Chapter IV: Part 4

How long he had thus remained he knew not. The sound of footsteps in the direction of the North transept roused him after a time to the purpose of his presence. Following the direction indicated to him by one of the sacristans, Eckhardt groped his way through the dismal gloom towards the enclosure where Nilus of Gaeta was supposed to hold his dark sessions. By the dim light of a lamp he perceived in the confessional the shadowy form of a monk, and approaching the wicket, he greeted the occupant with a humble bend of the head. But, what was visible of the monk's countenance was little calculated to relieve the oppression which burdened Eckhardt's soul.

From the mask of the converted cynic peered the eyes of a fanatic. The face was one, which might have suggested to Luca Signorelli the traits of his Anti-Christ in the Capella Nuova at Orvieto. In the deep penetrating eyes was reflected the final remorse of the wisdom, which had renounced its maker. The face was evil. Yet it was a face of infinite grief, as if mourning the eternal fall of man.

Despite the advanced hour of night the monk was still in his seat of confession, and the mighty leader of the German host, wrapt in his long military cloak, knelt before the emaciated anchorite, his face, manner and voice all betraying a great weariness of mind. A look of almost bodily pain appeared in Eckhardt's stern countenance as, at the request of the monk, who had receded within the gloom of the confessional, he recounted the phenomena of the night, after having previously acquainted him with the burden of his grief.

The monk listened attentively to the weird tale and shook his head.

"I am most strangely in my senses," Eckhardt urged, noting the monk's gesture. "I have seen her,--whether in the body, or the spirit, I know not,--but I have seen her."

"I have listened, my son," said the monk after a pause, in his low sepulchral voice.--"Ginevra loved you,--so you say. What could have wrought a change in her, such as you hint? For if she loved you in life, she loves you in death. Why should she--supposing her present--flee from your outstretched arms? If your love could compel her to return from the beyond,--why should it lack the power to make the phantom give response?"

"Could I but fathom that mystery,--could I but fathom it!"

"Did you not speak to her?"

"My lips but uttered her name!"

"I am little versed in matters of this kind," the monk replied in a strange tone. "'Tis but the natural law, which may not be transgressed with impunity. Is your faith so small, that you would rather uproot the holiest ties, than deem yourself the victim of some hallucination, mayhap some jeer of the fiend? Dare you raise yourself on a pedestal, which takes from her her defenceless virtue, cold and silent as her lips are in death?"

Every word of the monk struck Eckhardt's heart with a thousand pangs. A deep groan broke from his lips.

"Madman that I was," he muttered at last, "to think that such a tale was fit for mortal ears."

Then he turned to the monk.

"Have you no solace to give to me, no light upon the dark path, I am about to enter upon,--the life of the cloister, where I shall end my days?"

There was a long pause. Surprise seemed to have struck the monk dumb. Eckhardt's heart beat stormily in anticipation of the anchorite's reply.

"But," a voice sounded from the gloom, "have you the patience, the humility, which it behooves the recluse to possess, and without which all prayers and penances are in vain?"

"Show me how I can humble myself more, than at this hour, when I renounce a life of glory, ambition and command. All I want is peace,--that peace which has forsaken me since her death!"

His last words died in a groan.

"Peace," repeated the monk. "You seek peace in the seclusion of the cloister, in holy devotions. I thought Eckhardt of too stern a mould, to be goaded and turned from his duty by a mere whim, a pale phantom."

A long silence ensued.

"Father," said the Margrave at last, speaking in a low and broken voice, "I have done no act of wrong. I will do no act of wrong, while I have control over myself. But the thought of the dead haunts me night and day. Otto has no further need of me. Rome is pacified. The life at court is irksome to me. The king loves to surround himself with perfumed popinjays, discarding the time-honoured customs of our Northland for the intricate polity of the East.--There is no place for Eckhardt in that sphere of mummery."

For a few moments the monk meditated in silence.

"It grieves me to the heart," he spoke at last, "to hear a soldier confess to being tempted into a life of eternal abnegation. I judge it to be a passing madness, which distance and work alone can cure. You are not fitted in the sight of God and His Mother for the spiritual life, for in Mezentian thraldom you have fettered your soul to a corpse in its grave, a sin as black as if you had been taken in adultery with the dead. Remain in Rome no longer! Return to your post on the boundaries of the realm. There,--in your lonely tent, pray nightly to the Immaculate One for her blessing and pass the day in the saddle among the scattered outposts of your command! The monks of Rome shall not be festered by the presence among them of your fevered soul, and you are sorely needed by God and His Son for martial life."

"Father, you know not all!" Eckhardt replied after a brief pause, during which he lay prostrate, writhing in agony and despair. "From youth up have I lived as a man of war.--To this I was bred by my sire and grandsire of sainted memory. I have always hoped to die on some glorious field. But it is all changed. I, who never feared mortal man, am trembling before a shadow. My love for her, who is no more, has made me a coward. I tremble to think that I may not find her in the darkness, whither soon I may be going. To this end alone I would purchase the peace, which has departed. The thought of her has haunted me night and day, ever since her death! How often in the watches of the night, on the tented field, have I lain awake in silent prayer, once more to behold her face, that I can never more forget!"

There was another long pause, during which the monk cast a piercing glance at the prostrate soldier. Slowly at last the voice came from the shadows.

"Then you still believe yourself thus favoured?"

