The Hill of Venus
diversion, from which neither could escape, and time wore on, while
the light grew more intense and the sky burned a deeper blue. Ill at
ease, Francesco withdrew from the pastimes at last and climbed the
hill behind the amphitheatre. He was displeased and nervous. Ilaria,
he was sure, shrank from Stefano Maconi; yet was there not some secret
bond between them?
Would Ilaria come to him? He trembled, as in Avellino of old, and his
heart beat faster at the thought.
The hill was richly draped in ferns and swaying vines. Idly he pushed
aside a mass of ivy: a passage opened behind, deep-vaulted, paved with
broken fragments of mosaic. Stalactites dripped from the roof, through
the verdure of thick maiden-hair fern. The gloom looked grateful.
Francesco stepped within and, looking out on the blue day from the
waving green frame-work, saw Ilaria and Stefano Maconi approaching,
engaged in eager talk. She was flushed and bore herself haughtily.
Francesco stepped quietly out into the light, unnoticed by Ilaria's
companion. Ilaria evidently saw him at once. She paused and dismissed
the other, regardless of his somewhat insistent protests. With
half-ironic salutation she turned down the hill. Whether or no Stefano
had caught sight of Francesco, as he went, was difficult to say.
Ilaria came towards the grotto, trailing her draperies, her brow
troubled and sad beneath the gay chaplet.
"The sun is hot,--one craves shelter," she said lightly, yet with a
tremor in her voice.
Francesco, without replying, lifted the ivy curtain and with a mute
gesture invited her to enter.
They stood in the dusky gloom, speechless, hidden from each other,
till their gaze became accustomed to the shade.
He was helplessly unable to break the silence. Fear, joy, desire,
doubt were tossing him. The breath came fast.
She raised her arms and caught her white throat.
"How cool it is, how sweet!" she said. "At Avellino," and she glanced
at him half shyly, "you would never take me to your grotto!"
"Ah! But this grotto," he tried to speak as lightly as she, "we have
found together!"
"Together!" she reflected, looking away from him. "It is a word we
have not often had occasion to use,--you and I."
"Why might we not in the days to come?"
The words were on his lips; he held them back.
Ilaria waited, her hand pressed to her side, her look full of mingled
tenderness and dread.
As he kept silence, she sighed, almost, it would seem, with relief.
"I wish to explore the cave," she said suddenly. "Come with me, if you
like!"
And with quick steps she started into the darkness.
"Take care! Take care, Lariella!" cried Francesco, unconsciously using
the familiar diminutive, forgotten so long ago.
She took no heed and he hurried after her, terror-stricken, he knew
not why. She kept in advance, moving swiftly and lightly over the dark
uneven ground. For a short distance the dusk deepened, then a sudden
light, shining from a crack in the vaulting, revealed in startling
contrast a great blackness by the side of which there gleamed
something weird, ghost-like.
Ilaria screamed and stumbled. The passage, widening beneath her feet,
broke downwards into a pool of the waters of Styx. A lost stair had
betrayed her.
Francesco, speeding forward, caught her garments, drew her back. She
staggered and yielded to his arms. They leaned together against the
wall of the grotto. The earth had fallen away a little at the shock,
revealing in the uncertain light the white figure of a woman.
They both stared at it, holding their breath.
The image stood embedded in the rocky cavity, whither some force had
in past ages carried her from her old position, for she had evidently
presided over the Piscina, or the bath of some rich Roman, who
rejoiced in her Greek fairness. The face was free, but soil and mould
had given it a half-sinister expression. The limbs, so far as
visible,--and the earth in falling away had left one white side of the
body entirely bare,--were perfect.
Ilaria struggled to free herself from Francesco's embrace and sank,
half fainting, at the statue's base.
"The peril is over," said Francesco, and echoes filled the whole
cavern with murmuring. "Dearest, be not afraid! Look at me!"
As her head drooped, he knelt beside her, half distraught, and rubbed
her wrists and forehead with water from the pool.
She opened her eyes and smiled at him, as a child might.
"Fonte Gaia!" she whispered.
The words had been in his own mind.
Lifting her hand, she touched and stroked the marble, and the awe grew
in her eyes.
"Feel!" she said. "This is not marble! It is very flesh, though turned
to stone!"
And she shuddered.
"Only a statue, dearest!" he answered soothingly. "Around Naples, they
say, the earth is full of such!"
"It is the White Lady!"
She had risen now and regained her self-control, and she spoke with
unwonted dignity and calm.
"It is the White Lady," she repeated, "but you know, you have never
consented to her spells. She rules here in the dusk! How you tremble!
There is no need! Sunlight for you is but a few paces away! See, I
will go with you to the entrance of the grotto!"
In truth a strange tremor had seized him. He stood as if unable to
leave the spot. She was looking on his face with anxious eyes.
"Doubtless," he said at last, and despised himself as he spoke, "you
would prefer other company than mine in the presence of your White
Lady!"
She raised her white hands to her throat again, and laughed, a laugh
which the vaults re-echoed as a sob.
"Forgive,--forgive! I am cruel!" cried Francesco. "I know not what I
say!"
"You are overheated," she said. "Bathe your brows, as you have bathed
mine. It is true, I did not find the touch so cooling."
