Chapter VII: Part 7

Under his canopy sat the Vice-Gerent of Christ, surrounded by the consecrated cardinals and bishops and the monks of the various orders. Without an inkling of the true cause prompting Eckhardt's precipitate flight Gregory had witnessed the terrible scene, which had just come to a close. But inwardly he rejoiced. For only when every opposition to Eckhardt's mad desire had appeared fruitless, had the Pontiff acquiesced in granting to him the special dispensation, which shortened the time of his novitiate to the limit of three days.

But it was not a matter for the moment, for Gregory himself was to partake of the Communion and the monk Cyprianus, who was to perform the holy office, a tribute to the order whose superior he was, had just blessed the host. In his consecrated hand the wine was to turn into the blood of Christ, Gregory had just partaken of the holy wafer. Now the monk placed the golden tube in the golden chalice and, drawing his cowl deeply over his forehead, passed the other end of the tube to the Pontiff.

Gregory placed the golden tube to his lips, and as he sipped the wine, changed into blood, the two cardinals on duty approached the sacred throne, a torch in one hand, a small bundle of tow in the other. According to custom they set the tow on fire.

Again the unison chant of the monks resounded; the assembled thousands lying prostrate in prayer.

Suddenly there arose a strange bustle round the pontifical canopy. Suppressed murmurs broke the silence. Monks were to be seen rushing hither and thither. Gregory had fainted! The monk Cyprianus seemed vainly endeavouring to revive him. For a moment the crowds remained in awe-struck silence, then, as if the grim spectre of Death had visibly appeared amongst them, the terror-stricken worshippers rushed out of the Basilica of St. Peter and soon the terrible rumour was rife in the streets of Rome. Pope Gregory the Fifth was dying.

*CHAPTER XV*

*THE DEATH WATCH*

The sun had sunk to rest and the noises of the day were dying out, one by one. The deep hush of the hour of dusk settled once more over the city, shaken to its very depths by the terrible catastrophe and upheaved by the fanaticism of the monks, who roused the populace to a paroxysm of frenzy and fear which gave way to pandemonium itself, when the feelings of the masses, strung to their utmost tension, leaped into the opposite extreme. Crescentius had remained shut up in Castel San Angelo, but the monk Cyprianus could be seen stalking through the city at the hour of dusk, and whosoever met him crossed himself devoutly, and prayed to have time for confession, when the end was nigh.

The importance of the impending change impressed itself upon every mind. The time when worldly power alone could hope to successfully cope with the crying evils of a fast decaying age, of a world, grown old and stale and rotten, upon which had not yet fallen the beam of the Renaissance, was not yet at hand, and the fatal day of Canossa had not yet illumined the century with its lurid glare.

Therefore Otto had chosen Bruno, the friend of his boyhood, for the highest honours in Christendom, Bruno, one in mind, one in soul with himself, and the Conclave had by its vote ratified the imperial choice. But Bruno himself had not wished the honour. While he shared the high ideals of his royal friend he lacked that confidence in himself, which was so essential a requirement for the ruler whose throne swayed on the storm-tossed billows of the Roman See. Bruno was of a rather retrospective turn of mind, and it was doubtful, whether he would be able to carry out the sweeping reforms planned by Theophano's idealistic son, and regarded with secret abhorrence by the Italian cardinals. Only with the aid of the venerable Gerbert had Gregory consented to enter upon the grave duties awaiting him at the head of the Christian world at a time when that world seemed to totter in its very foundations. And he had paid the penalty, cut down in the prime of life.

In the Vatican chapel on a bier, round which were burning six wax candles in silver-sticks, lay the fast decaying body of Gregory V. Terrible rumours concerning the Pontiff's death were abroad in the city. The doors of the Pope's private apartments had been found locked from within. The terrified attendants had not ventured to return to the Vatican until the gray morning light of the succeeding day broke behind the crests of the Apennines. They had broken down the door, rumour had it, but to recoil from the terrible sight which met their eyes. On his bed lay the dead Pontiff. The head and right arm almost touched the floor, as if in the death-struggle he had lost his balance. Traces of burnt parchment on the floor and an empty phial on the table beside him intensified, rather than cleared up the mystery. And as they approached, terror-stricken, and endeavoured to lift the body, the right arm almost severed itself from the trunk at their touch, and the body was fast turning black. The handsome features of the youth were gray and drawn, his hair clammy and dishevelled and the open eyes stared frightfully into space as if vainly searching for the murderer.

Whatever Gerbert's suspicions were when, too late, he arrived in the death chamber, no hint escaped his lips. Under his personal care the body of the hapless youth was prepared for interment, then he hurriedly convoked the Conclave and ordered the gates of Rome closed against any one attempting to leave the city.

The Vatican chapel was hung with funereal tapestry. Everywhere were seen garlands of flowers entwined with branches of cypress. In the middle of the chapel stood the bier, covered with black velvet. A choir of monks, robed in vestments of black damask, was chanting the last Requiem. The Cardinal of Sienna was conducting the last rites. As the echoes of the chant died away under the vaulted arches, a monk approached the bier, and sprinkled the corpse with holy water. The Cardinal pronounced the benediction; the monk bent slightly over the body when a drop from the forehead of the dead Pontiff rebounded to his face. He shuddered and hastily retreated behind the monks, who formed into the recessional. Only two remained in the chapel. Contrary to all custom they extinguished the candles which had burnt down half-way. The smaller ones they left to flicker out, until they should pitifully flare up once, more, then to go out in the great darkness like the soul of man, when his hour has come.

