The Sorceress of Rome

  *CHAPTER XIV*

  *THE LAST TRYST*

  The great clock on the tower of San Sebastian struck the second hour ofnight. The air was so pure, so transparent, that against the horizonthe snow-capped summit of Soracte was visible, like a crown ofglittering crystal. Mysteriously the stars twinkled in the fathomlessblue of the autumnal night. Procession after procession traversed thecity. From their torches smoky spirals rose up to the starry skies.The pale rays of the moon, the crimson glare of the torches, illuminedfaces haggard with fear, seamed with anxiety and dread. Despite the latehour, the people swarmed like ants, occupying every point of vantage,climbing lantern poles and fallen columns, armed with clubs, halberds,scythes, pitchforks and staves. Here and there strange muffled formswere to be seen mingling with the crowds, whispering here and there aword into the ear of a chance passerby and vanishing like phantoms intothe night.

  Among the many abroad in the city at this hour was Eckhardt. Hemistrusted the Romans, he mistrusted the Senator, he mistrusted themonks. The fire of his own consuming thoughts would not permit him toremain within the four walls of his palace. Like a grim spectre of thepast he stalked through Rome, alone, unattended. How long would theterrible mystery of his life continue to mock him? How much longer musthe bear the awful weight which was crushing his spirit with itsrelentless agony? What availed his presence in Rome? The king had longceased to consult him on matters of state; Benilo and Stephaniapossessed his whole ear--and Eckhardt was no longer in his counsels.

  With a degree of anxiety, which he had in vain endeavoured to dispel,Eckhardt had watched the growing intimacy between his sovereign and theSenator's wife. Time and again he had, even at the risk of Otto'sfierce displeasure, warned the King against the danger lurking behindStephania's mask of friendship. Wearied and exasperated with hisimportunities, Otto had asserted the sovereign, and Eckhardt's lips hadremained sealed ever since, though his watchfulness had not relaxed onejot, and even while he endeavoured to lift the veil, which enshroudedhis own life, he remained circumspect and on the alert, true to hispromise to the Empress Theophano, now in her grave.

  The sounds which on this night fell from every side on Eckhardt's earwere not of a nature to dispel his misgivings of the Roman temper. Asby a subtle intuition he felt that they were ripe for a change, thoughwhen and whence and how it would come he could not guess. His own moodwas as dark as the sky-gloom lowering over the Seven Hills. Rome hadmade of him what he was, Rome had poisoned his life with the viper-stingof Ginevra's terrible deed, and now he longed for nothing more than forsome great event, which would toss him into the foaming billows ofstrife, therein to sink and to go under for ever.

  Drawing his mantle closer about him and lowering the vizor of hishelmet, Eckhardt slowly made his way through the congested throngs. Hehad not proceeded very far, when he felt some one pluck him by themantle. Turning abruptly and shaking himself free, from what hebelieved to be the clutches of a beggar, he was about to dismiss theoffender with an oath, when to his surprise he beheld a woman dressed inthe garb of a peasant, but clearly disguised, as her speech gave the lieto her affectation of low birth.

  "You are Eckhardt, the Margrave?" she asked timidly.

  "I am Eckhardt," the general replied curtly.

  "Then lose no time to save him, else he will run into perdition as sureas yonder moon shines down upon us. Oh! He knows not the dangers thatbeset him;--on my knees I implore you---save him!"

  "When I understand the meaning of your gibberish, doubt not I will serveyou! I pray you give me a glimpse of its purport," replied theMargrave.

  The woman seemed so entirely wrapt up in her own business that she didnot heed Eckhardt's question.

  "I dare not whisper the secret to any one else,--and my Lord Benilo bademe seek you in case of danger. And if you cannot move him from his madpurpose, he is lost, for never was he so bent to have his own way. Ifyou come with me, you will find him waiting on the terrace,--and do yourbest to lead him back,--else he will come to as evil an end as a wasp ina bee's hive,--for all the honey!"

  "And whom shall I find on the terrace?" asked Eckhardt withill-concealed impatience. He liked not the babbling crone. "Cease yourspurting and speak plainly, else go your way:--I am not for such asyou!"

  "It wants but a moment--whom else but your King, for whom she has sentunder pretext of important business,--aye,--at this very hour and on theterraces of the Minotaurus."

  "Otto,--important business,--Minotaurus--" repeated Eckhardt. "Who hassent for him?"

  "Stephania."

  Eckhardt shrugged his shoulders.

  "What is it to me? Go your way, hoary pander,--what is it to me?Hasten to him, who has paid you to tell this tale and get your ransomfrom him! I wager, he knows the style of old!"

