Chapter XV: Part 15

The sun was nigh the horizon, and the whole west glowed with exquisite colour, reflected in the watery moors of the Campagna, as a troop of horsemen approached the high tableland skirting the Cimminian foothills. Not a human being was visible for many miles around; only a few wild fowl fluttered over the pools and reedy islets of the marshes and the lake of Bolsena gleamed crimson in the haze of the sunset.

The boundless, undulant plain spread before them, its farms, villas and aqueducts no less eloquent of death than the tombs they had passed on the silent Via Appia. The still air and the deep hush seemed to speak to man's soul as with the voice of eternity. On the left of the horsemen yawned a deep ravine, from which arose towering cliffs, crowned with monasteries and convents. On their right lay the mountain chains of the Abruzzi, resembling dark and troubled sea-waves, and to southward the view was bounded by the billowy lines of the Sabine hills, rolling infinitely away. Beyond they saw the villages scattered through the gray Campagna and in the farthest distance the mountain shadows began to darken over the roofs of ancient Tusculum and that second Alba which rises in desolate neglect above the vanished palaces of Pompey and Domitian.

It was the day on which is observed the poetic Festa dell' Ottobrata, a festival of pagan significance, with the archaic dance and garlanded processions of harvest and vintage, when the townsfolk go out into the country, to look upon the mellow tints of autumn, to walk in the vineyards, to taste the purple grapes, and to breathe the fragrance, filling the air with odours finer than the flavour of wine. The fields were mellowed to yellow stubble and the creepers touched by the first chill of autumn hung in crimson garlands along the russet hedges. Here and there, among the stately poplars loomed up farmhouses with thatched roofs, which from afar resembled pointed haystacks on the horizon. At intervals among the crimson and russet leafage rose a spectral cypress, like a sombre shadow. In the haze of the distance crooked olive-trees raised their branches in tints of silver-gray. The air was still, but for an occasional hum of insect life. The faint, white outlines of the Apennines shone brilliant and glistening in the evening glow. The travellers passed Camaldoli with its convents reared upon high, almost inaccessible cliffs; the cloisters of Monte Cassino had vanished behind them in silvery haze. They approached Paterno by a road skirted with villas and gardens, with ancient statues and shady alleys. The proximity of the mountains made the air chill; here and there a ray of sunlight filtered through the branches of the plane-trees.

High Paterno towered above, among its rocks and steeps.

Ever since their flight from Rome, Otto had been in the throes of a benumbing lethargy, which had deprived him of interest in everything, even life itself. Vain had been his companions' effort to rouse him from his brooding state, vainly had they pointed out to him the beauties of the landscape. Was it the ghost of Johannes Crescentius, the Senator of Rome, that was haunting the son of Theophano?

After having crossed a swinging bridge, which swayed to and fro under the weight of their iron mail, they arrived at a narrow causeway, above which, like some contemplative spirit above the conflicting problems of life, rose the cloisters, environing the ancient Castel of Paterno. Eckhardt knocked at the barred gate with the hilt of his sword, whereupon a monk appeared at the window of a tower above the portcullis, and after reconnoitring, set some machinery in motion, by which the portcullis was raised. They then found themselves in a long, narrow causeway cut in the rock. The monk who had admitted them disappeared; another ushered them into the great hall of the cloister. The air was full of the lingering haze of License, and traces of devotional paintings on the weather-beaten walls appeared like fragments of prayers in a world-worn mind.

The hall had been made from a natural cavern and was of an exceedingly gloomy aspect, being of great extent, with deep windows only on one side, hewn in the solid granite. It was at intervals crossed by arches, marking the termination of several galleries leading to remoter parts of the monastery. In the centre was a long stone table, hewn from the rock; a pulpit, supported on a pillar was similarly sculptured in the wall. Five or six pine-wood torches, stuck at far intervals in the granite, shed a dismal illumination through the gloom, enhanced rather than diminished by the glow of red embers on a vast hearth at the farthest extremity of the hall.

Eckhardt was about to prefer his request to the monk, who had conducted them hither, when he was interrupted by the entrance of the abbot and a long train of monks from their devotions. The monks advanced in solemn silence, their heads sunk humbly on their breasts; their superior so worn with vigils and fasts, that his gaunt and powerful frame resembled a huge skeleton. He was the only one of the group who uttered a word of welcome to his guests.

After having ordered Haco to attend to the wants of his lord, Eckhardt sought a conference with the abbot on matters which lay close to his heart. For his sovereign was ill--and his illness seemed to defy human skill. The abbot listened to Eckhardt's recital of the past events, but his diagnosis was far from quieting the latter's fears.

"You learn to speak and think very dismally among these great, sprawling pine forests," Eckhardt said moodily, at the conclusion of the conference.

"We learn to die!" replied the monk with melancholy austerity.

Consideration for his sovereign's safety, however, prompted Eckhardt, who had been informed that straggling bands of their pursuers had followed them to the base of the hill, to continue that same night under guidance of a monk, the ascent to the almost impregnable heighths of Castel Paterno. Here Otto and his small band were welcomed by Count Tammus, the commander, who placed himself and his men-at-arms at the disposal of the German King.

*CHAPTER II*

*MEMORIES*

Otto found himself in a state chamber, whose gloomy vastness was lighted, or rather darkened by one single taper. Through the high oval windows in the deep recess of the wall peered an errant ray of moonlight, which illumined the quaint monastic paintings on the walls, and crossing the yellow candle-light, imbued them with a strange ghostly glare.

