[image]t was late on the following evening, when in the hermitage of Nilus of Gaëta, Eckhardt woke from the death-like stupor which had bound his limbs since the terrible scenes of the previous night. Thanks to the antidotes applied by the friar as soon as he reached the open, the deadly effect of the poison had been stemmed ere it had time to penetrate Eckhardt's system, but even despite this timely precaution, the benumbing effect of the drug was not to be avoided, and during the time when the stupor maintained its sway Nilus had not for a moment abandoned the side of his patient. A burning thirst consumed him, as he awoke. Raising himself on his elbows and vainly endeavouring to reconcile his surroundings, the monk who was seated at the foot of his roughly improvised bed rose and brought him some water. It was Nilus himself, and only after convincing himself that the state of the Margrave's condition was such as to warrant his immediately satisfying the flood of inquiries addressed to him, did the hermit go over the events of the preceding night, starting from the point where Eckhardt had lost consciousness and his own intervention had saved him.Eckhardt's hand went to his head which still felt heavy and ached. His brain reeled at the account which Nilus gave him, and there was a choking dryness in his throat when the friar accused Theodora of the deed."For such as she the world was made. For such as she fools and slaves abase themselves," the monk concluded his account. "Pray that your eyes may never again behold her accursed face."Eckhardt made no reply. What could he say in extenuation of his presence in the groves? And by degrees, as consciousness and memory returned, as he strained his reasoning faculties in the endeavour to find some cause for the woman's attempt to poison him, after having mocked him with her fatal likeness to Ginevra—his most acute logic could not reconcile her actions. For a moment he tried to persuade himself that he was in a dream, and he strove in vain to wake from it. It was amazing in what brief time and with what vividness all that could render death terrible, and this death of all most terrible, rushed upon his imagination. Despite the languor and inertness which still continued, one terrible certainty rose before him. Far from having solved the mystery, it had intensified itself to a degree that seemed to make any further attempt at solution hopeless. During the twilight consciousness of his senses numerous faces swam around him,—but of all these only one had remained with him, Ginevra's pale and beautiful countenance, her sweet but terrible eyes. But the ever-recurring thought was madness.—Ginevra was dead.But the hours spent in the seclusion of the friar's hermitage were not entirely lost to Eckhardt. They ripened a preconceived and most fantastic plan in his mind, which he no sooner remembered, than he began to think seriously of its execution.A second night spent in Nilus's hermitage had sufficiently restored Eckhardt's vitality to enable him to leave it on the following morning. After having taken leave of the monk, confessing himself his debtor for life, the Margrave chose the road toward the Imperial palace, as his absence was likely to give rise to strange rumours, which might retard or prevent the task he had resolved to accomplish. He was in a state bordering on nervous collapse, when he reached the gates of the palace, where the Count Palatine, in attendance, ushered him into an ante-room pending his admission to Otto's presence. Eckhardt's thoughts were gloomy and his countenance forbidding as he entered, and he did not notice the presence of Benilo, the Chamberlain. When the latter glanced up from his occupation, his countenance turned to ashen hues and he stared at the leader of the imperial hosts as one would at an apparition from the beyond. The hands, which held a parchment, strangely illuminated, shook so violently that he was compelled to place the scroll on the table before him. Eckhardt had been so wrapt in his own dark ruminations that he saw and heard nothing, thus giving Benilo an opportunity to collect himself, though the stereotyped smile on the Chamberlain's lips gave the lie to his pretense of continuing interested in the contents of the chart which lay on the table before him.But Benilo's restlessness, his eagerness to acquaint himself with the purpose of Eckhardt's visit, did not permit him to continue the task in which the general's entrance had found him engaged. The Chamberlain seemed undaunted by Eckhardt's apparent preoccupation of mind."We have just achieved a signal victory," he addressed the Margrave after a warm greeting, which was to veil his misgivings, while his unsteady gaze roamed from the parchment on the table to Eckhardt's clouded brow. "The Byzantine ceremonial will be henceforth observed at the Imperial court.""What shall it all lead to?" replied Eckhardt wearily."To the fulfilment of the emperor's dream," Benilo replied with his blandest smile, "his dream of the ten-fold crown of Constantine Porphyrogenitus.""I thought the Saxon crown weighed heavily enough.""That is because your crown is material," Benilo deigned to expound, "not the symbolic crown of the East, which embodies all the virtues of the gold and iron. It was a stupendous task which confronted us—but together we have solved the problem. In the Graphia, after much vain research and study, and in the 'Origines' of Isidor, we found that which shall henceforth constitute the emblem of the Holy Roman Empire; not the Iron Crown of Lombardy, nor the Silver Crown of Aix-la-Chapelle, nor the Golden Crown of Rome—but all three combined with the seven of the East.""Ten crowns?" exclaimed Eckhardt aghast. "On the emperor's frail brow?""Nay," spoke Benilo, with the same studied smile upon his lips, while he relinquished not for a moment the basilisk gaze with which he followed every movement of the Margrave. "Nay! They oppress not the brow of the anointed. The Seven Crowns of the East are: The crown of Ivy, the crown of the Olive, the crown of Poplar Branches and Oak, the crown of Laurels, the Mitra of Janus, the crown of the Feathers of the Pea-fowl, and last of all the crown set with diamonds, which Diocletian borrowed from the King of the Persians and whereon appeared the inscription: 'Roma Caput Mundi Regit Orbis Frena Rotundi.'"Eckhardt listened half dazed to this exhibition of antiquarian learning on the part of the Chamberlain. What were these trifles to avail the King in establishing order in the discordant chaos of the Roman world?But Benilo was either in excellent spirits over the result of his antiquarian researches which had made him well nigh indispensable to Otto, and into which he condescended to initiate so unlettered an individual as Eckhardt; or he tormented the latter with details which he knew wearied the great leader, to keep his mind from dwelling on dangerous matters. Thus continuing his information on these lines with a suave air of superiority, he cited the treatise of Pigonius concerning the various modes of triumph and other antiquated splendours as enumerated in the Codex, until Eckhardt's head swam with meaningless titles and newly created offices. Even an admiral had been appointed: Gregory of Tusculum. In truth, he had no fleet to command, because there existed no fleet, but the want had been anticipated. Then there were many important offices to be filled, with names long as the ancient triumphal course; and would not the Romans feel flattered by these changes? Would they not willingly console themselves with the loss of their municipal liberties, knowing that Hungary, and Poland, Spain and Germany were to be Roman provinces as of old?Eckhardt saw through it all.Knowing Otto's fantastic turn of mind, Benilo was guiding him slowly but surely away from life, into the wilderness of a decayed civilization, whose luring magic was absorbing his vital strength. Else why this effort to rear an edifice which must crumble under its own weight, once the architect was removed from this hectic sphere?With the reckless enthusiasm of his character the imperial youth had plunged into the deep ocean of learning, to whose shores his studies with Benilo conducted him. The animated pictures which the ponderous tomes presented, into whose dust and must he delved, the dramatic splendour of the narrative in which the glowing fancies of the chroniclers had clothed the stirring events of the times, deeply impressed his susceptible mind, just as the chords of Æolian harps are mute till the chance breeze passes which wakes them into passionate music. Gerbert, now Sylvester II, had no wish to stifle nor even to stem this natural sensibility, but rather to divert its energies into its proper channels, for he was too deeply versed in human science not to know that even the eloquence of religion is cold and powerless, unless kindled by those fixed emotions and sparkling thoughts which only poetical enthusiasm can strike out of the hard flint of logic.But now the activity of Otto's genius, lacking the proper channels, vented its wild profusion in inert speculation and dreamy reverie. Indistinct longings ventured out on that shimmering restless sea of love and glory, which his imagination painted in the world, a vague yearning for the mysterious which was hinted at in that mediæval lore.All things were possible in those legends. No scent of autumn haunted the deep verdure of those forests, even the harsh immutable laws of nature seemed to yield to their magic. Death and Despair and Sorrow were but fore-shadowed angels, not the black fiends of Northern imagery. Their heroes and heroines died, but reclining on beds of violets, the songs of nightingales sweetly warbling them to rest.And the son of the Greek princess resented fiercely any intrusion in to his paradise. It was a thankless task to recall him to the hour and to reality.The appearance of a page, who summoned Eckhardt into Otto's presence, put an end to Benilo's effusive archæology, and as the Margrave disappeared in the emperor's cabinet, Benilo wondered how much he knew.What transpired during his protracted audience remained for the present the secret of those two. But when Eckhardt left the palace, his brow was even more clouded than before. While his conference with Otto had not been instrumental in dissipating the dread misgivings which tortured his mind, he had found himself face to face with the revelation that a fraud had been perpetrated upon him. For Otto disclaimed all knowledge of signing any order which relieved Eckhardt of his command, flatly declaring it a forgery. While its purpose was easy to divine, the question remained whose interest justified his venturing so desperate a chance? Eckhardt parted from his sovereign with the latter's full approval of the course his leader intended to pursue, and so far from granting him the dispensation once desired, Otto did not hesitate to pronounce the vision which had interposed at the fatal moment between Eckhardt and the fulfilment of his desire, a divine interposition.Slowly the day drew to a close. The eve of the great festival approached.When darkness finally fell over the Capitoline hill, the old palace of the Cæsars seemed to waken to a new life. In the great reception hall a gorgeous spectacle awaited the guests. The richly dressed crowds buzzed like a swarm of bees. Their attires were iridescent, gorgeous in fashions borrowed from many lands. The invasion of foreigners and the enslavement of Italy could be read in the garbs of the Romans. The robes of the women, fashioned after the supreme style of Constantinople, hanging in heavy folds, stiff with gold and jewels, suggested rather ecclesiastical vestments. The hair was confined in nets of gold.Stephania, the consort of the Senator of Rome, was by common accord the queen of the festival which this night was to usher in. Attracting, as she did on every turn, the eyes of heedless admirers, her triumphant beauty seemed to have chosen a fit device in the garb which adorned her, some filmy gossamer web of India, embroidered with moths burning their wings in flame.Whether or no she was conscious of the lavish admiration of the Romans, her eyes, lustrous under the dark tresses, were clear and cold; her smile calm, her voice, as she greeted the arriving guests, melodious and thrilling like the tones of a harp. Amid the noise and buzz, she seemed a being apart, alien, solitary, like a water lily on some silent moon-lit pool. At last a loud fanfare of trumpets and horns announced the arrival of the German king. Attended by his suite the son of Theophano, whose spiritualized beauty he seemed to have inherited, received the homage of the Senator of Rome, the Cavalli, Caetani, Massimi and Stephaneschi. Stephania was standing apart in a more remote part of the hall, surrounded by women of the Roman nobility. Her face flushed and paled alternately as she became aware of the commotion at the entrance. The airy draperies of summer, which revealed rather than concealed her divine beauty, gave her the appearance of a Circe, conquering every heart at sight.As she slowly advanced toward the imperial circle, with the three appropriate reverences in use, the serene composure of her countenance made it seem as if she had herself been born in purple. But as Otto's gaze fell upon the consort of the Senator of Rome, he suddenly paused, a deep pallor chasing the flush of joy from the beardless face. Was she not the woman he had met at the gates of the confessional? A great pain seized his heart as the thought came to him, that she of whom he had dreamed ever since that day, she in whose love he had pictured to himself a heaven, was the consort of another. Before him stood Stephania, the wife of his former foe, the wife of the Senator of Rome. And as he gazed into her large limpid eyes, at the exquisite contour of her head, at the small crimson lips, the clear-cut beauty of the face, of the tint of richest Carrara marble, Otto trembled. Unable to speak a word, fearful lest he might betray his emotions, he seized the white, firm hand which she extended to him with a bewitching smile."So we are to behold the King's majesty, at last," she said with a voice whose very accent thrilled him through and through. "I thought you were never going to do us that honour,—master of Rome, and master—of Rome's mistress."Her speech, as she bent slightly toward him, whispering rather than speaking the last words, filled Otto's soul with intoxication. Stunned by the manner of his reception, her mysterious words still ringing in his ears, Otto muttered a reply, intelligible to none but herself, nerving his whole nature to remain calm, though his heart beat so loudly that he thought all present must hear its wild throbs even through his imperial vestments.As slowly, reluctantly he retreated from her presence, to greet the rest of the assembled guests, Otto marked not the meaning-fraught exchange of glances between the Senator of Rome and his wife. The smiles of the beautiful women around him were as full of warning as the scowls of a Roman mob. Once or twice Otto gazed as if by chance in the direction of Stephania. Each time their eyes met. Truly, if the hatred of Crescentius was a menace to his life, the favour of Stephania seemed to summon him to dizzy, perilous heights.At last the banquet was served, the company seated and amidst soft strains of music, the festival took its course. Otto now had an opportunity to study in detail the galaxy of profligate courtiers and beauties, which shed their glare over the sunset of Crescentius's reign. But so absorbed was he in the beauty of Stephania, that, though he attempted to withdraw his eyes, lest their prolonged gaze should attract observation, still they ever returned with increased and devouring eagerness to feast