CHAPTER IX

THE NET OF THE FOWLER

The appearance of Basil who had emerged from the kiosk and regarded

Theodora with a look in his pale, passion distorted features that

seemed to light up recesses in his own heart and soul which he himself

had never fathomed, caused the woman to turn. But she looked at the

man with an almost unknowing stare. Notwithstanding a self-control

which she rarely lost, she had not found herself. The incredible had

happened. When she seemed absolutely sure of the man, he had denied

her. Her ruse had been her undoing. For Hellayne's presence had

been neither accidental, nor had Hellayne herself brought it about.

The messenger who had summoned Tristan had skillfully absolved both

commissions. He was to have brought the woman to the tryst, that she

might, with her own eyes, witness her rival's triumph. In her flight

she had vanquished Theodora.

Stealthily as a snake moves in the grass, Basil came nearer and nearer.

When he had reached Theodora's side he took the white hand and raised

it, unresisting, to his lips. His eyes sought those of the woman, but a

moment or two elapsed ere she seemed even to note his presence.

He bent low. There was love, passion, adoration in his eyes and there

was more. Theodora had over-acted her part. He had seen the fire

in her eyes and he knew. It was more than the determination to make

Tristan pliable to her desires in the great hour when she was to enter

Castel San Angelo as mistress of Rome. He saw the abyss that yawned at

his own feet, and in that moment two resolves had shaped themselves in

Basil's mind, shadowy, but gaining definite shape with each passing

moment, and, while his fevered lips touched Theodora's hand, all the

evil passions in his nature leaped into his brain.

Suddenly Theodora, glancing down at him, as if she for the first time

noted his presence, spoke.

"Acknowledge, my lord, that I have attained my ends! For, had

it not been for the appearance of that woman, I should have

conquered--ay--conquered beyond a doubt."

But when she looked at him she hardly recognized in him the man she

knew, so terribly had rage and jealousy distorted his countenance.

"How can I gainsay that you have conquered, fairest Theodora," he said,

"when I heard the soft accents of your endearments and your panting

breath, as you drowned his soul in fiery kisses? 'Tis but another

poor fool swallowed up in the unsatisfied whirlpool of your desires,

another victim marked for the holocaust that is to be. But why did the

Lady Theodora cry out and bring the tender love scene to a close all

unfinished?"

"By pale Hekaté, I had almost forgot the woman! Why did I permit her

to go without strangling her on the spot?" she cried, the growing

anger which the man's speech had aroused, brought to white heat in the

reminder.

"The honor of being strangled by the fair hands of the Lady Theodora

may be great," sneered Basil. "Yet I question if the Lady Hellayne

would submit without a struggle even to so fair an opponent."

"Why do you taunt me?" Theodora flashed.

"Why?" he cried. "Because I witnessed another reaping the fruit of

the deeds I have sown--another stealing from me the love of the woman

I have possessed,--one, too, held in silken bondage by another's wife.

Rather would I plunge this knife into my own heart and--"

Theodora's bosom heaved convulsively.

"Put up your dagger, my lord," she said, with a wave of her hand. "For,

ere long, it shall drink its fill. Strange it is that I--the like of

whose beauty, as they tell me, is not on earth--should be conquered by

a woman from the North--that the fires of the South should be quenched

by Northern ice. I could almost wish that matters had run differently

between her and myself, for she is brave, else had she not faced me as

she did."

"What else can you look for, Lady Theodora, from one sprung from such a

race?" replied the man sullenly. "I tell you, Lady Theodora, if you do

not ward yourself against her, she will vanquish you utterly, body and

soul."

"The future shall decide between us. I am still Theodora, and it will

go hard with you, if you interpret my will according to your own

desires. I foresee that we shall have need of all our resources when

the hour tolls that shall see Theodora set upon the throne that is her

own, and then--let deeds speak, not words."

"Since when have you found occasion to doubt the sureness of my blade,

Lady Theodora?" answered Basil, a dark look in his furtive eyes.

"Peace, my lord!" interposed Theodora. "Why do you raise up the ghost

of that which has been between us? Bury the past, for the last throw

that is in the hands of destiny ends the game which has been played

round this city of Rome these many weary days."

"And had you, Theodora, of a truth won over this Tristan," came the

dark reply, "so that one hour's delight in your arms would have caused

him to forget the world about him--what of me who has given to you the

love, the devotion of a slave?"