  The woman did not move.

  "Nay, my lord, that we all should go mad at one time," she sobbed withevidently strong emotions, which were perhaps not caused by the motivealleged. "Then I must away and fulfil his destiny,--for a man cannotserve two masters,--nor a woman either."

  There was something in the speaker's tone that caused a shadow ofapprehension to rise in Eckhardt's mind. Was there more behind all thisthan she cared to confess? "Fulfil his destiny"--these words at leastwere not her own. A grave fear seized him. Otto might beambushed,--carried away,--he might rot in Castel San Angelo, and no manthe wiser for it.

  "Stay! I will go and cross the boy's path to his guilty paradise,"repeated Eckhardt after permitting the woman to draw away from him at avery slow and wistful pace and overtaking her with a couple of strides."Lead on, but do not speak! I have no tongue to answer you!"

  The woman immediately took the well-known route towards the terraces ofthe Minotaurus and soon they reached the spot. A covered archway at oneextremity admitted on a terrace, flanked on one side by a high dead wallof the Vatican, on the other by a steep and precipitous slope, woodedwith orange trees and myrtle. This spot, little frequented in day time,was deserted by night. The woman whispered that it was here, sheexpected the King, and cautioning Eckhardt to remove him with all speedfrom this danger zone, which offered no means of escape, sheprecipitately retired, leaving Eckhardt alone to meditate upon what hehad heard, and to pursue his adventure in the darkness.

  The Margrave hastened along the archway and peering into the shadows hequickly discerned the slim outline of a man, wrapt in an ample cloak,leaning against the dead wall at the end of the platform. His eyesseemed fixed intently upon the heavens, while an expression ofimpatience reigned uppermost in the pale, thoughtful face.

  Eckhardt quickly approached the edge of the terrace, where he haddiscovered Otto, and although the King kept his face averted, he couldscarcely hope to escape recognition.

  "Otto--the King--can it be?" Eckhardt said with feigned surprise, as hefaced the youth. "I beg your majesty's pardon,--are you a lodger inyonder palace or how chances it that you are here alone,--unattended?"

  "Ay--since you know me," replied Otto with a forced smile, "I will notdeny my name nor business either. The ladies of the Senator's court arefair, and an ancient crone whispered to me at my devotions to Our Lady,on this terrace and at this hour, if I prayed heartily, I should havegood news. Matter enough, I ween, to stir one's curiosity, but,--Ifear,--I should be alone."

  The blood surged thickly through Eckhardt's brain. He could scarcelybreathe, as he listened to this falsehood and for a few moments he gazedin silence on the flushed and paling visage of the youth.

  At last he spoke.

  "Is it possible that the air of Rome can even change a nature like yoursto utter a falsehood? My liege,--you are not yourself!" Eckhardtexclaimed, discarding all reserve, for he knew there was no time to belost. And if perchance the fair serpent that had lured him hither wasnigh, his words should strike her heart with shame and dismay. "It is toStephania you go,--it is Stephania, whom you await!"

  There was a brief pause during
which a hectic flush chased the deeppallor from Otto's face, as he passively listened to the unaccustomedspeech.

  "Stephania," he repeated absently, and suffering his cloak to drop asidein his absorption, he revealed the richness and splendour of the garbbeneath.

  "The wife of the Senator of Rome!" Eckhardt supplemented sternly.

  "And what if it be?" Otto responded with mingled petulancy andconfusion. "What if the Senator's consort has vouchsafed me a privateaudience?"

  "Are you beside yourself, King Otto? You venture into this placealone,--unattended,--to please some woman's whim,--a woman who isplaying with you,--and will lead you to perdition?"

  "How dare you arraign your King and his deeds?" Otto exclaimed fiercely.

  "I am here to save you--from yourself! You know not the consequences ofyour deed!"

  "Let them be what they will! I am here, to abide them!"

  Eckhardt crossed his arms over his broad chest as he regarded theoffspring of the vanquisher of the Saracens with mingled scorn and pity.

  "The spell is heavy upon you, here among the crimson and purple flowers,where the Siren sings you to destruction," he said with forced calmness."But you shall no longer listen to her voice, else you are lost.Otto,--Otto,--away with me! We will leave this accursed spot and Rometogether--for ever! There is no other refuge for you from the spell ofthe Sorceress."

  "Not for all the lands on which the sun sets to-night will I refuseobedience to Stephania's call," Otto replied. "You sorely mistake yourplace and presume too much on the authority placed into your hands bythe august Empress, my mother. But attempt not to exercise mastery overyour King or to bend him to your will and purpose--for he will do as hechooses!"

