terrible import to him now!
"Emen Hetan! Emen Hetan! Palu! Baalberi! Emen Hetan!"—
Pandemonium broke loose.
"Agora! Agora! Patrisa! Agora!"
There was screeching of pipes, made of dead men's bones. A drum stretched with the skin of the hanged was beaten with the tail of a wolf. Like leaves in a howling storm the fantastic red robed forms whirled about, from left to right, from right to left. And in their midst, immobile and terrible, sat the Hircus Nocturnus, enthroned upon the shrine.
When at last they stopped, panting, exhausted, the same voice, deafening as an earthquake, roared:
"Bring hither the bride—the stainless dove!"
A chorus of hideous laughter, a swelling, bleating cacophony of execration, so furious and real that it froze the listeners' blood, answered the summons.
Then, from an arch in the apse of the infernal chapel, came four chanting figures, hideously masked and draped in crimson.
With slow, measured steps they approached. The arch was black again. Deep silence supervened.
Now into the centre came two figures.
One was that of a man robed in doublet and hose of flaming scarlet. The figure he supported was that of a woman, though she seemed a corpse returned to earth.
A long white robe covered her from head to toe, like the winding sheet of death. Her eyes were bound with a white cloth. She seemed unable to walk, and was being urged forward, step by step, by the scarlet man at her side.
Again pandemonium reigned, heightened by the crashing peals of the thunder that rolled in the heavens overhead.
"Emen Hetan! Emen Hetan! Palu! Baalberi! Emen Hetan!"
The bleating of goats, the shrieks of the tortured damned, the howling of devils in the nethermost pit of Hell, delirious laughter, gibes and execrations mingled in a deafening chorus, which was followed by a dead silence, as anew the voice of the Unseen roared through the vault:
"Bring hither the bride, the stainless dove!"
There was a tramp of mailed feet.
Like a human whirlwind it came roaring down the winding stairs, through the vomitories into the vault. The rattling of weapons, shouts of rage, horror and dismay mingled, resounding from the vaulted roof, beaten back from the marble walls.
With drawn sword Tristan, well in advance of his companions, leaped into the chapel of Satan. When the identity of the staggering white form beside the scarlet man had been revealed to him, no power in heaven or earth could have restrained him. Without awaiting the signal he bounded with a choking outcry down the shaft.
But, when he reached the floor of the chapel, he recoiled as if the Evil One had arisen from the floor before him, barring his advance.
Before him stood Theodora.
She wore a scarlet robe, fastened at the throat with a clasp of rubies, representing the heads of serpents. Her wonderful white arms were bare, her hands were clenched as if she were about to fly at the throat of a hated rival and a preternatural lustre shone in her eyes.
"You!"
Tristan's words died in the utterance as he surveyed her for the space of a moment with a glance so full of horror and disdain that she knew she had lost.
"Yes—it is I," she replied, hardly above a whisper, hot flush and deadly pallor alternating in her beautiful face, terrible in its set calm. "And—though I may not possess you—that other shall not! See!"
Maddened beyond all human endurance at the sight that met his eyes Tristan hurled Theodora aside as she attempted to bar his way, as if she had been a toy. Rushing straight through the press towards the spot, where the scarlet man, his arms still about the drooping form of Hellayne, had stopped in dismay at the sudden inrush of the guards, Tristan pierced the Grand Chamberlain through and through. Almost dragging the woman with him he fell beside the devil's altar. His head struck the flagstones and he lay still.
The Prefect himself dashed up the steps of the ebony shrine and hurled the High Priest of Satan on the flagstones below. Bessarion's neck was broken and, with the squeak of a bat, his black soul went out.
While the guards, giving no quarter, were mowing down all those of the devil's congregation who did not seek salvation in flight or concealment, Tristan caught the swooning form of Hellayne in his arms, calling her name in despairing accents, as he stroked the silken hair back from the white clammy brow. She was breathing, but her eyes were closed.
Then he summoned two men-at-arms to his side, and between them they carried her to the world of light above.
[CHAPTER XII]
SUNRISE
The thunderclouds had rolled away to eastward.
A rosy glow was creeping over the sky. The air was fresh with the coming of dawn. Softly they laid Hellayne by the side of a marble fountain and splashed the cooling drops upon her pale face. After a time she opened her eyes.
The first object they encountered was Tristan who was bending over her, fear and anxiety in his face.
Her colorless lips parted in a whisper, as her arms encircled his neck.
