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 his

beams to penetrate the humid atmosphere. In the night a heavy dew had

fallen and the lush turf on the edge of the forest was a sparkling

mass of drops. The fragrance of the rose-gardens and poppy-fields

environing San Cataldo was stifling. The very worms and insects lay

inert about shrubs and foliage. In the west, a falling arch of heavy

clouds hung low over the distant mountains. It was an unnatural

morning, which presaged a storm.

The forests of the Murgie were still dark when Francesco Villani

entered their cool and fragrant depths. To him the smile of dawn on

that morning had been as the mirthless smile of a ghost. For, with

to-day, there had been awakened the memories of yesterday, the

consciousness of his impending fate.

Fate! What a future it had prepared for him, a future void of

everything which the soul of man may crave, which may delight his

heart. The sins of another were to be visited upon his guiltless

head,--he was to atone for his own existence.

Yet even that seemed bearable compared with the hour to come at the

Court of Avellino, the hour when he must renounce all he held dear in

life, appear an ingrate, a traitor; the hour of parting, a parting for

life, for all eternity from the friends and companions of his youth

and from one who was all the world to him. At the mere thought, the

life blood froze in his veins.

The forests of the Murgie gradually thinned, and Francesco emerged

upon a high level plateau, which to southward sloped into the Apulian

plains, 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 refuge

from the heat in that vast plain, which soon spread on every side with

the broad sterility of the African desert. Half blinded, Francesco

cantered along, dreading every step that carried him nearer to the

gates of his lost paradise.

A mysterious silence was brooding over the immense expanse, which

became more desolate with every step. The wide plains reposed in a

melancholy fertility; flowering thistles were swarming with countless

butterflies; dry fennel, wild and withered, rioted round the scattered

remnants of broken columns, on whose summits wild birds of prey were

screaming.

As the sun rode higher in the heavens, the panorama suddenly changed,

as if transformed by the wand of a magician. Colossal plane and

carob-trees rose on the horizon, waving fantastic shadows over

innumerable old crypts and tombs and the fantastic shapes of the

underbrush. To southward the view was unlimited, while in Francesco's

rear the snowy cone of Soracté rose defiantly over the plains, its

glistening summit towering ruddy in the light of the midday sun

against the transparent azure of the sky. Wild expanses of copse

alternated with pastures brilliant with flowers. Herds of black and

white cattle were browsing on either side, donkeys and half wild

horses, and occasionally Francesco passed a large, white masseria,

like a fortress glistening in the sun. Here and there vineyards made

brown patches in the landscape, and the Casellé had the appearance of

thousands of Arab tents, scattered over the undulating plain to the

rugged, purple hills of the Basilicata, dimly fading away towards the

sun-kissed plains of Calabria.

Almost unconscious of the change, Francesco rode along with abstracted

gaze, his eyes as dead as the Apulian land,--land of the dead.

The knowledge that there lay before him to southward some fifty miles

of solitude nevertheless lightened the heavy burden in Francesco's

breast. The oppression of the stone walls of San Cataldo had, in a

manner, passed away. This day, at least, was his; this day he was to

be alone and free. Yet, as he rode, with the slowly diminishing

distance his momentary relief went from him again. He seemed to

himself to be passing through a mighty sea of desolate thoughts, whose

waves swept over him with resistless power, leaving him utterly

exhausted when they had passed. The realization of his impending fate,

his present position, again took him by storm. By sharp spasms the

picture of his future life and its dreary loneliness rose before his

eyes, then departed as suddenly as it had come, leaving behind it a

black void. The sensation was almost insufferable. In the periods of

mental numbness, when even the desire for struggle seemed to have been

swallowed up by the black gulf of his despair, he wondered vaguely if

his brain had been turned by the sudden prospect of life's changes.

The sunny, care-free days in the Castle of Avellino, the companionship

of those of his own age, others whom he loved and esteemed, the hopes

and ambitions nurtured and fostered in an untainted heart:--all these

he saw slowly vanishing like some Fata Morgana of the desert.