The last and only one to remain within the chapel to hold the death-watch with the Pontiff, was Eckhardt, the Margrave. Wrapt in his dark fancies he sat beside the bier. After his precipitate flight all memory of what succeeded had vanished. Exhausted and tottering he had found himself in the palace on the Caelian Mount, where he shut himself up till the terrible tidings of the Pontiff's death penetrated to the solitude of his abode. Now it seemed to him that the moment he would set foot in the streets of Rome, some dark and fearful revelation awaited him. Since that night, when the strange apparition had drawn him from the altars of Christ, had caused him to renounce the vows his lips were about to pronounce, a terrible fear and suspicion had gripped his soul. The presentiment of some awful mystery haunted him night and day, as he brooded over the terrible fascination of those eyes, which had laid their spell upon him, the amazing resemblance of the apparition to the wife of his soul, long dead in her grave. And the more he pondered the heavier grew his heart within him, and he groped in vain for a ray of light on his dark and lonely path,--vainly for a guiding hand, to conduct him from the labyrinth of doubt and fear into the realms of oblivion and peace. The Margrave's senses reeled from the heavy fumes of flowers and incense, which filled the Basilica. The light from a cresset-lantern on the wall, contending singly with the pale mournful rays of the moon, which cast a dim light through the long casement, over pillars and aisles, fell athwart his pallid face. The terrible incidents of the past night, which had thrown him back into the throes of the world, and had snuffed out the Pontiff's life, weighed heavily upon him, and for the nonce, the commander abandoned every attempt to clear the terrible mystery which enshrouded him. He almost despaired of combating the spectre single-handed, and now the one man, who might by counsel and precept have guided his steps, had been struck down by the assassin's hand.

The sanctity of the place, the solemnity of the hour, and the deep silence around were well calculated to deepen the melancholy mood of the solitary watcher. Weird were the fancies that swept over his mind, memories of a long forgotten past, and dim, indistinct plans for the future, till at length, wearied with his own reflections over that saddest of all earthly enigmas, what might have been, he seated himself on a low bench beside the bier. The moonbeams grew fainter and more faint, as the time wore on, and the sharp distinction between light and shadow faded fast from the marble floor.

Thicker and thicker drooped the shadows round the bier of the dead Pontiff. The silence seemed to deepen. The moon was gone. Save for the struggling rays of the cresset-lantern above him, the blackness of night closed round the solemn and ghostly scene.

The scent of flowers and the fumes of incense weighed heavily on Eckhardt's senses. Vainly did he combat the drowsiness; the silence, the dim light and the heavy fumes at last laid their benumbing spell upon him and lulled him to sleep. His head fell back and his eyes closed.

But his sleep was far from calm. Weird dreams beset him. Again he lived over the terrible ordeal of the preceding night. Again he saw himself surrounded, hemmed in by a vast concourse. Again he saw the phantom at the shrine, the phantom with Ginevra's face,--Ginevra's eyes; again he heard her strange luring words. The wine spilled from the sacred chalice looked like blood on the marble stairs of the altar. He heard his own voice, strange, unearthly; gripped by a choking sensation he rushed from the crowded Basilica, the air of which seemed to stifle him,--rushed in pursuit of the phantom with Ginevra's face,--Ginevra's eyes. At the threshold of the church a hand seized his own,--a woman's hand. How long, since he had felt a woman's hand in his own! It was cold as the skin of a serpent, yet it burnt like fire. And the hand drew him onward, ever onward. There was no resisting the gaze of those eyes which burnt into his own.

A deep azure overspread the sky. The trees were clothed in the raiment of spring. Blindly he staggered onward. Blindly he followed his strange guide through groves, fragrant with the perfumes of flowers,--the air seemed as a bower of love. The hand drew him onward with its chill, yet burning touch. The way seemed endless. Faster and faster grew their speed. At last they seemed to devour the way. The earth flitted beneath them as a gray shadow. The black trees fled in the darkness like an army in rout. They delved into glens, gloomy and chill. The night-birds clamoured in the forest deeps; will-o'-the-wisps gleamed over stagnant pools and now and then the burning eyes of spectres pierced the gloom, who lined a dark avenue in their nebulous shrouds.

And the hand drew him onward--ever onward! Neither spoke. Neither questioned. At last he found himself in a churchyard. The scent of faded roses hovered on the air like the memory of a long-forgotten love. They passed tombstone after tombstone, gray, crumbling, with defaced inscriptions; the spectral light of the moon in its last quarter dimly illumined their path till at last they reached a stone half hidden behind tall weeds and covered with ivy, moss and lichen. The earth had been thrown up from the grave, which yawned to receive its inmate. Owls and bats flocked and flapped about them with strange cries; the foxes barked their answer far away and a thousand evil sounds rose from the stillness. As they paused before the yawning grave he gazed up into his companion's face. Pale as marble Ginevra stood by his side, the long white shroud flowing unbroken to her feet. Through the smile of her parted lips gleamed her white teeth, as she pointed downward, to the narrow berth, then her arms encircled his neck like rings of steel; her eyes seemed to pierce his own, he felt unable to breathe, he felt his strength giving way, together they were sinking into the night of the grave--

A shrill cry resounded through the silence of the Basilica. Awakened by the terrible oppression of his dream,--roused by the sound of his own voice, Eckhardt opened his eyes and gazed about, fearstruck and dismayed. After a moment or two he arose, to shake off the spell, which had laid its benumbing touch upon him, when he suddenly recoiled, then stood rooted to the spot with wild, dilated eyes. At the foot of the Pontiff's bier stood the tall form of a woman. The fitful rays of the cresset-lantern above him illumined her white, flowing garb. A white transparent veil drooped from her head to her feet; but the diaphanous texture revealed a face pale and beautiful, and eyes which held him enthralled with their slumbrous, mesmeric spell. Breathless with horror Eckhardt gazed upon the apparition; was it but the continuation of his dream or was he going mad?

