The Sorceress of Rome

  *CHAPTER X*

  *THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE*

  Shaken to the inmost depths of his soul by a storm of forebodings, hope,fear and passion, Otto had shaken himself free from the throng offlattering friends and courtiers and had sought the solitude of his ownchamber. He had dismissed the envoys of the Electors with theunalterable reply that he would not return to his gloomy Saxon-land.Let the Saxon dukes defend the borders of the realm, let them keep Polesand Slavs in check. His own destiny was Rome. Here he would live, andhere he would die. Deeply offended, the German envoys had departed.The consequences might be far-reaching indeed. Tearing off hisaccoutrements and all insignia of office and rank, Otto flung himself onhis couch in solitary seclusion. All had been against him,--save Benilo.Benilo alone understood him. Benilo alone encouraged the young king tofollow out his destiny. Benilo alone had pointed out that the earthmight be governed from the ancient seat of empire without detriment toany of the nations of the Holy Roman Empire. Benilo alone haddemonstrated the necessity of Otto's presence in his chosen capital,whose heterogeneous elements would obey no lesser authority.

  Weary and torn by conflicting emotions he at last sank down before theimage of Mary and prayed to the Mother of God to guide his steps in thedark wilderness in which he found himself entangled. Thus transportedout of himself far beyond the vociferous pageant of that exhausting day,Otto gave himself with all the mystical fervour of his Hellenic natureto visions of the future.

  Thus the evening approached. Long before the hour appointed he slowlybent his steps towards the little temple of Neptune, crowning theolive-clad summits of Mount Aventine and overlooking the vale of Egeriaand the meandering course of the Tiber. The clouds above, beautifulwith changing sunset tints, mottled the broken surface of the river withhues of bronze and purple between the leaves of the creepingwater-plants, which clogged the movement of the stream. On theriver-bank the rushes were starred with iris and ranunculus.

  The sun was declining in the horizon. A solemn stillness, like thepresage of some divine event, held the pulses of the universe. A softrose crept into the shimmer of the water, cresting the summits of faroff Soracte. The transient, many-tinted glories of the autumn sunsetwere reflected in opalescent lights on the waves of the Tiber, and sweptthe landscape in one dazzling glow of gold and amber, strangely blendingwith the gold and russet of the autumn foliage. The floating smell offlowers invisible hovered on the air; a mystic yearning seemed topervade all nature in that chill, melancholy odour, that puts men inmind of death. The soft masses of leaves decayed caused a brushingsound under the feet of the lonely rambler.

  Round him in the silent woods burnt the magnificent obsequies ofdeparting summer.

  Fire-flies moved through the embalmed air, like the torches of unseenangels. The late roses exhaled their mystic odour, and silently likedead butterflies, here and there a wan leaf dropped from the branches.

  At every step the wood became more lonely. It was as untroubled by anysound as an abandoned cemetery. Birds there were few, the shade of thelaurel-grove being too dense and no song of theirs was heard. Agrasshopper began his shrill cry, but quickly ceased, as if startled byits own voice. Insects alone were humming faintly in a last slender rayof sunlight, but ventured not to quit its beam for the neighbouringgloom. Sometimes Otto trended his path along wider alleys bordered bytitanic walls of weird cypress, casting dark shade as a moonless night.Here and there subterranean waters made the moss spongy. Streams raneverywhere, chill as melted snow, but silently, with no tinklingripples, as if muted by the melancholy of the enchanted wood. Mossstifled the sound of the falling drops and they sank away like the tearsof an unspoken love.

  For a moment; Otto lingered among a tangle of elder-bushes. The obliquesun rays filtering through the dense laurel became almost lunar, as ifseen through the smoke of a funeral torch.

  Along the edge of the road goats were contentedly browsing and a ruggedsun-burnt little lad with large black eyes was driving a flock of geese.Storm clouds lined with gold were rising in the North over the unseenAlps, and high up in the clear sky there burned a single star.

  Deep in thought, Otto passed the walls of the cloisters of St. Cosmas.

  Onward he walked as in the memory of a dream.

  Through the purple silence came faintly the chant of the monks:

  "Fac me plagis vulnerari Pac me cruce inebriari Ob amorem Filii."

  At last the Ionic marble columns, softly steeped in the warmth ofdeparting day, came into sight. Silence and coolness encompassed him.The setting sun still cast his glimmer on the capitals of the columnswhose fine, illumined scroll work, contrasted with the penumbral shadowsof the interior, seemed soft and bright as tresses of gold.