  "It has come to this then," replied Eckhardt without stirring from thespot and utterly disregarding Otto's increasing nervousness. "It hascome to this! Are there no chaste and fair maidens in your native land?Maidens of high birth and lineage, fit to adorn an emperor's couch?Must you needs come hither,--hither,--to this thrice accursed spot, tolove an alien, to love a Roman, and of all Romans, a married woman--thewife of your arch-enemy, the Senator? Are you blind, King Otto? Canyou not see the game? You alone--of all? Deem you the proud, mercilessStephania, the consort of the Senator, who hates us Teutons more than hedoes the fiend himself,--would meet you here in this secluded spot, withher husband's knowledge,--with her husband's connivance,--simply tolisten to your dreams and vagaries? Can you not see that you are but herdupe? King Otto, you have refused to listen to my warnings:--there issedition rife in Rome. Retire to the Aventine, bar the gates to everyone,--I have despatched my fleetest messenger to Tivoli to recall ourcontingents,--before dawn my Saxons shall hammer at the gates of Rome!"

  Otto gazed at the speaker as if the latter addressed him in some unknowntongue.

  "Sedition in Rome?" he replied like one wrapt in a dream. "You are mad!The Romans love me! Even as I do them! I will not stir an inch! Iremain!"

  Eckhardt breathed hard. He must carry his point; he felt oppressed bythe sense of a great danger.

  "And thus it befalls," he said laughing aloud with the excess ofbitterness, "that to this hour I owe the achievement of knowing thecause why you have declined the demands of the Electors; that I can bearto them the answer to their importunities; that in this hour I havelearned the true reason of your refusing to listen to your Germansubjects, who crave your return, who love you and your glorious house!You say you will remain! Revel then in your Eden, until she is weary ofyou and Crescentius spares her the pains of the finish."

  "What are you raving?" exclaimed Otto furiously.

  "You are mad for love, King Otto, and a frenzied lover is the worst offools!"

  The King blushed, with the consciousness either of his innocence orguilt.

  "Since you accuse me," he spoke more calmly, but a strange fire burningin his eyes, "I do not deny it,--Stephania requested a meeting onmatters pertaining to Rome, and I have come! And here," Otto continued,inflexible determination ringing in his tones--"and here I will awaither, if all hell or the swords of Rome barred the way. Do you hear me,Eckhardt? Too long have I been the puppet of the Electors. Too longhave I suffered your tyranny. My will is supreme,--and who so defiesit, is a traitor!"

  Eckhardt gazed fixedly into his sovereign's eyes.

  "King Otto! Is it possible that you beguile yourself with thesespecious pretexts? That you assail the honour of those who havefollowed you hither, who have twice conquered Rome for you? Ay,--no oneso blind as he who will not see! I tell you, Stephania is luring youinto the betrayal of your honour,--perhaps that of the Senator,--whoknows? I tell you she is deceiving you! Or,--if she pretends to love,it is to betray you! You cannot resist her magic,--it is not inhumanity to do so, were it thrice subdued by years of fasting. If yourepel her now, your victory will be bought with your destruction! Herundying hatred will mark you her own! But if you succumb you arelost,--the Virgin herself could not save you! You shall not remain!You shall not meet her,--not as long as the light of these eyes canwatch over your credulous heart!"

  Otto had advanced a step. Vainly groping for words to vent his wrath,he paced up and down before the trusted leader of his hosts.

  At last he paused directly before him.

  "My Lord Eckhardt," he said, "it might content you to rake amidst theslime of the city for matter, with which to asperse a pure and beautifulwoman,--as for myself, while my hand can clutch the hilt of a sword, youshall not!" he exclaimed, yielding at last to the voice of his fierynature.

  "Strike then," Eckhardt replied, raising his arms. "I have no weaponagainst my King!"

  Otto pushed the half drawn sword back into the scabbard.

  "For this," he said, "you shall abide a reckoning."

  "Then let it be now!" Eckhardt exclaimed in a wild jeering tone. "Goand bid Stephania arm her champion, one against whom I may enter thelists, and I swear to you, that from his false breast I will tear thetruth, which you refuse to accept, coming from your friends! But I amnot in a mood to be trifled with. You shall not remain, King Otto, andI swear by these spurs, I will rather kill your paramour, than to seeyou betrayed to the doom which awaits you."

  "Are life and death so absolutely in the hands of the Margrave ofMeissen?" replied Otto in a towering rage. "In the face of yourdefiance I will tarry here and abide my fortune."

