The hangings behind the image of Venus parted, and Lycabetta surveyed the strange pair. She had grown weary of the garden, grown curious to know how the fool had progressed with his wooing.
“Well,” she asked, “are the lovers happy?”
Perpetua folded her arms in silence as Lycabetta descended the steps, but Robert danced up to the Neapolitan antically.
“A marvel, a marvel,” he carolled; “I have won the mad maid’s heart.”
Lycabetta stared at him. “Does Andromeda dote on the monster? Does Beauty love the Beast?”
Robert jigged and skipped in front of her, almost singing his words. If he had the fool’s shape, he would play the fool’s part to save Perpetua. “Bah, the husk belies the kernel. I am skilledin philtres—I can cast love spells as well as the straightest and the smoothest.”
“Love-making has mended your wits,” said Lycabetta. “So you no longer think yourself the King.”
Robert laughed wildly. “King or no king,” he gibbered, “I sway a maid’s heart.” He was playing his part bravely, for the air seemed full of voices calling, “Save Perpetua!”
“Does the girl accept you?” Lycabetta questioned.
“Accept me?” Robert echoed, gleefully. “I have so overcome her that she will woo me in season and out of season. I shall boast the most loving, patient spouse in Christendom. Mark, now, how my bird flies to a call. Come hither, rusticity.”
He beckoned, and Perpetua moved slowly towards him, outwardly calm. “Do you take me for your lord and master?” he asked her.
“Ay,” Perpetua answered.
Lycabetta looked at the girl’s grave face in amaze. “This is a wonder,” she said; “she seems spellbound.”
Robert nodded joyously. “Why, I have cast the glamour upon her, and she will listen to me as the fish listened to St. Anthony. Will you swear to obey me, maiden?”
Again Perpetua answered, “Ay.”
“Are you in league with the devil?” Lycabetta asked, astonished at the girl’s acquiescence.
Robert grinned impishly. “I will not sell my secret. I suppose you do not care how I conquer the maid, so long as I do conquer her.”
“So long as you do what the King wishes,” Lycabetta answered, contemptuously.
“I swear I will do what the King wishes,” Robert retorted. “She shall be humble enough, she shall be wise enough when I am done with her. You are skilled in mischief; but I still could be your school-master. Did you ever hear of Orpheus and his magic lute?”
“What of it?” Lycabetta asked.
“He could pipe so divinely,” Robert related, “that all things must needs follow him, not merely men and women, birds and beasts, but silly stocks and stones; and your phlegmatic stay-at-hometree would needs uproot itself and skip to his jingle. Well, you shall see this intractable virgin follow, lamblike, when I pipe, as I lead the way to my hovel.”
“If you can do this, I shall be glad to be rid of her,” Lycabetta confessed. “I have better use for my hours than the training of country girls.”
Robert came nearer to her, confiding: “I know a spell my master mountebank taught me. A Greek fellow made it, a Roman rogue stole it, an Italian rascal gave a new twist to it; here is the pith of it. Oh, it sounds simple enough, but it will win a matron from her allegiance, a nun from her orisons, a maid from her modesty. See, now, how she will trip to my whistle. Mistress Modesty, Mistress Modesty, follow me home, follow me home, follow me home!”
“PERPETUA MOVED SLOWLY TOWARDS HIM”“PERPETUA MOVED SLOWLY TOWARDS HIM”
He took up the lute Euphrosyne had laid down, and moved around the room slowly, playing a quaint little country-side air in a minor key, while he chanted his song, and, as he went, Perpetua moved slowly after him, as if compelled by the spell of the music:
“By the music of the morn,When equipped with spear and shield,Oberon, the elfin-born,Winding on his wizard horn,Calls the fairies to the field—I conjure thee, maiden, yield!“By the magic of the moon,When Diana from her domeWakes from slumber, woos from swoonAll the folk who fear the noon,Dwarf and kobold, witch and gnome—I conjure thee, maiden, come!“By the beauty, by the blissOf the ancient gods who rideEros, Phœbus, Artemis,Aphrodite, side by side,Through the purple eventide,On the cloudy steeds of Dis—I conjure thee, maiden, kiss.”
“By the music of the morn,When equipped with spear and shield,Oberon, the elfin-born,Winding on his wizard horn,Calls the fairies to the field—I conjure thee, maiden, yield!
“By the magic of the moon,When Diana from her domeWakes from slumber, woos from swoonAll the folk who fear the noon,Dwarf and kobold, witch and gnome—I conjure thee, maiden, come!
“By the beauty, by the blissOf the ancient gods who rideEros, Phœbus, Artemis,Aphrodite, side by side,Through the purple eventide,On the cloudy steeds of Dis—I conjure thee, maiden, kiss.”
Lycabetta watched, astounded, the submission with which Perpetua followed the incantation of the fool. “This is the black magic,” she said; and then asked Perpetua, “Are you content to follow this fool?”
Perpetua paused in her patient following of thesinger, and, looking Lycabetta full in the face, she answered, “Ay.”
Lycabetta raised protesting hands. “And to go with him where he will?” she persisted.
Again Perpetua answered, “Ay.”
Robert interrupted the colloquy with a sweep of the strings that drifted into a new tune with new words:
“Caper, sweeting, while I play;Love and lover, we will strayOver the hills and far away.”
He beckoned to the girl and ambled backward towards the entrance, obediently followed by Perpetua.
As he was about to pass luting through the entrance, Lysidice parted the curtains and entered the room. Robert fell back to give her passage. With a reverence to Lycabetta, she said:
“The Lord Hildebrand waits without.”
