CHAPTER III
VISTAS
The morning dawned gray with heat. The air was lifeless. The sun,rolling lazily up the eastern sky, scarcely deigned to permit hisbeams to penetrate the humid atmosphere. In the night a heavy dew hadfallen and the lush turf on the edge of the forest was a sparklingmass of drops. The fragrance of the rose-gardens and poppy-fieldsenvironing San Cataldo was stifling. The very worms and insects layinert about shrubs and foliage. In the west, a falling arch of heavyclouds hung low over the distant mountains. It was an unnaturalmorning, which presaged a storm.
The forests of the Murgie were still dark when Francesco Villanientered their cool and fragrant depths. To him the smile of dawn onthat morning had been as the mirthless smile of a ghost. For, withto-day, there had been awakened the memories of yesterday, theconsciousness of his impending fate.
Fate! What a future it had prepared for him, a future void ofeverything which the soul of man may crave, which may delight hisheart. The sins of another were to be visited upon his guiltlesshead,--he was to atone for his own existence.
Yet even that seemed bearable compared with the hour to come at theCourt of Avellino, the hour when he must renounce all he held dear inlife, appear an ingrate, a traitor; the hour of parting, a parting forlife, for all eternity from the friends and companions of his youthand from one who was all the world to him. At the mere thought, thelife blood froze in his veins.
The forests of the Murgie gradually thinned, and Francesco emergedupon a high level plateau, which to southward sloped into the Apulianplains, and on which the sun poured the whole fervor of his beams,till the earth itself seemed to beat up light. And there was no refugefrom the heat in that vast plain, which soon spread on every side withthe broad sterility of the African desert. Half blinded, Francescocantered along, dreading every step that carried him nearer to thegates of his lost paradise.
A mysterious silence was brooding over the immense expanse, whichbecame more desolate with every step. The wide plains reposed in amelancholy fertility; flowering thistles were swarming with countlessbutterflies; dry fennel, wild and withered, rioted round the scatteredremnants of broken columns, on whose summits wild birds of prey werescreaming.
As the sun rode higher in the heavens, the panorama suddenly changed,as if transformed by the wand of a magician. Colossal plane andcarob-trees rose on the horizon, waving fantastic shadows overinnumerable old crypts and tombs and the fantastic shapes of theunderbrush. To southward the view was unlimited, while in Francesco'srear the snowy cone of Soracte rose defiantly over the plains, itsglistening summit towering ruddy in the light of the midday sunagainst the transparent azure of the sky. Wild expanses of copsealternated with pastures brilliant with flowers. Herds of black andwhite cattle were browsing on either side, donkeys and half wildhorses, and occasionally Francesco passed a large, white masseria,like a fortress glistening in the sun. Here and there vineyards madebrown patches in the landscape, and the Caselle had the appearance ofthousands of Arab tents, scattered over the undulating plain to therugged, purple hills of the Basilicata, dimly fading away towards thesun-kissed plains of Calabria.
Almost unconscious of the change, Francesco rode along with abstractedgaze, his eyes as dead as the Apulian land,--land of the dead.
The knowledge that there lay before him to southward some fifty milesof solitude nevertheless lightened the heavy burden in Francesco'sbreast. The oppression of the stone walls of San Cataldo had, in amanner, passed away. This day, at least, was his; this day he was tobe alone and free. Yet, as he rode, with the slowly diminishingdistance his momentary relief went from him again. He seemed tohimself to be passing through a mighty sea of desolate thoughts, whosewaves swept over him with resistless power, leaving him utterlyexhausted when they had passed. The realization of his impending fate,his present position, again took him by storm. By sharp spasms thepicture of his future life and its dreary loneliness rose before hiseyes, then departed as suddenly as it had come, leaving behind it ablack void. The sensation was almost insufferable. In the periods ofmental numbness, when even the desire for struggle seemed to have beenswallowed up by the black gulf of his despair, he wondered vaguely ifhis brain had been turned by the sudden prospect of life's changes.The sunny, care-free days in the Castle of Avellino, the companionshipof those of his own age, others whom he loved and esteemed, the hopesand ambitions nurtured and fostered in an untainted heart:--all thesehe saw slowly vanishing like some Fata Morgana of the desert.