Now, for the first time, discord had come, and the endless vibration

of 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, easily

fascinated by beauty, all environment suited to the qualities and

endowments of nature was suddenly to be snatched away. He was standing

utterly alone in a strange land, in a new atmosphere, in which at

great distances, dim, unknown figures were eyeing him, invisible, yet

terrible walls waiting to enclose him and his youth as in a tomb. His

world was gone. The new one was filled with shadows. Yet--why rebel,

until the light had broken upon the horizon, until the worst and best

of it all was known to him? At least, in obeying the commands of his

father, he had done what men would call right,--and more than right.

So were the miles before him lessened until, with the slowly declining

orb of day, he came in sight of the walls and towers of Benevento, in

which city he would spend the night, to continue his journey to

Avellino on the morrow.

The bell of Santa Redegonda was wailing through the deep hush of

evening, which brooded over the fateful city, when Francesco crossed

the bridge spanning the Caloré, the waves of ancient Liris rolling

golden towards the tide of the Volturno. As he slowly traversed the

fatal field of Grandello, his gaze involuntarily sought the rock pile

under which the body of Manfred had lain, until released by the papal

legate, yet buried in unconsecrated ground. All life seemed to be

extinct as in a plague-ridden town, and the warden nodded drowsily as

under the shadows of the grim Longobard fortress Francesco rode

through the ponderous city gate, over which, sculptured in the

rose-colored granite, the Boar of Benevento showed his tusks.

After having traversed several thoroughfares, without having met a

single human being, Francesco permitted his steed to be its own guide,

for the moment strangely fascinated by the aspect of the city, before

whose walls the destinies of an empire and an imperial dynasty had

been decided. Slowly he rode under the stupendous arch of the Emperor

Trajan, which now spans the road to Foggia, as it once did the Via

Appia. Far away on the slopes of a mountain shone the white Apulian

town of Caiazzo, while Monte Verginé and Monte Vitolano stood out

black against the azure sky.

Traversing an avenue of poplar trees, which intersected the old Norman

and Longobard quarters of the town, Francesco was struck with a

strange sight, that caused him to spur his steed to greater haste and

to hurry shudderingly past, muttering an Ave.

On every other tree, for the entire length of the avenue, there hung a

human carcass. The bodies seemed to have been but recently strung up,

yet above the tree tops, in the clear sun-lit ether, a vulture wheeled

slowly about, as if in anticipation of his gruesome feast.

The distorted faces and the garbs of the victims of this

mass-execution left little to the mere surmise, regarding the nature

of their crime. Yet an instinct almost unfailing told Francesco that

these were not the bodies of thieves or bandits, and he gave a sigh of

relief when the Campanile of the semioriental monastery of St. Juvenal

relieved the gruesome view. After diving into the oldest part of the

city, whose narrow, tortuous lanes were bordered by tall, gloomy

buildings decked out in fantastic decorations in honor of one saint or

another, Francesco chanced at last upon a pilgrim hobbling along who,

having for some time followed in his wake, suddenly caught up with him

and volunteered to guide him to an inn, of whose comfort, at the

present hour, the traveller stood sorely in need. For he had not

quitted the saddle since early dawn, nor had he partaken of food and

drink since he rode out of the gates of San Cataldo. The endurance of

his steed, like his own, was well-nigh spent, and he eagerly accepted

the pilgrim's offer.

The latter proved somewhat more loquacious than chimed with

Francesco's hungry bowels, yet he submitted patiently to his guide's

overflowing fount of information, the more so as much of it

stimulated his waning interest. They passed the Osteria, where the

famous witches of Benevento were said to have congregated. A woman,

thin and hawk-faced, with high shoulders and a lame foot, was standing

in the centre of a huge vault ladling a cauldron suspended from the

ceiling by heavy chains. Heavy masses of smoke rolled about inside,

illumined now and then by long tongues of wavering flames, which

licked the stone ceiling and lighted up quaint vessels of brass

hanging on the rough walls. As she ladled, the crone sang some weird

incantation 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 on

goats 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 tree

had been cut down in the time of Duke Romuald, by San Barbato in holy

zeal.

Passing the gloomy portals of the palace where the ill-fated Prince of

Taranto had spent his last night on earth, they turned down a narrow,

tortuous lane and shortly arrived before an old Abbey of Longobard

memory, forbidding enough in its aspect, which now served the purpose

of a hostelry.