The news brought very different thoughts to the three hearers. Lycabetta, always willing to welcome the King’s favorite, gave order gladlyenough to admit him. In Robert’s mind the name rekindled hopes that had died away. His heart’s friend, his brother in arms, the companion of his vices, the flatterer of his follies, he surely would not be deceived by the fantastic transformation. Flinging aside his lute, he shouted, joyously: “Hildebrand! Surely he will know me.”
Perpetua’s heart grew cold at this proof of renewed madness, and she caught him by the arm. “Do not abandon me,” she entreated.
Robert shook her off in his eagerness to greet Hildebrand. “No, no, have no fear—” he promised, hurriedly, pressing forward towards the entrance. The hangings parted and Hildebrand entered, exquisite, debonair, radiant.
“Salutations, sweet lady,” he said, gayly, advancing towards her, but his advance was interrupted by Robert, who rushed forward, exclaiming: “Hildebrand! Hildebrand! do you not know me? Do you not know my voice?”
Hildebrand frowned resentfully on the intruder. “Why are you here, fool!” he grumbled. “Your head and your hump are like to part company.”
Robert gave a great groan and turned away. His last hope had withered. The spell under which he suffered was too potent for his dearest friend to resist; even the eye of comradeship could not pierce through that fleshly mask; even the ear of affection could not discern a familiar voice. Perpetua stood where she was, full of dread at this untimely interruption. Lycabetta tapped her forehead mockingly as she looked from Diogenes to Hildebrand.
“The crazy zany thinks he is the King,” she said.
Hildebrand nodded. “He mimicked the King so pertly yesterday morn that the King doomed him, and fear has so addled his weak wits that he believes himself to be his master.”
“Yet he is a cunning rogue,” Lycabetta added, “for he has won the heart of the woodchuck.”
Hildebrand caught at her words. “I came on that business. Have you obeyed the King?”
“Bravely,” Lycabetta replied. “I flung her to this fool for a marriage morsel, knowing him to be as cruel as he is crooked, and, by our Lady ofLesbos, he has bewitched her, and she follows his songs like a lamb to the sacrifice.”
At the sound of her words, Robert roused himself from his lethargy. “Ay, ay,” he chirped, “you shall see. She will follow where I call. Come, sweetheart, come!”
Again he began to move, and again he was followed by Perpetua. Now, for the first time, Hildebrand caught sight of her and moved forward, captured by her loveliness.
“Is this the King’s fancy?” he asked.
Lycabetta answered: “This is the girl the King sent me to tame and shame for him. Could I do it better than by giving her to this limping devil?”
Hildebrand struck his hands loudly together in protest. “Ay, by the gods, much better. She is far too fair for the first sweetness of her youth to be wasted on a clumsy clown. We are ourselves indifferent good at this taming and the rest, and, like a loyal subject, I will gladly serve the King in this.” He advanced towards Perpetua, but Robert instantly came between them.
“The girl is mine,” he asserted. “You shall not take her from me.”
Hildebrand grinned maliciously. “Gently, beast, gently,” he purred. “You shall have your turn by-and-by. You must give place to your betters, bowback.”
Robert glared at him in hate. “I say you shall not have her!” he repeated.
Lycabetta burst into a fit of laughing. “Have a care, my lord,” she warned; “the fool’s eyes roll horridly, and his mouth twitches. He will do you hurt if you steal his leman.”
“You shall not have her!” Robert insisted, fiercely.
Hildebrand’s affability vanished. “Out of the way, monkey!” he ordered; then, catching Robert lightly by the collar, he cast him aside as easily as he might have cast a kitten. Robert staggered and fell on his knees. Unheeding him, Hildebrand went towards Perpetua. “You lithe idol of the heights,” he asked, smiling, “would you not choose me for your paramour?”
Perpetua looked steadily at her new danger, and her heart was glad to think of the knife that lay hidden in her bosom. “I will go with the fool,” she said.
In the corner where he knelt unnoticed Robert was muttering confused, disjointed prayers to Heaven. The passionate desire to save the girl revived within him, and he implored the Heaven that he had wronged for help.
At Perpetua’s speech, Lycabetta clapped her hands derisively. “I said he had bewitched her.”
“We will exorcise her,” Hildebrand laughed back, and advanced towards the girl. Perpetua drew away a little, regarding Hildebrand with a steadiness that puzzled him, resolved to drive the knife into her heart before he could lay hand on her. To Robert, where he lay huddled, the spinning seconds seemed to be beating against his ears like the booming of great bells, and through their clangor came a babble of brisk voices reproaching him, mocking him. “Now for one hour,” they seemed to say, “of that royal power which you have used so ill, and now might use so nobly.” Again his agony spurred him to supplicate Heaven to send him some thought that might save her, but no thought came; he was weak, helpless, dishonored, and through the darkness ofhis soul the voices of his enemies stabbed him like many arrows.
Lycabetta, seeing how Hildebrand paused for a moment in his advance upon Perpetua, stung him with a sneer.
“Lord Hildebrand, for a lover of ladies you are at a loss. She clings to her cripple.”
Hildebrand, irritated, made a step forward, and again Perpetua moved a step away. Hildebrand frowned, accustomed to conquest.
“You shun me, child,” he protested, “as if I had the plague.”
The plague!
At those words the booming bells ceased, the babbling voices ceased; Robert’s darkness became light; an inspiration told him what to do. He sprang to his feet and advanced towards Hildebrand, barring his way to Perpetua. With outstretched palms, with cringing shoulders, he appealed to Hildebrand, to Lycabetta.
“Sweet lord, sweet lady, I entreat a sweet word with you.”
Perpetua, who had lifted her hand to clasp the handle of the knife, let it fall again. Hildebrand,who had forgotten the fool’s existence, scowled and snarled at him.