When his host had ministered to his comfort and served him with the frugal fare of the cloister, Otto hinted his desire for sleep, and his trusty Saxons entered on their watch before their sovereign's chamber.

At last, left alone, Otto listened with a heavy heart to the monotonous tread of the sentries. It seemed to him as if he could now take a survey of the events of his life, and pass sentence upon it with the impartiality of the future chronicler. Recollection roused up recollection; and as in a panorama, the scenes of his short, but eventful career passed in review before his inner eye. He thought of what he was, contrasting it painfully with all he might have been. The image of the one being, for whom his soul yearned in its desolation, with the blinding hunger of man for woman and woman's love, rose up before his eyes, and for the first time he thought of death,--death,--in its full and ghastly actuality.

What was it, this death? Was it a sleep? Merely the absence, not the privation of those powers and senses, called life? What sort of passage must the thinking particle pass through, whatever it may be,--ere it stood naked of its clay? The breaking of the eyes in darkness,--what then succeeded? Would the thinking atom survive,--would it become the nothing that it was?

The aspect of the chamber was not one to dispel the gloomy visions that haunted him. It was scantily furnished in the crude style of the tenth century, with massive tables and chairs. A curious tapestry of eastern origin, representing some legend of the martyrs, divided it from an adjoining cabinet serving at once as an oratory and sleeping apartment. A low fire, burning in the chimney to dispel the miasmas of the marshes, shed a crimson glow over the chamber and its lonely inmate.

For a long time those who watched before his door heard him walk restlessly up and down. At last weariness came over him and he threw himself exhausted into a chair. Then the haunting memory of Stephania conjured up before his half-dreaming senses an alluring, shimmering Fata Morgana--a castle on one of those far-away Apulian head-lands, with their purpling hills in the background and the scent of strange flowers in the air. On many a summer morning they should walk hand in hand through the Laburnum groves, and find their love anew. But the amber sheen of the landscape faded into the violet of night. The vision faded into nothingness. A peal of thunder reverberated through the heavens,--Otto started with a moan, rose, and staggered to his couch.

He closed his eyes; but sleep would not come.

Where was she now? Where was Stephania? Weeks had passed, since they had last met. It seemed an eternity indeed! He should have remained in Rome, till he was assured of her fate! She had left him with words of hatred, of scorn, bitter and cruel. And yet! How gladly he would have saved the man, his mortal enemy, forsooth, had it lain in his power. Gladly?--No! The man who had thrice forsworn, thrice broken his faith, deserved his doom. Now he was dead. But Rome was lost. What mattered it? There was but one devouring thought in Otto's mind. Where was Stephania? The mad longing for her became more intense with every moment. Now that the worst had come to pass, now that the stunning blow had fallen, he must rouse himself, he must rally. He must combat this fever, which was slowly consuming him; he must find her, see her once more on earth, if but to tell her how he loved her, her and no other woman. Would the pale phantom of Crescentius still stand between them,--still part them as of yore? Not if their loves were equal. His hands were stainless of that blood. On the morrow he would despatch Haco to Rome. Surely some one would have seen her; surely some one knew where the wife of the Senator of Rome was hiding her sorrow,--her grief.

The dim light of the ceremonial lamp, which burned with a dull, veiled flame before an image of the crucified Christ, flickered, as if fanned by a passing breath.

There was deep silence in the king's bed-chamber, and the drawn tapestry shut out every sound from without.

Noiselessly a secret panel in the wall opened behind Otto's couch. Noiselessly it closed in the gray stone. Then an exquisite white hand and arm were thrust through the draperies and the lovely face of Stephania beamed on the sleeping youth. She was pale as death, but the transparency of her skin and the absolute perfection of her form and features made her the image of an Olympian Goddess. Her dark hair, bound by a fillet of gold, enhanced the marble pallor of the exquisite face.

Never had the wonderful eyes of Stephania seemed so full of fire and of life. Stooping over the sleeper, she softly encircled his head with her snowy arms and pressed a long kiss on the dry, fevered lips.

With a moan Otto opened his eyes. For a moment he stared as if he faced an apparition from dream-land.--His breath stopped, then he uttered a choked outcry of delirious joy, while his arms tightly encircled the head which bent over him.

"At last! At last! At last! Oh, how I have longed, how I have pined for you! Stephania--my darling--my love--tell me that you do not hate me--but is it you indeed,--is it you? How did you come here--the guards,--Eckhardt,--"

He paused with a terrible fear in his heart, ever and ever caressing the dark head, the beloved face, whose eyes held his own with their magnetic spell. She suffered his kisses and caresses while stroking his damp brow with soothing hand. Then with a grave look she enjoined silence and caution, crept to the door of the adjoining room and locked it from within.

"They guard you so well, not a ghost could enter," she said with the sweet smile of by-gone days.

He arose and drew the curtains closer. Then he sat down by her side.

"How came you here, Stephania?" he whispered with renewed fear and dread. "If you are discovered,--God have mercy on you,--and me!"

She shook her head.

"I have followed you hither from Rome,--I passed you on the night of your flight. Count Tammus, the commander of Paterno, at one time the friend of the Senator of Rome, has offered me the hospitality of the castelio. No one knows of my presence here, save an old monk, who believes me some itinerant pilgrim, in search of the End of Time," she whispered with her far-away look. "The End of Time."

"They say it is close at hand," Otto replied, holding her hands tightly in his. "Oh, Stephania, how beautiful you are! That which has broken my spirit, seems not to have touched your life!"

"My life is dead," she replied. "What remains,--remains through you. Therefore time has lacked power. But that which has been and is no more, stands immovable before my soul."

