CHAPTER VIII

THE SHADOW OF ASRAEL

It was ten in the morning.

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 sounds of bells from tower and

campanile seemed to break the dreamlike stillness as they began to toll

for High Mass.

In a circular chamber lighted only by lamps, for there were no windows,

and daylight never penetrated there, before an onyx table covered with

strange globes and philtres, sat Basil.

The walls of the chamber were of wood stained purple. The far wall

was hidden by shelves on which were many rolls of vellum and papyrus,

spoils of pagan libraries of the past. There were the works of monks

from all the monasteries of Europe, illuminated by master hands, the

black letter pages glowing with red and gold, almost priceless even

then. In one corner of the room stood an iron chest, secured by locks.

What this contained no one even dared to guess.

As the chimes from churches and convents reached his ears, Basil's face

paled. Something began to stir in the dark unfathomable eyes as some

unknown thing stirs in deep water. Some nameless being was looking out

of those windows of the soul. Yet the rest of the face was unruffled

and expressionless, and the contrast was so horrible that a spectator

would have shrank away, cold fear gripping his heart, and perhaps a cry

upon his lips.

Basil had closed the heavy bronze doors behind him when he had entered

from the atrium. The floor of colored marbles was flooded with the

light from the bronze lamps. Before him was a short passage, hardly

more than an alcove, terminating in a door of cedarwood behind a purple

curtain.

In the dull yellow gleam of the lamps the chamber seemed cold, full of

chill and musty air.

In a moment however the lamps seemed to burn more brightly, as Basil's

eyes became adjusted to their lights.

There was the silence of the tomb. The lamps burnt without a flicker,

for there was not a breath of air to disturb their steady glow. The

plan of the room, its yellow lights, its silence, its entire lack of

correspondence with the outside world, was Basil's own. He had designed

it as a port, as it were, whence to put out to sea upon the tide of his

ever-changing moods in the black barque of sin.

For some time he remained alone in the silent room, dreaming and

brooding over greatness and power, that terrible megalomania that is

the last and rarest madness of all.

He had read of Caligula, Nero, and Domitian, of Heliogabalus, whose

madness passed the bounds of the imaginable. Like gold and purple

clouds, bursting with sombre light and power, they had passed over Rome

and were gone.

Then thoughts of the popes came to him, those supreme rulers of the

temporal and spiritual world whose dominion had been so superb, since

they first began to crown the emperors, one hundred and thirty-five

years ago.

In a monstrous and swiftly moving panorama they passed through a brain

that worked as if it were packed in ice. And yet one and all had gone

into the dark. The power of none had been lasting and complete.

But into his reverie stole a secret glow, into his blood an intense,

ecstatic quickening. For them the hour had tolled. Each step in life

was but one nearer the grave. Not so was it to be with him.

A black fire began to burn round his heart, coiling there like a

serpent, as he thought of the illumination that was his, the promise

he had received--deep down in the crypts of the Emperor's Tomb and

again in the Catacombs of St. Calixtus. And he had fallen down and

worshipped, had given his soul to Darkness and abjured the Light.

Satan should rule again on earth. For this had been revealed to him

by the High Priest of Satan himself, then in a vision by the Lord of

Evil. To penetrate the mysteries of Hell with his whole heart and soul,

to strike chill terror into the hearts of those who worshipped at the

altars of Christ, had become Basil's ambition for which he would live

and die.

Basil sat dreaming and gloating over his coming glory; a glory in which

the woman whose beauty had stung him with maddening desire should

share, even if he had to drag her before the dark throne upon which sat

the Unspeakable Presence. The yellow light of the lamps fell upon his

unnatural and mask-like face as he sat rigid in his chair hypnotized by

Hell.

Christ had thrown his great Cross upon the feasts and banquets of the

gods. On his head was a crown of thorns and the Stigmata upon his hands

and feet. And the goblets of red gold had lost their brightness. The

pagan gods were stricken dumb. They had faded away in vapor and were

gone.