"So firmly do I believe in the reality of the vision, that I am here to ask your blessing and your good offices with the Prior of St. Cosmas in the matter closest to my heart."

"Nay," the monk replied as if speaking to himself, "if you have indeed been favoured with a vision, then were it indeed presumptuous in one, the mere interpreter of the will divine, to oppose your request! You have chosen a strict brotherhood, though, for when your novitiate is ended, you will not be permitted to ever again leave the walls of the cloister."

"Such is my choice," replied Eckhardt. "And now your blessing and intercession, father. Let the time of my novitiate be brief!"

"I will do what I can," replied the monk, then he added slowly and solemnly:

"Christ accepts your obedience and service! I purge you of your sins in the name of the Trinity and the Mother of God, into whose holy keeping I now commit you! Go in peace!"

"I go!" muttered the Margrave, rising exhausted from his long agony and staggering down the dark aisles of the church.

Eckhardt's footsteps had no sooner died away in the gloom of the high-vaulted arches, than two shadows emerged from behind a pillar and moved noiselessly down towards the refectory.

In the dim circle of light emanating from the tapers round the altar, they faced each other a moment.

"What ails the Teuton?" muttered the Grand Chamberlain, peering into the muffled countenance of the pseudo-confessor.

"He upbraids the fiend for cheating him of the smile of a corpse," the monk Cyprianus replied with strangely jarring voice.

"And yet you fear I will lose my wager?" sneered the Chamberlain.

The monk shrugged his shoulders.

"They have a proverb in Ferrara: 'He who may not eat a peach, may not smell at it.'"

"And you were not revealed to him, you, for whom he has scoured the very slime of the Tiber?" Benilo queried, ignoring the monk's facetiousness.

"'Tis sad to think, what changes time has wrought," replied the latter with downcast eyes. "Truly it behooves us to think of the end,--the end of time!"

And without another word the monk passed down the aisles and his tall form was swallowed in the gloom of the Church of the Hermits.

"The end!" Benilo muttered to himself as he thoughtfully gazed after the monk. "Croak thou thine own doom, Cyprianus! One soul weighs as much as another in the devil's balance!"

With these words Benilo passed through the portals of the church and was soon lost to sight among the ruins of the Aventine.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*CASTEL SAN ANGELO*

Night had spread her pinions over the ancient capital of the Caesars and deepest silence had succeeded the thousand cries and noises of the day. Few belated strollers still lingered in the deserted squares. Under the shadows of the Borgo Vecchio slow moving figures could be seen flitting noiselessly as phantoms through the marble ruins of antiquity, pausing for a moment under the high unlighted arches, talking in undertones and vanishing in the night, while the remote swell of monkish chants, monotonous and droning, died on the evanescent breezes.

Round Castel San Angelo, rising, a giant Mausoleum, vast and sombre out of the solitudes of the Flaminian Way, night wove a more poetic air of mystery and quiet, and but for the tread of the ever wakeful sentinels on its ramparts, the colossal tomb of the emperor Hadrian would have appeared a deserted Memento Mori of Imperial Rome, the possession of which no one cared to dispute with the shades of the Caesars or the ghosts of the mangled victims, which haunted the intricate labyrinth of its subterranean chambers and vaults.

A pale moon was rising behind the hills of Albano, whose ghostly rays cast an unsteady glow over the undulating expanse of the Roman Campagna, and wove a pale silver mounting round the crest of the imperial tomb, whose towering masses seemed to stretch interminably into the night, as if oppressed with their own memories.

What a monstrous melodrama was contained in yonder circular walls! They wore a comparatively smiling look only in the days when Castel San Angelo received the dead. Then according to the historian Procopius, the immense three-storied rotunda, surmounted by a pyramidal roof had its sides covered with Parian marble, intersected with columns and surmounted with a ring of Grecian statues. The first story was a quadrangular basement, decorated with festoons and tablets of funeral inscriptions, colossal equestrian groups in gilt bronze at the four corners.

Within the memory of living generation, this pile had been the theatre of a tragedy, almost unparalleled in the annals of Rome, the scene of the wildest Saturnalia, that ever stained the history of mediaeval state. An incongruous relic of antique profligacy and the monstrosities of the lower empire, drawing its fatal power from feudal institutions, Theodora, a woman illustrious for her beauty and rank, had at the dawn of the century quartered herself in Castel San Angelo. From there she exercised over Rome a complete tyranny, sustained against German influence by an Italian party, which counted amongst its chiefs Adalbert, Count of Tuscany, the father of this second Messalina. Her fateful beauty ruled Church and state. Theodora caused one pontiff after another to be deposed and nominated eight popes successively. She had a daughter as beautiful and as powerful as herself and still more depraved. Marozia, as she was called, reigned supreme in Castel San Angelo and caused the election of Sergius III, Anastasius III and John X, the latter a creature of Theodora, who had him appointed to the bishopric of Ravenna. Intending to deprive Theodora and her lover, the Pope, of the dominion of Rome, Marozia invaded the Lateran with a band of ruffians, put to the sword the brother of the Pope, and incarcerated the pontiff, who died in prison either by poison or otherwise. Tradition relates that his corpse was placed in Theodora's bed, and superstition believes that he was strangled by the devil as a punishment for his sins.