"The waters of Lethe," said Francesco very slowly. "Shall I bathe my
brows in them indeed? Already, simply standing by them, I think I have
forgotten many things. I have a better thought. Will you drink of them
with me, Ilaria? It would not be the first time we have tasted of the
same cup in the presence of Venus!"
Was he mistaken? Or, in the glimmering light, did he see a shadow
passing over the flower-soft face?
She did not reply, but softly stroked his hair.
Her touch burned, electrified him. For a moment he submitted to the
sensation, then, as her soft, white hands stole around his throat, he
folded her in a close embrace and kissed her passionately on her lips.
From the waters came the swinging rhythm of the Barcarole.
"Non senti mai Achille
Per Pulisena bella,
Le cocenti faville
Quant' io senti per quella.
"Udendo sua favella
Angelica e venozza,
Parlar si amorosa
In su la fresca erbetta."
The time for metaphors had passed. He raised his head.
"I love you, Ilaria," he stammered, drunk with her sweetness, "love
you, as I have never loved anything on earth. Ilaria--Ilaria--"
"Are we not free?" she whispered, her lips very close to his.
He kissed them again and again, then tossed back his head.
"Free?" he said. "Who is free? Ghostly powers, fates from ancient
days,--drive us, flesh and blood, whither they will!"
She shook her head, and on her lips played the old-time childhood
smile.
"Have you forgot?" she whispered into his ear, holding him very close.
"But it is not for me to remind you--"
With a sudden change her restraint had vanished.
"We are among the shades," she continued, "where Proserpina should be
at home. The world of sun is far!"
"I love you--" he stammered, gazing at her with wide, hungry eyes.
She bent back his head, till their eyes met.
She gazed at him with all the love she bore him. Then, drawing him
close, she whispered a word in his ear.
He closed his eyes in mortal anguish.
"All creation knows it,--all things, animate and inanimate: but not
I,--not I!"
"Take me!" Ilaria said calmly, her face very white. "Yes--I will drink
with you! But first--a libation to Venus!"
She gathered a little water in her hands and sprinkled it at the feet
of the statue.
He stared at her for a moment, speechless, full of wonder at her
strange bearing. She was very pale, but in her eyes there gleamed a
subtle fire, which kindled the spark in his soul.
"We have no cup," he said trembling.
But she, stooping swiftly, gathered water once more in the hollow of
her palms and raised them to his face.
"Drink!" she whispered eagerly. "Drink, while yet we dare!"
He stooped to the soft white hands and held them close to his mouth,
kissing them again and again when he had drank.
"Come!" she said softly.
He did not stir. She bent over him.
"Francesco! I love you--come!"
He fell prone at her feet, with a sob that shook his whole frame as
with convulsions.
"Oh! That I might,--that I might! I would not sully your white purity
for all there is in earth, or heaven!"
For a moment she stood rigid, white, dazed.
Suddenly he felt two arms winding themselves about his neck, two soft
lips were pressed upon his own in one long, delirious kiss--then he
saw Ilaria precipitately retrace her steps, and Stefano Maconi peer
into the grotto.
After a time Francesco emerged into the sunlight, bewildered, dazed.
Ilaria had joined the revellers, and he sank down upon a rock and
covered his face with his hands.
His heart and his soul were bleeding to death within him; and like his
own phantom he at last arose and walked towards the sea. The revellers
had lost themselves in the depths of the groves. Again and again the
swinging rhythm of their song was borne to him on the soft, fragrant
breezes; yet there was but one thought in his heart, one name on his
lips, as his feet bore him slowly through the blossoming wilderness:
"Ilaria! Ilaria!"--
CHAPTER V
TWILIGHT WATERS
Dazed, in a state of mind bordering on utter bewilderment, such as he
had not experienced since the Masque of the Gods in the park of
Avellino, Francesco wandered by the shore, trying to bring order into
the confused chaos of his thoughts. Ilaria loved him, always had she
loved him, and so closely were their fates bound up together that
neither could as much as turn without standing accounted to the other.
During the last days the certainty had dawned upon him that the
sacrifice had been utterly in vain. He had been cheated of his youth
and birthright; utterly helpless, he was the blind tool of a power,
which, by no human right nor divine, had constituted itself the
arbiter of his destiny. The future held nothing for him. His
sympathies were forever with the vanquished. The temporal power of the
Church held no allurement. He might climb in her service; the road lay
over the broken and shattered ideals of his youth.--
The uncertainty of the fate of the Ghibelline host weighed heavily
upon him. Where was Conradino, the fair-haired imperial youth, where
were the leaders of the vanquished iron-serried companies, whose march
under the proudly floating banners of the Sun-Soaring Eagle of
Hohenstauffen he had witnessed from the summits of Monte Cassino? Had
they reached the sheltering passes of the Apennines, had they fallen
into Anjou's hands?
Fascinated, yet oppressed by dire forebodings, Francesco gazed out
over the land. In a flood of crimson and gold, trailing his banners
through the western sky, the sun had sunk to rest. The great mass of
the castello of Astura was silent and dark in the swiftly descending
southern night, save where an errant moonbeam glittered over the
gateway and round-towers, shining obliquely over the massive walls,
while two great circles of shadows enclosed the stronghold of the
Frangipani, like huge Saturnian rings. Brightly, like a silver net
flung wide upon the plains below, the moonbeams played upon the