Part 27

"And yet it must come at last!" she replied softly, as from the depths of 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 can give,--would there not be a sting in each moment of happiness at the thought--"

She paused. Her head drooped.

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

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

"Love you--love you!" he repeated wildly. "Oh, I have loved you all my life, even before I saw you,--are you not the embodied form of all those vague dreams of beauty, which haunted my earliest childhood? That beauty, which I sought yearningly, but oh! so vainly in all things, that breathe the divine essence: the lustrous darkness of night, the glories of sunset, the subtle perfume of the rose, the all-reflecting ocean of poetry in which the Universe mirrors itself? In all have I found the same deep void, which only love can fill. Not love you," he continued covering both hands he held in his with fevered kisses, "oh, Stephania, I love you better than myself,--better than all things,--here and hereafter."

Almost paralyzed with fear she listened to his mad pleading.

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

He took her yielding form in his arms. He drew her closer and closer to his 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 were borne up to them. The air was filled with the odour of dead leaves and dying creation, that subtle premonition of the end to come.

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

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

Supreme stillness intervened again.

Stephania raised her head like a deer in covert, listening for the hunters, listening for the baying of the hounds, coming nearer and nearer. Gladly at this moment would she have given her life to undo what she had done. But it was too late. Even this expiation would not avail! There was nothing now to do, but to nerve herself for that supreme moment, when all would be severed between them for aye and ever; when she would stand before him the embodiment of deception; when he would spurn her as one spurns the reptile, that repays the caressing hand with its deadly sting; when he would curse her perhaps,--cast from him for ever the woman who had cut the thread of the life he had laid at her feet--and all, for what?

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

And Johannes Crescentius was her husband and lord. He loved her with as great a love as his nature was capable of, and whatever faults might be laid at the door of his regime, if faults they could even be termed in a lawless, feudal age, that knew no right save might,--to her he had never been untrue.

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

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

He looked up into her eyes.

"Stephania,--why are you here to-night?" he whispered again, and he felt the 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 confronted with the crisis in his existence, when that which he held dearest must either slip away from him for ever or remain his through all eternity.

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

"Kiss me," she moaned.

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

There was a brief breathless silence.

Suddenly the great bell of the Capitol rolled in solemn and majestic sounds upon the air, and was answered from all the belfries of Rome. But louder than the pealing tocsin, above the wild screaming and clanging 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 Otto gazed into Stephania's eyes. The marble statues around them were hardly as white as her features.

"What is this?" he questioned.

There was a stir in the depths of the streets below. Shouts and jeers of strident voices were broken by authoritative commands. The tramp of mailed feet was remotely audible, but above all the hubbub and din rose the 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, as louder and wilder the iron tongues shrieked defiance through the air, as, turning her head, she saw the fatal spear points of the Albanians gleaming through the thicket, she suddenly shook him off. With a stifled outcry, she rose to her feet; so abruptly that Otto staggered and would have fallen, had he not in time caught himself with the aid of a branch.

To the King it gave the impression of a wild hideous dream. Like one dazed, 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 his listeners to exterminate all foreigners. From Castel San Angelo came an incessant sound of trumpets, which, mingling with the brazen roar of bells seemed to shake the earth. Torches lighted the streets with their smoky crimson glare. People hurried hither and thither, jostling, pushing, trampling upon each other like black shadows, like living phantoms. The fiery glow, the voices of the angry mob, the pealing of the bells,--they all struck Stephania's heart with a thousand talons of remorse and shame. Fearstruck and trembling, she gazed into the pale face of Theophano's son.

Otto was watching the distant pandemonium as one would gaze upon some strange, hideous ceremonial of occult meaning,--then he turned slowly to Stephania.

For a moment they faced each other in silence, then he stroked the disordered 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 them with 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 the winds," she shrieked, almost beside herself with the memory of her vow and its consequences. "You are betrayed,--and I have betrayed you!"