  And clutching Eckhardt's mantle, in his wrath, his eye met the eye ofthe fearless general.

  With a jerk the latter freed himself from Otto's grasp.

  "A fool in love: A thing that men spurn and women deride."

  Otto's face turned deadly pale.

  "You dare? This to your King?"

  "I dare everything to save you--everything! Otto--the Romans mistrustyou! They love you no longer! They are ripe for a change! The longeryou tarry, the fiercer will be the strife. Crescentius would ratherdestroy the whole city than let it be permanently wrested from hispower. You have been his dupe,--hark--do you hear those voices?"

  "Of all my enemies he is the one sincere."

  "Then he were the more dangerous! A fanatic is always more powerfulthan a knave. Do you hear these voices, King Otto?"

  Otto was pacing the terrace with feverish impatience.

  "I hear nothing! I hear nothing! Go--and leave me!"

  "And know you sold,--betrayed,--by that--"

  A shadow crossed his path, noiseless on the velvety turf.

  Before them stood Stephania.

  "Finish your words, my Lord Eckhardt," she said facing the Margrave."Pray, let not my presence mellow your speech."

  "And it shall not!" retorted Eckhardt hotly.

  "And it shall!" thundered Otto rushing upon him. "Upon your life,Eckhardt, one insult and--"

  Stephania laid a tranquillizing finger on Otto's arm.

  "I have heard all," she said, pale as marble, but smiling. "And Iforgive."

  "You have heard his accusation--and you forgive, Stephania?" cried Otto,gazing incr
edulously into her eyes.

  "You had faith in me--I thank you--Otto!" she replied softly, andsweeping by Eckhardt, she extended both hands to the King. He graspedthem tightly within his own and, bending over them, pressed his feveredlips upon them.

  Suddenly all three raised their heads and listened.

  A sound not unlike a distant trumpet blast, rent the stillness of night,seemed to swell with the echoes from the hills, then died away.

  "What is this?" the German leader questioned, puzzled.

  "The monks are holding processions,--the streets are swarming with thecassocks,--their chants can be heard everywhere."

  Stephania gazed at Otto, as she answered Eckhardt's question.

  The Margrave scrutinized her intently.

  "I knew not the Senator loved the black crows so well, as to furnishmusic to their march," he replied slowly. Then he turned to the woman.

  "Hear me, Stephania! You see me here, but you know not that I haveordered all my men-at-arms to attend me at the gates below! If theKing's foolish passion and blind trust have been the means to executeyour hellish design, know that with my own hand I will avenge yourremorseless treachery, for I will slay you if aught befall him in thisnight, and hang your lord, the Senator of Rome, from the ramparts ofCastel San Angelo,--I swear it by the Five Wounds!"

  For a moment Stephania stood petrified with terror and unable to utter asingle word in response. Then she turned to Otto.

  "This man is mad! Order him begone,--or I will go myself. He frightensme!"

  She made a movement as if to depart, but Otto, divining her intention,barred the way.

  "Stephania--remain!" he entreated. "Our general is but prompted by anover great zeal for our welfare," he concluded, restraining himself withan effort. Then breathing hard, he extended his arm, and with flamingeyes spoke to Eckhardt:

  "Go!"

  "I go!" the general replied with heavy heart. "If anything unusualhappens in this night, King Otto, remember my words--remember mywarning. My men are stationed at the wicket, through which you came.There is no other exit,--save to perdition. I leave you--may the Saintskeep you till we meet again!"

  With these words Eckhardt gathered his mantle about him and stalkedaway, leisurely at first, as if to lull to sleep every inkling ofsuspicion in Stephania, then faster and faster, and at last he fairlyflew up the winding road of Aventine. Those whom he met shied out ofhis path, as if the fiend himself was coming towards them and shakingtheir heads in grave wonder and fear, muttered an Ave and told theirbeads.

  Strange noises were in the air. The chants of the monks wereintermingled with the fierce howls and shrieks of a mob, harangued bysome demagogue, who fed their discontentment with arguments after theirown heart. Everywhere Eckhardt met skulking countenances, scowlingfaces, while half-suppressed oaths fell on his ear. Arrived on theAventine he immediately ordered Haco, Captain of the Imperial Guards, tohis presence.

  "Bridle your charger and ride to Tivoli as if ten thousand devils wereon your heels," he said, handing the young officer an order he hadhurriedly and barbarously scratched on a fragment of parchment. "Passthrough the Tiburtine gate and return with sunrise,--life and deathdepend upon your speed!"