A battered coat-of-arms over the massive arch, under which some now

indistinct motto was hewn in the stone, attracted for a moment

Francesco's passing attention as he rode into the gloomy court. As he

did so, his hand involuntarily gripped the hilt of the hunting knife

which he carried in his belt and a hot flush of resentment swept over

his pale face.

It needed not the emblem of the Fleur-de-Lis, nor their lavish display

on shields and armors, to inform him that he saw before him a

detachment of Anjou's detested soldiery, detested alike by the people

and by the Church, for the greater glory of which a fanatic Pontiff

had summoned them into Italy. In part, at least, Clement IV was to

reap the reward of his own iniquity, for the Provencal scum, whom he

had dignified by the name of crusaders, plundered and insulted with

equal impartiality friend or foe, and in vain the exasperated Pontiff

threatened to anathemize his beloved son, as he had pompously styled

the brother of the King of France, who now held the keys to his

dominions.

Dismounting, Francesco threw the reins of his steed to a villainous

looking attendant, who had come forth and led his horse to the nearby

stables. Then, by the side of the pilgrim who seemed bent upon seeing

him comfortably lodged, or else to claim some recompense for his

services as guide and chronicler, he strode through the ranks of

Anjou's soldiery, whose insolent gaze he instinctively felt riveted

upon himself, toward the guest-chamber of the inn.

That his guide was no stranger to the Abbey and that his vocation had

not been exercised for the first time on the present occasion, soon

became apparent to Francesco. For the captain of the Provencals

treated him with a familiarity which argued for a closer acquaintance,

while the native insolence of a follower of Anjou aired itself in the

lurid mirth which the pilgrim seemed to provoke.

Their brief conversation, carried on in Provencal, accompanied with

unmistakable glances of derision towards himself that caused the hot

blood to surge to Francesco's brow, was but in part intelligible to

the latter, who was listening with an ill-assumed air of

indifference.

"What? An addition to our company?" drawled the Provencal, addressing

the 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 a

refined manner?"

The pilgrim shrugged. Francesco saw him clasp his rosary, as if he was

about to mutter an Ave.

"Mayhaps from Padua, learning the art of poisoning at the

fountain-head? Eh? Or from Bologna, having joined the guild of the

coopers?"

"They say the Bolognese have tightened the hoops, since they

discovered a strange amber beverage leaking from one of their casks."

At this allusion to the attempted escape of the ill-fated King Enzo

from the city which was to remain his prison to the end, the Provencal

laughed brutally and the pilgrim, with a significant glance at his

companion, proceeded to enter the inn.

Throwing open the door of a large apartment, battered and decayed, but

showing unmistakable traces of former magnificence, he beckoned to

Francesco to enter, and, without waiting the latter's pleasure,

summoned the host, a large-nosed Calabrian with high cheek-bones and

villainous looks. Having taken proper cognizance of their wants, the

latter departed to fetch the viands. Then they took their seats at a

heavy oaken table, and, gazing about the dimly lighted guest-chamber,

Francesco noted that it was deserted, save for themselves and two men

in plain garbs, seated at the adjoining table. They appeared to be

burghers of the town, and Francesco took no further heed of them, but

pondered how to rid himself of his companion, whose presence began to

grow irksome to him.

The host soon entered with the repast, consisting of cheese, a rough

wine and barley bread. Francesco, being exhausted and out of temper,

ate in silence, and the pilgrim, after having voraciously devoured

what he considered his share of the repast, arose. After muttering

profuse thanks Francesco saw him exchange a nod with the two worthies

at the adjoining table, then hobble from the room by a door opposite

the one through which they had entered.

A chance side glance at the other guests of the Abbey, who ate, for

the most part, in silence or spoke in hushed tones, informed Francesco

that he was the object of their own curiosity, for though he appeared

not to gaze in their direction, he repeatedly surprised them peering

at him, then whispering to each other, and his nervous tension almost

made 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 to

restrain himself and again fell to his repast, to which he did ample

justice, at intervals scrutinizing those whose scrutiny he resented

and in whom, after all, he scented more than chance travellers.

The one was a man of middling height, spare frame, past the middle age

of life, if judged by the worn features and the furrowed brows. The

expression of his countenance was ominous and forbidding. The stony

features, sallow, sunken cheeks, hollow, shiftless eyes inspired an

immediate aversion.