  A hand softly touched Otto's shoulder. A voice whispered:

  "If you would know all--come! Come and I will tell you the secret whichnever yet I have uttered to mortal man."

  In the departing light, veiled by the thick cypresses and pale as themoon-beams, just as in the Egerian wilderness in the whiteness ofsummer-lightnings, she put her face close to his, her face white asmarble, with its scarlet lips, its witch-like eyes.

  On they walked in silence, hand in hand.

  On they walked along the verge of a precipice, where none have walkedbefore, resisting the vertigo and the fatal attraction of the abyss. Ifthey should prove unequal to the strain,--overstep the magic circle?

  Stephania was pale and trembled. She smiled,--but the smile troubledhim, he scarce knew why. He tried to think it was the melancholy,caused by the wild and stormy look of the sunset and the loud cawing ofthe hereditary rooks, which seemed to croak an everlasting farewell tolife and hope in the oaks of the convent.

  Must he repulse the love that surged up to him in resistless waves?

  Must he renounce the near for the far-away, the ideal, whose embodimentshe was, for the commonplace?

  Slowly the sun sank to rest in a sea of crimson and gold, a fieryfuneral of foliage and flowers.

  A clock boomed from a neighbouring tower. The heavy measured clangvibrated long through the stillness, quivering In the air, like awarning knell of fate.

  Softly she drew him into the dusk of the pagan temple, drew him downbeside her on one of the scattered fragments of antiquity, a dog-earedGod of black Syenite from Egypt, which had shared the fate of its Latinequals.

  But he could not sit beside--her.

  Abruptly he rose; standing before her, the passion of the long fightsurged up in him. Stephania sat motionless, and for a time neitherspoke.

  At last Otto broke the silence. His voice was strained as if he weresuffering some great pain.

  "I have come!" he said. "I have cut every bridge between present andpast! I am here.--Have you thought of my appeal?"

  "Oh, why do you torture me?" she replied half sobbing, "I venture to askfor a delay, and you arraign me as though I stood at the bar ofjudgment."

  "It is our day of judgment," he replied. "It is the day when lifeconfronts us with our own deeds,--when we must answer for them, when wemust justify them. For if we are but triflers, we cannot stand in theface either of heaven or of hell!"

  He bent down and took her hands in his.

  "Stephania," he said, "I too have doubted, I too have wavered:--give mebut one word of assurance,--my love for you is a wound which no eternitycan cure."

  She broke from him, to hide her weeping.

  "Have you thought of the forfeit?" she faltered after a time.

  "I would not forego the doom!--You alone are my light in this darkcountry of the world. Do not stifle the voice in your heart withreasons--"

  "Reasons! Reasons!" she interrupted. "What does the heart know ofreasons! Mine has long forgotten their pleadings--else, were I here?"

  Something in her voice and gesture was like a lightning flash over adark landscape. In an instant he saw the pit at his feet.

  "What then," he faltered
, "is this to lead to?"

  "Some one has been with you," she said quickly. "These words were notyours."

  He rallied with a fault smile.

  "A pretext for not heeding them."

  "Eckhardt has been with you! He has maligned me to you!"

  "He has warned me against you!"

  She turned very pale.

  "And you heeded?"

  "I am here, Stephania!"

  The subtle perfume clinging to her gown mounted to his brain, chokingback reason and resistance.

  "Yet again I ask you, what is this to lead to? I am afraid of thefuture as a child of the dark!"

  She held his hands tightly clasped.

  "Oh!" she sobbed, "why will you torture me? I have borne much for ourlove's sake--but to answer you now is to relive it and I lack thestrength."

  He held her hands fast, his eyes in hers.

  "No, Stephania," he said, "your strength never failed you when there wascall on it, and our whole past calls on it now! Eckhardt tells me thatthe Romans hate me,--that they resent the love I bear them--oh, if itwere true!"

  Stephania gazed at him with wide astonished eyes.

  "Ah! It is this then," she said with a sigh of relief. "A moment'sthought must show you what passions are here at work. You must riseabove such fears. As for us,--no one can judge between us, butourselves. Shake off these dread fancies! There lies but one goalbefore us. You pointed the way to it once. Surely you would not holdme back from it now?"

  Gently she drew him down by her side. Through the crevices in the roofglimmered the evening star.

