The Sorceress of Rome

by Nathan Gallizier

The chalice, with the blood of Christ, trembled in Eckhardt's hand. He was about to pass it to his lips. But try as he might, he could not avert his gaze. Those terrible eyes, the marble calm of the face of his dead wife seemed to draw him onward,—onward.—Forgotten was church, and ceremony, and vow; forgotten everything before that phantom from beyond the grave. It held him with a power which mocked to scorn every effort to escape its spell. The apparition lured him on, as almost imperceptibly it began to recede, without once abandoning its gaze.

A wild shriek re-echoed through the high-vaulted dome of the Basilica of St. Peter. It was the shriek of a madman, who has escaped his guards, but fears to be overtaken. The golden chalice fell from Eckhardt's nerveless grasp, spilling its contents over the feet of the Cardinal of San Gregorio who raised his hands in unfeigned dismay and muttered an anathema. Then, with a white, wet face, Eckhardt staggered blindly to his feet, groping, with outstretched arms, toward the apparition—which seemed to recede farther and farther away into the gloom.

The hush of death had fallen upon the assembly. The monk Cyprianus raised aloft his arms, as though invoking divine interposition and exorcising the fiend. His eyes, the eyes of the assembled thousands and the stare of Benilo, the Chamberlain, followed the direction of Eckhardt's outstretched arms. Suddenly he was seen to pause before one of the massive pillars, pale as death, mumbling strange words, accompanied by stranger gestures. Then he gazed about like one waking from a terrible dream—the spot where the apparition had mocked him but a moment ago was deserted! Had it been but another temptation of the fiend?

But no! It was impossible. This woman had made him utterly her own; her glance had sufficed to snap asunder the fetters of a self-imposed yoke, as though her will, powerful even after death, had suddenly passed upon him. Though he saw her not at the present moment, he had but to close his eyes, to see her as distinctly as if she were still present in the body. And in that moment Eckhardt felt all the horrors of the path he was about to choose, the dead and terrible aspect of the life he was about to espouse. To be a monk, to crawl till death in the chill shade of the cloister, to see none save living spectres, to watch by the nameless corpses of folks unknown, to wear his raiment for his coffin's pall—a terrible dread seized him. One brief hour spent before an altar and some gabbled words were about to cut him off for ever from the society of the living. With his own hand he was about to seal the stone upon his tomb, and turn the key in the lock of the door of Life.

Like a whirlwind these thoughts passed through Eckhardt's brain. Then he imagined once more that he saw the eyes of his dead wife gazing upon him, burning into the very depths of his soul. What made their aspect so terrible to him, he was not just then in the frame to analyze. Some mysterious force, which had left the sweetness of her face unmarred, seemed to have imparted something to her eyes that inspired him with an unaccountable dread.

As he paused thus before the pillar, pressing his icy hands to his fevered temples, vainly groping for a solution, vainly endeavouring to break the fetters which bound his will and seemed to crush his strength, there broke upon his ears the loud command of the officiating monk, to return and bid the Fiend desist. These words broke the deadly spell which had benumbed his senses and caused him to remain riveted to the spot, where the phantom had hovered. His sunken eyes glared as those of a madman, as he slowly turned in response to the monk's behest. The hot breath came panting from between his parched lips. Then, without heeding the ceremony, without heeding the monks or the spectators who had flocked hither to witness his consecration, Eckhardt dashed through the circle of which he had formed the central figure and, ere the amazed spectators knew what happened or the monks could stem his precipitate flight, the chief of the imperial hosts rushed out of the church in his robes of consecration and vanished from sight.

So quickly, so unexpectedly did it all happen, that even the officiating Cardinal seemed completely paralyzed by the suddenness of Eckhardt's flight. There was no doubt in the mind of Cyprianus that the Margrave had gone mad and his whispered orders sent two monks speeding after the demented neophyte. Deep, ominous silence hovered over the vast area of the Basilica. It seemed as if the very air was fraught with deep portent, and ominous forebodings of impending danger filled the hearts of the assembled thousands. The people knelt in silent prayer and breathless expectation. Would Eckhardt return? Would the ceremony proceed?

Among all those, who had so eagerly watched the uncommon spectacle of whose crowning glory they were about to see themselves deprived, there was but one to whom the real cause of the scene which had just come to a close, was no mystery. Benilo alone knew the cause of Eckhardt's flight. To the last moment he had triumphed, convinced that no temptation could turn from his chosen path a mind so stern as Eckhardt's. But when the effect of the mysterious vision upon the kneeling general became apparent, when his restlessness grew with every moment, up to the terrible climax, accentuated by his madman's yell, when, unmindful of the monk's admonition—he saw him rush out of the church in his consecrated robes—then Benilo knew that the general would not return. For the time all the insolent boastfulness of his nature forsook him and he shivered as one seized with a sudden chill. Without awaiting what was to come, unseen and unnoticed amidst the all-pervading consternation, the Chamberlain rushed out of the Basilica by the same door through which Eckhardt had gained the open.

Under his canopy sat the Vice-Gerent of Christ, surrounded by the consecrated cardinals and bishops and the monks of the various orders. Without an inkling of the true cause prompting Eckhardt's precipitate flight Gregory had witnessed the terrible scene, which had just come to a close. But inwardly he rejoiced. For only when every opposition to Eckhardt's mad desire had appeared fruitless, had the Pontiff acquiesced in granting to him the special dispensation, which shortened the time of his novitiate to the limit of three days.

But it was not a matter for the moment, for Gregory himself was to partake of the Communion and the monk Cyprianus, who was to perform the holy office, a tribute to the order whose superior he was, had just blessed the host. In his consecrated hand the wine was to turn into the blood of Christ, Gregory had just partaken of the holy wafer. Now the monk placed the golden tube in the golden chalice and, drawing his cowl deeply over his forehead, passed the other end of the tube to the Pontiff.