"You are with me!" she said, and the transparent lids drooped again.
Those who had not been slain of the congregation of Hell had been bound in chains. Among the dead was Theodora. The contents of a phial she carried on her person had done its work instantaneously.
Suddenly alarums resounded from the region of Castel San Angelo. There was a great stir and buzz, as of an awakened bee hive. There were shouts at the Flaminian gate, the martial tread of mailed feet and, as the sun's first ray kissed the golden Archangel on the summit of the Flavian Emperor's mausoleum, a horseman, followed by a glittering retinue, dashed up the path, dismounted and raised his visor.
Before the astounded assembly stood Alberic, the Senator of Rome.
Just then they brought the body of Theodora from the subterranean chapel and laid it silently on the greensward, beside that of Basil, the Grand Chamberlain.
The Cardinal-Archbishop of Ravenna was the first to speak.
"My lord, we hardly trust our eyes. All Rome is mourning you for dead."
Alberic turned to the speaker.
"With the aid of the saint I have prevailed against the foulest treason ever committed by a subject against his trusting lord. The bribed hosts of Hassan Abdullah, which were to sack Rome, are scattered in flight. The attempt upon my own life has been prevented by a miracle from Heaven. But—what of these dead?"
Odo of Cluny approached the Senator of Rome.
"The awful horror which has gripped the city is passed. Christ rules once more and Satan is vanquished. This is a matter for your private ear, my lord."
Odo pointed to the kneeling form of Tristan, who was supporting Hellayne in his arms, trying to soothe her troubled spirit, to dispel the memory of the black horrors which held her trembling soul in thrall.
Approaching Tristan, Alberic laid his hand upon his head.
"We knew where to trust, and we shall know how to reward! My lords and prelates of the Church! Matters of grave import await you. We meet again in the Emperor's Tomb."
Beckoning to his retinue, Alberic remounted his steed, as company upon company of men-at-arms filed past—a host, such as the city of Rome had not beheld in decades, with drums and trumpets, pennants and banderols, long lines of glittering spears, gorgeous surcoats, and splendid suits of mail.
The forces of the Holy Roman Empire were passing into the Eternal City.
At their head the Senator of Rome was returning into his own.
At last they were alone, Tristan and Hellayne.
His companions had departed. With them they had taken their dead.
Hellayne opened her eyes. They were sombre, yet at peace.
"Tristan!"
He bent over her.
"My own Hellayne!"
"It is beautiful to be loved," she whispered. "I have never been loved before."
"You shall be," he replied, "now and forever, before God and the world!"
The old shadow came again into her eyes.
"What of the Lord Roger?"
She read the answer in his silence.
A tear trickled from the violet pools of her eyes.
Then she raised herself in his arms.
"I thought I should go mad," she crooned. "But I knew you would come. And you are here—here—with me,—Tristan."
He took her hands in his, his soul in his eyes.
The sun had risen higher through the gold bars of the east, dispelling the grey chill of dawn.
She nestled closer to him.
"Take me back to Avalon, to my rose garden," she crooned. "Life is before us—yonder—where first we loved."
He took her in his arms and kissed her eyes and the small sweet mouth.
A lark began to sing in the silence.
THE END
WHAT ALLAH WILLS
By Irwin L. Gordon
Take Morocco for a background—that quaint and mysterious land of mosques and minarets, where the muezzin still calls to prayer at sundown the faithful.
Imagine a story written with power and intensity and the thrill of adventure in the midst of fanatical Moslems. Add to this a wealthy young medical student, a red-blooded American, who gives up his life to helping the lepers of Arzilla, and the presence of a beautiful American girl who, despite her love for the hero, is induced to take up the Mohammedan faith, and you have some idea of what this remarkable story presents.
WHAT ALLAH WILLS is a big story of love and adventure. Mr. Gordon is the author of two notable non-fiction successes, but he scores heavily in this, his first work of fiction.
UNDER THE WITCHES' MOON
By Nathan Gallizier
This romantic tale of tenth-century Rome concerns itself with the fortunes and adventures of Tristan of Avalon while in the Eternal City on a pilgrimage to do penance for his love of Hellayne, the wife of his liege lord, Count Roger de Laval.
