It was a moonless night.—
Deep repose was upon the seven hilled city. The sky was intensely dark, but the stars shone out full and lustrous. Venus was almost setting. Mars glowed red and fiery towards the zenith; the constellations seemed to stand out from the infinite spaces behind them. Orion glittered like a giant in golden armour; Cassiopeia shone out in her own peculiar radiance and the Pleiades in their misty brightness.
A litter, borne by four stalwart Nubians, and preceded by two torch bearers, slowly emerged from the gates of Theodora's palace and took the direction of the gorge which divides the Mount of Cloisters from Mount Testaccio.
Owing to the prevailing darkness which made all objects, moving and immobile, indistinguishable, the inmates of the litter had not drawn the curtains, so as to admit the cooling night air. There was a fixedness in Theodora's look and a recklessness in her manner that showed anger and determination. It struck Persephoné, who was seated by her side, with a sort of terror, and for once she did not dare to accost her mistress with her usual banter and freedom.
Theodora had spent the early hours of the evening in a half obscured room, whose sable hangings seemed to reflect the unrest of her soul. She had forbidden the lamps to be lighted, brooding alone in darkness and solitude. Then she had summoned Persephoné, ordered her litter-bearers and commanded them to take her to the house of Sidonia, a woman versed in all manner of lore that shunned the light of day.
"It must be done! It shall be done!" she muttered, her white face tense, her white hands clenched.
Suddenly her hand closed round Persephoné's wrist.
"She defies me, knowing herself in my power," she said. "We shall see who shall conquer."
"The Lady Hellayne is as fearless of death, as yourself, Lady Theodora," Persephoné replied. "Indeed, she seemed rather to desire it, for no woman ever faced you with such defiance as did she when you put before her the fatal choice."
Theodora's face shone ghostly in the nocturnal gloom.
"We shall see! She shall desire death a thousand fold ere she quits the abode I have assigned to her. God! Not even Roxana had dared to say to me what this one did."
"Nor would her shafts have struck so deep a wound," Persephoné interposed with studied insolence.
Theodora's grip tightened round the girl's wrist.
"You admire the Lady Hellayne?" she said softly, but there was a gleam in her eyes like liquid fire.
"As one brave woman admires another!" Persephoné replied fearlessly, turning her beautiful face to the speaker.
"You may require all your courage some day to face another task," Theodora replied. "Beware, lest you tempt me to do what I might regret."
Persephoné turned white. Her bosom heaved. Her eyes met Theodora's.
"I shall welcome the ordeal with all my heart!"
Theodora relapsed into silence, oppressed by dark thoughts, the memory of unresisted temptations, a chaotic world where black unscalable rocks, like circles of the Inferno, hemmed her in on every side, while devils whispered into her ears the words that gave shape and substance to her desire to destroy her rival in the love of the one man whom, in all her changeable life, she had truly desired.
"Deem you, that I have aught to fear from such as you? Deem you, that Tristan would defile his manhood with the courtesan queen of Rome?"
The words still boomed in her ears, the words and the tone in which they had been hurled in her face.
Even to this moment she knew not what restrained her from strangling Hellayne. It seemed to her that only in a physical encounter could she quench the hatred she bore this white, beautiful statue who never raised her voice while the fire of her blue eyes seared her very soul.
A thousand frightful forms of evil, stalking shapes of death, came and went before her imagination, which caused her to clutch first at one, then at another of the dire suggestions that came in crowds which overwhelmed her powers of choice. Then, like an inspiration from the very depths of Hell, a thought flashed into her mind, and, no sooner conceived, than she determined upon its execution.
The laboratory of the woman whom Theodora was seeking on this night was in an old house midway in the gorge. In a deep hollow, almost out of sight, stood a square structure of stone, gloomy and forbidding, with narrow windows and an uninviting door. Tall pines shadowed it on one side, a small rivulet twisted itself, like a live snake, half round it on the other. A plot of green grass, ill-kept and teeming with noxious weeds, fennel, thistle and foul stramonium, was surrounded by a rough wall of loose stone; and here lived the woman who supplied all those who desired her wares, and plied her nocturnal trade.
Sidonia was tall and straight, of uncertain age, though she might have been reckoned at forty. The whiteness of her skin was enhanced by her blue black hair and lustrous black eyes. Far from forbidding, she exercised a sinister charm upon those who called upon her, and who vainly tried to reconcile her trade with the traces of a great beauty. Yet her thin, cruel lips never smiled, unless she had an object to gain by assuming a disguise as foreign to her as light is to an angel of darkness.
Hardly any known poison there was, which was not obtainable at her hands. In a sombre chest, carved with fantastic figures from Etruscan designs, were concealed the subtle drugs, cabalistical formulas and alchemic preparations which were so greatly in demand during those years of darkness.
In the most secret place of all were deposited, ready for use, a few phials of a crystal liquid, every single drop of which contained the life of a man, and which, administered in due proportion of time and measure, killed and left no trace.
Here was the sublimated dust of the deadly night-shade which kindles the red fires of fever and rots the roots of the tongue. Here was the fetid powder of stramonium that grips the lungs like an asthma, and quinia that shakes its victims like the cold hand of the miasma in the Pontine Marshes. The essence of poppies, ten times sublimated, a few grains of which bring on the stupor of apoplexy, and the sardonic plant that kills its victims with the frightful laughter of madness upon their countenance, were here. The knowledge of these and many other cursed herbs, once known to Medea in the Colchian land, and transplanted to Greece and Rome with the enchantments of their use, had been handed down by a long succession of sorcerers and poisoners to the woman, who seemed endowed by nature as the legitimate inheritrix of this lore of Hell.
At last the litter of Theodora was set down by its swarthy bearers before the threshold of Sidonia's house. Theodora alighted and, after commanding the Africans to await her return, ascended the narrow stone steps alone and knocked at the door. After a brief wait, shuffling steps were heard from within, and a bent, lynx-eyed individual of Oriental origin opened the door, inviting the visitor to enter. She was ushered into a dusky hallway, in which brooded strange odors, thence into a dimly lighted room, the laboratory of Sidonia.
Hardly had she seated herself when the woman entered and stood face to face with Theodora.
The eyes of the two women instantly met in a searching glance that took in the whole ensemble, bearing, dress and almost the very thoughts of each other. In that one glance each knew and understood; each knew that she could trust the other, in evil, if not in good.