  Withdrawing immediately, Haco saddled his charger and soon the echoes ofhis horse's hoofs died away in the distance, while Eckhardt hurriedlyentered the palace.

  After he had vanished from the labyrinth of the Minotaurus, Otto andStephania faced each other for a moment in silence. The Southern nightwas very still. The noises from the city had died down. By countlessthousands the stars shone in the deep, fathomless heavens.

  It was Otto who first broke the heavy silence.

  "Stephania," he said, "why are you here to-night?"

  "What a strange question," she replied, "and from you."

  "Yes--from me! From me to you. Is it because--"

  He paused as if oppressed by some great dread. He dared not trusthimself to speak those words in her hearing.

  "Is it because I love you?" she complemented the sentence, drawing himdown beside her. But the seed of doubt Eckhardt had planted in hisheart had taken root.

  "Stephania," he said with a strange voice, without replying directly toher question. "I have trusted in you and I will continue to trust inyou, even despite the whisperings of the fiend,--until with my own eyesI behold you faithless. Eckhardt has been with me all day," he continuedwith unsteady voice, "he has warned me against you, he has warned me toplace no trust in your words, that you are but the instrument ofCrescentius; that he has organized a mutiny; that he but awaits yoursignal for my destruction. He has warned me that you have planned myseizure and selected this spot, to prevent intervention. Stephania,answer me--is it so?"

  For a moment the woman gazed at him in dread silence, unable to speak.

  "Did you believe?" she faltered at last with averted gaze, very pale.

  "I am here!" he replied.

  Stephania laughed nervously.

  "I had forgotten!" she stammered. "How good of you!"

  Otto regarded her with silent wonder, not unmingled with fear, for hercountenance betrayed an anxiety he had never read in it before. Andindeed her restlessness and terror seemed to increase with every moment.She answered Otto's questions evidently without knowing what she said,and her gaze turned frequently and with a devouring expression ofanxiety and dread toward Castel San Angelo. Maddened and desperate withher own perfidy, she began to ruminate the most violent extremities,without perceiving one exit from the labyrinth of guile. Thesignificance of Otto's question, his earnestness and his faith inherself put the crown on her misery. Her eyes grew dim and her senseswere failing. Her limbs quaked and for a moment she was unable to speak.Otto bent over her in positive fear. The pale face looked so deathlikethat his heart quailed at the thought of life,--life without her.

  "I cannot bear it--I cannot bear it," he muttered, holding her hands inhis tight grasp.

  It seemed as if she had read his inmost, unspoken thoughts.

  "And yet it must come at last!" she replied softly, as from the depthsof a dream. "What is this short span of life for such love as ours?And,--had we even everything we could crave, all the world cangive,--would there not be a sting in each moment of happiness at thethought--"

  She paused. Her head drooped.

  "My happiness is to be with you," he stammered. "I cannot count thecost!"

  "Think you that I would count the cost?" she said. "And you love medespite of all those dreadful things, which he--Eckhardt--has pouredinto your ear?" she continued with low, purring voice.

  "Love you--love you!" he repeated wildly. "Oh, I have loved you all mylife, even before I saw you,--are you not the embodied form of all thosevague dreams of beauty, which haunted my earliest childhood? Thatbeauty, which I sought yearningly, but oh! so vainly in all things, thatbreathe the divine essence: the lustrous darkness of night, the gloriesof sunset, the subtle perfume of the rose, the all-reflecting ocean ofpoetry in which the Universe mirrors itself? In all have I found thesame deep void, which only love can fill. Not love you," he continuedcovering both hands he held in his with fevered kisses, "oh, Stephania,I love you better than myself,--better than all things,--here andhereafter."

  Almost paralyzed with fear she listened to his mad pleading.

  "And can nothing--nothing,--destroy this love you have for me?" shefaltered.

  He took her yielding form in his arms. He drew her closer and closer tohis heart.

  "Nothing,--nothing,--nothing."

  "I love you--Otto--" she whispered deliriously.

  "To the end, dearest,--to the end!"

  From a tavern at the foot of the hill the sounds of high revelry wereborne up to them. The air was filled with the odour of dead leaves anddying creation, that subtle premonition of the end to come.

  "And you have anxiously waited my coming?" she said, hiding her face inhis arms.

  "Oh, Stephania! The hour-glass, with which passion measures
a lover'simpatience, is a burning torch to his heart."

  Supreme stillness intervened again.