Now, for the first time, discord had come, and the endless vibrationof its echoes was to make his life miserable, perhaps unendurable.Created eminently for the life in the sunny sphere of a court, young,handsome of face and form, easily influenced by friendship, easilyfascinated by beauty, all environment suited to the qualities andendowments of nature was suddenly to be snatched away. He was standingutterly alone in a strange land, in a new atmosphere, in which atgreat distances, dim, unknown figures were eyeing him, invisible, yetterrible walls waiting to enclose him and his youth as in a tomb. Hisworld was gone. The new one was filled with shadows. Yet--why rebel,until the light had broken upon the horizon, until the worst and bestof it all was known to him? At least, in obeying the commands of hisfather, he had done what men would call right,--and more than right.
So were the miles before him lessened until, with the slowly decliningorb of day, he came in sight of the walls and towers of Benevento, inwhich city he would spend the night, to continue his journey toAvellino on the morrow.
The bell of Santa Redegonda was wailing through the deep hush ofevening, which brooded over the fateful city, when Francesco crossedthe bridge spanning the Calore, the waves of ancient Liris rollinggolden towards the tide of the Volturno. As he slowly traversed thefatal field of Grandello, his gaze involuntarily sought the rock pileunder which the body of Manfred had lain, until released by the papallegate, yet buried in unconsecrated ground. All life seemed to beextinct as in a plague-ridden town, and the warden nodded drowsily asunder the shadows of the grim Longobard fortress Francesco rodethrough the ponderous city gate, over which, sculptured in therose-colored granite, the Boar of Benevento showed his tusks.
After having traversed several thoroughfares, without having met asingle human being, Francesco permitted his steed to be its own guide,for the moment strangely fascinated by the aspect of the city, beforewhose walls the destinies of an empire and an imperial dynasty hadbeen decided. Slowly he rode under the stupendous arch of the EmperorTrajan, which now spans the road to Foggia, as it once did the ViaAppia. Far away on the slopes of a mountain shone the white Apuliantown of Caiazzo, while Monte Vergine and Monte Vitolano stood outblack against the azure sky.
Traversing an avenue of poplar trees, which intersected the old Normanand Longobard quarters of the town, Francesco was struck with astrange sight, that caused him to spur his steed to greater haste andto hurry shudderingly past, muttering an Ave.
On every other tree, for the entire length of the avenue, there hung ahuman carcass. The bodies seemed to have been but recently strung up,yet above the tree tops, in the clear sun-lit ether, a vulture wheeledslowly about, as if in anticipation of his gruesome feast.
The distorted faces and the garbs of the victims of thismass-execution left little to the mere surmise, regarding the natureof their crime. Yet an instinct almost unfailing told Francesco thatthese were not the bodies of thieves or bandits, and he gave a sigh ofrelief when the Campanile of the semioriental monastery of St. Juvenalrelieved the gruesome view. After diving into the oldest part of thecity, whose narrow, tortuous lanes were bordered by tall, gloomybuildings decked out in fantastic decorations in honor of one saint oranother, Francesco chanced at last upon a pilgrim hobbling along who,having for some time followed in his wake, suddenly caught up with himand volunteered to guide him to an inn, of whose comfort, at thepresent hour, the traveller stood sorely in need. For he had notquitted the saddle since early dawn, nor had he partaken of food anddrink since he rode out of the gates of San
Cataldo. The endurance ofhis steed, like his own, was well-nigh spent, and he eagerly acceptedthe pilgrim's offer.
The latter proved somewhat more loquacious than chimed withFrancesco's hungry bowels, yet he submitted patiently to his guide'soverflowing fount of information, the more so as much of itstimulated his waning interest. They passed the Osteria, where thefamous witches of Benevento were said to have congregated. A woman,thin and hawk-faced, with high shoulders and a lame foot, was standingin the centre of a huge vault ladling a cauldron suspended from theceiling by heavy chains. Heavy masses of smoke rolled about inside,illumined now and then by long tongues of wavering flames, whichlicked the stone ceiling and lighted up quaint vessels of brasshanging on the rough walls. As she ladled, the crone sang some weirdincantation with the ever returning refrain:
"The green leaves are all red, And the dragon ate up the stars."
