"And slain the fiend who betrayed her!"
A wild shriek, a tussle,—a choked outcry,—she struck—once, twice, thrice:—for a moment his hands wildly beat the air, then he reeled backward, lurched and fell, his head striking the hard marble floor.
The bloody weapon fell from Theodora's trembling hands.
"Avenged!" she gasped, staring with terrible fascination at the spot where he lay.
Benilo had raised himself upon his arm, filing his wild bloodshot eyes on the woman. He attempted to rise,—another moment, and the death rattle was in his throat. He fell back and expired.
There was no pity in Theodora's eyes, only a great, nameless fear as she looked down upon him where he lay. It had grown dark in the chamber. The blue moon-mist poured in through the narrow casement, and with it came the chimes from remote cloisters, floating as it were on the silence of night, cleaving the darkness, as it is cloven by a falling star. Theodora's heart was beating, as if it must break. Lighting a candle she softly opened the door and made her way through a labyrinth of passages and corridors in which her steps re-echoed from the high vaulted ceilings. Farther and farther she wandered away from the inhabited part of the building, when her ear suddenly caught a metallic sound, sharp, like the striking of a gong.
For a moment she remained rooted to the spot, staring straight before her as one dazed. Then she retraced her steps towards the Pavilion, whence came singing voices and sounds of high revels.
Sometime after she had left her chamber, two Africans entered it, picked up the lifeless body of the Chamberlain, and, after carrying it to a remote part of the building, flung it into the river.
The yellow Tiber hissed in white foam over the spot, where Benilo sank. The mad current dragged his body down to the slime of the river-bed, picked it up again in its swirl, tossed it in mocking sport from one foam-crested wave to another, and finally flung it, to rot, on some lonely bank, where the gulls screamed above it and the gray foxes of the Maremmas gnawed and snapped and snarled over the bleached bones in the moonlight.
CHAPTER XVII