He gazed at her with large fear-struck eyes.

"Then--your heart is no longer mine?"

The grasp of the hands in his own tightened.

"Would I be here, silly dreamer? I love you--my heart knows no change. It loved but once--and you!"

All the happiness, slumbering in the deep eyes of the son of Theophano, burst forth as in a glorious aureole of light.

"Then you have never--"

She raised her hand forbiddingly.

"I could not give to him who is gone that which I gave to you! When we first met I was your foe. I hated you with all the hate which a Roman has for the despoiler of his lands. When I gave you my love,--which, alas, was not mine to give, I did so, a powerless instrument of Fate. Side by side have we trod life's narrow path,--neither of us could turn to right or left without standing accounted to the other. It was not ours to say love this one or that other. We were brought together by that same mysterious force, to which it is vain to cry halt. We knew,--I knew,--that it must, sooner or later, carry us to doom and death; but resistlessly the whirlwind had taken us up in its glistening cloud: Thus are we lost;--you and I!"

He listened to her with a great fear in his soul.

"How cold your hands are, my love," he whispered. "Cold as if the flow of blood had ceased. Can you feel how it rushes through my veins,--so hot--so boiling hot?"

"You have the fever! Therefore my hands appear cold to you. But,--you spoke truly,--in my hand is death,--and death is cold! Life I have none,--you have taken it from me!"

"Stephania!"

It sounded like the last outcry of a broken heart.

"Why recall that which could not be averted? Were it mine to change it, oh, that I could!"

"Do you really wish it?"

"I wish but your happiness. Can you doubt?"

"I do not doubt. I love you!"

"Stephania--my darling,--my all!"

And he kissed her eyes, her lips, her hair, and she suffered his caresses as one wrapt in a blissful dream.

"I learned you were stricken with the fever,--the last defence left to us by nature against our foes. I have come, to watch over you, to care for you,--to nurse you back to health,--to life--"

"And you braved the dangers that beset your path on every turn?"

"How should I fear,--with such love in my heart for you!"

"Then you--will remain?" he whispered, his very life in his eyes.

"For a time," she answered, in a halting tone, which passed not unremarked.

"And then?" he queried.

Her head sank.

"I know not!"

"Then I will tell you, my own love! We will return to Rome together, you and I; Stephania, the empress of the West,--would not that reconcile your Romans,--appease their hate?"

Stephania gazed for a moment thoughtfully at Otto, then she shook her head.

"I fear," she replied after a pause, "we shall nevermore return to Rome."

As she spoke, her soft fingers stroked caressingly the youth's head, which rested on her bosom, while her right hand remained tightly clasped in his.

"I do not understand you," he said with a pained look.

"Do not let us speak of it now," she replied. "You are ill;--the fever burns in your blood. It likes you well, this Roman fever,--and yet you persist in returning hither ever and ever,--as to your destiny--"

"You are my destiny, Stephania! I cannot live without you! Had you not come, I should have died! God, you cannot know how I love you, how I worship you, how I worship the very air you breathe. Stephania! On that terrible, never-to-be-forgotten day, when your words planted death in my heart, he, who of all my Saxons hates you with a hatred strong and enduring as death, warned me of you! 'Must you love a Roman,' he said to me--'and of all Romans, Stephania, the wife of the Senator? Once in the toils of the Sorceress, you are lost! Nothing can save you.'--Can I say to my heart, you shall love this one,--or you shall not love this one? Shall I say to my soul, you shall harbour the image of this one, but that other shall be to you even as a barred Eden, guarded by the angel with the flaming sword? I have seen the maidens of my native land; I have seen the women of Rome;--but my heart was never touched until we met. My soul leaped forth to meet your own, when first we stood face to face in the chapel of the Confessor. Stephania,--my love for you is so great that I fear you."

"And why should you fear me? Were I here, did I not love you?"

"My life has been a wondrous one," he spoke after a pause. "From dazzling sun-kissed heights I have been hurled into the blackest abyss of despair. And what is my crime? Wherein have I sinned? I have loved a woman,--a woman wondrous fair,--Stephania!"

"You have loved the wife of the Senator of Rome!"

His eyes drooped. For a time neither spoke.

"Thrice have I crossed the Alps, to see, to rule this fabled land,--and now I want but rest,--peace,--Stephania--" he said with a heart-breaking smile.

"You are tired, my love," replied the beautiful Roman. "From this hour, I shall be your leech,--I shall be with you, to share your solitude,--to watch over you till the dread fever is broken. And then--"

"And then?" he repeated with anxious look.

"But will you not weary of me?" she said, avoiding the question.

He drew her close to him.

"My sweetheart---my own--"

"And you will not fear, you will trust and obey me?"

"Were you to give me poison with your own hands, I would drain the goblet without fear or doubt."

Stephania had arisen. She was pale as death.

"If love were all!" she muttered. "If love were all!"

Then she drew the curtains closer and extinguished the light.

*CHAPTER III*

*THE CONSUMMATION*

Some weeks had elapsed since Otto's arrival at Paterno. But the fever which consumed the son of Theophano had not yielded to the skill of the monkish mediciners, though a change for the better had been noticed after the first night of the King's arrival. But it lasted only a short time and all the danger symptoms returned anew. The monks shook their heads and the hooded disciples of Aesculapius conversed in hushed whispers, regarding the strange ailment, which would not cede before their antidotes. But they continued their unavailing efforts to save the life of the last of the glorious Saxon dynasty, the grandson of the vanquisher of the Magyars, the son of the vanquisher of the Saracens.

It was a bleak December evening.

