*CHAPTER V*
*THE WAGER*
At the moment when Benilo had raised his poniard, to drive it throughhis opponent's heart, the diaphanous curtains dividing the great hallfrom the rest of the buildings were flung aside and in the entrancethere appeared a woman like some fierce and majestic fury, who at amoment's glance took in the whole scene and its import. Her manner wasthat of a queen, of a queen who was wont to bend all men to herslightest caprice. Every eye in the large hall was bent upon her andevery soul felt a thrill of wonder and admiration. The ivory pallor ofher face was enhanced by the dark gloss of her raven hair. Theslumbrous starry eyes were meant to hold the memories of a thousandlove-thoughts. A dim suffused radiance seemed to hover like an aureoleabove her dazzling white brow, crowning the perfect oval of her face,adorned with a clustering wealth of raven-black tresses. She was arrayedin a black, silk-embroidered diaphanous robe, the most sumptuous the artof the Orient could supply. Of softest texture, it revealed thematchless contours of her form and arms, of her regal throat,heightening by the contrast the ivory sheen of her satin-skin.
But those eyes which, when kindled with the fires of love, might haveset marble aflame, were blazing with the torches of wrath, as lookinground the hall, she darted a swift inquiring glance at the chiefoffenders, one of whom could not have spoken had he wished to, forBenilo was fairly strangling him.
The rest of the company had instinctively turned their faces towards theQueen of the Groves, endeavouring at the same time to hide the sight ofthe dead girl from her eyes by closely surrounding the couch, with theirbacks to the victim. But their consternation as well as the very actbetrayed them. From the struggling men on the floor, Theodora's gazeturned to the affrighted company and she half guessed the truth.Advancing towards her guests, she pushed their unresisting forms aside,raised the cover from the dead girl with the bloody bandage over thestill white face, bent over it quickly to kiss the dark, silken hair,then she demanded an account of the deed. One of the women reported inbrief and concise terms what had happened before she arrived. At thesight of this flower, broken and destroyed, Theodora's anger seemed fora moment to subside, like a trampled spark, before a great pity thatrose in her heart. In an instant the whole company rushed upon her withexcited gestures and before the Babel of jabbering tongues, eachstriving to tell his or her story in a voice above the rest, the Furyreturned.
Theodora stamped her foot and commanded silence. At the sight of thewoman, Benilo's arms had fallen powerlessly by his side and Roffredo,taking advantage of an unwatched moment, had pushed the Chamberlain offand staggered to his feet.
"Whose deed is this?" Theodora demanded, holding aloft the covering ofthe couch.
"It was my accursed luck! The decanter was intended for this lying cur,whose black heart I will wrench out of his body!"
And Benilo pointed to the shrinking form of Roffredo.
"What had he done?"
"He had insulted you!"
"That proves his courage!" she replied with a withering glance ofcontempt.
Then she beckoned to the attendants.
"Have the girl removed and summon the Greek--though I fear it is toolate."
There was a ring of regret in her tones. It vanished as quickly as ithad come.
The body of Nelida, the dancing girl, was carried away and the guestsresumed their seats. Roxane had reluctantly abandoned her usurped placeof honour. A quick flash, a silent challenge passed between the twowomen, as Theodora took her accustomed seat.
"A glass of wine!" she commanded imperiously, and Roffredo, reassured,rushed to the nearest attendant, took a goblet from the salver andpresented it to the Queen of the Groves.
"Ah! Thanks, Roffredo! So it was you who insulted me in my absence?"she said with an undertone of irony in her voice, which had the richsound of a deep-toned bell.
"I said you would embrace the devil, did he but appear in presentablecountenance!" Roffredo replied contritely, but with a vicious sideglance at Benilo.
An ominous smile curved Theodora's crimson lips.
"The risk would be slight, since I have kept company with each of you,"she replied. "And our virtuous Benilo took up the gauntlet?"
Her low voice was soft and purring, yet laden with the poison sting ofirony, as through half-closed lids she glanced towards the Chamberlain,who sat apart in moody silence like a spectre at the feast.
Benilo scented danger in her tone and answered cautiously:
"Only a coward will hear the woman he loves reviled with impunity."
Theodora bowed with mock courtesy.