Left as widow by the premature death of the Count of Tusculum and married to Guido, Prince of Tuscany, Marozia, after the demise of her second husband, was united by a third marriage to Hugo of Provence, brother of Guido. Successively she placed on the pontifical throne Leo VI and Stephen VIII, then she gave the tiara to John XI, her younger son. One of her numerous offspring imprisoned in the same dungeon both his mother and his brother, the Pope, and then destroyed them. Rumour hath it, however, that a remote descendant, who had inherited Marozia's fatal beauty, had been mysteriously abducted at an early age and concealed in a convent, to save her from the contamination and licentiousness, which ran riot in the blood of the women of her house. She had been heard of no more and forgotten long ago.

After the changes and vicissitudes of half a century the family of the Crescentii had taken possession of Castel San Angelo, keeping their state in the almost impregnable stronghold, without which the possession of Rome availed but little to any conqueror. It was a period marked by brutal passions and feudal anarchy. The Romans had degenerated to the low estate of the barbarian hordes, which had during the great upheaval extinguished the light of the Western empire. The Crescentii traced their origin even to that Theodora of evil fame, who had perished in the dungeons of the formidable keep, and Johannes Crescentius, the present Senator and Patricius, seemed wrapt in dark ruminations, as from the window of a chamber in the third gallery he looked out into the night, gazing upon the eddying Tiber below, bordered by dreary huts, thinly interspersed with ilex, and the barren wastes, from which rose massive watch-towers. Far away to Southward sloped the Alban hills. From the dark waving greens of Monte Pincio the eye, wandering along the ridge of the Quirinal, reached to the mammoth arches of Constantine's Basilica, to the cypress bluffs of Aventine. Almost black they looked at the base, so deep was their shade, contrasted with the spectral moon-light, which flooded their eminences.

The chamber in which the Senator of Rome paced to and fro, was large and exceedingly gloomy, being lighted only by a single taper which threw all objects it did not touch into deep shadow. This fiery illumination, casting its uncertain glimmer upon the face of Crescentius, revealed thereon an expression of deepest gloom and melancholy and his thoughts seemed to roam far away.

The workings of time, the traces of furious passions, the lines wrought by care and sorrow were evident in the countenance of the Senator of Rome and sometimes gave it in the eyes of the physiognomist an expression of melancholy and devouring gloom. Only now and then there shot athwart his features, like lightning through a distant cloud-bank, a look of more strenuous daring--of almost terrifying keenness, like the edge of a bare and sharpened sword.

The features of Johannes Crescentius were regular, almost severe in their classic outlines. It was the Roman type, softened by centuries of amalgamation with the descendants of the invading tribes of the North. The Lord of Castel San Angelo was in the prime of manhood. The dark hair was slightly touched with gray, his complexion bronzed. The gray eyes with their glow like polished steel had a Brutus-like expression, grave and impenetrable.

The hour marked the close of a momentous interview. Benilo, the Grand Chamberlain, had just left the Senator's presence. He had been the bearer of strange news which, if it proved true, would once more turn the tide of fortune in the Senator's favour. He had urged Crescentius to make the best of the opportunity--the moment might never return again. He had unmasked a plot, the plausibility of which had even staggered the Senator's sagacious mind. At first Crescentius had fiercely resented the Chamberlain's suggestions, but by degrees his resistance had lessened and after his departure the course outlined by Benilo seemed to hold rut a strange fascination.

After glancing at the sand-clock on the table Crescentius ascended the narrow winding stairs leading to the upper galleries of the formidable keep, whose dark, blackened walls were lighted by tapers in measured intervals, and made his way through a dark passage, until he reached the door of an apartment at the opposite end of the corridor. He knocked and receiving no response, entered, closing the door noiselessly behind him.

On the threshold he paused taking in at a glance the picture before him.

The apartment was of moderate size. The lamp in the oratory was turned low. The windows facing the Campagna were open and the soft breeze of night stole into the flower-scented room. There was small semblance of luxury about the chamber, which was flanked on one side by an oratory, on the other, by a sleeping room, whose open door permitted a glimpse of a great, high bed, hung with draperies of sarcenet.

On a couch, her head resting on her bare, white arms reclined Stephania, the consort of the Senator of Rome. Tenderly the night wind caressed the soft dark curls, which stole down her brow. Her right hand supported a head exquisitely beautiful, while the fingers of the left played mechanically with the folds of her robe. Zoe, her favourite maiden, sat in silence on the floor, holding in her lap a red and blue bird, which now and then flapped its wings and gave forth a strange cry. All else was silent within and without.

Stephania's thoughts dwelt in bygone days.

Listless and silent she reclined in her pillows, reviewing the past in pictures that mocked her soul. Till a few hours ago she had believed that she had conquered that madness. But something had inflamed her hatred anew and she felt like a goddess bent upon punishing the presumption of mortal man.

The memory of her husband holding the emperor's stirrup upon the latter's entry into Rome had rekindled in her another thought which she most of all had striven to forget. It alone had, to her mind, sufficed to make reconciliation to existing conditions impossible. Shame and hate seethed anew in her soul. She could have strangled the son of Theophano with her own hands.

But did Crescentius himself wish to break the shackles which were forever to destroy the prestige of a noble house, that had for more than a century ruled the city of Rome? Was he content to be the lackey of that boy, before whom a mighty empire bowed, a youth truly, imbued with the beauty of body and soul which fall but rarely to one mortal's lot--but yet a youth, a barbarian, the descendant of the Nomad tribes of the great upheaval? Was there no one, worthy of the name of a great Roman, who would cement the disintegrated states of Italy, plant his standards upon the Capitol and proclaim himself lord of new Roman world? And he, her husband, from whom at one time she had expected such great things, was he not content with his lot? Was he not at this very moment offering homage to the despised foreigners, kissing the sandals of a heretical pope, whom a bribed Conclave had placed in the chair of St. Peter through the armed manifestation of an emperor's will?