At sunset a mist rose from the fields and the clouds grew heavier with every hour. The rain-drops hung on the branches of the plane-trees, until an occasional stir sent them pattering down.

Otto lay within, asleep.

In the door-way sat Eckhardt, muffled in a cloak. Near-by, half recumbent under a blanket, the cowl drawn over his face, sat the leech, his eyes fixed upon the log-fire on the hearth, as it sent showers of sparks into the murky darkness. In their search for fire-wood the monks had brought from the edge of a neighbouring mill-pond the debris of a skiff, whose planks had for years been alternately soaked in water and dried in the sun. When tossed upon the blaze of forest branches, these fragments emitted an odour sweet as oriental spices and their flames brightened with prismatic tints. But to the leech's brooding gaze their lurid embers seemed touched with the spell of some unholy incantation.

Without the sick-chamber two sentries, chilled and drowsy, leaned against a column supporting the low vaulting, their halberds clasped between their folded arms.

After a pause of some duration, Eckhardt arose and entering Otto's chamber bent over the couch on which he lay. After having convinced himself by the youth's regular breathing that he was resting and did not require his attendance, the Margrave strode from the sick-chamber. The fever was intermittent; now it came, now it left the youth's body. But the pale wan face and the sunken eyes gave rise to the gravest fears.

Night came swiftly and with it the intense hush deepened. Only the pattering of rain-drops broke the stillness. In the sick-chamber nothing was to be heard save the regular breathing of the sleeper.

Thus the hours wore on. After the monk and Eckhardt had departed for the night, the secret panel opened noiselessly and Stephania entered the apartment with a strange expression of triumph and despair in her look. She glanced round, but her eyes passed unheedingly over their surroundings; she saw only that there was no one in the chamber, that no one had seen her enter. There was something utterly desperate in that glance. Noiselessly she stepped to the narrow oval window gazing out into the mist-veiled landscape.

But it seemed without consciousness.

A single thought seemed to have frozen her brain.

She stepped to Otto's couch and for a moment bent over him.

Then she retreated, as if seized with a secret terror.

For a few moments she stood behind him, with closed eyes, her face almost stony with dread and the fear of something unknown.

Near the bed there stood a pitcher which the monks replenished every evening with water cold from a mountain spring. Approaching it, she took a powder from her bosom and shook it into it, every grain. Then she turned the pitcher round and round, to mix the fine powder, which stood on the surface. Suddenly she started, and set it down, while scalding tears slowly coursed down her pale cheeks. Desperate thoughts crowded thickly on her brain, as her stony gaze was riveted on the water, whose crystal clearness had not been clouded by the subtle poison.

"Between us stands the shade of Crescentius," she muttered. "Still I can not cease to love him,--each bound to each,--together, yet perpetually divided,--our love a flower that the hand of death will gather."

Again there was a long, intense hush. She crept to Otto's bed and knelt down by his side, hiding her wet face on her bare arms.

"When he is dead," she continued speaking softly, so as not to wake him, "the unpardonable sin will be condoned.--Otto, Otto,--how I love you,--if I loved you less,--you might live--"

At these words he stirred in the cushions. A deep sigh came from his lips, as if the mountain of a heavy dream had been lifted from his breast.

She drew back terrified, but noting that he did not open his eyes, she spoke with a moan of weariness:

"How often thus in my dreams have I seen his dead face--"

Again she bent over the sleeper. Now she could not discern a breath. A strange dread seized her, and her face became as wan and haggard as that of the fever-stricken youth. Obeying a sudden impulse she removed the pitcher of water, placing it in a remote niche. Then she crept back to Otto's couch.

"Is he dead?" she whispered, as if seized by a strange delirium. "Is he dead? I know not,--yet none knows,--but I! None,--but I!"

She gave a start, as if she had discovered a listener, glanced wildly about the room, at each familiar object in the chamber, and met Otto's eyes.

She raised herself with a gasp of terror, as he grasped her hand.

"Who is dead?" he asked. "And who is it, that alone knows it?"

She stroked the soft fair hair from his clammy brow.

"You are delirious, my love," she whispered. "No one is dead;--you have been dreaming."

"I thought I heard you say so," he replied wearily.

The horror and bewilderment at his awakening at this moment of all, when she required all her strength for her purpose, left her dazed for a moment.

The clock struck the second hour after midnight. The sound cut the air sharply, like a stern summons. It seemed to demand: Who dares to watch at this hour of death?

Otto had again closed his eyes. Delirium had regained its sway. He was whispering, while his fingers scratched on the cover of his couch, as if he were preparing his own grave.

Again he relapsed into a fitful slumber, filled with dreams and visions of the past.

He stands at the banks of the Rhine. The night is still. The moon is in her zenith, her yellow radiance reflected in the calm majestic tide of the river. He hears the sighing, droning swish of the waters; the sinuous dream-like murmuring of the waves resolving into tinkling chimes, far-away and plaintive, that steal up to him in the moon mists, ravishing his soul. In cadenced, languorous rhythm the song of the Rhine-daughters weeps and wooes through the night; their shimmering bodies gleam from the waters in a silvery sphere of light; they seem to beckon to him--to call to him--to lure him back--

"Home! Home!" he cries from the depths of his dream; then his voice becomes inarticulate and sinks into silence.

New phantoms crowded each other, a shifting phantasmagoria of the very beings who at that dreadful hour were most vividly fixed in his mind. And among them stood out the image of the woman, who was kneeling at his side, the woman he loved above all women on earth. Again his lips moved. He called her by name, with passionate words of love.

