*CHAPTER IV*
*THE SECRET OF THE TOMB*
While the revelling on the Capitoline hill was at its height, Eckhardthad approached Benilo and drawing him aside, engaged him in lengthyconversation. The Chamberlain's countenance had lost its studied calmand betrayed an amazement which vainly endeavoured to vent itself inadequate utterance. He appeared to offer a strenuous opposition toEckhardt's request, an opposition which yielded only when every argumentseemed to have failed. At last they had parted, Eckhardt passingunobserved to a terrace and gaining a path that led through an orangegrove behind the Vatican gardens. A few steps brought him to a gate,which opened on a narrow vicolo. Here he paused and clapped his handssoftly together. The signal was repeated from the other side andEckhardt thereupon lifted the heavy iron latch, which fastened the gateon the inner side and, passing out, carefully closed it behind him. Herehe was joined by another personage wrapt in a long, dark cloak, andtogether they proceeded through a maze of dark, narrow and unfrequentedalleys. Lane after lane they traversed, all unpaved and muddy. Anotherten minutes' walk between lightless houses, whose doors and windows werefor the most part closed and barred, and they reached an old time-worndwelling with a low unsightly doorway. It was secured by strongfastenings of bolts and bars, as though its tenant had sufficientmotives for affecting privacy and retirement. The very nature of hiscalling would however have secured him from intrusion either by day orby night, from any one not immediately in need of his services. Forhere lived Il Gobbo, the grave digger, a busy personage in the Rome ofthose days. Eckhardt and his companion exchanged a swift glance as theyapproached the uncanny dwelling; eyeless, hoary with vegetation, rootedhere and there, the front of the house gave no welcome. Eckhardtwhispered a question to his companion, which was answered in theaffirmative. Then he bade him knock. After a wait of brief duration,the summons was answered by a low cough within. Shuffling footstepswere heard, then the unbarring of a door, followed by the creaking ofhinges, and the low bent figure of an old man appeared. Il Gobbo, thegrave digger wore a loose gray tunic, which reached to his knees. Whatwas visible of his countenance was cadaverous and ashen gray, as that ofa corpse. His small rat-like eyes, whose restless vigilance argued somedeficiency or warping of the brain, a tendency, however remote, toinsanity, scrutinized the stranger with marked suspicion, while a longnose, curving downward over a projecting upper lip, which seemed inperpetual tremor, imbued his countenance with something strangelyMephistophelian.
In a very few words Eckhardt's companion requested the grave digger tomake ready and follow them, and that worthy, seeing nothing strange in asummons of this sort, complied at once, took pick and spade, and afterhaving locked and barred his habitation, asked his solicitor to whichburial grounds he was to accompany them.
"To San Pancrazio," was Eckhardt's curt reply. The silence had becomealmost insufferable to him, and something in the manner of his speechcaused the grave digger to bestow on him a swift glance. Then hepreceded them in silence on the well-known way.
It was a wonderful night.
There was not a breath of air to stir the dying leaves of the trees.The clouds, which had risen at sunset in the West, had vanished, leavingthe sky unobscured, arching deep blue over the yellow moon.
As they approached the Ripetta, the grave digger suddenly paused and,facing the Margrave and his companion, inquired where the corpse wasawaiting them.
A strange, jarring laugh broke from Eckhardt's lips.
"Never fear, my honest friend! It is a very well conditioned corpse,that will play us no pranks and run away. Corpses do sometimes--so Ihave been told. What think you, honest Il Gobbo?"
The grave digger bestowed a glance upon his interlocutor, which leftlittle doubt as to what he thought of his patron's sanity, then hecrossed himself and hastened onward. The Tiber lay now on their left,and an occasional flash revealed the turbid waves rolling down towardthe sea in the moonlight. Eckhardt and his companion exchanged not aword, as silently they strode behind their uncanny guide. On their lefthand now appeared the baths of Caracalla, their external magnificenceslowly crumbling to decay, waterless and desolate. Towering on theirright rose the Caelian hill in the moonlight, covered with ruins andneglected gardens. The rays of the higher rising moon fell through thegreat arches of the Neronian Aqueduct and near by were the round churchof St. Stephen and a cloister dedicated to St. Erasmus. As theyproceeded over the narrow grass-grown road, the silence whichencompassed them was as intense as among the Appian sepulchres. At thegate of San Sebastiano, all traces of the road vanished. A winding pathconducted them through a narrow valley, the silence of which was onlybroken by the occasional hoot of an owl, or the flitting across theirpath of a bat, which like an evil thought, seemed afraid of its ownshadow. Then they passed the ancient church of Santa Ursula, which formany years formed the center of a churchyard. The path became moresterile and desolate with every step, only a few dwarfish shrubsbreaking the monotony, to make it appear even more like a wilderness,until they came upon a ruined wall, and following its course for somedistance, reached a heavy iron gate. It gave a dismal, creaking sound asIl Gobbo pushed it open and entered the churchyard of San Pancrazio inadvance of his companions.