And with them the fierce joy of living had left the world. Christ

reigned upon earth, implanting conscience in the souls of men, that

robbed ecstasy of its fruition and infused the most delicious cup

touched with the Aliquid Amari of the poet.

Basil paced the narrow confines of the room, and from his lips came the

opening stanza of that dreadful parody of the Good Friday hymn sung by

the votaries of Satan: "Vexilla Regis Prodeunt Inferni."

Already the banners of the advancing hosts were in the sky. Soon--soon

would he appear himself--the Lord of Darkness!

The room suddenly grew very chill, as if the three dread winds of

Cocytus were blowing through the chamber.

There was a slim rod of copper suspended from the wall, close to the

couch of dull grey damask upon which he had been reclining. He pulled

it and somewhere away in the villa a gong sounded. A moment later a

drab man, lean as a skeleton and bald as an egg, with slanting eyes in

an ashen face and a stooping gait, came gliding noiselessly into the

lamplit room. He wore a long black cassock, which covered his fleshless

form from head to toe.

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

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

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

A fiendish smile passed over his face and lighted up the dark, sinister

eyes. But quickly as the mood had come it left. It fell from him as a

dropped cloak.

He stood upright, supporting himself on the onyx table, while Horus,

who only understood in a dull dim way his master's moods, assisting

him in all his villainies, but confessing his own share to a household

priest, stood impassively by.

"Give me some wine!" Basil turned to the sinister Major Domo, and the

latter disappeared and returned with a jug of Malvasian.

The Grand Chamberlain grasped the jug which Horus had brought him and

held it with shaking fingers to his mouth. When he had drank deep he

dismissed his famulus, struck a flint and burnt the scroll to pallid

ashes. Then he staggered out into the hall of colored marbles and

through it to the garden doors.

The bronze gates trembled as they swung back upon their hinges, and as

the full noon of the quiet garden burst upon Basil's eyes he fancied he

saw the fold of a dark robe disappear among the cypresses.

And now the hot air of high noon wrapped him round with its warm

southern life, flowing over the lithe body within the silken doublet,

drawing away the inward darkness and the vaulting flames within his

soul and reminding his sensuous nature that the future held gigantic

promise of love and power.

The great tenor and alto bells of St. John in Lateran were beating the

echoes to silver far away. The roofs and palaces, domes and towers of

Rome, were bathed in sunlight as he advanced to the embrasure in the

wall and once more surveyed the city.

The heat shimmered down and, through the quivering sunlit air, the

colors of the buildings shone like pebbles at the bottom of a pool and

the white ruins glowed like a mirage of the desert.

An hour later, regardless of the vertical sun rays that beat down

upon the tortuous streets of the city with unabated fervor, the Grand

Chamberlain rode through the streets of Rome, attended by a group of

men-at-arms with the crest of the Broken Spear in a Field of Azure

embroidered upon their doublets.

As the cavalcade swept through the crowded streets, with their

pilgrims from all parts of the world, the religious in their habits,

men-at-arms, flower-sellers, here and there the magnificent chariot of

a cardinal, many of the people lowered their eyes as Basil cantered

past on his black Neapolitan charger, trapped with crimson. More than

one made the sign of the horn, to avert the spell of the evil eye.

When Basil reached the Lateran he found a captain of the noble guard

with two halberdiers in their unsightly liveries guarding the doors.

They saluted and Basil inquired whether the new captain of the guard

was within.

"The Lord Tristan is within," came the reply, and Basil entered,

motioning to his escort to await his return outside.

The Grand Chamberlain traversed several anterooms, speaking to one

or the other of the senatorial guard, and on every face he read

consternation and fear. Little groups of priests stood together in

corners, whispering among each other; the whole of the Lateran was

aroused as by a secret dread. Such deeds, though they were known to

have occurred, were never spoken of, and the priests of the various

churches that had suffered desecration wisely kept their own counsel.