"If you wish to honour me with this confession, I care as little for theone as the other. From your temper I judge some innocent dove hadescaped your vulture's talons."
Benilo met the challenge in her smouldering look and answered withassumed indifference:
"Your spies have misinformed you! But I am in no mood to constitute thetarget of your jests!"
"There is but one will which rules these halls," Theodora flashed out."If obedience to its mandates is distasteful to you, the gates areopen--spread your pinions and fly away!"
She flung back her head and their eyes met.
Benilo turned away, uttering a terrible curse between his clenchedteeth.
There was a deep hush in the hall, as if the spirit of the dead girl washaunting the guests. The harps played a plaintive melody, which mightindeed have stolen from some hearth of ashes, when stirred by the breathof its smouldering spark, like phantom-memories from another world, thatseemed to call to Theodora's inner consciousness, each note a foot-step,leading her away beyond the glint and glitter of the world thatsurrounded her, to a garden of purity and peace in the dim,long-forgotten past. Theodora sat in a reverie, her strange eyes fixedon nothingness, her red lips parted, disclosing two rows of teeth,small, even, pearly, while her full, white bosom rose and fell withquickened respiration.
"The Queen of the Groves is in a pensive mood to-night," sneered theLord of Bracciano, who had been engaged in mentally weighing her charmsagainst those of Roxane.
Theodora sighed.
"I may well be pensive, for I have seen to-day, what I had despaired ofever again beholding in Rome--can you guess what it is?"
Shouts of laughter broke, a jarring discord, harshly upon her speech.
"We are perishing with curiosity," shouted, as with one voice, thedebauched nobles and their feminine companions.
"In the name of pity, save our lives!" begged a girl nearest toTheodora's seat.
"Can you guess?" the Queen of the Groves repeated simply, as she gazedround the assembly.
All sorts of strange answers were hurled at the throne of the Queen ofthe Groves. She heeded them not. Perhaps she did not even hear them.
At last she raised her head.
Without commenting on the guesses of her guests, she said:
"I have seen in Rome to-day--a man!"
Benilo squirmed. The rest of the guests laughed harshly and Bembo, thePoet asked with a vapid grin:
"And is the sight so wondrous that the Queen of Love sits dreaming amongher admirers like a Sphinx in the African desert?"
"Had he horns?" shouted the Lord of Bracciano.
"Or a cloven hoof?" cried Oliverotto.
"What was he like?" sneered a third.
Theodora turned upon her questioners, a dash of scorn in her barbedreply.
"I speak of a man, not reptiles like you--you all!"
"Mercy, oh queen, mercy!" begged the apoplectic poet, amid the noisyclamour of his jeering companions. But heedless of their jabberingtongues Theodora continued earnestly:
"Not such men as the barons of Rome are pleased to call themselves,cowardly, vicious,--beasts, who believe not in God nor the devil, andwhose aim in life is but to clothe their filthy carcass in gaudy appareland appease the cravings of their lust and their greed! I speak of aman, something the meaning of which is as dark to you as t
he riddle ofthe Sphinx."
The company gazed at each other in mute bewilderment.
Theodora was indeed in a most singular mood.
"Are we not at the Court of Theodora?" shouted the Lord of Bracciano,who was experiencing some inconvenience in the feat of embracing withhis short arms the two women between whom he was seated. "Or has somesudden magic transported us to the hermitage of the mad monk, whopredicts the End of Time?"
"Nay," Benilo spoke up for the first time since Theodora's rebuke hadsilenced him, "perhaps our beautiful Queen of Love has in store for herguests just such a riddle as the one the Sphinx proposed to the son ofIokaste--with but a slight variation."
The illiterate high-born rabble of Rome did not catch the drift of thePatrician's speech, but the pallor on Theodora's cheeks deepened.
Roxane alone turned to the speaker.
"And the simile?" she asked in her sweet siren-voice, tremulous with thedesire to clash with her more beautiful rival.
Benilo shrugged his shoulders, but he winced under Theodora's deadlygaze.
"The simile?" he replied with a jarring laugh. "It is this, that incestand adultery are as old as the Athenian asses, that never died, and thatthe Sphinx eventually drowned herself in the Aegean Sea."
Theodora made no reply, but relapsed into her former state ofthoughtfulness. As she turned from Benilo, her eyes met those ofRoxane, and again the two women flashed defiance at each other.
