Under the Witches' Moon: A Romantic Tale of Mediaeval Rome

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE SHADOW OF ASRAEL

  It was ten in the morning.

  Deep silence reigned in the strange walled garden on the Pincian Hillthat surrounded the marble villa of the Grand Chamberlain. Only themurmur of the city below and the soft sounds of bells from tower andcampanile seemed to break the dreamlike stillness as they began to tollfor High Mass.

  In a circular chamber lighted only by lamps, for there were no windows,and daylight never penetrated there, before an onyx table covered withstrange globes and philtres, sat Basil.

  The walls of the chamber were of wood stained purple. The far wallwas hidden by shelves on which were many rolls of vellum and papyrus,spoils of pagan libraries of the past. There were the works of monksfrom all the monasteries of Europe, illuminated by master hands, theblack letter pages glowing with red and gold, almost priceless eventhen. In one corner of the room stood an iron chest, secured by locks.What this contained no one even dared to guess.

  As the chimes from churches and convents reached his ears, Basil's facepaled. Something began to stir in the dark unfathomable eyes as someunknown thing stirs in deep water. Some nameless being was looking outof those windows of the soul. Yet the rest of the face was unruffledand expressionless, and the contrast was so horrible that a spectatorwould have shrank away, cold fear gripping his heart, and perhaps a cryupon his lips.

  Basil had closed the heavy bronze doors behind him when he had enteredfrom the atrium. The floor of colored marbles was flooded with thelight from the bronze lamps. Before him was a short passage, hardlymore than an alcove, terminating in a door of cedarwood behind a purplecurtain.

  In the dull yellow gleam of the lamps the chamber seemed cold, full ofchill and musty air.

  In a moment however the lamps seemed to burn more brightly, as Basil'seyes became adjusted to their lights.

  There was the silence of the tomb. The lamps burnt without a flicker,for there was not a breath of air to disturb their steady glow. Theplan of the room, its yellow lights, its silence, its entire lack ofcorrespondence with the outside world, was Basil's own. He had designedit as a port, as it were, whence to put out to sea upon the tide of hisever-changing moods in the black barque of sin.

  For some time he remained alone in the silent room, dreaming andbrooding over greatness and power, that terrible megalomania that isthe last and rarest madness of all.

  He had read of Caligula, Nero, and Domitian, of Heliogabalus, whosemadness passed the bounds of the imaginable. Like gold and purpleclouds, bursting with sombre light and power, they had passed over Romeand were gone.

  Then thoughts of the popes came to him, those supreme rulers of thetemporal and spiritual world whose dominion had been so superb, sincethey first began to crown the emperors, one hundred and thirty-fiveyears ago.

  In a monstrous and swiftly moving panorama they passed through a brainthat worked as if it were packed in ice. And yet one and all had goneinto the dark. The power of none had been lasting and complete.

  But into his reverie stole a secret glow, into his blood an intense,ecstatic quickening. For them the hour had tolled. Each step in lifewas but one nearer the grave. Not so was it to be with him.

  A black fire began to burn round his heart, coiling there like aserpent, as he thought of the illumination that was his, the promisehe had received--deep down in the crypts of the Emperor's Tomb andagain in the Catacombs of St. Calixtus. And he had fallen down andworshipped, had given his soul to Darkness and abjured the Light.

  Satan should rule again on earth. For this had been revealed to himby the High Priest of Satan himself, then in a vision by the Lord ofEvil. To penetrate the mysteries of Hell with his whole heart and soul,to strike chill terror into the hearts of those who worshipped at thealtars of Christ, had become Basil's ambition for which he would liveand die.

  Basil sat dreaming and gloating over his coming glory; a glory in whichthe woman whose beauty had stung him with maddening desire shouldshare, even if he had to drag her before the dark throne upon which satthe Unspeakable Presence. The yellow light of the lamps fell upon hisunnatural and mask-like face as he sat rigid in his chair hypnotized byHell.

  Christ had thrown his great Cross upon the feasts and banquets of thegods. On his head was a crown of thorns and the Stigmata upon his handsand feet. And the goblets of red gold had lost their brightness. Thepagan gods were stricken dumb. They had faded away in vapor and weregone.

