*CHAPTER XIII*
*THE LION OF BASALT*
It was midnight of a dark and still evening on the Tiber and peace hadfor the most part descended upon the great city. The lamps in the houseswere extinguished and the challenges of the watch alone were now andthen to be heard. The streets were deserted, for few ventured abroadafter night fall. Sluggishly the turbid tide of the Tiber rolledtowards ancient Portus. The moon was hidden behind heavy cloudbanks,and when now and then it pierced a rift in the nebulous masses, it sheda spectral light over the silent hills, but to plunge them back intoabysmal darkness.
The bells from distant cloisters and convents were pealing the midnighthour when out of the gloom of the waters there passed a light skiffwherein were seated two men, closely wrapped in their long, dark cloaks.The one seated on the prow was bent almost double with age, and his longbeard swept the bottom of the skiff. He appeared indifferent to hissurroundings and stared straight before him into the darkness, while hiscompanion, constantly on the alert, never seemed to take his eyes fromthe boatman who plied his oars in silence, causing the frail craft todescend the river with great swiftness.
At last they made for the shore. An extensive mansion loomed out of thegloom, which seemed to be the goal of their journey. Obeying thewhispered directions of the taller of his passengers, the boatmansteered his craft under a dark archway, whence a flight of stairs led upto the door, of what appeared to be a garden pavilion. Swiftly thesculler shot under the arch and in another moment drew up by the stairs.
Leaning heavily on the arm of his companion the soothsayer alighted fromthe skiff with slow and uncertain steps and after ascending thewater-stairs his guide knocked three times at the door of the pavilion.It was instantly opened and an African in fantastic livery, who seemedto fill the office of Cubicular, beckoned them to enter. With all thesigns of exhaustion and the weariness of his years weighing heavily uponhim, the conjurer dropped into a seat, paying no heed whatever to hissurroundings nor to his companion, who had withdrawn into the shadows,while he awaited the arrival of the woman, who had called on his skill.
He had not long to wait.
Noiselessly a door opened and the majestic and graceful form of a womanglided into the pavilion, robed in a long black cloak and closelyveiled. She motioned to the attendants to withdraw and to theastrologer to approach.
"Most learned doctor of astral science," she said in a soft clear voiceof command, "you have brought me the calculations which your learninghas enabled you to make as to the future of the persons whose nativitieswere supplied to you?"
The astrologer had been seized with a sudden violent fit of coughing andsome moments elapsed ere he seemed able to speak.
So low and weak were his tones, that the woman could not understand oneword he uttered, and she began to exhibit unequivocal signs ofimpatience, when the conjurer's voice somewhat improved.
"The horoscopes," he said in a strangely jarring tone, "are the mostwonderful that our science has ever revealed to me. They indicate mostamazing changes of life, and signs of imminent peril."
"You speak of one,--or of both?"
"Of both!"
"Give me the details of each horoscope!"
The astrologer nodded.
Theodora watched him from behind her veil as closely as he did her, forever and anon he stole furtive glances at her and was immediately seizedwith his cough.
His voice grated strangely in her ear as he spoke.
"The first, whose nativity I have calculated, is that of one born thirtyyears, one hundred and seventeen days, and ten hours from this moment.It was a birth under the sign of the Serpent, at an hour charged withvast possibilities for the future. At that instant the Zodiac was movedby portentous lights and the earth shook with tremors as I haveascertained in the records of our art!"
"What are the signs of the future?" the woman interrupted the speaker."What is past and gone, we all know, even without the aid of yourprofound wisdom. What of the future, I ask?" she concluded imperiously.
"I hate to impart to you what I have found," said the astrologercringing. "It is terrible. The declination of the house of Deathstands close to the right ascension of the house of Life!"
Theodora gave a sudden start. For a moment she seemed to lose herself-control. Her piercing eyes seemed to look the astrologer throughand through, though he had shrunk back into the wide girth of hismantle.
"Give me the scroll!"