The walls of Castel San Angelo weighed upon her like lead, since Rome was again defiled by these Northern barbarians, whom her countrymen were powerless to repulse, whom they dared not provoke and under whose insolence they smarted. Stephania heaved a deep sigh. Then everything faded from her vision, like a landscape shrouded in mist and she relapsed in twilight dreams of a past that had gone forever.

For a moment Crescentius lingered on the threshold, as if entranced by the vision of her loveliness. The stern and anxious look, which his face had worn during the interview with the Chamberlain, passed off like a summer storm, as he stood before his adored wife. She started, as his shadow darkened the doorway, but the next moment he was at her side, and taking both her white hands in his, he drew her towards him and gazed with love and scrutiny into the velvet depths of her eyes.

For a moment her manner seemed slightly embarrassed and there was something in her tone which did not escape the Senator's trained ear.

"I am glad you came," she said after the usual interchange of greetings such as lovers indulge in when brought together after a brief separation. "My lord's time has been greatly occupied in the emperor's absence."

Crescentius failed not to note the reproach in the tone of his wife, even through her smile. She seemed more radiantly beautiful than ever at this moment.

"And what would my queen have?" he asked. "All I have, or ever shall have, is hers."

"Queen indeed,--queen of a sepulcher, of the Mausoleum of an emperor," she replied scornfully. "But I ask not for jewels or palaces--or women's toys. I am my lord's helpmate. I am to take counsel in affairs of state."

A musing glance broke from the Senator's eyes.

"Affairs of state," he said, with a smile and a sigh. "Alas,--I hoped when I turned my back on Aventine, there would be love awaiting me and oblivion--in Stephania's arms. But I have strange news for you,--has it reached your ear?"

She shook her head. "I know of nothing stranger than the prevailing state."

He ignored the veiled reproach.

"Margrave Eckhardt of Meissen, the German commander-in-chief, is bent upon taking holy orders. I thought it was an idle rumour, some gossip of the taverns, but within the hour it has been confirmed to me by a source whose authenticity is above doubt."

"And your informant?"

"Benilo, the Chamberlain."

"And whence this sudden world weariness?"

"The mastering grief for the death of his wife."

Stephania fell to musing.

"Benilo," she spoke after a time, "has his own ends in view--not yours. Trust him not!"

Crescentius felt a strange misgiving as he remembered his late discourse with the Chamberlain, and the latter's suggestion, the primary cause of his visit to Stephania's apartments.

"I fear you mistrust him needlessly," he said after a pause. "Benilo's friendship for the emperor is but the mantle, under which he conceals the lever that shall raise the Latin world."

Stephania gazed absently into space.

"As I lay dreaming in the evening light, looking out upon the city, which you should rule, by reason of your name, by reason of your descent,--of a truth, I did marvel at your patience."

A laugh of bitter scorn broke from the Senator's lips.

"Can the living derive force and energy from a past, that is forgotten? Rome does not want tragedies! It wants to be danced to, sung to and amused. Anything to make the rabble forget their own abasement. 'Panem et Circenses' has been for ever their cry."

"Yet ours is a glorious race! Of a blood which has flowed untarnished in the veins of our ancestors for centuries. It has been our proud boast, that not a drop of the mongrel blood of foreign invaders ever tainted our own. It is not for the Roman rabble I grieve,--it is for ourselves."

"You have wondered at my patience, Stephania, at my endurance of the foreign yoke, at my seeming indifference to the traditions of our house. Would you, after all, counsel rebellion?"

"I would but have you remember, that you are a Roman," Stephania replied with her deep-toned voice. "Stephania's husband, and too good to hold an emperor's stirrup."

"Then indeed you sorely misjudge me, if you think that under this outward mask of serene submission there slumbers a spirit indifferent to the cause of Rome. If the prediction of Nilus is true, we have not much time to lose. Send the girl away! It is not well that she hear too much."

The last words, spoken in a whisper, caused Stephania to dismiss the Greek maid. Then she said:

"And do you too, my lord, believe in these monkish dreams?"

"The world cannot endure forever."

Crescentius paused, glanced round the apartment, as if to convince himself that there was no other listener. Then he rose, and strode to the curtain, which screened the entrance to an inner chamber. Not until he had convinced himself that they were alone, did he resume his seat by the side of Stephania. Then he spoke in low and cautious accents:

"I have brooded over the present state, until I am well nigh mad. I have brooded ever since the first tidings of Otto's approach reached the city, how to make a last, desperate dash for freedom and our old rights. I have conceived a plan, as yet known to none but to myself. Too many hunters spoil the chase. We cannot count on the people. Long fasts and abstinences have made them cowards. Let them listen to the monks! Let them howl their Misereres! I will not break into their rogue's litany nor deprive them of their chance in purgatory."

He paused for a moment, as if endeavouring to bring order into his thoughts, then he continued, slowly.

"It is but seemly that the Romans in some way requite the affection so royally showered on them by the German King. Therefore it is in my mind to arrange such festivities in honour of Otto's return from the shrines of Monte Gargano, as shall cause him to forget the burden of government."

"And enhance his love for our sunny land," Stephania interposed.