upon her incomparable beauty, while with a strange agony of mingled jealousy and anger he noted the court paid to the beautiful wife of Crescentius by the Roman barons, chief among them Benilo. It seemed, as if the latter wanted to urge the king to some open and indiscreet demonstration by the fire of his own admiration, and, dear as he was to his heart, Otto heaved a sigh of relief at the thought that he had guarded his secret, which if revealed, would place him beyond redemption in the power of his enemy, the Senator.Stephania herself seemed for the nonce too much absorbed in her own amusements to notice the emotions she had evoked in the young king of the Germans. But when she chanced to turn her smiling eyes from the Senator, her husband, she suddenly met the ardent gaze of Otto riveted upon her with burning intensity. The smile died on her lips and for a moment the colour faded from her cheeks. Otto flushed a deep crimson and played in affected indifference with the tassels of his sword, and for some moments they seemed to take no further heed of each other. What happened at the banquet, what was spoken and the speakers, to Otto it was one whirling chaos. He saw nothing; he heard nothing. The gaze of Stephania, the wife of Crescentius, had cast its spell over him and there was but one thought in his mind,—but one dream in his heart.At the request of some one, some of the guests changed their seats. Otto noted it not. Peals of laughter reverberated through the high arched Sala; some one recited an ode on the past greatness of Rome, followed by loud applause; to Otto it was a meaningless sound. Suddenly he heard his own name from lips whose tones caused him to start, as if electrified.Stephania sat by his side. Crescentius seemed conversing eagerly with some of the barons. Raising her arm, white as fallen snow, she poured a fine crimson wine into a goblet, until it swelled to the golden brim. There was a simultaneous bustle of pages and attendants, offering fruits and wine to the guests, and Otto mechanically took some grapes from a salver which was presented to him, but never for a moment averted his gaze from Stephania, until she lifted the goblet to her lips."To thee!" she whispered with a swift glance at Otto, which went to his heart's core. She sipped from the goblet, then, bending to him, held it herself to his lips. His trembling hands for a moment covered her own and he drank strangely deep of the crimson wine, which made his senses reel, and in the trance in which their eyes met, neither noticed the sphinx-like expression on the face of Benilo, the Grand Chamberlain.But if the wine, of which Otto had partaken with Stephania, was not in reality compounded of magic ingredients, the most potent love philtre could scarcely have been more efficacious. For the first time it seemed as if he had yielded up his whole soul and being to the fascination of marvellous beauty, and with such loveliness exhausting upon him all its treasures of infinite charm, wit and tenderness, stirred by every motive of triumph and rivalry,—even if a deceptive apology had not worked in his own mind, it would scarcely have been possible to resist the spell.The banquet passed off in great splendour, enlivened by the most glittering and unscrupulous wit. Thousands of lamps shed their effulgence on the scene, revealing toward the end a fantastic pageant, descending the grand stair-case to some equally strange and fantastic music. It was a procession of the ancient deities; but so great was the illiterate state of mind among the Romans of that period, that the ideas they represented of the olden time were hopelessly perplexed and an antiquarian, had there been one present, would have thrown up his hands in despair at the incongruous attire of the pagan divinities who had invaded the most Christian city. During this procession Otto's eyes for the third time sought those of Stephania. She seemed to feel it, for she turned and her lips responded with a smile.The night passed like some fantastic dream, conjured up from fairy land. And Otto carried his dreaming heart back to the lonely palace on the Aventine.CHAPTER IVTHE SECRET OF THE TOMB[image]hile the revelling on the Capitoline hill was at its height, Eckhardt had approached Benilo and drawing him aside, engaged him in lengthy conversation. The Chamberlain's countenance had lost its studied calm and betrayed an amazement which vainly endeavoured to vent itself in adequate utterance. He appeared to offer a strenuous opposition to Eckhardt's request, an opposition which yielded only when every argument seemed to have failed. At last they had parted, Eckhardt passing unobserved to a terrace and gaining a path that led through an orange grove behind the Vatican gardens. A few steps brought him to a gate, which opened on a narrow vicolo. Here he paused and clapped his hands softly together. The signal was repeated from the other side and Eckhardt thereupon lifted the heavy iron latch, which fastened the gate on the inner side and, passing out, carefully closed it behind him. Here he was joined by another personage wrapt in a long, dark cloak, and together they proceeded through a maze of dark, narrow and unfrequented alleys. Lane after lane they traversed, all unpaved and muddy. Another ten minutes' walk between lightless houses, whose doors and windows were for the most part closed and barred, and they reached an old time-worn dwelling with a low unsightly doorway. It was secured by strong fastenings of bolts and bars, as though its tenant had sufficient motives for affecting privacy and retirement. The very nature of his calling would however have secured him from intrusion either by day or by night, from any one not immediately in need of his services. For here lived Il Gobbo, the grave digger, a busy personage in the Rome of those days. Eckhardt and his companion exchanged a swift glance as they approached the uncanny dwelling; eyeless, hoary with vegetation, rooted here and there, the front of the house gave no welcome. Eckhardt whispered a question to his companion, which was answered in the affirmative. Then he bade him knock. After a wait of brief duration, the summons was answered by a low cough within. Shuffling footsteps were heard, then the unbarring of a door, followed by the creaking of hinges, and the low bent figure of an old man appeared. Il Gobbo, the grave digger wore a loose gray tunic, which reached to his knees. What was visible of his countenance was cadaverous and ashen gray, as that of a corpse. His small rat-like eyes, whose restless vigilance argued some deficiency or warping of the brain, a tendency, however remote, to insanity, scrutinized the stranger with marked suspicion, while a long nose, curving downward over a projecting upper lip, which seemed in perpetual tremor, imbued his countenance with something strangely Mephistophelian.In a very few words Eckhardt's companion requested the grave digger to make ready and follow them, and that worthy, seeing nothing strange in a summons of this sort, complied at once, took pick and spade, and after having locked and barred his habitation, asked his solicitor to which burial grounds he was to accompany them."To San Pancrazio," was Eckhardt's curt reply. The silence had become almost insufferable to him, and something in the manner of his speech caused the grave digger to bestow on him a swift glance. Then he preceded them in silence on the well-known way.It was a wonderful night.There was not a breath of air to stir the dying leaves of the trees. The clouds, which had risen at sunset in the West, had vanished, leaving the sky unobscured, arching deep blue over the yellow moon.As they approached the Ripetta, the grave digger suddenly paused and, facing the Margrave and his companion, inquired where the corpse was awaiting them.A strange, jarring laugh broke from Eckhardt's lips."Never fear, my honest friend! It is a very well conditioned corpse, that will play us no pranks and run away. Corpses do sometimes—so I have been told. What think you, honest Il Gobbo?"The grave digger bestowed a glance upon his interlocutor, which left little doubt as to what he thought of his patron's sanity, then he crossed himself and hastened onward. The Tiber lay now on their left, and an occasional flash revealed the turbid waves rolling down toward the sea in the moonlight. Eckhardt and his companion exchanged not a word, as silently they strode behind their uncanny guide. On their left hand now appeared the baths of Caracalla, their external magnificence slowly crumbling to decay, waterless and desolate. Towering on their right rose the Caelian hill in the moonlight, covered with ruins and neglected gardens. The rays of the higher rising moon fell through the great arches of the Neronian Aqueduct and near by were the round church of St. Stephen and a cloister dedicated to St. Erasmus. As they proceeded over the narrow grass-grown road, the silence which encompassed them was as intense as among the Appian sepulchres. At the gate of San Sebastiano, all traces of the road vanished. A winding path conducted them through a narrow valley, the silence of which was only broken by the occasional hoot of an owl, or the flitting across their path of a bat, which like an evil thought, seemed afraid of its own shadow. Then they passed the ancient church of Santa Ursula, which for many years formed the center of a churchyard. The path became more sterile and desolate with every step, only a few dwarfish shrubs breaking the monotony, to make it appear even more like a wilderness, until they came upon a ruined wall, and following its course for some distance, reached a heavy iron gate. It gave a dismal, creaking sound as Il Gobbo pushed it open and entered the churchyard of San Pancrazio in advance of his companions.Pausing ere he continued upon a way as yet unknown to him, he again turned questioningly toward his mysterious summoners, for as far as his eye could reach in the bright moonlight, he could discover no trace of a funeral cortege or ever so small number of mourners. Instead of satisfying Il Gobbo's curiosity, Eckhardt briefly ordered him to follow him, and the grave digger, shaking his head with grave doubt, followed the mysterious stranger, who seemed so familiar with this abode of Death. They traversed the churchyard at a rapid pace, until they reached a mortuary chapel situated in a remote region. Here Eckhardt and his companion paused, and the former, turning about and facing Il Gobbo, pointed to a grave in the shadows of the chapel."Know you this grave?" the Margrave accosted the grave digger, pointing to the grass-plot at his feet.The grave digger seemed to grope through the depths of his memory; then he bent low as if to decipher the inscription on the stone, but this effort was in so far superfluous, as he could not read."Here lies one Ginevra,—the wife of the German Commander—"He paused, again searching his memory, but this time in vain."Eckhardt," supplied the Margrave himself."Eckhardt—Eckhardt," the grave digger echoed, crossing himself at the sound of the dreaded name."Open the grave!" Eckhardt broke into Il Gobbo's babbling, who had been wondering to what purpose he had been brought here.Il Gobbo stared up at the speaker as if he mistrusted his hearing, but made no reply."Open the grave!" Eckhardt repeated, leaning upon his sword.Il Gobbo shook his head. No doubt the man was mad; else why should he prefer the strange request? He looked questioningly at Eckhardt's companion, as if expecting the latter to interfere. But he moved not. A strange fear began to creep over the grave digger."Here is a purse of gold, enough to dispel the qualms of your conscience," Eckhardt spoke with terrible firmness in his tones, offering Il Gobbo a leather purse of no mean size. But the latter pushed it back with abhorrence."I cannot—I dare not. Who are you to prefer this strange request?""I am Eckhardt, the general! Open the grave!"Il Gobbo cringed as though he had been struck a blow from some invisible hand."I dare not—I dare not," he whined, deprecating the proffered gift. "The sin would be visited upon my head.—It is written: Disturb not the dead."A terrible look passed into Eckhardt's face."Is this purse not heavy enough? I will add another.""It is not that—it is not that," Il Gobbo replied, almost weeping with terror. "I dread the vengeance of the dead! They will not permit the sacrilege to pass unpunished.""Then let the punishment fall on my head!" replied Eckhardt with terrible voice. "Take your spade, old man, for by the Almighty God who looks down upon us, you will not leave this place alive, unless you do as you are told."The old grave digger trembled in every limb. Helplessly he gazed about; imploringly he looked up into the face of Eckhardt's immobile companion, but he read nothing in the eyes of these two, save unrelenting determination. Instinctively he knew that no argument would avail to deter them from their mad purpose.Eckhardt watched the old man closely."You dug this grave yourself, three years ago," he then spoke in a tone strangely mingled of despair and irony. "It is a poor grave digger who permits his dead to leave their cold and narrow berth and go forth among the living in the form they bore on earth! It has been whispered to me," he continued with a terrible laugh, "that some of your graves are shallow. I would fain be convinced with my own eyes, just to be able to give your calumniators the lie! Therefore, good Il Gobbo, take up your spade with all speed, and imagine, as you perform your task, that you are not opening this grave to disturb the repose of her who sleeps beneath the sod, but preparing a reception to one still in the flesh! Proceed!"The last word was spoken with such menace that the grave digger reluctantly complied, and taking up the spade, which he had dropped, he pushed it slowly into the sod. Leaning silently on his sword, his face the pallor of death, Eckhardt and his companion watched the progress of the terrible work, watched one shovel of earth after the other fly up, piling up by the side of the grave; watched the oblong opening grow deeper and deeper, till after a breathless pause of some duration the spade of the grave digger was heard to strike the top of the coffin.Il Gobbo, who all but his head stood now in the grave, looked up imploringly to Eckhardt, hoping that at the last moment he would desist from the terrible sacrilege he was about to commit. But when he read only implacable determination in the commander's face, he again turned to his task and continued to throw up the earth until the coffin stood free and unimpeded in its narrow berth."I cannot raise it up," the old man whined. "It is too heavy.""We will assist you! Out it shall come if all the devils in hell clung to it from beneath. Bring your ropes and bring them quickly! Hear you?" thundered Eckhardt in a frenzy. His self-enforced calm was fast giving way before the terrible ordeal he was passing through."Would it not be safer to go down and open the lid?" questioned Eckhardt's companion, for the first time breaking the silence."There is not room enough,—unless the berth is widened," Eckhardt replied. Then he turned to Il Gobbo, who was slowly scrambling out of the grave."Widen the berth—we will come down to you!"The grave digger returned to his task; then after a time, which seemed eternity to those waiting above, his head again appeared in the opening. One shovel of earth after another flew up at the feet of Eckhardt and his companion. Again and again they heard the spade strike against the coffin, till at last something like a groan out of the gloom below informed them that the task had been accomplished."Have you any tools?" Eckhardt shouted to Il Gobbo."None to serve that end," stammered the grave digger."Then take your spade and