CHAPTER VI

A MEETING OF GHOSTS

A voice whose prompting he could not resist, impelled Tristan, after

his parting from the Monk of Cluny, to follow the Grand Chamberlain,

who had taken the direction of the Pincian Hill. His retreating form

became more phantom-like in the misty moonlight, as viewed from the

ramparts of the Emperor's Tomb. Nevertheless, mindful of the parting

words of the monk, and filled with dire misgivings, Tristan set out

at once. True to his determination, he procured a small lantern and a

piece of coarse thick cloth, which he concealed under his cloak, then,

by a solitary pathway, he followed the direction he had seen Basil

take. The Bridge of San Angelo was deserted and not a human being was

abroad.

After a time he arrived at a small copse, where Basil's form had

disappeared from sight. Clearing away the underbrush, Tristan came to

what seemed a fissure in a wall, which cast a tremendous shadow over

the surrounding trees and bushes. Creeping in as far as he dared, he

paused, then, with mingled emotions of expectancy and apprehension

which affected him so powerfully that for a moment he was hardly master

of his actions, he slowly and carefully uncovered his lantern, struck

two flints and lighted the wick.

His first glance was intuitively directed to the cavity that opened

beneath him.

Of Basil he saw no trace, notwithstanding he had seen him enter

the cavity at the point where he himself had entered. Ere long

however, he heard a thin, long-drawn sound, now louder, now softer;

now approaching, now receding, now verging toward shrillness, now

returning to a faint, gentle swell. This strange, unearthly music was

interrupted by a succession of long, deep rolling sounds, which rose

grandly about the fissures above, like prisoned thunderbolts striving

to escape. Roused by the mystery of the place and the uncertainty of

his own purpose, Tristan was, for a moment, roused to a pitch of such

excitement that almost threatened to unsteady his reason. Conscious of

the danger attending his venture, and the fearful legends of invisible

beings and worlds, he was constrained to believe that demons were

hovering around him in viewless assemblies, calling to him in unearthly

voices, in an unknown tongue, to proceed upon his enterprise and take

the consequences of his daring.

Thus he remained for a time, fearful of advancing or retracing his

steps, looking fixedly into the trackless gloom and listening to the

strange sounds which, alternately rising and falling, still floated

around him. The fitful light of his lantern suddenly fell upon a

shape that seemed to creep through one of the stone galleries. In the

unsteady gleam it appeared from the distance like a gnome wandering

through the bowels of the earth, or a forsaken spirit from purgatory.

Had it been but a trick of his imagination, or had his mortal eyes

seen a denizen of the beyond? At last he aroused himself, trimmed with

careful hand his guiding wick and set forth to penetrate the great rift.

He moved on in an oblique direction for several feet, now creeping

over the tops of the foundation arches, now skirting the extremities

of the protrusions in the ruined brickwork, now descending into dark,

slimy, rubbish-choked chasms, until the rift suddenly diminished in all

directions.

For a moment Tristan paused and considered. He was almost tempted to

retrace his steps, abandoning the purpose upon which he had come.

Before him stretched interminable gloom, brooding, he knew not over

what caverns and caves, inhabited by denizens of night.

He moved onward, with less caution than he had formerly employed,

when suddenly and without warning a considerable portion of brickwork

fell with lightning suddenness from above. It missed him, else he

should never had known what happened. But some stray bricks hurled him

prostrate on the foundation arch, dislocating his right shoulder, and

shattering his lantern into atoms. A groan of anguish rose to his lips.

He was left in impenetrable darkness.

For a short time Tristan lay as one stunned in his dark solitude.

Then, trying to raise himself, he began to experience in all their

severity the fierce spasms, the dull gnawings that were the miserable

consequences of the injury he had sustained. His arm lay numbed by his

side, and for the space of some moments he had neither the strength nor

the will to even move the sound limbs of his body.