And there was trust between them. The evil spirits that possessed their hearts clasped hands, and a silent league was formed in their souls ere a word had been spoken.
Sidonia wore a long, purple robe, totally unadorned. The sleeves were wide, and revealed her white, bare arms. Her finely cut features were crossed with thin lines of cruelty and cunning. No mercy was in her eyes, still less on her lips, and none in her heart, cold to every human feeling.
"The Lady Theodora is fair to look upon," Sidonia broke the silence. "All women admit it; all men confess it." And her gaze swept the other woman, who was clad in an ample black mantle which ended in a hood.
"Can you guess why I am here?" Theodora replied. "You are wise and know a woman's desire better than she dares avow."
"Can I guess?" replied Sidonia, returning Theodora's scrutiny. "You have many lovers, Lady Theodora, but there is one who does not return your passion. And, you have a rival. A woman, more potent than yourself, has, notwithstanding your beauty, entangled the man you love, and you are here to win him back and to triumph over your rival. Is it not so, Lady Theodora?"
"More than that," replied the other, clenching her white hands and gazing into the eyes that met her own with a look of merciless triumph at what she saw reflected therein. "It is all that—and more—"
Sidonia met her eager gaze.
"You would kill your rival!" she said with a smile upon her lips. "There is death in your eyes—in your voice—in your heart! You would kill the woman. It is good in the eyes of a woman to kill her rival—and women like you are rare!"
"Your reward shall be great," Theodora said with an inquisitive glance at the woman who had read her inmost thoughts.
"To kill woman or man were a pleasure even without the profit," replied Sidonia, darkly. "I come from a race, ancient and terrible as the Cæsars, and I hate the puny rabble. I have my own joy in making my hand felt in a world I hate and which hates me!"
She held out her hands, as if the ends of her fingers were trickling poison.
"Death drops on whomsoever I send it," she continued, "subtly, secretly. The very spirits of air cannot trace whence it comes."
"I know you are the possessor of terrible secrets," Theodora replied, fascinated beyond all her experiences with the woman and her trade.
"Such secrets never die," said the poisoner. "Few men, still fewer women, are there who would not listen at the door of Hell to learn them. Let me see your hand!"
Theodora complied with her abrupt demand and laid her beautiful white hand into the no less beautiful one of the woman before her.
Her touch, though the hand was cool, seemed to burn, but Theodora's touch affected the other woman likewise for she said:
"There is evil enough in the palm of your hand to destroy the world! We are well met, you and I. You are worthy of my confidence. These fingers would pick the fruit off the forbidden tree, for men to eat and die! Lady Theodora—I may some day teach you the great secret—meanwhile I will show you that I possess it!"
With these words she walked to the chest, took from it an ebony casket and laid it upon the table.
"There is death enough in this casket," she said, "to kill every man and woman in Rome!"
Theodora fastened her gaze upon it, as if she would have drawn out the secret of its contents by the very magnetism of her eyes. For, even while Sidonia was speaking, a thought flashed through her visitor's mind—a thought which almost made her forget the purpose on which she had come. She laid her hands upon it caressingly, trembling, eager to see its contents.
"Open it!" said Sidonia. "Touch the spring and look!"
Theodora touched the little spring. The lid flew back and there flashed from it a light which for a moment dazzled her by its very brilliancy. She thrust the cabinet from her in alarm, imagining she inhaled the odor of some deadly perfume.
"Its glitter terrifies me!" she said. "Its odor sickens."
"Your conscience frightens you," sneered Sidonia.
Theodora rose to her feet, her face pale, her eyes alight with a strange fire.
"This to me?" she flashed.
For a moment the two women faced each other in a white silence.
A strange smile played upon Sidonia's lips.
"The Aqua Tofana in the hands of a coward is a gift as fatal to its possessor as to its victim!"
"You are brave to speak such words to Theodora!"
Sidonia gave her an inscrutable glance.
"Why should I fear you? Even without these,—woman to woman," she replied, as she drew the casket to herself and took out a phial, gilt and chased with strange symbols.
Sidonia took it up and immediately the liquid was filled with a million sparks of fire. It was the Aqua Tofana, undiluted, instantaneous in its effect, and not medicable by antidotes. Once administered there was no more hope for its victim than for the souls of the damned who have received the final judgment. One drop of the sparkling water upon the tongue of a Titan would blast him like Jove's thunderbolt, shrivel him up to a black, unsightly cinder.
This terrible water was rarely used alone by the poisoners, but it formed the basis of a hundred slower potions which ambition, fear or hypocrisy, mingled with the element of time, and colored with the various hues and aspects of natural disease.
Theodora had again taken her seat and leaned towards Sidonia, supporting her chin in the palm of her hands, as she bent eagerly over the table, drinking in every word as the hot sand of the desert drinks in the water that falls upon it.
"What is that?" she pointed to a phial, white as milk and seemingly harmless, and while she questioned, her busy brain worked with feverish activity. The Aqua Tofana she had used when she struck down Roxana and her too talkative lover on the night of the feast in her garden. But now she required a different concoction to complete the vengeance on her rival.
"This is called Lac Misericordiae," replied Sidonia. "It brings on painless consumption and decay! It eats the life out of man or woman, while the moon empties and fills. The strong man becomes a skeleton. Blooming maidens sink to their graves blighted and bloodless. Neither saint or sacrament can arrest its doom. This phial"—and she took another from the cabinet, replacing the first—"contains innumerable griefs that wait upon the pillows of rejected and heartbroken lovers, and the wisest mediciner is mocked by the lying appearances of disease that defy his skill and make a mock of his wisdom."
There was a moment's silence. At last Theodora spoke.
"Have you nothing that will cause fear—dread—madness—ere it strikes the victim dumb forever more? Something that produces in the brain those dreadful visions—horrid shapes—peopling its chambers where reason once held sway?"
For a moment Sidonia and Theodora held each other's gaze, as if each were wondering at the wickedness of the other.
"This," Sidonia said at last, taking out a curiously twisted bottle, containing a clear crimson liquid and sealed with the mystic Pentagon, "contains the quintessence of mandrakes, distilled in the alembic, when Scorpio rules the hour. It will produce what you desire."
"How much of it is required to do this thing?"
"Three drops. Within six hours the unfailing result will appear."
"Give it to me!"
"You possess rare ingenuity, Lady Theodora," said Sidonia, placing her hand in that of her caller. "If Satan prompts you not, it is because he can teach you nothing, either in love or stratagem."