  And with them the fierce joy of living had left the world. Christreigned upon earth, implanting conscience in the souls of men, thatrobbed ecstasy of its fruition and infused the most delicious cuptouched with the Aliquid Amari of the poet.

  Basil paced the narrow confines of the room, and from his lips came theopening stanza of that dreadful parody of the Good Friday hymn sung bythe votaries of Satan: "Vexilla Regis Prodeunt Inferni."

  Already the banners of the advancing hosts were in the sky. Soon--soonwould he appear himself--the Lord of Darkness!

  The room suddenly grew very chill, as if the three dread winds ofCocytus were blowing through the chamber.

  There was a slim rod of copper suspended from the wall, close to thecouch of dull grey damask upon which he had been reclining. He pulledit and somewhere away in the villa a gong sounded. A moment later adrab man, lean as a skeleton and bald as an egg, with slanting eyes inan ashen face and a stooping gait, came gliding noiselessly into thelamplit room. He wore a long black cassock, which covered his fleshlessform from head to toe.

  "Has no one called?" Basil turned to his factotum.

  "A stranger," came the sepulchral reply. "He bade me give you this!"

  Basil took the scroll which his famulus handed to him and cut the cord.

  A fiendish smile passed over his face and lighted up the dark, sinistereyes. But quickly as the mood had come it left. It fell from him as adropped cloak.

  He stood upright, supporting himself on the onyx table, while Horus,who only understood in a dull dim way his master's moods, assistinghim in all his villainies, but confessing his own share to a householdpriest, stood impassively by.

  "Give me some wine!" Basil turned to the sinister Major Domo, and thelatter disappeared and returned with a jug of Malvasian.

  The Grand Chamberlain grasped the jug which Horus had brought him andheld it with shaking fingers to his mouth. When he had drank deep hedismissed his famulus, struck a flint and burnt the scroll to pallidashes. Then he staggered out into the hall of colored marbles andthrough it to the garden doors.

  The bronze gates trembled as they swung back upon their hinges, and asthe full noon of the quiet garden burst upon Basil's eyes he fancied hesaw the fold of a dark robe disappear among the cypresses.

  And now the hot air of high noon wrapped him round with its warmsouthern life, flowing over the lithe body within the silken doublet,drawing away the inward darkness and the vaulting flames within hissoul and reminding his sensuous nature that the future held giganticpromise of love and power.

  The great tenor and alto bells of St. John in Lateran were beating theechoes to silver far away. The roofs and palaces, domes and towers ofRome, were bathed in sunlight as he advanced to the embrasure in thewall and once more surveyed the city.

  The heat shimmered down and, through the quivering sunlit air, thecolors of the buildings shone like pebbles at the bottom of a pool andthe white ruins glowed like a mirage of the desert.

  An hour later, regardless of the vertical sun rays that beat downupon the tortuous streets of the city with unabated fervor, the GrandChamberlain rode through the streets of Rome, attended by a group ofmen-at-arms with the crest of the Broken Spear in a Field of Azureembroidered upon their doublets.

  As the cavalcade swept through the crowded streets, with theirpilgrims from all parts of the world, the religious in their habits,men-at-arms, flower-sellers, here and there the magnificent chariot ofa cardinal, many of the people lowered their eyes as Basil canteredpast on his black Neapolitan charger, trapped with crimson.
More thanone made the sign of the horn, to avert the spell of the evil eye.

  When Basil reached the Lateran he found a captain of the noble guardwith two halberdiers in their unsightly liveries guarding the doors.They saluted and Basil inquired whether the new captain of the guardwas within.

  "The Lord Tristan is within," came the reply, and Basil entered,motioning to his escort to await his return outside.

  The Grand Chamberlain traversed several anterooms, speaking to oneor the other of the senatorial guard, and on every face he readconsternation and fear. Little groups of priests stood together incorners, whispering among each other; the whole of the Lateran wasaroused as by a secret dread. Such deeds, though they were known tohave occurred, were never spoken of, and the priests of the variouschurches that had suffered desecration wisely kept their own counsel.

  In this, the darkest age in the history of Rome, when crime and lustand murder lurked in every corner, an outrage such as this struck everysoul with horror and awe. It was unthinkable, unspeakable almost,suggesting dark mysteries and hidden infamies of Hell, which caused theblood to run cold and the heart to freeze.