In this, the darkest age in the history of Rome, when crime and lust

and murder lurked in every corner, an outrage such as this struck every

soul with horror and awe. It was unthinkable, unspeakable almost,

suggesting dark mysteries and hidden infamies of Hell, which caused the

blood to run cold and the heart to freeze.

When Basil had made his way through the crowded corridors, receiving

homage, though men looked askance at him as he passed, he came to a

chamber usually reserved for a waiting room in times when the Pontiff

received foreign envoys or members of the priesthood and nobility; a

privilege from which the unfortunate prisoner in the Lateran was to be

forever debarred.

Basil entered this chamber, giving orders that he was to be in no wise

disturbed until he called and those outside heard him lock and bar the

door from within.

In the exact centre of the wall, reaching within two feet of the

ground, there was a large picture of St. Sebastian, barbarously painted

by some unknown artist.

Basil approached the picture and pressed upon the flat frame with all

his strength. There was a sudden click, a whirring, as of the wheels of

a clock. Then the picture swung inward, revealing a circular stairway

of stone, mounting upward. Without replacing the panel door, Basil

mounted the stairs for nearly a hundred steps, until he came to a door

upon which he beat with the hilt of his poniard.

An answering knock came from within, and the door opened. Basil entered

a small chamber, lighted from above by a window in a small dome.

A bat-like figure stood before a table covered with strange

manuscripts. As Basil entered, a thin black arm emerged from the

folds of the gown, which the inmate of the chamber wore. Then, with a

quick bird-like movement, an immensely thin hand twisted like a claw,

wrinkled, yellow and of incredible age, was stretched out toward the

newcomer.

On the second finger of this claw was a certain ring. Basil bent and

kissed the ring. There was another deft and almost imperceptible

movement. When the hand reappeared the ring was gone.

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

whispers.

The voice that answered seemed to come from a great distance. The lips

in the waxen face scarcely moved. They parted, that was all. Yet the

words were audible and distinct.

"It was done. Last night."

"You were not seen?"

"I wore the mask."

"Is it here?" Basil queried, his eyes flickering with a faint

reflection of that hate which had blazed in them earlier in the day.

"It is not here."

"Where is it?"

"You shall know to-night!"

The light faded out of Basil's eyes.

"What of the new captain?"

"His presence is a menace."

In Basil's eyes gleamed a sombre fire.

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

"The time is Now!"

"Patience!" replied the Grand Chamberlain. "He will work his own

undoing. We dare not harm him yet."

"Only a miracle saved him last night."

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

"Ay!" mouthed the black form. "But the time of the great sacrifice

draws near--"

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

"The Becco Notturno demands a bride!"

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

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

crimson ball."

"When is it to be?"

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

Basil nodded, an evil smile upon his lips.

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

mettle--"

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

familiars are everywhere."

Without another word Basil arose and left the chamber. In the corridor

below he met Tristan.

"I know all," he cut short the speech of the new captain of the guard.

"All Rome is full of it. How did it happen? And where?"

"Attracted by a noise as of slippered feet passing over marble, I

entered the corridor of the Sacred Stairs, when one of the panels

parted. A devilish apparition stood within, throwing the beam of its

lantern into the chapel. When a chance ray of light disclosed my

presence the shape of darkness hurled a poniard. It missed me, thanks

be to Our Lady, struck the mosaic of the floor and broke in two."

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

"I ran to the end of the gallery, shouting to my men," Tristan replied.

"When we returned the blade had disappeared."

"Where was it?" Basil queried with much concern and soon they faced the

shattered mosaic.

Basil examined the spot minutely.

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

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

"Have you searched the premises?"

"From cellar to garret."--

"And discovered nothing?"

"Nothing."

"What of the panel?"

"It defies our combined efforts."

"Strange, indeed."

Basil strode to the wall and struck the spot indicated by Tristan with

the hilt of his poniard. Then he tested the wall on either side.

"Can your ear detect any difference in sound?"

A negative gesture came in response, and with it a puzzled look passed

into Tristan's eyes.

