Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome
not--spurn such love as mine!"
Deep silence supervened. The expression of her countenance seemed quite
unearthly; her eyes seemed wells of fire and the tense white arms
seemed to seek a victim round which they might coil themselves to its
undoing.
The name she had uttered in her supreme outburst of passion had broken
the spell she had woven about him.
Hellayne--his white dove! What was her fate at this moment while he was
listening to the pleadings of the enchantress?
Theodora advanced towards him with outstretched arms.
He stayed her with a fierce gesture.
"Stand back!" he said. "Such love as yours--what is it? Shame to
whosoever shall accept it! I desire you not."
"You dare not!" she panted, pale as death.
"Dare not?"
But she was now fairly roused. All the savagery in her nature was
awakened and she stood before him like some beautiful wild animal at
bay, trembling from head to foot with the violence of her passion.
"You scorn me!" she said in fierce, panting accents, that scarcely
rose above an angry whisper. "You make a mockery of my anguish and
despair--holding yourself aloof with your prated virtue! But you shall
suffer for it! I am your match! You shall not spurn me a third time! I
have humbled myself in the dust before you, I, Theodora--and you have
spurned the love I have offered you--you have spurned Theodora--for
that white marble statue whom I should strangle before your very eyes
were she here! You shall not see her again, my Lord Tristan. Her
fate is sealed from this moment. On the altars of Satan is she to be
sacrificed on to-morrow night!"
Tristan listened like paralyzed to her words, unable to move.
She saw her opportunity. She sprang at him. Her arms coiled about him.
Her moist kisses seared his lips.
"Oh Tristan--Tristan," she pleaded, "forgive me, forgive! I know not
what I say! I hunger for the kisses of your lips, the clasp of your
arms! Do you know--do you ever think of your power? The cruel terrible
power of your eyes, the beauty that makes you more like an angel than
man? Have you no pity? I am well nigh mad with jealousy of that other
whom you keep enshrined in your heart! Could she love, like I? She was
not made for you--I am! Tristan--come with me--come--"
Tighter and tighter her arms encircled his neck. The moonbeams showed
him her eyes alight with rapture, her lips quivering with passion, her
bosom heaving. The blood surged up in his brain and a red mist swam
before his eyes.
With a supreme effort Tristan released himself. Flinging her from him,
he rushed out of the rotunda as if pursued by an army of demons. If he
remained another moment he knew he was lost.
A lightning bolt shot down from the dark sky vault close beside him as
he reached the gardens, and a peal of thunder crashed after in quick
succession.
It drowned the delirious outburst of laughter that shrilled from the
rotunda where Theodora, with eyes wide with misery and madness, stared
as transfixed down the path where Tristan had vanished in the night.
CHAPTER XI
THE BLACK MASS
The night was sultry and dismal.
Dense black clouds rolled over the Roman Campagna, burning blue in
the flashes of jagged lightnings and the low boom of distant thunder
reverberated ominously among the hills and valleys of Rome, when three
men, cloaked and wearing black velvet masks, skirted the huge mediæval
wall with which Pope Leo IV had girdled the gardens of the Vatican and,
passing along the fortified rampart which surrounded the Vatican Hill,
plunged into the trackless midnight gloom of deep, branch-shadowed
thickets.
Not a word was spoken between them. Silently they followed their
leader, whose tall, dark form was revealed to them only among the dense
network of trees and the fantastic shapes of the underbrush, when a
flash of white lightning flamed across the limitless depths of the
midnight horizon.
Not a sound broke the stillness, save the menacing growl of the
thunder, the intermittent soughing of the wind among the branches, or
the occasional drip-drip of dewy moisture trickling tearfully from the
leaves, mingling with the dreamy, gurgling sound of the fountains,
concealed among bosquets of orange and almond trees.
From time to time, as they proceeded upon their nocturnal errand, the
sounds of their footsteps being swallowed up by the soft carpet of
moss, they caught fleet glimpses of marble statues, gleaming white,
like ghosts, from among the tall dark cypresses, or the shimmering
surface of a marble-cinctured lake, mirrored in the sheen of the
lightnings.
The grove they traversed assumed by degrees the character of a tropical
forest. Untrodden by human feet, it seemed as though nature, grown
tired of the iridescent floral beauty of the environing gardens, had,
in a sudden malevolent mood, torn and blurred the fair green frondage
and twisted every bud awry, till the awkward, misshapen limbs resembled
the contorted branches of wind-blown trees. Great jagged leaves covered
with prickles and stained with blotches as of spilt poison, thick brown
stems, glistening with slimy moisture and coiled up like the sleeping
bodies of snakes, masses of blue and purple fungi, and blossoms
seemingly of the orchid-species, some like fleshly tongues, others like
the waxen yellow fingers of a dead hand, protruded spectrally through
the matted foliage, while all manner of strange overpowering odors
increased the swooning oppressiveness of the sultry, languorous air.
Arrived at a clearing they paused.
In the distance the Basilica of Constantine was sunk in deep repose.
All about them was the pagan world. Goat-footed Pan seemed to peer
through the interstices of the branches. The fountains crooned in their
marble basins. Centaurs and Bacchantes disported themselves among the
flowering shrubs and, dark against the darker background of the night,
the vast ramparts of Leo IV seemed to shut out light and life together.