She shut up her infernal casket, leaving the phial of distilled mandrakes, shining like a ruby in the lamp light, upon the table. By its side lay a bag of gold.
Theodora arose. The eyes of the two women flashed in lurid sympathy as they parted, and Sidonia accompanied her visitor to the door.
As she did so a heavy curtain in the background parted and the white face of Basil peered into the empty room.
After a brief interval Sidonia returned.
Her face had again assumed its forbidding aspect as, removing the phials and seemingly addressing no one, she said:
"We are alone now!"
At the next moment Basil stood in the chamber. His eyes burned with a feverish lustre, and there was a horror in his countenance which he strove in vain to conceal.
"This must not be," he said hoarsely. "Why did you give her this devil's brew?"
And staggering up to the table he gripped the soft white wrist of the woman with fingers of steel.
Sidonia's eyes narrowed as she gazed into those of the man.
"Do you love that one, too?" she said, wrenching herself free. "Or have you lied to her as you have lied to me?"
"Your voice sounds like the cry from a dark gallery that leads to Hell," Basil replied. "You, alone, have I loved all these years, and for your fell beauty have I risked all I have done and am about to do!"
"Fear speaks in your voice," Sidonia replied with a cruel smile upon her lips. "You are in my power, else had you long ago consigned me to a place whence there is no return. With me the secret of another's death would go to the grave."
"Nay, you do not understand!" Basil interposed. "The woman who has aroused Theodora's maddened jealousy is nothing to me. But I have other plans concerning her—she must be saved!"
"Other plans?" replied Sidonia darkly. "What other plans? What sort of woman is she who can arouse the jealousy of Theodora?"
"White and cold as the snows of the North."
"A stranger in Rome?"
"The wife of one whose days are numbered, if I rightly read the oracle."
"What is this plan?" Sidonia insisted.
"She is to be delivered to Hassan Abdullah, as reward for his aid in the great stroke that is about to fall."
In the distance whimpered a bell.
"And, when the hour tolls—the hour of which you have so often prated—when you sit in the high seat of the Senator of Rome—where then will I be, who have watched your power grow and have aided it in its upward flight?"
Basil's face lighted up with the fires within.
"Where else but by my side? Who dares defy us and the realms of the Underworld?"
"Who, indeed?" Sidonia replied with a dark, inscrutable glance into Basil's face. "Perchance I should not love you as I do were you not as evil as you are good to look upon! I love you, even though I know your lying lips have professed love to many others, even though I know that Theodora has kindled in you all the evil passions of your soul. Beware how you play with me!"
She threw back her wide sleeves and two dazzling white arms encircled Basil's neck.
"Await me yonder," she then turned to her visitor, pointing to a chamber situated beyond the curtain. "We will talk this matter over!"
Basil retired and Sidonia busied herself, replacing the different phials in the ebony chest.
After having assured herself that everything was in its place, she picked up the lamp and disappeared behind the curtain in the background.
Deep midnight silence reigned in the gorge of Mount Aventine.
Another day had gone down the never returning tide of time. The sun was sinking in a rosy bed of quilted clouds. All day long Hellayne had sat brooding in her chamber, unable to shake off the lethargy of despair that bound and benumbed her limbs, rousing herself at long intervals just sufficiently to wring her hands for very anguish, without even the faintest ray of hope to pierce the black night of her misery.
Just as a white border of light had been visible on the edge of the dark cloud that hung over her, just as she had refound the man whose love was the very breath of her existence, her evil star had again flamed in the ascendant and, losing him anew, she had utterly lost herself. She struggled with her thoughts, as a drowning man amid tossing waves, groping about in the dark for a plank to float upon, when all else has sunk in the seas around him.
She had hardly touched the food which Persephoné herself had brought to her. Yet it seemed to her the Circassian had regarded her strangely, as she placed the viands before her. She had tried to frame a question, but her lips seemed to refuse the utterance, and at last Persephoné had departed, with the mocking promise to return later, to inquire how the Lady Hellayne had spent the day.
Now it seemed to her as if a poison breath of evil was slowly permeating the narrow confines of her chamber. Something she had never before experienced was floating before her vision, was creeping into her brain, was booming in her ears, was turning her blood to ice.
Was it the voiceless echo of an ill-omened incantation, handed down through generations of poisoners and witches from the time of pagan Rome?
"Hecaten voco,Voco Tisiphonem,Spargens avernales aquas,Te morti devoveo; te diris ago."
Was she going mad?
Hellayne's hands went to her forehead.
"I think I am sane," she said to herself, "at least—as yet."
Would Heaven not come to her aid? She was but a weak woman who in vain—too often in vain—had tried to snatch a few moments of happiness from life. Ah! If Death knew what a service he would render her! But no! She would brace her heart strings more than ever. She would renew her fight with dusk and madness. She would face and challenge each mad phantom—make it speak—reveal itself,—or she would break the silence of that monstrous place at least with her own voice. Though flesh was weak she would be strong to-night—but—ah God! here they came trooping out of the night.
She cowered back, shuddering, her eyes fixed on the dusky depths of the chamber.
It was the blue one—the one whose limbs and cheeks seemed made of pale blue ice. She felt her limbs growing numb. But she would bar its way.
The finger of the freezing shape was on its lip. Did it mean that it was dumb? Well, then, let it speak by signs. The dim blue rays that draped its silence quaked like aspens.
"Who are you?" she forced herself to speak. "Are you Hate? You shake your head? Are you Despair? No? Not that? Then you must be Fear!"
The figure nodded with a horrible grin.
"Fear of what?"
The phantom passed its finger slowly across its throat.
She held on to the panelling to keep from falling. Her woman's strength had bounds. But she recovered herself and forced herself to speak.
"Ah!" she said, "it is this she contemplates? How soon? I needs must know. How many twilights have I still to live, before they sink my body in yonder lotus pond?"
The phantom held up three fingers.
"Only three," Hellayne babbled like a child, talking to herself. "Well—pass upon your way, phantom.—You have given me all you had to give—three dusks to rise to Heaven."
She raised her eyes in prayer and a strange rapture came into her face. But it vanished suddenly—and once more she stared, shuddering, into the gloom.
For craze and hell still prevailed.
Look, there it came!
What new and monstrous phantom was swaying and groping towards her? A headless monk!—The air grew black with horror. Horror shrivelled her skin, was raising the roots of her hair.
