"An olive for a fig! Your dove has flown!" and when Eckhardt, recovering from his surprise, wheeled about, he found, much to his chagrin, the Roman's words confirmed by the absence of the girl as well as of her associates, who managed to make their escape at the moment when the impending encounter had momentarily drawn off the attention of the crowd.
"The devil can speak truth, they say, though I believed it not till now," muttered Eckhardt to himself as, vexed and mystified beyond measure, he strode through the scattering crowds.
Had it been some jeer of the fiend? Had he been made the victim of some monstrous deceit?
Who was the Sicilian dancer, whose manners and golden language belied her demeaning attire, whose strange eyes had penetrated into the darkness of his soul, whose voice had thrilled him with the echoes of one long silent and forever?
The magic mirror in which, as in a haze, he had seen the one face he most longed to see,—the strange and sudden fulfillment of the unspoken wish of his heart,—the dancer's marked persistence in the face of his declared abhorrence,—her mask and her incongruous companions,—her fear of the monk and concern for himself,—all these incidents, which one by one floated on the mirror of his memory, rose ever and anon before his inner gaze—each time more mystifying and bewildering.
In deep rumination Eckhardt pursued his way, gazing absently upon the roofless columns and shattered walls, everywhere visible, over which the star-light shone—ghostly and transparent, backed by the frowning and embattled fortresses of the Cavalli, half hidden by the dark foliage that sprang up amidst the very fanes and palaces of old. Now and then he paused with a deep and heavy sigh, as he pondered over the dark and desolate path upon which he was about to enter, over the lack of a guiding hand in which he might trust, over the uncertainty of the step, which, once taken was beyond recall.
Suddenly a light caught the solitary rambler's eye, a light almost like a star, scarcely larger indeed, but more red and intense in its ray. Of itself it was nothing uncommon and might have shone from either convent or cottage. But it streamed from a part of the Aventine, which contained no habitations of the living, only deserted ruins and shattered porticoes of which even the names and memories of their former inhabitants had been long forgotten. Aware of this, Eckhardt felt a slight awe, as the light threw its unsteady beam over the dreary landscape; for he was by no means free from the superstition of the age and it was near the hour consecrated to witches and ghosts.
But fear, whether of this world or the next, could not long daunt the mind of the Margrave; and after a brief hesitation he resolved to make a digression from his way, to discover the cause of the phenomenon. Unconsciously Eckhardt's tread passed over the site of the ill-famed temple of Isis which had at one time witnessed those wildest of orgies commemorated by the pen of Juvenal. At last he came to a dense and dark copse from an opening in the center of which gleamed the mysterious light. Penetrating the gloomy foliage Eckhardt found himself before a large ruin, grey and roofless. Through a rift in the wall, forming a kind of casement and about ten feet from the ground, the light gleamed over the matted and rank soil, embedded, as it were, in vast masses of shade. Without knowing it, Eckhardt stood on the very spot once consecrated to the cult of the Egyptian goddess, and now shunned as an abode of evil spirits. The walls of the ruin were covered with a dense growth of creepers, which entwined even the crumbled portico to an extent that made it almost impossible to penetrate into its intricate labyrinth of corridors.
While indulging in a thousand speculations, occasioned by the hour and the spot, Eckhardt suddenly perceived a shadow in the portico. Only the head was visible in the moonlight, which bathed the ruin, and it disappeared almost as quickly as it had been revealed. While meditating upon the expediency of exploring the mystery which confronted him, Eckhardt was startled by the sound of footsteps. Straining his gaze through the haze of the moonlight he beheld emerging from the portico of the temple the tall form of a man, wrapt in a long black cloak. He wore a conical hat with sloping brim which entirely shadowed his face and on his right arm he carried the apparently lifeless body of a girl. With the object of preventing a probable crime Eckhardt stepped from his place of concealment just as the stranger was about to pass him with his mysterious burden and placed his hands arrestingly on the other's shoulder.
"Who are you? And what is your business here?" he questioned curtly, attempting to remove the stranger's vizor.