A desire, fierce as that of hunger, wearing as that of sleep, filled him,—the desire of death.
At last he rode away with the others.
The night grew darker. The sky was full of clouds and the wind shrieked through the spectral branches of the pines. The travellers pursued their way along the well beaten tracks of the Flaminian Way, keeping a constant look-out for surprises. They re-crossed the Tiber at a ford above the city, and then only they brought their steeds to a more leisurely gait.
Gradually the ground began to ascend.
A turn in the road brought them to a high plateau. Its rising knolls were crowned with broad and ancient plane-trees, in the midst of which towered a gibbet, from which swung the bodies of two malefactors, recently executed. Otto shuddered at the omen. Death on every turn,—death at every step. The moon at fitful intervals cast from between the rifts in the clouds a feeble radiance upon desolate fields. A company of hungry crows rose at the approach of the horsemen from the stubble, filled the air with their cawing and flapped their way swiftly out of sight. At that moment a horseman galloped past with great rapidity, seeming eagerly to scan the cavalcade. He was closely muffled and had vanished in the night, ere he could be hailed or recognized.
Rome swiftly vanished behind them. After passing the last scattered houses on the outskirts, they finally reached the open Campagna. The darkness increased and the night wore every appearance of proving a dismal one. The wind was high and swept the clouds wildly over the face of the moon.
In silence they proceeded on their way, until they espied a low range of hills, white on the summits with lightning. A dense wood skirted the road on the left for several miles. But as far as the eye could penetrate the murky twilight, no human being, no human habitation appeared.
In the ruins of an old monastery they spent the night, and for the first in three, Otto slept. But his sleep did not refresh him, nor restore his strength. Throughout his fitful slumbers, he saw the pale face of Stephania, the face, which with so mad a longing he had dreamed into his heart, the heart she had broken, but which loved her still.
Gloomily the morning light of the succeeding day broke upon the Roman Campagna. The sun was hidden behind a lowering sky and fitful gusts of wind swept the great, barren expanse. Undaunted, though their hearts were filled with dire misgivings, the small band continued their march, northward, ever northward,—towards the goal of their journey, the Castel of Paterno, perched on the distant slopes of Soracté.
Book the Third