As the phantom slowly began to recede into the shadows, Eckhardt with a supreme effort shook off the lethargy which benumbed his limbs. He dared remain no longer inert, he must penetrate the mystery, whatever the cost, whatever the risk. With imploring, outstretched arms he staggered after the apparition,--if apparition indeed it was,--straining his gaze towards her slowly receding form--and so absorbed was he in his pursuit, that he saw not the shadow which glided into the mortuary chapel. Suddenly some dark object hurled itself against him; quick as a flash, and ere he could draw a second breath, a dagger gleamed before Eckhardt's eyes; he felt the contact of steel with his iron breast-plate, he heard the weapon snap asunder and fall at his feet, but when he recovered from his surprise, the would-be assassin, without risking a second stroke, had fled and the apparition seemed to have melted into air. Eckhardt found himself alone with the dead body of the Pontiff.

With loud voice he called for the sentry, stationed without, and when that worthy at last made his appearance, his heavy, drooping eyelids and his drowsy gait did not argue in favour of too great a watchfulness. Making the sentry doff his heavy iron shoes, Eckhardt bade him secure a torch, then he made the round of the chapel, preceded by his stolid companion. The Margrave's anxiety found slight reflex in the coarse features of his subordinate, who understood just enough of what was wanted of him to comprehend the disappointment in his master's countenance. As every door was locked and bolted, the only supposition remaining was that the bravo had discovered some outlet from within. But Eckhardt's tests proved unavailing. The floor and the walls seemed of solid masonry which to penetrate seemed impossible. The broken blade offered no clue either to the author or perpetrator of this deed of darkness, and after commanding the sentry to keep his watch for the remainder of the night, inside, Eckhardt endeavoured once more to compose himself to rest, while the man-at-arms stretched his huge limbs before the pontifical bier.

The bells of St. Peter's chimed shrill and loud as a mighty multitude, greater even than that of the preceding night, swept within its portals toward the chapel of Boniface VIII. There, filling every inch of space, only the more fortunate of the crowd gained a glimpse of the coffin, which had been closed, for the corpse was decaying fast, the effect of the terrible and mysterious poison which had been mixed in the holy wine. At length, as the solemn chant of the choristers began to swell through the edifice, preluding the celebration of the Death Mass for the departed Pontiff, a silence as of the tomb pervaded the vast edifice.

Thus the day wore on,--thus the day departed.

The solemn chant had died away. The sun of another day had set.

The funeral cortege set in motion. Fifty torches surrounded the bier and so numerous were the lamps in the windows of the streets through which the funeral procession passed, so abundant the showers of roses which poured upon the bier, that the people declared it surpassed the procession Corpus Domini.

Interchanging solemn hymns, the cortege arrived at last before the church of San Pietro in Montorio, where the body was to be placed in the niche provisionally appointed, where it was to remain till the death of the succeeding pope should consign it to its final place of rest.

The ceremony ended, the people dispersed. Few loiterers remained on the pavement of the church. The sacristan announced that it was about to be closed, and waiting until, as he thought, all had departed, he turned the ponderous doors on their hinges and shut them with a crash. The report, reverberating from arch to arch, shook the ancient sepulchre through its every angle. The lamps, which at wide intervals burned feebly before the shrines of the saints, lent additional solemnity and awe to the obscurity of the place. One torch was left to light a narrow circle round the entrance to the crypt.

Silence had succeeded when out of the shadow of the tomb there passed two figures, who upon entering the narrow circle of light emanating from the dim, flickering taper, faced each other in mute amazement and surprise.

"What are you doing here?" spoke the one, in the garb of a monk, as they stood revealed to each other in the half gloom.

With a gesture of horror and dismay the other, a woman, wrapt in a dark mantle, which covered her tall and stately form from head to foot, turned away from him.

"I give you back the question," she replied, dread and fear in her tones.

"My presence here concerns the dead," said the monk.

"They say, the hand of the dead Pontiff has touched his murderer."

The monk paled. For a moment he almost lost his self-control.

"He had to die some way," he replied with a shrug.

"Monster!" she exclaimed, recoiling from him, as if she had seen a snake in her path.

"He travelled in godly company," said the monk Cyprianus with a dark laugh. "An entire Conclave will welcome him at the gates of Paradise. Why are you here?" the monk concluded, a shade of suspicion lingering in his tones.

"Am I accountable to you?" flashed Theodora.

"Being what you are through my intercession,--perhaps," replied the monk.

She measured him with a look of unutterable contempt.

"Because the prying eyes of a perjured wretch, who screened his vileness behind the cassock of the monk, dared to offend the majesty of Death and to disturb the repose of the departed, you come to me like some importunate slave dissatisfied with his hire? You dare to constitute yourself my guardian, to call Theodora a thing of your creation? Take care! You speak to a descendant of Marozia. I have had enough of whimpering monks. For the service demanded of you in a certain hour you have been paid. So clear the way, and trouble me no more!"

The monk did not stir.

"The fair Theodora has not inherited Ginevra's memory," he said with a sneer. "The gold was to purchase the repose of Ginevra's soul."

Theodora shuddered, as if oppressed with the memories of the past.