"Let me not die thus, Stephania! Leave me not in this dreary abyss! Oh! Drive away those infernal spectres that stare in my face," and his words became wild and confused, as all these phantoms seemed to rush on him together, forming lurid groups, flaming and tremulous, like prolonged flashes of lightning, but growing fainter and fainter as they died away, when every faculty of the young sufferer seemed utterly suspended.

Dark clouds passed over the moon.

The wind blew in fierce gusts, howling like an imprisoned beast between the chinks of the wall. Then the night relapsed once more into silence, and in intermittent pauses large drops of rain could be heard, splashing from the height of the roof upon the ringing flagstones. To Stephania's listening ear it seemed like a dreadful pacing to and fro of spirits meditating on the past. She dragged herself to a seat in a recess of the wall, whence she could watch the sufferer and minister to his wants.

Another fit of delirium seized Otto. Restlessly he tossed on his pillows. Again a dream murmured his own impending fate into his ears.

Again he is in Aix-la-Chapelle. Again he beholds Charlemagne seated erect in his chair as in that memorable night when he visited the dead emperor in the crypts. He touches the imperial vestments; the crown glitters in the smoky flare of the torches. But through the heavy Arabian perfumes of the emperor's fantastic shroud penetrates the odour of the corpse.

The night wore on.

Recovering consciousness, Otto knew by the dying candle, by the strokes of the clocks from adjacent cloisters, that hours had passed into eternity, and that it was long past midnight. It was very still. The tread of the sentries was no longer heard. Through the window were seen pale blue flashes of lightning in a remote cloudbank, as on that memorable night in the temple of Neptune at Rome. The dull rumbling of distant thunder seemed to come from the bowels of the earth.

His head ached, his mouth was parched, thirst tormented him. He dimly remembered the pitcher of water. Who had removed it? Why had it been taken away? He tried to rise, to drag himself to the wall, but his strength was not equal to the task. He fell back in the cushions where for a time he lay motionless. Then a moan broke from his lips, which startled the figure seated by the bed. Opening his eyes Otto gazed into the pale face of Stephania. She started up with a low cry,--as from a trance. Waking and watching had benumbed her senses.

Now from her own suffering she lifted to Otto her face, wherein was reflected the great love she bore him.

He looked at her with all the love of his soul in his eyes.

"I am dying," he spoke calmly, "I know it."

An outcry of mortal anguish broke from her lips.

"No, no, no!" she moaned, entwining him with her arms. "Otto, my love--you will live,--live--live-- Can you fancy us parted," she sobbed, "one from the other for ever? Or can you go from me and leave me to the great loneliness of the world? To me all on earth, but you, seems a fleeting shadow; but in this hour, I think only of the greater pang of my own fate, and pray that in another world I may be judged more mercifully,--even by you."

For some moments they remained locked in close embrace.

"Kiss me!" he whispered hungrily. "Kiss me, Stephania!"

She drew back.

"My kisses are cold, Otto, cold as those of a dead love."

"Kiss me, Stephania," he moaned, "kiss me, even if your kisses were death itself."

She breathed hard, as he held to her with all his might.

"A dead hand is drawing me downward, hold me up, Otto!" she gasped. "Hold me up! Do not let me go! Do not let me go!"

And she kissed him, until he was almost delirious, drawing him close to her heart.

"Now you are mine--mine--mine!" she whispered, kissing him again and again, while his fingers were buried in the soft, silken wealth of her hair.

"The hour is brief,--life is short and uncertain--oh, let the hour be ours! Let us drain the glittering goblet to the dregs! Then we may cast it from us and say we have been happy! Death has no terror for us! I am thirsty, Stephania,--give me the pitcher."

She trembled in every limb.

"Do not let me go! Hold me, Otto,--do not let me go!" she almost shrieked, entwining him so tightly with her arms that he could scarcely breathe.

"I feel the fever returning--the water--Stephania--"

"Do not let me go!" she begged with mortal dread.

"I am burning up."

He struggled in her arms to rise, gasping:

"Water--Water!"

And he pointed to the niche, where he had espied the pitcher.

She almost dropped him, as raising himself he pushed her from him. Her head swam giddily and she felt a feebleness in all her limbs; shudders of icy cold ran through her, followed by waves of heat, that sickened and suffocated her. But she paid little heed to these sensations. Stephania felt death in her heart, she strove to sustain herself, but failing in the effort, fell moaning across his couch.

Otto had fallen back on his pillows with eyes closed. He was spared the sight of the terrible agony of the woman he loved. At last she clutched the pitcher and staggering feebly forward, step by step, she pushed back her hair from her brows and softly called his name.

He opened his eyes, but did not speak.

Trembling in every limb she bent over him and placing one hand under his head raised him to a sitting posture, glancing fear-struck round the chamber. She thought she had heard the tread of approaching steps.

Greedily Otto grasped the vessel, pressing his hot hands over the woman's which held it to his lips. Greedily he drank the poisoned beverage, while a heart-breaking moan came from Stephania's lips. He heard it not. He sank back into the cushions, while she knelt down by his side, weeping as if her heart would break.

The Senator of Rome was avenged.

Avenged? On whom? Whose tortures were the greater, if a spirit still possessed the power to suffer? Alas! It was not the death of her lord and husband she had avenged! She had sacrificed the love which filled her heart to the Infernals!

While these reflections were whirling through her maddened brain, the fatal poison was coursing serpent-like through Otto's veins, and creeping to his head. For a time he lay still; then he began to move uneasily in his pillows, his breathing became laboured, he beat the covers with his hands. Then he moaned, as in the last agony, and Stephania, to whom every sound of suffering from his lips was as a thousand deaths, knelt by his side, unable to avert her gaze from the youth, dying by the hand he loved and trusted.

