Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome
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.
CHAPTER IX
THE CONSPIRACY
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