Eckhardt's arm dropped, while a wrathful laugh broke from his lips.
"You are magnificent, King Otto! Defend the woman who has foully betrayed you! Be it so! We have no time for argument. Her life is forfeited and by the Eternal God, Eckhardt never broke his oath. Follow me! We must reach the Aventine, ere the Roman rabble bar the way. We are not strong enough to break through their numbers and they swarm like ants."
Otto stirred not.
Calmly he gazed at the Margrave, as if the danger did in no wise concern him. And while Eckhardt stamped his feet in impotent rage, mingling a score or more pagan imprecations with the very unchristian oaths he muttered between his clenched teeth, Otto turned to Stephania. His voice was calm and passionless as one's who has emerged from a terrible ordeal and has nothing more to lose, nothing more to fear.
"What will you do?" he said. "The streets are no safe thoroughfare for you in this night."
"I know not,—I care not," she replied with dead voice, from which all its bewitching tones had faded.
"Then you must come with us!" he said. "My men shall safely conduct you to Castel San Angelo. You have the word of their King!"
"By the flames of purgatory! Are you stark mad, King Otto?" roared Eckhardt, almost beside himself with rage. "Come with us she shall, but as hostage for Crescentius,—and eye for eye,—tooth for tooth!"
He did not finish. Otto waved his hand petulantly.
"The King of the Germans has pledged his word for Stephania's safe conduct, and the King of the Germans will be obeyed," he spoke, his voice the only calm and passionless thing in all the storm and uproar, which assailed them on all sides. "Through the secret passage lies her only safety. She cannot go as she came!"