It was for her he was groping. Her wits were beginning to leave her. She had to move this way and that to avoid him. She felt, if he only touched her, madness would win the day. And he groped and groped, and she seemed to feel him near to her.
"Away! Away!" she shrieked. But she was wasting her breath. He had neither eyes to see nor ears to hear.
And he groped and groped, as if he felt her already under his vague, white hands.
"Help—God!" she shrieked.
Nature could not cope with such shapes as these!
And Hellayne fell forward in a swoon.
It was late in the night when she regained consciousness. She opened her eyes. The shapes of dusk had gone. She was alone—alone on the stone floor of the chamber. Everything was still in the long dusky gallery beyond. Perhaps it was all over for the night, and yet—what was there upon the threshold?
"Oh, my God! my God!" she cried. "Let me die—only not this horror!"
There the phantom stood. Its scarlet mantle glimmered almost black. She dared not turn her back. She dared not shut her eyes. He made neither sign, nor beck, nor nod. But, like a crazy shadow, he circled round and round her, soundlessly, as if he were treading on velvet.
"Keep off—keep off!" she shrieked. "Protect me, oh my God! Madness is closing in upon me!"
And with a sudden, desperate movement she rushed at the phantom to tear the crimson mask from its face.
Her arms penetrated empty air.
With a moan she sank upon the floor. Her arms spread out, she lay upon her face.
The swoon held her captive once more.
But the dream was kinder to Hellayne than life.
She stood upon a rocky promontory in her own far-off land of Provence.
Before her spread the peace of the wide, glimmering sea.
What are these golden columns through which the water glistens?
A man stood within the ruins of a great temple, the sea before him, violet hills behind. From the summit of an island mountain in the bay the lilt of a tender song was drifting upwards.
And, as he sang, the great sea stirred. It heaved, it writhed, it rose. With onward movement, as of a coiling serpent, the whole vast liquid brilliance rushed upon the temple. Mighty billows of beryl curved and broke in sheets of white foam.
"Fear nothing," said the man. "Your river has found the sea!"
It was Tristan's voice.
From the distance came the faint tolling of a bell, forlorn, as from a forest chapel, infinitely sweet and tremulous. In a faint light, like a mountain mist at dawn, the whole scene faded away, and Hellayne was in a garden—a rose garden. She had been there before, but how different it all was. She was being smothered in roses. Flame roses every one—curled into fiery petal whorls, dancing in the garden dusk under a red, red sky.
Ah! There it is again, the terrible face, leering from among the branches, the face that froze the blood in her veins, that made her heart turn cold as ice and filled her soul with horror.
It is the Count Laval. He is seeking her, seeking her everywhere. Horns are peering out from under his scarlet cap, and he has long claws.
Now she is fleeing through the rose garden, faster, faster, ever faster. But he is gaining upon her. From bosquet to bosquet, from thicket to thicket; she hears his approaching steps. Now she can almost feel his breath upon her neck.
At last he has overtaken her.
Now he is circling round her, nearer and nearer, extending his hands towards her, while she follows his movement with horror-stricken eyes.
But her strength, her body, are paralyzed.
As his hands close round her throat, his eyes gloating with dull malice, she covers her face with her hands and falls with a shriek.
And as she lies there before him, dead, he looks down upon her with a strange smile upon his lips and casts his scarlet mantle over her.
Once more Hellayne is in the throes of a swoon.
It was a night, moonless and starless. Deep silence brooded over the city. Not a ray of light was in the sky. A dense fog hung like a funeral pall over the Seven Hills, and a ceaseless, changeless drizzle was sinking from the heavy clouds whose contours were indistinguishable in the nocturnal gloom. The Tiber hardly moaned within his banks. The city fires hissed and smouldered away under the descending rain, soon to be extinguished altogether.
It was about the second watch of the night when two men, wrapped in dark mantles that covered them from head to foot, quitted the monastery of San Lorenzo and were immediately swallowed up by the darkness.
The night by this time was more dismal than ever. The wind began to rise, and its fitful gusts howled round the stern old walls of the monastery, or rustled in the laurels and cypresses by which it was surrounded. The great gates were shut and barred. Hardly a light was to be seen along the entire range of buildings.
Suddenly a postern gate opened, and what appeared to be a monk, drawing his black cowl completely over his head, came forth and hurried along in the direction of the river.
Tristan and his companion, emerging from their hiding-place, followed at the farthest possible distance which allowed them to retain sight of their quarry. Through a succession of the worst and narrowest by-lanes of the city they tracked him to the Tiber's edge.
Here, dark as it was, a boat was ready for launching. Five or six persons were standing by, who seemed to recognize and address the monk. Keeping in the shadows of the tall, ill-favored houses, the twain contrived to approach near enough to hear somewhat that was said.
"The light over yonder has been burning this half hour," said one of the men.
"I could not come before," said he in the monk's habit. "I was followed by two men. I threw them out, however, before I reached the monastery of San Lorenzo. But—by all the saints—lose no more time! We have lost too much, as it is."
He entered the boat as he spoke. It was pushed out into the water, and in another moment the measured sound of oars came to their ears.
Odo of Cluny turned to his companion.
"Tell me, did he who spoke first and mentioned the light yonder on St. Bartholomew's Island—a light there is yonder, sure enough—did he resemble, think you, one we know?"
"Both in voice and form," replied Tristan.
"My thoughts point the same way as yours!"
"I should know that voice wherever I heard it," Tristan muttered under his breath. "But what of the light?"
Dimly through the mist the red glow was discernible.
"It beams from the deserted monastery," Odo replied after a pause.
"Can we put across?" Tristan queried.
"The question is not so much to find a boat as a landing-place, where we shall not be seen."
"There is a boat lying yonder. If my eyes do not deceive me, the boatman lies asleep on the poop."
"Know you aught of the men who rowed down the river?" Odo turned to the boatman, after he had aroused him.
The latter stared uncomprehendingly into the speaker's face.
"I know of no men. I fell asleep for want of custom. It is a God-forsaken spot," he added, rubbing his eyes. "Who would want a boat on a night like this?"
"We require even such a commodity," Odo replied.
The boatman returned a dull, unresponsive glance and did not move from his improvised couch.
"Take your oars and row us to the Tiber Island," Odo said sternly, "unless you would bring upon yourself the curse of the Church. We have a weighty matter that brooks no delay. And have a care to avoid that other boat which has preceded yours. We must not be seen."