They passed the stump of the famous walnut-tree, to which, riding ongoats with flaming torches in their hands and singing:
"Sotto acqua e sotto viento Alla noce di Beneviento,"
the witches used to fly from hundreds of miles around, and which treehad been cut down in the time of Duke Romuald, by San Barbato in holyzeal.
Passing the gloomy portals of the palace where the ill-fated Prince ofTaranto had spent his last night on earth, they turned down a narrow,tortuous lane and shortly arrived before an old Abbey of Longobardmemory, forbidding enough in its aspect, which now served the purposeof a hostelry.
A battered coat-of-arms over the massive arch, under which some nowindistinct motto was hewn in the stone, attracted for a momentFrancesco's passing attention as he rode into the gloomy court. As hedid so, his hand involuntarily gripped the hilt of the hunting knifewhich he carried in his belt and a hot flush of resentment swept overhis pale face.
It needed not the emblem of the Fleur-de-Lis, nor their lavish displayon shields and armors, to inform him that he saw before him adetachment of Anjou's detested soldiery, detested alike by the peopleand by the Church, for the greater glory of which a fanatic Pontiffhad summoned them into Italy. In part, at least, Clement IV was toreap the reward of his own iniquity, for the Provencal scum, whom hehad dignified by the name of crusaders, plundered and insulted withequal impartiality friend or foe, and in vain the exasperated Pontiffthreatened to anathemize his beloved son, as he had pompously styledthe brother of the King of France, who now held the keys to hisdominions.
Dismounting, Francesco threw the reins of his steed to a villainouslooking attendant, who had come forth and led his horse to the nearbystables. Then, by the side of the pilgrim who seemed bent upon seeinghim comfortably lodged, or else to claim some recompense for hisservices as guide and chronicler, he strode through the ranks ofAnjou's soldiery, whose insolent gaze he instinctively felt rivetedupon himself, toward the guest-chamber of the inn.
That his guide was no stranger to the Abbey and that his vocation hadnot been exercised for the first time on the present occasion, soonbecame apparent to Francesco. For the captain of the Provencalstreated him with a familiarity which argued for a closer acquaintance,while the native insolence of a follower of Anjou aired itself in thelurid mirth which the pilgrim seemed to provoke.
Their brief conversation, carried on in Provencal, accompanied withunmistakable glances of derision towards himself that caused the hotblood to surge to Francesco's brow, was but in part intelligible tothe latter, who was listening with an ill-assumed air ofindifference.
"What? An addition to our company?" drawled the Provencal, addressingthe pilgrim.
"Ay, faith, and a most proper," returned the latter sanctimoniously."Just arrived from foreign parts."
"Has he been cooling his heels in Lombardy running from the Guelphs?Or comes he from Rimini, studying the art of cutting throats in arefined manner?"
The pilgrim shrugged. Francesco saw him clasp his rosary, as if he wasabout to mutter an Ave.
"Mayhaps from Padua, learning the art of poisoning at thefountain-head? Eh? Or from Bologna, having joined the guild of thecoopers?"
"They say the Bolognese have tightened the hoops, since theydiscovered a strange amber beverage leaking from one of their casks."
At this allusion to the attempted escape of the ill-fated King Enzofrom the city which was to remain his prison to the end, the Provencallaughed brutally and the pilgrim, with a significant glance at hiscompanion, proceeded to enter the inn.
Throwing open the door of a large apartment, battered and decayed, butshowing unmistakable traces of former magnificence, he beckoned toFrancesco to enter, and, without waiting the latter's pleasure,summoned the host, a large-nosed Calabrian with high cheek-bones andvillainous looks. Having taken proper cognizance of their wants, thelatter departed to fetch the viands. Then they took their seats at aheavy oaken table, and, gazing about the dimly lighted guest-chamber,Francesco noted that it was deserted, save for themselves and two menin plain garbs, seated at the adjoining table. They appeared to beburghers of the town, and Francesco took no further heed of them, butpondered how to rid himself of his companion, whose presence began togrow irksome to him.