Again the laughter of the revellers rose, louder than before.
"By the Cross," shouted the poet, "the Queen of Love will take theveil."
"Has she chosen the convent, whose nuns she will cause to be canonizedby her exemplary life and glorious example," jeered Roxane.
"We shall sing a thousand Aves and buy tapers as large as herunimpeached virtue!" cried another of the women.
"I fear one nunnery is damned from chapel to refectory," growled Benilo,keeping his eyes on the floor, as if fearful of meeting those heinstinctively felt burning upon him.
"Silence!" cried Theodora at last, stamping her foot on the floor, whilea glow of hot resentment flushed her cheeks. "Your merriment and clamouronly draws the sharper line between you and that other, of whom Ispoke."
Roffredo looked up with a smile of indolence.
"And who is the demi-god?" he drawled lazily.
She measured him with undisguised scorn and contempt.
"The name! The story!" bellowed several individuals, raising theirgoblets and half spilling their contents in their besotten mood.
In a strange voice, melodious as the sound of AEolian harps when thenight wind passes over their strings, amid profound silence Theodorarelated to her assembled guests the incident of the runaway steeds inwhich she had so prominently figured, the chariot having been herown,--the occupant herself. She omitted not a detail of the stranger'sheroic deed, passing from her own thrilling experience to Vitelozzo'sassault upon one of the New Vestals, and his discomfiture at the hand ofhim who had saved her life.
"And while your Roman scum hissed and hooted and raised not a finger inthe girl's defence, her rescuer alone braved Vitelozzo's fury--I saw himwhisper something into the ruffian's ear and the mighty lord skulkedaway like a frightened cur. By heaven, I have seen a man!" the Queen ofthe Groves concluded ecstatically, disdaining to dwell on her ownrescue.
For a lingering moment there hovered silence on the assembly. Graduallyit gave way to a flutter of questions.
"Who is he?" queried one.
"What is he like?" shouted another.
Theodora did not heed the questions. Only her lovely face, framed byhair dark as the darkest midnight, had grown a shade more pale andpensive.
Suddenly she turned to the last questioner, a woman.
"What was he like?" she replied. "Tall, and in the prime of manhood;his face concealed by his vizor."
The woman sighed amorously. The men nodded to each other with meaningglances. The danger of the convent seemed passed.
Benilo, who during Theodora's narrative had proven an ideal listener, ofa sudden clenched his fist and gazed round for the harper, who sat in aremote corner of the hall.
Another moment's musing, then the Chamberlain ground his teeth togetherwith the fierce determination to carry out at all hazards, what he hadresolved in his mind. Theodora herself was playing into his hands.
"Do you know this incomparable hero, this modern Theseus?" he drawledout slowly and with deliberate impudence, addressing the Queen of theGroves.
Theodora's gaze was sharp as steel.
"What is it to you?" she hissed.
Benilo shrugged his shoulders disdainfully.
"Nothing whatever! I also know him!"
There was something in his tone, which struck the ever-watchful ear ofTheodora like a danger-knell.
"You know him?" echoed a chorus of voices from every part of the greathall.
He waved back the eager questioners.
"I know him!" he declared emphatically, then he was silent.
Theodora seemed to have grown nervous.
"Are you serious?"
"Never more so!" Benilo replied, with a slight peculiar hardening of thelips.
"Is he a Roman?" cried a voice.
"All Romans according to our fair Queen's judgment, are curs anddegenerates," Benilo drawled insultingly.
Theodora nodded.
"Even so," she replied coldly.
"This demi-god, however, is also slightly known to you," the Chamberlaincontinued, now fairly facing the Queen of Love, "even though he has notyet found his way to your bowers."
Theodora winced.
"Why do you taunt me?" she flashed back angrily.
Benilo heeded her not. Instead of replying, he addressed himself to thecompany, speaking in a dry, half-bantering tone, while Theodora watchedhim like a tigress.
"Once upon a time, the Queen of Love boasted that mortal man did notbreathe who would resist her charms. Now there is at this hour one manhere in Rome, whom even the matchless Theodora dare not summon to hercircle, one man before whose 'No' her vain-glorious boast would breaklike a bubble, one man whose soul she may not sap and send to hell! Andthis one man is even the hero of her dreams, her rescuer,--the rescuerof a maiden of spotless virtue, the vanquisher of a giant! Do I speaktruth, divine Theodora?"