  When Basil had made his way through the crowded corridors, receivinghomage, though men looked askance at him as he passed, he came to achamber usually reserved for a waiting room in times when the Pontiffreceived foreign envoys or members of the priesthood and nobility; aprivilege from which the unfortunate prisoner in the Lateran was to beforever debarred.

  Basil entered this chamber, giving orders that he was to be in no wisedisturbed until he called and those outside heard him lock and bar thedoor from within.

  In the exact centre of the wall, reaching within two feet of theground, there was a large picture of St. Sebastian, barbarously paintedby some unknown artist.

  Basil approached the picture and pressed upon the flat frame with allhis strength. There was a sudden click, a whirring, as of the wheels ofa clock. Then the picture swung inward, revealing a circular stairwayof stone, mounting upward. Without replacing the panel door, Basilmounted the stairs for nearly a hundred steps, until he came to a doorupon which he beat with the hilt of his poniard.

  An answering knock came from within, and the door opened. Basil entereda small chamber, lighted from above by a window in a small dome.

  A bat-like figure stood before a table covered with strangemanuscripts. As Basil entered, a thin black arm emerged from thefolds of the gown, which the inmate of the chamber wore. Then, with aquick bird-like movement, an immensely thin hand twisted like a claw,wrinkled, yellow and of incredible age, was stretched out toward thenewcomer.

  On the second finger of this claw was a certain ring. Basil bent andkissed the ring. There was another deft and almost imperceptiblemovement. When the hand reappeared the ring was gone.

  "It has been done?" Basil turned to the dark-robed form in batedwhispers.

  The voice that answered seemed to come from a great distance. The lipsin the waxen face scarcely moved. They parted, that was all. Yet thewords were audible and distinct.

  "It was done. Last night."

  "You were not seen?"

  "I wore the mask."

  "Is it here?" Basil queried, his eyes flickering with a faintreflection of that hate which had blazed in them earlier in the day.

  "It is not here."

  "Where is it?"

  "You shall know to-night!"

  The light faded out of Basil's eyes.

  "What of the new captain?"

  "His presence is a menace."

  In Basil's eyes gleamed a sombre fire.

  "I, too, owe him a grudge. In good time!"

  "The time is Now!"

  "Patience!" replied the Grand Chamberlain. "He will work his ownundoing. We dare not harm him yet."

  "Only a miracle saved him last night."

  "Are there not other churches in Rome?"--

  "Ay!" mouthed the black form. "But the time of the great sacrificedraws near--"

  "I knew not it was so near at hand," interposed Basil with a start.

  "The Becco Notturno demands a bride!"

  "How am I to help you in these matters?"

  "Am I to counsel the Lord Basil?" sneered the shape. "You drew thecrimson ball."

  "When is it to be?"

  "Three weeks from to-night. Mark you--a stainless dove!"

  Basil nodded, an evil smile upon his lips.

  "It shall be as you say! As for that other--I am minded to try hismettle--"

  "So be it!" said the shape. "Leave me now! You will hear from me. Myfamiliars are everywhere."

  Without another word Basil arose and left the chamber. In the corridorbelow he met Tristan.

  "I know all," he cut short the speech of the new captain of the guard."All Rome is full of it. How did it happen? And where?"

  "Attracted by a noise as of slippered feet passing over marble, Ientered the corridor of the Sacred Stairs, when one of the panelsparted. A devilish apparition stood within, throwing the beam of itslantern into the chapel. When a chance ray of light disclosed mypresence the shape of darkness hurled a poniard. It missed me, thanksbe to Our Lady, struck the mosaic of the floor and broke in two."

  "You have the pieces?" Basil queried affably and with much concern.

  "I ran to the end of the gallery, shouting to my men," Tristan replied."When we returned the blade had disappeared."

  "Where was it?" Basil queried with much concern and soon they faced theshattered mosaic.

  Basil examined the spot minutely.

  "From yonder panel, you say?" he turned to Tristan.

  "The third from the Capella," came the ready reply.

  "Have you searched the premises?"

  "From cellar to garret."--

  "And discovered nothing?"

  "Nothing."

  "What of the panel?"

  "It defies our combined efforts."