"That malady is incurable," Crescentius replied. "Otto is a fantastic. He dreams of making Rome the capital of the earth,--a madness harmless in itself, were it not for Bruno in the chair of St. Peter. Single handed their efforts might be stemmed. Their combined frenzy will sweep everything before it. These festivities are to dazzle the eyes of the stalwart Teutons whose commander is a very Cerberus of watchfulness. Under the cover of merry-making I shall introduce into Castel San Angelo such forces from the Calabrian themes as will supplant the lack of Roman defenders. And as for the Teutons--their souls will be ours through our women; their bodies through our men."

Crescentius paused. Stephania too was silent, less surprised at the message than its suddenness. She had never wholly despaired of him. Now his speech revealed to her that Crescentius could be as crafty in intrigue as he was bold in warfare. Proud as she was and averse to dissimulation the intrigue unmasked by the Senator yet fascinated her, as the only means to reach the long coveted goal. "Rome for the Romans" had for generations been the watchword of her house and so little pains had she taken to disguise her feelings that when upon some former occasion Otto had craved an audience of her, an unheard of condescension, inspired as much by her social position as by the fame of her unrivalled beauty, the imperial envoy had departed with an ill-disguised rebuff, and Stephania had shut herself up within the walls of a convent till Otto and his hosts had returned beyond the Alps.

"Within one week, Eckhardt is to be consecrated," Crescentius continued with slight hesitation, as if not quite assured of the directness of his arguments with regard to the request he was about to prefer. "Every pressure is being brought to bear upon him, to keep him true to his purpose. Even a guard is--at Benilo's instigation--to be placed at the portals of St. Peter's to prevent any mischance whatsoever during the ceremony."

He paused, to watch the effect of his speech upon Stephania and to ascertain if he dared proceed. But as he gazed into the face of the woman he loved, he resolved that not a shadow of suspicion should ever cloud that white brow, caressed by the dark wealth of her silken hair.

"The German leader removed for ever," Crescentius continued, "immured alive within the inexorable walls of the cloister--small is indeed the chance for another German victory."

"But will King Otto acquiesce to lose his great leader?"

"Benilo is fast supplanting Eckhardt in Otto's favour. Benilo wishes what Otto wishes. Benilo sees what Otto sees. Benilo speaks what Otto thinks. Rome is pacified; Rome is content; Rome is happy; what need of heavy armament? Eckhardt reviles the Romans,--he reviles Benilo, he reviles the new state,--he insists upon keeping his iron hosts in the Neronian field,--within sight of Castel San Angelo. It was to be Benilo or Eckhardt--you know the result."

"But if you were deceived," Stephania replied with a shudder. "Your eagle spirit often ascends where mine fails to follow. Yet,--be not over-bold."

"I am not deceived! I bide my time. 'Tis not by force men slay the rushing bull. Otto would regenerate the Roman world. But he himself is to be the God of his new state, a jealous God who brooks no rival--only subjects or slaves. He has nursed this dream until it is part of himself, of his own flesh and blood. What may you expect of a youth, who, not content to absorb the living, calls the dead to his aid? He shall nevermore recross the Alps alive."

Crescentius' tone grew gloomy as he continued.

"I bear the youth no grudge, nor ill-will.--But Rome cannot share. He has a power of which he is himself unconscious; it is the inheritance from his Hellenic mother. Were he conscious of its use, hardly the grave would be a safe refuge for us. Once Rome triumphed over Hellas. Shall Hellas trample Rome in the dust in the person of this boy, whose unspoken word will sweep our old traditions from the soil?"

"But this power, this weakness as you call it--what is it?" Stephania interposed, raising her head questioningly. "I know you have not scrutinized the armour, which encases that fantastic soul, without an effort to discover a flaw."

"And I have discovered it," Crescentius replied, his heart beating strangely. Stephania herself was leading up to the fatal subject of his visit; but in the depths of his soul he trembled for fear of himself, and wished he had not come.

"And what have you discovered?" Stephania persisted curiously.

"The weak spot in the armour," he replied, avoiding her gaze.

"Is there a remedy?"

"We lack but the skilful physician."

Stephania raised herself from her recumbent position. With pale and colourless face she stared at the speaker.

"Surely--you would not resort to--"

She paused, her lips refusing to utter the words.

Crescentius shook his head.

"If such were my desire, the steel of John of the Catacombs were swifter. No,--it is not like that," he continued musingly, as if testing the ground inch by inch, as he advanced. "A woman's hand must lead the youth to the fateful brink. A woman must enwrap him and entrap him; a woman must cull the hidden secrets from his heart;--a woman must make him forget time and eternity, forget the volcano, on whose crater he stands,--until the great bell of the Capitol shall toll the hour of doom for German dominion in Rome."

He paused, trembling, lest she might read and anticipate the thoughts of his heart.

But she seemed not to guess them, for with a smile she said:

"They say the boy has never loved."

"Thereon have I built my plans. Some Circe must be found to administer to him the fatal lotus,--to estrange him from his country, from his leaders, from his hosts."

"But where is one to be trusted so supremely?" she questioned.

Crescentius had anticipated the question.

"There is but one in all Rome--but one."

"And she?" the question came almost in a whisper. "Do you know her?"

Crescentius breathed hard. For a moment he closed his eyes, praying inwardly for courage. At last he replied with seeming indifference:

"I have known her long. She is loyal to Rome and true to herself."

"Her name?" she insisted.