From beneath a square cap there fell upon the sunken temples two stray

locks of auburn hair. This cap, much depressed on the forehead, added

to the shade from under which the eyes peered forth, beneath scant

straight brows. Francesco had some difficulty in reconciling his looks

with the simpleness of his gown in other respects. He might have

passed for an itinerant merchant, yet there was something in his

countenance which gainsaid this supposition. A small ornament in his

cap especially drew Francesco's attention. It was a paltry image of

the Virgin in lead, such as poorer pilgrims brought from the

miraculous shrines of Lourdes. There was something strangely immovable

and fateful about the clean-shaven jaw and chin, the thin compressed

lips, something strangely hardened in the straight nose and the

fatuous smile, in the restless glitter of the eyes.

His companion, of stouter build and a trifle taller, seemed more than

ten years younger. His downcast visage was now and then lighted or

distorted by a forced smile, when by chance he gave way to that

impulse at all, which was never the case, save in response to certain

secret signs that seemed to pass between him and the other stranger.

This personage was armed with a sword and a dagger, but, underneath

their plain habits, Francesco observed that they both wore concealed a

Jazeran, or flexible shirt of linked mail.

The unabated scrutiny of these two individuals at last caused such a

sensation of discomfort to Francesco, who imagined that all eyes must

have read and guessed his secret, that he regretted having remained

under the same roof, and, but for his unfamiliarity with the roads, he

would have been tempted even now to pay his reckoning and to leave the

Abbey. But even while he was weighing this resolve, he surprised the

gaze of the older of the two resting upon him with an expression of

such undisguised mockery that at last his restraint gave way.

Rising from his seat, he slowly strode to the table where the two

strangers were seated.

"Why are you staring at me?" he curtly addressed the older, who seemed

in no wise abashed by his action.

"Fair son," said that personage, "you seem, from your temper and

quality, at the right age to prosper, whether among men or women--if

you but serve the right master. And, being in quest of a varlet for

him to whom I owe fealty, I was pondering if you were too high-born to

accept such a service."

Francesco regarded the speaker curiously.

"If your offer is made in good faith, I thank you," he said. "But I

fear 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 question

my 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 perchance

the truce should suddenly be broken!"

This was said with a glance at his companion, who answered the

sentiment 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 your

insolence argues little in his favor."

At this they both began to laugh and Francesco, observing the hand of

the speaker's companion stealing to the hilt of his poniard, dealt him

without wavering with his own sheathed weapon a sudden blow across the

wrist, 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 and

the look he bestowed on Francesco caused the latter to shiver despite

the warmth of the summer night.

"Hark you, fair youth," he said with a grave sternness, which, despite

all he could do, overawed Francesco. "No more violence! I am not a fit

subject for it, neither is my companion. What is your name and

business?"

The speech was uttered in a tone of unmasked brutality which caused

Francesco's hands to clench, as if he would strike his interrogator

dead.

"When I desire your master's employment, I shall not fail to tell him

my name and business. Until I do, suffice it for you to know, that I

owe 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 have

startled his interrogator. But though he restrained himself, he fairly

flung 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 his

companion, as if to warn him to keep quiet.

"Charles of Anjou and Provence has no ugly favor to look upon," came

the drawling reply.

"The blood-thirsty butcher!" burst out Francesco, with all the innate

hatred of the Ghibelline for his hereditary foe. "Yet I might have

thought so!"

"Indeed!" drawled he of the Leaden Lamb with a swift side glance at

his companion, who moved restlessly in his seat. "And would you tell

him so, were you to meet him face to face?"

"Yea,--and in his native hell!" exclaimed Francesco.

"Magnificent!" uttered his interlocutor, whose face seemed utterly

bloodless in the waning evening light, while that of his companion

seemed to have borrowed all its leaden tints. "Yet, fair youth, we are

in King Charles' realm, and they say even the leaves of the trees have

ears which carry all that is spoken to the King's own!"

"Should I see them in a human head, I should not hesitate to crop

them," Francesco replied with a meaning gesture. Then he turned

abruptly to return to his own table.

