An icy hand seemed to grip Eckhardt's heart. The words wrung from the dying wretch in the rock-caves under the Gemonian stairs had proved true. In baring Theodora's left arm his eyes had fallen upon the well-remembered birthmark resembling the raven claw. The terrible revelation had for the nonce almost upset his reason, and caused him prematurely to drop his mask. All clarity of thought, all fixedness of purpose had deserted him; he felt as one stunned by the blinding blow of a maze. Dazed he stared before him into the gloom of the autumnal night; his hair dishevelled, his eyelids swollen, his lips compressed. He could not have uttered a word had his life depended upon it. His tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth; his brow was fevered, yet his hands were cold as ice. At last then he had stood face to face with the awful mystery, which had mocked his waking hours, his dreams,—a mystery, even now but half guessed, but half revealed. He tried to recall fragments of the monk's tale. But his brain refused to work, steeped in the apathy of despair. The future hour must give birth to the considerations of the final step, to the closing chapters of his life. Yet he felt that delay would engender madness; long brooding had shaken his reason and swift action alone could now save it from tottering to a hopeless fall.
The frail craft shot round the elbow-like bend of the Tiber at the base of Aventine when Hezilo for the first time broke the silence. He had refrained from questioning or commenting on the result of their visit to the Groves. Now, pointing to the ramparts of Castel San Angelo he whispered into Eckhardt's ear:
"Are your forces beyond recall?"
Eckhardt stared up into the speaker's face, as if the latter had addressed him in some strange tongue. Only after Hezilo had repeated his question, Eckhardt roused himself from the lethargy, which benumbed his senses and gazed in the direction indicated by the harper.
An errant moonbeam illumined just at this moment the upper galleries of Hadrian's tomb. Straining his gaze towards the ramparts of the formidable keep, Eckhardt strove to discover a reason for Hezilo's warning. But the moon disappeared behind a bank of clouds and at that moment the sculler ran in shore.
Unconsciously his hand tightened round the hilt of his sword.
"The earth breeds hard men and weak men," he muttered. "The gods can but laugh at them or grow wroth with them. As for these Romelings,—they are not worth destroying. They will perish of themselves."
"The hour is close at hand, when everything shall be known to you," Hezilo turned to Eckhardt at parting. "But three days remain to the full of the moon."
Weary and sick at heart Eckhardt grasped the harper's proffered hand, as they parted.
But he was in no mood to return within the four walls of his palace. He was as one upon whom has descended a thunder bolt from Heaven.