Something in Odo's voice seemed to compel, and soon they were afloat, the boatman bending to his oars. They drifted through the dense mist and soon a dilapidated flight of landing stairs hove in sight, leading up to the deserted monastery.
"Had we chosen the usual landing-place, we should have found two boats moored there—I saw them as we turned." Odo turned to his companion. "Yet we dare not land here. We should be seen from the shore."
Directing their Charon to row his craft higher up, Odo soon discovered the place of which he was in quest. It was a little cove. The rocks which bordered it were slippery with seaweed, and in that misty obscurity offered no very safe footing.
Here the boat was moored, and Odo and his companion clambered slowly, but steadily, over the rocks and, in a few moments, had made good their landing.
Having directed the boatman to await their call in the shadow of the opposite bank, where he might remain unseen, they continued to grope their way upward, till they reached the angles of a wall which converged here, sheltered by a projecting pent house. Voices were heard issuing from within.
"We must have ample security, my lord," said a speaker, whose voice Odo recognized as the voice of Basil. "You require of us to do everything. You exact ties and pledges and hostages, and you offer nothing."
"I am desirous of sparing, as much as may be, the blood of my men," replied the person addressed. "Rome must be my lord's without conflict."
"That may—or may not be," said the first speaker. "But so much you may say to the Lord Ugo. If he expects to reconquer Rome, he will need all the forces he can summon."
"A wiser man than you or I, my lord, has said: 'Never force a foe to stand at bay,'" interposed a third. "Reject our offers, and we, whom you might have for your friends, you will have for your most bitter and determined foes. Accept our terms, and Rome, together with the Emperor's Tomb, is yours!"
"What terms are contained in this paper?" queried Ugo's emissary.
"They are not very difficult to remember!" returned the Grand Chamberlain. "But I might as well repeat them here. First—the revenues of all the churches to flow to the Holy See."
"Proceed."
"Utmost security of life, person and property to those who are aiding our enterprise."
"It is well," said the voice. "So much I can vouch for, my lord. Is that all?"
"All—as far as conditions go," returned the third speaker.
"It is not all, by St. Demetrius," cried Basil. "I claim the office I am holding with all its privileges and appurtenances, to give no account to any one of the past or the future."
"What of the present?" interposed the voice.
"You never could imagine that I perilled my neck only to secure your lord in his former possessions, which he so cowardly abandoned," said Basil contemptuously. "I claim the hand of the Lady Theodora—"
"Theodora?" cried the envoy of Ugo of Tuscany, turning fiercely upon the speaker. "Surely you are mad, my lord, to imagine that the Lord Ugo would peril his reign with the presence of this woman within the same walls that witnessed the regime of her sister—"
"Mind your own business, my lord," interposed Basil. "What the man thinks who fled from Castel San Angelo at the first cry of revolt, the man who slunk away like a thief in the night, is nothing to me. We make the conditions. It is for him to accept or reject them, as he sees fit."
A rasping voice, speaking a villainous jargon, made itself heard at this juncture.
"What of my Saracens, mighty lord?" Hassan Abdullah, for no lesser than the great Mahometan chieftain was the speaker, turned to the Grand Chamberlain. "I, too, am desirous of sparing the blood of my soldiers and, insofar as lies within my power, that of the Nazarenes also. For it is written in the book: Slavery for infidels—but death only for apostates."
"Our compact is sealed beyond recall," Basil made reply.
"Then you will deliver the woman into my hands?"
There was a pause.
"She shall be delivered into the hands of Hassan Abdullah! And he will sail away with his white-plumed bird—the fairest flower of the North—and the ransom of a city."
"Yet I do not know the lady's name," said the Saracen. "This I should know—else how may she heed my call?"
"Those who love her call her Hellayne."
At the name Tristan started so violently that the monk caught his arm in a grip of steel.
"Silence—if you value your life," Odo enjoined.
"When and where is she to be delivered into my hands?" Hassan Abdullah continued.
"The place will be made known to you, my lord," Basil replied, "when the Emperor's Tomb hails its new master."
"Here is an infernal plot," Odo whispered into Tristan's ear, "spawned up by the very Prince of Darkness."
"What can we do?" came back the almost soundless reply. "Hellayne to be delivered over to this infidel dog! Nay, do not restrain me, Father—"
"There are six to two of us," Odo interposed. "Silence! Some one speaks."
It was the voice of the envoy of Ugo of Tuscany.
"Although it seems like a taunt, to fling into the face of my lord the sister of the woman who was the cause of his defeat—"
"His coward soul was the cause of the Lord Ugo's defeat," Basil interposed hotly. "In the dark of night, by means of a rope he let himself down from his lair, to escape the wrath of the fledgling he had struck for an unintentional affront. Did the Lord Ugo even inquire into the fate of the woman who perished miserably in the dungeons of the Emperor's Tomb?"
"Let us not be hasty," interposed another. "The Lord Ugo will listen to reason."
"The conditions are settled," Basil replied. "On the third night from to-night!"
The conspirators rose and, emerging from the ruined refectory, made their way down to their boat.
Soon the sound of oars, becoming fainter and fainter, informed the listeners that the company had departed.
Tristan's face was very white.
"What is to be done?" he turned pathetically to the monk who stood brooding by his side. "I almost wish I had let my fate overtake me—"
"Do not blaspheme," Odo interposed. "Sometimes divine aid is nearest when it seems farthest removed. In three days the blow is to fall! In three days Rome is to be turned over to the infidels who are ravaging our southern coasts, and the Tuscan is once more to hold sway in the Tomb of the former Master of the World. But not he—Basil will rule, for Ugo has his hands full in Ivrea. With Basil Theodora will lord it from yonder castello. He will let the Lord Ugo burn his hands and he will snatch the golden fruit. I will pray that this feeble hand may undo their dark plotting."
"What is Rome to me? What the universe?" Tristan interposed, "if she whom I love better than life is lost to me?"
The monk turned to him laying his hand upon his shoulder.
"You have been miraculously delivered from the very jaws of death. You will save the woman you love from dishonor and shame."
Odo pondered for a pace then he continued:
"There is one in Rome—who is encompassing your destruction. The foul crime in the Lateran of which you were the victim is but another proof of the schemes of the Godless, who have desecrated the churches of Christ for their hellish purposes. We must find their devil's chapel, hidden somewhere beneath the soil of Rome. None shall escape."
"How will you bring this about, Father?" Tristan queried despairingly.