"A very laudable desire!" drawled he of the Leaden Lamb, appearing not

to notice Francesco's intention. "And perchance, fair youth, you have

but lately seen some trees bearing strange fruit."

Stirred by the memory of the poplar avenue he had so recently

traversed, Francesco wheeled about.

"That have I," he flashed. "The work of a miscreant!"

He of the Leaden Lamb interposed with a warning gesture, while his

companion had slowly arisen from his seat.

"The sight is in no ways strange, fair youth," he drawled, his eyelids

narrowing as, from under the shade of his headgear, he ominously

glared at Francesco. "When the summer fades into autumn, and the

moonlight nights are long, he who then lives may see clusters of ten,

even twenty such acorns dangling from the branches. For," he

continued, and his voice grew cold and hard as steel, "each rogue that

hangs there, is a thief, a traitor to the Church, an excommunicated

wretch! These are the tokens of Anjou's justice, and this is the fate

which awaits a Ghibelline spy!"

Raising the heavy drinking vessel, the speaker, as if to lend emphasis

to his words, let it crash down upon the oaken board, and, as if by a

preconcerted signal, the door of the guest-chamber flew open, and in

rushed the rude soldiery of Anjou, in whose wake followed the

terrified Calabrian host.

Ere Francesco grasped the meaning of what had happened, his arms had

been pinioned behind him and, utterly dazed, the words he heard spoken

rang in his ears, like the knell of his doom.

"Fairly caught!" drawled he of the Leaden Lamb, turning to his

companion, who glared viciously at Francesco. "Did I not tell you,

there was more in this than the chance resemblance of a Ghibelline

nose and eye? Take him away and hang him at sunrise!"

This command was addressed to the captain of the Provencals, whose

witticisms at his expense had aroused such a resentment in Francesco's

heart on his arrival at the inn. He felt himself jostled and buffeted

by the Pontiff's crusaders, whose ill-repressed mirth now vented

itself in venomous invectives, in which he in command freely joined.

Too proud to ask his tormentors for the cause of his treatment, which

they would in all probability withhold, Francesco, now on the verge of

mental and physical collapse, found himself dragged across a court at

the remoteness of which the walls of the Abbey converged into a sort

of round tower. While the host of the inn, heaping a million

imprecations on the head of his newly arrived guest, and bemoaning his

unpaid reckoning, unlocked a strong oaken door at the command of the

Provencal leader, Francesco stood by as one too utterly dazed to

resent the Calabrian's insults, and scarcely had the grinding sound of

the door turning on its rusty hinges fallen on his ears, than he found

himself rudely grasped and pushed into a dark, prison-like cell,

apparently without any light from without. He stumbled, fell, and his

ear caught the rude laughter of those without, a mirth his own

endeavors to scramble to his feet had incited. For they had not

released his arms, and his frantic efforts to free them from their

bonds exhausted the last remnant of his strength. With a heart-rending

moan he dragged himself over the wet and slimy floor to the wall,

heard the key turn in the lock, and found himself alone in almost

Stygian darkness.

"To be hanged at sunrise!"

The words rang in his ears like the knell of fate. For what crime had

he 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 the

thought there came a numbness almost akin to indifference, a weariness

engendered by the double ordeal he had undergone in so short a space

of time. What if the spark of life were to be suddenly extinguished,

of a life that had become utterly without its own recompense? What if

this quick release had been decreed by fate? But to die like a

malefactor, the prey of the vulture and the birds of ill-omen, which

he had seen coursing above the bodies of those so recently

executed;--no,--not this death at least, not this! With a last frantic

effort of the faintly returning tide of life he tried to release

himself of his shackles. But his efforts served only to drive the

bonds deeper into his own flesh, and at last he desisted, his head

falling back limply against the cold wet stone of the wall.

Outside the night was serene. The air was so pure and transparent that

against the violet depths of the horizon the shimmering summits of the

distant Apennines were visible like everlasting crystals. Everywhere

was the silence of sleep. The Provencals, too, seemed to have

succumbed to its spell. Only on a distant altana could be heard the

mournful cries of a mad woman, bewailing the loss of her child: it

perturbed the stillness like the keening of a bird of ill-omen. At

last she, too, was silent, and Francesco, weary, exhausted, his

eyelids drooping, his arms pinioned behind him, his head resting

against 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; then

consciousness 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 a

purple lustre on a dreary heather. The meadow-grasses rustled softly

in the night wind; will-o'-the-wisps danced round old tree-trunks

gleaming with rottenness, while the owl, the bittern, the goat-sucker

mourned plaintively among the reeds.

