Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome
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Under the Witches' Moon
THE ROMANCES
OF
NATHAN GALLIZIER
* * * * *
_Each, one volume, 12mo, cloth, illustrated.
Net $1.35; carriage paid, $1.50_
Castel del Monte
The Sorceress of Rome
The Court of Lucifer
The Hill of Venus
The Crimson Gondola
* * * * *
Under the Witches' Moon
_12mo, cloth, illustrated. Net $1.50;
carriage paid, $1.65_
* * * * *
THE PAGE COMPANY
53 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS.
Under the
Witches' Moon
A Romantic Tale
_of_ Mediaeval Rome
_BY
Nathan Gallizier_
Author of "The Crimson Gondola," "The Hill of Venus,"
"The Court of Lucifer," "The Sorceress of Rome,"
"Castel del Monte," Etc.
THE PAGE COMPANY
BOSTON MDCCCCXVII
_Copyright, 1917,_
BY THE PAGE COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
First Impression, October, 1917
THE COLONIAL PRESS
C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.
_"To some Love comes so splendid and so soon,
With such wide wings and steps so royally,
That they, like sleepers wakened suddenly,
Expecting dawn, are blinded by his noon.
"To some Love comes so silently and late,
That all unheard he is, and passes by,
Leaving no gift but a remembered sigh,
While they stand watching at another gate.
"But some know Love at the enchanted hour,
They hear him singing like a bird afar,
They see him coming like a falling star,
They meet his eyes--and all their world's in flower."
ETHEL CLIFFORD_
CONTENTS
BOOK THE FIRST
Chapter Page
I. The Fires of St. John 3
II. The Weaving of the Spell 13
III. The Dream Lady of Avalon 20
IV. The Way of the Cross 30
V. On the Aventine 38
VI. The Coup 46
VII. Masks and Mummers 60
VIII. The Shrine of Hekaté 67
IX. The Game of Love 79
X. A Spirit Pageant 90
XI. The Denunciation 97
XII. The Confession 102
BOOK THE SECOND
I. The Grand Chamberlain 115
II. The Call of Eblis 128
III. The Crystal Sphere 134
IV. Persephoné 146
V. Magic Glooms 152
VI. The Lure of the Abyss 160
VII. The Face in the Panel 167
VIII. The Shadow of Asrael 173
IX. The Feast of Theodora 187
X. The Chalice of Oblivion 204
BOOK THE THIRD
I. Wolfsbane 221
II. Under the Saffron Scarf 230
III. Dark Plottings 240
IV. Face to Face 250
V. The Cressets of Doom 259
VI. A Meeting of Ghosts 269
VII. A Bower of Eden 279
VIII. An Italian Night 289
IX. The Net of the Fowler 299
X. Devil Worship 307
XI. By Lethe's Shores 314
XII. The Death Watch 323
XIII. The Convent in Trastevere 335
XIV. The Phantom of the Lateran 341
BOOK THE FOURTH
I. The Return of the Moor 351
II. The Escape from San Angelo 356
III. The Lure 367
IV. A Lying Oracle 377
V. Bitter Waters 384
VI. From Dream to Dream 389
VII. A Roman Medea 402
VIII. In Tenebris 413
IX. The Conspiracy 419
X. The Broken Spell 427
XI. The Black Mass 440
XII. Sunrise 453
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
"It was that of a man coming towards her." (_See page 143_)
_Frontispiece_
"A strange look passed into Theodora's eyes" 83
"Pelting the dancing girls for idle diversion" 192
"Thrown her saffron scarf over the prostrate youth" 236
BOOK THE FIRST
UNDER THE WITCHES' MOON
CHAPTER I
THE FIRES OF ST. JOHN
It was the eve of St. John in the year of our Lord Nine Hundred
Thirty-Five.
High on the cypress-clad hills of the Eternal City the evening sun had
flamed valediction, and the last lights of the dying day were fading
away on the waves of the Tiber whose changeless tide has rolled down
through centuries of victory and defeat, of pride and shame, of glory
and disgrace.
The purple dusk began to weave its phantom veil over the ancient
capital of the Cæsars and a round blood-red moon was climbing slowly
above the misty crests of the Alban Hills, draining the sky of its
crimson sunset hues.
The silvery chimes of the Angelus, pealing from churches and convents,
from Santa Maria in Trastevere to Santa Maria of the Aventine, began to
sing their message of peace into the heart of nature and of man.
As the hours of the night advanced and the moon rose higher in the
star-embroidered canopy of the heavens, a vast concourse of people
began to pour from shadowy lanes and thoroughfares, from sanctuaries
and hostelries, into the Piazza Navona. Romans and peasants from the
Campagna, folk from Tivoli, Velletri, Corneto and Terracina, pilgrims
from every land of the then known world, Africans and Greeks, Lombards
and Franks, Sicilians, Neapolitans, Syrians and Kopts, Spaniards and
Saxons, men from the frozen coast of Thulé and the burning sands of
Arabia, traders from the Levant, sorcerers from the banks of the Nile,
conjurers from the mythical shores of the Ganges, adventurers from the
Barbary coast, gypsies from the plains of Sarmatia, monks from the
Thebaide, Normans, Gascons and folk from Aquitaine.