“To heel, sirrah, to heel!”
Lycabetta shook with mirth. “You forget, my lord,” she suggested, “that it is the King who addresses you.”
“I’ll wring his majesty’s neck,” Hildebrand answered, savagely, “if he vexes me further.”
“Nay, if he vexes you, there be others for that task,” and Lycabetta struck sharply with a golden hammer upon a golden gong. Immediately the curtains parted and Zal and Rustum entered. At their heels came several of Lycabetta’s women, wondering at the summons.
Lycabetta pointed to Robert.
“Cast the fool forth,” she commanded.
The black slaves descended the steps. Robert turned a mocking, mouthing face towards Lycabetta.
“Wait, wait,” he said; “I have a tale to tell that should divert you much.”
Something in the fool’s fantastic manner, in his grotesque attitude, in his promise of diversion, took Lycabetta’s fitful fancy. She held up ahand and the slaves halted. Robert, who had edged a little nearer to where Perpetua stood, wondering what strange purpose urged the fool, was making singular gestures with his hands, as one inviting, even commanding attention.
“Listen,” he said, and his voice had a strange sound in it of defiance, of dominion, of frightful triumph, that jarred horridly on his hearers. “It was cold on the hills to-night and the wind chilled me. By the road-side near the city’s gate I found one who slept or seemed to sleep. Wait, wait, my tale is wonderful and worth your patience. The sleeper was wrapped in a great mantle. Why should he lie snug while I shivered? I would have killed him sleeping to steal his cloak, but I was spared the pains, for as I twitched at a corner of it the fellow rolled in a lump before me and lay there dead. Wait, wait, your patience shall not be strained to breaking, and my adventure is good hearing. My man lay on his back in the moonlight, staring stupidly, and I who looked saw that his face was drawn and twisted, as if he had died in great pain; his teeth were dropping fromtheir livid gums and his skin was stained and mottled and discolored, blue and black and green, and he seemed to rot as I watched him. But I was cold and I fear nothing, being a fool, so I went my ways, warm in his mantle. What do I care for the plague?”
The plague!
At that name the listeners shivered as if a wind of death had blown through the heavy scented air. Hildebrand drew back in horror, gasping the dreaded words, “The plague!” Lycabetta grew white with fear. “Oh, gods, the plague!” she moaned, groping for support which none gave her. Her women fluttered together paralyzed with terror, and the black slaves recoiled from the one enemy their courage dared not face.
Robert, lifting his hands as if in a kind of hideous benediction, gibbered at their fear.
“The very plague!” he screamed. “The plague is in the port, the plague is on the city, the plague is at your gates! What care I if all Syracuse dies of it! My mantle reeks with its sweat.”
With a rattle of damnable laughter Robert clutched at his mantle, which lay where he had cast it down when he entered, now near his feet. Fluttering it in the air so that its folds seemed to quiver like the pinions of a fiend, he flung it upon Perpetua and swathed it tightly about her unresisting body. To her the plague was better than self-slaughter, as self-slaughter was better than pollution. Still the others cowered, spellbound by their dread.
“Who will woo her now?” Robert screamed, folding her in his arms. “Who now will draw death from her lips? If she dies, she dies mine, and I will sit hunched by her side and watch her white flesh wither.”
While he shrieked he was dragging Perpetua towards the entrance, and now he caught at the silken hangings, while his voice, swelling in volume of malignant imprecation, yelled at his terrified enemies, “The plague! the plague! make way there for the plague!”
There was no one to say him nay. With a scream Lycabetta fell fainting to the floor. Hildebrand was trying to cross himself with nervelessfingers, the women were sobbing hysterically, and the slaves had fled.
Robert and Perpetua passed unchallenged from the room and from the house.
Once in the moonlit darkness of the gardens, maid and man took hands and ran as swiftly as they could through the scented night. They could not go overfast, and it was the maid’s hand that helped the man, not the man’s hand the maid. Perpetua was as fleet as a deer, but the degraded King limped like the fool whose likeness had been flung upon him, and Perpetua had to slacken her speed in order that he might keep pace with her. But there were no signs of pursuit from the house of Lycabetta. The terror of the plague was so great that Robert’s mantle was an unquestionable defence. The most licentious youth in Syracuse would not go near the loveliest woman if he had the least reason to believe that she had been but lightly touched by a plague-spotted garment. Limping and running, their shadowsstreaming behind them on the white path that threaded the cypresses, they reached the golden gates which opened without demur to Robert’s summons in the King’s name, and in another instant they were speeding on the level highway to the city. No word passed between them; the dominant thought of each was to get as far as might be, as soon as might be, from the place sacred to the strange Venus.
Suddenly, as they reached the outskirts of the city, Robert tugged at Perpetua’s hand and stayed her flight. In an angle of a house at the corner of a street there was a niche. In the niche was the image of a saint, and at the feet of the image the little flame of a votive lamp flickered in the soft air. Robert dropped on his knees and buried his face in his hands. Perpetua immediately knelt by his side, and the two fugitives prayed silently, earnestly for some moments. Perpetua’s simple prayer was first that Heaven might be pleased to deliver the fool from his delusion, and next that she might be strengthened to face and accept her threatened fate. Robert’s prayers were incoherent, confused supplications for pity,for pardon, whirling with ejaculations of gratitude for having been permitted to rescue the maid from her enemies.
Perpetua rose first, and stood, observing with infinite pity how the deformed body of the fool shook with the storm of emotions that seemed to convulse him. Suddenly Robert sprang to his feet and faced her.
“Did you hear nothing?” he asked. Perpetua shook her head reassuringly, for she thought that he meant the sound of pursuing feet, but Robert persisted.
