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

It was a vast circular hall, roofed in by a lofty dome of richest malachite, from the centre of which was suspended a huge globe of fire, flinging blood-red rays on the amber co...

Deep silence reigned in the strange walled garden on the Pincian Hill that surrounded the marble villa of the Grand Chamberlain. Only the murmur of the city below and the soft s...

A delirium of the senses such as he had never experienced to this hour began to steal over Tristan, as he found himself seated between Theodora, the fairest sorceress that ever...

Tristan spent the greater part of the day visiting the churches and sanctuaries, offering up prayers for oblivion and peace. His heart was heavy within him. Like the stray leaf...

Castel San Angelo, the Tomb of the Flavian Emperor, seemed rather to have been built for a great keep, a breakwater as it were to stem the rush of barbarian seas which were wont...

Again there was feasting and high revels in the palace of Theodora on Mount Aventine. Colored lanterns were suspended between the interstices of orange and oleander trees; and i...

Theodora's sleep had been broken and restless. She tossed and turned upon her pillow. It was weary work to lie gazing with eyes wide open at the fantastic shadows cast by the fl...

Dense black clouds rolled over the Roman Campagna, burning blue in the flashes of jagged lightnings and the low boom of distant thunder reverberated ominously among the hills an...

Athwart the gleaming balconies of the east the morning sun shone golden and the shadows of the white marble cornices and capitals and jutting friezes were blue with the reflecti...

A strange and mysterious thing is the working of terror on the human mind. Some it renders incapable of thought or action, paralyzing their limbs and stagnating the blood in the...

Outwardly and in daylight there was nothing noticeable about the sixth house in the Lane of the Sclavonians in Trastevere beyond the fact that it was a dwelling of a superior ki...

A rosy glow was creeping over the sky. The air was fresh with the coming of dawn. Softly they laid Hellayne by the side of a marble fountain and splashed the cooling drops upon...

Deep repose was upon the seven hilled city. The sky was intensely dark, but the stars shone out full and lustrous. Venus was almost setting. Mars glowed red and fiery towards th...

The pattering of footsteps resounded on the marble floor of the corridor and the hangings once more parted, revealing the form of a man sombre even in the shadows which seemed p...

The palace of Theodora on Mount Aventine was aglow with life and movement for the festivities of the evening. The lights of countless cressets were reflected from the marble flo...

A voice whose prompting he could not resist, impelled Tristan, after his parting from the Monk of Cluny, to follow the Grand Chamberlain, who had taken the direction of the Pinc...

For three whole days Hellayne consumed herself waiting for Tristan, and she began to feel listless and dispirited. She had long acknowledged to herself the necessity of his pres...

Hidden away in some secret vault of the great honey-colored Mausoleum Tristan found himself when the men-at-arms had departed, and he had regained his full senses. Color had fad...

The storm had abated, but the sheen of white lightnings to southward and the menacing growl of distant thunder that seemed to come from the bowels of the earth held out promise...

Never had Tristan's feelings been more hopelessly involved than since that eventful night by the Arch of the Seven Candles when, like a ghost of the past, Hellayne had once more...

In a dimly lighted turret chamber in the house of Hormazd the Persian there sat two personages whose very presence seemed to enhance the sinister gloom that brooded over the cir...

After some hours of much needed rest Tristan started out to find the Monk of Cluny. The task he had set himself was not one easy of execution, since the Benedictine friar was wo...

Basil the Grand Chamberlain was giving one of his renowned feasts in his villa on the Pincian Mount. But on this evening he had limited the number of his guests to two score. On...

High on the cypress-clad hills of the Eternal City the evening sun had flamed valediction, and the last lights of the dying day were fading away on the waves of the Tiber whose...

Like a disk of glowing gold the sun had set upon hill and dale. The gardens of Avalon lay wrapt in the mists of evening. Like flowers seemed the fair women who thronged the wind...

All memories of his meeting with the Lord Basil had faded before the import of the coming hour, when he was to stand face to face with him who held in his hand the fate of two b...

Roger de Laval had chosen for his abode in Rome a sombre and frowning building not far from the grim ways of the Campo Marzo, half palace half fortalice, constructed about a hug...

As one dazed he had traversed the deserted, echoing streets in the mysterious half-light which flooded the Eternal City; a light in which everything was sharply defined yet seem...

Floods of soft and mellow light dazzled Tristan's eyes at first, but he soon realized the luxurious beauty of the retreat into which he had been ushered. It was obvious that, de...

The appearance of Basil who had emerged from the kiosk and regarded Theodora with a look in his pale, passion distorted features that seemed to light up recesses in his own hear...

It was late on the following morning when Tristan waked. The sun was high in the heavens and the perfumes from a thousand gardens were wafted to his nostrils. He looked about be...

It still lacked a few minutes of midnight when Tristan arrived at the Lateran. The guard had been set in all the chapels, as on the night when he had kept the watch before.

It was a night, moonless and starless. Deep silence brooded over the city. Not a ray of light was in the sky. A dense fog hung like a funeral pall over the Seven Hills, and a ce...

When Tristan at last regained his bearings, he found himself among the convents and cloisters on Mount Aventine. His eyes rested wearily on the eddying gleam of the Tiber as it...

When, on the day succeeding his appointment Tristan returned to the Inn of the Golden Shield he felt as one in a trance. Like a puppet of Fate he had been plunged into the seeth...

Amid the ruin of cities and the din of strife during the tenth century darkness closed in upon the Romans, while the figures of strange despots emerged from obscurity only to di...

It was an eventful night in Rome and, although for that reason well adapted to deeds of violence, the tumult and confusion exacted great caution from those who wished to proceed...

The clear and brilliant moonlight of Italy enveloped hill and dale, bathing in its effulgence the groves, palaces and ruins of the Eternal City. The huge pile of the Colosseum w...

The dawn of the following day brought in its wake consternation and terror. From the churches of the two Egyptian Martyrs, Sts. Cosmas and Damian, the Holy Host had been taken d...

"True! Deem you, he will dare to tell the world what he knows? He might be asked to tell how he came by his knowledge. And that might prove a difficult question to answer. Tell...

New bands of revellers had invaded the Piazza Navona, and it seemed indeed as if the Eve of St. John were assuming the character of the ancient Lupercalia, for the endless varie...

It was not Tristan's other self, conjured by the Persian from the mystic realms of night which Theodora had seen outlined against the dark curtain that screened the entrance int...

The first person upon whom he chanced on his rounds at the Lateran was the Grand Chamberlain, who inquired affably how his penitences were progressing and expressed the hope tha...

In the lurid flash that had illumined the gallery, lighting up rows of cells and deep recesses, Basil had seen, as if risen from the floor, a black, indefinable shape, wrapped i...

The Basilica of Constantine no longer retained its pristine splendor, its pristine purity as in the days, ere the revival of paganism by the Emperor Julian the Apostate had put...

Another day had gone down the never returning tide of time. The sun was sinking in a rosy bed of quilted clouds. All day long Hellayne had sat brooding in her chamber, unable to...

The dawn was creeping over the Sabine mountains when Tristan, after having made good his escape from the dungeons of Castel San Angelo, reached the hermitage of Odo of Cluny on...

In a domed chamber of the Emperor's Tomb there sat two personages engaged in whispered conversation, Basil and a weird hooded phantom that seemed part of the dread shadows which...