She stretched out a hand white as alabaster to take the parchmentwhereon the astrologer had marked the rise and fall of the star records.But, as if seized with a sudden fear, she withdrew the hand ere the manof the stars could comply with her request.
"The second horoscope!" she spoke imperiously.
Again a long fit of coughing prevented the astrologer from speaking.
When it subsided, he said with profound solemnity, watching herexpression intently from between his half-closed lids:
"That other, whose nativity you have sent to me, shall finddeath,--death, sudden and shameful--"
She stood rigid as a statue.
"Tell me more!" she gasped. "Tell me more!"
"He will die hated,--unlamented,--despised--"
She drew a deep breath.
"When shall that be?"
"There is at this moment a most ominous sign in the heavens," repliedthe astrologer shrinking within himself. "Venus, who rules the skies isobscured by too close attendance upon a lower and less honourable star."
Theodora held her breath.
"What comes after?" she whispered.
"The lore of astral combinations does not reveal such things. Butpalmistry may aid, where the constellations fail. Deign to let me tracethe lines in the palm of your hand."
Flinging aside her last reserve, Theodora in her eagerness held out herpalm to the astrologer. He bent over it, without touching it, shakinghis head, and muttering:
"The line of life,--the line of love,--the line of death--"
As the astrologer pronounced the last word, his hand grasped with avice-like grip the one whose lines he had pretended to read, while withthe other, which had dropped the supporting staff, he pushed back theloose sleeve of her gown, baring her arm almost to the shoulder,constantly muttering:
"The line of Death,--the line of Death,--the line of Death!"
When Theodora first felt the tightening grip on her wrist, she tried towithdraw her hand, but her strength was not equal to the task. She feltthe benumbing pressure of what she imagined were the astrologer'sfleshless claws, but when, with a motion almost too swift for one bentwith age and infirmity, he laid bare to the shoulder the marblewhiteness of her arm, she thought he had gone mad. But when theastrologer's trembling finger pointed to the red birthmark on her arm,just below her shoulder, resembling the claw of a raven, constantlymuttering: "The line of Death--the line of Death," she uttered apiercing shriek for help, vainly endeavouring to shake him off.
A shadow dashed between the two, neither knew whence it came.
The astrologer saw the gleam of a dagger before his eyes, felt its pointstrike against the corselet of mail beneath his cloak, felt the weaponrebound and snap asunder, the fragments falling at his feet, andreleasing the woman, who stood like an image of stone, he dropped hiscloak and supporting staff, and clove with one blow of his shortdouble-edged sword the skull of his assailant to the neck. With apiercing shriek Theodora rushed from the Pavilion, followed in madbreathless pursuit by the pseudo-astrologer, who had dropped his falsebeard with his other disguises and stood revealed to her terror-strickengaze as Eckhardt, the Margrave.
Without heeding the warning cry of Hezilo, his companion, he was bentupon taking the woman. In the darkness he could hear the rush of herfrightened footsteps through the corridors; he seemed to gain upon her,when her giant Africans rushing through another passage came between theMargrave and his intended victim. Three steps did he make through thepress and thre
e of her guards fell beneath his sword. But a stranger inthe labyrinth of the great pavilion, he could hardly hope to gain hisend, even if unimpeded, and Theodora's formidable body-guard stilloutnumbered him three to one. Eckhardt's doom would have been sealedhad not at that very moment Hezilo appeared in the passage behind himand laid an arresting hand upon his arm.
Before the harper's well-known presence the Africans fell back, raisingtheir dead from the blood-stained floor and skulking back into the duskof the corridor.
"You have no time to lose," urged the harper. "Follow me!--Speaknot,--question not. Remember your compact and your oath."
Eckhardt turned upon his guide like a lion at bay. His face was pale asthat of a corpse. His blood-shot eyes stared, as if they must burstfrom their sockets; his hair bristled like that of a maniac.
"What care I?" he growled fiercely. "Compact or oath--what care I?"
"There are other considerations at stake," replied Hezilo calmly. "Youpromised to be guided by my counsel. The hour of final reckoning is notyet at hand."
