"Can we hold out?"
The Count's visage reflected deep gloom.
"All Rome is in the throes of revolt! All day Eckhardt has been pounding the walls of Castel San Angelo—to no avail!"
"He will storm the traitor's lair," Otto replied, "but then?" he questioned as one dream-lost.
Ludeger pointed to Northward. With a deep moan Otto's head drooped and the scalding tears streamed down between his fingers. Betrayed—betrayed! Not by Crescentius, his natural, his hereditary foe, but by the woman whom he had loved, whom he had worshipped, whom he still loved above all else on earth. What was the possession of Rome, the rule of the universe, to him without her? He could picture to himself no happiness away from her.
When Otto looked up, Count Ludeger was gone.
For a time there was stillness, deep, intense.
A dazzling flash of light, succeeded by a deafening peal of thunder, that was like the wrath of a mighty God,—then came darkness, the howling of the storm, the sobbing of bells tossed and broken by the hurricane, into a wraith of dirge,—and now, as by some fantastic freak of nature, as the wind rose higher and higher, the iron tongue of the bell from the Capitol came wrangling and discordant through the air, as if tortured by some demon of despair. But the howlings and the tempest and the roar of the thunder had a third, most terrible ally to make that night memorable in Rome. It was the wrath of Eckhardt, the Margrave, as he marshalled his hosts to the assault. Terror-stricken the cowardly Romans scattered before the iron avalanches that swept down upon them. The scythe of the enraged mower made wide gaps in their lists and the dead and dying strewed the field in every direction. Little did Eckhardt care how many he mangled and maimed under the hoofs of his iron-shod charger. Had all Rome been but one huge funeral pyre, he would have exulted. Rome had not been kind to him and the hour of vengeance was at hand at last!
The broken clangour of the bells of Rome, the bellowing of the thunder through the valleys, the howling of the storm—and the shouts of the storming files of his Germans struck Otto's ear in fitful pauses.
For this then he had journeyed to Rome! This was to be the end of the dream!—The man he had trusted was a traitor! The woman whose kisses still burnt upon his lips had sold, betrayed him. The candle sank lower and the shadows deepened; but the tempest howled like a legion of demons over the seven-hilled city of Rome.