"Candles and masses," she said, as one soliloquizing. "How signally they failed!"

The monk shrugged his shoulders.

"If a thousand Aves, and tapers six foot long fail in their purpose,--what undiscovered penance could perform the miracle?"

There was something in the gleam of the monk's eye which brought Theodora to herself.

"What do you want of me?" she questioned curtly.

"The fulfilment of your pledge."

"You have been paid."

The monk waved his hands.

"'Tis not for gold, I have ventured this--"

And he pointed to the crypts below.

She recoiled from him, regarding him with a fixed stare.

"What do you want of me?" she again asked with a look, in which hate and wonder struggled for the mastery.

"The new Conclave will be made up of your creatures. Their choice must fall--on me!"

"On the perjured assassin?" shrieked the woman. "Out of my way! I've done with you!"

The monk stirred not. From his drawn white face two eyes like glowing coals burnt into those of the woman.

"Remember your pledge!"

"Out of my way, assassin! Dare you so high? The chair of St. Peter shall never be defiled by such a one--as you!"

"And thus Theodora rewards the service rendered to Ginevra," the monk said, breathing hard, and making a step towards her. She watched him narrowly, her hand concealed under her cloak.

"Dare but to touch the hem of this robe with your blood-stained hands--"

Cyprianus retreated before the menace in her eyes.

"I thought I had lived too long for surprises," he said calmly. "Yet, considering that I bear here in this bosom a secret, which one, I know, would give an empire to obtain,--Cyprianus can be found tractable."

With a last glance at the woman's face, stony in its marble-cold disdain, the monk turned and left the church through the sacristy. For a moment Theodora remained as one spell-bound, then she drew her mantle more closely about her and left the sepulchre by an exit situated in an opposite direction. No sooner had her footsteps died to silence when two shadowy forms sped noiselessly through the incense-saturated dusk of S. Pietro in Montorio, pausing on the threshold of the door, through which the monk Cyprianus had gained the open.

"I need that man!" whispered the taller into the ear of his companion, pointing with shadowy finger to the swiftly vanishing form of the monk.

The other nodded with a horrid grin, which glowed upon his visage like phosphorus upon a skull.

With a quick nod of understanding, the Grand Chamberlain and John of the Catacombs quitted the steps of S. Pietro in Montorio.

Darkness fell.

Night enveloped the trembling world with her star embroidered robe of dark azure.

*CHAPTER XVI*

*THE CONCLAVE*

A vast concourse surrounded the portals of the Vatican. It seemed as if the entire population of Rome, from the Porta del Popolo to the Coliseum, from the baths of Diocletian to Castel San Angelo, had assembled by appointment in the Piazza of St. Peter. For so dense was the multitude, that its pressure filled the adjacent thoroughfares, the crowds clinging round columns, winding along the broken outlines of the walls, and grouping themselves among the ruins of temples and fallen porticoes.

The eyes of all were fixed upon that wing of the pontifical palace where the Conclave, hurriedly convoked, was assembled, and as Gregory V had now been dead sixteen days, the cardinals were proceeding with the election of a new Pope. Never possibly, from the hour when the first successor of St. Peter mounted the throne of the Apostle, had there been exhibited so much unrest and disquietude as there was in this instance to be observed among the masses. The rumour that Gregory had died of poison had proved true, and the Romans had been seized with a strange fear, urging all ranks towards the Vatican or Monte Cavallo, according as the scarlet assembly held its sittings in one place or another. During the temporary interregnum, the Cardinal of Sienna, president of the Apostolic Chamber, had assumed the pontifical authority.

For three days the eyes of the Romans had been fixed upon a chimney in the Vatican, whence the first signal should issue, proclaiming the result of the pending election. Yet at the hour when the Ave Maria announced the close of day, a small column of smoke, ascending like a fleecy cloud of vapour to the sky, had been the only reward for their anxiety, and with cries mingled with shouts of menace, discordant murmurs of raillery and laughter the crowds had each day dispersed. For the smoke announced that the Romans were still without a Pontiff, that the ballot-list had been burnt, and that the Sacred College had not yet chosen a successor to Gregory.

The day had been spent in anxious expectation. Hour passed after hour, without a sign either to destroy or to excite the hope, when the first stroke of five was heard. Slowly the bells tolled the hour, every note falling on the hearts of the people, whose anxious gaze was fixed on the chimney of the Vatican. The last stroke sounded; its vibrations faintly fading on the silent air of dusk, when a thunderous clamour, echoing from thousands of throats, shook the Piazza of St. Peter, succeeded by a death-like silence of expectation as with a voice, loud and penetrating, Cardinal Colonna, who had stepped out upon the balcony, announced to the breathless thousands:

"I announce to you tidings of great joy: Gerbert of Aurillac, Archbishop of Rheims, Bishop of Ravenna and Vice-Chancellor of the Church, has been elected to the exalted office of Pontiff and has ascended the chair of St. Peter under the name of Sylvester II."

As the Cardinal finished his announcement a monk in the grey habit of the Penitent friars was seen to pale and to totter, as if he were about to fall. Declining the aid of those endeavouring to assist him he staggered through the crowds, covering his face with his arms and was soon lost to sight.

The thunderous applause at the welcome tidings was followed by sighs of relief, as the people retired to their houses and hovels. The place, where a few minutes before a nation seemed collected, was again deserted, save for a few groups, composed of such whom curiosity might detain or others who, residing in the immediate neighbourhood, were less eager to depart. Even these imperceptibly diminished, and when the hour of eight was repeated from cloisters and convents, the lights in the houses gradually disappeared, save in one window of the Vatican, whence a lamp still shed its fitful light through the nocturnal gloom.