The host soon entered with the repast, consisting of cheese, a roughwine and barley bread. Francesco, being exhausted and out of temper,ate in silence, and the pilgrim, after having voraciously devouredwhat he considered his share of the repast, arose. After mutteringprofuse thanks Francesco saw him exchange a nod with the two worthiesat the adjoining table, then hobble from the room by a door oppositethe one through which they had entered.
A chance side glance at the other guests of the Abbey, who ate, forthe most part, in silence or spoke in hushed tones, informed Francescothat he was the object of their own curiosity, for though he appearednot to gaze in their direction, he repeatedly surprised them peeringat him, then whispering to each other, and his nervous tension almostmade their scrutiny unendurable.
Surrounded as he knew himself, however, by so questionable a company,from which the Calabrian host was by no means excluded, he resolved torestrain himself and again fell to his repast, to which he did amplejustice, at intervals scrutinizing those whose scrutiny he resentedand in whom, after all, he scented more than chance travellers.
The one was a man of middling height, spare frame, past the middle ageof life, if judged by the worn features and the furrowed brows. Theexpression of his countenance was ominous and forbidding. The stonyfeatures, sallow, sunken cheeks, hollow, shiftless eyes inspired animmediate aversion.
From beneath a square cap there fell upon the sunken temples two straylocks of auburn hair. This cap, much depressed on the forehead, addedto the shade from under which the eyes peered forth, beneath scantstraight brows. Francesco had some difficulty in reconciling his lookswith the simpleness of his gown in other respects. He might havepassed for an itinerant merchant, yet there was something in hiscountenance which gainsaid this supposition. A small ornament in hiscap especially drew Francesco's attention. It was a paltry image ofthe Virgin in lead, such as poorer pilgrims brought from themiraculous shrines of Lourdes. There was something strangely immovableand fateful about the clean-shaven jaw and chin, the thin compressedlips, something strangely hardened in the straight nose and thefatuous smile, in the restless glitter of the eyes.
His companion, of stouter build and a trifle taller, seemed more thanten years younger. His downcast visage was now and then lighted ordistorted by a forced smile, when by chance he gave way to thatimpulse at all, which was never the case, save in response to certainsecret signs that seemed to pass between him and the other stranger.This personage was armed with a sword and a dagger, but, underneaththeir plain habits, Francesco observed that they both wore concealed aJazeran, or flexible shirt of linked mail.
The unabated scrutiny of these two individuals at last caused such asensation of discomfort to Francesco, who imagined that all eyes musthave read and guessed his secret, that he regretted having remainedunder the same roof, and, but for his unfamiliarity with the roads, hewould have
been tempted even now to pay his reckoning and to leave theAbbey. But even while he was weighing this resolve, he surprised thegaze of the older of the two resting upon him with an expression ofsuch undisguised mockery that at last his restraint gave way.
Rising from his seat, he slowly strode to the table where the twostrangers were seated.
"Why are you staring at me?" he curtly addressed the older, who seemedin no wise abashed by his action.
"Fair son," said that personage, "you seem, from your temper andquality, at the right age to prosper, whether among men or women--ifyou but serve the right master. And, being in quest of a varlet forhim to whom I owe fealty, I was pondering if you were too high-born toaccept such a service."
Francesco regarded the speaker curiously.
"If your offer is made in good faith, I thank you," he said. "But Ifear I should be altogether unfit for the service of your master!"
"Perchance you are more proficient with the pen than the sword,"replied his interlocutor. "That may be mended with time."
"The monks have taught me to read and write. But if any one questionmy courage, let them not provoke me."
"Magnificent," drawled he of the Leaden Lamb. "By Our Lady of Lourdes!He whom you serve would greatly miss a Paladin like you, if perchancethe truce should suddenly be broken!"
This was said with a glance at his companion, who answered thesentiment with a lowering smile, which gleamed along his countenance,enlivening it as a passing meteor enlivens a winter sky.
"Paladin enough for such as either of you," Francesco retorted hotly."I know not what master you serve, nor in what capacity, but yourinsolence argues little in his favor."
