"To hide the blush for the thing called man."
The stranger's enigmatic reply added to Eckhardt's conviction that this night of all was destined to clear the mystery which enshrouded his life.
A mighty struggle, such as he had never before known, seemed to rend his soul, as with throbbing heart he followed his strange guide on his mysterious errand. Thus they sped through the storm-swept city without meeting one single human being. At the top of the Esquiline they came to a momentary standstill, for the storm raged with a force that nothing could resist. Leaning for a moment against a ruined portico, Eckhardt gazed westward over the night-wrapt city. In the driving rain he could scarcely distinguish the huge structures of the Flavian Amphitheatre and the palaces on the Capitoline hill. The Janiculan Mount stood out like a darker storm-cloud against the lowering sky, and the air was filled with a dull moan and murmur like the breathing of a sleeping giant. On the southern slope of the hill the wind attacked them with renewed fury, and the blasts howled up the Clivus Martis and the Appian Way. The region seemed completely deserted. Only a solitary travelling chariot rolled now and then, clattering, over the stones.
The road gradually turned off to the right. The dark mass to their left was the tomb of the Scipios and there in front, hardly visible in the darkness of night, rose the arch of Drusus, through which their way led them. Eckhardt took care to note every landmark which he passed, to find the way, should occasion arise, without his guide. The latter, constantly preceding him, took no note of the Margrave's scrutiny, but continued unequivocally upon his way, leaving it to Eckhardt to follow him, or not.
A blinding flash of lightning illumined the landscape far away to the aqueducts and the Alban hills, followed by a deafening peal of thunder. The uproar of the elements for a time shook Eckhardt's resolution.
Just then he heard the clanging of a gate.
An intoxicating perfume of roses and oleander wooed his bewildered senses as his guide conducted him through a labyrinthine maze of winding paths. Only an occasional gleam of lightning revealed to the Margrave that they traversed a garden of considerable extent. Now the shadowy outlines of a vast structure, illumined in some parts, appeared beyond the dark cypress avenue down which they strode at a rapid pace.
Suddenly Eckhardt paused, addressing his guide: "Where am I, and why am I here?"
The stranger turned, regarding him intently. Then he replied:
"I have nothing to add to my errand. If you fear to follow me, there is yet time to retreat."