*Book the Second*

*The Sorceress*

"As I came through the desert, thus it was
As I came through the desert: I was twain;
Two selves distinct, that cannot join again.
One stood apart and knew but could not stir,
And watched the other stark in swoon and her;
And she came on and never turned aside,
Between such sun and moon and roaring tide:
And as she came more near,
My soul grew mad with fear."
--_James Thomson_.

*CHAPTER I*

*THE MEETING*

Not many days after, in the still noontide of mellow autumn, a small band of horsemen drew towards Rome. They rode along the Via Appia, between the ancient tombs; all about them, undulant to the far horizon, stretched a brown wilderness dotted with ruins. Ruins of villas, of farms, of temples, with here and there a church or a monastery, that told of the newer time. Olives in scant patches, a lost vineyard, a speck of tilled soil, proved that men still laboured amid this vast and awful silence, but rarely did a human figure meet the eye. Marshy ground and stagnant pools lay on either hand, causing them to glance sadly at those great aqueducts, which had in bygone ages carried water from the hills into Rome.

They rode in silence, tired with their journey, occupied with heavy or anxious thoughts. Otto, King of the Germans, impatient to arrive, was generally a little ahead of the rest of the company. The pallor of his smooth and classic face was enhanced by the coarse military cloak, dark and travel-stained, which covered his imperial vestments. A lingering expression of sadness was revealed in his eyes, and his lips were tightly compressed in wordless grief, for the tidings of the untimely death of the Pontiff, the friend of his youth and his boyhood days, had reached him just after his departure from the shrines of St. Michael in Apulia. Dark hints had been contained in the message, which Sylvester II, Gregory's chosen successor and Otto's former teacher, had despatched to the ruler of the Roman world, urging his immediate return,--for the temper of the Romans brooked no trifling, their leaders being ever on the alert for mischief.

Earthworks and buildings of military purpose presently appeared, recalling the late blockade; churches and oratories told them they were passing the sacred ground of the Catacombs, then they trotted along a hollow way and saw before them the Appian gate. Only two soldiers were on guard; these, not recognizing the German king, took a careless view of the travellers, then let them pass without speaking.

At the base of the Aventine the cavalcade somewhat slackened its pace. Slowly they ascended the winding road, until they reached the old wall of Servius Tullius. Here Otto reined in his charger, pausing, for a moment, to observe the view. To the west and south-west stretched the brown expanse of the Campagna, merging into the distant gray of the Roman Maremma, while beyond that point a clear blue line marked the Ionian Sea. Beneath them the Tiber wound its coils round St. Bartholomew's Island, the yellow water of the river, stirred into faint ripples by the breeze, looking from the distance like hammered brass. Beyond the Tiber rose the Janiculan Mount, behind which the top of the Vatican hill was just visible. To southward the view was bounded by the Church of Santa Prisca above them and far off rose the snow-capped cone of Soracte. Northeast and east lay the Palatine and Esquiline with the Campaniles of Santa Maria Maggiore and San Pietro in Vincoli. Over the Caelian Mount they could see the heights of the Sabine hills, and running their eyes along the Appian way, they could almost descry the Alban lake. At a sign from their sovereign the cavalcade slowly set in motion. Passing the monastery of St. Jerome and its dependencies, the three churches of the Aventine, Santa Sabina, Santa Maria Aventina and St. Alexius, the imperial cavalcade at last drew rein before the gates of Otto's Golden Palace on the Aventine.

Again in his beloved Rome, Otto's first visit was to Bruno's grave. He had dismissed his attendants, wishing to be alone in his hour of grief. Long he knelt in tears and silent prayers before the spot, which seemed to contain half his young life, then he directed his steps towards the Basilica of St. Peter, there to conclude his devotions.

It was now the hour of Vespers.

The area of St. Peters was filled with a vast and silent crowd, flowing in and out of the Confessor's station, which was in the subterranean chapel, that contains the Apostle's tomb, the very lode-stone of devotion throughout the Christian word.

After having finished his devotions, Otto was seized with the desire to seek the confessor, in order to obtain relief from the strange oppression which hovered over him like a presentiment of evil. Taking his station in line with a number of penitents, in the dusky passage leading to the confessional, the scene within was now and then revealed to his gaze for the short space of a moment, when the bronze gates opened for the entrance or exit of some heavily burdened sinner. The tomb was stripped of all its costly ornaments, and lighted only by the torches of some monks, whose office it was to interpret the Penitentiarius, whenever occasion arose. These torches shed a mournful glow over the dusk, suiting the place of sepulchre of martyred saints. On the tomb itself stood an urn of black marble, beneath which was an alabaster tablet, on which was engraved the prophecy concerning the Millennium and the second coming of Christ, and the conditions of penance and prayer, which were to enable the faithful to share in and obtain its benefits. Only now and then, when the curtain waved aside, the person of the Grand Penitentiarius became visible, his hands rigidly clasped, and his usually pale and stern visage overspread with even a darker haze of its habitual gloom.

While Otto was anxiously waiting his turn to be admitted to the presence of the Confessor, the gates of the confessional suddenly swung open and a woman glided out. She was closely veiled and in his mental absorption Otto might scarcely have noticed her at all, but for the singular intensity of the gaze, with which the monk followed her retreating form.

