They continued for a time in silence, each wrapt in his own thoughts. Without one ray of light beaming on his course, Eckhardt beheld a thousand vague and shadowy images passing before his eyes. That subterranean love, so long crouched at his soul's stairway, had climbed a few steps higher, guided by some errant gleam of hope. The weight of the impossible pressed no longer so heavily upon him, since he had lightened his burden by the long withheld confession. The vertigo of fatality had seized him. By a succession of irregular and terrible events he believed himself hurried towards the end of his goal. A mighty wave had lifted him up and bore him onward.
"Whither?"
From the distance, borne aloft on the wings of the night-wind, came faintly the chant of pilgrims from secluded shrines on the roadway. Eckhardt's mind was made up. He would seek Nilus, the hermit. Perchance he would point out to him the road to peace and set at rest the dread misgivings, which tortured him beyond endurance. This boon obtained, what mattered all else? The End of Time was nigh. It would solve all mysteries which the heart yearned to know.
And while Benilo seemed to muse in silence over the strange tale which his companion had poured into his ear, the latter weighed a resolve which he dared not even breathe, much less confide to human ear. Truly, the task required of Nilus was great.
At last Eckhardt and Benilo parted for the night. Eckhardt went his way, pondering, and wondering what the morrow would bring, and Benilo returned among the ruins of the Palatine, where he remained seated for a time, staring up at the starry night-sky, as if it contained the solution of all that was dark and inscrutable in man's existence.
CHAPTER IV
THE WANTON COURT OF THEODORA
strange restlessness had seized the Chamberlain, after his meeting with the German commander. The moon illumined the desolate region with her white beams, dividing the silent avenues into double edged lines of silvery white, and bluish shadows. The nocturnal day with its subdued tints disguised and mantled the desolation. The mutilated columns, the roofs, crumbled beneath the torrents and thunders of centuries, were less conspicuous than when seen in the clear, merciless light of the sun. The lost parts were completed by the half tints of shadows; only here and there a brusque beam of light marked the spot, where a whole edifice had crumbled away. The silent genii of Night seemed to have repaired the ancient city to some representation of fantastic life.
As he hurried along the slopes of the hill, Benilo fancied at times that he beheld vague forms, lurking in the shadows; but they seemed to vanish the moment he approached. Low whisperings, an undefined hum, floated through the silence. First he attributed the noises to a fluttering in his ears, to the sighing of the night-wind or to the flight of some snake or lizard through the nettles. In nature all things live, even death; all things make themselves heard, even silence. Never before had Benilo felt such an involuntary terror. Once or twice he precipitately changed his course, hurrying down some narrow lane, between desolate looking rows of houses, low and ill-favoured, whose inmates recruited themselves from the lowest types of the mongrel population of Rome.