The moon was suddenly hidden by a cloud. Instead, torches flared with

flames of green and blue, and black shapes interlacing and

disentwining began to emerge from the denser gloom. In endless

thousands they came--from Candia, from the isles of Greece, from the

Brocken, from Mirandola, and from the town of Benevento; wheeling and

spreading over the plain like the withered and perishing leaves of

autumn, driven by an unseen gale. And in their midst sat the great

He-Goat enthroned upon the mountain.

There was a screeching of pipes made of dead men's bones, the drum

stretched with the skin of the hanged was beaten with the tail of a

wolf. A loathsome stew, not seasoned with salt, was brewing in a vast

cauldron, and round it danced herds of toads garbed as cardinals, the

sacred Host in their claws.

Long wet whiskers like those of a walrus now swept his neck; a thin

winding tail lashed his face; he stirred uneasily where his head had

fallen against the cold slimy stone of the prison walls; yet the

sleeper did not wake. And the dance whirled around him like a howling

storm.

Suddenly petrifaction fell upon the assembly. All voices were hushed,

all movements arrested. From the black throne in the background there

came a dull roar like the growl of approaching thunder, and the

assembly fell upon their knees, chanting in solemn tones the

ceremonial of the Black Mass.

The sleeper stirred uneasily, yet deeper grew the dream.

When the last sounds had died away, there was renewed stillness, then

the same hoarse voice cried:

"Bring hither the bride! Bring hither the bride!"

An old man, patriarch of sorcerers, nearly bent double with age, came

forward 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 his

veins.

"Ilaria! Ilaria!" rang the cry from the crowd. "Ave Arcisponsa

Ilaria!"

They brought her forward, though she would have fled. They dragged her

trembling before the throne. A chill, as of death smote her; she would

have closed her eyes, but something caused her to look in the

direction where Francesco lay, unable to move, unable to stir. His

limbs seemed paralyzed; he wanted to cry out to her, his voice failed

him. Vainly she called to him, vainly she strained eyes, arms and body

towards him. He tried to rise, to rush to her aid, to rescue her from

the clutches of the terrible apparition on the throne, when suddenly

the goat-skin fell from him and he stood revealed to Francesco, as he

of the Leaden Lamb, his green eyes devouring the girlish form that

stood trembling before him.

Another moment, and she sank lifeless into his embrace.

The setting moon once more shone out from behind the clouds, and as

the 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 the

frightened witches, swarm after swarm, streamed away from the

mountain. He of the Leaden Lamb again became the great He-Goat, and

sank 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 his

nostrils. He looked about for a moment, unable to determine where he

was. A violent jerk, as he tried to move his arms, informed him of his

condition, and with a groan he sank back, striking his head against

the stone with a sharp pang. Again he closed his eyes, as if still

haunted by the phantoms of the Witches' Sabbat. Had it been but a

dream indeed? Vivid it stood before his soul, and out of the whole

ghostly hubbub the pure face of Ilaria Caselli shone white as marble

against a storm-cloud. Then, with the memory of her he loved dearer

than life, with the memory of her whom he was to renounce forever,

there returned the consciousness of his impending fate. Would she ever

know why he had not returned,--and knowing, would her love for him

endure?

The bell of Sta. Redegonda was tolling heavily and monotonously.

Outside some one was knocking insistently, some one who had already

knocked more than once. There was a brief pause, then the turning of a

key in the lock grated unpleasantly on Francesco's ear.

As the door of his prison swung back, the dull morning light fell on

the form of a monk, who had slowly entered in advance of some five or

six men-at-arms, but paused almost instantly, as if looking for the

object in quest of which he had come.