The Prefect of the Camera turned to his companions, after peering
cautiously into the thickets.
"We must wait for the guards," he said in a whisper. "It were perilous
to proceed farther without them."
Tristan's hand tightened upon his sword-hilt. There were tears in
his eyes when he thought of Hellayne and all that was at stake, the
overthrow of the enemies of Christ. He had, in a manner, conquered the
terrible fear that had palsied heart and soul as they had started out
after nightfall. Now, taking his position as he found it, since he felt
that his fate was ruled by some unseen force which he might not resist,
he was upheld by a staunch resolution to do his part in the work
assigned to him and thereby to merit forgiveness and absolution.
Notwithstanding the enforced calm that filled his soul, there were
moments when, assailed by a terrible dread, lest he might be too late
to prevent the unspeakable crime, his energies were almost paralyzed.
Silent as a ghost he had traversed the grove by the side of his equally
silent companions, more intent upon his quarry than the patient,
velvet-footed puma that follows in the high branches of the trees the
unsuspecting traveller below.
Was it his imagination, was it the beating of his own heart in the
silence that preceded the breaking of the storm; or did he indeed hear
the dull throbbing of the drums that heralded the approach of the
crimson banners of Satan?
The wind increased with every moment. The thunder growled ever nearer.
The heavens were one sheet of flame. The trees began to bend their tops
to the voice of the hurricane. The air was hot as if blown from the
depths of the desert. As the uproar of the elements increased, strange
sounds seemed to mingle with the voices of the storm. Black shadows
as of dancing witches darkened the clearing, spread and wheeled,
interlaced and disentwined. In endless thousands they seemed to fly,
like the withered and perishing leaves of autumn.
Involuntarily Tristan grasped the arm of the Monk of Cluny.
"Are these real shapes--or do my eyes play me false?" he faltered, an
expression of terror on his countenance, such as no consideration of
earthly danger could have evoked.
"To-night, my son, we are invincible," replied the monk. "Trust in the
Crucified Christ!"
Across the plaisaunce, washed white by the sheen of the lightnings,
there was a stir as of an approaching forest. Tristan watched as in the
throes of a dream.
A few moments later the little band was joined by the newcomers,
masked, garbed in sombre black and heavily armed, three-score
Spaniards, trusted above their companions for their loyalty and
allegiance to Holy Church. Among them Tristan recognized the
Cardinal-Archbishop of Ravenna, the Bishop of Orvieto and the Prefect
of Rome.
Odo of Cluny noted Tristan's shrinking at the sight of the two men who
had been present when the terrible accusation had been hurled against
him on that fatal morning--the accusation in the Lateran, which had
launched him in the dungeons of Castel San Angelo.
He comforted the trembling youth.
"They know now that the charge was false," he said. "To-night we shall
conquer. We shall set our foot upon Satan's neck."
Withdrawing under the shelter of the trees, regardless of the
increasing fury of the storm, the leaders held whispered consultation.
Before them, set in the massive wall, appeared a door not more than
five feet high, studded with large nails.
The Prefect of Rome bent forward and inserted a gleaming piece of steel
in the keyhole. After a wrench or two, which convinced the onlookers
that the door had been long in disuse, it swung inward with a groan.
The Prefect, with a muttered imprecation, beckoned his followers to
enter, and when they were assembled in what appeared to be a courtyard,
he took pains to close the door himself, to avoid the least noise that
might reach the ear of those within the enclosure.
At the far end of this courtyard a shadowy pavilion arose, culled
from the Stygian gloom by the sheen of the lightnings. It seemed
to have been erected in remote antiquity. A circular structure of
considerable extent, its ruinous exterior revealed traces of Etruscan
architecture. No one dared set foot in it, for it was rumored to be
the abode of evil spirits. Its interior was reported to be a network
of intricate galleries, leading into subterranean chambers, secret and
secluded places into which human foot never strayed, for, not unlike
the catacombs, it was well-nigh impossible to find the exit from its
labyrinthine passages without the saving thread of Ariadné.
At a signal from the Prefect of the Camera all stopped. Heavy drops of
rain were falling. The hurricane increased in fury.
It was a weird scene and one the memory of which lingered long after
that eventful night with Tristan.
Black cypresses and holm-oaks formed a dense wall around the pavilion
on two sides. In the distance the white limbs of some pagan statues
could be seen gleaming through the dark foliage. And, as from a
subterranean cavern, a distant droning chant struck the ear now and
then with fateful import.
Now the Prefect of Rome threw off his cloak. The others did likewise.
Their masks they retained.
"There is a secret entrance, unknown even to these spawns of hell,
behind the pavilion," he addressed his companions in a subdued tone,
hardly audible in the shrieking of the storm. "It is concealed among
tall weeds and has long been in disuse. The door is almost invisible
and they think themselves safe in the performance of their iniquities
below."
"How can we reach this pit of hell?" Tristan, quivering with
ill-repressed excitement interposed at this juncture. He could hardly
restrain himself. On every moment hung the life of the being dearer
to him than all the world, and he chafed under the restraint like a