prise the lid open!" cried Eckhardt. He was trembling like an aspen, and his breath came hard through his half-closed lips. The expression of his face and his demeanour were such as to vanquish the last scruples of Il Gobbo, who belaboured the coffin with much good will, which was mocked by the result, for it seemed to have been hermetically sealed.After waiting some time in deadly, harrowing suspense, Eckhardt addressed his companion."I hate to abase my good sword for such a purpose,—but the coffin shall be opened." And without warning he bounded down into the grave, while Il Gobbo, thinking his last moment at hand, had dropped pick and spade, and stood, more dead than alive, at the foot of the grave.Picking up the grave digger's spade, Eckhardt dealt the coffin such a terrific blow that he splintered its top to atoms. A second blow completely severed the lid, and it lurched heavily to one side, lodging between the coffin and the earth wall.The ensuing silence was intense.The moon, which had risen high in the heavens, illumined with her beams the chasm in which Eckhardt stood, bending over the coffin. What his eyes beheld was too terrible for words to express. Only one tress of dark silken hair had escaped the dread havoc of death, which the open coffin revealed. It was a sight such as would cause the blood to freeze in the veins of the bravest. It was the visible execution of the judgment pronounced in the garden of Eden: "Dust thou art, and to dust thou shall return."Only one dark silken tress of all that splendour of body and youth!Eckhardt leaped from the grave and stood aside, leaving it for his companion to give his final instructions to Il Gobbo, the grave digger, and the reward for his night's labour.As they strode from the churchyard of San Pancrazio, neither spoke. The havoc of death, which Eckhardt's eyes had beheld, the contrast between the image of Ginevra, such as it lived in his memory, and the sight which had met his eyes, had re-opened every wound in his heart. No beam of hope, no thought of heavenly mercy, penetrated the night of his soul. His heart seemed steel-cased and completely walled up. He could not even shed a tear. One hour had worked a dreadful transformation. Silently the Margrave and his companion left the churchyard. Silently they turned toward the city. At the base of Aventine, Benilo parted from Eckhardt, himself more dead than alive, promising to see him on the following day. He dared not trust himself even to ask Eckhardt what he had seen. There would be time enough when his terrible frenzy had subsided.As Eckhardt continued upon his way, he grew more calm. The feast of Death, which he had dared to break into, while for a time completely stupefying him with its horrors, seemed at least to have brought proof positive, that whoever Ginevra's double, it was not Ginevra returned to earth. There was much in that thought to comfort his soul, and after the fresh air of night had cooled his fevered brow, saner reflections began to gain sway over his whirling brain.But they did not endure. What he had seen proved nothing. Another body might have been substituted in the coffin. The supposition was monstrous indeed—yet even the wildest surmises seemed justified when thrown in the scales against the fatal likeness of the woman who had drawn him from the altars of Christ, had frustrated his design to become a monk, and had, as he believed, attempted his life. Could he but find the monk who had conducted the last rites! He had searched for him in every cloister and sanctuary in Rome, yet all those of whom he inquired disclaimed all knowledge of his abode. Several times the thought had recurred to Eckhardt of returning to the Groves, to seek a second interview with the woman, and thus for ever to silence his doubts. But a strange dread had assailed and restrained him from the execution. There was something in the woman's eyes he had never seen in Ginevra's, and he felt that he would inevitably succumb, should he ever again stand face to face with her. He almost wished that he had followed Benilo's advice,—that he had refrained from an act prompted by frenzy and despair. Vain regrets! He must find the monk, if he was still in Rome. Though everything and everybody seemed to have conspired against him nothing should bend him from his course.CHAPTER VTHE GROTTOS OF EGERIA[image]or the following day the Senator of Rome had arranged a Festival of Pan, and the place appointed for the divertissement was one which the Seneschal of the Decameron might have chosen as fit for the reception of his luxurious masters, where every object was in harmony with the delicious and charmed existence which they had devised in defiance of Death. Arcades of vines, bright with the gold and russet foliage of autumn, ascended in winding terraces to a height, on which they converged, forming a spacious canopy over an expanse of brightest emerald turf, inlaid with a mosaic of flowers. In the centre there was a fountain, which sent its spray to a great height in the clear air, refreshing soul and body with the harmony of its waters. Between the interstices of the vines, magnificent views of the whole surrounding country were offered to the eye, to which feature perhaps, or to the effect of a dazzling variety of late roses, which grew among the vines, and the lofty cypresses which made the elevation a conspicuous object in every direction, it owes its present designation of Belvedere.Stephania's spell had worked powerfully on its intended victim. Surrounded by everything which could kindle the fires of Love and stimulate the imagination, exposed to the influence of her marvellous beauty and the infinite charm of her individuality, Otto was devoured by a passion, which hourly increased, despite the struggle which he put forth to resist it. Stephania's absence had taught him how necessary she had become to his existence, and although he was well informed that she rarely quitted Castel San Angelo, he was yet tortured by the wildest fancies, entirely oblivious that he had given all his youth, his love, his heart to a beautiful phantom,—the wife of another, who could never be his own. And though he endeavoured to reason with his madness, though he questioned himself where it would lead to, in what strange manner he had absorbed the poison which rioted in his system, it was of no avail. The dictates of Fate vanquish the paltry laws of mortals. This love had come to him unbidden—uncalled. Why must the soul remain for ever isolated when the unbounded feast of beauty was spread to all the senses? And was it not too late to retreat? It was the last trump of the tempter.He won.As he approached the Minotaurus, Otto's hope brightened with the tints of the rainbow. For the first time since his return from Monte Gargano he had discarded his usual cumbrous habiliments, and though his garb was still that prescribed by the court ceremonial, it added much to display his princely person to advantage. Confiding much more in the secrecy of his movements than in the protection of his attendants, Otto had left the palace on the Aventine unobserved and arrived in the vale of Egeria with a whirl of passion and a rush of recollections, which not only took from him all power, but every wish of resistance,—a far more dangerous symptom.Stephania's duenna was in waiting and informed him that the latter had dismissed her ladies to amuse themselves at their pleasure in the gardens, while Stephania herself was wreathing a garland for the evening in the Egerian Grotto, which formed the centre of the fantastic labyrinth called the Minotaurus, from an antique statue of the monster which adorned it. Slipping a ring of great value on the old dame's finger, as a testimony, he said, of his gratitude, for watching over her mistress, Otto hastened onward. His heart beat so heavily when he came within view of the rose-matted arches leading to the ancient grotto, that he was obliged to pause to recover his breath. At that moment a voice fell upon his ear, but it was not the voice of Stephania, and with a feeling almost of suffocation in the intensity of his passion, Otto drew aside the foliage to ascertain whether or not his senses had belied him.The figure of the Minotaurus was cast in bronze, a monstrous bull, crouched, head to the ground, on the marble pavement of the temple. Passing the statue, Otto made for the grotto indicated by his guide, and, raising the tapestry of ivy, which concealed it, disappeared within. Guided by the warm evening light to its entrance, he hesitated as if apprehending some treachery. Then, with quick determination he groped his way into the cavern, paused somewhat suddenly and looked about.It was deserted, but a faint glimmer lured him to the background, where a fountain gleamed in the purple twilight."Rash mortal," said a voice, in tones that made his heart jump to his throat, "I think you are now as near as devout worshippers are wont to approach to my waves, though, as one of the initiated, the vestal nymphs of these caves bid you very welcome.""I have kept my faith," Otto replied, pausing before the veiled apparition which sat on the rim of the fountain. "But your veil hides you as effectually from my gaze as a mountain."His agitation betrayed itself in his wavering tones."Are you afraid," she asked, noting his hesitancy, "lest I should prove the fiend who tempted Cyprianus?""All fears redouble in the darkness. Let me see your face!""Why have you come here?""Why have you summoned me?""Perhaps to test your courage.""I fear nothing!""One word of mine, one gesture,—and you are my prisoner."Otto remained standing. His face was pale, but no trace of fear appeared thereon."I trust you.""I am a Roman,—and your enemy! I am the enemy of your people!""I trust you!""Suppose I had lured you hither to end for ever this unbearable state?""I trust you!"Stephania's eyes cowered beneath Otto's gaze. Rising abruptly she averted her head, but every trace of colour had left her face as she raised the veil. Then she turned slowly and extended her hand. Otto grasped it, pressing it to his lips in an ecstasy of joy, then he drew her down to the seat she had abandoned, kneeling by her side.For a moment she gazed at him thoughtfully."What do you want of me?" she then asked abruptly."I would have you be my friend," he stammered, idol-worship in his eyes."Is a woman's friendship so rare a commodity, that you come to me?" she replied, drawing her hand from him."I have never known woman's love nor friendship,—and it is yours I want."Stephania drew a long breath. Truly,—it required no effort on her part to lead him on. He made her task an easy one. Yet there rose in her heart a spark of pity. The complete trust of this boy-king was to the wife of Crescentius a novel sensation in the atmosphere of doubt and suspicion in which she had grown up. It was almost a pity to shatter the temple in which he had placed her as goddess.The mood held sway but a moment, then with a cry of delirious gayety, she wrote the word "Friendship" rapidly on the water."Look," she said, "scarcely a ripple remains! That is the end. Let us but add another word, 'Farewell'—and let the trace it shall leave tell when we shall meet again."The words died on Otto's lips. He could not fathom the lightning change which had come over her. With mingled sadness and passion he gazed upon the lovely face, so pale and cold."Let us not part thus," he stammered.Stephania had risen abruptly, shaking herself free of his kneeling form."What is it all to lead to?" she questioned.Otto rose slowly to his feet. Reeling as if stunned by a blow, he staggered after her."Do not leave me thus," he begged with outstretched arms.Stephania started away from him, as if in terror."Do not touch me,—as you are a man—"Otto's hand went to his head. Was he waking? Was he dreaming? Was this the same woman who had but a moment ago—He had not time to think out the thought.He felt his neck encircled by an airy form and arms, and lips whose sweetness made his senses reel were breathlessly pressed upon his own.But for an evanescent instant the sensation endured.A voice whispered low: "Otto!"When he tried to embrace the mocking phantom he grasped the empty air.He rushed madly forward, but at this instant there arose a wild uproar and clamour around him. The silver moon on the fountain burst into a blaze of whirling light, which illumined the whole grotto. The shrill summons of a bell was to be heard as from the depths of the fountain, and suddenly the verdant precincts were crowded with a most extraordinary company, shouting, hooting, laughing, yelling, and waving torches. Satyrs, nymphs, fauns, and all varieties of sylvan deities poured out of every nook and cranny by which there was an entrance, all shrieking execration on the profaner of the sacred solitudes and brandishing sundry weapons appropriate to their qualities. The satyrs wielded their crooked staves, the fauns their stiff pine-wreaths, the nymphs their branches of oak, and a loud clamour arose. But by far the most formidable personages were a number of shepherds with huge boar-spears, who made their appearance on every side."Pan! Pan!" shouted a hundred voices. "Come and judge the mortal who has dared to profane thy solitudes. Echo—where is Pan?"Distant and faint the cry came back:"Pan! Where is Pan?"For a moment Otto stood rooted to the spot, believing himself in all truth surrounded by the rural gods of antiquity. He stared at the scene before him as on some strange sorcery. But suddenly a suspicion rushed upon him that he was betrayed, either to be made the jest of a company of carnival's revellers, or, perhaps, the object of vengeance of the Senator of Rome.Gazing round with a quick fear in his heart, at finding himself thus completely surrounded, and meditating whether to attempt a forcible escape, he was startled by the shrill shriek of sylvan pipes and attended by a riotous company of satyrs, Pan on his goat-legs hobbled into the grotto, the satyrs playing a wild march on their oaken reeds."Silence! Where is the guilty nymph who has lured the mortal hither?" shouted the sylvan god."Egeria! Egeria!" resounded numerous accusing voices."At thine old tricks again luring wisdom whither it should least come?" questioned Pan, severely. "Yes, hide thyself in thy blushing waves! But the mortal,—where is he?""Here! Here!" exclaimed the nymphs with one voice. "Had it been old Silenus or one of his satyrs,—we had not wondered.""The King! the King!" resounded on all sides amidst a general outburst of laughter.Otto became more and more convinced that the scene had been enacted to mock him, and though he did not understand the drift of their purpose, at which Stephania had doubtlessly connived, a cold hand seemed to clutch his heart."In very truth, you have the laughing side of the jest," he turned to the Sylvan god. "But if you will confront me with the nymph, I will prove that at least we ought to share in equal punishment," Otto concluded his defence, endeavouring to make the best of his dangerous position."This shall not be!" exclaimed a nymph near by. "Bring him along and our queen shall judge him."Ere Otto could give vent to remonstrance, he found himself hemmed in by the shepherds with their spears. His doubts as to the ultimate purpose of the revellers seemed now to call for some imperative decision, but while he remembered the dismal legends of these haunts, his lips still tingled with the magic fire of Stephania's kiss and it seemed impossible to him that she could really mean to harm him. Still he had grave misgivings, when suddenly a mocking voice saluted him and into the cave strode Johannes Crescentius, Senator of Rome,—apparently from the valley without, a smiling look of welcome on his face."Fear nothing, King Otto," he said jovially. "Your sentence shall not be too