At this they both began to laugh and Francesco, observing the hand ofthe speaker's companion stealing to the hilt of his poniard, dealt himwithout wavering with his own sheathed weapon a sudden blow across thewrist, which made him withdraw his hand with a menacing growl.
This incident at first seemed to increase his companion's mirth.
But the laughter suddenly died out of the eyes of the older man andthe look he bestowed on Francesco caused the latter to shiver despitethe warmth of the summer night.
"Hark you, fair youth," he said with a grave sternness, which, despiteall he could do, overawed Francesco. "No more violence! I am not a fitsubject for it, neither is my companion. What is your name andbusiness?"
The speech was uttered in a tone of unmasked brutality which causedFrancesco's hands to clench, as if he would strike his interrogatordead.
"When I desire your master's employment, I shall not fail to tell himmy name and business. Until I do, suffice it for you to know, that Iowe an account of myself to no one save my own liege lord!"
"And who may he be?" drawled he with the Leaden Lamb.
Francesco had it in his mind to retort in a manner which might havestartled his interrogator. But though he restrained himself, he fairlyflung the words into the face of the other.
"To no lesser a man than the Viceroy of Apulia!"
A sneer he did not try to conceal, distorted the older man's face and,irritated by a gesture which heightened his sinister appearance,Francesco leaned towards him.
"Perchance you boast a better?"
He, to whom the question was put, exchanged a swift look with hiscompanion, as if to warn him to keep quiet.
"Charles of Anjou and Provence has no ugly favor to look upon," camethe drawling reply.
"The blood-thirsty butcher!" burst out Francesco, with all the innatehatred of the Ghibelline for his hereditary foe. "Yet I might havethought so!"
"Indeed!" drawled he of the Leaden Lamb with a swift side glance athis companion, who moved restlessly in his seat. "And would you tellhim so, were you to meet him face to face?"
"Yea,--and in his native hell!" exclaimed Francesco.
"Magnificent!" uttered his interlocutor, whose face seemed utterlybloodless in the waning evening light, while that of his companionseemed to have borrowed all its leaden tints. "Yet, fair youth, we arein King Charles' realm, and they say even the leaves of the trees haveears which carry all that is spoken to the King's own!"
"Should I see them in a human head, I should not hesitate to cropthem," Francesco replied with a meaning gesture. Then he turnedabruptly to return to his own table.
"A very laudable desire!" drawled he of the Leaden Lamb, appearing notto notice Francesco's intention. "And perchance, fair youth, you havebut lately seen some trees bearing strange fruit."
Stirred by the memory of the poplar avenue he had so recentlytraversed, Francesco wheeled about.
"That have I," he flashed. "The work of a miscreant!"
He of the Leaden Lamb interposed with a warning gesture, while hiscompanion had slowly arisen from his seat.
"The sight is in no ways strange, fair youth," he drawled, his eyelidsnarrowing as, from under the shade of his headgear, he ominouslyglared at Francesco. "When the summer fades into autumn, and themoonlight nights are long, he who then lives may see clusters of ten,even twenty such acorns dangling from the branches. For," hecontinued, and his voice grew cold and hard as steel, "each rogue thathangs there, is a thief, a traitor to the Church, an excommunicatedwretch! These are the tokens of Anjou's justice, and this is the fatewhich awaits a Ghibelline spy!"
Raising the heavy drinking vessel, the speaker, as if to lend emphasisto his words, let it crash down upon the oaken board, and, as if by apreconcerted signal, the door of the guest-chamber flew open, and inrushed the rude soldiery of Anjou, in whose wake followed theterrified Calabrian host.
Ere Francesco grasped the meaning of what had happened, his arms hadbeen pinioned behind him and, utterly dazed, the words he heard spokenrang in his ears, like the knell of his doom.
"Fairly caught!" drawled he of the Leaden Lamb, turning to hiscompanion, who glared viciously at Francesco. "Did I not tell you,there was more in this than the chance resemblance of a Ghibellinenose and eye? Take him away and hang him at sunrise!"