"Stephania."

A wild laugh resounded in the chamber. Its echoes seemed to mock those two, who faced each other, trembling, colourless.

"That was Benilo's advice."

Like a knife-thrust the words from Stephania's lips pierced the heart of the Senator of Rome.

Stephania stared at him in such bewilderment, as if she thought him mad. But when he remained silent, when she read in his downcast eyes the mute confirmation of his speech, she sprang from her couch, facing him in the whole splendour of her beauty.

"Surely you are jesting, my lord, or else you rave, you are mad?" she cried. "Or can it be, that my ears tinkle with some mockery of the fiend? Speak! You have not said it! You did not! You dared not."

She removed a stray lock of hair from her snow white brow, while her eyes burnt into those of Crescentius, like two orbs of living fire.

"Your ears did not belie you, Stephania," the Senator said at last. "I said you are the one--the only one."

With these words he took her hands in his and attempted to draw her down beside him, but she tore them from his grasp, while her face alternately paled and flushed.

"Nay," she spoke with cutting irony, "the Senator of Rome is a model husband. He disdains the dagger and poison phial, instead he barters his wife. You have an admirable code of morality, my lord! 'Tis a pity I do not share your views, else the fiend might teach me how to profit by your suggestion."

Crescentius did not interrupt the flow of her indignation, but his face betrayed a keenness of anguish which did not escape Stephania's penetrating gaze. She approached him and laying her hands on his shoulders bade him look her in the eye.

"How could you say this to me?" she spoke in softer, yet reproachful tones. "How could you? Has it come to the pass where Rome can but be saved by the arts of a wanton? If so, then let Rome perish,--and we ourselves be buried under her ruins."

Her eyes reflected her noble, undaunted spirit and never had Stephania appeared more beautiful to the Senator, her husband.

"Your words are the seal of loyalty upon your soul, Stephania," Crescentius replied. "Think you, I would cast away my jewel, cast it before these barbarians? But you do not understand. I will be more plain. It was not that part you were to assume."

Stephania resumed her seat by his side. Her bosom heaved and her eyes peered dimly through a mist of tears.

"Of all the hosts who crossed the Alps with him," Crescentius spoke with a voice, unsteady at first, but gradually gaining the strength of his own convictions, "none shares the emperor's dreams, none his hopes of reconstruction. An embassy from the Palatinate is even now on the way, to demand his return.--Not he! But there is one, the twin of his mind and soul--Gregory the Pontiff, who will soon have his hands full with a refractory Conclave, and will not be able to succour his friend in the realization of his fantastic dreams. He must be encouraged,--his watchfulness beguiled until we are strong enough to strike the final blow. Only an intellect equal to his own dares assail the task. He must be led by a firm hand, by a hand which he trusts--but by a hand never forgetful of its purpose, a hand closed to bribery of chattel or soul. He must be ruled by a mind that grasps all the strange excrescences of his own diseased brain. Let him build up his fantastic dream-empire, while Rome rallies her forces for a final reckoning, then let the mirage dissolve. This is the part I had assigned to you. I can entrust it to none else. Our hopes hang upon the fulfilment. Thus, his hosts dissatisfied, the electors muttering beyond the Alps, the Romans awakening to their own disgrace, the king at odds with his leaders and himself, the pontiff menaced by the hostile Cardinals, there is one hope left to us, to crush the invaders--our last. If it miscarries,--there will not be gibbets enough in the Campagna for the heads that will swing."

Stephania had gradually regained her composure. Raising her eyes to those of Crescentius, she said with hesitation:

"There is truth in your words, but I like not the task. I hate Otto with all my Roman heart; with all my soul do I hate that boy whose lofty aims shame our depravity. 'Tis an ill time for masks and mummeries. Why not entrust the task to the one so eminently fitted for it,--Benilo, the glittering snake?"

"There will be work enough for all of us," Crescentius replied evasively. Somehow he hated to admit even to his wife, that he mistrusted the Chamberlain's serpent wisdom. He had gone too far. He dared not recede without betraying his own misgivings.

Stephania heaved a deep sigh.

"What would you have me do?"

"You have so far studiously avoided the king. You have not even permitted him to feast his eyes on the most beautiful woman in all Rome. Be gracious to him, enter into his vagaries, point out to him old temples and forgotten tombs, newly dug-up friezes and musty crypts! Tell him of our legends and lead him back into the past, from whose labyrinth no Ariadne will guide him back to the present hour,--It is for Rome I ask."

"Truly, were I a man, I would not trap my foe by woman's wiles, as long as I could grip mace or lance. Is there no man among all these Romans of yours treacherous enough for the task?"

"It is even their treachery I dread," replied Crescentius. "Ambition or the lust of gain may at the last moment carry victory from the field. My maxim, you know: Trust none--Fear none! These festivities are to dazzle the aim of suspicion, to attach the people once more to our cause and to give you the desired opportunity to spread your nets. Then lead him step for step away from life, until he shall himself become but a spectre of the past."

"It is a game unworthy of you and me," Stephania replied after a long pause. "To beguile a trusting foe--but the end? What is it to be?"

"Once in the councils of the king, you will lull his suspicions to slumber! You will counteract the pressure of his flaxen-haired leaders! You will make him a puppet in your hands, that has no will save yours. Then sound the watchword: Rome and Crescentius!"