  Stephania raised her head like a deer in covert, listening for thehunters, listening for the baying of the hounds, coming nearer andnearer. Gladly at this moment would she have given her life to undowhat she had done. But it was too late. Even this expiation would notavail! There was nothing now to do, but to nerve herself for thatsupreme moment, when all would be severed between them for aye and ever;when she would stand before him the embodiment of deception; when hewould spurn her as one spurns the reptile, that repays the caressinghand with its deadly sting; when he would curse her perhaps,--cast fromhim for ever the woman who had cut the thread of the life he had laid ather feet--and all, for what?

  That Johannes Crescentius, the Senator of Rome might again come into hisown, that he might again lord the rabble which now skulked through thestreets to avenge some imaginary wrong on the head of the youth, whoselove for them was to be the pass word for his destruction.

  And Johannes Crescentius was her husband and lord. He loved her with asgreat a love as his nature was capable of, and whatever faults might belaid at the door of his regime, if faults they could even be termed in alawless, feudal age, that knew no right save might,--to her he had neverbeen untrue.

  Stephania endeavoured to persuade herself that, what she had done, shehad done for the good of Rome. Monstrous deception! She despised themongrel rabble too heartily to even have raised a finger in its behalf.If they starved, would Crescentius give them bread? If theyfroze--would Crescentius clothe them? Then there remained but thequestion, should a Roman govern Rome, or the alien,--the foreigner. Wasit for her to decide? How unworthy the cause of the sacrifice she wasabout to bring on the altar of her happiness. But which ever way thetongue of the scales inclined,--it was too late!

  Otto had buried his head on Stephania's bosom. She had encircled itwith her arms and with gentle fingers that sent a delirium through hisbrain, she stroked his soft brown hair, while the cry of Delilah hoveredon her lips.

  He looked up into her eyes.

  "Stephania,--why are you here to-night?" he whispered again, and he feltthe tremor which quivered through her body.

  "I came to bring you the answer which you craved at our last meeting,"she replied softly. "Can you guess it?"

  "Then you have chosen," he gasped, as if he were suddenly confrontedwith the crisis in his existence, when that which he held dearest musteither slip away from him for ever or remain his through all eternity.

  "I have chosen!" she whispered, her arms tightening round him, as if shewould protect him against all the world.

  "Kiss me," she moaned.

  One delirious moment their lips met. They remained locked in tightembrace, lip to lip, heart to heart.

  There was a brief breathless silence.

  Suddenly the great bell of the Capitol rolled in solemn and majesticsounds upon the air, and was answered from all the belfries of Rome.But louder than the pealing tocsin, above the wild screaming andclanging of the bells rose the piercing cry:

  "Death to the Saxon! Death to the King!"

  They both raised their heads and listened. With wild-eyed wonder Ottogazed into Stephania's eyes. The marble statues around them were hardlyas white as her features.

  "What is this?" he questioned.

  There was a stir in the depths of the streets below. Shouts and jeersof strident voices were broken by authoritative commands. The tramp ofmailed feet was remotely audible, but above all the hubbub and din rosethe cry:

  "Death to the Saxon! Death to the King!"

  When the first peals of the great bell quivered on the silent night air,Stephania had, with a low wail, encircled Otto's head with her arms,pressed him closely to her, as if to shield him from harm. Then, aslouder and wilder the iron tongues shrieked defiance through the air,as, turning her head, she saw the fatal spear points of the Albaniansgleaming through the thicket, she suddenly shook him off. With astifled outcry, she rose to her feet; so abruptly that Otto staggeredand would have fallen, had he not in time caught himself with the aid ofa branch.

  To the King it gave the impression of a wild hideous dream. Like onedazed, he stared first at the woman, then down the declivity.

  Directly beneath where he stood a scribe was haranguing the crowds,descanting on the ancient glory of the Romans and exhorting hislisteners to exterminate all foreigners. From Castel San Angelo came anincessant sound of trumpets, which, mingling with the brazen roar ofbells seemed to shake the earth. Torches lighted the streets with theirsmoky crimson glare. People hurried hither and thither, jostling,pushing, trampling upon each other like black shadows, like livingphantoms. The fiery glow, the voices of the angry mob, the pealing ofthe bells,--they all struck Stephania's heart with a thousand talons ofremorse and shame. Fearstruck and trembling, she gazed into the paleface of Theophano's son.

  Otto was watching the distant pandemonium as one would gaze upon somestrange, hideous ceremonial of occult meaning,--then he turned slowly toStephania.

  For a moment they faced each other in silence, then he stroked thedisordered hair from his forehead like one waking from a dream.

  "You have betrayed me."

  Her lips were tightly compressed; she made no reply.

  The next moment he was on his knees before her.