“Did you not hear a voice that said, ‘He will cast down the mighty from their seats?’”
“I heard nothing,” Perpetua answered, wondering; then in the darkness the thought of their threatened doom came upon her anew like a black and icy shadow.
“Is there no cure for the plague?” she asked, faintly, her face strained towards his. She almost hated herself for asking; better to die of the plague than to live at the pleasure of Hildebrand. But she was young, and life had been bright. To her astonishment her companion answeredher question with a laugh that twisted his thin cheeks fantastically:
“You need not fear the plague, child,” he said; and as he spoke his voice sounded kinder than she had ever heard it. “My cloak was my own clean mantle, and came from no dead sailor’s carcass. I played on their terrors as I played on the lute-strings. I knew that a whisper of the plague would palsy their hearts, and I conquered them with a lying tale.” He added, in a graver tone: “For the which falsehood I have but now prayed Heaven to forgive me. I hope my one good deed may be pardoned to one in whom there is so much to pardon.”
Perpetua was amazed at the change that had come over the fool. He seemed saner, gentler, and, as she looked at him now in the moonlight, his features did not show so wholly repulsive as she had first esteemed them. Robert read the amazement in her eyes.
“Child,” he said, “do you truly trust me now?”
She extended her hands to him frankly, her heart swelling with gratitude, big with the two-foldjoy of escape from the house of Lycabetta and release from the terror of the plague.
“I do,” she answered, “with all my heart.”
Robert caught at her outstretched hands, and, dropping on his knees in the causeway, kissed them reverentially. Then he rose and faced her, and as he did so it seemed to the maiden that his body was really less distorted than it appeared on a first view.
“Perpetua,” he said, and he named her name very tenderly. “Perpetua, I am going to take you to a place of safety. Such women as Lycabetta, such men as Hildebrand, are ever to be feared; we have fooled them for the hour, but they may learn that they have been befooled, and the knowledge will make them revengeful. There is an ancient church in Syracuse, by the sea, whose crypt communicates with the catacombs that burrow into the rock. Hieronymus is its priest, famous as a good and holy man. He will shelter you, protect you; if there be danger you can hide in the catacombs, where our enemies might seek in vain for a century. Come, shall we go to Hieronymus?”
“Let us go,” she said; then suddenly: “But you, you too are in danger. The King’s anger, the anger of Hildebrand—you must evade these.”
A melancholy smile came over the foolish face and lent it a kind of grace.
“Perhaps the good father may find some nook for me. I do not think his heart will be hard, even to me, a sinner. Come.”
He turned as if to lead the way, then paused and spoke to her again.
“Perpetua,” he said. “Your trust in the fool”—the girl noticed that he shuddered as he spoke, and she wondered—“your trust in the fool is not unwisely placed. In the name of that trust, ask me, I pray you, no questions of my past. Let us believe between us that the fool Diogenes”—and again the convulsive shudder wrung him—“was newly born to-day.”
“I will do as you wish,” she answered, full of amazement at the change which had come to his warped wits.
He took her hand and guided her through the streets of Syracuse to the little church by the sea.The moon shone brightly on them as they went, the moon which swayed Syracuse, making lovers kiss, poets dream, philosophers sigh, children sport, dogs bay. It guided them, benignly, to their goal.
The moon which had shone upon the flight of Perpetua had waxed and waned, and her successor ruled the night in the pride of her first quarter. Early one morning in the new month one of Lycabetta’s women, Lysidice, amber-haired, slender-limbed, with eyes like sapphires, was wandering in the flower-market of Syracuse, seeking the loveliest blooms for her mistress. Lycabetta loved Lysidice above her fellows, for her slim, boyish body, for her quaint, virginal air; she had not yet tired of the morning sport when Lysidice came from the flower-market and pelted her with many colored blossoms. So as Lysidice, eager to please, went hither and thither, seeking ever the best, her attention was attracted by the sight of a man in a friar’s robe, who was buying white roses at a stall. Though friars did not often buyroses in the Syracuse flower-market, the thing was not in itself passing strange, but the fancy of Lysidice, arrested at first by the contrast between the friar in his humble robe, with all that it suggested of denial, and the glory of the brilliant blooms about him, noted that the friar kept his cowl so close about his face as to conceal it completely from view.
The mere fact that the man in thus muffling himself seemed to indicate a desire not to be seen was enough to spur the curiosity of Lysidice into a determination to see. She tiptoed through the flower-stalls and fruit-stalls; she ambushed behind piles of melons; she peeped through clusters of grapes and bunches of lilies. The friar was choosing the loveliest of the white roses; he was eager to choose only the loveliest; as he stooped over them in his eagerness, a little breeze caught for a moment the cowl that hooded him, filled out its folds, and showed a momentary glimpse of features that Lysidice remembered well, the features of the fool who had fled from the house of Lycabetta a month before, bearing with him the girl from the hills and leaving behind him theterror of the plague. In a moment the friar’s lean hand had pulled the hood close again about his cheeks, about his chin, but the glimpse had been enough for Lysidice.
What news would be so welcome to Lycabetta, languorous Lycabetta, as news of the whereabouts of the fool who had caused her so many hours of mortal anguish. Lysidice shivered still in the warm air at the thought of that night when all in the palace of pleasure believed themselves to be plague-stricken, and of the slow relief that came with day and the assurances of the physicians that Hildebrand had at last found strength to seek. There was no plague in the city; the fool had befooled them finely, carrying off his prize and disappearing into an obscurity so profound that no searches could unearth him. And now chance would seem to have given him to Lysidice.