severe. Your forfeit shall be light, if you will but discover and point out to us the nymph who usurped the part of Egeria, that we may further address ourselves to her for her reprehensible conduct."The feelings with which Otto listened to this beguiling and perhaps perfidious statement may be imagined. But he replied with great presence of mind."It were a vain effort indeed to recognize one nymph from another in the gloom. Lead on then, since it is the Senator of Rome who guarantees my immunity from the fate of Orpheus."Marching like a prisoner of war and surrounded by the shepherd spearmen, Otto affected to enter into the spirit of the jest and suffered himself quietly to be bound with chains of ivy which the least effort could snap asunder. The moment he stepped forth from the grotto his path was beset by a multitude of the most extraordinary phantoms. The surrounding woods teemed with the wildest excrescences of pagan worship; statues took life; every tree yielded its sleeping Dryad; strange melodies resounded in every direction; Nayades rose in the stream and laughingly showered their spray upon him. With a cheerful hunting blast Diana and her huntresses appeared on an overhanging rock and darted blunt arrows with gilded heads at him, until he arrived at an avenue of lofty elms, whose overarching branches, filigreed by the crimson after-glow of departing day, resembled the interior of a Gothic cathedral and formed a natural hall of audience fit for the rural divinities. Bosquets of orange trees, whose ivory tinted blossoms gleamed like huge pearls out of the dark green of the foliage, wafted an inexpressibly sweet perfume on the air.The vista terminated in an open, semi-circular court, surrounded by terraces of richest emerald hue, in the midst of which rose an improvised throne. The rising moon shone upon it with a light, like that of a rayless sun, and Otto discovered that the terraces were thronged with a splendid court, assembled round a woman who occupied the throne.As the prisoner approached, environed by his grotesque captors, laughter as inextinguishable as that which shook the ancient gods of Olympus on a similar occasion, resounded among the occupants of the terrace. Continuing his forced advance, Otto discovered with a strange beating of the heart in the splendidly attired queen, Stephania, the wife of Crescentius.A bodice of silver-tissue confined her matchless form, which with every heave of her bosom threw iridescent gleams, and a diadem which shone as with stars, so bright were its jewels, flashed upon her brow.She looked a queen indeed, and but for the ivory pallor of her face it would have been impossible to guess that she was in any way concerned with the object of the strange pageant, which now approached her throne.The sphinx-like countenance of the Senator of Rome seemed to evince no very great enthusiasm in the frolic; the invited guests appeared not to know how to look, and took their cue from the Lord of Castel San Angelo.When Otto was at last brought face to face with his fair judge, his own pallor equalled that of Stephania, and both resembled rather two marble statues than beings of flesh and blood. Stephania's lips were tightly compressed, and when Pan recited his accusation, complaining of an attempt to profane his solitudes and to misguide one of his chastest nymphs, so far from overwhelming the culprit with the laughing raillery of which she was mistress and an outburst of which all seemed to expect, Stephania was silent and kept her eyes fixed on the ground, as if she feared to raise them and to meet Otto's burning gaze."Answer, King of the Germans," urged Crescentius with a smile, "else you are lost!""The charges are too vague," Otto replied. "Let Pan, if he has any witness, of what has happened, allege particulars—and if he does—by his crooked staff, even my accusers shall acquit me without denial on my part."General mutterings and suppressed laughter followed this singular defence, during which Stephania's countenance took all the pallid tints, which the return of his consciousness and dignity had chased from Otto's cheeks.But she did not think it wise to prolong the scene."Since the august offender," she said hastily and without lifting her long silken lashes, "cannot discover among my retinue the nymph who enticed him into the grotto, I pronounce this sentence upon him: 'Let his ignorance be perpetual.'"Then she invited him to a seat in the circle over which she presided and her graciousness obviously caused Otto's spirits to rise, for, starting up, as it were, into new existence at the word, he took his station in a manner which enabled him to see Stephania's face and her glorious eyes.At the beck of her hand there now approached a band of musicians and the effect of their harmonies beneath the hushed and now star-resplendent skies was inexpressibly delicious. The dreams of Elysium seemed to be realized. These indeed seemed to be the happy fields, in the atmosphere of which the delighted spirit was consoled for every woe, and as Otto almost unwittingly gazed upon the woman before him, so passionately loved and to him lost for ever; as he marked the languor and melancholy which had stolen over her countenance, he could hardly restrain himself from throwing himself and all he called his, at her feet.Emperor and king though he was,—the one jewel he craved lay beyond the confines of his dominion.After the conclusion of the serenade, the nymphs of Stephania's retinue showered their flowers upon the sylvan gods, who eagerly scrambled over them, when Stephania started up, as from a dream."How is this?" she hurriedly exclaimed, "I still hold my flowers? And you are all matched by the chances of the fragrant blossoms? But King Otto is likewise without his due share, and so it would seem that fate would have him my companion at the collation awaiting us. Therefore, my lords and ladies, link hands as the flow'ry oracles direct. I shall follow last with my exalted guest."Otto did not remark the quick glance which flashed between Crescentius and his wife. The ladies of Stephania's retinue immediately conformed to the expressed wish of the hostess by taking the arms of the cavaliers who had chanced upon their flowers.A number of pages, beautiful as cupids, lighted the way with torches which flamed with a perfumed lustre, and the procession moved anew towards the grotto, where, during their absence, a repast had been spread. But the last couple had preceded them some twenty paces, ere Stephania, without raising her eyes, took Otto's motionless arm.The memory of all that had passed, a natural feeling of embarrassment on both sides, prolonged the silence between them. Stephania doubtlessly fathomed his thoughts, for she smiled with a degree of timidity not unmingled with doubt, as she broke the silence.The question, though softly spoken, came swift as a dart and equally unexpected."Have you ever loved, King Otto?"Otto looked up with a start into her radiant face.He had anticipated some veiled rebuke for his own strange conduct, anything,—not this.He breathed hard, then he replied:"Until I came to Rome, I never gazed on beauty that won from me more than the applause of the eye, which a statue or a painting, equally beautiful, might have claimed."She nodded dreamily."I have heard it said that the blue-eyed, sunny-haired maidens of your native North make us Romans appear poor in your sight!""Not so! The red rose is not discarded for the white. The contrast only heightens the beauty.""I have heard it said," Stephania continued, choosing a circuitous path instead of the direct one her guests had taken, "that you Teutons have ideals even, while you starve on bread and water. And I have been told that, were you permitted to choose for your life's companion the most beautiful woman on earth, you would hie yourselves into the gray ages of the world's dawn for the realization of your dreams. Has your ideal been realized, since you have established your residence in Rome, King Otto?"There was a brief pause, then he replied, looking straight ahead:"Love comes more stealthily than light, of which even the dark cypresses are enamoured in your Italian noondays.""You evade my question.""What would you have me say?"She gave him a quick glance, which set his pulses to throbbing wildly and sent the hot blood seething through his veins."Is your heart free, King Otto?"A drear sense of desolation and loneliness came over the youth."Free," he replied almost inaudibly.She gave a little, nervous laugh."But how know you that, surrounded by such loveliness, as that which you have this very night witnessed in my circle, your hour may not strike at last?"Otto raised his eyes to those of the woman by his side."Fair lady, beautiful as Love's oracle itself, my heart is in little danger even from your fairest satellites. But mistake not my meaning. I am not insusceptible to the fever of the Gods! Love I have sought under all forms and guises! And if I found it not, if I have listened to its richest eloquence as to some song in a foreign tongue, which my heart understood not,—it is not that I have lacked the soul for love. Love I found not, though phantoms I have eagerly chased in this troubled dream of life. What avails it, to contend with one's destiny? And this is mine!"Stephania laughed."You speak like some hoary anchorite from the Thebaide. Truly, now I begin to understand, why your chroniclers call you the 'Wonder-child of the World.' Lover, idealist, and cynic in one!""Nay—you wrong me! Cynic I am not! My mother was a princess of Greece. The fairest woman my eyes ever gazed upon—save one! She died in her youth and beauty, following my father, the emperor, into his early grave. I was left alone in the world, alone with the monks, alone in the great gloom of our tall and spectral pines! The monks understood not my craving for the sun and the blue skies. The whiter snows of Thuringia chilled my heart and froze my soul! I longed for Rome—I craved for the South. My dead mother's blood flows in my veins. Hither I came, braving the avalanches and the fever and the wrath of the electors, I came, once more to challenge the phantoms of the past from their long forgotten tombs, to make Rome—what once she was—the capital of the earth. Rome's dream is Eternity!"Stephania listened in silence and with downcast eyes.Never had the ear of the beautiful Roman heard words like these. The illiteracy, vileness, and depravity of her own countrymen never perhaps presented itself to her in so glaring a contrast, as when thrown into comparison with the ideal son of the Empress Theophano and Otto II, of Saracenic renown. His words were like some strange music, which flatters the senses, that try in vain to retain their harmonies.There was a pause during which neither spoke.Otto thought he felt the soft pressure of Stephania's arm against his own."You spoke of one who alone might challenge the dead empress in point of fairness," the woman spoke at last and her voice betrayed an emotion which she vainly strove to conceal. "Who is that one?""Why do you ask?""Theophano's beauty was renowned. Even our poets sing of her.""I will tell you at some other time.""Tell me now!""We are approaching the grotto. Your guests are waiting.""Tell me now!""Crescentius is expecting us. He will be wondering at our tardiness.""Tell me now!"Otto breathed hard."Oh, why do you ask, Stephania, why do you ask?""Who is the woman?"The question fell huskily from her lips.The answer came, soft as a zephyr that dies as it passes:"Stephania!"Quickening their steps they reached the grotto, without daring to face each other. The woman's heart throbbed as impetuously as that of the youth, as they found themselves at the entrance of the Grotto of Egeria in a blaze of light, emanating from innumerable torches artfully arranged among the stalactites, which diffused brilliant irradiations. The sumptuous dresses of the nobles and barons blazed into view; the spray from the fountain leaped up to a great height and descended in showers of liquid jewels of iridescent hues.A collation of fruits and wines wooed the appetite of the guests on every hand. Sweet harmonies floated from the adjoining groves, and, amidst a general buzz of delight and admiration, Stephania took her seat at the festal board between the Senator of Rome and the German king.The flower of beauty, wit and magnificence of the Senator's Roman court had been culled to grace this festival, for there was no one present, who was not remarked for at least one of these attributes, some even by the union of all. The most beautiful women of Rome surrounded the consort of the Senator, who outshone them all. Even envy could not deny her the crown.Nevertheless, and for the first time, perhaps, Stephania seemed to misdoubt the supremacy and power of her great beauty, and while she affected being absorbed in other matters, her eye watched with devouring anxiety every glance of her exalted guest, whose feverish vivaciousness betrayed to her his inmost thoughts.The Senator's countenance was that of the Sphinx of the desert. He appeared neither to see nor to hear.Otto meanwhile, in order to remove from his path the terrible temptation which he felt growing with every instant, in order to divert Eckhardt's attention, who he instinctively felt was watching his every gesture, and to stifle any possible suspicions, which Crescentius might entertain, affected to be struck with the appearance of one of Stephania's ladies, who resembled her in stature and in the colour of her hair. He intentionally mistook her for the fairy in the grotto, laughingly challenging her acquaintance, which she as merrily denied, declaring herself to be the wife of one of the barons present. But Otto would not be convinced and attached himself to her with a zeal, which brought on both many pointed jests on the part of the assembled revellers.Stephania immediately observed the ruse, but as her eye met that of the Senator, an unaccountable terror seized her. She turned away and pretended to join her guests in their merriment. Among those present were some of the most imaginative and prolific minds of an age, otherwise dark and illiterate, yet the brilliant play and coruscations of Stephania's wit, the depth of some of the glittering remarks which fell from her lips, were not surpassed by any. At times she exhibited a tone of recklessness almost bordering on defiance and mockery, the lightning's power to scorch as well as to illumine, but when relapsing into what appeared her more natural mood, it was scarcely possible to resist the grace and seductiveness of her manner. Even the doctrines, which half in gayety, half in haughty acceptance of the character assigned to her on this evening, she promulgated, full of poetical epicureanism, fell with so sweet a harmony from her lips, that saints could not have wished them mended.Otto, meanwhile, continued to play his serf-assigned part, but he lost not a single word or gesture of Stephania and his fervour towards his chosen partner rose in proportion with Stephania's gayety. But he did not fail to observe that her siren-smile was directed towards himself and his soul drank in the beams of her beauty, as the palm-tree absorbs the fervid suns of Africa, motionless with delight.While gayety and convivial enjoyment seemed at their height, Eckhardt strode from the grotto, unobserved by the revellers and entered a secluded path leading into the remoter regions of the park. Otto's predilection for the wife of the Senator of Rome had escaped him as little as had her own seeming coquetry, and he had looked on in silence, until, seized with profound disgust, he could bear it no longer.What he had always feared was coming to pass.When the Romans could no longer vanquish their foes on the field of battle, they destroyed them with their women.