As she passed the German King in the narrow passage, her veil became entangled and she paused to adjust it. As she did so, her features were for the brief space of a moment revealed to Otto, and with such an air of bewilderment did he stare at her, that she almost unconsciously raised her eyes to his. For a moment both faced each other, motionless, eye in eye--then the woman quickened her steps and hastened out. After she had disappeared, Otto touched his forehead like one waking from a trance. Never, even in this city of beautiful women, had he seen the like of her, never had his eyes met such perfection, such exquisite beauty and loveliness. She combined the stately majesty of a Juno with the seductive charms of Aphrodite. In dark ringlets the silken hair caressed the oval of her exquisite face, a face of the soft tint of Parian marble, and the dark lustrous eyes gave life to the classic features of this Goddess of Mediaeval Rome. Before she vanished from sight, the woman, seemingly obeying an impulse not her own, turned her head in the direction of Otto. This was due perhaps to the strange discrepancy between his face and his attire, or to the presence of one so young and of appearance so distinguished among the throngs which habitually crowded the confessional.

How long he stood thus entranced, Otto knew not, nor did he heed the curious gaze of those who passed him on entering and leaving the confessional. At last he roused himself, and, oblivious of his station and rank, flew down the dark, vaulted passage at such a speed as almost to knock down those who encountered him in his headlong pursuit of the fair confessionist. It was more than a matter of idle curiosity to him to discover, if possible, her station and name, and after having attracted to himself much unwelcome attention by his rash and precipitate act, he gradually fell into a slower pace. He reached the end of the dark passage in time to see what he believed to be her retreating form vanish down a corridor and disappear in one of the numerous side-chapels. Concluding that she had entered to perform some special devotion, he resolved to await her return.

Considerable time elapsed. At last, growing impatient, Otto entered the chapel. He found it draped throughout with black, an altar in the center, dimly illumined. Some monks were chanting a Requiem, and before the altar there knelt a veiled woman, apparently under the spell of some deep emotion, for Otto heard her sob when she attempted to articulate the responses to the solemn and pathetic litany, which the Catholic church consecrates to her dead.

But the German King's observation suffered an immediate check.

A verger came forward on those soundless shoes, which all vergers seem to have, and little guessing the person or quality of the intruder informed him of the woman's desire, that none should be admitted during the celebration of the mass. Otto stared his informant in the face, as if he were at a loss to comprehend his meaning, and the latter repeated his request somewhat more slowly, under the impression that the stranger's seeming lack of understanding was due to his unfamiliarity with the speaker's barbarous jargon.

Otto slowly retreated and deferring his intended visit to the chapel of the Confessor to an hour more opportune, left the Basilica. As he recalled to himself, trace after trace, line upon line, that exquisite face, whose creamy pallor was enhanced by the dark silken wealth of her hair, and from whose perfect oval two eyes had looked into his own, which had caused his heart-beats to stop and his brain to whirl, he could hardly await the moment when he should learn her name, and perhaps be favoured with the assurance that her visit on that evening was not likely to have been her last to the Confessor's shrine.

Imbued with this hope, he slowly traversed the streets of Rome, experiencing a restful, even animating contentment in breathing once more the atmosphere of the thronging city, of being once more in a great center of humanity. At a familiar corner sat an old man with an iron tripod, over which, by a slow fire, he roasted his chestnuts, a sight well remembered, for often had he passed him. He threw him some coins and continued upon his way. Beyond, at his shop-door stood a baker, deep in altercation with his patrons. From an alley came a wine-vender with his heavy terra-cotta jars. Before an osteria a group of pifferari piped their pastoral strains. A few women of the sturdy, low-browed Contadini-type hastened, basket-laden, homeward. A patrol of men-at-arms marched down the Navona, while up a narrow tortuous lane flitted a company of white-robed monks, bearing to some death-bed the last consolation of the church.

Otto had partaken of no food since morning and nature began to assert her rights. Finding himself at the doorway of an inn for wayfarers, with a pretentious coat-of-arms over the entrance, he entered unceremoniously, and seated himself apart from the rather questionable company which patronized the Inn of the Mermaid. Here the landlord, a burly Calabrian, served his unknown guest with a most questionable beverage, faintly suggestive of the product of the vintage, and viands so strongly seasoned that they might have undertaken a pilgrimage on their own account.

For these commodities, making due allowance for his guest's abstracted state of mind, the uncertainty of the times and the crowded state of the city, the host of the Mermaid only demanded a sum equal to five times the customary charge, which Otto paid without remonstrance, whereupon the worthy host of the Mermaid called to witness all the saints of the calendar, that he deserved to spend the remainder of his life in a pig-sty, for having been so moderate in his reckoning.

As one walking in a dream, Otto returned to his palace on the Aventine. Had he wavered in the morning, had the dictates of reason still ventured to assert themselves--the past hour had silenced them for ever. Before his gaze floated the image of her who had passed him in the Basilica. At the thought of her he could hear the beating of his own heart. Rome--the dominion of the earth--with that one to share it--delirium of ecstasy! Would it ever be realized! Then indeed the dream of an earthly paradise would be no mere fable!

*CHAPTER II*

*THE QUEEN OF NIGHT*

A week had passed since Otto's arrival in Rome. Eckhardt, wrapped in his own dark fancies, had only appeared at the palace on the Aventine when compelled to do so in the course of his newly resumed duties. The terrible presentiment which had haunted him night and day since he left the gray, bleak winter skies of his native land, had become intensified during the past days. Day and night he brooded over the terrible fascination of those eyes which had laid their spell upon him, over the amazing resemblance of the apparition to the one long dead in her grave. And the more he pondered the heavier grew his heart within him, and vainly he groped for a ray of light upon his dark and lonely path, vainly for a guiding hand to conduct him from the labyrinth of doubt and fear.