This command was addressed to the captain of the Provencals, whosewitticisms at his expense had aroused such a resentment in Francesco'sheart on his arrival at the inn. He felt himself jostled and buffetedby the Pontiff's crusaders, whose ill-repressed mirth now venteditself in venomous invectives, in which he in command freely joined.
Too proud to ask his tormentors for the cause of his treatment, whichthey would in all probability withhold, Francesco, now on the verge ofmental and physical collapse, found himself dragged across a court atthe remoteness of which the walls of the Abbey converged into a sortof round tower. While the host of the inn, heaping a millionimprecations on the head of his newly arrived guest, and bemoaning hisunpaid reckoning, unlocked a strong oaken door at the command of theProvencal leader, Francesco stood by as one too utterly dazed toresent the Calabrian's insults, and scarcely had the grinding sound ofthe door turning on its rusty hinges fallen on his ears, than he foundhimself rudely grasped and pushed into a dark, prison-like cell,apparently without any light from without. He stumbled, fell, and hisear caught the rude laughter of those without, a mirth his ownendeavors to scramble to his feet had incited. For they had notreleased his arms, and his frantic efforts to free them from theirbonds exhausted the last remnant of his strength. With a heart-rendingmoan he dragged himself over the wet and slimy floor to the wall,heard the key turn in the lock, and found himself alone in almostStygian darkness.
"To be hanged at sunrise!"
The words rang in his ears like the knell of fate. For what crime hadhe been condemned unheard, without defence? He was too weary to think.All he knew and vaguely felt was, that it was all over, and with thethought there came a numbness almost akin to indifference, a wearinessengendered by the double ordeal he had undergone in so short a spaceof time. What if the spark of life were to be suddenly extinguished,of a life that had become utterly without its own recompense? What ifthis quick release had been decreed by fate? But to die like amalefactor, the prey of the vulture and the birds of ill-omen, whichhe had seen c
oursing above the bodies of those so recentlyexecuted;--no,--not this death at least, not this! With a last franticeffort of the faintly returning tide of life he tried to releasehimself of his shackles. But his efforts served only to drive thebonds deeper into his own flesh, and at last he desisted, his headfalling back limply against the cold wet stone of the wall.
Outside the night was serene. The air was so pure and transparent thatagainst the violet depths of the horizon the shimmering summits of thedistant Apennines were visible like everlasting crystals. Everywherewas the silence of sleep. The Provencals, too, seemed to havesuccumbed to its spell. Only on a distant altana could be heard themournful cries of a mad woman, bewailing the loss of her child: itperturbed the stillness like the keening of a bird of ill-omen. Atlast she, too, was silent, and Francesco, weary, exhausted, hiseyelids drooping, his arms pinioned behind him, his head restingagainst the damp, cold stone, drifted into a restless, uneasy slumber.He heard the clock in the castle tower strike the hour of midnight,answered by the wailing chimes of the bell from Sta. Redegonda; thenconsciousness left him and he sank into the arms of sleep.
A strange dream haunted his pillow of anguish.
He was at the Witches' Sabbat at Benevento. The moon shone with apurple lustre on a dreary heather. The meadow-grasses rustled softlyin the night wind; will-o'-the-wisps danced round old tree-trunksgleaming with rottenness, while the owl, the bittern, the goat-suckermourned plaintively among the reeds.
The moon was suddenly hidden by a cloud. Instead, torches flared withflames of green and blue, and black shapes interlacing anddisentwining began to emerge from the denser gloom. In endlessthousands they came--from Candia, from the isles of Greece, from theBrocken, from Mirandola, and from the town of Benevento; wheeling andspreading over the plain like the withered and perishing leaves ofautumn, driven by an unseen gale. And in their midst sat the greatHe-Goat enthroned upon the mountain.
There was a screeching of pipes made of dead men's bones, the drumstretched with the skin of the hanged was beaten with the tail of awolf. A loathsome stew, not seasoned with salt, was brewing in a vastcauldron, and round it danced herds of toads garbed as cardinals, thesacred Host in their claws.