[image]t was late on the following evening, when in the hermitage of Nilus of Gaëta, Eckhardt woke from the death-like stupor which had bound his limbs since the terrible scenes of the previous night. Thanks to the antidotes applied by the friar as soon as he reached the open, the deadly effect of the poison had been stemmed ere it had time to penetrate Eckhardt's system, but even despite this timely precaution, the benumbing effect of the drug was not to be avoided, and during the time when the stupor maintained its sway Nilus had not for a moment abandoned the side of his patient. A burning thirst consumed him, as he awoke. Raising himself on his elbows and vainly endeavouring to reconcile his surroundings, the monk who was seated at the foot of his roughly improvised bed rose and brought him some water. It was Nilus himself, and only after convincing himself that the state of the Margrave's condition was such as to warrant his immediately satisfying the flood of inquiries addressed to him, did the hermit go over the events of the preceding night, starting from the point where Eckhardt had lost consciousness and his own intervention had saved him.
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Eckhardt's hand went to his head which still felt heavy and ached. His brain reeled at the account which Nilus gave him, and there was a choking dryness in his throat when the friar accused Theodora of the deed.
"For such as she the world was made. For such as she fools and slaves abase themselves," the monk concluded his account. "Pray that your eyes may never again behold her accursed face."
Eckhardt made no reply. What could he say in extenuation of his presence in the groves? And by degrees, as consciousness and memory returned, as he strained his reasoning faculties in the endeavour to find some cause for the woman's attempt to poison him, after having mocked him with her fatal likeness to Ginevra—his most acute logic could not reconcile her actions. For a moment he tried to persuade himself that he was in a dream, and he strove in vain to wake from it. It was amazing in what brief time and with what vividness all that could render death terrible, and this death of all most terrible, rushed upon his imagination. Despite the languor and inertness which still continued, one terrible certainty rose before him. Far from having solved the mystery, it had intensified itself to a degree that seemed to make any further attempt at solution hopeless. During the twilight consciousness of his senses numerous faces swam around him,—but of all these only one had remained with him, Ginevra's pale and beautiful countenance, her sweet but terrible eyes. But the ever-recurring thought was madness.—Ginevra was dead.
But the hours spent in the seclusion of the friar's hermitage were not entirely lost to Eckhardt. They ripened a preconceived and most fantastic plan in his mind, which he no sooner remembered, than he began to think seriously of its execution.
A second night spent in Nilus's hermitage had sufficiently restored Eckhardt's vitality to enable him to leave it on the following morning. After having taken leave of the monk, confessing himself his debtor for life, the Margrave chose the road toward the Imperial palace, as his absence was likely to give rise to strange rumours, which might retard or prevent the task he had resolved to accomplish. He was in a state bordering on nervous collapse, when he reached the gates of the palace, where the Count Palatine, in attendance, ushered him into an ante-room pending his admission to Otto's presence. Eckhardt's thoughts were gloomy and his countenance forbidding as he entered, and he did not notice the presence of Benilo, the Chamberlain. When the latter glanced up from his occupation, his countenance turned to ashen hues and he stared at the leader of the imperial hosts as one would at an apparition from the beyond. The hands, which held a parchment, strangely illuminated, shook so violently that he was compelled to place the scroll on the table before him. Eckhardt had been so wrapt in his own dark ruminations that he saw and heard nothing, thus giving Benilo an opportunity to collect himself, though the stereotyped smile on the Chamberlain's lips gave the lie to his pretense of continuing interested in the contents of the chart which lay on the table before him.
But Benilo's restlessness, his eagerness to acquaint himself with the purpose of Eckhardt's visit, did not permit him to continue the task in which the general's entrance had found him engaged. The Chamberlain seemed undaunted by Eckhardt's apparent preoccupation of mind.
"We have just achieved a signal victory," he addressed the Margrave after a warm greeting, which was to veil his misgivings, while his unsteady gaze roamed from the parchment on the table to Eckhardt's clouded brow. "The Byzantine ceremonial will be henceforth observed at the Imperial court."
"What shall it all lead to?" replied Eckhardt wearily.
"To the fulfilment of the emperor's dream," Benilo replied with his blandest smile, "his dream of the ten-fold crown of Constantine Porphyrogenitus."
"I thought the Saxon crown weighed heavily enough."
"That is because your crown is material," Benilo deigned to expound, "not the symbolic crown of the East, which embodies all the virtues of the gold and iron. It was a stupendous task which confronted us—but together we have solved the problem. In the Graphia, after much vain research and study, and in the 'Origines' of Isidor, we found that which shall henceforth constitute the emblem of the Holy Roman Empire; not the Iron Crown of Lombardy, nor the Silver Crown of Aix-la-Chapelle, nor the Golden Crown of Rome—but all three combined with the seven of the East."
"Ten crowns?" exclaimed Eckhardt aghast. "On the emperor's frail brow?"
"Nay," spoke Benilo, with the same studied smile upon his lips, while he relinquished not for a moment the basilisk gaze with which he followed every movement of the Margrave. "Nay! They oppress not the brow of the anointed. The Seven Crowns of the East are: The crown of Ivy, the crown of the Olive, the crown of Poplar Branches and Oak, the crown of Laurels, the Mitra of Janus, the crown of the Feathers of the Pea-fowl, and last of all the crown set with diamonds, which Diocletian borrowed from the King of the Persians and whereon appeared the inscription: 'Roma Caput Mundi Regit Orbis Frena Rotundi.'"
Eckhardt listened half dazed to this exhibition of antiquarian learning on the part of the Chamberlain. What were these trifles to avail the King in establishing order in the discordant chaos of the Roman world?
But Benilo was either in excellent spirits over the result of his antiquarian researches which had made him well nigh indispensable to Otto, and into which he condescended to initiate so unlettered an individual as Eckhardt; or he tormented the latter with details which he knew wearied the great leader, to keep his mind from dwelling on dangerous matters. Thus continuing his information on these lines with a suave air of superiority, he cited the treatise of Pigonius concerning the various modes of triumph and other antiquated splendours as enumerated in the Codex, until Eckhardt's head swam with meaningless titles and newly created offices. Even an admiral had been appointed: Gregory of Tusculum. In truth, he had no fleet to command, because there existed no fleet, but the want had been anticipated. Then there were many important offices to be filled, with names long as the ancient triumphal course; and would not the Romans feel flattered by these changes? Would they not willingly console themselves with the loss of their municipal liberties, knowing that Hungary, and Poland, Spain and Germany were to be Roman provinces as of old?
Eckhardt saw through it all.
Knowing Otto's fantastic turn of mind, Benilo was guiding him slowly but surely away from life, into the wilderness of a decayed civilization, whose luring magic was absorbing his vital strength. Else why this effort to rear an edifice which must crumble under its own weight, once the architect was removed from this hectic sphere?
With the reckless enthusiasm of his character the imperial youth had plunged into the deep ocean of learning, to whose shores his studies with Benilo conducted him. The animated pictures which the ponderous tomes presented, into whose dust and must he delved, the dramatic splendour of the narrative in which the glowing fancies of the chroniclers had clothed the stirring events of the times, deeply impressed his susceptible mind, just as the chords of Æolian harps are mute till the chance breeze passes which wakes them into passionate music. Gerbert, now Sylvester II, had no wish to stifle nor even to stem this natural sensibility, but rather to divert its energies into its proper channels, for he was too deeply versed in human science not to know that even the eloquence of religion is cold and powerless, unless kindled by those fixed emotions and sparkling thoughts which only poetical enthusiasm can strike out of the hard flint of logic.
But now the activity of Otto's genius, lacking the proper channels, vented its wild profusion in inert speculation and dreamy reverie. Indistinct longings ventured out on that shimmering restless sea of love and glory, which his imagination painted in the world, a vague yearning for the mysterious which was hinted at in that mediæval lore.
All things were possible in those legends. No scent of autumn haunted the deep verdure of those forests, even the harsh immutable laws of nature seemed to yield to their magic. Death and Despair and Sorrow were but fore-shadowed angels, not the black fiends of Northern imagery. Their heroes and heroines died, but reclining on beds of violets, the songs of nightingales sweetly warbling them to rest.
And the son of the Greek princess resented fiercely any intrusion in to his paradise. It was a thankless task to recall him to the hour and to reality.
The appearance of a page, who summoned Eckhardt into Otto's presence, put an end to Benilo's effusive archæology, and as the Margrave disappeared in the emperor's cabinet, Benilo wondered how much he knew.
What transpired during his protracted audience remained for the present the secret of those two. But when Eckhardt left the palace, his brow was even more clouded than before. While his conference with Otto had not been instrumental in dissipating the dread misgivings which tortured his mind, he had found himself face to face with the revelation that a fraud had been perpetrated upon him. For Otto disclaimed all knowledge of signing any order which relieved Eckhardt of his command, flatly declaring it a forgery. While its purpose was easy to divine, the question remained whose interest justified his venturing so desperate a chance? Eckhardt parted from his sovereign with the latter's full approval of the course his leader intended to pursue, and so far from granting him the dispensation once desired, Otto did not hesitate to pronounce the vision which had interposed at the fatal moment between Eckhardt and the fulfilment of his desire, a divine interposition.
Slowly the day drew to a close. The eve of the great festival approached.
When darkness finally fell over the Capitoline hill, the old palace of the Cæsars seemed to waken to a new life. In the great reception hall a gorgeous spectacle awaited the guests. The richly dressed crowds buzzed like a swarm of bees. Their attires were iridescent, gorgeous in fashions borrowed from many lands. The invasion of foreigners and the enslavement of Italy could be read in the garbs of the Romans. The robes of the women, fashioned after the supreme style of Constantinople, hanging in heavy folds, stiff with gold and jewels, suggested rather ecclesiastical vestments. The hair was confined in nets of gold.
Stephania, the consort of the Senator of Rome, was by common accord the queen of the festival which this night was to usher in. Attracting, as she did on every turn, the eyes of heedless admirers, her triumphant beauty seemed to have chosen a fit device in the garb which adorned her, some filmy gossamer web of India, embroidered with moths burning their wings in flame.
Whether or no she was conscious of the lavish admiration of the Romans, her eyes, lustrous under the dark tresses, were clear and cold; her smile calm, her voice, as she greeted the arriving guests, melodious and thrilling like the tones of a harp. Amid the noise and buzz, she seemed a being apart, alien, solitary, like a water lily on some silent moon-lit pool. At last a loud fanfare of trumpets and horns announced the arrival of the German king. Attended by his suite the son of Theophano, whose spiritualized beauty he seemed to have inherited, received the homage of the Senator of Rome, the Cavalli, Caetani, Massimi and Stephaneschi. Stephania was standing apart in a more remote part of the hall, surrounded by women of the Roman nobility. Her face flushed and paled alternately as she became aware of the commotion at the entrance. The airy draperies of summer, which revealed rather than concealed her divine beauty, gave her the appearance of a Circe, conquering every heart at sight.
As she slowly advanced toward the imperial circle, with the three appropriate reverences in use, the serene composure of her countenance made it seem as if she had herself been born in purple. But as Otto's gaze fell upon the consort of the Senator of Rome, he suddenly paused, a deep pallor chasing the flush of joy from the beardless face. Was she not the woman he had met at the gates of the confessional? A great pain seized his heart as the thought came to him, that she of whom he had dreamed ever since that day, she in whose love he had pictured to himself a heaven, was the consort of another. Before him stood Stephania, the wife of his former foe, the wife of the Senator of Rome. And as he gazed into her large limpid eyes, at the exquisite contour of her head, at the small crimson lips, the clear-cut beauty of the face, of the tint of richest Carrara marble, Otto trembled. Unable to speak a word, fearful lest he might betray his emotions, he seized the white, firm hand which she extended to him with a bewitching smile.
"So we are to behold the King's majesty, at last," she said with a voice whose very accent thrilled him through and through. "I thought you were never going to do us that honour,—master of Rome, and master—of Rome's mistress."
Her speech, as she bent slightly toward him, whispering rather than speaking the last words, filled Otto's soul with intoxication. Stunned by the manner of his reception, her mysterious words still ringing in his ears, Otto muttered a reply, intelligible to none but herself, nerving his whole nature to remain calm, though his heart beat so loudly that he thought all present must hear its wild throbs even through his imperial vestments.
As slowly, reluctantly he retreated from her presence, to greet the rest of the assembled guests, Otto marked not the meaning-fraught exchange of glances between the Senator of Rome and his wife. The smiles of the beautiful women around him were as full of warning as the scowls of a Roman mob. Once or twice Otto gazed as if by chance in the direction of Stephania. Each time their eyes met. Truly, if the hatred of Crescentius was a menace to his life, the favour of Stephania seemed to summon him to dizzy, perilous heights.
At last the banquet was served, the company seated and amidst soft strains of music, the festival took its course. Otto now had an opportunity to study in detail the galaxy of profligate courtiers and beauties, which shed their glare over the sunset of Crescentius's reign. But so absorbed was he in the beauty of Stephania, that, though he attempted to withdraw his eyes, lest their prolonged gaze should attract observation, still they ever returned with increased and devouring eagerness to feast upon her incomparable beauty, while with a strange agony of mingled jealousy and anger he noted the court paid to the beautiful wife of Crescentius by the Roman barons, chief among them Benilo. It seemed, as if the latter wanted to urge the king to some open and indiscreet demonstration by the fire of his own admiration, and, dear as he was to his heart, Otto heaved a sigh of relief at the thought that he had guarded his secret, which if revealed, would place him beyond redemption in the power of his enemy, the Senator.