It had been a warm and sultry day. Towards evening dark clouds had risen over the Tyrrhene Sea and spread in long heavy banks across the azure of the sky. Sudden squalls of rain swept down at short intervals, driving the people into shelter. All the life of the streets took refuge in arcades or within dimly lighted churches. Soon the slippery marble pavements were deserted, and the water from the guttered roofs dripped dolefully into overflowing cisterns. A strange atmosphere of discomfort and apprehension lay over the city.

The storm increased as evening fell. From the seclusion of the gloomy chamber he occupied in the old weather-beaten palace of the Pierleoni, Eckhardt looked out into the growing darkness. The clouds chased each other wildly and the driving rain obliterated every outline.

How long he had thus stood, he did not know. A rattle of hailstones against the window, a gust of wind, which suddenly blew into his face, and the lurid glare of lightning which flashed through the ever-deepening cloud-bank, roused Eckhardt from his reverie to a sense of reality. The lamp on the table shed a fitful glare over the surrounding objects. Now the deep boom of thunder reverberating through the hills caused him to start from his listless attitude. Just as he turned, the lamp gave a dismal crackle and went out, leaving him in Stygian gloom. With an exclamation less reverent than expressive, Eckhardt groped his way through the darkness, vainly endeavouring to find a flint-stone. A flash of lightning which came to his aid not only revealed to him the desired object, but likewise a tall, shadowy form standing on the threshold. From the dense obscurity which enshrouded him, Eckhardt could not, in the intermittent flashes of lightning, see the stranger's features, but a singular, and even to himself quite inexplicable perversity of humour, kept him silent and unwilling to declare his presence, although he instinctively felt that the strange visitor, whoever he was, had seen him. Meanwhile the latter advanced a pace or two, paused, peered through the gloom and spoke with a voice strangely blended with deference and irony:

"Is Eckhardt of Meissen present?"

Without once taking his eyes from the individual, whose dark form now stood clearly revealed in the lightning flashes, which followed each other at shorter intervals, the same strange obstinacy stiffened Eckhardt's tongue, and concealed in the gloom, he still held his peace. But the stranger drew nearer, till in height and breadth he seemed suddenly to overshadow the Margrave, and once again the voice spoke:

"Is Eckhardt of Meissen present?"

"I am here!" the latter replied curtly, rising out of the darkness, and striking the flint-stones, he succeeded, after some vain efforts, in relighting the lamp. As he did so, a tremendous peal of thunder shook the house and the stranger precipitately retreated into the shadow of the doorway.

"You are the bearer of a message?" Eckhardt turned towards him, with unsteady voice. The stranger made no move to deliver what the other seemed to expect.

"Everything in death has its counterpart in life," he replied with a calm, passionless voice which, by its very absence of inflection, thrilled Eckhardt strangely. "If you have the courage--follow me!"

Without a word the Margrave placed upon his head a skullcap of linked mail, and after having adjusted his armour, turned to the mysterious messenger.

"Who bade you speak those words?"

"One you have seen before."

"Where?"

"Your memory will tell you."

"Her name?"

"You will hear it from her own lips."

"Where will you lead me?"

"Follow me and you will see."

"Why do you conceal your face?"

"To hide the blush for the thing called man."

The stranger's enigmatic reply added to Eckhardt's conviction that this night of all was destined to clear the mystery which enshrouded his life.

A mighty struggle, such as he had never before known, seemed to rend his soul, as with throbbing heart he followed his strange guide on his mysterious errand. Thus they sped through the storm-swept city without meeting one single human being. At the top of the Esquiline they came to a momentary standstill, for the storm raged with a force that nothing could resist. Leaning for a moment against a ruined portico, Eckhardt gazed westward over the night-wrapt city. In the driving rain he could scarcely distinguish the huge structures of the Flavian Amphitheatre and the palaces on the Capitoline hill. The Janiculan Mount stood out like a darker storm-cloud against the lowering sky, and the air was filled with a dull moan and murmur like the breathing of a sleeping giant. On the southern slope of the hill the wind attacked them with renewed fury, and the blasts howled up the Clivus Martis and the Appian Way. The region seemed completely deserted. Only a solitary travelling chariot rolled now and then, clattering, over the stones.

The road gradually turned off to the right. The dark mass to their left was the tomb of the Scipios and there in front, hardly visible in the darkness of night, rose the arch of Drusus, through which their way led them. Eckhardt took care to note every landmark which he passed, to find the way, should occasion arise, without his guide. The latter, constantly preceding him, took no note of the Margrave's scrutiny, but continued unequivocally upon his way, leaving it to Eckhardt to follow him, or not.

A blinding flash of lightning illumined the landscape far away to the aqueducts and the Alban hills, followed by a deafening peal of thunder. The uproar of the elements for a time shook Eckhardt's resolution.

Just then he heard the clanging of a gate.

An intoxicating perfume of roses and oleander wooed his bewildered senses as his guide conducted him through a labyrinthine maze of winding paths. Only an occasional gleam of lightning revealed to the Margrave that they traversed a garden of considerable extent. Now the shadowy outlines of a vast structure, illumined in some parts, appeared beyond the dark cypress avenue down which they strode at a rapid pace.

Suddenly Eckhardt paused, addressing his guide: "Where am I, and why am I here?"

The stranger turned, regarding him intently. Then he replied:

"I have nothing to add to my errand. If you fear to follow me, there is yet time to retreat."