Those who watched the expression on the face of the Queen of the Grovesmarvelled alike at Benilo's audacity and the startling absence of apassionate outburst on the part of the woman. And though the bloodseethed through Theodora's veins, the sudden change of front on Benilo'spart seemed to stagger her for a moment. It was a novel sensation tosee the man who had heretofore been like clay in the moulder's hands nowdaring to flout her openly and to hold up her wounded pride as a targetfor the jests of those present. It was a novel sensation, to findherself publicly berated, but the shaft sank deep. Theodora's eyesflashed scorn and there was something cruel in her glances. Benilo feltits sting like a whiplash. His nerves quivered and he breathed hard.But he had gone too far to recede. His spirit had risen in arms againstthe disdain of the woman he loved,--loved with a passion that seemed tohave slept in a tomb for ages and suddenly gathered new strength, like afire kindled anew over dead ashes.
Acting on a sudden impulse, he raised his head and looked at her with afearlessness which for the moment appeared to startle herself-possession, for a deep flush coloured the fairness of her face and,fading, left it pale as marble. Still Theodora did not speak and thebreathless silence which had succeeded Benilo's last taunt resembled theominous hush of the heated atmosphere before a thunder-clap. No onedared speak and the Chamberlain, apparently struck by the suddenstillness, looked round from the tumbled cushions where he reclined.
"You do not answer my question, fair Theodora," he spoke at last, anundertone of mockery ringing through his speech. "I grant you powerover some weak fools," and Benilo glanced round the assembly, littlecaring for the mutter which his words raised, "but you will at leastadmi
t that there is one man in Rome at this very hour, on whom all yourcharms and blandishments would be wasted as a caress on cold marble."
Another deep and death-like pause ensued; then Theodora's silvery coldtones smote the profound silence with sharp retort, as goaded at lastbeyond forbearance by his scoffing tone she sprang to her feet.
"There is not a man in Rome," she hissed into Benilo's face, "not inItaly, not in all the world, whom I could not bend to the force of mywill. Where I choose, I conquer!"
A sardonic laugh broke from Benilo's lips.
"And by what means?"
"Benilo," she flashed forth in withering contempt, "I know not what yourobject is in taunting me--and I care not--but by Lucifer, you go toofar! Name to me a man in Rome, name whom you will, and if I fail to winhim in one month--"
"What then?"
For a moment she hesitated.
"Name the wager yourself!"
An ominous smile curved Benilo's lips.
"All the wealth I possess against you--as my wife!"
She laughed scornfully and shuddered, but did not reply.
"Are you afraid?" he cried, tauntingly.
"What a fate!" she replied with trepidation in her tone. "But I acceptit, even it!"
She turned her back on him after a look of such withering contempt asone might cast on some reptile, and took her former seat, when again shewas startled by his voice. Its mock caressing tones caused her toclench her firm white hands and bend forward as if tempted to stranglethe viper, that had dared to place its glittering coils in her path.
"It now remains but to name the champion, just to prevent the wrong birdfrom fluttering into the nest," said Benilo, addressing the company.
"The champion! The champion!" they shouted, breathing more freely,since the expected lightning did not strike.
"Fill the goblets!" Benilo exclaimed, and in a moment the wine waspoured, the guests arose and gathered round the central figures.
Benilo raised his goblet and turned to Theodora, wincing under her lookof contempt.
"The champion is to be my choice and to be accepted unconditionally?" hequestioned.
"Not so!" she flashed forth, half rising from her seat, her eyes flamingwith wrath. "I would not have my words distorted by so foul a thing asyou! It is to be the rescuer of the girl, he before whom the lordVitelozzo slunk away like a whipped cur! You have taunted me with mylack of power face to face with that one--and that one alone, the onlyman among a crowd of curs!"
Benilo paused, then he said with a hard, cold smile:
"Agreed!" And he placed the goblet to his lips. The guests didlikewise and drank the singular toast, as if it had not implied aglaring insult to each present, including the one who reechoed it.
"And now for his name!" Benilo continued. "Just to prevent amischance."