Stephania herself seemed for the nonce too much absorbed in her own amusements to notice the emotions she had evoked in the young king of the Germans. But when she chanced to turn her smiling eyes from the Senator, her husband, she suddenly met the ardent gaze of Otto riveted upon her with burning intensity. The smile died on her lips and for a moment the colour faded from her cheeks. Otto flushed a deep crimson and played in affected indifference with the tassels of his sword, and for some moments they seemed to take no further heed of each other. What happened at the banquet, what was spoken and the speakers, to Otto it was one whirling chaos. He saw nothing; he heard nothing. The gaze of Stephania, the wife of Crescentius, had cast its spell over him and there was but one thought in his mind,—but one dream in his heart.
At the request of some one, some of the guests changed their seats. Otto noted it not. Peals of laughter reverberated through the high arched Sala; some one recited an ode on the past greatness of Rome, followed by loud applause; to Otto it was a meaningless sound. Suddenly he heard his own name from lips whose tones caused him to start, as if electrified.
Stephania sat by his side. Crescentius seemed conversing eagerly with some of the barons. Raising her arm, white as fallen snow, she poured a fine crimson wine into a goblet, until it swelled to the golden brim. There was a simultaneous bustle of pages and attendants, offering fruits and wine to the guests, and Otto mechanically took some grapes from a salver which was presented to him, but never for a moment averted his gaze from Stephania, until she lifted the goblet to her lips.
"To thee!" she whispered with a swift glance at Otto, which went to his heart's core. She sipped from the goblet, then, bending to him, held it herself to his lips. His trembling hands for a moment covered her own and he drank strangely deep of the crimson wine, which made his senses reel, and in the trance in which their eyes met, neither noticed the sphinx-like expression on the face of Benilo, the Grand Chamberlain.
But if the wine, of which Otto had partaken with Stephania, was not in reality compounded of magic ingredients, the most potent love philtre could scarcely have been more efficacious. For the first time it seemed as if he had yielded up his whole soul and being to the fascination of marvellous beauty, and with such loveliness exhausting upon him all its treasures of infinite charm, wit and tenderness, stirred by every motive of triumph and rivalry,—even if a deceptive apology had not worked in his own mind, it would scarcely have been possible to resist the spell.
The banquet passed off in great splendour, enlivened by the most glittering and unscrupulous wit. Thousands of lamps shed their effulgence on the scene, revealing toward the end a fantastic pageant, descending the grand stair-case to some equally strange and fantastic music. It was a procession of the ancient deities; but so great was the illiterate state of mind among the Romans of that period, that the ideas they represented of the olden time were hopelessly perplexed and an antiquarian, had there been one present, would have thrown up his hands in despair at the incongruous attire of the pagan divinities who had invaded the most Christian city. During this procession Otto's eyes for the third time sought those of Stephania. She seemed to feel it, for she turned and her lips responded with a smile.
The night passed like some fantastic dream, conjured up from fairy land. And Otto carried his dreaming heart back to the lonely palace on the Aventine.
CHAPTER IV
THE SECRET OF THE TOMB
[image]hile the revelling on the Capitoline hill was at its height, Eckhardt had approached Benilo and drawing him aside, engaged him in lengthy conversation. The Chamberlain's countenance had lost its studied calm and betrayed an amazement which vainly endeavoured to vent itself in adequate utterance. He appeared to offer a strenuous opposition to Eckhardt's request, an opposition which yielded only when every argument seemed to have failed. At last they had parted, Eckhardt passing unobserved to a terrace and gaining a path that led through an orange grove behind the Vatican gardens. A few steps brought him to a gate, which opened on a narrow vicolo. Here he paused and clapped his hands softly together. The signal was repeated from the other side and Eckhardt thereupon lifted the heavy iron latch, which fastened the gate on the inner side and, passing out, carefully closed it behind him. Here he was joined by another personage wrapt in a long, dark cloak, and together they proceeded through a maze of dark, narrow and unfrequented alleys. Lane after lane they traversed, all unpaved and muddy. Another ten minutes' walk between lightless houses, whose doors and windows were for the most part closed and barred, and they reached an old time-worn dwelling with a low unsightly doorway. It was secured by strong fastenings of bolts and bars, as though its tenant had sufficient motives for affecting privacy and retirement. The very nature of his calling would however have secured him from intrusion either by day or by night, from any one not immediately in need of his services. For here lived Il Gobbo, the grave digger, a busy personage in the Rome of those days. Eckhardt and his companion exchanged a swift glance as they approached the uncanny dwelling; eyeless, hoary with vegetation, rooted here and there, the front of the house gave no welcome. Eckhardt whispered a question to his companion, which was answered in the affirmative. Then he bade him knock. After a wait of brief duration, the summons was answered by a low cough within. Shuffling footsteps were heard, then the unbarring of a door, followed by the creaking of hinges, and the low bent figure of an old man appeared. Il Gobbo, the grave digger wore a loose gray tunic, which reached to his knees. What was visible of his countenance was cadaverous and ashen gray, as that of a corpse. His small rat-like eyes, whose restless vigilance argued some deficiency or warping of the brain, a tendency, however remote, to insanity, scrutinized the stranger with marked suspicion, while a long nose, curving downward over a projecting upper lip, which seemed in perpetual tremor, imbued his countenance with something strangely Mephistophelian.
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In a very few words Eckhardt's companion requested the grave digger to make ready and follow them, and that worthy, seeing nothing strange in a summons of this sort, complied at once, took pick and spade, and after having locked and barred his habitation, asked his solicitor to which burial grounds he was to accompany them.
"To San Pancrazio," was Eckhardt's curt reply. The silence had become almost insufferable to him, and something in the manner of his speech caused the grave digger to bestow on him a swift glance. Then he preceded them in silence on the well-known way.
It was a wonderful night.
There was not a breath of air to stir the dying leaves of the trees. The clouds, which had risen at sunset in the West, had vanished, leaving the sky unobscured, arching deep blue over the yellow moon.
As they approached the Ripetta, the grave digger suddenly paused and, facing the Margrave and his companion, inquired where the corpse was awaiting them.
A strange, jarring laugh broke from Eckhardt's lips.
"Never fear, my honest friend! It is a very well conditioned corpse, that will play us no pranks and run away. Corpses do sometimes—so I have been told. What think you, honest Il Gobbo?"
The grave digger bestowed a glance upon his interlocutor, which left little doubt as to what he thought of his patron's sanity, then he crossed himself and hastened onward. The Tiber lay now on their left, and an occasional flash revealed the turbid waves rolling down toward the sea in the moonlight. Eckhardt and his companion exchanged not a word, as silently they strode behind their uncanny guide. On their left hand now appeared the baths of Caracalla, their external magnificence slowly crumbling to decay, waterless and desolate. Towering on their right rose the Caelian hill in the moonlight, covered with ruins and neglected gardens. The rays of the higher rising moon fell through the great arches of the Neronian Aqueduct and near by were the round church of St. Stephen and a cloister dedicated to St. Erasmus. As they proceeded over the narrow grass-grown road, the silence which encompassed them was as intense as among the Appian sepulchres. At the gate of San Sebastiano, all traces of the road vanished. A winding path conducted them through a narrow valley, the silence of which was only broken by the occasional hoot of an owl, or the flitting across their path of a bat, which like an evil thought, seemed afraid of its own shadow. Then they passed the ancient church of Santa Ursula, which for many years formed the center of a churchyard. The path became more sterile and desolate with every step, only a few dwarfish shrubs breaking the monotony, to make it appear even more like a wilderness, until they came upon a ruined wall, and following its course for some distance, reached a heavy iron gate. It gave a dismal, creaking sound as Il Gobbo pushed it open and entered the churchyard of San Pancrazio in advance of his companions.
Pausing ere he continued upon a way as yet unknown to him, he again turned questioningly toward his mysterious summoners, for as far as his eye could reach in the bright moonlight, he could discover no trace of a funeral cortege or ever so small number of mourners. Instead of satisfying Il Gobbo's curiosity, Eckhardt briefly ordered him to follow him, and the grave digger, shaking his head with grave doubt, followed the mysterious stranger, who seemed so familiar with this abode of Death. They traversed the churchyard at a rapid pace, until they reached a mortuary chapel situated in a remote region. Here Eckhardt and his companion paused, and the former, turning about and facing Il Gobbo, pointed to a grave in the shadows of the chapel.
"Know you this grave?" the Margrave accosted the grave digger, pointing to the grass-plot at his feet.
The grave digger seemed to grope through the depths of his memory; then he bent low as if to decipher the inscription on the stone, but this effort was in so far superfluous, as he could not read.
"Here lies one Ginevra,—the wife of the German Commander—"
He paused, again searching his memory, but this time in vain.
"Eckhardt," supplied the Margrave himself.
"Eckhardt—Eckhardt," the grave digger echoed, crossing himself at the sound of the dreaded name.
"Open the grave!" Eckhardt broke into Il Gobbo's babbling, who had been wondering to what purpose he had been brought here.
Il Gobbo stared up at the speaker as if he mistrusted his hearing, but made no reply.
"Open the grave!" Eckhardt repeated, leaning upon his sword.
Il Gobbo shook his head. No doubt the man was mad; else why should he prefer the strange request? He looked questioningly at Eckhardt's companion, as if expecting the latter to interfere. But he moved not. A strange fear began to creep over the grave digger.
"Here is a purse of gold, enough to dispel the qualms of your conscience," Eckhardt spoke with terrible firmness in his tones, offering Il Gobbo a leather purse of no mean size. But the latter pushed it back with abhorrence.
"I cannot—I dare not. Who are you to prefer this strange request?"
"I am Eckhardt, the general! Open the grave!"
Il Gobbo cringed as though he had been struck a blow from some invisible hand.
"I dare not—I dare not," he whined, deprecating the proffered gift. "The sin would be visited upon my head.—It is written: Disturb not the dead."
A terrible look passed into Eckhardt's face.
"Is this purse not heavy enough? I will add another."
"It is not that—it is not that," Il Gobbo replied, almost weeping with terror. "I dread the vengeance of the dead! They will not permit the sacrilege to pass unpunished."
"Then let the punishment fall on my head!" replied Eckhardt with terrible voice. "Take your spade, old man, for by the Almighty God who looks down upon us, you will not leave this place alive, unless you do as you are told."
The old grave digger trembled in every limb. Helplessly he gazed about; imploringly he looked up into the face of Eckhardt's immobile companion, but he read nothing in the eyes of these two, save unrelenting determination. Instinctively he knew that no argument would avail to deter them from their mad purpose.
Eckhardt watched the old man closely.
"You dug this grave yourself, three years ago," he then spoke in a tone strangely mingled of despair and irony. "It is a poor grave digger who permits his dead to leave their cold and narrow berth and go forth among the living in the form they bore on earth! It has been whispered to me," he continued with a terrible laugh, "that some of your graves are shallow. I would fain be convinced with my own eyes, just to be able to give your calumniators the lie! Therefore, good Il Gobbo, take up your spade with all speed, and imagine, as you perform your task, that you are not opening this grave to disturb the repose of her who sleeps beneath the sod, but preparing a reception to one still in the flesh! Proceed!"
The last word was spoken with such menace that the grave digger reluctantly complied, and taking up the spade, which he had dropped, he pushed it slowly into the sod. Leaning silently on his sword, his face the pallor of death, Eckhardt and his companion watched the progress of the terrible work, watched one shovel of earth after the other fly up, piling up by the side of the grave; watched the oblong opening grow deeper and deeper, till after a breathless pause of some duration the spade of the grave digger was heard to strike the top of the coffin.
Il Gobbo, who all but his head stood now in the grave, looked up imploringly to Eckhardt, hoping that at the last moment he would desist from the terrible sacrilege he was about to commit. But when he read only implacable determination in the commander's face, he again turned to his task and continued to throw up the earth until the coffin stood free and unimpeded in its narrow berth.
"I cannot raise it up," the old man whined. "It is too heavy."
"We will assist you! Out it shall come if all the devils in hell clung to it from beneath. Bring your ropes and bring them quickly! Hear you?" thundered Eckhardt in a frenzy. His self-enforced calm was fast giving way before the terrible ordeal he was passing through.
"Would it not be safer to go down and open the lid?" questioned Eckhardt's companion, for the first time breaking the silence.
"There is not room enough,—unless the berth is widened," Eckhardt replied. Then he turned to Il Gobbo, who was slowly scrambling out of the grave.
"Widen the berth—we will come down to you!"
The grave digger returned to his task; then after a time, which seemed eternity to those waiting above, his head again appeared in the opening. One shovel of earth after another flew up at the feet of Eckhardt and his companion. Again and again they heard the spade strike against the coffin, till at last something like a groan out of the gloom below informed them that the task had been accomplished.
"Have you any tools?" Eckhardt shouted to Il Gobbo.
"None to serve that end," stammered the grave digger.
"Then take your spade and prise the lid open!" cried Eckhardt. He was trembling like an aspen, and his breath came hard through his half-closed lips. The expression of his face and his demeanour were such as to vanquish the last scruples of Il Gobbo, who belaboured the coffin with much good will, which was mocked by the result, for it seemed to have been hermetically sealed.