But gradually the anguish of his body awakened a wilder and strange

distemper in his mind, and then the two agonies, physical and mental,

rioted over him in fierce rivalry, divesting him of all thoughts, save

such as were aroused by their own agency. At length, however, the pangs

seemed to grow less frequent. He hardly knew now from what part of his

body they proceeded. Insensibly his faculties of thinking and feeling

grew blank; he remained for a time in a mysterious, unrefreshing repose

of body and mind, and at last his disordered senses, left unguided and

unrestrained, became the victims of a sudden and terrible illusion.

The black darkness about him appeared, after an interval, to be dawning

into a dull, misty light, like the reflection on clouds which threaten

a thunderstorm at the close of day. Soon this atmosphere seemed to be

crossed and streaked with a fantastic trellis work of white, seething

vapor. Then the mass of brickwork which had fallen in, grew visible,

enlarged to an enormous bulk and endowed with the power of locomotion,

by which it mysteriously swelled and shrank, raised and depressed

itself, without quitting for a moment its position near him. And then,

from its dark and toiling surface, there rose a long array of dusky

shapes, which twined themselves about the misty trellis work above and

took the palpable forms of human countenances.

There were infantile faces wreathed with grave worms that hung round

them like locks of slimy hair; aged faces dabbled with gore and slashed

with wounds; youthful faces, seamed with livid channels along which

ran unceasing tears; lovely faces distorted into the fixed coma of

despairing gloom. Not one of these countenances exactly resembled the

other. Each was stigmatized by a revolting character of its own. Yet,

however deformed their other features, the eyes of all were preserved

unimpaired. Speechless and bodiless they floated in unceasing myriads

up to the fantastic trellis work, which seemed to swell its wild

proportions to receive them. There they clustered in their goblin

amphitheatre, and fixedly and silently they glared down, without

exception, on the intruder's face.

Meanwhile the walls at the side began to gleam out with a light of

their own, making jaded boundaries to the midway scenes of phantom

faces. Then the rifts in their surface widened, and disgorged

misshapen figures of priests and idols of the olden time, which came

forth in every hideous deformity of aspect, mocking at the faces of

the trellis work, while behind and over the whole soared shapes of

gigantic darkness. From this ghastly assemblage there came not the

slightest sound. The stillness of a dead and ruined world was about

him, possessed of appalling mysteries, veiled in quivering vapors and

glooming shadows.

Days, years, centuries seemed to pass, as Tristan lay gazing up in a

trance of horror into this realm of peopled and ghostly darkness.

At last he staggered to his feet. He must find an egress or go mad.

Slowly raising himself upon his uninjured arm, he looked vainly about

for the faintest glimmer of light. Not a single object was discernible

about him. Darkness hemmed him in, in rayless and triumphant obscurity.

The first agony of the pain having resolved itself into a dull

changeless sensation, the vision that had possessed his senses was now,

in a vast and shadowy form, present only to his memory, filling the

darkness with fearful recollections and urging him on, in a restless,

headlong yearning, to effect his escape from this lonely and unhallowed

sepulchre.

"I must pass into light. I must breathe the air of the sky, or I shall

perish in this vault," he muttered in a hoarse voice, which the fitful

echoes mocked by throwing his words as it were, to each other, even to

the faintest whisper of its last recipient.

Gradually and painfully he commenced his meditated retreat.

Tristan's brain still whirled with the emotion that had so entirely

overwhelmed his mind, as, staggering through the interminable gloom, he

set forth on his toilsome, perilous journey.

Suddenly however he paused, bewildered, in the darkness. He had no

doubt mistaken the direction, and a gleam of light, streaming through

the fissure of the rock, informed him that there were others in this

abode of darkness, beside himself.

Had he come upon the object of his quest?