Pausing ere he continued upon a way as yet unknown to him, he againturned questioningly toward his mysterious summoners, for as far as hiseye could reach in the bright moonlight, he could discover no trace of afuneral cortege or ever so small number of mourners. Instead ofsatisfying Il Gobbo's curiosity, Eckhardt briefly ordered him to followhim, and the grave digger, shaking his head with grave doubt, followedthe mysterious stranger, who seemed so familiar with this abode ofDeath. They traversed the churchyard at a rapid pace, until theyreached a mortuary chapel situated in a remote region. Here Eckhardtand his companion paused, and the former, turning about and facing IlGobbo, pointed to a grave in the shadows of the chapel.
"Know you this grave?" the Margrave accosted the grave digger, pointingto the grass-plot at his feet.
The grave digger seemed to grope through the depths of his memory; thenhe bent low as if to decipher the inscription on the stone, but thiseffort was in so far superfluous, as he could not read.
"Here lies one Ginevra,--the wife of the German Commander--"
He paused, again searching his memory, but this time in vain.
"Eckhardt," supplied the Margrave himself.
"Eckhardt--Eckhardt," the grave digger echoed, crossing himself at thesound of the dreaded name.
"Open the grave!" Eckhardt broke into Il Gobbo's babbling, who had beenwondering to what purpose he had been brought here.
Il Gobbo stared up at the speaker as if he mistrusted his hearing, butmade no reply.
"Open the grave!" Eckhardt repeated, leaning upon his sword.
Il Gobbo shook his head. No doubt the man was mad; else why should heprefer the strange request? He looked questioningly at Eckhardt'scompanion, as if expecting the latter to interfere. But he moved not.A strange fear began to creep over the grave digger.
"Here is a purse of gold, enough to dispel the qualms of yourconscience," Eckhardt spoke with terrible firmness in his tones,offering Il Gobbo a leather purse of no mean size. But the latterpushed it back with abhorrence.
"I cannot--I dare not. Who are you to prefer this strange request?"
"I am Eckhardt, the general! Open the grave!"
Il Gobbo cringed as though he had been struck a blow from some invisiblehand.
"I dare not--I dare not," he whined, deprecating the proffered gift."The sin would be visited upon my head.--It is written: Disturb not thedead."
A terrible look passed into Eckhardt's face.
"Is this purse not heavy enough? I will add another."
"It is not that--it is not that," Il Gobbo replied, almost weeping withterror. "I dread the vengeance of the dead! They will not permit thesacrilege to pass unpunished."
"Then let the punishmen
t fall on my head!" replied Eckhardt withterrible voice. "Take your spade, old man, for by the Almighty God wholooks down upon us, you will not leave this place alive, unless you doas you are told."
The old grave digger trembled in every limb. Helplessly he gazed about;imploringly he looked up into the face of Eckhardt's immobile companion,but he read nothing in the eyes of these two, save unrelentingdetermination. Instinctively he knew that no argument would avail todeter them from their mad purpose.
Eckhardt watched the old man closely.
"You dug this grave yourself, three years ago," he then spoke in a tonestrangely mingled of despair and irony. "It is a poor grave digger whopermits his dead to leave their cold and narrow berth and go forth amongthe living in the form they bore on earth! It has been whispered tome," he continued with a terrible laugh, "that some of your graves areshallow. I would fain be convinced with my own eyes, just to be able togive your calumniators the lie! Therefore, good Il Gobbo, take up yourspade with all speed, and imagine, as you perform your task, that youare not opening this grave to disturb the repose of her who sleepsbeneath the sod, but preparing a reception to one still in the flesh!Proceed!"
The last word was spoken with such menace that the grave diggerreluctantly complied, and taking up the spade, which he had dropped, hepushed it slowly into the sod. Leaning silently on his sword, his facethe pallor of death, Eckhardt and his companion watched the progress ofthe terrible work, watched one shovel of earth after the other fly up,piling up by the side of the grave; watched the oblong opening growdeeper and deeper, till after a breathless pause of some duration thespade of the grave digger was heard to strike the top of the coffin.
Il Gobbo, who all but his head stood now in the grave, looked upimploringly to Eckhardt, hoping that at the last moment he would desistfrom the terrible sacrilege he was about to commit. But when he readonly implacable determination in the commander's face, he again turnedto his task and continued to throw up the earth until the coffin stoodfree and unimpeded in its narrow berth.
"I cannot raise it up," the old man whined. "It is too heavy."