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

"I have betrayed you, Kong Otto! I, Stephania, a woman! Ah! You believed my words! You were vain enough to imagine that the wife of the Senator 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 wrest the sceptre from the rightful lord of the Seven Hills. You hoped Stephania would aid you to realize your mad dreams! How unsophisticated, how deliciously innocent is the King of the Germans! Know then that I have lied to you, when I feigned interest in your cause, know that I have lied to you when I professed to love you! Love you," she cried, while her heart was breaking with every word she hurled against 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 alarums from the ramparts of Castel San Angelo? They are calling the Romans to arms! They are summoning the Romans to revolt! Do you hear those shouts? Death to the Germans? They are for you,--for you,--for you!"

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

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

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

"I have lulled you to sleep," she continued, breaking the bridge, which led back into the past, span by span,--"that the Senator of Rome may once again come into his own! I have pretended interest in your monkish fancies, 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 of my heart, that beats for Rome. King Otto, you are doomed."

He had listened to her words with wide, wondering eyes, his heart frozen with terror and anguish, his face pale as that of a corpse, returned from its grave. He heard voices in the distance and the tread of armed feet coming nearer and nearer. Yet he stirred not. His tongue clove to the 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 shake off the spell.

"May God forgive you, Stephania," he gasped like a drowning man, reeled and 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 fiercest denunciation would not have so completely unnerved her as the simple words of the youth. She almost succumbed under the weight of her anguish.

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

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

Stephania heaved a sigh of relief as in their leader she recognized the Margrave 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, rushing with drawn sword upon the scene and pausing breathlessly before Stephania's victim. "Do you hear the great bell of the Capitol, King Otto? All Rome is in revolt! Did I not warn you against the wiles of the 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 her hellish treason."

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

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

"Back," he thundered with flaming eyes. "Only over my dead body lies the 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 foully betrayed you! Be it so! We have no time for argument. Her life is forfeited and by the Eternal God, Eckhardt never broke his oath. Follow me! We must reach the Aventine, ere the Roman rabble bar the way. We are not strong enough to break through their numbers and they swarm like ants."

Otto stirred not.

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

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

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

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

"By the flames of purgatory! Are you stark mad, King Otto?" roared Eckhardt, almost beside himself with rage. "Come with us she shall, but as 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 safe conduct, and the King of the Germans will be obeyed," he spoke, his voice the only calm and passionless thing in all the storm and uproar, which assailed them on all sides. "Through the secret passage lies her only safety. She cannot go as she came!"

Eckhardt's eyes fairly blazed with rage.

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

But vainly did the Margrave endeavour to make his gestures explain his denial. 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. "Fear nothing. You have the word of the German King,--he has never broken it!"

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

"Now by all the fiends!" shouted Eckhardt, unable longer to restrain himself, dashing between Stephania and the King and severing the latter's hold on the woman--"Since your heart is set upon it, I will not harm the--"

He paused involuntarily.

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

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

Eckhardt lowered his weapon.

His countenance betrayed untold anxiety.

"You invite certain destruction, King Otto," he remonstrated with subdued voice. "What matters it, if her countrymen do slay her? One serpent the less in Rome! Your mercy leads you to perdition,---what mercy 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 one speech. "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 Roman who approaches upon any pretext whatsoever,--strike him dead without word or parley!"

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

Nor did Eckhardt, inwardly rejoicing over the revelation, grant him one moment's respite. Surrounded by his trusty Saxon spears, Otto felt himself hurried along towards the gates of his palace, which they reached in safety, the insurrection having not yet spread to that region.

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

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

*CHAPTER XV*

*THE STORM OF CASTEL SAN ANGELO*

The sun of autumn hung a bloody circle over Rome, but seemed to give neither light nor warmth. The city itself presented a seething cauldron of rebellion. The gates had been closed against the advancing Germans and when, with the first streak of dawn, Haco had arrived under the Marian hill with the contingents from Tivoli, they found themselves before a city, which had to be reconquered ere they could even join the comparatively weak garrison on the Aventine, where Otto was a prisoner in his own palace. During the night Eckhardt had assayed to reach a place of concealment on the Tiburtine road, where he awaited the arrival of his forces, which he had immediately marshalled in their respective positions. Castel San Angelo rested on an impregnable rock, but Eckhardt had sworn a terrible oath, that he would scale its walls before the sun of another day rose behind the Alban hills; and although a rain of arrows and bolts, so dense and deadly that it threatened to break the line of the assailants, was poured into the German ranks, it did not stay their determined advance.