For a moment Tristan's heart stood still, then, with all the caution

which the darkness, the danger of secret pitfalls and the risk of

discovery suggested, he crept toward the crevice until the glow

gradually increased. From the bowels of the earth, as it were, voices

were now audible; they seemed to issue from the depths of a cavern

directly below where Tristan stood. Groping his way carefully along

the wall of rock, he at last reached the spot whence the light issued

and presently started at finding himself before an aperture just wide

enough to admit the body of a single man. A sort of perpendicular

ladder was formed in the wall of narrow juttings of stone, and below

these was the rock chamber from which the voices proceeded.

It was some time ere the confusion of his ideas and the darkness

allowed Tristan to form any notion of the character of the locality,

when it suddenly dawned upon him that he had strayed into a place

regarding which he had heard and wondered much: the Catacombs of St.

Calixtus.

This revelation was by no means reassuring, although the presence of

others held out hope that he would discover an exit from this shadowy

labyrinth.

For a moment Tristan remained as one transfixed, as he gazed from his

lofty pinnacle into the shadowy vault below.

He saw a stone table, lighted with a single taper, in the centre of

which lay an unsheathed dagger, and an object the exact character of

which he could not determine in the half gloom, also a brazen bowl.

About a dozen men in cloaks with black vizors stood around, and one,

taller than the rest, the gleam of whose eyes shone through the slits

of his mask, appeared to be concluding an address to his companions.

The words were indistinguishable to Tristan but, when the speaker had

concluded, a dark murmur arose which subsided anon. Then those present

crowded around the stone table. The taper was momentarily obscured by

the intervening throng, and Tristan could not see the ceremony, though

he could hear the muttered formula of an oath they seemed to be taking.

What he did see caused the chill of death to run through his veins.

The group again receding, the man bared his left arm, raised the dagger

on high and let it descend. Tristan saw the blood weltering slowly

from the self-inflicted wound, trickling drop by drop into the brazen

bowl, which another muffled figure was holding. Then each one present

repeated the ceremony, he who was presenting the bowl being the last to

mingle his blood with that of the rest.

Then another stepped forth and, raising the bloody knife on high,

stabbed the object that lay upon the table. Some mysterious signs

passed between them, meaningless words that struck Tristan's ear with

the vague memory of a dimly remembered dream. Then he who seemed to

be the speaker raised the object on high and, walking to a niche,

concealed in the shadows, placed it in, what seemed to Tristan, a

fissure in the rock.

Like ghosts returning to the bowels of the earth, they glided away,

silently, soundlessly, and soon the silence of death hovered once again

in the rock caverns of the Catacombs of St. Calixtus.

In breathless suspense, utterly oblivious of the injury he had

sustained, Tristan gazed into the deserted rock chamber where the dim

light of the taper still flickered in a faint breath of air wafted from

without.

Hardly did the hearts of the Magi when the vision of the Star in the

East first dawned upon their eyes experience a transport more vivid

than that which animated Tristan when he found his terrible stress

relieved.

But almost immediately a reaction set in and a dire misgiving

extinguished the quick ray of hope that had lighted his heart, luring

him on to escape from these caverns of Death.

By a strange mischance they had neglected to extinguish the taper.

They might return at any moment and, his presence discovered, the doom

in store for the intruder on their secret rites was not a matter of

surmise. Composing himself to patience, Tristan waited, glaring as a

caged tiger at the gates whose opening or closing might spell freedom

or doom. At last, after a considerable lapse of time, moments that

seemed eternity, he resolved to hazard the descent.

Slowly and painfully moving, with the pace and perseverance of a

turtle, he writhed downward upon his unguided course until he reached

the bottom of the cavern. Breathless with exhaustion after his

breakneck descent, he waited in the shadow of a projecting rock. When

the deep sepulchral silence remained undisturbed, he advanced toward

the fissure in the rock where one of the muffled company had placed the

mysterious object.

Tristan's quest was not at once rewarded. The shelving in the rock

cavern, being irregular and almost indistinguishable, offered no clue

to the mystery. A great fear was upon him, but he was determined, to

discover the meaning of it all.