  She saw the conflict, which raged within him, the instinct to break awayfrom her, who could never more be his own. She saw the fear which boundhim to her,--she saw the great love he bore her, and she knew that hewas hers soul and body, her instrument, her toy,--her lover if she sowilled.

  He spoke to her of his childhood in the bleak northern forests; of theblack pines of Thuringia, of the snow-drifts, which froze his heart; ofthe sad sea horizons brooding infinitely away; of the gloomy abbey ofMerseburg, in the Saxon-land, where the great Emperor Otto, hisgrandsire, was sleeping towards the day of resurrection, where under theabbot's guidance he had first been initiated into the magic of a sunnierclime. He spoke to her of his Greek mother, the Empress Theophano,whose great beauty was only rivalled by her own, and of that eventfulnight, when he descended into the crypts of Aix-la-Chapelle and openedthe tomb of Charlemagne, then dead almost two hundred years. He toldher how he had fought against this mad, unreasoning love, which had atfirst sight of her crept into his heart, urging naught in palliation ofhis offence, but like a flagellant laying bare his tortured flesh to aself-inflicted scourge. He begged her to decide for him, to guide him,lonely antagonist of destiny--dared he ask for more? She was the wifeof the Senator of Rome.

  As he ceased speaking, Otto covered his face with his hands, butStephania drew them down and held them firmly in her own. Truly, if itwas victory to accomplish the end, by drawing out a loving, confidingheart, the victory was with the vanquished. And with the memory of thecompact she had sealed a wondrous pity flashed through the woman's soul,a mighty longing, to lift the son of the Greek Princess up into joyouspeace! No thought of evil marred her pure desire,--alas! She knew notat that moment, that even in that pity lay his direst snare, and hers.

  The decisive moment was at hand. In the thickets before the temple hereye discerned the gleam of spear-points. For a moment a violent tremorpassed through her body. She had hardly strength sufficient to maintainher presence of mind, and her face was pale as that of a corpse.

  Would she, a second Delilah, deliver Otto to her countrymen--the Romans?

  It was some time ere she felt sufficiently composed to speak. Her throatwas dry and she seemed to choke.

  Otto remarked her discomfiture, far from guessing its cause.

  "I will fetch you some water," he said, starting up to leave the temple.

  Quick as lightning she had arisen, holding him back.

  "It is nothing," she whispered nervously. "Do not leave me!"

  And he obeyed.

  Stephania closed her eyes as if to exclude the sight of thespear-points.

  "Otto," she said softly, after a pause, for the first time calling himby his name, "I fear there is one great lesson you have never learned."

  "And what is this lesson?"

  "That, what you are doing for the Romans might also be done for you! Isthere no heart to share your sorrow, to help you bear the pain ofdisappointment, which must come to you sooner or later? You told me,you had never loved before we met--"

  He nodded assent.

  "Never--Never!"

  "Ah! Then you do not know. You seek for light, where the sun can nevershine! Striving for the highest ideals of mankind we can rise from theblack depths of doubt but by one ladder,--that of a woman's love!"

  Again the dreadful doubt assailed him.

  "If you mean--that,--oh, do not speak of it, Stephania! The wound isalready past healing."

  She bent towards him and rested her head upon his shoulders.

  "And yet I must,--here--and to you."

  "No--no--no!" he muttered helplessly and turned away. The words ofEckhardt rushed and roared through his memory: "Once you are hers,--nohuman power can save you from the abyss."

  But Eckhardt hated the Romans as one hates a scorpion, a basilisk.

  Stephania relinquished not her victim. He must be hers, body and soul,ere she shrieked the fatal word.--The warm blood hurtling through herveins quenched the last pitying spark.

  "Ah!" she said with a sigh. "You have never known the tenderness of awoman's smile,--the touch of a woman's hand,--her soft caress,--thesound of her voice,--that haunts you everywhere,--waking,--in yourdreams--"

  "Stephania!" he gasped, and rose as if to flee from her, but she heldhim back.

  "You have never known the ear that listens for your footsteps,--the lipsthat meet your own in a long, passionate kiss,--the kiss thatthrills--and burns--and maddens--"

  "Stephania--in mercy--cease!"

  Again he attempted to rise, again she drew him down.

  "You are not like other men--Otto! Will you always live so lonely,--socompanionless,--with no one to love you with that lasting love, forwhich your whole soul cries out?"

  Shivering he raised his arms as if to shut the sight of her from hisdazzled gaze. Again, though fainter, Eckhardt's terrible warningknocked at the gates of his memory. But her purring voice with its lowmelodious roll, wooed his listening heart till the doors of reasontottered on their hinges. And the end--what would be the end?