The first line of assault consisted of heavy-armed foot-soldiers with round bucklers, short swords and massive battle-axes. Forming in close phalanx, these men of gigantic size, in hauberks and round helmets, fixed shield to shield like an iron wall, advanced in dense array to the charge. They were led on the right wing by the imperial guard, whose huge statures, fair long hair and gleaming halberds formed a strange contrast to the lighter arms and the more pliant forms of the defenders of Castel San Angelo.

The Roman army, which the Senator had stationed round the base of his formidable stronghold, could not withstand the shock of this tremendous phalanx, so far heavier in arms and numbers, and with all their courage and skill they wavered and broke into flight. Many were precipitated into the Tiber and drowned miserably within sight of their helpless comrades; most of them were mowed down by the pursuing German cavalry or shot by the German archers.

After the terrible defeat of the Senator's army by the first line of Eckhardt's battle-array, the squadrons of the second line of battle spread over the plain, preparatory to the last and final assault. The vast stronghold of the Senator looked as proud and menacing as ever; reared upon its almost impenetrable granite-foundation it formed even at this date one of the most powerful fortresses of Western Europe. Its huge battlements were defended with a long chain of covered towers, from which Albanian bowmen shot down every living thing, that approached the circuit of its walls. Every attempt to scale the lofty stronghold with ladders had during former sieges been beaten off with fearful loss, after desperate combats at all hours of day and night. Although he had twice stormed the walls of Rome, Eckhardt had never succeeded in capturing the fortress, which he must call his own, who would be master of the Seven Hills. But the wrath of the Margrave defied every obstacle, laughed to scorn every impediment which might retard his vengeance upon the cursed rabble of Rome, those mongrel curs, with whom rebellion was a pastime and for whom oaths existed but to be broken. All day long the Germans had hurled themselves against the massive walls, sustaining terrible losses, while those within the city were equally severe. All day long they had plied their huge catapults, which hurled masses of rock and iron into the city and fortress, keeping up an incessant bombardment. They also used the balista, an immense fixed cross-bar, which shot bolts with extraordinary force and precision upon the battlements, whereon nothing living could stand exposed without certain destruction.

Seated motionless on his coal-black charger, like some dark spirit of revenge, plainly visible from the ramparts of Castel San Angelo, Eckhardt directed the assault of his army at this point, or that, according as the situation required. Many an arrow and stone struck the ground close by his side, but he seemed to bear a charmed existence and never stirred an inch from his chosen vantage ground. Already had a breach been made in one or two places in the base of the walls, yet had he not given the order to break into the city, but seemed to watch for some weak spot in the defences. It was verging towards evening. The besiegers could hear the cries and the rage of those within the walls, who dared not remain in the streets during the terrific rain of iron and stones hurled by the German machines. Despite their strenuous efforts, Castel San Angelo hurled defiance into the teeth of the Margrave, who demanded its surrender, and the task of capturing the stronghold, otherwise than by starving the garrison, seemed to hold out smaller promise with every moment, as the sun hurried on his western course. The sky became overcast and the night bade fair to be stormy.

During the assaults of the day, Eckhardt had many times strained his gaze towards the road leading to Tivoli, as if he expected some succour from that direction, when, as the sun was sinking in a crimson haze, a cloud of dust met the general's gaze and at the same moment a thunderous shout rose from the imperial hosts. Drawn by twelve oxen, there appeared at the edge of the plain a new engine of assault, which Eckhardt had ordered constructed, anticipating an emergency, such as the present. It had remained with the host in Tivoli, and despite the comparatively short distance, it had required almost twenty-four hours to draw it over the sloping ground to Rome. It was a tower of three stages, constructed of massive beams, protected by frames and hides and crowned with a stout roof. It was now being rolled forward on broad heavy wheels to afford means of scaling the walls. As it slowly approached the ramparts of Castel San Angelo, the assault of the Germans, renewed on the whole line of the walls with redoubled fury, presented a terrific sight. The catapults and balistae were pouring stones, bolts and arrows on the defenders; the whizzing of the missiles, the shouts of the assailants, answered by furious yells from the walls, the roar of the flames, as here and there a house near the city walls caught fire from burning pitch, made a truly infernal din.