"I too love glory," Stephania spoke almost inaudibly. "Glory achieved by valour, not intrigue. Give me time, my lord. As yet I hardly know if I am fitted for the high mission you have laid out for me. Give me but time."

"There shall be no further mention of this matter between us," Crescentius replied. "You will be worthy of your self and of Rome, whose fates I have laid into your hands. The task is grave, but great will be the reward. Where will the present state lead to? Is there to be no limit to humiliation? Is every rebellion unlawful? Has Fate stamped on our brow, Suffer and be silent?"

"For whom then is this comedy to be enacted?"

Crescentius shrugged his shoulders.

"Say for ourselves if you will. Deem you, Stephania, I would put my head in the sling for that howling mob down yonder in their hovels? For the rabble which would stone him, who gives them bread? Or for the barons of Rome, who have encroached upon our sovereignty? If Fate will but grant me victory, their robber dens shall crumble into dust, as if an earthquake had levelled them. For this I have planned this Comedy of Love--for this alone."

Stephania slowly rose from her seat beside the Senator. Every vestige of colour had faded from her face.

"Surely I have not heard aright," she said. "Did you say 'Comedy of Love'?"

Crescentius laughed, a low but nervous laugh.

"Why stare you so, Stephania, as if I bade you in all truth to betray me? Is it so hard to feign a little affection for this wingless cherub whom you are to mould to your fancies? The choice is his,--until--"

"Until it is his no longer," Stephania muttered under her breath, which quickly came and went.

There was a pause of some duration, during which the Senator of Rome restlessly paced the apartment. Stephania had resumed her former station and seemed lost in deep rumination. From without no sounds were audible. The city slept. The evening star burnt low down in the horizon. The moon sickle slept on the crests of the mountains of Albano.

At last Stephania rose and laid her white arm on the shoulder of the Senator of Rome.

"I will do your bidding," she said slowly, looking straight into his eyes, "for the glory of Rome and your own!"

"For our glory," Crescentius replied with a deep sigh of relief. "I knew you would not fail me in this hour of need."

Stephania raised her hand, as if deprecating the reward.

"For your glory alone, my lord,--it will suffice for both of us," she replied hurriedly, as her arms sank down by her side.

"Be it so, since you so wish it," Crescentius replied. "I thank you, Stephania! And now farewell. It waxes late and grave matters of state require my instant attention. Await not my return to-night."

And kissing her brow, Crescentius hurriedly left his wife's apartment and ascended a spiral stairway, leading to the chamber of his astrologer. Suddenly he staggered, as if he had seen his own ghost and turned sick at heart.

"What have I done!" he gasped, grasping his forehead with both hands. "What have I done!"

Was it a presentiment that suddenly rushed over Him, prompting him to retrace his steps, prompting him to take back his request? For a moment he wavered. His pride and his love struggled for supremacy,--but pride conquered. He would not have Stephania think that he feared a rival on earth. He would not have her believe that he questioned her love.

After Crescentius had departed from the chamber, Stephania gazed long and wistfully into the starlit night without, so calm and so serene.

Then a laugh, wild and shrill, broke from her lips, and sinking back among her cushions, a shower of tears came to her relief.

*CHAPTER IX*

*THE SERMON IN THE GHETTO*

The Contubernium Hebraeorum, as it is loftily styled in the pontifical edicts of the time, the Roman Ghetto, was a district of considerable extent, reclaimed originally from the swamps of the Tiber at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, and surrounded either by lofty walls, or houses which were not permitted to have even a loop-hole to the exterior. Five massive gates, guarded by the halberdiers of the Roman magistrate were opened at sun-rise and closed at sun-set to emit and to receive back their jealously guarded inmates, objects of unutterable contempt and loathing with the populace, into whose heart the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages had infused a veneration and love for the person of the Redeemer rather than for his attributes, and whose passions and devotions were as yet unalloyed by the skepticism and indifference which began to pervade the higher ranks of society in the century of the Renaissance.

Three or four times a year, a grand attempt at conversion was made, the Pope appointing the most renowned ecclesiastics to deliver the sermons.

On the occasion about to be described towards the end of the year 999, the Jews had good reason to expect a more than commonly devout throng in the train of the pontifical delegate. They had prepared accordingly. Upon entering the gates of the Ghetto the beholder was struck with the dreary and melancholy aspect of the houses and the emptiness of the little shops which appeared like holes in the walls. Such precious wares as they possessed had been as carefully concealed as those they had abstracted on the eve of their departure from Egypt. The exceeding narrowness of the streets, which were in some parts scarcely wide enough to allow two persons to walk abreast, and seemed in a manner arched, in-as-much as one story extended above the others, increased the disagreeable effect. Noisome smells greeted the nostrils on every turn and the flutter of rags from numerous dark lattices seemed to testify to the poverty within.

Such the Roman Ghetto appeared on the eve of the great harangue for which the reigning Pontiff, Gregory V, had, in accordance with the tradition of the Holy See, delegated the most renowned light of the church. Not a Jew was to be seen, much less a Jewess, throughout the whole line of march from the gates of the Ghetto to the large open square where they held their markets, and where they had been summoned to assemble in mass. The long narrow and intricate windings misled many who did not keep pace with the Pope's delegate and his attendants, but the greater part of the rabble rushed into the square like a mountain stream, leaping over opposing boulders, shouting, laughing, yelling and crushing one another, as if they were taking possession of a conquered city.