The import of the monk's presence at this hour was not lost upon

Francesco. It was no hideous dream then, it was terrible reality; he

was to die. To die without having committed a crime, without an

offence with which he might charge his conscience; to die without a

hearing,--without a trial. For a moment all that could render death

terrible, and death in the form in which he was to meet it, most

terrible of all, rushed through his mind. The love of life, despite

the gloomy future it held out to him, re-asserted itself and, as a

drowning man sees all the scenes of the past condensed into one last

conscious moment, so before Francesco's inner gaze the pageant of his

childhood, the sunny days at the Court of Avellino rushed past, as in

the fleeting phantasmagoria of a dream. An hour hence, and his eyes

would no longer gaze upon the scenes once dear to him as his

youth;--he would have followed him, who would have consigned him to a

living death;--he would have been gathered into annihilation's waste.

The monk had walked up slowly to the human heap he saw dimly writhing

on the ground, and, bending over Francesco, exhorted him to think of

the salvation of his soul, to which end, in consideration of his

youth, the clemency of his judge had permitted him to receive the last

rites of the Church.

At the sound of the monk's voice Francesco gave a start, but, as he

made no reply, the friar bent over him anew, in an endeavor to scan

the features of one so obdurate as to refuse his ministrations.

A mutual outcry of surprise broke the intense stillness. They had

recognized each other, the monk who had carried to Gregorio Villani

the Pontiff's conditional absolution, and the youth whom that decree

had 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 had

been insulted, overpowered and condemned.

Turning to the leader of the Provencals, the friar sternly plied him

with questions, but his replies seemed far from satisfying, for the

monk demanded to be conducted straightway to their master. Francesco

heard them scurry from his prison, after securing the door, and,

exhausted from his mental and bodily sufferings, his limbs aching as

in the throes of a fever, he fell back against the damp stone and

swooned.

When he waked, he found himself on a bed in a chamber, the only window

of which opened on to a courtyard. The sun was riding high in the

heavens and his beams, falling aslant on the opposite wall, exercised

such a magical effect on the awakened sleeper, that he sat bolt

upright 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, but

when he found that Francesco's restlessness was not likely to be

assuaged by this method, he slowly and cautiously informed him of the

events which had transpired, since he had visited him in his cell, to

accompany 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 lands

of Manfred from Anjou's grasp. He further hinted at a conspiracy afoot

among the Northern Italian Ghibellines, to rescue from her prison in

Castel del Ovo, where she had been confined since the fatal battle of

Benevento, the luckless Helena, Manfred's Queen. A fatal resemblance

to one, known to have been entrusted with a similar task, had caused

the swift issuance of the death-warrant on the part of Anjou's

procurator, a sentence which no denial on his part would have

suspended or annulled, as, incensed at Francesco's bearing and

demeanor, he of the Leaden Lamb had remorselessly consigned him to his

fate. And, but for his timely arrival and speedy intervention, and the

vigorous protests with which the monk supported his claim of

Francesco's innocence, the latter's fate would have been hopelessly

sealed.

Francesco, partaking of the viands the monk had placed before him,

listened attentively, while the friar assisted him, for as yet he

could barely make use of his arms and hands, cut and bruised as they

were from the cords of the Provencals.

The abuse and the insults to which he had been subjected since his

arrival at Benevento, and the dire peril from which he had so narrowly

escaped, had exasperated Francesco to a degree, that he was trembling

in every limb with the memory of the outrage, and he vowed a heavy

reckoning against the fiend who, unheard and untried, would have sent

him to an ignominious death. Thereupon the friar informed him, that

the Provencals had departed shortly after he had been released from

his prison, and exhausted, Francesco fell back among the cushions into

a deep and dreamless slumber, while the friar resumed his office of

watchfulness by his bedside.

He awoke strengthened, and, save for the bruises testifying to his

treatment at the hands of the Provencals, his splendid youth swiftly

re-asserted itself. It suffered him no longer within the ominous

confines of the Witches' City.

Heedless of the friar's protests, who declared that he was not strong

enough to continue his journey, he summoned the Calabrian landlord

whose deferential demeanor, when he entered Francesco's presence, was

at marked variance with his conduct on the previous night.

After having paid his reckoning and secured his steed, Francesco

thanked the friar for his intervention on his behalf, then, with some

difficulty, he mounted and rode out of the gates of Benevento, without

as much as looking back with a single glance upon the city's ominous

walls.