Fixedly she stared at the inert form on the bed. Then only the full realization of her deed seemed to burst upon her brain. She clutched despairingly at the cover, beneath which lay his restless form, his face averted, the face she so loved, yet feared, to see.

"Otto!" she moaned, "Otto!"

Her voice broke. She suddenly withdrew her hands and looked at them in horror, those white, beautiful hands, that had mixed the fatal draught. Then with a bewildered, vacant smile she beamed on her victim.

Otto had lost consciousness. Nothing stirred in the chamber. Profound silence reigned unbroken, save for the slow chime of a distant bell, tolling the hour.

Was he dead? Had the light of the eyes, she loved so well, gone out for ever?

Her hand hovered fearfully above him, as if to drive away the grim spectre of death. At last, nerving herself with a supreme effort, she touched with trembling hand the cover that hid him from view. Lifting it tearfully, she turned it back softly,--softly, murmuring his name all the time.

Then she stooped down close, and closer yet. Her red lips touched the purple ones; she stroked the damp and clammy brow, and thrust her fingers into his soft hair. A moan came from his lips. Then, fastening her white robe more securely about her, and stepping heedfully on tip-toe, she passed out of the chamber. With uncertain step she glided along the corridor, a ghostly figure, with a white, spectral face and fevered eyes. At the foot of the spiral stairway she paused, gazing eagerly around.

Stepping to a low casement she peered into the night. Flickering lights and shadows played without; the late moon had disappeared, leaving but a silvery trail upon the sky, to faintly mark her recent passage among the stars. Everything was still. Only the plaintive cry of an owl echoed from afar. Her sandalled feet sounded on the stone-paved floor, like the soft pattering of falling leaves in autumn. Unsteadily she moved along the gray discoloured wall towards the secret panel, known but to herself. Soon her perplexed wandering gaze found what it sought, and Stephania disappeared, as if the stones had receded to receive her.

*CHAPTER IV*

*THE ANGEL OF THE AGONY*

The morning of the following day broke hazy and threatening. But as the hours wore on, the sky, which had been overcast, brightened slowly and in that instant's change the earth became covered with a radiance of sunshine and the heavens seemed filled with ineffable peace.

It was late in the day, when Otto woke from his lethargy. Hour after hour he had raved without recovering consciousness. His breathing grew weaker. He was thought to be in his last agony. Little by little the vigour of his youth had reasserted itself, little by little he had opened his eyes. His sight had become dimmed from the effects of the poison, and his reason seemed to sway and to totter; the fevered flow of blood, the wild beating of his temples, caused everything around him to scintillate in a crimson haze and flit before his vision with fitful dazzling gleams. But his eyes seemed fixed steadily in a remote recess of the room.

Those surrounding his couch had believed him nearing dissolution, and when he opened his eyes, Otto looked upon the faces of those who had guided his steps ever since he set his foot upon Italian soil, Eckhardt, Count Tammus, and Sylvester, the silver-haired pontiff who had come from Rome. Their faces told him the worst. He attempted to raise himself in his cushions, but his strength failed him, and he fell heavily back. Anew his ideas became confused and his gaze resumed its former fixedness.

His lips moved and Eckhardt, who bent over him, to listen, turned white with rage.

"Again her accursed name," he growled, turning to the monk by his side.

"Stephania--where is Stephania?" moaned the dying youth.

A voice almost a shriek rent the silence.

"I am here,--Otto,--I am here!"

A shadow passed before the eyes of the amazed visitors in the sick-chamber, a shadow which seemed to come out of the wall itself, and the wife of the Senator of Rome staggered towards Otto's couch, who made a feeble effort to stretch out his hands toward her. He could not raise them. They were like lead. She rushed to his side, ere Eckhardt could prevent, and with a sob fell down before the couch and grasped them tightly in her own.

The petrified amazement, which had pictured itself in the features of those assembled, at the unexpected apparition, gave vent to a flurry of whispers and conjectures during which Eckhardt, with face drawn and white and haggard, had rushed through the outer chamber to the door.

"Guards!" he thundered, "Guards!"

Two spearmen appeared in the doorway.

"Seize this woman and throw her over the ramparts!" the Margrave said with a voice whose calm formed a fearful contrast to the blazing fury in his eyes.

The men-at-arms approached with hesitation, but Sylvester barred their progress with uplifted arm.

"Vengeance is the Lord's!" he turned to Eckhardt, whose eyes, aflame with wrath, seemed the only living thing in his stony face.

A terrible laugh broke from the Margrave's lips.

"His mad pleadings saved her once! Now, all the angels in heaven and demons in hell combined shall not save her from her doom!" he replied to the Pontiff. "Seize her, my men! She has killed your king! Over the ramparts with her!"

They dared deny obedience no longer. Approaching the couch they laid hands on the kneeling woman. But the sight of violence for a moment so incensed the prostrate form in the cushions, that he started up, as he had done in the vigour of his health.

With eyes glowing with fever and wrath, Otto leaped from the bed, planting himself before the prostrate form of the woman.

"Back!" he cried. "The first who lays hand on her dies by my hand, a traitor! Down on your knees before the Empress of the Romans!"

Terror and amazement accomplished Stephanie's salvation.

Even Eckhardt was stunned. He knelt with the rest with averted face.

"Leave the room!" Otto turned to the men-at-arms, and with heads bowed down they strode from the sick chamber and resumed their watch outside. What did it all mean? The presence of the Senator's wife at their sovereign's bedside, Eckhardt's contradictory demeanour, Otto's strange words; mystified they shook their heads, glad the terrible task had been spared them.

