Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome
restive steed. If they should be too late, even now!
But the Prefect retained his calm demeanor knowing what was at stake.
It was not enough to locate the chapel of Satan. Those participating in
the unholy rites must not be given the chance to escape. They must be
taken, dead or alive, to the last man.
"We have with us one who is familiar with every nook in the city of
Rome," the Prefect turned to the Cardinal-Archbishop of Ravenna. "Long
have we suspected that all is not well in the deserted pavilion. But
though we watched by day and by night nothing seemed to reward our
efforts, until one stormy night a dreadful shape with the face of a
devil came forth, and the sight so paralyzed those who watched from
afar that they fled in dismay, believing it was the Evil One in person
who had come forth from the bowels of the earth. From yonder door a
dark corridor leads to a shaft whence it winds in a slight incline into
the devil's chapel below. The latter is so situated that we can watch
these outcasts at their devotions, unseen, our presence unguessed. This
way! Let silence be the password. Keep in touch with each other, for
the darkness is as that of the grave."
A flash of lightning that seemed to rend the very heavens enveloped
them for a moment in its sulphureous glare, followed by a crash of
thunder that shook the very earth. The hurricane shrieked, and the rain
came down in torrents.
They had advanced to the very edge of the underbrush, stumbling over
the heads and torsos of broken statues that lay among parasitic
herbage. Monstrous decaying leaves curled upward, leprous in the
lightnings. A poison mist seemed to hover over this lonely and deserted
pleasure-house of ancient Pelasgian days.
Skirting the haunted pavilion, unmindful of the onslaught of the
elements, they took a path so narrow that they could but advance in
single file. This path had been cut and beaten by the Prefect's guards,
for the weeds and underbrush luxuriated, until they mounted some ten
feet against the walls of the pavilion.
They had now reached the back wall and proceeded in utter darkness
broken only by the flashes of lightning. They passed through a
half-ruined archway and at last came to a halt, prompted by those in
front, whose progress had been stopped by, what the others guessed
to be, the door. They had to work warily, to keep it from falling
inward. At last the movement continued and they entered the night-wrapt
corridor.
Tristan had taken his station directly behind the Prefect of Rome. The
ecclesiastics, for their own protection, had been assigned the rear.
By the sheen of lightnings a pile of brushwood was revealed to the
sight, which the Prefect, in a low tone, ordered to be cleared away,
whereupon a circular opening appeared, like the entrance of a well.
The Prefect summoned the leaders around him.
For a moment they stood in silence and listened.
Between the peals of the thunder which rolled in terrifying echoes over
the Seven Hills, the trained ear could distinguish a strange, droning
sound that seemed to come from the bowels of the earth.
"Even now the Black Mass is commencing," he turned to Tristan. "We are
but just in time."
After a pause he continued:
"We must proceed in darkness. The faintest glimmer might betray our
presence. I shall lead the way. Let each follow warily. Let each be in
touch with the other. Let all stop when I stop. We shall arrive in a
circular gallery, whence we may all witness the abomination below. From
this gallery several flights of winding stairs lead into the devil's
chapel. Let us descend in silence. When you hear the signal--down the
quick descent and--upon them!"
One by one they disappeared in the dark aperture. Their feet touched
ground while they still supported themselves on their arms. They found
themselves in a subterranean chamber, in impenetrable darkness, whose
hot, damp murk almost suffocated the intruders.
Slowly, with infinite caution, in infinite silence, they proceeded.
Every man stretched his hand before him to touch a companion.
The passage began to slant, yet the incline was gradual. Their feet
touched soft earth which swallowed the sound of their steps. There was
neither echo nor vibration, only murky silence and the night of the
grave.
A low, droning sound, infinitely remote, a sound not unlike that of
swarming bees heard at a great distance, was now wafted to their ears.
A shudder ran through that long chain of living men, who were carrying
the Cross into the very abyss of Hell.
For they knew they were listening to the infernal choir, they were
approaching the hidden chapel of Satan. The chant began to swell. Still
they continued upon their descent.
The imprisoned air became hotter and murkier, almost suffocating in its
miasmatic waves that assailed the senses and seemed to weigh like lead
upon the brain.
Now the tunnel turned sharply at right angles and after proceeding
some twenty or thirty paces in Stygian darkness, a faint crimson glow
began suddenly to drive the nocturnal gloom before it, and they emerged
in a gallery, terminating in a number of dark archways, from which
narrow winding stairs led into the hall below. Small round apertures,
resembling port-holes, permitted a glimpse into the chapel of Satan,
and a weird, droning chant was rising rhythmically from the night-wrapt
depths of the pavilion.
Following the example of the leader, they stole on tiptoe to the
unglazed port-holes and gazed below, and eager, yet trembling, with the
anticipation of the dread mysteries they were about to witness.
At first they could not see anything distinctly, owing to the crimson
mist that seemed to come rolling into the chapel as from some furnace
and their eyes, after having been long in the darkness, refused to
focus themselves. But, by degrees, the scene became more distinct.