Lilting the burden of a love-song, she passed by the stall where the friar stood, and saw, without seeming to see, how the friar dragged his hood closer about his face and bent lower over the roses. It would never do for her, she knewwell enough, to attempt to follow the fool to his hiding-place. Her bright robes were not made to play the spy in. She strolled unconcernedly to the end of the market, and at the foot of a pillar she saw a small boy leisurely devouring a vast cantle of melon. She beckoned the boy into the cover of a country cart that had carried fruit and vegetables to the market, and from that intrenchment she pointed out to him the friar who was now bearing away his roses, bade the boy follow him, and promised him a silver piece if he would come back with news of the friar’s destination. The boy understood and trotted off after the unconscious friar.
Lysidice had not to wait long for knowledge. In a few minutes the boy came back and told her what she wanted to know; the friar had disappeared within the doors of a little church by the sea-shore, not many yards distant, a church under the charge of an austere religious, Father Hieronymus. Delighted, Lysidice gave the urchin his piece of silver and scurried hot-foot home.
Robert, on his side—for the friar was, indeed,he who wore the fool’s face—had seen Lysidice as she passed him, and had pulled his cowl closer about his face. He did not think she had seen him, deceived by her indifferent air and gait, and when he left the market bearing his burden of white roses, though he glanced behind him now and then, he saw nothing of Lycabetta’s woman, and believed himself in security. It was, therefore, with a contented mind that he pushed open a doorway in the little church by the sea, and passed from the bright sunlight into the cool shade of the pillared place.
With a contented mind! A month had wrought great changes in him. On the night when the two fugitives sped through the darkness and threw themselves on the protection of Father Hieronymus, Robert’s brain, reeling from rebellion and despair to surrender, was too distraught to entertain much else than the wild desire to save Perpetua. But in the mild twilight of the holy place, under the calm authority of Hieronymus, there came to him a strength, a courage of a kind that he had never known before. Hieronymus had welcomed the suppliants. The church communicatedthrough its crypt with some of the many catacombs that pierced the hills of Syracuse into a labyrinth; in one of these it was easy to conceal Perpetua with safety and with some degree of comfort. As for the fool, the church just needed a sacristan; a friar’s robe was soon found and fitted; a brown hood concealed the ugly, haggard face, and the cripple Diogenes, who had been Robert the King, became the willing, patient servant of the little church by the sea.
Robert stood there in the church newly importuned by the memories of a month that had seemed at once as brief as a noon-day dream and yet to stretch into an age-long quiet. He recalled the gentle gravity with which Hieronymus had listened to the tale of flight, and had forgiven him in the name of Heaven for a fraud that had saved from dishonor the body of a Christian maid. He recalled the gentle strength with which Hieronymus had silenced him when he told for the last time his wild tale of transformation, and declared that he was Robert of Sicily. The rest of his memories were of peaceful hours of service, starred by golden moments of sight of Perpetua,of speech with Perpetua. A strange resignation came to reign in his fevered brain. He had been King—surely he had been King—but now he was no longer King; it had pleased Heaven to cast him from his kingship and to lead him in his degradation to thoughts and deeds undreamed of in his hours of greatness. There were times when he could wellnigh believe, dreamily, that what those nearest to him, Perpetua and Hieronymus, believed was indeed the truth, and that he was in very fact the fool Diogenes, who had lain in the maleficent moonlight on the mountain summit, and dreamed in his madness that he was the lord of Sicily. Moments truly came of fierce rebellion, but they were fewer now, and even while they racked him, the thought of Perpetua brought with it resignation to his fate. She had taught him the meaning of service, of patience, of love.
Quietly he set down his basket of roses; quietly he took from a corner a broom, and, opening the door that gave upon the sea, he reverently swept the little church. As he worked at his humble toil, he mused on the doings of him who was nowKing of Sicily, how point by point, in his tyrannies, he followed out the plans that had been hatched in Robert’s head. How would it end for Perpetua—how would it end for Sicily? He scarcely thought to ask how it would end for himself. Sometime, when it could be safely done, Perpetua should escape to Italy; he would be with her as her servant, his hands would toil for her. Already he had learned to weave baskets, and it was with the money that he got through Hieronymus for these that he had bought the roses which were to adorn the altar of the church.
As he thought, his task was ended, the floor of the little church was clean.
“Swept,” he murmured to himself as he laid his broom aside, and taking up the basket of white roses proceeded to set them tenderly upon the altar.
“Garnished,” he murmured again, as he stepped back a little way and regarded his handiwork with a greater pleasure than he had ever known, in days now dim as dreams, in the pageants and the festals of Naples. The little church was nowthe kingdom in which he lived, not as king, but as its lowliest servitor; yet he breathed in it a spirit of content such as he had never known before. Those solemn pillars, those gloomy spaces, those narrow staircases set in the thickness of the walls, were the landmarks, were the confines of his home. The colored light that poured through the windows of painted glass, mottling the stone flooring with splendid patches of yellow and blue and red, gave the gray place to his sad eyes a pomp beyond the pride of courts. Here and there in the darkness dim lamps burned, the beacons for him of inexpressible havens. Portions of the walls were covered with votive offerings—little models of ships that had been set there by sailors, grateful for succor in storm and escape from shipwreck, wreaths and pictures and crosses and images of saints, emblems all of a simple piety that his racked spirit was slowly learning to understand. In front of him was the altar with its image of Our Lady of the Sea, curiously and beautifully wrought in silver, the figure of the Divine Woman on a space of tumbling sea. At the left of the altar, in a niche inthe wall hard by, stood the most precious relic of the church, a huge iron cross more than seven feet in height, which had been carried on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem by the founder of the church. On the right of the altar was the golden railing and gateway on which the eyes of Robert always rested in joy, for behind it lay the space of sanctuary, the spot where Perpetua had found a shelter from her enemies. Yet close to this railing rose a pillar, the sight of which always had power to banish any joy from Robert’s eyes. Down its length hung a thick rope running through iron rings set in the stone-work. That rope conducted to a bell on the roof of the church. That bell had been set there in the spring of the reign of King Robert the Good for this purpose, that if any man in his kingdom thought he was wrongly used by its King, he had but to drag at the rope to set the great bell ringing, whose sound, tolling over the city, called all good citizens together to hear and decide upon the complaint of the subject against the King. In such a benignant spirit had Sicily been ruled in the days of Robert the Good.