Tristan's meeting with the Queen Courtesan of the Aventine; her infatuation for the pilgrim; Tristan's rounds of obediences, cut short by his appointment as Captain of Sant' Angelo by Alberic, Senator of Rome; the intrigues of Basil, the Grand Chamberlain, who aspires to the dominion of Rome and the love of Theodora; the trials of Hellayne, who alternately falls into the power of Basil and Theodora; the scene between the Grand Chamberlain and Bessarion in the ruins of the Coliseum; the great feud between Roxana and Theodora and the final overthrow of the latter's regime constitute some of the dramatic episodes of the romance.
"This new book adds greater weight to the claim that Mr. Gallizier is the greatest writer of historical novels in America today."—Cincinnati Times-Star.
"In many respects we consider Mr. Gallizier the most versatile and interesting writer of the day."—Saxby's Magazine.
A third CHEERFUL BOOK
Trade————Mark
SYLVIA ARDEN DECIDES
By Margaret R. Piper
In the original CHEERFUL BOOK, with its rippling play of incident, Sylvia proved herself a bringer of tidings of great joy to many people. In the second book devoted to her adventures, she was a charming heroine—urbane, resourceful and vivacious—with an added shade of picturesqueness due to her environment. In this third story Sylvia is a little older grown, deep in the problem of just-out-of-college adjustment to the conditions of the "wide, wide world," and in the process of learning, as she puts it, "to live as deep and quick as I can." The scene of the new story is laid partly at Arden Hall and partly in New York and, in her sincere effort to find herself, Sylvia finds love in real fairy tale fashion.
"There is a world of human nature, and neighborhood contentment and quaint, quiet humor in Margaret R. Piper's books of good cheer. Her tales are well proportioned and subtly strong in their literary aspects and quality."—North American, Philadelphia.
A PLACE IN THE SUN
By Mrs. Henry Backus
Gunda Karoli is a very much alive young person with a zest for life and looking-forward philosophy which helps her through every trial. She is sustained in her struggles against the disadvantage of her birth by a burning faith in the great American ideal—that here in the United States every one has a chance to win for himself a place in the sun.
Gunda takes for her gospel the Declaration of Independence, only to find that, although this democratic doctrine is embodied in the constitution of the country, it does not manifest itself outwardly in its social life. Nevertheless, she succeeds in mounting step by step in the social scale, from the time she first appears at Skyland on the Knobs as a near-governess, to her brief season in the metropolis as a danseuse.
How she wins the interest of Justin Arnold, the fastidious descendant of a fine old family, and brings into his self-centered existence a new life and fresh charm, provides a double interest to the plot.
VIRGINIA OF ELK CREEK
VALLEY
By Mary Ellen Chase
A sequel to last year's success, THE GIRL FROM THE BIG HORN COUNTRY (sixth printing). This new story is more western in flavor than the first book—since practically all of the action occurs back in the Big Horn country, at Virginia's home, to which she invites her eastern friends for a summer vacation. The vacation in the West proves "the best ever" for the Easterners, and in recounting their pleasures they tell of the hundreds of miles of horseback riding, how they climbed mountains, trapped a bear, shot gophers, fished, camped, homesteaded, and of the delightful hospitality of Virginia and her friends.
"The story is full of life and movement and presents a variety of interesting characters."—St. Paul Despatch.
"This is most gladsome reading to all who love healthfulness of mind, heart and body."—Boston Ideas.
Selections from
The Page Company's
List of Fiction
WORKS OF
ELEANOR H. PORTER
POLLYANNA: The GLAD Book (360,000)
Trade Mark Trade——Mark
Cloth decorative, illustrated by Stockton Mulford.
Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
Mr. Leigh Mitchell Hodges, The Optimist, in an editorial for the Philadelphia North American, says: "And when, after Pollyanna has gone away, you get her letter saying she is going to take 'eight steps' to-morrow—well, I don't know just what you may do, but I know of one person who buried his face in his hands and shook with the gladdest sort of sadness and got down on his knees and thanked the Giver of all gladness for Pollyanna."
POLLYANNA GROWS UP: The Second GLAD Book
Trade Mark (180,000) Trade——Mark
Cloth decorative, illustrated by H. Weston Taylor.
Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
When the story of Pollyanna told in The Glad Book was ended a great cry of regret for the vanishing "Glad Girl" went up all over the country—and other countries, too. Now Pollyanna appears again, just as sweet and joyous-hearted, more grown up and more lovable.
"Take away frowns! Put down the worries! Stop fidgeting and disagreeing and grumbling! Cheer up, everybody! Pollyanna has come back!"—Christian Herald.