"Have you seen the Pontiff?"

"We reported the matter to His Holiness."

"And?"

"His Holiness raised his eyes to heaven and said: 'Even God's Vicar has

no jurisdiction in Hell!'"

"Was that all he said?"

"That was all!"

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

"It is indeed a matter of grave concern," he said at last. "Treason

stalks everywhere. I will send for my Spanish Captain, Don Garcia. He

may be of assistance to you."

And Basil turned and walked down the corridor.

After a time Tristan walked out upon the terrace looking toward the

Coelian Hill.

A brilliant light beat upon domes and spires and pinnacles, and flooded

the august ruins of the Cæsars on the distant Palatine and the thousand

temples of the Holy Cross with scintillating radiance which poured down

from the intense blue of heaven.--

The long lights of the afternoon were shifting towards the eventide,

giving place to a limpid and colorless light that silvered the adjacent

olive groves.

Tristan roused himself with a start. The sense of moving like a ghost

among a world of ghosts had left him. He was once more awake and aware.

But even now his sorrow, his fears, his hopes of winning again to some

safe harbor in the storm tossed Odyssey of his life, were numbed. They

lay heavy within him, but without urgency or appeal.

What did it matter after all? Life was a little thing, a forlorn

minstrel that evoked melancholy strains from a pipe of oaten straw.

Life was a little thing, nor death a great one. For his part he would

not be loth to take his poppies and fall asleep.

At one time or another such moods must come to all of us and be

endured. We must enter into the middle country, that dull Sahara of the

soul, a broad belt of barren land where no angels seem to walk by our

side, nor can the false voices of demons lure us to our harm.

This is the land where we are imprisoned by the deeds of others and

never by our own. What we do ourselves will send us to Heaven or to

Hell; but not to the middle country where the plains of disillusion are.

At last the sunset came.

The ashen color of the olive-trees flashed out into silver, the

undulating peaks of the Sabine Mountains became faintly flushed and

phantom fair, as in a tempest of fire the sun sank to rest. The groves

of ilex and arbutus seemed to tremble with delight, as the long red

heralds touched their topmost boughs.

The whole landscape seemed to smile a farewell to departing day. The

chimes of the Angelus trembled on the purple dusk.

Night came on apace.

Tristan re-entered the Lateran Basilica, set the watch and arranged

with Don Garcia to spend the night in the sacristy, while Don Garcia

was to guard the approaches to the Pontifical Chapel to prevent a

recurrence of the horrible sacrilege of the preceding night.

One by one the worshippers left the vast nave of the church. After a

time the sacristans closed the heavy bronze doors and extinguished the

lights, all but the one upon the altar.

When they, too, had departed, and deepest silence filled the sacred

spaces, Tristan emerged from a side chapel and took his station near

the entrance to the sacristy, where, on the preceding night, he had

seen the shadow disappear.

How long he had been there in dread and wonder he did not know, when

two cloaked and hooded figures emerged slowly out of the gloom. He

could not tell whence they came or whether they had been there all the

time. They bent their steps towards the sacristy and, as they were

about to pass Tristan in his hiding-place, they paused as if conscious

of another presence.

"As we proceed in this matter," whispered the one voice, "I grow

fearful. You know my relations to the Senator--"

"Your anxiety moves me not," croaked the other voice. "Deem you to

attain your ends by mortal means?"

The voice caused Tristan to shudder as with an ague, though he saw not

him who spoke.

"What of yourself?" whispered the first speaker.

"Have you forgotten," came the hoarse reply, "that either I am

soulless, or else my spirit, damned from its beginning, will scarce be

saved by the grace of Him I dare not name! You are defiled in the very

conversing with me."

The tone in which these words were spoken, either defied answer, or, if

a response was made, it did not reach Tristan's ears as they slowly,

noiselessly, proceeded upon their way.

Tristan vaguely listened for the echo of their retreating footsteps

as, passing behind the altar, they disappeared, as if the earth had

swallowed them.

