"There is one man on earth to whom I owe a debt," the duke, leading the van beside Francesco, turned to the latter, "a debt that shall be paid this night, principal and interest."
Francesco looked up into the duke's face, and by the glare of the now more frequent lightnings he saw that it was drawn and gray.
"There lies his lair," the duke pointed to the white masonry of Astura, as it loomed out of the night, menacing and spectral, as a thunderbolt hissed into the sea, and again lapsed into gloom. "Betrayer of God and man,—his hour is at hand!"—
The duke's beard fairly bristled as he uttered these words, and he gripped the hilt of his sword as if he anticipated a conflict with some wild beast of the forest, some mythical monster born of night and crime.
Francesco made no reply. He was bowed down beneath the gloom of the hour, oppressed with unutterable forebodings. He too had an account to settle: yet, whichever way the tongue inclined in the scales, life stretched out from him as a sea at night. He dared not think of Ilaria, far away in the convent of San Nicandro by the sea; yet her memory had haunted him all day, knocked at the gates of his consciousness, dominated the hours. Compared with the ever present sense of her loss, all in life seemed utterly trifling, and he longed for annihilation only.
Yet a kindred note which he sounded in the duke's soul found him in a more receptive mood for the latter's confidences; once life had seemed good to him; he had thought men heroes, the world a faerie place. Thoughts had changed with time, and that for which he once hungered he now despised. Cursed with perversities, baffled and mocked, the eternal trivialities of life made the soul sink within him. Not all are mild earth, to be smitten and make no moan. There are sea spirits that lash and foam, fire spirits that leap and burn,—was he to be cursed because he was born with a soul of fire?
They were now in the midst of the great wilderness. On all sides myriads of trees, interminably pillared; through their tops the wind sighed and pined like the soft breath of a sleeping world. Away on every hand stretched oblivious vistas, black under multitudinous green spires.
The interminable trees seemed to vex the duke's spirit, as their trunks crowded the winding track and seemed to shut in the twain as with a never ending barrier. And behind them, with the muffled tread of a phantom army, came the duke's armed array striding through the night.
"Have you too suffered a wrong at the hands of the Frangipani?" Francesco at last broke the silence, turning to his companion.
The latter jerked the bridle of his charger so viciously that the terrified animal reared on its haunches and neighed in protest.