  "Strange, indeed."

  Basil strode to the wall and struck the spot indicated by Tristan withthe hilt of his poniard. Then he tested the wall on either side.

  "Can your ear detect any difference in sound?"

  A negative gesture came in response, and with it a puzzled look passedinto Tristan's eyes.

  "Have you seen the Pontiff?"

  "We reported the matter to His Holiness."

  "And?"

  "His Holiness raised his eyes to heaven and said: 'Even God's Vicar hasno jurisdiction in Hell!'"

  "Was that all he said?"

  "That was all!"

  There was a silence during which Basil seemed to commune with himself.

  "It is indeed a matter of grave concern," he said at last. "Treasonstalks everywhere. I will send for my Spanish Captain, Don Garcia. Hemay be of assistance to you."

  And Basil turned and walked down the corridor.

  After a time Tristan walked out upon the terrace looking toward theCoelian Hill.

  A brilliant light beat upon domes and spires and pinnacles, and floodedthe august ruins of the Caesars on the distant Palatine and the thousandtemples of the Holy Cross with scintillating radiance which poured downfrom the intense blue of heaven.--

  The long lights of the afternoon were shifting towards the eventide,giving place to a limpid and colorless light that silvered the adjacentolive groves.

  Tristan roused himself with a start. The sense of moving like a ghostamong a world of ghosts had left him. He was once more awake and aware.But even now his sorrow, his fears, his hopes of winning again to somesafe harbor in the storm tossed Odyssey of his life, were numbed. Theylay heavy within him, but without urgency or appeal.

  What did it matter after all? Life was a little thing, a forlornminstrel that evoked melancholy strains from a pipe of oaten straw.Life was a little thing, nor death a great one. For his part he wouldnot be loth to take his poppies and fall asleep.

  At one time or another such moods must come to all of us and beendured. We must enter into the middle country, that dull Sahara of thesoul, a broad belt of barren land where no
angels seem to walk by ourside, nor can the false voices of demons lure us to our harm.

  This is the land where we are imprisoned by the deeds of others andnever by our own. What we do ourselves will send us to Heaven or toHell; but not to the middle country where the plains of disillusion are.

  At last the sunset came.

  The ashen color of the olive-trees flashed out into silver, theundulating peaks of the Sabine Mountains became faintly flushed andphantom fair, as in a tempest of fire the sun sank to rest. The grovesof ilex and arbutus seemed to tremble with delight, as the long redheralds touched their topmost boughs.

  The whole landscape seemed to smile a farewell to departing day. Thechimes of the Angelus trembled on the purple dusk.

  Night came on apace.

  Tristan re-entered the Lateran Basilica, set the watch and arrangedwith Don Garcia to spend the night in the sacristy, while Don Garciawas to guard the approaches to the Pontifical Chapel to prevent arecurrence of the horrible sacrilege of the preceding night.

  One by one the worshippers left the vast nave of the church. After atime the sacristans closed the heavy bronze doors and extinguished thelights, all but the one upon the altar.

  When they, too, had departed, and deepest silence filled the sacredspaces, Tristan emerged from a side chapel and took his station nearthe entrance to the sacristy, where, on the preceding night, he hadseen the shadow disappear.

  How long he had been there in dread and wonder he did not know, whentwo cloaked and hooded figures emerged slowly out of the gloom. Hecould not tell whence they came or whether they had been there all thetime. They bent their steps towards the sacristy and, as they wereabout to pass Tristan in his hiding-place, they paused as if consciousof another presence.

  "As we proceed in this matter," whispered the one voice, "I growfearful. You know my relations to the Senator--"

  "Your anxiety moves me not," croaked the other voice. "Deem you toattain your ends by mortal means?"

  The voice caused Tristan to shudder as with an ague, though he saw nothim who spoke.

  "What of yourself?" whispered the first speaker.

  "Have you forgotten," came the hoarse reply, "that either I amsoulless, or else my spirit, damned from its beginning, will scarce besaved by the grace of Him I dare not name! You are defiled in the veryconversing with me."

  The tone in which these words were spoken, either defied answer, or, ifa response was made, it did not reach Tristan's ears as they slowly,noiselessly, proceeded upon their way.