After waiting some time in deadly, harrowing suspense, Eckhardt addressed his companion.
"I hate to abase my good sword for such a purpose,—but the coffin shall be opened." And without warning he bounded down into the grave, while Il Gobbo, thinking his last moment at hand, had dropped pick and spade, and stood, more dead than alive, at the foot of the grave.
Picking up the grave digger's spade, Eckhardt dealt the coffin such a terrific blow that he splintered its top to atoms. A second blow completely severed the lid, and it lurched heavily to one side, lodging between the coffin and the earth wall.
The ensuing silence was intense.
The moon, which had risen high in the heavens, illumined with her beams the chasm in which Eckhardt stood, bending over the coffin. What his eyes beheld was too terrible for words to express. Only one tress of dark silken hair had escaped the dread havoc of death, which the open coffin revealed. It was a sight such as would cause the blood to freeze in the veins of the bravest. It was the visible execution of the judgment pronounced in the garden of Eden: "Dust thou art, and to dust thou shall return."
Only one dark silken tress of all that splendour of body and youth!
Eckhardt leaped from the grave and stood aside, leaving it for his companion to give his final instructions to Il Gobbo, the grave digger, and the reward for his night's labour.
As they strode from the churchyard of San Pancrazio, neither spoke. The havoc of death, which Eckhardt's eyes had beheld, the contrast between the image of Ginevra, such as it lived in his memory, and the sight which had met his eyes, had re-opened every wound in his heart. No beam of hope, no thought of heavenly mercy, penetrated the night of his soul. His heart seemed steel-cased and completely walled up. He could not even shed a tear. One hour had worked a dreadful transformation. Silently the Margrave and his companion left the churchyard. Silently they turned toward the city. At the base of Aventine, Benilo parted from Eckhardt, himself more dead than alive, promising to see him on the following day. He dared not trust himself even to ask Eckhardt what he had seen. There would be time enough when his terrible frenzy had subsided.
As Eckhardt continued upon his way, he grew more calm. The feast of Death, which he had dared to break into, while for a time completely stupefying him with its horrors, seemed at least to have brought proof positive, that whoever Ginevra's double, it was not Ginevra returned to earth. There was much in that thought to comfort his soul, and after the fresh air of night had cooled his fevered brow, saner reflections began to gain sway over his whirling brain.
But they did not endure. What he had seen proved nothing. Another body might have been substituted in the coffin. The supposition was monstrous indeed—yet even the wildest surmises seemed justified when thrown in the scales against the fatal likeness of the woman who had drawn him from the altars of Christ, had frustrated his design to become a monk, and had, as he believed, attempted his life. Could he but find the monk who had conducted the last rites! He had searched for him in every cloister and sanctuary in Rome, yet all those of whom he inquired disclaimed all knowledge of his abode. Several times the thought had recurred to Eckhardt of returning to the Groves, to seek a second interview with the woman, and thus for ever to silence his doubts. But a strange dread had assailed and restrained him from the execution. There was something in the woman's eyes he had never seen in Ginevra's, and he felt that he would inevitably succumb, should he ever again stand face to face with her. He almost wished that he had followed Benilo's advice,—that he had refrained from an act prompted by frenzy and despair. Vain regrets! He must find the monk, if he was still in Rome. Though everything and everybody seemed to have conspired against him nothing should bend him from his course.
CHAPTER V
THE GROTTOS OF EGERIA
[image]or the following day the Senator of Rome had arranged a Festival of Pan, and the place appointed for the divertissement was one which the Seneschal of the Decameron might have chosen as fit for the reception of his luxurious masters, where every object was in harmony with the delicious and charmed existence which they had devised in defiance of Death. Arcades of vines, bright with the gold and russet foliage of autumn, ascended in winding terraces to a height, on which they converged, forming a spacious canopy over an expanse of brightest emerald turf, inlaid with a mosaic of flowers. In the centre there was a fountain, which sent its spray to a great height in the clear air, refreshing soul and body with the harmony of its waters. Between the interstices of the vines, magnificent views of the whole surrounding country were offered to the eye, to which feature perhaps, or to the effect of a dazzling variety of late roses, which grew among the vines, and the lofty cypresses which made the elevation a conspicuous object in every direction, it owes its present designation of Belvedere.
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Stephania's spell had worked powerfully on its intended victim. Surrounded by everything which could kindle the fires of Love and stimulate the imagination, exposed to the influence of her marvellous beauty and the infinite charm of her individuality, Otto was devoured by a passion, which hourly increased, despite the struggle which he put forth to resist it. Stephania's absence had taught him how necessary she had become to his existence, and although he was well informed that she rarely quitted Castel San Angelo, he was yet tortured by the wildest fancies, entirely oblivious that he had given all his youth, his love, his heart to a beautiful phantom,—the wife of another, who could never be his own. And though he endeavoured to reason with his madness, though he questioned himself where it would lead to, in what strange manner he had absorbed the poison which rioted in his system, it was of no avail. The dictates of Fate vanquish the paltry laws of mortals. This love had come to him unbidden—uncalled. Why must the soul remain for ever isolated when the unbounded feast of beauty was spread to all the senses? And was it not too late to retreat? It was the last trump of the tempter.
He won.
As he approached the Minotaurus, Otto's hope brightened with the tints of the rainbow. For the first time since his return from Monte Gargano he had discarded his usual cumbrous habiliments, and though his garb was still that prescribed by the court ceremonial, it added much to display his princely person to advantage. Confiding much more in the secrecy of his movements than in the protection of his attendants, Otto had left the palace on the Aventine unobserved and arrived in the vale of Egeria with a whirl of passion and a rush of recollections, which not only took from him all power, but every wish of resistance,—a far more dangerous symptom.
Stephania's duenna was in waiting and informed him that the latter had dismissed her ladies to amuse themselves at their pleasure in the gardens, while Stephania herself was wreathing a garland for the evening in the Egerian Grotto, which formed the centre of the fantastic labyrinth called the Minotaurus, from an antique statue of the monster which adorned it. Slipping a ring of great value on the old dame's finger, as a testimony, he said, of his gratitude, for watching over her mistress, Otto hastened onward. His heart beat so heavily when he came within view of the rose-matted arches leading to the ancient grotto, that he was obliged to pause to recover his breath. At that moment a voice fell upon his ear, but it was not the voice of Stephania, and with a feeling almost of suffocation in the intensity of his passion, Otto drew aside the foliage to ascertain whether or not his senses had belied him.
The figure of the Minotaurus was cast in bronze, a monstrous bull, crouched, head to the ground, on the marble pavement of the temple. Passing the statue, Otto made for the grotto indicated by his guide, and, raising the tapestry of ivy, which concealed it, disappeared within. Guided by the warm evening light to its entrance, he hesitated as if apprehending some treachery. Then, with quick determination he groped his way into the cavern, paused somewhat suddenly and looked about.
It was deserted, but a faint glimmer lured him to the background, where a fountain gleamed in the purple twilight.
"Rash mortal," said a voice, in tones that made his heart jump to his throat, "I think you are now as near as devout worshippers are wont to approach to my waves, though, as one of the initiated, the vestal nymphs of these caves bid you very welcome."
"I have kept my faith," Otto replied, pausing before the veiled apparition which sat on the rim of the fountain. "But your veil hides you as effectually from my gaze as a mountain."
His agitation betrayed itself in his wavering tones.
"Are you afraid," she asked, noting his hesitancy, "lest I should prove the fiend who tempted Cyprianus?"
"All fears redouble in the darkness. Let me see your face!"
"Why have you come here?"
"Why have you summoned me?"
"Perhaps to test your courage."
"I fear nothing!"
"One word of mine, one gesture,—and you are my prisoner."
Otto remained standing. His face was pale, but no trace of fear appeared thereon.
"I trust you."
"I am a Roman,—and your enemy! I am the enemy of your people!"
"I trust you!"
"Suppose I had lured you hither to end for ever this unbearable state?"
"I trust you!"
Stephania's eyes cowered beneath Otto's gaze. Rising abruptly she averted her head, but every trace of colour had left her face as she raised the veil. Then she turned slowly and extended her hand. Otto grasped it, pressing it to his lips in an ecstasy of joy, then he drew her down to the seat she had abandoned, kneeling by her side.
For a moment she gazed at him thoughtfully.
"What do you want of me?" she then asked abruptly.
"I would have you be my friend," he stammered, idol-worship in his eyes.
"Is a woman's friendship so rare a commodity, that you come to me?" she replied, drawing her hand from him.
"I have never known woman's love nor friendship,—and it is yours I want."
Stephania drew a long breath. Truly,—it required no effort on her part to lead him on. He made her task an easy one. Yet there rose in her heart a spark of pity. The complete trust of this boy-king was to the wife of Crescentius a novel sensation in the atmosphere of doubt and suspicion in which she had grown up. It was almost a pity to shatter the temple in which he had placed her as goddess.
The mood held sway but a moment, then with a cry of delirious gayety, she wrote the word "Friendship" rapidly on the water.
"Look," she said, "scarcely a ripple remains! That is the end. Let us but add another word, 'Farewell'—and let the trace it shall leave tell when we shall meet again."
The words died on Otto's lips. He could not fathom the lightning change which had come over her. With mingled sadness and passion he gazed upon the lovely face, so pale and cold.
"Let us not part thus," he stammered.
Stephania had risen abruptly, shaking herself free of his kneeling form.
"What is it all to lead to?" she questioned.
Otto rose slowly to his feet. Reeling as if stunned by a blow, he staggered after her.
"Do not leave me thus," he begged with outstretched arms.
Stephania started away from him, as if in terror.
"Do not touch me,—as you are a man—"
Otto's hand went to his head. Was he waking? Was he dreaming? Was this the same woman who had but a moment ago—
He had not time to think out the thought.
He felt his neck encircled by an airy form and arms, and lips whose sweetness made his senses reel were breathlessly pressed upon his own.
But for an evanescent instant the sensation endured.
A voice whispered low: "Otto!"
When he tried to embrace the mocking phantom he grasped the empty air.
He rushed madly forward, but at this instant there arose a wild uproar and clamour around him. The silver moon on the fountain burst into a blaze of whirling light, which illumined the whole grotto. The shrill summons of a bell was to be heard as from the depths of the fountain, and suddenly the verdant precincts were crowded with a most extraordinary company, shouting, hooting, laughing, yelling, and waving torches. Satyrs, nymphs, fauns, and all varieties of sylvan deities poured out of every nook and cranny by which there was an entrance, all shrieking execration on the profaner of the sacred solitudes and brandishing sundry weapons appropriate to their qualities. The satyrs wielded their crooked staves, the fauns their stiff pine-wreaths, the nymphs their branches of oak, and a loud clamour arose. But by far the most formidable personages were a number of shepherds with huge boar-spears, who made their appearance on every side.
"Pan! Pan!" shouted a hundred voices. "Come and judge the mortal who has dared to profane thy solitudes. Echo—where is Pan?"
Distant and faint the cry came back:
"Pan! Where is Pan?"
For a moment Otto stood rooted to the spot, believing himself in all truth surrounded by the rural gods of antiquity. He stared at the scene before him as on some strange sorcery. But suddenly a suspicion rushed upon him that he was betrayed, either to be made the jest of a company of carnival's revellers, or, perhaps, the object of vengeance of the Senator of Rome.
Gazing round with a quick fear in his heart, at finding himself thus completely surrounded, and meditating whether to attempt a forcible escape, he was startled by the shrill shriek of sylvan pipes and attended by a riotous company of satyrs, Pan on his goat-legs hobbled into the grotto, the satyrs playing a wild march on their oaken reeds.
"Silence! Where is the guilty nymph who has lured the mortal hither?" shouted the sylvan god.
"Egeria! Egeria!" resounded numerous accusing voices.
"At thine old tricks again luring wisdom whither it should least come?" questioned Pan, severely. "Yes, hide thyself in thy blushing waves! But the mortal,—where is he?"
"Here! Here!" exclaimed the nymphs with one voice. "Had it been old Silenus or one of his satyrs,—we had not wondered."
"The King! the King!" resounded on all sides amidst a general outburst of laughter.
Otto became more and more convinced that the scene had been enacted to mock him, and though he did not understand the drift of their purpose, at which Stephania had doubtlessly connived, a cold hand seemed to clutch his heart.
"In very truth, you have the laughing side of the jest," he turned to the Sylvan god. "But if you will confront me with the nymph, I will prove that at least we ought to share in equal punishment," Otto concluded his defence, endeavouring to make the best of his dangerous position.
"This shall not be!" exclaimed a nymph near by. "Bring him along and our queen shall judge him."
Ere Otto could give vent to remonstrance, he found himself hemmed in by the shepherds with their spears. His doubts as to the ultimate purpose of the revellers seemed now to call for some imperative decision, but while he remembered the dismal legends of these haunts, his lips still tingled with the magic fire of Stephania's kiss and it seemed impossible to him that she could really mean to harm him. Still he had grave misgivings, when suddenly a mocking voice saluted him and into the cave strode Johannes Crescentius, Senator of Rome,—apparently from the valley without, a smiling look of welcome on his face.
