The Hill of Venus
by the Pontiff's crusaders, whose ill-repressed mirth now vented
itself in venomous invectives, in which he in command freely joined.
Too proud to ask his tormentors for the cause of his treatment, which
they would in all probability withhold, Francesco, now on the verge of
mental and physical collapse, found himself dragged across a court at
the remoteness of which the walls of the Abbey converged into a sort
of round tower. While the host of the inn, heaping a million
imprecations on the head of his newly arrived guest, and bemoaning his
unpaid reckoning, unlocked a strong oaken door at the command of the
Provencal leader, Francesco stood by as one too utterly dazed to
resent the Calabrian's insults, and scarcely had the grinding sound of
the door turning on its rusty hinges fallen on his ears, than he found
himself rudely grasped and pushed into a dark, prison-like cell,
apparently without any light from without. He stumbled, fell, and his
ear caught the rude laughter of those without, a mirth his own
endeavors to scramble to his feet had incited. For they had not
released his arms, and his frantic efforts to free them from their
bonds exhausted the last remnant of his strength. With a heart-rending
moan he dragged himself over the wet and slimy floor to the wall,
heard the key turn in the lock, and found himself alone in almost
Stygian darkness.
"To be hanged at sunrise!"
The words rang in his ears like the knell of fate. For what crime had
he been condemned unheard, without defence? He was too weary to think.
All he knew and vaguely felt was, that it was all over, and with the
thought there came a numbness almost akin to indifference, a weariness
engendered by the double ordeal he had undergone in so short a space
of time. What if the spark of life were to be suddenly extinguished,
of a life that had become utterly without its own recompense? What if
this quick release had been decreed by fate? But to die like a
malefactor, the prey of the vulture and the birds of ill-omen, which
he had seen coursing above the bodies of those so recently
executed;--no,--not this death at least, not this! With a last frantic
effort of the faintly returning tide of life he tried to release
himself of his shackles. But his efforts served only to drive the
bonds deeper into his own flesh, and at last he desisted, his head
falling back limply against the cold wet stone of the wall.
Outside the night was serene. The air was so pure and transparent that
against the violet depths of the horizon the shimmering summits of the
distant Apennines were visible like everlasting crystals. Everywhere
was the silence of sleep. The Provencals, too, seemed to have
succumbed to its spell. Only on a distant altana could be heard the
mournful cries of a mad woman, bewailing the loss of her child: it
perturbed the stillness like the keening of a bird of ill-omen. At
last she, too, was silent, and Francesco, weary, exhausted, his
eyelids drooping, his arms pinioned behind him, his head resting
against the damp, cold stone, drifted into a restless, uneasy slumber.
He heard the clock in the castle tower strike the hour of midnight,
answered by the wailing chimes of the bell from Sta. Redegonda; then
consciousness left him and he sank into the arms of sleep.
A strange dream haunted his pillow of anguish.
He was at the Witches' Sabbat at Benevento. The moon shone with a
purple lustre on a dreary heather. The meadow-grasses rustled softly
in the night wind; will-o'-the-wisps danced round old tree-trunks
gleaming with rottenness, while the owl, the bittern, the goat-sucker
mourned plaintively among the reeds.
The moon was suddenly hidden by a cloud. Instead, torches flared with
flames of green and blue, and black shapes interlacing and
disentwining began to emerge from the denser gloom. In endless
thousands they came--from Candia, from the isles of Greece, from the
Brocken, from Mirandola, and from the town of Benevento; wheeling and
spreading over the plain like the withered and perishing leaves of
autumn, driven by an unseen gale. And in their midst sat the great
He-Goat enthroned upon the mountain.
There was a screeching of pipes made of dead men's bones, the drum
stretched with the skin of the hanged was beaten with the tail of a
wolf. A loathsome stew, not seasoned with salt, was brewing in a vast
cauldron, and round it danced herds of toads garbed as cardinals, the
sacred Host in their claws.
Long wet whiskers like those of a walrus now swept his neck; a thin
winding tail lashed his face; he stirred uneasily where his head had
fallen against the cold slimy stone of the prison walls; yet the
sleeper did not wake. And the dance whirled around him like a howling
storm.
Suddenly petrifaction fell upon the assembly. All voices were hushed,
all movements arrested. From the black throne in the background there
came a dull roar like the growl of approaching thunder, and the
assembly fell upon their knees, chanting in solemn tones the
ceremonial of the Black Mass.
The sleeper stirred uneasily, yet deeper grew the dream.
When the last sounds had died away, there was renewed stillness, then
the same hoarse voice cried:
"Bring hither the bride! Bring hither the bride!"
An old man, patriarch of sorcerers, nearly bent double with age, came
forward with shuffling steps.
"What is the name of the bride? What is the name of the bride?"
"Ilaria Caselli! Ilaria Caselli!" roared the great voice.
Hearing the pronouncement of her name, Francesco's blood froze in his
veins.
"Ilaria! Ilaria!" rang the cry from the crowd. "Ave Arcisponsa
Ilaria!"