Otto's exertion was followed by a complete collapse, and he fell back in a swoon. After a time he seemed to rally. Without assistance he sat up straight and rigid, and turned towards the woman, whose wan face and sunken eyes made her fatal beauty all the more terrible.

"Tell me--shall I live till night?" he whispered.

And as she hid her face from him with a sob, he continued:

"Do not deceive me! I am not afraid!"

His voice broke. Every one in the room knelt down weeping. Sylvester tried to answer, but in vain. Hiding his face in his hands, the pontiff sobbed aloud.

"Softly--softly--" Otto whispered to Stephania, then turning towards the sky he whispered:

"How beautiful!"

The morning clouds were growing rosy; the twilight had become warm and mellow. The first beam of the sun appeared over the rim of the horizon. The dying youth held his face with closed eyes towards the light. A faint shiver ran through his body and with a last effort he stretched out his arms, as if he would have rushed to meet the rising orb.

Suddenly he was seized by a convulsion; the veins swelled on neck and temples.

"Water--water!" he gasped choking.

Stephania knew the symptoms. Pale as death she staggered to her feet, filled a cup with clear spring water and held it to his lips.

Otto, grasping her hand with the cup, drank thirstily from the ice-cold draught.

Then his head fell back. A last murmur came from his half-open lips:

"Stephania,--Stephania--"

Then his life went out. With a moan of heart-rending anguish she closed his eyes. The face of the youth, kissed by the early rays of the December sun, took on a look as of one sleeping. His soul, freed from earthly love, had entered on its eternal repose.

Johannes Crescentius was avenged.

Eckhardt had watched the last moments of his king. In the awful presence of Death, he had restrained a new outburst of passion against the woman, who had so utterly made that dead youth her own. But he had sworn a terrible oath to himself, that she should pay the penalty, if that life went out,--it would be cancelling the last debt he owed on the accursed Roman soil.

And no sooner had the light faded from Otto's eyes, no sooner had they been closed under the soft touch of Stephania's hand, than Eckhardt rushed anew to the door and the terrible voice of the Margrave thundered through the stillness of the death-chamber:

"Guards! Throw this woman over the ramparts! She has killed your King!"

Again the guards rushed into the chamber. The terrible denunciation had stirred their zeal. Stephania, kneeling by Otto's couch, never stirred, but as the men-at-arms, over-awed by the spectacle that met their gaze, paused for a moment, the sound of falling crystal, breaking on the floor, startled the silver-haired pontiff.

He had seen enough.

Stepping between Stephania and her would-be slayers he waved them back.

Then he picked up a fragment of the empty flask.

"This phial," he spoke to Eckhardt, "is of the same shape and size as one discovered in a witch's grave, when they were digging the foundations for the monastery of St. Jerome!"

And he strode towards the woman and laid his hands on her head.

"She will soon answer before a higher tribunal," said the monk of Aurillac.

"Father," she whispered, holding the hands of the corpse in her own, while her head rested on her arms,--"I cannot see,--stoop down,--and let me whisper--"

"I am here, daughter, close--quite close to you."

He inclined his ear to her mouth and listened. But though her lips moved, no words would come.

After a moment or two of intense stillness, she whispered, raising her head.

"It is bright again! They are calling me! We will go together to that far, distant land of peace. I am with you, Otto--hold me up, I cannot breathe--"

Gently Sylvester lifted her head.

"Otto,--my own love--forgive--" she gasped. A convulsive shudder passed through her body and she fell lifeless over the dead body of her victim.

Stephania's proud spirit had flown.

Sylvester muttered the prayer for the departed, and staggered to his feet.

Eckhardt pointed to her lifeless clay. In his livid face burnt relentless, unforgiving wrath.

"Throw that woman over the ramparts!" he turned to his men. "She shall not have Christian burial!"

Anew Sylvester intervened.

"Back!" he commanded the guards. "Judge not,--that ye may not be judged. What has passed between those two--lies beyond the pale of human ken. He alone, who has called, has the right to judge them! She died absolved.--May God have mercy on her soul!"

As weeping those present turned to leave the death-chamber, Eckhardt bent over the still, dead face of Otto.

"I will hold the death-watch," he turned to Sylvester. "Have the bier prepared! To-morrow at dawn we start. We return to our Saxon-land,--we go back across the Alps. In the crypts of Aix-la-Chapelle the grandson of the great Otto shall rest; he shall sleep by the side of the great emperor, whom he visited ere he came hither; Charlemagne's phantom has claimed him at last. Rome shall not have a lock of his hair!"

"As you say--so shall it be!" replied Sylvester, his gaze turning from Otto to the lifeless clay of Stephania.

Softly he raised her dead body and laid it side by side with that of Theophano's son, joining their hands.

"Though they shall sleep apart in distant lands, their souls are one in the great beyond, that holds no mysteries for the departed."

From the chapel of the cloister at the foot of the hill, stealing through the solemn stillness of the December morning, came the chant of the monks:

"Quando corpus morietur,
Fac ut animae donetur
Paradisi gloria."

*CHAPTER V*

*RETURN*

The Eve of the Millennium stood upon the threshold of Time.