The irony of his words and the implied insult cut Theodora to the quick.With hands tightly clenched as If she would strangle her tormentor, shesprang to her feet.
"I object!" she gasped, almost choked with rage, while her startledlisteners seemed to lack even voice to vent their curiosity before thisnew and unexpected outburst.
"I appeal to the company assembled, who has witnessed the wager betweenthe Queen of Love and her faithful and obedient lover," Benilo sneered,looking round among the guests. "How know we, what is concealed under avizor, beneath a rusty suit of armour? Security lies but in the name ofthe unconscious victim of Theodora's magic, is it not so?"
The smile on the Chamberlain's countenance caused him to appear morerepulsive than his former expression of wildest rage. But, prompted byan invincible curiosity, the guests unanimously assented.
"Be it so!" gasped Theodora, sinking back in her seat. "I care not."
Benilo watched her closely, and as he did so he almost repented of hishasty wager. Just at that moment his gaze met that of the harper, whostood like some dark phantom behind the throne of the Queen of theGroves, and the Chamberlain stifled the misgivings, which had risenwithin him. And though smiling in anticipation of the blow he was aboutto deliver, a blow which should prove the sweetest balm for the miseryshe had caused him by her disdain, he still wavered, as if to tormenther to the extremest limits. Then, with a voice audible in the remotestparts of the great hall, he spoke, his eye in that of Theodora, slowlyemphasizing each title and name:
"Margrave Eckhardt of Meissen, Commander-in-chief of the German hosts!"
There was the silence of death in the hall.
For a moment Theodora stared fixed and immobile as a marble statue, herface pale as death, while a thin stream of purple wine, spilled from hertrembling goblet, trickled down her white, uplifted arm. Then sherushed upon him, and knocking the goblet out of his hand, causing it tofall with a splintering crash at Benilo's feet, she shrieked till thevery walls re-echoed the words:
"You lie! You lie!"
Benilo crossed his arms over his chest, and, looking squarely into thewoman's eyes, he repeated in the same accents of defiance:
"Margrave Eckhardt of Meissen, Commander-in-chief of the German hosts."
"Again I tell you you lie! You lie!" shrieked the woman, now almostbeside herself. "Is there no one among all this scum here assembled, tochastise this viper? Hear me!" she cried as, affrighted, the guestsshrank back from her blazing eyes and panting breath, while with all thesuperhuman beauty of a second Medusa she stood among them, and if hergaze could have killed, none would have survived the hour. "Hear me!Benilo has lied to you, as time and again he has lied to me! He, ofwhom he speaks, is dead,--has died--long ago!"
Benilo breathed hard. "Then he has arisen from the dead and returned toearth,--to Rome--" he spoke with biting irony in his tones. "A strangehereditary disease affecting the members of his house."
When he saw the deadly pallor which covered the woman's face, and theterror reflected in her eyes, Benilo continued:
"And deem you in all truth, O sagacious Theodora, that a word from thelips of any other man would have caused Vitelozzo to release his prey?Deem you not in your undoubted wisdom that it required a reason, evenweightier than the blow of a gauntleted hand, to accomplish thismarvellous feat? And,--since you are dumb in the face of thesearguments,--will you not enlighten us all why Theodora, the beautiful,the chaste, would deprive him of the plume, to whom it rightfullybelongs,--the German commander, Margrave Eckhardt of Meissen, who riskedhis life to save that of our beautiful queen?"
Theodora turned upon her tormenter like an animal at bay.
"I have heard enough! I will not! The wager is off!"
And rising she prepared to leave the hall without another word.
It would have been difficult for the most profound physiognomist toanalyze Benilo's feelings, when he saw his purpose, his revenge, foiled.Looking up he met the enigmatic gaze of the harper resting upon him witha strange mixture of derision and disdain.
"Stay!" Benilo cried to Theodora as she grasped the curtain in the actof pushing it aside. He knew if she passed beyond it, he had lostbeyond retrieve. But she paused and turned, mute inquiry and defiancein her look.
"The Queen of the Groves has made a wager before you all," theChamberlain shouted, lashing himself into the rage needful to make himcarry out his design unflinchingly. "After being informed of the personof the champion she has repudiated it! The reasons are plain,--thechampion is beyond her reach! The Queen of the Groves is too politic toplay a losing game, especially when she knows that she is sure to lose!The charms of our Goddess are great, but alas! There is one man in Romewhom she dare not challenge!"