The GLAD Book Calendar
Trade——Mark
THE POLLYANNA CALENDAR
Trade Mark
(This calendar is issued annually; the calendar for the new year being ready about Sept. 1st of the preceding year. Note: in ordering please specify what year you desire.)
Decorated and printed in colors. Net, $1.50; carriage paid, $1.65
"There is a message of cheer on every page, and the calendar is beautifully illustrated."—Kansas City Star.
MISS BILLY (18th printing)
Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a painting by G. Tyng . . Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
"There is something altogether fascinating about 'Miss Billy,' some inexplicable feminine characteristic that seems to demand the individual attention of the reader from the moment we open the book until we reluctantly turn the last page."—Boston Transcript.
MISS BILLY'S DECISION (11th printing)
Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a painting by Henry W. Moore.
Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
"The story is written in bright, clever style and has plenty of action and humor. Miss Billy is nice to know and so are her friends."—New Haven Times Leader.
MISS BILLY—MARRIED (8th printing)
Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a painting by W. Haskell Coffin.
Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
"Although Pollyanna is the only copyrighted glad girl, Miss Billy is just as glad as the younger figure and radiates just as much gladness. She disseminates joy so naturally that we wonder why all girls are not like her."—Boston Transcript.
SIX STAR RANCH (19th Printing)
Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated by R. Farrington Elwell.
Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
"'Six Star Ranch' bears all the charm of the author's genius and is about a little girl down in Texas who practices the 'Pollyanna Philosophy' with irresistible success. The book is one of the kindliest things, if not the best, that the author of the Pollyanna books has done. It is a welcome addition to the fast-growing family of Glad Books."—Howard Russell Bangs in the Boston Post.
CROSS CURRENTS
Cloth decorative, illustrated. Net, $1.00; carriage paid, $1.15
"To one who enjoys a story of life as it is to-day, with its sorrows as well as its triumphs, this volume is sure to appeal."—Book News Monthly.
THE TURN OF THE TIDE
Cloth decorative, illustrated. Net, $1.25; carriage paid, $1.40
"A very beautiful book showing the influence that went to the developing of the life of a dear little girl into a true and good woman."—Herald and Presbyter, Cincinnati, Ohio.
WORKS OF
L. M. MONTGOMERY
THE FOUR ANNE BOOKS
ANNE OF GREEN GABLES (40th printing)
Cloth decorative, illustrated by M. A. and W. A. J. Claus.
Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
"In 'Anne of Green Gables' you will find the dearest and most moving and delightful child since the immortal Alice."—Mark Twain in a letter to Francis Wilson.
ANNE OF AVONLEA (24th printing)
Cloth decorative, illustrated by George Gibbs.
Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
"A book to lift the spirit and send the pessimist into bankruptcy!"—Meredith Nicholson.
CHRONICLES OF AVONLEA (6th printing)
Cloth decorative, illustrated by George Gibbs.
Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
"A story of decidedly unusual conception and interest."—Baltimore Sun.
ANNE OF THE ISLAND (10th printing)
Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a painting by H. Weston Taylor.
Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
"It has been well worth while to watch the growing up of Anne, and the privilege of being on intimate terms with her throughout the process has been properly valued."—New York Herald.
THE STORY GIRL (9th printing)
Cloth decorative, illustrated by George Gibbs.
Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
"A book that holds one's interest and keeps a kindly smile upon one's lips and in one's heart."—Chicago Inter-Ocean.
KILMENY OF THE ORCHARD (10th printing)
Cloth decorative, illustrated by George Gibbs.
Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
"A story born in the heart of Arcadia and brimful of the sweet life of the primitive environment."—Boston Herald.
THE GOLDEN ROAD (5th printing)
Cloth decorative, illustrated by George Gibbs.
Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
"It is a simple, tender tale, touched to higher notes, now and then, by delicate hints of romance, tragedy and pathos."—Chicago Record Herald.
NOVELS BY
MRS. HENRY BACKUS
THE CAREER OF DOCTOR WEAVER
Cloth decorative, illustrated by William Van Dresser.
Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
"High craftsmanship is the leading characteristic of this novel, which, like all good novels, is a love story abounding in real palpitant human interest. The most startling feature of the story is the way its author has torn aside the curtain and revealed certain phases of the relation between the medical profession and society."—Dr. Charles Reed in the Lancet Clinic.
THE ROSE OF ROSES
Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color.
Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
The author has achieved a thing unusual in developing a love story which adheres to conventions under unconventional circumstances.
"Mrs. Backus' novel is distinguished in the first place for its workmanship."—Buffalo Evening News.
NOVELS BY
MARGARET R. PIPER
SYLVIA'S EXPERIMENT: The Cheerful Book
Trade———Mark
Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color from a painting by Z. P. Nikolaki. Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
"An atmosphere of good spirits pervades the book; the humor that now and then flashes across the page is entirely natural, and the characters are well individualized."—Boston Post.
SYLVIA OF THE HILL TOP: The Second Cheerful Book
Trade——Mark
Cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color, from a painting by Gene Pressler. Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
"There is a world of human nature and neighborhood contentment and quaint quiet humor in Margaret R. Piper's second book of good cheer."—Philadelphia North American.
MISS MADELYN MACK, DETECTIVE By Hugh C. Weir.
Cloth decorative, illustrated. Net, $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50
"Clever in plot and effective in style, the author has seized on some of the most sensational features of modern life, and the result is a detective novel that gets away from the beaten track of mystery stories."—New York Sun.
WORKS OF
CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS
HAUNTERS OF THE SILENCES
Cloth decorative, with many drawings by Charles Livingston Bull, four of which are in full color $2.00
The stories in Mr. Roberts's new collection are the strongest and best he has ever written.
He has largely taken for his subjects those animals rarely met with in books, whose lives are spent "In the Silences," where they are the supreme rulers.
"As a writer about animals, Mr. Roberts occupies an enviable place. He is the most literary, as well as the most imaginative and vivid of all the nature writers."—Brooklyn Eagle.
RED FOX
The Story of His Adventurous Career in the Ringwaak Wilds, and of His Final Triumph over the Enemies of His Kind. With fifty illustrations, including frontispiece in color and cover design by Charles Livingston Bull.
Square quarto, cloth decorative $2.00
"True in substance but fascinating as fiction. It will interest old and young, city-bound and free-footed, those who know animals and those who do not."—Chicago Record Herald.
THE KINDRED OF THE WILD
A Book of Animal Life. With fifty-one full-page plates and many decorations from drawings by Charles Livingston Bull.
Square quarto, cloth decorative $2.00
"Is in many ways the most brilliant collection of animal stories that has appeared; well named and well done."—John Burroughs.
THE WATCHERS OF THE TRAILS
A companion volume to "The Kindred of the Wild." With forty-eight full-page plates and many decorations from drawings by Charles Livingston Bull.
Square quarto, cloth decorative $2.00
"These stories are exquisite in their refinement, and yet robust in their appreciation of some of the rougher phases of woodcraft. Among the many writers about animals, Mr. Roberts occupies an enviable place."—The Outlook.
WORKS OF
GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO
Signor d'Annunzio is known throughout the world as a poet and a dramatist, but above all as a novelist, for it is in his novels that he is at his best. In poetic thought and graceful expression he has few equals among the writers of the day.
He is engaged on a most ambitious work—nothing less than the writing of nine novels which cover the whole field of human sentiment. This work he has divided into three trilogies, and five of the nine books have been published. It is to be regretted that other labors have interrupted the completion of the series.
"This book is realistic. Some say that it is brutally so. But the realism is that of Flaubert, and not of Zola. There is no plain speaking for the sake of plain speaking. Every detail is justified in the fact that it illuminates either the motives or the actions of the man and woman who here stand revealed. It is deadly true. The author holds the mirror up to nature, and the reader, as he sees his own experiences duplicated in passage after passage, has something of the same sensation as all of us know on the first reading of George Meredith's 'Egoist.' Reading these pages is like being out in the country on a dark night in a storm. Suddenly a flash of lightning comes and every detail of your surroundings is revealed."—Review of "The Triumph of Death" in the New York Evening Sun.
The volumes published are as follows. Each 1 vol., library 12mo, cloth $1.50
THE ROMANCES OF THE ROSE
THE CHILD OF PLEASURE (Il Piacere).
THE INTRUDER (L'Innocente).
THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH (Il Trionfo della Morte).
THE ROMANCES OF THE LILY
THE MAIDENS OF THE ROCKS (Le Vergini delle Rocce).
THE ROMANCES OF THE POMEGRANATE
THE FLAME OF LIFE (Il Fuoco).
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious printing errors fixed such as spelling, punctuation, placement of diacritical marks.
The corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will appear.