Long wet whiskers like those of a walrus now swept his neck; a thinwinding tail lashed his face; he stirred uneasily where his head hadfallen against the cold slimy stone of the prison walls; yet thesleeper did not wake. And the dance whirled around him like a howlingstorm.
Suddenly petrifaction fell upon the assembly. All voices were hushed,all movements arrested. From the black throne in the background therecame a dull roar like the growl of approaching thunder, and theassembly fell upon their knees, chanting in solemn tones theceremonial of the Black Mass.
The sleeper stirred uneasily, yet deeper grew the dream.
When the last sounds had died away, there was renewed stillness, thenthe same hoarse voice cried:
"Bring hither the bride! Bring hither the bride!"
An old man, patriarch of sorcerers, nearly bent double with age, cameforward with shuffling steps.
"What is the name of the bride? What is the name of the bride?"
"Ilaria Caselli! Ilaria Caselli!" roared the great voice.
Hearing the pronouncement of her name, Francesco's blood froze in hisveins.
"Ilaria! Ilaria!" rang the cry from the crowd. "Ave ArcisponsaIlaria!"
They brought her forward, though she would have fled. They dragged hertrembling before the throne. A chill, as of death smote her; she wouldhave closed her eyes, but something caused her to look in thedirection where Francesco lay, unable to move, unable to stir. Hislimbs seemed paralyzed; he wanted to cry out to her, his voice failedhim. Vainly she called to him, vainly she strained eyes, arms and bodytowards him. He tried to rise, to rush to her aid, to rescue her fromthe clutches of the terrible apparition on the throne, when suddenlythe goat-skin fell from him and he stood revealed to Francesco, as heof the Leaden Lamb, his green eyes devouring the girlish form thatstood trembling before him.
Another moment, and she sank lifeless into his embrace.
The setting moon once more shone out from behind the clouds, and asthe pallid crimson of her light faded behind the world's dark rim,there came from the distance the morning cry of the cock. Slowly,through the air, came the sound of a bell, and at this sound thefrightened witches, swarm after swarm, streamed away from themountain. He of the Leaden Lamb again became the great He-Goat, andsank lamentably bleating with his beautiful victim through the earth,leaving a stifling stench of sulphur behind.--
With a moan of intense agony Francesco awoke. His head was like lead,his body broken with weariness. A sharp odor of fog greeted hisnostrils. He looked about for a moment, unable to determine where hewas. A violent jerk, as he tried to move his arms, informed him of hiscondition, and with a groan he sank back, striking his head againstthe stone with a sharp pang. Again he closed his eyes, as if stillhaunted by the phantoms of the Witches' Sabbat. Had it been but adream indeed? Vivid it stood before his soul, and out of the wholeghostly hubbub the pure face of Ilaria Caselli shone white as marbleagainst a storm-cloud. Then, with the memory of her he loved dearerthan life, with the memory of her whom he was to renounce forever,there returned the consciousness of his impending fate. Would she everknow why he had not returned,--and knowing, would her love for himendure?
The bell of Sta. Redegonda was tolling heavily and monotonously.Outside some one was knocking insistently, some one who had alreadyknocked more than once. There was a brief pause, then the turning of akey in the lock grated unpleasantly on Francesco's ear.
As the door of his prison swung back, the dull morning light fell onthe form of a monk, who had slowly entered in advance of some five orsix men-at-arms, but paused almost instantly, as if looking for theobject in quest of which he had come.
The import of the monk's presence at this hour was not lost uponFrancesco. It was no hideous dream then, it was terrible reality; hewas to die. To die without having committed a crime, without anoffence with which he might charge his conscience; to die without ahearing,--without a trial. For a moment all that could render deathterrible, and death in the form in which he was to meet it, mostterrible of all, rushed through his mind. The love of life, despitethe gloomy future it held out to him, re-asserted itself and, as adrowning man sees all the scenes of the past condensed into one lastconscious moment, so before Francesco's inner gaze the pageant of hischildhood, the sunny days at the Court of Avellino rushed past, as inthe fleeting phantasmagoria of a dream. An hour hence, and his eyeswould no longer gaze upon the scenes once dear to him as hisyouth;--he would have followed him, who would have consigned him to aliving death;--he would have been gathered into annihilation's waste.