He paused to study the effect of his words upon her.
She regarded him with her icy stare.
"It is not a question of power--but of my will!"
"So be it!" retorted Benilo. "But since the Queen of Love has refusedmy wager for reasons no doubt good and efficient, perhaps there is inthis company one less pure, one less scrupulous, one of beauty as great,who might win, where Theodora shuns the risk! Will you
take up thegauntlet, fair Roxane, and lure to the Groves, Eckhardt, the general?"
"Benilo--beware!"
Shrill, sharp like breaking glass, like the cry of a wounded animalmaddened with rage and agony, the outcry seemed wrenched from Theodora'swhite, drawn lips. Her large, splendid eyes flashed unutterable scornupon the Chamberlain and her lithe form swayed and crouched as that of atigress about to spring.
"Will Roxane take the wager?" Benilo repeated defiantly.
The anticipation of the on-coming contest caused Roxane's cheek toblanch. But not to be thought deficient in courage, to meet her rival,she replied:
"Since the Queen of the Groves shuns the test, perhaps I might succeed,where--"
She did not finish the sentence.
Like a lightning flash Theodora turned from the man, who had roused herire, to the woman who had stung her pride with ill-veiled mockery, andwhile she slowly crept towards her opponent, her low voice, tremulouswith scorn, stung as a needle would the naked flesh.
"And do you dream that Eckhardt of Meissen has aught to fear from you,fair Roxane? Deem you, that the proud Roxane with all her charms, couldcause the general of the German host to make one step against his will?"
For a moment the two women stood face to face, measuring each other withdeadly looks.
"And what if I would?" flashed Roxane.
Two white hands slowly but firmly encircled her throat.
"I would strangle you!" hissed Theodora, her face deadly pale.
Roxane's cheeks too had lost their colour. She knew her opponent andshe instinctively felt she had reached the limit. She gave a littlenervous laugh as she drew Theodora's reluctant hands from the marblewhiteness of her throat, where their touch had left a rosy imprint.
"I do not wish your Saxon bear," she said. "If you can tame him, wecome to his skin!"
"By Lucifer!" replied the Queen of the Groves, "did I but choose to, Iwould make him forget heaven and hell and bring him to my feet!"
"How dramatic!" sneered Benilo. "Words are air! We want proofs!"
She whirled upon him.
"And what will become of the snake, when the hunter appears?"
Benilo paled. For a moment his arrogance deserted him. Then he saidwith an ominous scowl:
"Let the hunter beware!"
She regarded him with icy contempt. Then she turned to the revellers.
"Since Benilo has dared to cross swords with me," she cried, "though Idespise him and all of you, I accept the challenge, if there is one inthis company who will confirm that it was Eckhardt who discomfitedVitelozzo."
From the background of the hall, where he had sat a silent listener,there came forward an individual in the gaudy attire of a Romannobleman. He was robust and above the middle height, and the lineamentsof his coarse face betrayed predominance of brute instincts over everynobler sentiment.
"Vitelozzo! Vitelozzo!" the guests shouted half amazed, half amused.
The robber-baron nodded as he faced Theodora on the edge of the circle.
"I have listened to your discourse," he snarled curtly. "For youropinions I care not. And as for the skullion to whom I gave in,--out ofsheer good will,--ha, ha!--may the devil pull the boots from hislegs!--'twas no meaner a person than he, at whose cradle the fiend stoodsponsor, Eckhardt--the general--but I will yet have the girl, I'll haveher yet!"
And with a vigorous nod Vitelozzo took up a brimming decanter andtransported himself into the background whence he had arisen.
His word had decided the question.
For a moment there was an intense hush. Then Theodora spoke:
"Eckhardt of Meissen, the commander of the German hosts, shall come tomy court! He shall be as one of yourselves, a whimpering slave to myevil beauty! I will it,--and so it shall be!"
For a moment she glanced at Benilo and the blood froze in his veins.Heaven and earth would he have given now to have recalled the fatefulchallenge. But it was too late. For a time he trembled like an aspen.No one knew what he had read in Theodora's Medusa-like face.