Eckhardt's breast heaved so violently, that it almost deprived him ofthe faculty of speech.
"Must I turn back at the very gates of fulfilment?" he burst forth atlast. But sheathing his weapon he reluctantly followed the harper and,retracing their steps, they re-entered the Pavilion. In the slainboatman they recognized the ghastly features of John of the Catacombs,though the bravo's skull was literally cloven in twain and a strangedread seized upon them at the terrible revelation. Eckhardt stood byidly, while the harper insisted upon removing the body, and wrapping hisghastly burden in his blood-stained monkish gown, showed smallrepugnance to carrying the bravo's carcass to the landing, where hefastened a short iron chain to the gruesome package and dropped it intothe muddy waves of the Tiber.
Dark clouds swept over the face of the moon and the chill wind of autumnmoaned dismally through the spectral pines, as the boat, propelled bythe sturdy arms of Hezilo, flew up stream over the murky, foam-crestedwaves.
An icy hand seemed to grip Eckhardt's heart. The words wrung from thedying wretch in the rock-caves under the Gemonian stairs had provedtrue. In baring Theodora's left arm his eyes had fallen upon thewell-remembered birthmark resembling the raven claw. The terriblerevelation had for the nonce almost upset his reason, and caused himprematurely to drop his mask. All clarity of thought, all fixedness ofpurpose had deserted him; he felt as one stunned by the blinding blow ofa maze. Dazed he stared before him into the gloom of the autumnalnight; his hair dishevelled, his eyelids swollen, his lips compressed.He could not have uttered a word had his life depended upon it. Histongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth; his brow was fevered,yet his hands were cold as ice. At last then he had stood face to facewith the awful mystery, which had mocked his waking hours, hisdreams,--a mystery, even now but half guessed, but half revealed. Hetried to recall fragments of the monk's tale. But his brain refused towork, steeped in the apathy of despair. The future hour must give birthto the considerations of the final step, to the closing chapters of hislife. Yet he felt that delay would engender madness; long brooding hadshaken his reason and swift action alone could now save it fromtottering to a hopeless fall.
The frail craft shot round the elbow-like bend of the Tiber at the baseof Aventine when Hezilo for the first time broke the silence. He hadrefrained from questioning or commenting on the result of their visit tothe Groves. Now, pointing to the ramparts of Castel San Angelo hewhispered into Eckhardt's ear:
"Are your forces beyond recall?"
Eckhardt stared up into the speaker's face, as if the latter hadaddressed him in some strange tongue. Only after Hezilo had repeatedhis question, Eckhardt roused himself from the lethargy, which benumbedhis senses and gazed in the direction indicated by the harper.
An errant moonbeam illumined just at this moment the upper galleries ofHadrian's tomb. Straining his gaze towards the ramparts of theformidable keep, Eckhardt strove to discover a reason for Hezilo'swarning. But the moon disappeared behind a bank of clouds and at thatmoment the sculler ran in shore.
Unconsciously his hand tightened round the hilt of his sword.
"The earth breeds hard men and weak men," he muttered. "The gods can butlaugh at them or grow wroth with them. As for these Romelings,--they arenot worth destroying. They will perish of themselves."
"The hour is close at hand, when everything shall be known to you,"Hezilo turned to Eckhardt at parting. "But three days remain to thefull of the moon."
Weary and sick at heart Eckhardt grasped the harper's proffered hand, asthey parted.
But he was in no mood to return within the four walls of his palace. Hewas as one upon whom has descended a thunder bolt from Heaven.
The terrible revelation deprived him of his senses, of his energies, ofthe desire to live,--and there was little doubt that this would havebeen Eckhardt's last night on earth, had there not remained one purposeto his life.
How small did even that appear by the magnitude of the crime, which hadbeen visited upon his head. The how and why and when remained as greata mystery to him as ever. Eckhardt's memory roamed back into the yearsof the past. He tried to recall every word Ginevra had spoken to him; hetried to recall every wish her lips had expressed, he tried to recallevery unstinted caress. And with these memories there rose up beforehis inner eye Ginevra's image and with it there welled up from his heartan anguish so great, that it drove the nails of his fingers deep intothe flesh of his clenched hands.
