"Warned? By whom?"
"Cyprianus, the monk!"
The harper's face turned livid.
"No blacker wretch e'er strode the streets of Rome. And he confessed?"
"A death-bed confession, that makes the devils laugh," Eckhardt replied, then he briefly related the circumstances which had led him into the deserted region of the Tarpeian Rock and his chance discovery of the monk, whose strange tale had been cut short by death.
"He has walked long in death's shadow," said the harper. "Fate was too kind, too merciful to the slayer of Gregory."
There was a brief pause, during which neither spoke. At last the harper broke the silence.
"The hour of final reckoning is near,—nearer than you dream, the hour when a fiend, a traitor must pay the penalty of his crimes, the hour which shall for ever more remove the shadow from your life. The task required of you is great; you may not approach it as long as a breath of doubt remains in your heart. Only certainty can shape your unrelenting course. Had Ginevra a birth-mark?"
Eckhardt breathed hard.
"The imprint of a raven-claw on her left arm below the shoulder."