Had he played upon a point less sensitive, Eckhardt might have turned his back even now upon the groves, whose whispering gloom was to him more terrible than the din of battle, and whose mysterious perfumes exercised an almost bewildering effect upon his overwrought senses.

A moment's deliberation only and Eckhardt replied:

"Lead on! I follow!"

He was now resolved to penetrate at every hazard the mystery which mocked his life, his waking hours and his dreams.

On they walked.

Here and there, from branch-shadowed thickets gleamed the stone-face of a sphinx or the white column of an obelisk, illumined by the lightnings that shot through the limitless depth of the midnight sky. The storm rustled among the arched branches, driving the dead and dying leaves in a mad whirl through the wooded labyrinth.

At last, Eckhardt's strange guide stopped before a cypress hedge of great height, which loomed black in the night, and penetrating through an opening scarce wide enough for one man, beckoned to Eckhardt to follow him. As the latter did so he stared in breathless bewilderment upon the scene which unfolded itself to his gaze.

The cypress hedge formed the entrance to a grotto, the interior of which was faintly lighted by a crystal lamp of tenderest rose lustre.

For a moment Eckhardt paused where he stood, then he touched his head with both hands, as if wondering if he were dreaming or awake. If it was not the work of sorcery, if he was not the victim of some strange hallucination, if it was not indeed a miracle--what was it? He gazed round, awe-struck, bewildered. His guide had disappeared.

The denizen of the grotto, a woman reclining on a divan, like a goddess receiving the homage of her worshippers, was the image of the one who had gone from him for ever, and the longer his gaze was riveted on this enchanting counterfeit of Ginevra, the more his blood began to seethe and his senses to reel.

Slowly he moved toward the enchantress, who from her half-reclining position fixed her eyes in a long and questioning gaze upon the new-comer, a gaze which thrilled him through and through. He dared not look into those eyes, which he felt burning into his. His head was beginning to spin and his heart to beat with a strange sensation of wonderment and fear. Never till this hour had he seen Ginevra's equal in beauty, and now that it broke on his vision, it was with the face, the form, the hair, the eyes, the hands, of the woman so passionately loved. Only the face was more pale--even with the pallor of death, and there was something in the depths of those eyes which he had never seen in Ginevra's. But the light, the perfume, the place and the seductive beauty of the woman before him, garbed as she was in a filmy, transparent robe of silvery tissue, which clung like a pale mist about the voluptuous curves of her body, flowing round her like the glistening waves of a cascade, began to play havoc with his senses.

"Welcome, stranger, in the Groves of Enchantment," she spoke, waving her beautiful snowy arms toward her visitor. "I rejoice to see that your courage deserves the welcome."

There was an undercurrent of laughter in her musical tones, as she pointed to a seat by her side. Unable to answer, unable to resist, Eckhardt moved a few paces nearer. His brain whirled. For a moment Ginevra's image seemed forgotten in the contemplation of the rival of her dead beauty. A wild, desperate longing seized him. On a sudden impulse he turned away, in a dizzy effort to escape from the mesmeric gleam of those sombre, haunting eyes, which pierced the very depths of his soul. Fascinated, at the same time repelled, his very soul yearned for her whose embrace he knew was destruction and he was filled with a strange sudden fear. There was something terrible in the steadfast contemplation which the woman bestowed upon him,--something that seemed to lie outside the pale of human passions, and the pallor of her exquisite face seemed to increase in proportion as the devouring fire of her eyes burnt more intensely.

"Are you afraid of me?" she laughed, raising her arms and holding them out toward him.

Still he hesitated. His breast heaved madly as his eyes met those, which swam in a soft languor, strangely intoxicating. Her lips parted in a faint sigh.

"Eckhardt," she said tremulously, "Eckhardt."

Then she paused as if to watch the effect of her words upon him.

Mute, oppressed by indistinct hovering memories, Eckhardt fed his gaze on her seductive fairness, but a terrible pain and anguish gnawed at his heart. Not only the face, even the voice was that of Ginevra.

"Everything in death has its counterpart in life:"--

That had been the pass-word to her presence.

One devouring look--and forgetting all fear and warning and all presence of mind he rushed towards that flashing danger-signal of beauty, that seemed to burn the very air encompassing it, that living image of his dead wife, and with wild eyes, outstretched arms and breathless utterance, he cried: "Ginevra!"

She whom he thus called turned toward him, as he came with the air of a madman upon her, and her marvellous loveliness, as she raised her dark eyes questioningly to his, checked his impetuous haste, held him tongue-tied, bewildered and unmanned.

And truly, nothing more beautiful in the shape of woman could be imagined than she. Her fairness was of that rare and subtle type which has in all ages overwhelmed reason, blinded judgment and played havoc with the passions of men.

Well did she know her own surpassing charm and thoroughly did she estimate the value of her fatal power to lure and to madden and to torture all whom she chose to make the victim of her almost resistless attraction. Her hair, black as night, was arranged loosely under a jewelled coif. Her eyes, large and brilliant, shone from under brows delicately arched. Her satin skin was of the creamy, colourless, Southern type, in startling contrast to the brilliant scarlet of the small bewitching mouth.

Beautiful and delicate as the ensemble was, there was in that enchanting face a lingering expression, which a woman would have hated and a man would have feared.

"Ginevra!" Eckhardt cried, then he checked himself, for, her large eyes, suddenly cold as the inner silence of the sea, surveyed him freezingly, as though he were some insolently obtrusive stranger. But her face was pale as that of a corpse.