  "Forgive me, forgive me," he faltered, "I knew not what I said!"

  She breathed hard. For a moment she closed her eyes in mortal anguish.

  "Then you still believe in me?" She spoke hardly above a whisper.

  "With all my heart," he replied, grasping her hands and covering themwith kisses. For a moment she suffered him to exhaust his endearments,then she jerked them away from him.

  "Then bid your hopes and dreams farewell and scatter your faith to thewinds," she shrieked, almost beside herself with the memory of her vowand its consequences. "You are betrayed,--and I have betrayed you!"

  Otto had staggered to his feet and gazed upon the beautiful apparitionwho faced him like some avenging fury, as if he thought that she hadgone suddenly mad. For a moment she paused, as if summoning supremeenergy for the execution of her task, as if to lash herself into aparoxysm sufficient to make her forget those accusing eyes and hisall-mastering love.

  "I have betrayed you, Kong Otto! I, Stephania, a woman! Ah! Youbelieved my words! You were vain enough to imagine that the wife of theSenator of Rome could love you,--you,--her greatest foe, you, the Saxon,the alien, the intruder, who came here to rob us of our own, to wrestthe sceptre from the rightful lord of the Seven Hills. You hopedStephania would aid you to realize your mad dreams! Howunsophisticated, how deliciously innocent is the King of the Germans!Know then that I have lied to you, when I feigned interest in yourcause, know that I have lied to you when I professed to love you! Loveyou," she cried, while her heart was breaking with every word she hurledagainst him, who listened to her speech in frozen terror. "Love you!Fool! And you were mad enough to believe it! Do you hear those bells?Do you hear the great tocsin from the Capitol? Do you hear the alarumsfrom the ramparts of Castel San Angelo? They are calling the Romans toarms! They are summoning the Romans to revolt! Do you hear thoseshouts? Death to the Germans? They are for you,--for you,--for you!"

  Again she paused, breathing hard, collecting all her woman's strength tofinish what she had begun.

  The end had come,--her task must be finished.

  Her voice now assumed its natural tones, the more dreadful in theirimport, as she spoke in the old deep, soulful accents.

  "I have lulled you to sleep," she continued, breaking the bridge, whichled back into the past, span by span,--"that the Senator of Rome mayonce again come into his own! I have pretended interest in your monkishfancies, that Rome may once more shake off the invader's accursed yoke.I am a Roman, King Otto,--and I hate you,--hate you with every beat ofmy heart, that beats for Rome. King Otto, you are doomed."

  He had listened to her w
ords with wide, wondering eyes, his heart frozenwith terror and anguish, his face pale as that of a corpse, returnedfrom its grave. He heard voices in the distance and the tread of armedfeet coming nearer and nearer. Yet he stirred not. His tongue clove tothe roof of his mouth. There were strange rushing sounds in his ears,like mocking echoes of Stephania's words.

  At last his lips moved, while with a desperate effort he tried to shakeoff the spell.

  "May God forgive you, Stephania," he gasped like a drowning man, reeledand caught himself, gazing upon her with delirious, burning eyes.

  Closer and closer came the tramp of mailed feet.

  Terror struck, Stephania gazed into Otto's face. The fiercestdenunciation would not have so completely unnerved her as the simplewords of the youth. She almost succumbed under the weight of heranguish.

  "Fly,--King Otto,--fly,--save yourself," she gasped, staggering towardhim in the endeavour to shake off the fatal torpor which had seized hislimbs. But he saw her not, he heard not her warning. Listlessly hegazed into space.

  But had those who rushed down the avenue been his enemies and death hiscertain lot, there would not have been time for flight.

  Stephania heaved a sigh of relief as in their leader she recognized theMargrave of Meissen, followed by a score or more of the Saxon guard.

  Her own fate she never gave a thought.

  "Do you hear those sounds?" thundered the gaunt German leader, rushingwith drawn sword upon the scene and pausing breathlessly beforeStephania's victim. "Do you hear the great bell of the Capitol, KingOtto? All Rome is in revolt! Did I not warn you against the wiles ofthe accursed sorceress, who, like a vampire fed on your heart's blood?But by the Almighty God, she shall not live to enjoy the fruits of herhellish treason."

  And suiting the action to the word, Eckhardt rushed upon Stephania, whostood calmly awaiting his onslaught and seemed to invite the strokewhich threatened her life, for her lips curled in haughty disdain andher gaze met Eckhardt's in lofty scorn.

  The sight of her peril accomplished what Stephania's efforts had failedto do. Swift as thought Otto had hurled himself between Eckhardt andhis intended victim.