"The soldiers of the Church have not been bribed," Odo replied. "Listen, my son, and do you as I direct. On to-morrow's eve Theodora gives one of her splendid feasts. Go you disguised. Watch—but speak not. Listen—but answer not. Who knows but that you may receive tidings of your lost one? As for myself, I shall seek one whose crimes lie heavily upon him, one who trembles with the fear of death, at whose door he lies—Il Gobbo—the bravo. His master has dealt him a mortal wound to remove the last witness of his crimes. Come to me on the second day at dusk."
Emerging from the shadows of the wall, Tristan hailed the boatman, and a few moments later they were being rowed towards a solitary spot near the base of the Aventine, where they paid and dismissed their Charon and disappeared among the ruins.
Again there was feasting and high revels in the palace of Theodora on Mount Aventine. Colored lanterns were suspended between the interstices of orange and oleander trees; and incense rose in spiral coils from bronze and copper vessels, concealed among leafy bowers. The great banquet hall was thronged with a motley crowd of Romans, Greeks, men from the coasts of Africa and Iceland, Spaniards, Persians, Burgundians, Lombards, men from the steppes of Sarmatia, and the amber coast of the Baltic. Here and there groups were discussing the wines or the viands or the gossip of the day.
The guests marvelled at the splendor, wealth and the variegated mosaics, the gilded walls, the profusion of beautiful marble columns and the wonderfully groined ceiling. It was a veritable banquet of the senses. Theoutwittedradiance of the hall with its truly eastern splendor captivated the eye. From remote grottoes came the sounds of flutes, citherns and harps, quivering through the dreaming summer night.
On ebony couches upon silver frames, covered with rare tapestries and soft cushions, the guests reclined. Between two immense, crescent-shaped tables, made of citron wood and inlaid with ivory, rose a miniature bronze fountain, representing Neptune. From it spurted jets of scented water, which cooled and perfumed the air.
Not in centuries had there been such a feast in Rome. Mountain, plain and the sea had been relentlessly laid under tribute, to surrender their choicest towards supplying the sumptuous board.
Nubian slaves in spotless white kept at the elbows of the guests and filled the golden flagons as quickly as they were emptied. A powerful Cyprian wine, highly spiced, was served. Under its stimulating influence the revellers soon gave themselves up to the reckless enjoyment of the hour.
As the feast proceeded the guests cried more loudly for flagons of the fiery ecobalda. They quaffed large quantities of this wine and their faces became flushed, their eyes sparkled and their tongues grew more and more free. The temporary restraint they had imposed upon themselves gradually vanished. In proportion as they partook of the fiery vintage their conviviality increased.
The roll-call was complete. None was found missing. Here was the Lord of Norba and Boso, Lord of Caprara. Here was the Lord Atenulf of Benevento, the Lord Amgar, from the coasts of the Baltic; here was Bembo the poet, Eugenius the philosopher and Alboin, Lord of Farfa. Here was the Prefect of Rome and Roger de Laval. He, too, had joined the throng of idolators at the shrine of Theodora. The Lord Guaimar of Salerno was there, and Guido, Duke of Spoleto.
The curtain at the far end of the banquet hall slowly parted.
On the threshold stood Theodora.
Silent, rigid, she gazed into the hall.
Like a sudden snow on a summer meadow, a white silence fell from her imagination across that glittering, gleaming tinselled atmosphere. Everywhere the dead seemed to sit around her, watching, as in a trance, strange antics of the grimacing dead.
A vision of beauty she appeared, radiantly attired, a jewelled diadem upon her brow. By her side appeared Basil, the Grand Chamberlain.
When her gaze fell upon the motley crowd, a disgust, such as she had never known, seized her.
She seated herself on the dais, reserved for her, and with queenly dignity bade her guests welcome.
Basil occupied the seat of honor at her right, Roger de Laval at her left.
Had any one watched the countenances of Theodora and of Basil he would have surprised thereon an expression of ravening anxiety. To themselves they appeared like two players, neither knowing the next move of his opponent, yet filled with the dire assurance that upon this move depended the fate of the house of cards each has built upon a foundation of sand.
At last the Count de Laval arose and whirled his glass about his head.
"Twine a wreath about your cups," he shouted, "and drink to the glory of the most beautiful woman in the world—the Lady Theodora."
They rose to their feet and shouted their endorsement till the very arches seemed to ring with the echoes. His initiative was received with such favor by the others that, fired with the desire to emulate his example, they fell to singing and shouting the praise of the woman whose beauty had not its equal in Rome.
Theodora viewed the scene of dissipation with serenity and composure, and, by her attitude she seemed, in a strange way, even tacitly to encourage them to drink still deeper. Faster, ever faster, the wine coursed among the guests. Some of them became more and more boisterous, others were rendered somnolent and fell forward in a stupor upon the silken carpets.
Theodora, whose restlessness seemed to increase with every moment, and who seemed to hold herself in leash by a strenuous effort of the will, suddenly turned to Basil and whispered a question into his ear.
A silent nod came in response and the next moment a clash of cymbals, stormily persistent, roused the revellers from their stupor. Then, like a rainbow garmented Peri, floating easefully out of some far-off sphere of sky-wonders, an aerial maiden shape glided into the full lustre of the varying light, a dancer nude, save for the glistening veil that carelessly enshrouded her limbs, her arms and hands being adorned with circlets of tiny golden bells which kept up a melodious jingle as she moved. And now began the strangest music, music that seemed to hover capriciously between luscious melody and harsh discord, a wild and curious medley of fantastic minor suggestions in which the imaginative soul might discover hints of tears and folly, love and madness. To this uncertain yet voluptuous measure the glittering girl dancer leaped forward with a startling abruptness and, halting as it were on the boundary line between the dome and the garden beyond, raised her rounded arms in a snowy arch above her head.
Her pause was a mere breathing spell in duration. Dropping her arms with a swift decision, she hurled herself into the giddy mazes of a dance. Round and round she floated, like an opal-winged butterfly in a net of sunbeams, now seemingly shaken by delicate tremors, as aspen leaves are shaken by the faintest wind, now assuming the most voluptuous eccentricities of posture, sometimes bending down wistfully as though she were listening to the chanting of demon voices underground, and again, with her waving white hands, appearing to summon spirits to earth from their wanderings in the upper air. Her figure was in perfect harmony with the seductive grace of her gestures; not only her feet, but her whole body danced, her very features bespoke abandonment to the frenzy of her rapid movement. Her large black eyes flashed with something of fierceness as well as languor; and her raven hair streamed behind her like a darkly spread wing.