  Tristan vaguely listened for the echo of their retreating footstepsas, passing behind the altar, they disappeared, as if the earth hadswallowed them.

  Now he was seized with a terrible fear. What, if they were to repeatthe sacrilege? He thought he recognized the voice of the first speaker;but this no doubt was but a trick of his excited imagination.

  Determined to prevent so terrible a crime, he crept cautiously downthe narrow passage through which they had disappeared. Six steps hecounted, then he found himself in a room which seemed to be part ofthe sacristy, yet not a part, for a postern stood open through whichgleamed the misty moonlight.

  There was little doubt in Tristan's mind that they had passed outthrough this postern which had been left unguarded, and he found hisconjectures confirmed, when his eye, accustoming itself to the radiancewithout, saw two misty figures passing along the road that leads pastthe Coelian Hill through fields of ruins.

  Taking care so they would not be attracted by the sound of his steps,Tristan crept in the shadows of roofless columns, shattered porticoesand dismantled temples, half hidden amid the dark foliage that sprangup among the very fanes and palaces of old. At times he lost sightof his quarry. Again they would rise up before him like evil spiritswandering through space.

  As Tristan continued in his pursuit, he began to be beset by diremisgivings.

  The twain had vanished as utterly as if the earth had swallowed themand he paused in his pursuit to gain his bearings. Had he followed twophantoms or two beings in the flesh? Had he abandoned his watch for twopenitents who had perchance been locked in the church?

  What might not be happening at the Lateran at this very moment! Howwould Don Garcia construe his absence?

  A tremor passed through his limbs. He started to retrace his steps, butsome unknown agency compelled him onward.

  Penetrating the gloomy foliage, Tristan found himself before a largeruin, grey and roofless, from the interior of which came, muffled andindistinct, the sound of voices.

  Two men were stealthily creeping beneath the shadow of a wall thatextended for some distance from the ruin.

  Both wore long monkish garbs and were muffled from head to toe. Overtheir faces they wore vizors with slits for eyes and mouth. One of thetwain was spare, yet muscular. His companion walked with a stoopinggait and supported himself by a staff.

  The light which had attracted Tristan, emanated from a lantern whichthey had placed on the ground and which they could shade at will, butwhich cast its fitful glimmer over the grass plot, revealing whatappeared to be a grave, from which the mould had been thrown up. At ashort distance there stood a black and stunted yew tree. Before thisthey paused.

  Now, from under his black cassock, the taller produced a strangeobject, the nature of which Tristan was unable to discover by thefitful light of the moon.

  No sooner was it revealed to his companion, than the latter began tochant a weird incantation, in which he who held the strange objectjoined.

  Louder and more strident grew their voices, and, notwithstanding thewarmth of the summer night, Tristan felt an icy shudder permeate hiswhole being while, with a strange fascination, he watched the twain.

  Now he who supported himself by a staff uttered a shrill inarticulateoutcry, and, producing a long, gleaming knife from under his cassock,stabbed the thing viciously, while his voice rose in mad, stridentscreams:

  "Emen Hetan! Emen Hetan! Palu! Baalberi! Emen Hetan!"

  The fit of madness seemed to have caught his companion. Producing aknife similar to that of the other he, too, stabbed the object he heldin his hand, shrieking deliriously:

  "Agora! Agora! Patrisa! Agora!"

  An hour was to come when Tristan was to learn the terrible importof the apparently meaningless jumble which struck his ear with maddiscordance.

  Suddenly he felt upon himself the insane gleam of two eyes, peeringfrom the slits of the bent figure's mask.

  There was a death-like stillness, as both looked towards the intruder.Tristan would have fled, but his feet seemed rooted to the spot. Hisenergies were paralyzed as under the influence of a terrible spell.

  The stooping form raised aloft a small phial. A bluish vapor floatedupward, in thin spiral curls.

  The effect was instantaneous. Tristan was seized by a great drowsiness.His limbs refused to support him. He no longer felt the ground underhis feet. His hand went to his head and, reeling like a drunken man,he fell among the tall weeds that grew in riotous profusion around theancient masonry.

  The setting moon shone out from behind a fleecy cloud, and in thepallid crimson of her light the ill-famed ruins of the ancient templeof Isis rose weird and ghostly in the summer night.