  "Back," he thundered with flaming eyes. "Only over my dead body liesthe way to her!"

  Eckhardt's arm dropped, while a wrathful laugh broke from his lips.

  "You are magnificent, King Otto! Defend the woman who has foullybetrayed you! Be it so! We have no time for argument. Her life isforfeited and by the Eternal God, Eckhardt never broke his oath. Followme! We must reach the Aventine, ere the Roman rabble bar the way. Weare not strong enough to break through their numbers and they swarm likeants."

  Otto stirred not.

  Calmly he gazed at the Margrave, as if the danger did in no wise concernhim. And while Eckhardt stamped his feet in impotent rage, mingling ascore or more pagan imprecations with the very unchristian oaths hemuttered between his clenched teeth, Otto turned to Stephania. Hisvoice was calm and passionless as one's who has emerged from a terribleordeal and has nothing more to lose, nothing more to fear.

  "What will you do?" he said. "The streets are no safe thoroughfare foryou in this night."

  "I know not,--I care not," she replied with dead voice, from which allits bewitching tones had faded.

  "Then you must come with us!" he said. "My men shall safely conduct youto Castel San Angelo. You have the word of their King!"

  "By the flames of purgatory! Are you stark mad, King Otto?" roaredEckhardt, almost beside himself with rage. "Come with us she shall, butas hostage for Crescentius,--and eye for eye,--tooth for tooth!"

  He did not finish. Otto waved his hand petulantly.

  "The King of the Germans has pledged his word for Stephania's safeconduct, and the King of the Germans will be obeyed," he spoke, hisvoice the only calm and passionless thing in all the storm and uproar,which assailed them on all sides. "Through the secret passage lies heronly safety. She cannot go as she came!"

  Eckhardt's eyes fairly blazed with rage.

  "Secret passage!" he roared, nervously gripping the hilt of his enormoussword. "Secret passage? Are you raving, King Otto? What secretpassage?"

  But vainly did the Margrave endeavour to make his gestures explain hisdenial. Otto cared not, if indeed he noted them at all.

  He beckoned to Stephania.

  "Come with us!" he spoke in the same apathetic, listless tone. "Fearnothing. You have the word of the German King,--he has never brokenit!"

  Whether the terrible reproach implied in his words increased thestifling anguish in her heart, whether she dared not trust herself tospeak, Stephania silently turned to go. But divining her intent, Ottocaught at her mantle.

  "Now by all the fiends!" shouted Eckhardt, unable longer to restrainhimself, dashing between Stephania and the King and severing thelatter's hold on the woman--"Since your heart is set upon it, I will notharm the--"

  He paused involuntarily.

  For from Otto's eyes there flashed upon him such a terrible look thateven the old, practiced warrior stepped back abashed.

  "Speak the word and I will slay you with my own hands!" spoke the son ofTheophano, and for a moment subject and king faced each other in thedread silence with flaming eyes, and faces from which every trace ofcolour had faded.

  Eckhardt lowered his weapon.

  His countenance betrayed untold anxiety.

  "You invite certain destruction, King Otto," he remonstrated withsubdued voice. "What matters it, if her countrymen do slay her? Oneserpent the less in Rome! Your mercy leads you to perdition,---whatmercy has she shown to you?"

  Otto had relapsed into his former state of apathy.

  "She goes with us," he said like an automaton, that knows but onespeech. "Through the secret passage lies her only safety."

  "She will betray it and you and all of us," growled the German leader,whose very beard seemed to bristle with wrath at Otto's obstinacy.

  Otto shrugged his shoulders.

  "I have spoken!"

  "Guards, close round!" thundered Eckhardt. "And every dog of a Romanwho approaches upon any pretext whatsoever,--strike him dead withoutword or parley!"

  The Saxon spearmen who had guarded the approach to the avenue gatheredhurriedly round them. For at that moment the great bell of the Capitol,whose tolling had ceased for a time, began its clamour anew and theshouts of the masses, subdued and hushed during the interval, rose withincreased fury. They drowned the great sob of anguish, which had welledup from Stephania's heart, but when Otto, his attention distracted forthe nonce by the uproar, turned round, the woman had gone.

  Nor did Eckhardt, inwardly rejoicing over the revelation, grant him onemoment's respite. Surrounded by his trusty Saxon spears, Otto felthimself hurried along towards the gates of his palace, which theyreached in safety, the insurrection having not yet spread to thatregion.

  Vainly had he strained his gaze into the haze of the moonlit night. Theend had come,--Stephania had gone.

  When he reached his chamber, Otto sank senseless on the floor.