The veiled sun of midwinter was rising and his early rays filled the blue balconies of the East with curtains of gold. From the slopes of Paterno a strange procession was to be seen winding its way down into the plains below. It was the remnant of the German host, carrying the bier with the body of the third Otto towards its distant, final resting-place. Eckhardt and Haco jointly headed the mournful cortege, which after reaching the plain, entered the northern road. Behind them lay Civita Castellana, the walls of the ancient citadel towering high above the town, which lay in the centre of a net-work of deep ravines. To their right the Sabine hills extended in long, airy lines and the wooded heights of Pellachio and San Gennaro rose to the south-east. Before them Viterbo with her hundred towers lay dark and frowning inside her bristling walls; and to northward, surmounted by its mighty cathedral dome, on a conical hill, above the great lake of Bolsena, the gray town of Montefiascone rose out of the wintry haze.

Continually harassed by the Romans the small band hewed their way through their pursuers who abandoned their onslaughts only when the Germans reached the Nera and beheld the Campanile of St. Juvenale rising above Narni.

Slowly the imperial cortege passed through the ancient town and was soon lost in the purple mists, which enshrouded mountain and valley.

Rome lay behind them, the source of their tears and sorrows.

Onward, ever onward they rode towards the glittering crests of the Alps, the solemn twilight of the Hercynian forest, towards the distant banks of the Rhine and the crypts of Aix-la-Chapelle.

THE END.

* * * * * * * *

*SMILES, A ROSE OF THE CUMBERLANDS*

_*By Eliot Harlow Robinson*_

_Author of "Man Proposes"_

_Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50_

Smiles is a girl that is sure to make friends. Her real name is Rose, but the rough folk of the Cumberlands preferred their own way of addressing her, for her smile was so bright and winning that no other name suited her so well.

Smiles was not a native of the Cumberlands, and her parentage is one of the interesting mysteries of the story. Young Dr. MacDonald saw more in her than the mere untamed, untaught child of the mountains and when, due to the death of her foster parents a guardian became necessary, he was selected. Smiles developed into a charming, serious-minded young woman, and the doctor's warm friend, Dr. Bently, falls in love with her.

We do not want to detract from the pleasure of reading this story by telling you how this situation was met, either by Smiles or Dr. MacDonald--but there is a surprise or two for the reader.

_Press opinions on "Man Proposes":_

"Readers will find not only an unusually interesting story, but one of the most complicated romances ever dreamed of. Among other things the story gives a splendid and realistic picture of high social life in Newport, where many of the incidents of the plot are staged in the major part of the book."--_The Bookman_.

"It is well written; the characters are real people and the whole book has 'go.'"--_Louisville Post_.

*TWEEDIE, THE STORY OF A TRUE HEART*

_*By Isla May Mullins*_

_Author of "The Blossom Shop Stories," etc._

_Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.65_

In this story Mrs. Mullins has given us another delightful story of the South.

The Carlton family--lovable old Professor Carlton, and his rather wilful daughter Ruth--twenty-three years old and with decided ideas as to her future--decide to move to the country in order to have more time to devote to writing.

Many changes come to them while in the country, the greatest of which is Tweedie--a simple, unpretentious little body who is an optimist through and through--but does not know it. In a subtle, amusing way Tweedie makes her influence felt. At first some people would consider her a pest, but would finally agree with the Carlton family that she was "Unselfishness Incarnate." It is the type of story that will entertain and amuse both old and young.

The press has commented on Mrs. Mullins' previous books as follows:

"Frankly and wholly romance is this book, and lovable--as is a fairy tale properly told. And the book's author has a style that's all her own, that strikes one as praiseworthily original throughout."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean_.

"A rare and gracious picture of the unfolding of life for the young girl, told with a delicate sympathy and understanding that must touch alike the hearts of young and old."--_Louisville (Ky.) Times_.

*ONLY HENRIETTA*

_*By Lela Horn Richards*_

_Author of "Blue Bonnet--Debutante," etc._

_Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.50_

Henrietta was the victim of circumstances. It was not her fault that her father, cut off from his expected inheritance because of his marriage, was unexpectedly thrown upon his own resources, nor that he proved to be a weakling who left his wife and daughter to shift for themselves, nor that her mother took refuge in Colorado far away from their New England friends and acquaintances. Youth, however, will overcome much, and when Richard Bently appears in the mountains, life takes on a new interest for Henrietta.

When her mother dies Henrietta goes to live with Mrs. Lovell, who knew her father years ago in the little Vermont town. Mrs. Lovell determines to do what she can to secure for Henrietta the place in society and the inheritance that is rightfully hers. The means employed and the success attained--but that's the story.

"Only Henrietta" is written in the happy vein that has secured for Mrs. Richards a host of friends and admirers, and is sure to duplicate the earlier successes achieved for the young people by the Blue Bonnet Series.

"The chief charm of the book is that it contains so much of human nature and it is a book that will gladden the hearts of many girl readers because of its charming air of comradeship and reality."--_The Churchman, Detroit, Mich._

*THE AMBASSADOR'S TRUNK*

_*By George Barton*_

_Author of "The World's Greatest Military Spies and
Secret Service Agents," "The Mystery of the
Red Flame," "The Strange Adventures
of Bromley Barnes," etc._

_Cloth decorative, 12mo, illustrated, $1.65_

Bromley Barnes, retired chief of the Secret Service, an important State document, a green wallet, the Ambassador's trunk--these are the ingredients, which, properly mixed, and served in attractive format and binding, produce a draught that will keep you awake long past your regular bedtime.

Mr. Barton is master of the mystery story, and in this absorbing narrative the author has surpassed his best previous successes.

"It would be difficult to find a collection of more interesting tales of mystery so well told. The author is crisp, incisive and inspiring. The book is the best of its kind in recent years and adds to the author's already high reputation."--_New York Tribune_.