Suddenly he paused. A small cabinet of sandal wood, concealed behind

the jutting stone, had caught his eye. It was painted to resemble the

rock and the untrained eye would not linger upon it. A small keyhole

was revealed, but the key had been taken away.

Tristan stood irresolute, with straining eyes and listening ear. Not

a sound was audible. Even the piping of the night wind in the rock

fissures seemed to have died to silence. With quick resolution he

inserted one of the sharp-edged flints and gave a wrench.

When the top receded he could not repress an outcry. A chill coursed

coldly through his veins. His breath came and went in sobs, as from one

half drowned.

He only glanced at what was before him for the fraction of a second.

But he knew what had made the very soul within him shudder and his

bones grind, as if in mortal agony.

It was as though Hell itself had opened the gates. He staggered back in

a paroxysm of horror.--

With a grim, set face Tristan closed the top of the cabinet and

replaced it on the rocky ledge. Thus he stood, his face buried in his

hands. Could the All-seeing God permit such an outrage and let the

perpetrators live?

But there was no time for reflection. At any moment one of the muffled

phantoms might return, and indeed he thought he heard steps approaching

through one of the rock galleries. He crouched in breathless, agonized

suspense, for it did not suffer him longer in these caverns of crime

and death.

He dimly remembered the direction in which the nocturnal company had

departed and, after some research, he discovered a narrow corridor

that seemed to slope upward through the gloom. His lantern having been

broken to atoms, the taper held out little promise of life beyond a

brief space of time during which he must find the entrance of the

cavern, if he did not wish to meet a fate even worse than death in the

event of discovery.

Grimly resolved Tristan raised the flickering taper and entered the

gallery on his left. The Stygian gloom almost extinguished the feeble

light, though he noted every object he passed, every turn in the

tortuous ascent.

After some time which seemed eternity he at last perceived a dim glow

at the extremity of the gallery, and soon found himself before the

outer cavity of the stone wall, in a region of the city that seemed

miles removed from the place where he had entered.

It was near daybreak. The moon shone faintly in the grey heavens and a

vaporous mist was sinking from shapeless clouds that hovered over the

course of the Tiber.

Tristan looked about his solitary lurking place, but beheld no human

being in its lonely recesses. Then his eyes fixed themselves with a

shudder upon the glooming vault from which he had made his escape.

He was on the track of a terrible mystery, a mystery which shunned the

light of day and of heaven. He must fathom it, whatever the risk. A

strange new energy possessed him. His life at last seemed to have a

purpose. He was no longer a rolling stone. There was work ahead. His

future course stood out clearly defined, as Tristan turned his back

upon the Catacombs of St. Calixtus and took the direction of the

Aventine. To Odo, the Monk of Cluny, he must confide the terrible

discovery he had made in the mephitic caverns of the Catacombs. To him

he must turn for counsel, of which he stood sorely in need. And in some

way which he could not account for to himself, Tristan felt as if the

fate of Hellayne was bound up in these dreadful mysteries. At first

the thought seemed absurd, but somehow it gained upon him and began to

add new weight to his burden. Could he but see her! Could he but have

speech with her. A great dread seized him at the thought of what might

be her fate at the present hour. What would she think of him who seemed

to have abandoned her in the hour of dire distress, when she needed him

above all men on earth?

Did her intuition, did her heart inform her that he had roamed the city

for days in the hope of finding her? Had her heart informed her that,

like a spirit judged and condemned, he found neither rest nor peace

in his vain endeavors to discover her abode? Was she sinking under

her loneliness, perishing from uncertainty of her fate, doubts of his

allegiance? To what perils and miseries had he exposed her, and to what

end? He groaned in despair, as his mind reverted from the dark present

to the happy past. A past, forever gone!--

A faint streak of light crept across the East, permeating the grey dawn

with roseate hues as Tristan re-entered the Emperor's Tomb to partake

of an hour or two of much needed rest, ere the business of the new-born

day claimed him its own.