In the Piazza Navona booths and stalls had been erected for the sale of
figs and honey, and the fragrant products of the Roman osterié.
Strings of colored lanterns danced and quivered in the air. The fitful
light from the torches, sending spiral columns of resinous smoke into
the night-blue ether, shed a lurid glow over the motley, fantastic
crowd that increased with every moment, recruited from fishermen,
flower girls, water-carriers and herdsmen from the Roman Campagna.
Ensconced in the shadow of a roofless portico, a relic of the ancient
Circus Agonalis, which at one time occupied the site of the Piazza
Navona, and regarding the bewildering spectacle which presented itself
to his gaze, with the air of one unaccustomed to such scenes, stood
a stranger whose countenance revealed little of the joy of life that
should be the heritage of early manhood.
His sombre and austere bearing, the abstracted mood and far-away look
of the eyes would have marked him a dreamer in a society of men who had
long been strangers to dreams. For stern reality ruled the world and
the lives of a race untouched alike by the glories of the past and the
dawn of the Pre-Renaissance.
He wore the customary pilgrim's habit, almost colorless from the
effects of wind and weather. Now and then a chance passer-by would
cast shy glances at the lone stranger, endeavoring to reconcile his age
and his garb, and wondering at the nature of the transgression that
weighed so heavily upon one apparently so young in years.
And well might his countenance give rise to speculation, were it but
for the determined and stolid air of aloofness which seemed to render
futile every endeavor to entice him into the seething maelstrom of
humanity on the part of those who took note of his dark and austere
form as they crossed the Piazza.
Tristan of Avalon was in his thirtieth year, though the hardships
of a long and tedious journey, consummated entirely afoot, made him
appear of maturer age. The face, long exposed to the relentless rays
of the sun, had taken on the darker tints of the Southland. The nose
was straight, the grey eyes tinged with melancholy, the hair was of
chestnut brown, the forehead high and lofty. The ensemble was that of
one who, unaccustomed to the pilgrim's garb, moves uneasily among his
kind. Yet the atmosphere of frivolity, while irritating and jarring
upon his senses, did not permit him to avert his gaze from the orgy of
color, the pandemonium of jollity, that whirled and piped and roared
about him as the flow of mighty waters.
One of many strange wayfarers bound upon business of one sort or
another to the ancient seat of empire, whose worldly sceptre had long
passed from her palsied grip to the distant shores of the Bosporus,
Tristan had arrived during the early hours of the day in the feudal and
turbulent witches' cauldron of the Rome of the Millennium.
And with him constituents of many peoples, from far and near, had
reached the Leonine quarter from the Tiburtine road, after months of
tedious travel, to worship at the holy shrines, to do penance and to
obtain absolution for real or imaginary transgressions.
From Bosnia, from Servia and Hungary, from Negropont and the islands
of the Greek Archipelago, from Trebizond and the Crimea it came
endlessly floating to the former capital of the Cæsars, a waste drift
of palaces and temples and antique civilizations, for the End of Time
was said to be nigh, and the dread of impending judgment lay heavily
upon the tottering world of the Millennium.
A grotesque and motley crowd it was, that sought and found a temporary
haven in the lowly taverns, erected for the accommodation of perennial
pilgrims, chiefly mean ill-favored dwellings of clay and timber,
divided into racial colonies, so that pilgrims of the same land and
creed might dwell together.
A very Babel of voices assailed Tristan's ear, for the ancient sonorous
tongue had long degenerated into the lingua Franca of bad Latin, though
there were some who could still, though in a broken and barbarous
fashion, make themselves understood, when all other modes of expression
failed them.
All about him throbbed the strange, weird music of zitherns and lutes
and the thrumming of the Egyptian Sistrum. The air of the summer night
was heavy with the odor of incense, garlic and roses. The higher
risen moon gleamed pale as an alabaster lamp in the dark azure of
the heavens, trembling luminously on the waters of a fountain which
occupied the centre of the Piazza Navona.
Here lolled some scattered groups of the populace, discussing the
events of the day, jesting, gesticulating, drinking or love-making.
Others roamed about, engaged in conversation or enjoying the antics of
two Smyrniote tumblers, whose contortions elicited storms of applause
from an appreciative audience.
A crowd of maskers had invaded the Piazza Navona, and the uncommon
spectacle at last drew Tristan from his point of vantage and caused
him to mingle with the crowds, which increased with every moment,
their shouts and gibes and the clatter of their tongues becoming
quite deafening to his ears. Richly decorated chariots, drawn by
spirited steeds, rolled past in a continuous procession. The cries of
the wine-venders and fruit-sellers mingled with the acclaim of the
multitudes. Now and then was heard the fanfare of a company of horsemen