They brought her forward, though she would have fled. They dragged her
trembling before the throne. A chill, as of death smote her; she would
have closed her eyes, but something caused her to look in the
direction where Francesco lay, unable to move, unable to stir. His
limbs seemed paralyzed; he wanted to cry out to her, his voice failed
him. Vainly she called to him, vainly she strained eyes, arms and body
towards him. He tried to rise, to rush to her aid, to rescue her from
the clutches of the terrible apparition on the throne, when suddenly
the goat-skin fell from him and he stood revealed to Francesco, as he
of the Leaden Lamb, his green eyes devouring the girlish form that
stood trembling before him.
Another moment, and she sank lifeless into his embrace.
The setting moon once more shone out from behind the clouds, and as
the pallid crimson of her light faded behind the world's dark rim,
there came from the distance the morning cry of the cock. Slowly,
through the air, came the sound of a bell, and at this sound the
frightened witches, swarm after swarm, streamed away from the
mountain. He of the Leaden Lamb again became the great He-Goat, and
sank lamentably bleating with his beautiful victim through the earth,
leaving a stifling stench of sulphur behind.--
With a moan of intense agony Francesco awoke. His head was like lead,
his body broken with weariness. A sharp odor of fog greeted his
nostrils. He looked about for a moment, unable to determine where he
was. A violent jerk, as he tried to move his arms, informed him of his
condition, and with a groan he sank back, striking his head against
the stone with a sharp pang. Again he closed his eyes, as if still
haunted by the phantoms of the Witches' Sabbat. Had it been but a
dream indeed? Vivid it stood before his soul, and out of the whole
ghostly hubbub the pure face of Ilaria Caselli shone white as marble
against a storm-cloud. Then, with the memory of her he loved dearer
than life, with the memory of her whom he was to renounce forever,
there returned the consciousness of his impending fate. Would she ever
know why he had not returned,--and knowing, would her love for him
endure?
The bell of Sta. Redegonda was tolling heavily and monotonously.
Outside some one was knocking insistently, some one who had already
knocked more than once. There was a brief pause, then the turning of a
key in the lock grated unpleasantly on Francesco's ear.
As the door of his prison swung back, the dull morning light fell on
the form of a monk, who had slowly entered in advance of some five or
six men-at-arms, but paused almost instantly, as if looking for the
object in quest of which he had come.
The import of the monk's presence at this hour was not lost upon
Francesco. It was no hideous dream then, it was terrible reality; he
was to die. To die without having committed a crime, without an
offence with which he might charge his conscience; to die without a
hearing,--without a trial. For a moment all that could render death
terrible, and death in the form in which he was to meet it, most
terrible of all, rushed through his mind. The love of life, despite
the gloomy future it held out to him, re-asserted itself and, as a
drowning man sees all the scenes of the past condensed into one last
conscious moment, so before Francesco's inner gaze the pageant of his
childhood, the sunny days at the Court of Avellino rushed past, as in
the fleeting phantasmagoria of a dream. An hour hence, and his eyes
would no longer gaze upon the scenes once dear to him as his
youth;--he would have followed him, who would have consigned him to a
living death;--he would have been gathered into annihilation's waste.
The monk had walked up slowly to the human heap he saw dimly writhing
on the ground, and, bending over Francesco, exhorted him to think of
the salvation of his soul, to which end, in consideration of his
youth, the clemency of his judge had permitted him to receive the last
rites of the Church.
At the sound of the monk's voice Francesco gave a start, but, as he
made no reply, the friar bent over him anew, in an endeavor to scan
the features of one so obdurate as to refuse his ministrations.
A mutual outcry of surprise broke the intense stillness. They had
recognized each other, the monk who had carried to Gregorio Villani
the Pontiff's conditional absolution, and the youth whom that decree
had consigned to a living death.
To the monk's amazed question as to the cause of his terrible plight,
Francesco wearily and brokenly replied that he knew of nothing. He had
been insulted, overpowered and condemned.
Turning to the leader of the Provencals, the friar sternly plied him
with questions, but his replies seemed far from satisfying, for the
monk demanded to be conducted straightway to their master. Francesco
heard them scurry from his prison, after securing the door, and,
exhausted from his mental and bodily sufferings, his limbs aching as
in the throes of a fever, he fell back against the damp stone and
swooned.
When he waked, he found himself on a bed in a chamber, the only window
of which opened on to a courtyard. The sun was riding high in the
heavens and his beams, falling aslant on the opposite wall, exercised
such a magical effect on the awakened sleeper, that he sat bolt
upright on his couch and, turning to the friar at his bedside,
demanded to know where he was.
The friar enjoined him to be silent and arose, to fetch a repast, but
when he found that Francesco's restlessness was not likely to be
assuaged by this method, he slowly and cautiously informed him of the
events which had transpired, since he had visited him in his cell, to
accompany him, on what was to have been, his last walk on earth.
Dwelling on the probable causes leading to his summary condemnation,
the monk hinted at rumors, that Conradino, son of Emperor Conrad IV,
had crossed the Alps in armed descent upon Italy, to wrest the lands
of Manfred from Anjou's grasp. He further hinted at a conspiracy afoot
among the Northern Italian Ghibellines, to rescue from her prison in
Castel del Ovo, where she had been confined since the fatal battle of