Wild outbursts of applause resounded uproariously through the hall.
Count Roger had drawn nearer to Theodora. His arms encircled her body.
Theodora bent over him.
"Not to-night! Not to-night! There are many things to consider. To-morrow I shall give you my answer."
He looked up into her eyes.
"Do you not love me?"
His hot breath fanned her cheeks.
Theodora gave a shrug and turned away, sick with disgust.
"Love—I hardly know what it means. I do not think I have ever loved."
Laval sucked in his breath between his teeth.
"Then you shall love me! You shall! Ever since I have come to Rome have I desired you! And the woman lives not who may gainsay my appeal."
She smiled tauntingly.
He had seized her hand. The fierceness of his grip made her gasp with pain.
"And whatever brought you to Rome?" she turned to him.
"I came in quest of one who had betrayed my honor."
"And you found her?"
"Both!" came the laconic reply.
"How interesting," purred Theodora, suffering his odious embrace, although she shuddered at his touch.
"And, man-like, you were revenged?"
"She has met the fate I had decreed upon her who wantonly betrayed the honor of her lord."
"Then she confessed?"
"She denied her guilt. What matter? I never loved her. It is you I love! You, divine Theodora."
And, carried away by a gust of passion, he drew her to him, covering her brow, her hair, her cheeks with kisses. But she turned away her mouth.
She tried to release herself from his embrace.
Roger uttered an oath.
"I have tamed women before—ay—and I shall tame you," he sputtered, utterly disregarding her protests.
She drew back as far as his encircling arms permitted.
"Release me, my lord!" she said, her dark eyes flashing fire. "You are mad!"
"No heroics—fair Theodora— Has the Wanton Queen of Rome turned into a haloed saint?"
He laughed. His mouth was close to her lips.
Revulsion and fury seized her. Disengaging her hands she struck him across the face.
There was foam on his lips. He caught her by the throat. Now he was forcing her beneath his weight with the strength of one insane with uncontrollable passion.
"Help!" she screamed with a choking sensation.
A shadow passed before her eyes. Everything seemed to swim around her in eddying circles of red. Then a gurgling sound. The grip on her throat relaxed. Laval rolled over upon the floor in a horrible convulsion, gasped and expired.
Basil's dagger had struck him through, piercing his heart.
Slowly Theodora arose. She was pale as death. Her guests, too much engaged with their beautiful partners, had been attracted to her plight but by her sudden outcry.
They stared sullenly at the dead man and turned to their former pursuits.
Theodora clapped her hands.
Two giant Nubians appeared. She pointed to the corpse at her feet. They raised it up between them, carried it out and sank it in the Lotus lake. Others wiped away the stains of blood.
Basil bent over Theodora's hands, and covered them with kisses, muttering words of endearment which but increased the discord in her heart.
She released herself, resuming her seat on the dais.
"It is the old fever," she turned to the man beside her. "You purchase and I sell! Nay"—she added as his lips touched her own—"there is no need for a lover's attitude when hucksters meet."
Though the guests had returned to their seats, a strange silence had fallen upon the assembly. The rhythmical splashing of the water in the fountain and the labored breathing of the distressed wine-Bibbie's seemed the only sounds that were audible for a time.
"But I love you, Theodora," Basil spoke with strangely dilated eyes. "I love you for what you are, for all the evil you have wrought! You, alone! For you have I done this thing! For you Alberic lies dead in some unknown glen. For you have I summoned about us those who shall seat you in the high place that is yours by right of birth."
Theodora was herself again. With upraised hand, that shone marble white in the ever-changing light, she enjoined silence.
"What of that other?" she said, while her eyes held those of the man with their magic spell.
"What other?" he stammered, turning pale.
"That one!" she flashed.
At that moment the curtain parted again and into the changing light, emitted by the great revolving globe, swayed a woman. At first it seemed a statue of marble that had become animated and, ere consciousness had resumed its sway, was slowly gaining life and motion, still bound up in the dream existence into which some unknown power had plunged her.
As one petrified, Basil stared at the swaying form of Hellayne. A white transparent byssus veil enveloped the beautiful limbs. Her wonderful bare arms were raised above her head, which was slightly inclined, as in a listening attitude. She seemed to move unconsciously as under a spell or as one who walks in her sleep. Her eyes were closed. The pale face showed suffering, yet had not lost one whit of its marvellous beauty.
The revellers stared spellbound at what, to their superstitious minds, seemed the wraith of slain Roxana returned to earth to haunt her rival.
Suddenly, without warning, the dark-robed form of a man dashed from behind a pillar. No one seemed to have noted his presence. Overthrowing every impediment, he bounded straight for Hellayne, when he saw the lithe form snatched up before his very eyes and her abductor disappear with his burden, as if the ground had swallowed them.
It seemed to Tristan that he was rushing through an endless succession of corridors and passages, crossing each other at every conceivable angle, in his mad endeavor to snatch his precious prey from her abductor when, in a rotunda in which these labyrinthine passages converged, he found himself face to face with an apparition that seemed to have risen from the floor.
Before him stood Theodora.
Her dark shadow was wavering across the moonlit network of light. The red and blue robes of the painted figures on the wall glowed about her like blood and azure, while the moonlight laid lemon colored splashes upon the varied mosaics of the floor.
His pulses beating furiously, a sense of suffocation in his throat, Tristan paused as the woman barred his way.
"Let me pass!" he said imperiously, trying to suit the action to the word.
But he had not reckoned with the woman's mood.
"You shall not," Theodora said, a strange fire gleaming in her eyes.
"Where is Hellayne? What have you done with her?"
Theodora regarded him calmly from under drooping lashes.
"That I will tell you," she said with a mocking voice. "It was my good fortune to rescue her from the claws of one who has again got her into his power. Her mind is gone, my Lord Tristan! Be reconciled to your fate!"
"Surely you cannot mean this?" Tristan gasped, his face under the monk's cowl pale as death, while his eyes stared unbelievingly into those of the woman.
"Is not what you have seen, proof that I speak truth?" Theodora interposed, slightly veiled mockery in her tone.
"Then this is your deed," Tristan flashed.
Theodora gave a shrug.
"What if it were?"
"She is in Basil's power?"
"An experienced suitor."
"Woman, why have you done this thing to me?"