"Fear nothing, King Otto," he said jovially. "Your sentence shall not be too severe. Your forfeit shall be light, if you will but discover and point out to us the nymph who usurped the part of Egeria, that we may further address ourselves to her for her reprehensible conduct."
The feelings with which Otto listened to this beguiling and perhaps perfidious statement may be imagined. But he replied with great presence of mind.
"It were a vain effort indeed to recognize one nymph from another in the gloom. Lead on then, since it is the Senator of Rome who guarantees my immunity from the fate of Orpheus."
Marching like a prisoner of war and surrounded by the shepherd spearmen, Otto affected to enter into the spirit of the jest and suffered himself quietly to be bound with chains of ivy which the least effort could snap asunder. The moment he stepped forth from the grotto his path was beset by a multitude of the most extraordinary phantoms. The surrounding woods teemed with the wildest excrescences of pagan worship; statues took life; every tree yielded its sleeping Dryad; strange melodies resounded in every direction; Nayades rose in the stream and laughingly showered their spray upon him. With a cheerful hunting blast Diana and her huntresses appeared on an overhanging rock and darted blunt arrows with gilded heads at him, until he arrived at an avenue of lofty elms, whose overarching branches, filigreed by the crimson after-glow of departing day, resembled the interior of a Gothic cathedral and formed a natural hall of audience fit for the rural divinities. Bosquets of orange trees, whose ivory tinted blossoms gleamed like huge pearls out of the dark green of the foliage, wafted an inexpressibly sweet perfume on the air.
The vista terminated in an open, semi-circular court, surrounded by terraces of richest emerald hue, in the midst of which rose an improvised throne. The rising moon shone upon it with a light, like that of a rayless sun, and Otto discovered that the terraces were thronged with a splendid court, assembled round a woman who occupied the throne.
As the prisoner approached, environed by his grotesque captors, laughter as inextinguishable as that which shook the ancient gods of Olympus on a similar occasion, resounded among the occupants of the terrace. Continuing his forced advance, Otto discovered with a strange beating of the heart in the splendidly attired queen, Stephania, the wife of Crescentius.
A bodice of silver-tissue confined her matchless form, which with every heave of her bosom threw iridescent gleams, and a diadem which shone as with stars, so bright were its jewels, flashed upon her brow.
She looked a queen indeed, and but for the ivory pallor of her face it would have been impossible to guess that she was in any way concerned with the object of the strange pageant, which now approached her throne.
The sphinx-like countenance of the Senator of Rome seemed to evince no very great enthusiasm in the frolic; the invited guests appeared not to know how to look, and took their cue from the Lord of Castel San Angelo.
When Otto was at last brought face to face with his fair judge, his own pallor equalled that of Stephania, and both resembled rather two marble statues than beings of flesh and blood. Stephania's lips were tightly compressed, and when Pan recited his accusation, complaining of an attempt to profane his solitudes and to misguide one of his chastest nymphs, so far from overwhelming the culprit with the laughing raillery of which she was mistress and an outburst of which all seemed to expect, Stephania was silent and kept her eyes fixed on the ground, as if she feared to raise them and to meet Otto's burning gaze.
"Answer, King of the Germans," urged Crescentius with a smile, "else you are lost!"
"The charges are too vague," Otto replied. "Let Pan, if he has any witness, of what has happened, allege particulars—and if he does—by his crooked staff, even my accusers shall acquit me without denial on my part."
General mutterings and suppressed laughter followed this singular defence, during which Stephania's countenance took all the pallid tints, which the return of his consciousness and dignity had chased from Otto's cheeks.
But she did not think it wise to prolong the scene.
"Since the august offender," she said hastily and without lifting her long silken lashes, "cannot discover among my retinue the nymph who enticed him into the grotto, I pronounce this sentence upon him: 'Let his ignorance be perpetual.'"
Then she invited him to a seat in the circle over which she presided and her graciousness obviously caused Otto's spirits to rise, for, starting up, as it were, into new existence at the word, he took his station in a manner which enabled him to see Stephania's face and her glorious eyes.
At the beck of her hand there now approached a band of musicians and the effect of their harmonies beneath the hushed and now star-resplendent skies was inexpressibly delicious. The dreams of Elysium seemed to be realized. These indeed seemed to be the happy fields, in the atmosphere of which the delighted spirit was consoled for every woe, and as Otto almost unwittingly gazed upon the woman before him, so passionately loved and to him lost for ever; as he marked the languor and melancholy which had stolen over her countenance, he could hardly restrain himself from throwing himself and all he called his, at her feet.
Emperor and king though he was,—the one jewel he craved lay beyond the confines of his dominion.
After the conclusion of the serenade, the nymphs of Stephania's retinue showered their flowers upon the sylvan gods, who eagerly scrambled over them, when Stephania started up, as from a dream.
"How is this?" she hurriedly exclaimed, "I still hold my flowers? And you are all matched by the chances of the fragrant blossoms? But King Otto is likewise without his due share, and so it would seem that fate would have him my companion at the collation awaiting us. Therefore, my lords and ladies, link hands as the flow'ry oracles direct. I shall follow last with my exalted guest."
Otto did not remark the quick glance which flashed between Crescentius and his wife. The ladies of Stephania's retinue immediately conformed to the expressed wish of the hostess by taking the arms of the cavaliers who had chanced upon their flowers.
A number of pages, beautiful as cupids, lighted the way with torches which flamed with a perfumed lustre, and the procession moved anew towards the grotto, where, during their absence, a repast had been spread. But the last couple had preceded them some twenty paces, ere Stephania, without raising her eyes, took Otto's motionless arm.
The memory of all that had passed, a natural feeling of embarrassment on both sides, prolonged the silence between them. Stephania doubtlessly fathomed his thoughts, for she smiled with a degree of timidity not unmingled with doubt, as she broke the silence.
The question, though softly spoken, came swift as a dart and equally unexpected.
"Have you ever loved, King Otto?"
Otto looked up with a start into her radiant face.
He had anticipated some veiled rebuke for his own strange conduct, anything,—not this.
He breathed hard, then he replied:
"Until I came to Rome, I never gazed on beauty that won from me more than the applause of the eye, which a statue or a painting, equally beautiful, might have claimed."
She nodded dreamily.
"I have heard it said that the blue-eyed, sunny-haired maidens of your native North make us Romans appear poor in your sight!"
"Not so! The red rose is not discarded for the white. The contrast only heightens the beauty."
"I have heard it said," Stephania continued, choosing a circuitous path instead of the direct one her guests had taken, "that you Teutons have ideals even, while you starve on bread and water. And I have been told that, were you permitted to choose for your life's companion the most beautiful woman on earth, you would hie yourselves into the gray ages of the world's dawn for the realization of your dreams. Has your ideal been realized, since you have established your residence in Rome, King Otto?"
There was a brief pause, then he replied, looking straight ahead:
"Love comes more stealthily than light, of which even the dark cypresses are enamoured in your Italian noondays."
"You evade my question."
"What would you have me say?"
She gave him a quick glance, which set his pulses to throbbing wildly and sent the hot blood seething through his veins.
"Is your heart free, King Otto?"
A drear sense of desolation and loneliness came over the youth.
"Free," he replied almost inaudibly.
She gave a little, nervous laugh.
"But how know you that, surrounded by such loveliness, as that which you have this very night witnessed in my circle, your hour may not strike at last?"
Otto raised his eyes to those of the woman by his side.
"Fair lady, beautiful as Love's oracle itself, my heart is in little danger even from your fairest satellites. But mistake not my meaning. I am not insusceptible to the fever of the Gods! Love I have sought under all forms and guises! And if I found it not, if I have listened to its richest eloquence as to some song in a foreign tongue, which my heart understood not,—it is not that I have lacked the soul for love. Love I found not, though phantoms I have eagerly chased in this troubled dream of life. What avails it, to contend with one's destiny? And this is mine!"
Stephania laughed.
"You speak like some hoary anchorite from the Thebaide. Truly, now I begin to understand, why your chroniclers call you the 'Wonder-child of the World.' Lover, idealist, and cynic in one!"
"Nay—you wrong me! Cynic I am not! My mother was a princess of Greece. The fairest woman my eyes ever gazed upon—save one! She died in her youth and beauty, following my father, the emperor, into his early grave. I was left alone in the world, alone with the monks, alone in the great gloom of our tall and spectral pines! The monks understood not my craving for the sun and the blue skies. The whiter snows of Thuringia chilled my heart and froze my soul! I longed for Rome—I craved for the South. My dead mother's blood flows in my veins. Hither I came, braving the avalanches and the fever and the wrath of the electors, I came, once more to challenge the phantoms of the past from their long forgotten tombs, to make Rome—what once she was—the capital of the earth. Rome's dream is Eternity!"
Stephania listened in silence and with downcast eyes.
Never had the ear of the beautiful Roman heard words like these. The illiteracy, vileness, and depravity of her own countrymen never perhaps presented itself to her in so glaring a contrast, as when thrown into comparison with the ideal son of the Empress Theophano and Otto II, of Saracenic renown. His words were like some strange music, which flatters the senses, that try in vain to retain their harmonies.
There was a pause during which neither spoke.
Otto thought he felt the soft pressure of Stephania's arm against his own.
"You spoke of one who alone might challenge the dead empress in point of fairness," the woman spoke at last and her voice betrayed an emotion which she vainly strove to conceal. "Who is that one?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Theophano's beauty was renowned. Even our poets sing of her."
"I will tell you at some other time."
"Tell me now!"
"We are approaching the grotto. Your guests are waiting."
"Tell me now!"
"Crescentius is expecting us. He will be wondering at our tardiness."
"Tell me now!"
Otto breathed hard.
"Oh, why do you ask, Stephania, why do you ask?"
"Who is the woman?"
The question fell huskily from her lips.
The answer came, soft as a zephyr that dies as it passes:
"Stephania!"
Quickening their steps they reached the grotto, without daring to face each other. The woman's heart throbbed as impetuously as that of the youth, as they found themselves at the entrance of the Grotto of Egeria in a blaze of light, emanating from innumerable torches artfully arranged among the stalactites, which diffused brilliant irradiations. The sumptuous dresses of the nobles and barons blazed into view; the spray from the fountain leaped up to a great height and descended in showers of liquid jewels of iridescent hues.
A collation of fruits and wines wooed the appetite of the guests on every hand. Sweet harmonies floated from the adjoining groves, and, amidst a general buzz of delight and admiration, Stephania took her seat at the festal board between the Senator of Rome and the German king.
The flower of beauty, wit and magnificence of the Senator's Roman court had been culled to grace this festival, for there was no one present, who was not remarked for at least one of these attributes, some even by the union of all. The most beautiful women of Rome surrounded the consort of the Senator, who outshone them all. Even envy could not deny her the crown.
Nevertheless, and for the first time, perhaps, Stephania seemed to misdoubt the supremacy and power of her great beauty, and while she affected being absorbed in other matters, her eye watched with devouring anxiety every glance of her exalted guest, whose feverish vivaciousness betrayed to her his inmost thoughts.
The Senator's countenance was that of the Sphinx of the desert. He appeared neither to see nor to hear.
Otto meanwhile, in order to remove from his path the terrible temptation which he felt growing with every instant, in order to divert Eckhardt's attention, who he instinctively felt was watching his every gesture, and to stifle any possible suspicions, which Crescentius might entertain, affected to be struck with the appearance of one of Stephania's ladies, who resembled her in stature and in the colour of her hair. He intentionally mistook her for the fairy in the grotto, laughingly challenging her acquaintance, which she as merrily denied, declaring herself to be the wife of one of the barons present. But Otto would not be convinced and attached himself to her with a zeal, which brought on both many pointed jests on the part of the assembled revellers.
Stephania immediately observed the ruse, but as her eye met that of the Senator, an unaccountable terror seized her. She turned away and pretended to join her guests in their merriment. Among those present were some of the most imaginative and prolific minds of an age, otherwise dark and illiterate, yet the brilliant play and coruscations of Stephania's wit, the depth of some of the glittering remarks which fell from her lips, were not surpassed by any. At times she exhibited a tone of recklessness almost bordering on defiance and mockery, the lightning's power to scorch as well as to illumine, but when relapsing into what appeared her more natural mood, it was scarcely possible to resist the grace and seductiveness of her manner. Even the doctrines, which half in gayety, half in haughty acceptance of the character assigned to her on this evening, she promulgated, full of poetical epicureanism, fell with so sweet a harmony from her lips, that saints could not have wished them mended.
Otto, meanwhile, continued to play his serf-assigned part, but he lost not a single word or gesture of Stephania and his fervour towards his chosen partner rose in proportion with Stephania's gayety. But he did not fail to observe that her siren-smile was directed towards himself and his soul drank in the beams of her beauty, as the palm-tree absorbs the fervid suns of Africa, motionless with delight.
While gayety and convivial enjoyment seemed at their height, Eckhardt strode from the grotto, unobserved by the revellers and entered a secluded path leading into the remoter regions of the park. Otto's predilection for the wife of the Senator of Rome had escaped him as little as had her own seeming coquetry, and he had looked on in silence, until, seized with profound disgust, he could bear it no longer.
What he had always feared was coming to pass.
When the Romans could no longer vanquish their foes on the field of battle, they destroyed them with their women.