One white rose remained in his fingers. He lifted it to his lips and kissed it reverently. Then he laid it down before the gilded gateway of the sanctuary, with the thought in his mind that perhaps her foot might touch it as she passed and make it sacred. Then he lit a taper at a lamp, and in obedience to the order given him by Father Hieronymus the previous night, he carried the tiny flame to each of the candles on the altar, till all were lighted. This task done, he prostrated himself on the steps before the shrine and prayed aloud.
“Heaven,” he supplicated—“Heaven, against whom I have sinned so deeply, hear my prayer for the white child who has led Thy light into my dark. Shield her from danger. Keep holy her who is holy.”
As his voice died away into silence, he still knelt with bent head and clasped hands, so steeped in penitential thoughts that he did not hear the sea-door open, did not hear the entrance of a man, grizzled, bronzed, eagle-faced, ascetic, clad in the brown robe of his order. Father Hieronymus paused for a moment, seeing withgratification the kneeling figure before the altar. It would be the sweetest triumph of a life of ceaseless struggle with the Prince of the Power of the Air to save alive the soul of the distracted fool.
Hieronymus advanced to the kneeling figure. “My son,” he said, gently.
Robert leaped to his feet at the sound of the familiar voice, and moved to meet Hieronymus.
“Father, when we came to you a month ago and begged for shelter, I told you how I lied to save the girl, pretending to be plague-stricken.”
Hieronymus inclined his head. “And I absolved you.”
Robert spoke in a lower voice, almost a whisper. “I told you, too, that I was Sicily, Robert himself, lapped in this hideous shape.”
Hieronymus raised a warning hand. “Does that delusion still vex you?” he asked, sadly.
Robert bowed his head. “My spirit is free from many delusions,” he whispered; “but I did not tell you that I, unlovely as I am, I lovePerpetua. Her hand has led me, her voice has inspired me. If ever I be saved she will have saved me.”
The grave face of Hieronymus looked kindly pity upon the fool in the friar’s gown.
“God chooses the time and the way. An earthly love may win the grace of Heaven.”
Robert sighed. “My hopeless love is happy service. Daily my spirit creeps a little nearer to the light.”
Hieronymus beat his breast.
“Daily the tyrant of Sicily grows more wicked, reeling like a madman from crime to crime. The island groans beneath him more piteously than the imprisoned Titan groans beneath Mount Etna.”
Robert turned away from Hieronymus with a bitter sigh. “God forgive me,” he said to himself, “for he does the deeds I meant to do!”
Hieronymus did not heed the agitation of his companion; he stood as if listening to some distant sound. “Son, do you hear...?” he questioned.
Robert came swiftly to his side, listened,heard, and answered: “The measured tread of many feet. They seem to walk mournfully over my heart.”
“Look out, my son,” Hieronymus commanded, “and tell me what you see.”
Robert opened the door that gave upon the sea, looked out, and answered, sadly: “A company of men and women, all in black. They seem weighed down with sorrow.”
“These,” said Hieronymus, grimly, “are the noblest folk in Sicily, flying into exile from the tyrant’s lust and greed.”
Robert stood motionless, frozen with sorrow.
“These,” he said, in his heart, “are the just and righteous whom I meant to vex and banish.”
As in a dream he heard the voice of Hieronymus calling to him: “My son, give me that iron cross, the cross of the founder of our church. They shall salute it for the last time.”
Robert, going to the wall where the relic stood, tried vainly to lift the cross. Its weight mocked his efforts, and he turned, gasping and trembling, to Hieronymus. “Father, I cannot. The sinews of the fool are too feeble to lift it.”
Hieronymus gave a cry of compassion.
“Forgive me. It is heavy, and taxes my strength to move.”
In his turn he moved to the cross, lifted it with an effort from its place, and carried it with difficulty to the altar, where he rested it for the new-comers to see.
The ache in Robert’s heart was crueler than the ache in Robert’s arms.
“I was once so proud of my strength,” he murmured.
He moved towards the altar, and seated himself on the lowest step, huddled in grief, while Hieronymus, mounting to the altar, turned to face the new-comers. Through the sea-door came a company of men and women, all dressed in black, who ranged themselves, kneeling, in front of the altar.
Hieronymus addressed the kneeling mourners. “My brethren, are ye going forth into exile?”
An old man rose and spoke.
“From the land where I was born, from the soil where my father’s fathers sprang, I now mustgo a wanderer, houseless, penniless. Woe to the wicked King!”
He knelt again.
Robert, where he crouched, muttered to himself, “I have sinned, I have sinned, I have grievously sinned.”
Next a young woman rose and spoke.
“I and these other women with me, we must fly from the land of our life and of our love. For the honor of no woman is safe in the reign of Robert the Bad, and the feet of good women go not in his halls. Woe to the wicked King!”
She knelt again.
Robert, where he crouched, muttered to himself, “I have sinned, I have sinned, I have grievously sinned.”
A young man rose and spoke.
“No youth with a clean spirit can live in peace in Sicily. Only the man who will sell his wife, the brother who will betray his sister, the lover who will surrender his sweetheart, may find favor with the tyrant. Woe to the wicked King!”