The square itself was paved with volcanic tufa, very unevenly laid. In the center was a great fountain of granite without the least ornament, intended exclusively for the use of the inmates of this dreary quarter. Into this square radiated numberless streets and alleys giving its disordered architecture the appearance of being reft and split into chasms, some of the houses being doubtfully propped with timbers.

Round the fountain stone benches had been arranged with tables of similar crude material, at which usually sat the Elders, who decided all disputes, regulated the market and governed this inner empire partly by the maxims of common sense and justice, partly by the laws prescribed by their sacred books, severe indeed and executed with rigour, without provoking a thought of appeal to the milder and often opposing Christian judicature.

But now this Sanhedrim was installed in its place of honour for a different purpose; to hear with outward complacency and inner abhorrence their ancient law denounced and its abolition or reform advocated. For this purpose a movable pulpit, which resembled a bronze caldron on a tripod, carried by four Jewish converts, was duly planted under the supreme direction of the companion friar of the pontifical delegate, who ordered its position reversed several times, ere it seemed to suit his fancy.

The delegate of the Pope himself, surrounded by the pontifical guards, was still kneeling in silent prayer, when a stranger, who had followed the procession from afar, entered the Ghetto, unremarked in the general tumult and ensconced himself out of observation in a dark doorway. From his point of vantage, Eckhardt had leisure to survey the whole pandemonium. On his left there rose an irregular pile of wood-work, built not without some pretentions to architecture, with quaint carvings and devices of birds and beasts on the exposed joints and window-frames, but in a state of ruinous decay. About midheight sloped a pent-house with a narrow balcony, supported like many of the other buildings by props of timber, set against it from the ground. The lower part of the house was closed and barred and had the appearance of having been forsaken for decades.

While, himself unseen Eckhardt surveyed every detail of his surroundings; the preparations for the sermon continued. Beyond the seats of the Elders was assembled the great mass of those who were to profit by the exhortation, remarkable for their long unkempt beards, their glittering eyes and their peculiar physiognomies.

Beyond the circle of these compelled neophytes a tumultuous mob struggled for the possession of every point, whence a view of the proceedings could be obtained, quarrelling, scoffing and buffeting the unresisting Jews, whose policy it was not to offer the least pretext for pillage and general massacre, which on these occasions hovered over their heads by a finer thread than that to which hung the sword of Damocles. Without expostulations they submitted to the rude swaying of the mob, to their blows and revilings, opposing to their tormentors a seemingly inexhaustible endurance. But the horror, anxiety, and rage which glowed in their bosoms were strongly reflected in their faces, peering through the smoky glare of innumerable torches, which they were compelled to exhibit at all the windows of their houses. Engaged in this office only now and then a woman appeared for a brief instant, for the most part withered and old, or veiled and muffled with more than Turkish scrupulousness.

At last the pulpit was duly hoisted and placed to the satisfaction of the attending friar. The Pope's delegate having concluded his prayer arose and two of the Elders advanced, to present him with a copy of the Old Testament, for from their own laws were they to be refuted. They offered it with a deep Oriental bend and the humble request, that the representative of his Holiness, their sovereign, would be pleased to deliver his message. The monk replied briefly that it was not the message of any earthly power which he was there to deliver and then mounted the pulpit by a ladder, which his humbler associate held for him. The attendant friar then sprinkled a lustration round the pulpit with a bunch of hyssop, which he had dipped in an urn of holy water. This he showered liberally upon the Elders who dared not resent it, and ground their teeth in impotent rage.

Strangely interested, as Eckhardt found himself in the scene about to be enacted, watching the rolling human sea under the dark blue night-sky, he found his own curiosity shared by a second personage, who had taken his position immediately below the door-way, in which he stood concealed. This worthy wore a large hat, slouched over his face, which gave him the appearance of a peasant from the marshes; but his dirty gray mantle and crooked staff denoted him a pilgrim. Of his features very little was to be seen, save his glittering minx-eyes. These he kept fixed on the balcony of the ruined house, which had also attracted Eckhardt's attention. At other times that worthy's gaze searched the shadows beneath the gloomy structure with something of mingled scrutiny and scorn.

"Surely this boasted steel-hearted knave of yours means to play us false? Where is the rogue? He keeps us waiting long."

These words, as Eckhardt perceived, were addressed to an individual, who, to judge from the mask he wore, did not wish to be recognized.

"Were it against the fiend, I would warrant him," answered a hushed voice. "But folks here have a great reverence for this holy man, who goes to comfort a plague-stricken patient more cheerfully than another visits his lady-love. And, if he needs must die, were it not wiser to venture the deed in some of the lonely places he haunts, than here in the midst of thousands?"

"Nay," replied his companion in an undertone, every word of which was understood by his unseen listener. "Here alone can a tumult be raised without much danger, and as easily quelled. I do not set forests on fire, to warm my feet. Here they will lay the mischief to the Jews--elsewhere, suspicion would be quickly aroused, for what bravo would deem it worth his while to slay a wretched monk?"

Again the pseudo-pilgrim's associate peered into the shadows. Then he plucked his companion by the sleeve of his mantle.

"Yonder he comes--and by all my sins--streaming like a water-dog! Raise your staff, but no--he sees us," concluded the masked individual, shrinking back into the shadows.

Presently a third individual joined the pilgrim and his friend.

"Don Giovan! Thou dog! How long hast kept me gaping for thee!" the principal speaker hissed into the bravo's face as he limping approached. "But, by the mass,--who baptized thee so late in life?"