"We will assist you! Out it shall come if all the devils in hell clungto it from beneath. Bring your ropes and bring them quickly! Hearyou?" thundered Eckhardt in a frenzy. His self-enforced calm was fastgiving way before the terrible ordeal he was passing through.
"Would it not be safer to go down and open the lid?" questionedEckhardt's companion, for the first time breaking the silence.
"There is not room enough,--unless the berth is widened," Eckhardtreplied. Then he turned to Il Gobbo, who was slowly scrambling out ofthe grave.
"Widen the berth--we will come down to you!"
The grave digger returned to his task; then after a time, which seemedeternity to those waiting above, his head again appeared in the opening.One shovel of earth after another flew up at the feet of Eckhardt andhis companion. Again and again they heard the spade strike against thecoffin, till at last something like a groan out of the gloom belowinformed them that the task had been accomplished.
"Have you any tools?" Eckhardt shouted to Il Gobbo.
"None to serve that end," stammered the grave digger.
"Then take your spade and prise the lid open!" cried Eckhardt. He wastrembling like an aspen, and his breath came hard through hishalf-closed lips. The expression of his face and his demeanour weresuch as to vanquish the last scruples of Il Gobbo, who belaboured thecoffin with much good will, which was mocked by the result, for itseemed to have been hermetically sealed.
After waiting some time in deadly, harrowing suspense, Eckhardtaddressed his companion.
"I hate to abase my good sword for such a purpose,--but the coffin shallbe opened." And without warning he bounded down into the grave, whileIl Gobbo, thinking his last moment at hand, had dropped pick and spade,and stood, more dead than alive, at the foot of the grave.
Picking up the grave digger's spade, Eckhardt dealt the coffin such aterrific blow that he splintered its top to atoms. A second blowcompletely severed the lid, and it lurched heavily to one side, lodgingbetween the coffin and the earth wall.
The ensuing silence was intense.
The moon, which had risen high in the heavens, illumined with her beamsthe chasm in which Eckhardt stood, bending over the coffin. What hiseyes beheld was too terrible for words to express. Only one tress ofdark silken hair had escaped the dread havoc of death, which the opencoffin revealed. It was a sight such as would cause the blood to freezein the veins of the bravest. It was the visible execution of thejudgment pronounced in the garden of Eden: "Dust thou art, and to dustthou shall return."
Only one dark silken tress of all that splendour of body and youth!
Eckhardt leaped from the grave and stood aside, leaving it for hiscompanion to give his final instructions to Il Gobbo, the grave digger,and the reward for his night's labour.
As they strode from the churchyard of San Pancrazio, neither spoke. Thehavoc of death, which Eckhardt's eyes had beheld, the contrast betweenthe image of Ginevra, such as it lived in his memory, and the sightwhich had met his eyes, had re-opened every wound in his heart. No beamof hope, no thought of heavenly mercy, penetrated the night of his soul.His heart seemed steel-cased and completely walled up. He could noteven shed a tear. One hour had worked a dreadful transformation.Silently the Margrave and his companion left the churchyard. Silentlythey turned toward the city. At the base of Aventine, Benilo partedfrom Eckhardt, himself more dead than alive, promising to see him on thefollowing day. He dared not trust himself even to ask Eckhardt what hehad seen. There would be time enough when his terrible frenzy hadsubsided.
As Eckhardt continued upon his way, he grew more calm. The feast ofDeath, which he had dared to break into, while for a time completelystupefying him with its horrors, seemed at least to have brought proofpositive, that whoever Ginevra's double, it was not Ginevra returned toearth. There was much in that thought to comfort his soul, and afterthe fresh air of night had cooled his fevered brow, saner reflectionsbegan to gain sway over his whirling brain.
But they did not endure. What he had seen proved nothing. Another bodymight have been substituted in the coffin. The supposition wasmonstrous indeed--yet even the wildest surmises seemed justified whenthrown in the scales against the fatal likeness of the woman who haddrawn him from the altars of Christ, had frustrated his design to becomea monk, and had, as he believed, attempted his life. Could he but findthe monk who had conducted the last rites! He had searched for him inevery cloister and sanctuary in Rome, yet all those of whom he inquireddisclaimed all knowledge of his abode. Several times the thought hadrecurred to Eckhardt of returning to the Groves, to seek a secondinterview with the woman, and thus for ever to silence his doubts. Buta strange dread had assailed and restrained him from the execution.There was something in the woman's eyes he had never seen in Ginevra's,and he felt that he would inevitably succumb, should he ever again standface to face with her. He almost wished that he had followed Benilo'sadvice,--that he had refrained from an act prompted by frenzy anddespair. Vain regrets! He must find the monk, if he was still in Rome.Though everything and everybody seemed to have conspired against himnothing should bend him from his course.