Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome
"An expiatory service will be held in this chapel before noon," he
addressed those present. "I shall myself say Mass here. Meanwhile the
whole of the palace must be aroused. Somewhere the emissaries of Satan
have in their possession the Blessed Sacrament. See that the secret
Judas does not escape us!"
Almost upon his words there came a loud wail of anguish from the centre
of the chapel where Tristan was still huddled in his chair.
Basil had opened the doublet at his neck, as if to give him air, and
the Prefect of the Camera, who was standing by, clapped his hands to
his temples, and groaned like a soul in torment.
The two ecclesiastics hurried down from the altar steps.
Upon the lining of Tristan's doublet there lay the large round wafer,
which every one present believed to be the consecrated Host.
The Cardinal-Archbishop reverently took the wafer from Tristan and held
it up in two hands.
The men-at-arms sank to their knees with a rattle and ring of
accoutrement.
Every one knelt.
Then in improvised procession, His Eminence restored the wafer to the
tabernacle.
Tristan was dragged out of the chapel.
In the corridor horror-stricken men-at-arms buffeted him into some
sort of consciousness. His bewildered ears caught the words: "To San
Angelo," as he staggered between the men-at-arms as one in the thrall
of an evil dream, leaving behind him a nameless fear and horror among
the monks, priests and attendants at the Lateran.
END OF BOOK THE THIRD
BOOK THE FOURTH
CHAPTER I
THE RETURN OF THE MOOR
In a domed chamber of the Emperor's Tomb there sat two personages
engaged in whispered conversation, Basil and a weird hooded phantom
that seemed part of the dread shadows which crowded in upon the room,
quenching the dying light of day. Deep silence reigned. Only the
monotonous tread of the sentries broke the stillness as they made the
rounds above them.
It was Basil who spoke.
"All is going well! We shall prevail! We shall set up the throne of
Ebony in the stead of the Cross. I bow to your wisdom, my master! The
promised reward shall not fail you!"
As he spoke, the thin, black arm of his vis-a-vis trembled for a moment
in the ample folds of his black gown. Then, with a quick, bird-like
movement, a thin hand, twisted like a claw, wrinkled and yellow, was
stretched out towards the Grand Chamberlain.
On the second finger of this claw there was a ring. Basil bent and
kissed it.
Basil began to speak in his ordinary, conversational tone, but there
was a strange gleam in his eyes.
"It has been accomplished," he said. "They tell me all Rome is astir!"
The voice that replied seemed to come from a great distance; the lips
of the waxen face hardly moved. They parted, that was all.
"It has been done! I took it myself! It was the Host which the Cardinal
of Ravenna had consecrated on that morning."
"And you were not seen?"
"I was not," came the whispered reply. "As a measure of precaution I
wore the mask which I use to go about the churches at night. I met no
one."
"Is it here?" Basil queried eagerly.
"It is not here," replied the voice. "It must be kept until the night
of the great consecration, when Lucifer himself shall sit upon the
ebony throne and demand his bride--his stainless dove. Where is she
now?"
The light had faded out of Basil's eyes, and his face was ashen.
"One has been found, worthy of even as fastidious a master as he, whom
we both serve. Well-nigh had she escaped us, had not one who never
fails me tracked her on that fatal night, when her body lay in her
coffin ready to be consecrated to the Nameless one."
From the eyeless sockets of the shadow-mask a phosphorescent gleam shot
towards the Grand Chamberlain.
"What of the man?"
"The wafer was discovered on a certain captain of the guard who hath
crossed my path to his undoing once too often. The Church herself shall
pronounce sentence upon him--through me!"
"And--that other?"
There was a pause.
"Her husband!--He deems her dead, nor grieves he overmuch, believing,
as he does, that her love was another's--even his whom I have marked
for certain doom. I have it in my mind to try what a jest will do for
him."
The lurid tone of the speaker seemed to impress even his shadowy
companion.
"A jest?"
"He shall attend the great ceremony," Basil explained. "And he shall
behold the stainless dove. When is it to be?" he added after a pause.
"When is it to be?"
"Six nights hence--on the night of the full moon."
"And then you shall give to me that which I crave, and the forfeit
shall be paid."
"The forfeit shall be paid," the voice re-echoed from the shadows, and
to Basil it seemed as if the damp, cold breath from an open grave had
been wafted to his cheeks.
Like a phantom that sinks back into the night of the grave, whence it
had emerged, Bessarion vanished from the chamber. In his place stood
Hormazd, who had noiselessly entered through a panel in the wall.
Basil greeted him with a silent nod.
"What of the messenger?" he turned to the Oriental.
"He returns within the hour," replied the voice.
"What are his tidings?" Basil queried eagerly. "Is Alberic in the land
of shadows, where she dwells who gave him birth?"
"Sent by the same relentless hand across the Styx," the cowled figure
spoke, yet Basil knew not whether it was a question or a statement.
He gave a start.
"Tell me, how are secrets known to you at which Hell itself would
pale?" he turned with unsteady tone to his companion.
"Those of the shadows commune with the shadows," came the enigmatical
reply. "Is everything prepared?"