Some of the revellers, believing the great tension relieved, now pushedeagerly forward, surrounding the Queen of the Groves and plying her withquestions. They were all eager to witness a triumph so difficult toachieve, as they imagined, that even Theodora, though conscious of herinvincible charms, had winced at the task.
But the Queen of Love seemed to have exchanged the attributes of hertrade for those of a Fury, for she turned upon them like an animalwounded to death, that sees the hounds upon its track and cannot escape.
"Back! All of you!" she hissed, raising her arms and sweeping themaside. "What is it after all? Is he not a man, like--no! Not likeyou, not like you!--Why should I care for him?--Perhaps he has wife andchild at home:--the devils will laugh the louder!"
She paused a moment, drawing a deep breath. Then she slowly turnedtowards the cringing Chamberlain. Her voice was slow and distinct andevery word struck him as the blow from a whip.
"I accept your wager," she said, "and I warn you that I will win! Win,with all the world, with all your villainy, with the Devil himselfagainst me. Eckhardt shall come to the Groves! But," she continuedwith terrible distinctness, "if aught befall him, ere we have stood faceto face, I shall know the hand that struck the blow, were it covered bythe deepest midnight that ever blushed at your foulness, and by thedevil,--I will avenge it!"
After these words Theodora faced those assembled with her splendidheight in all the glory of her beauty. Another moment she was gone.
For a time deep silence succeeded.
Never had such a scene been witnessed in the Groves. Never had the Queenof Love shown herself in so terrible a mood. Never had mortal dared tobrave her anger, to challenge her wrath. Truly, the end of time must benigh when her worshippers would dare defy the Goddess of the Shrine.
But after Theodora had disappeared, the strain gradually relaxed andsoon wore away entirely. With all, save Benilo. His calm outwarddemeanour concealed only with an effort his terrible apprehensions, ashe mixed freely, to divert suspicion, with the revellers. These thoughtthe moments too precious to waste with idle speculations and soon theorgy roared anew through the great hall.
Benilo alone had retreated to its extreme end, where he allowed himselfto drop into a divan, which had just been deserted by a couple, who hadbeen swept away by the whirling Bacchanale. Here he sat for some time,his face buried in his hands, when looking up suddenly he found himselfface to face with Hezilo.
"I have done it," he muttered, "and I fear I have gone too far!"
He paused, scanning the harper's face for approval. Its expression hecould not see, but there was no shade of reproof in the voice whichanswered:
"At best you have but erred in the means."
"I wished to break her pride, to humble her, and now the tables areturned; it is I, who am grovelling in the dust."
"No woman was by such means ever wooed or won," the harper replied aftera brief pause. "Theodora will win the wager. But whether she win orlose, she will despise you for ever more!"
Benilo pressed his hands against his burning temples.
"My heart is on fire! The woman maddens me with her devilish charms,until I am on the verge of delirium."
"You have been too pliant! You have become her slave! Her foot is onyour neck! You have lost yourself! Better a monstrous villain, than asimpering idiot, who whines love-ditties under his lady's bower andbellows his shame to the enduring stars! Dare to be a man,--despiteyourself!"
So absorbed was Benilo in his own thoughts, that the biting irony of theother's speech was lost upon him.
He extended his hand to his strange counsellor.
"It shall be as you say: The Rubicon is passed. I have no choice."
The stranger nodded, but he did not touch the proffered hand.
At last the Chamberlain rose to leave the hall.
The sounds of lutes and harps quivered through the Groves of Theodora;flutes and cymbals, sist
rum and tympani mingled their harmonies with thetempest of sound that hovered over the great orgy, which was now at itsheight. The banquet-hall whirled round him like a vast architecturalnightmare. Through the dizzy glare he beheld perspectives and seeminglyendless colonnades. Everything sparkled, glittered, and beamed in thelight of prismatic irises, that crossed and shattered each other in theair. Viewed through that burning haze even the inanimate objects seemedto have waked to some fantastic representation of life.--But through itall he saw one face, supremely fair in its marble cold disdain,--andunable to endure the sight longer Benilo the Chamberlain rushed out intothe open.
In the distance resounded the chant of pilgrims traversing the city andimploring the mercy and clemency of heaven.