He knelt again.
Robert, where he crouched, muttered to himself,“I have sinned, I have sinned, I have grievously sinned.”
Robert’s face was very pale, his body shook with anguish, and he crouched more and more upon the steps of the altar.
A soldier rose and spoke.
“I am not squeamish; I have seen cities sacked, but I will not serve this man-beast. I will carry my sword over-seas. I will follow the flag of some gallant captain, and die remembering Sicily. Woe to the wicked King!”
He knelt again.
Robert, where he crouched, muttered to himself, “I have sinned, I have sinned, I have grievously sinned.”
He heard Hieronymus give his benediction—“Benedicto vos in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” A thought came to Robert, he crept to Hieronymus, plucking at his sleeve:
“Father,” he whispered, “may I, who am so sore afflicted, speak to these unhappy?”
Hieronymus rested his hand gently on Robert’s shoulder as he again addressed the kneeling figures.
“Brethren,” he said, “lo, here is one of the tyrant’s victims. Speak, my son.”
He moved aside a little to give Robert more space, resting his hand upon the iron cross. Robert, his face hidden in his hood, addressed the mourners.
“Brethren,” he wailed, “I am the most unhappy soul in Sicily, for God has cursed me with a fearful curse. At night I dream I am this wicked King, and all day long the evil of his deeds grinds down my heart. But in my misery I have heard words more sweet than honey, more fragrant than myrrh, which if you will guard them in your hearts will be to you as wells in the waste places, as orchards in the sand, as shade of palm and strength of manna in the weary, hungry land. ‘He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree.’”
He would have fallen if Hieronymus’s strong arms had not sustained him. With one voice all the wanderers echoed his words.
“‘He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree.’”
The wanderers rose very slowly from theirknees and went very slowly out at the sea-door, followed by Hieronymus, who almost carried Robert in his arms to the outer air.
For some minutes the little church was empty and dark and silent. Then a side door opened and a woman and a man entered, coming from a quiet street. The woman was Lycabetta; the man was Hildebrand. Hildebrand looked curiously around him.
“Why have you brought me here?” he asked.
“Answer me first,” Lycabetta replied. “How is the King?”
Hildebrand shrugged his shoulders. “Bloody of purpose, and yet bloodless. Lustful of purpose, and yet loveless. In his prisons many wait for death, but none perish; for the King has sworn that none shall die before the fool Diogenes, and we cannot find the fool. The loveliest women of Sicily have been torn from their homes to his palace, but they have not seen the King, for he will love no woman until he has found the girl Perpetua. And the girl cannot be found.”
Lycabetta whispered in his ear:
“Listen; this morning in the flower-market myLysidice noted a hooded friar who bought white roses. A wind stirred his cowl and she saw the face of Diogenes.”
Hildebrand started.
“Was she sure?”
“’Tis no face to forget,” Lycabetta answered; “though she swears it less frightful than of old. She made no sign, but she bribed a child to follow the false friar, and the brat ran him to earth here.”
Hildebrand grinned savagely.
“If they be here, no fable of the plague shall save them this time.”
Lycabetta caught him eagerly by the arm and drew him behind a concealing pillar. She had seen the sea-door open and had seen a figure in a friar’s gown.
“Who is this?” she whispered triumphantly to Hildebrand.
Robert came through the sea-door. Inside the church he threw back his hood and his face was plainly visible to the watchers, themselves invisible, screened by the pillars and the gloom. Hildebrand pressed Lycabetta’s hand significantly.He had seen all he wanted to see. The pair slipped quietly out by the door through which they had entered. Robert advanced slowly to the altar and flung himself on the steps.
“Dear God,” he prayed, “let not the guiltless suffer for my guilt. Punish me to the top of my sin, but pity Sicily.”
Out of the shadow-land at the back of the altar emerged a white figure, with a fair face and hair the color of flame. She moved unheard across the pavement of the place of sanctuary; unheard she pushed open the little golden wicket in the golden railing; unheard she noted the white rose where it lay upon the ground, and, picking it up, lifted it to her lips before she placed it in her girdle; unheard she moved to where Robert lay in his agony before the altar.
“Friend,” she whispered, softly.
Robert’s consciousness awoke from its dark dreams. He rose and faced the girl, naming her name with joy.
“Perpetua!”
Perpetua came close to him.
“You have been abroad. Have you any news of my father?”
Robert shook his head.
“He is still kept close in the palace; his sword is still idle. The King has doomed many to death, but it seems that none shall die until the fool dies—and they cannot find the fool,” he added, with a grim laugh.
Perpetua looked at him with sad affection and said, earnestly, “I wish you would fly from Sicily.”
Robert answered her as earnestly, “I wish you would fly from Sicily.”
“I will not leave my father.”
“I will not leave you in danger.”
Perpetua, smiling, gently chided. “All men live in danger through each second of each minute. I do not know the color of fear.”
Robert drew a little nearer to her and spoke with a warning voice.
“I fear for you. This morning I saw in the market-place one of the women of Lycabetta. She did not see me, but to see her renewed my fear. If danger should come here ring at thisbell,” and he pointed to the great rope on the column by the altar. “It was set here by King Robert the Good, that any man having cause of complaint against the King might ring it and rouse all Syracuse to sit in judgment between sovereign and subject. In all his reign no hand ever tugged at that cord.”
Perpetua looked at it sadly. “Every hand in Syracuse might itch to clasp it in the reign of Robert the Bad.”
There were tears in Robert’s eyes as he echoed her.
“Robert the Bad. You might have loved him,” he said, after a short silence.
Perpetua turned away, for now there were tears in her eyes. “Oh, I know nothing of love,” she said.