His hands went to his head and he reeled like a drunken man.
Theodora laid her hands on Tristan's shoulders.
"Because I want you—because I love you, Tristan," she said slowly, and her wonderful face seemed to become illumined as it were, from within. "Nay—do not shrink from me! I know what you would say! Theodora—the courtesan queen of Rome! You deem I have no heart—no soul. You deem that these lips, defiled by the kisses of beasts, cannot speak truth. Yet, if I tell you, Tristan, that this is the first and only time in my life that I have loved, that I love you with a love such as only those know who have thirsted for it all their lives, yet have never known but its base counterfeit; if I tell you—that upon your answer depends my fate—my life—Tristan—will you believe—will you save the woman whom nothing else on earth can save?"
"I do not believe you," Tristan replied.
Theodora's face had grown white to the lips.
"You shall stay—and you shall listen to me!" she said, without raising her voice, as if she were discoursing upon some trifling matter, and Tristan obeyed, compelled by the look in her eyes.
Theodora felt Tristan's melancholy gaze resting upon her, as it had rested upon her at their first meeting. Was not he, too, like herself, a lone wanderer in this strange country called the world! But his manhood had remained unsullied. How she envied and how she hated that other woman to whom his love belonged. Softly she spoke, as one speaks in a dream.
She had gone forth in quest of happiness—happiness at any price. And she had paid the forfeit with a poisoned life. The desire to conquer had eclipsed every other. The lure of the senses was too mighty to be withstood. Yet how short are youth and life! One should snatch its pleasures while one may.
How fleet had been the golden empty days of joy. She had drained the brimming goblet to the dregs. If he misjudged her motive, her self-abasement, if he spurned the love she held out to him, the one supreme sacrifice of her life had been in vain. She would fight for it. Soul and body she would throw herself into the conflict. Her last chance of happiness was at stake. The poison, rankling in her veins, she knew could not be expelled by idle sophisms. Life, the despot, claimed his dues. Had she lived utterly in vain? Not altogether! She would atone, even though the bonds of her own forging, which bound her to an ulcered past, could be broken but by the hand of that crowned phantom: Death.
Now she was kneeling before him. She had grasped his hands.
"I love you!" she wailed. "Tristan, I love you and my love is killing me! Be merciful. Have pity on me. Love me! Be mine—if but for an hour! It is not much to ask! After, do with me what you will! Torture me—curse me before Heaven—I care not—I am yours—body and soul.—I love you!"
Her voice vibrated with mad idolatrous pleading.
He tried to release himself. She dragged herself yet closer to him.
"Tristan! Tristan!" she murmured. "Have you a heart? Can you reject me when I pray thus to you? When I offer you all I have? All that I am, or ever hope to be? Am I so repellent to you? Many men would give their lives if I were to say to them what I say to you. They are nothing to me—you alone are my world, the breath of my existence. You, alone, can save me from myself!"
Tristan felt his senses swooning at the sight of her beauty. He tried to speak, but the words froze on his lips. It was too impossible, too unbelievable. Theodora, the most beautiful, the most powerful woman in Rome was kneeling before him, imploring that which any man in Rome would have deemed himself a thousand fold blessed to receive. And he remained untouched.
She read his innermost thoughts and knew the supreme moment when she must win or lose him forever was at hand.
"Tristan—Tristan," she sobbed—and in the distant grove sobbed flutes and sistrum and citherns—"say what you will of me; it is true. I own it. Yet I am not worse than other women who have sold their souls for power or gold. Am I not fair to look upon? And is all this beauty of my face and form worthless in your eyes, and you no more than man? Kill me—destroy me—I care naught. But love me—as I love you!" and in a perfect frenzy of self-abandonment she rose to her feet and stood before him, a very bacchante of wild loveliness and passion. "Look upon me! Am I not more beautiful than the Lady Hellayne? You shall not—dare not—spurn such love as mine!"
Deep silence supervened. The expression of her countenance seemed quite unearthly; her eyes seemed wells of fire and the tense white arms seemed to seek a victim round which they might coil themselves to its undoing.
The name she had uttered in her supreme outburst of passion had broken the spell she had woven about him.
Hellayne—his white dove! What was her fate at this moment while he was listening to the pleadings of the enchantress?
Theodora advanced towards him with outstretched arms.
He stayed her with a fierce gesture.
"Stand back!" he said. "Such love as yours—what is it? Shame to whosoever shall accept it! I desire you not."
"You dare not!" she panted, pale as death.
"Dare not?"
But she was now fairly roused. All the savagery in her nature was awakened and she stood before him like some beautiful wild animal at bay, trembling from head to foot with the violence of her passion.
"You scorn me!" she said in fierce, panting accents, that scarcely rose above an angry whisper. "You make a mockery of my anguish and despair—holding yourself aloof with your prated virtue! But you shall suffer for it! I am your match! You shall not spurn me a third time! I have humbled myself in the dust before you, I, Theodora—and you have spurned the love I have offered you—you have spurned Theodora—for that white marble statue whom I should strangle before your very eyes were she here! You shall not see her again, my Lord Tristan. Her fate is sealed from this moment. On the altars of Satan is she to be sacrificed on to-morrow night!"
Tristan listened like paralyzed to her words, unable to move.
She saw her opportunity. She sprang at him. Her arms coiled about him. Her moist kisses seared his lips.
"Oh Tristan—Tristan," she pleaded, "forgive me, forgive! I know not what I say! I hunger for the kisses of your lips, the clasp of your arms! Do you know—do you ever think of your power? The cruel terrible power of your eyes, the beauty that makes you more like an angel than man? Have you no pity? I am well nigh mad with jealousy of that other whom you keep enshrined in your heart! Could she love, like I? She was not made for you—I am! Tristan—come with me—come—"
Tighter and tighter her arms encircled his neck. The moonbeams showed him her eyes alight with rapture, her lips quivering with passion, her bosom heaving. The blood surged up in his brain and a red mist swam before his eyes.
With a supreme effort Tristan released himself. Flinging her from him, he rushed out of the rotunda as if pursued by an army of demons. If he remained another moment he knew he was lost.
A lightning bolt shot down from the dark sky vault close beside him as he reached the gardens, and a peal of thunder crashed after in quick succession.
It drowned the delirious outburst of laughter that shrilled from the rotunda where Theodora, with eyes wide with misery and madness, stared as transfixed down the path where Tristan had vanished in the night.