Now he was seized with a terrible fear. What, if they were to repeat

the sacrilege? He thought he recognized the voice of the first speaker;

but this no doubt was but a trick of his excited imagination.

Determined to prevent so terrible a crime, he crept cautiously down

the narrow passage through which they had disappeared. Six steps he

counted, then he found himself in a room which seemed to be part of

the sacristy, yet not a part, for a postern stood open through which

gleamed the misty moonlight.

There was little doubt in Tristan's mind that they had passed out

through this postern which had been left unguarded, and he found his

conjectures confirmed, when his eye, accustoming itself to the radiance

without, saw two misty figures passing along the road that leads past

the Coelian Hill through fields of ruins.

Taking care so they would not be attracted by the sound of his steps,

Tristan crept in the shadows of roofless columns, shattered porticoes

and dismantled temples, half hidden amid the dark foliage that sprang

up among the very fanes and palaces of old. At times he lost sight

of his quarry. Again they would rise up before him like evil spirits

wandering through space.

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

misgivings.

The twain had vanished as utterly as if the earth had swallowed them

and he paused in his pursuit to gain his bearings. Had he followed two

phantoms or two beings in the flesh? Had he abandoned his watch for two

penitents who had perchance been locked in the church?

What might not be happening at the Lateran at this very moment! How

would Don Garcia construe his absence?

A tremor passed through his limbs. He started to retrace his steps, but

some unknown agency compelled him onward.

Penetrating the gloomy foliage, Tristan found himself before a large

ruin, grey and roofless, from the interior of which came, muffled and

indistinct, the sound of voices.

Two men were stealthily creeping beneath the shadow of a wall that

extended for some distance from the ruin.

Both wore long monkish garbs and were muffled from head to toe. Over

their faces they wore vizors with slits for eyes and mouth. One of the

twain was spare, yet muscular. His companion walked with a stooping

gait and supported himself by a staff.

The light which had attracted Tristan, emanated from a lantern which

they had placed on the ground and which they could shade at will, but

which cast its fitful glimmer over the grass plot, revealing what

appeared to be a grave, from which the mould had been thrown up. At a

short distance there stood a black and stunted yew tree. Before this

they paused.

Now, from under his black cassock, the taller produced a strange

object, the nature of which Tristan was unable to discover by the

fitful light of the moon.

No sooner was it revealed to his companion, than the latter began to

chant a weird incantation, in which he who held the strange object

joined.

Louder and more strident grew their voices, and, notwithstanding the

warmth of the summer night, Tristan felt an icy shudder permeate his

whole being while, with a strange fascination, he watched the twain.

Now he who supported himself by a staff uttered a shrill inarticulate

outcry, and, producing a long, gleaming knife from under his cassock,

stabbed the thing viciously, while his voice rose in mad, strident

screams:

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

The fit of madness seemed to have caught his companion. Producing a

knife similar to that of the other he, too, stabbed the object he held

in his hand, shrieking deliriously:

"Agora! Agora! Patrisa! Agora!"

An hour was to come when Tristan was to learn the terrible import

of the apparently meaningless jumble which struck his ear with mad

discordance.

Suddenly he felt upon himself the insane gleam of two eyes, peering

from the slits of the bent figure's mask.

There was a death-like stillness, as both looked towards the intruder.

Tristan would have fled, but his feet seemed rooted to the spot. His

energies were paralyzed as under the influence of a terrible spell.

The stooping form raised aloft a small phial. A bluish vapor floated

upward, in thin spiral curls.

The effect was instantaneous. Tristan was seized by a great drowsiness.

His limbs refused to support him. He no longer felt the ground under

his feet. His hand went to his head and, reeling like a drunken man,

he fell among the tall weeds that grew in riotous profusion around the

ancient masonry.

The setting moon shone out from behind a fleecy cloud, and in the

pallid crimson of her light the ill-famed ruins of the ancient temple

of Isis rose weird and ghostly in the summer night.