  "Tell me no more," he gasped, "tell me no more! I cannot listen! Idare not listen! You will destroy me! You will destroy us both!"

  Her lips parted in a smile,--that fateful smile, which caused his soulto quake. Her fine nostrils quivered, as she bent towards him.

  "You cannot?" she said. "You dare not? Will you pass the cup untasted,the cup that brims with the crimson joy of love? Is there none in allthe world to take you by the hand,--to lead you home?"

  With a cry half inarticulate he sprang toward her,--his fierce wordstumbling from delirious lips:

  "Yes,--there is one,--there is one,--one who could lift me up till mysoul should sing in heavenly bliss,--one who could bring to meforgetfulness and peace,--one who could change my state of exaltedloneliness to a delirium of ecstasy,--one who could lead me, wherevershe would--could I but lay my head on her breast,--touch her lips,--callher mine--"

  Stephania stretched out her white, bare arms that made him dizzy. Hestood before her quivering with hands pressed tightly against histhrobbing temples. One moment only.--Half risen from her seat, her eyeon the gleaming spear-points in the thicket, she seemed to crouchtowards him like some beautiful animal, then a half choked out cry brokefrom his lips, as their eyes looked hungrily into each others, and theywere clasped in a tight embrace. Stephania's arms encircled Otto's neckand she pressed her
lips on his in a long, fervid kiss, which thrilledthe youth to the marrow of his bone.

  At that moment a curtain of matted vines, which divided the vestibule ofthe little temple from its inner chambers was half pushed aside by amassive arm, wrapped with scales of linked mail. Standing behind them,Crescentius witnessed the embrace and withdrew without a word.

  Was Stephania not overacting her part?

  He waited for the signal.

  No signal came.

  Then a terrible revelation burst upon the Senator's mind.

  Johannes Crescentius had lost the love of his wife.

  After a time the spear-points disappeared.

  The Senator of Rome saw his own danger and the forces arrayed againsthim. He was no longer dealing with statecraft. The weapon had beenturned. With a smothered outcry of anguish he slowly retraced hissteps.

  Neither had seen the silent witness of their embrace.

  Silence had ensued in the temple.

  Each could feel the tremor in the soul of the other.

  After a time Otto stumbled blindly into the open. Stephania remainedalone in rigid silence.

  In frozen horror she stared into the dusk.

  "The game is finished,--I have won,--oh, God forgive me--God forgiveme!" she moaned. "Otto ... Otto ... Otto ..."

  * * * * *

  "If you would know all,--come at midnight to the churchyard near PonteSisto," whispered a voice close by his side, as Crescentius staggeredtowards the Aelian bridge.

  He felt a hand upon his shoulder, turned, and saw, like some ill-omenedghost in the wintry twilight, a lean pale face staring into his own.

  In the darkness, under the dense shadows of the cypress-trees he couldnot distinguish the features of his companion, who wore the habit of amonk.

  But when Crescentius turned to reply, he was alone.

  "Christ too prayed a human prayer for a miracle: Father, let this cuppass from me!" he muttered, continuing upon his way.

  With eyes on the ground he strode along the narrow walk, skirting theTiber, in whose turbid waves no stars were reflected. And scarceconsciously he repeated to himself:

  "As like as a man and his own phantom,--his own phantom."

  He passed the bridge and entered the mausoleum of the Flavian emperor.Rapidly he ascended to his own chamber.

  The candle was burning low.

  Up and down he paced in the endeavour to order his thoughts. But noorder would come into the chaotic confusion of his mind.

  What was the dominion of Rome to him now?

  What the dominion of the Universe?

  What devil in human shape had counselled the act in the seeds of whichslumbered his own destruction?

  The flame of the dying candle flickered and grew dim.

  Had Stephania returned?

  He heard no steps, no sound in her chamber.

  At the memory of what he had seen, a groan broke from his lips.

  How he hated that boy, who after wresting from him the dominion of thecity, had stolen from him the love of his wife!

  Stolen? Had it not been thrust upon him? What mortal could haveresisted the temptation? He would die--thus it was written in thestars;--but Stephania would weep for him--

  On tip-toe the Senator stole to the chamber of his wife. The door stoodajar. The chamber was empty.

  The candle flared up for the last time, lighting up the gloom. Then itsank down and went out.

  Crescentius was alone in the darkness.