In the circular chapel below dim figures, robed in crimson, moved to
and fro, bearing aloft perfumed cressets on metal poles, and in its
flickering light an altar became visible, hung with crimson, the summit
of which was lost in the gloom overhead. Here and there indistinct
shapes were stretched in hideous contortions on the pavement, and as
others drew nigh, these rose and, throwing back their heads, made the
vault re-echo with deep-chested roaring.
Suddenly the metal bound gates of a low arched doorway, faintly
discernible in the uncertain light, seemed to be unclosing with a slow
and majestic movement, letting loose a flood of light in which the
ghostly faces of the worshippers leapt into sudden clearness, men and
women, all seemingly belonging to the highest ranks of society. The
crimson garbs of the officiating priests showed like huge stains of
blood against the dark-veined marble.
Tristan gazed with the rest, stark with terror. The blood seemed to
freeze in his veins as his eyes swept the circular vault and rested at
the shrine's farther end, where branching candlesticks flanked each the
foot of two short flights of stairs that led up to the summit of the
great altar, garnished at the corner with hideous masks, and sending up
from time to time eddies of smoke, through the reek of which some two
score of men watched the ceremony from above.
Dim shapes passed to and fro. The droning chant continued. At length
a shapeless form evolved itself from the crimson mist, approached the
altar and cast something upon it. Instantly a blaze of light flooded
the shrine, and in its radiance a weazened, bat-like creature was
revealed, garbed in the fantastic imitation of a priest's robes.
Approaching the infernal altar, upon which lay obscene symbols of
horror, he mounted the steps and his figure melted into the gloom.
With the cold sweat streaming from his brow, with a shudder that almost
turned him dizzy, Tristan recognized Bessarion. The High Priest of
Satan sat upon the Devil's altar. There was stir and movement in the
chapel. Then a deep silence supervened.
Petrifaction fell upon the assembly. All voices were hushed, all
movement arrested. From the black throne, surrounded by terror, where
sat the great Unknown, came a dull hoarse roar, like the roar of an
earthquake.
The words were unintelligible to the champions of the Cross. They were
answered by the Sorcerer's Confession, the hideous, terrible contortion
of the Credo, and then Tristan's ears were assailed by the sounds he
had heard on that fatal night, ere he lost consciousness, and again in
the Catacombs of St. Calixtus, sounds meaningless in themselves, but
fraught with terrible import to him now!
"Emen Hetan! Emen Hetan! Palu! Baalberi! Emen Hetan!"--
Pandemonium broke loose.
"Agora! Agora! Patrisa! Agora!"
There was screeching of pipes, made of dead men's bones. A drum
stretched with the skin of the hanged was beaten with the tail of a
wolf. Like leaves in a howling storm the fantastic red robed forms
whirled about, from left to right, from right to left. And in their
midst, immobile and terrible, sat the Hircus Nocturnus, enthroned upon
the shrine.
When at last they stopped, panting, exhausted, the same voice,
deafening as an earthquake, roared:
"Bring hither the bride--the stainless dove!"
A chorus of hideous laughter, a swelling, bleating cacophony of
execration, so furious and real that it froze the listeners' blood,
answered the summons.
Then, from an arch in the apse of the infernal chapel, came four
chanting figures, hideously masked and draped in crimson.
With slow, measured steps they approached. The arch was black again.
Deep silence supervened.
Now into the centre came two figures.
One was that of a man robed in doublet and hose of flaming scarlet. The
figure he supported was that of a woman, though she seemed a corpse
returned to earth.
A long white robe covered her from head to toe, like the winding sheet
of death. Her eyes were bound with a white cloth. She seemed unable to
walk, and was being urged forward, step by step, by the scarlet man at
her side.
Again pandemonium reigned, heightened by the crashing peals of the
thunder that rolled in the heavens overhead.
"Emen Hetan! Emen Hetan! Palu! Baalberi! Emen Hetan!"
The bleating of goats, the shrieks of the tortured damned, the howling
of devils in the nethermost pit of Hell, delirious laughter, gibes and
execrations mingled in a deafening chorus, which was followed by a dead
silence, as anew the voice of the Unseen roared through the vault:
"Bring hither the bride, the stainless dove!"
There was a tramp of mailed feet.
Like a human whirlwind it came roaring down the winding stairs, through
the vomitories into the vault. The rattling of weapons, shouts of rage,
horror and dismay mingled, resounding from the vaulted roof, beaten
back from the marble walls.
With drawn sword Tristan, well in advance of his companions, leaped
into the chapel of Satan. When the identity of the staggering white
form beside the scarlet man had been revealed to him, no power in
heaven or earth could have restrained him. Without awaiting the signal
he bounded with a choking outcry down the shaft.
But, when he reached the floor of the chapel, he recoiled as if the
Evil One had arisen from the floor before him, barring his advance.
Before him stood Theodora.
She wore a scarlet robe, fastened at the throat with a clasp of rubies,
representing the heads of serpents. Her wonderful white arms were bare,
her hands were clenched as if she were about to fly at the throat of a
hated rival and a preternatural lustre shone in her eyes.
"You!"
Tristan's words died in the utterance as he surveyed her for the space
of a moment with a glance so full of horror and disdain that she knew
she had lost.
"Yes--it is I," she replied, hardly above a whisper, hot flush and