"When the brazen tongue from the Capitol tolls the hour, the blow shall
fall," Basil replied. "Hassan Abdullah and his Saracens are anchored
off the port of Ostia. The Epirotes and Albanians in the Senator's
service are bribed to our cause. Rome is in the throes of mortal
terror. Even the Monk of Cluny is under the spell, and has ceased
to arraign the Scarlet Woman of Babylon. The dread of the impending
judgment day will succor our cause. And--once installed within these
walls as master of Rome--with Theodora by my side--you shall have full
sway, to do whatever your dark fancies may prompt. You shall have a
chamber and a laboratory and be at liberty to roam at will through your
devil's kitchen."
The cowled figure gave a silent nod, but, before he could speak, the
door leading into the chamber opened as from the effect of a violent
gust of wind, and a shapeless form, that seemed half human, half ape,
flew at Basil's feet, who recoiled as if a ghost had arisen before him
from the floor.
For a moment Basil stared from Daoud the Moor to his shadowy visitor,
then he bade the runner arise and commanded him in some Eastern tongue
to unburden himself.
With many protestations of his devotion the monster produced a bundle
which Basil had not noted, owing to the swiftness with which the
African had entered the chamber. Panting, with deft, though trembling
fingers, Daoud untied the cords and a bloody head, severed from its
trunk, rolled upon the floor of the chamber, and lay still at Basil's
feet. It had lost all human semblance and exhaled the putrid odor of
the grave.
Basil started to his feet, staring from the Moor to Hormazd.
"Dead--" his pale lips stammered. Then, turning to his dark companion,
he added by way of encouragement to himself:
"You gave me truth!"
Daoud was cowering on the floor, his eyes staring into the shadows,
where hovered the Persian's almost invisible form.
A nod from Basil caused him to rise.
"Away with it!" shrieked the Grand Chamberlain overcome with terror.
"See that no one sets eyes upon it!"
The Moor wrapped the severed head into the blood-stained cloth and
darted from the chamber.
Then Basil turned to his visitor.
"In six days Rome shall hail a new master! Let then the sable banners
of Hell be unfurled and the Nameless Presence rejoice upon his ebony
throne! And now do you come with me into the realms of doom that gape
below, that your eyes may be gladdened by that which is in store for
you!"
Taking up a torch, Basil lighted it with the aid of two flints and the
twain trooped out of the chamber into the shadowy corridor leading into
the crypts of the Emperor's Tomb.
CHAPTER II
THE ESCAPE FROM SAN ANGELO
Hidden away in some secret vault of the great honey-colored Mausoleum
Tristan found himself when the men-at-arms had departed, and he had
regained his full senses. Color had faded out of everything. The
rock walls were lifeless and grey. The immense silence of the tomb
surrounded him. The rayless gloom was without relief, save what sparse
light filtered through a narrow grated window so high in the wall that
nothing could be seen from below, save the sky.
The torture of it all he could have endured very well. There was
something greater. It was the thought of Hellayne. This dreadful
uncertainty swung like a bell in his brain, cut through the fibre
of his being. And when these thoughts came over him in his lone
confinement he beat his hands upon the stone and wept.
They had placed him in a cell, which seemed to have been hollowed out
of the Travertine rock. It was small, built in the thickness of the
mighty Roman walls. Tristan set his teeth hard, prepared to endure. He
knew well enough what it meant. He would be confined in this living
tomb till his enemies thought his spirit was broken, and then he would
be summoned before a tribunal of the Church.
Once a day, and once only, the door of his cell opened. By the smoky
light of a torch, his gaoler pushed a pitcher of water and a machet of
bread into his prison. Then the red light died and darkness and silence
supervened. Yet it was not the ordinary darkness which men know.
Through the haunted chambers of Tristan's mind fantastic forms began
to chase each other, evil things to uncoil themselves and raise their
heads. More and more drearily the burden of the days began to press
upon him. What availed heroic endurance?
But it was not only darkness, nor was it only despair. Nor was it
only silence. It was a strange impalpable something which haunted his
restless, enforced vigil; a dim inchoate nothingness, that drove him to
the verge of madness. Though day draped the sky with blue and golden
banners, to tell the sons of men that Night was past and they need not
longer fear, for Tristan darkness was not a transient thing, but an
awful negation of hope.
All of this Tristan could have endured, had not the thought of Hellayne
unnerved him utterly.
She was safe--so he hoped--in the Convent of Santa Maria in Trastevere.
But, as hour succeeded hour, his assurance began to pale. Everything
had been arranged with the Abbess. But--had she indeed eluded her
pursuers? The empty coffin had no doubt long been discovered. Did they
believe she was dead, or did the hand who had dealt the blow in the
dark, the vigilant eye that had pursued her every step, plot further
mischief?
He thought of Odo of Cluny. The monk was influential, but there was, at
this hour, in Rome, one even more powerful, and he doubted not but that
by his agency the wafer had been placed into his doublet, though the
events of that fateful night from the time he had entered the Lateran,
were like a black blot upon his memory.
Had Odo even sought admission to his cell? Did he, too, believe him
guilty? Had his ears, too, been poisoned by the monstrous lie? To him
he might indeed have turned; of him he might have received assurance
of Hellayne's fate; and in return he might have reassured her who was
pining at the Convent of Santa Maria in Trastevere.
But, was she ignorant indeed of what was happening in the seven-hilled