Eckhardt lowered his weapon.
His countenance betrayed untold anxiety.
"You invite certain destruction, King Otto," he remonstrated with subdued voice. "What matters it, if her countrymen do slay her? One serpent the less in Rome! Your mercy leads you to perdition,—-what mercy has she shown to you?"
Otto had relapsed into his former state of apathy.
"She goes with us," he said like an automaton, that knows but one speech. "Through the secret passage lies her only safety."
"She will betray it and you and all of us," growled the German leader, whose very beard seemed to bristle with wrath at Otto's obstinacy.
Otto shrugged his shoulders.
"I have spoken!"
"Guards, close round!" thundered Eckhardt. "And every dog of a Roman who approaches upon any pretext whatsoever,—strike him dead without word or parley!"
The Saxon spearmen who had guarded the approach to the avenue gathered hurriedly round them. For at that moment the great bell of the Capitol, whose tolling had ceased for a time, began its clamour anew and the shouts of the masses, subdued and hushed during the interval, rose with increased fury. They drowned the great sob of anguish, which had welled up from Stephania's heart, but when Otto, his attention distracted for the nonce by the uproar, turned round, the woman had gone.