The monk had walked up slowly to the human heap he saw dimly writhingon the ground, and, bending over Francesco, exhorted him to think ofthe salvation of his soul, to which end, in consideration of hisyouth, the clemency of his judge had permitted him to receive the lastrites of the Church.
At the sound of the monk's voice Francesco gave a start, but, as hemade no reply, the friar bent over him anew, in an endeavor to scanthe features of one so obdurate as to refuse his ministrations.
A mutual outcry of surprise broke the intense stillness. They hadrecognized each other, the monk who had carried to Gregorio Villanithe Pontiff's conditional absolution, and the youth whom that decreehad consigned to a living death.
To the monk's amazed question as to the cause of his terrible plight,Francesco wearily and brokenly replied that he knew of nothing. He hadbeen insulted, overpowered and condemned.
Turning to the leader of the Provencals, the friar sternly plied himwith questions, but his replies seemed far from satisfying, for themonk demanded to be conducted straightway to their master. Francescoheard them scurry from his prison, after securing the door, and,exhausted from his mental and bodily sufferings, his limbs aching asin the throes of a fever, he fell back against the damp stone andswooned.
; When he waked, he found himself on a bed in a chamber, the only windowof which opened on to a courtyard. The sun was riding high in theheavens and his beams, falling aslant on the opposite wall, exercisedsuch a magical effect on the awakened sleeper, that he sat boltupright on his couch and, turning to the friar at his bedside,demanded to know where he was.
The friar enjoined him to be silent and arose, to fetch a repast, butwhen he found that Francesco's restlessness was not likely to beassuaged by this method, he slowly and cautiously informed him of theevents which had transpired, since he had visited him in his cell, toaccompany him, on what was to have been, his last walk on earth.
Dwelling on the probable causes leading to his summary condemnation,the monk hinted at rumors, that Conradino, son of Emperor Conrad IV,had crossed the Alps in armed descent upon Italy, to wrest the landsof Manfred from Anjou's grasp. He further hinted at a conspiracy afootamong the Northern Italian Ghibellines, to rescue from her prison inCastel del Ovo, where she had been confined since the fatal battle ofBenevento, the luckless Helena, Manfred's Queen. A fatal resemblanceto one, known to have been entrusted with a similar task, had causedthe swift issuance of the death-warrant on the part of Anjou'sprocurator, a sentence which no denial on his part would havesuspended or annulled, as, incensed at Francesco's bearing anddemeanor, he of the Leaden Lamb had remorselessly consigned him to hisfate. And, but for his timely arrival and speedy intervention, and thevigorous protests with which the monk supported his claim ofFrancesco's innocence, the latter's fate would have been hopelesslysealed.
Francesco, partaking of the viands the monk had placed before him,listened attentively, while the friar assisted him, for as yet hecould barely make use of his arms and hands, cut and bruised as theywere from the cords of the Provencals.
The abuse and the insults to which he had been subjected since hisarrival at Benevento, and the dire peril from which he had so narrowlyescaped, had exasperated Francesco to a degree, that he was tremblingin every limb with the memory of the outrage, and he vowed a heavyreckoning against the fiend who, unheard and untried, would have senthim to an ignominious death. Thereupon the friar informed him, thatthe Provencals had departed shortly after he had been released fromhis prison, and exhausted, Francesco fell back among the cushions intoa deep and dreamless slumber, while the friar resumed his office ofwatchfulness by his bedside.
He awoke strengthened, and, save for the bruises testifying to histreatment at the hands of the Provencals, his splendid youth swiftlyre-asserted itself. It suffered him no longer within the ominousconfines of the Witches' City.
Heedless of the friar's protests, who declared that he was not strongenough to continue his journey, he summoned the Calabrian landlordwhose deferential demeanor, when he entered Francesco's presence, wasat marked variance with his conduct on the previous night.
After having paid his reckoning and secured his steed, Francescothanked the friar for his intervention on his behalf, then, with somedifficulty, he mounted and rode out of the gates of Benevento, withoutas much as looking back with a single glance upon the city's ominouswalls.
The Hill of Venus Page 3