He remembered her strange request never to inquire into her past, but tolove her and let his trust be the proof of his love. Then there camefloating faintly, like phantoms on the dark waves of his memory, herinordinate desire for power, hinted rather than expressed,--thendarkness swallowed, everything else. Only boundless anguish remained,fathomless despair. After a while his feelings suffered a reverse; theychanged to a hate of the woman as great as his love had been,--a hatefor the fateful siren, Rome, who had deprived him of all that wasdearest to him on earth.
Bending his solitary steps towards the Capitol, he saw the veil-likemists gathering above the wild grass, which waves above the palaces ofthe Caesars. On a mound of ruins he stood with folded arms musing andintent. In the distance lay the melancholy tombs of the Campagna andthe circling hills faintly outlined beneath the pale starlight. Not abreeze stirred the dark cypresses and spectral pines. There wassomething weird in the stillness of the skies, hushing the desolategrandeur of the earth below.
He had not gone very far when a shadow fell across his path. Looking uphe again found himself by the staircase of the Lion of Basalt. Theweird relic from the banks of the Nile filled him with a strange dread.With a shudder he paused. Was it the ghastly and spectral light or didthe face of the old Egyptian monster wear an aspect as that of life?The stony eye-balls seemed bent upon him with a malignant scowl and ashe passed on and looked behind they appeared almost preternaturally tofollow his steps. A chill sank into his heart when the sound offootsteps arrested him and Eckhardt stood face to face with the hermitof Gaeta. He beckoned to the monk to accompany him, vainly endeavouringto frame the question, which hovered on his lips. The monk joined himin silence. After walking some little way Nilus suddenly paused, fixinghis questioning gaze on the brooding face of his companion. Then astrange expression passed into his eyes.
"Life is full of strange surprises. Yet we cling to it, just to keepout of the darkness through which we know not the way."
Sick at heart Eckhardt listened. How little the monk knew, he thought,and Nilus was staggered at the haggard expression of the Margrave'sface, as he stumbled blindly and giddily down the moonlit avenue besidehim.
"Would I had never seen her!" Eckhardt groaned. "In what a fairdisguise the fiend did come to tempt my soul!"
He paused. The monk drew him onward.
"Come with me to my hermitage! Thou art strangely excited and do whatthou mayest,--thou must follow out thy destiny! Hesitate not to confidein me!" br />
"My destiny!" Eckhardt replied. "Monk, do not mock me! If thou hastany mystic power, read my soul and measure its misery. I have nodestiny, save despair."
The monk regarded him strangely.
"Because a woman is false and thy soul is weak, thou needest not at oncemake bosom friends with despair. It is a long time since I have been inthe world. It is a long time since I have abjured its vanities. Lethim who has withstood the terrible temptation, cast the first stone.For the flesh is weak and the sin is as old as the world; And perchanceeven the monk may be able to counsel, to guide thee in somematters,--for verily thou standest on the brink of a precipice."
"I am well-nigh mad!" Eckhardt replied wearily. "Were there but a rayof light to guide my steps."
Nilus pointed upward.
"All light flows from the fountain-head of truth. Be true to thyself!Life is duty! In its fulfilment alone can there be happiness,--and inthe renunciation of that, which has been denied us by the SupremeWisdom. No more than thou canst reverse the wheel of time, no morecanst thou compel that dark power, Fate. And at best--what matters itfor the short space of this earthly existence? For believe me, the Endof Time is nigh,--and in the beyond all will be as if it had neverbeen."
Nilus paused and their eyes met. And in silence Eckhardt followed themonk among the ruins of the latter's abode.
As the morning dawned, some fishermen dragging their nets off St.Bartholomew's island pulled up from the muddy waves the body of an oldman clad in the loose garb of a monk. But as the day grew older a newcrime and fresh scandal filled Forum and wine shops and the incident wasforgotten ere night-fall.