Robert saw her sadness and combated his own to cheer her. “Is it not strange,” he asked, “your loveliness knows nothing of love while my unloveliness is cunning in love-wisdom? Year in and year out I have watched the world a-wooing—shepherd and shepherdess under the hawthorn hedge, knight and dame in the rose-bower, king and queen on the marble terrace.”
She turned to him again and there were now no tears in her eyes; grief should not conquer her and she spoke brightly, entering into the spirit of his speech.
“A prodigal preface. But what is the sum of all your wisdom?”
The wild fancy which had come into Robert’s brain when he spoke of love-wisdom grew with the moment into a wild resolve. The lips of the fool should interpret the heart of the King. He motioned to her to sit on the lowest of the steps that led to the altar place, and when she had done so he seated himself thereon. The sunlight fell between them and lay, a pool of many colors at their feet. Neither of them knew that the little side door, which led from the quiet street, opened a little, allowing a woman to slip into the church and vanish behind the shadow of a pillar.
Robert spoke in a slow voice. “Love is the soul of the world. I am no better than a mouthing fool, but I believe the perfect lover to be next of kin to the angels.”
Perpetua gave a little sigh. “What is the perfect lover?” she asked, softly. She felt as ifshe were back in her mountain hut, sitting by her father’s side, and asking him questions of the youth of the world. Robert’s voice came back to her like a solemn chant.
“Such a one as the many dull would meanly scorn and the few wise nobly envy. For him love comes like a mighty wind of fire and burns his heart clean. He may have been stained and spotted in the slough of life, but when the woman comes she saves him.”
There was a nobleness in his voice which she had not noted before; it charmed and lulled her.
“Can human love do so much?” she asked, more of herself than of him.
Robert’s voice rose in triumphant assertion. “The heart’s woman is the soul’s star. She lifts her lover from the common whirl of things. He is thrilled with the elemental wonder, fulfilled with the immortal truth. He shelters imperishable passion in the perishable flesh. To a gray world such love brings glory, and he that is so graced walks in the wilderness as in a rose garden—gentle in reverence, loyal in honor, simple in faith. His eyes have glimpses of the flight ofangels; his ears hear snatches of the music of the spheres, and even the very dust he treads upon becomes the golden dust of stars. This is the love that is mightier than death, this is the mystery of mysteries, the rose of changeless youth.”
Perpetua put her hand to her heart.
“Is there such love?” she breathed, and instantly Robert answered her and his answer came like music to her ears.
“There is such love. It is no dream, but a glorious reality transfiguring the world, exalting men, immortalizing women. If I could woo you with a hunter’s voice, I would cry to you through the parted leaves: Perpetua, I love you with this mighty love, have loved you since that happy forest day, shall love you so, Perpetua, till I die, and bear as my one claim to opened heaven the changeless cry, I love Perpetua.”
While Robert was speaking his face seemed to grow comelier, and the pale face of Perpetua showed the influence of his words. Her eyes shone with his enthusiasm, her lips quivered with his emotion, her cheek flushed with his inspiration; she was entirely under the spell of his speech andthe associations it evoked. As he came to an end she rose as if entranced, and moved slowly towards him. He, too, rose, as if himself bewitched by the magic of his tongue, and stood with parted arms as if to clasp and welcome her. Each had forgotten time and place, both were again in the green wood with their hearts on fire.
“Hunter, my hunter,” Perpetua cried; “your voice comes through the leaves and conquers me!”
Her eyes were half closed, her hands stretched out; she swayed towards him.
Robert sprang forward with a mighty cry. “Perpetua!”
She was almost in his arms; suddenly her opened eyes realized that she was confronted by the rugged visage of the fool. She drew back with a start, and put her hands to her eyes as if to brush away the dream that had possessed her.
Robert, who had advanced like a conqueror, fell back like a slave.
“Ah!” Perpetua moaned. “What have you said to me? I have dreamed a dream.”
With a heavy sigh Robert answered her, striving to smile.
“I too have dreamed a dream. As the golden words glowed from my brain they worked a spell upon me, and for a moment I, the hideous cripple, fancied myself young and comely, the lover of my vision. Forgive me, Perpetua.”
“What is there to forgive?” Perpetua answered. “I have slept waking, have dreamed with open eyes, and in my dream I seemed to hear a voice that carries all the music of the world, which called me by my name and made me come to it.”
“Perpetua!” Robert pleaded.
But she went on speaking, unheeding him, as if she were indeed still under the influence of a dream.
“I was again in the green wood; the fountain bubbled at my feet. Strong hands parted the curtain of green leaves, and through the gap came sunlight—sunlight and the hunter with eyes like mountain lakes; and as I moved to meet him the vision vanished. Are you a wizard?”
Robert could now command himself.
“No,” he said; “only a fool who teases his soul with Elysian fancies. But the strings of the lute have snapped; they were made of heartstrings,and a thought too fine for the work. I will play that air no more.”
She did not seem to notice the sorrow in his voice; she longed for solitude. “Leave me a little while to myself,” she entreated. “I want to be alone and pray.”
Robert looked at her wistfully; for a few golden moments he had known youth again, and hope, and the speech of passionate love, had seen the woman he worshipped come to him under the spell of his words. Now he was again God’s outcast.
“The will of Heaven be done,” he murmured to himself; then to Perpetua he said, quietly, “When you pray, pray for your poor servant, for I think your pure voice must soar at once into the courts of Heaven.”
Perpetua smiled kindly at him. “Dear Diogenes,” she said; and with that name ringing in his ears Robert went slowly out through the sea-door. Perpetua turned and knelt at the altar, praying,
“Dear Mother of Mercy, help me to forget the hunter’s face!”