At the words Theodora flung wide her shimmering arms and cried:

"I tell you, my lord, that as I hold you and every man captive on whom

my charms have fallen, so shall I hold in chains the soul of this

Tristan, even though he resist--to the last."

"Full well do I know the potency of your spell," answered Basil with

lowering eyes, "and, I doubt me, if such is the case. Nevertheless,

I warn you, Lady Theodora, not to place too great a share of this

desperate venture on the shoulders of one you have never proved."

A contemptuous smile curved Theodora's lips as she rose from her seat.

With a single sweep her draperies fell from her like mist from a

snow-clad peak, and for the space of a moment there was silence, broken

only by Basil's panting breath. At last Theodora spoke.

"Man's honor is so much chaff for the burning, when the darts of love

pierce his brain. With beauty's weapons I have fought before, and once

again the victory shall be mine!"

There was an ominous light in Basil's eyes.

"Beware, lest the victory be not purchased with the blood of one whom

your fickleness has chosen to sit in the empty seat of the discarded.

At the bidding of a mad passion have you been defeated."

A flood of words surged irresistibly to Basil's lips, but at the sight

of Theodora's set face the words froze in the utterance. But when the

woman stared into space, her face showing no sign that she had even

heard his speech, he continued:

"And when you are stretched out on a bed of torment and call for death

to ease your pain, let the bitterest pang be that, had you enlisted my

blade and cherished the devotion I bore you, this night's work would

have set the seal of victory on our perilous venture."

"Blinded I have been," said Theodora, a strange light leaping to her

eyes, "to all the devotion which now I begin to fathom more clearly.

Answer me then, my lord! Is it only to slake the pangs of mad jealousy

that you taunt me with words which no man has dared to speak--and live?"

The sheen of a drawn dagger flashed above his head. Basil faced the

death that lurked in Theodora's uplifted arm and he replied in an

unmoved voice:

"Lady Theodora, if you harbor one single doubt in your mind of him who

has worked your will on those you consigned to their doom and laid

their proud heads low in the dust of the grave, let your blade descend

and quit me according to what I have deserved. Nay--Lady Theodora," he

continued, as her white arm still hovered tense above him, "it is quite

evident your love I never had, your trust I have lost! Therefore send

my soul to the dim realms of the underworld, for I have no longer any

desire for life."

He was gazing up at her with eyes full of passionate devotion, when

of a sudden the blade dropped from her grasp, tinkling on the stone

beneath, and, burying her face in her hands, Theodora burst into an

agony of tears that shook her form with piteous sobbing.

"By all the saints, dear lady, weep not," Basil pleaded, placing gentle

hands upon her shoulders. "Rather let your dagger do its work and drink

my blood, than that grief should thus undo you."

"Truly had some evil spirit entered into me," she spoke at length in

broken accents, "else had I not so madly suspected one whose devotion

to me has never wavered. Can you forgive me, my lord, most trusted and

doubted of my friends?"

With a fierce outcry the man cast himself at her feet, and, bending

low, kissed her hands, while, in tones, hoarse with passion, he

stammered:

"Let me then prove my love, Lady Theodora, most beautiful of all women

on earth! Set the task! Show me how to win back that which I have

lost! Let me become your utter slave."

And, so saying, he swept the unresisting woman into his grasp, and as

her body lay motionless against his breast the sight of her lips so

close to his own sent the hot blood hurtling through his fevered brain.

Theodora shuddered in his embrace.

He kissed her, again and again, and her wet lips roused in him all the

demoniacal passions of his nature.

"Speak," he stammered, "what must I do to prove to you the love which

is in my heart--the passion that burns my soul to crisp, as the fires

of hell the souls of the damned?"

Theodora's eyes were closed, as if she hesitated to speak the words

that her lips had framed. He, Tristan, had brought her to this pass.

He had denied, insulted her, he had made a mock of her in the eyes of

this man, who was kneeling at her feet, bond slave of his passions. By

his side no task would have seemed too great of accomplishment. And

whatever the fruits of her plotting he was to have shared them. How

she hated him; and how she hated that woman who had come between them.

As for him whose stammering words of love tumbled from his drunken

lips, Theodora could have driven her poniard through his heart without

wincing in the act.

"If you love me then, as you say," she whispered at last, "revenge me

on him who has put this slight upon me!"

A baleful light shone in Basil's eyes.

"He dies this very night."

She raised her hands with a shudder.

"No--no! Not a quick death! He would die as another changes his

garment--with a smile.--No! Not a quick death! Let him live, but wish

he were dead a thousand times. Strike him through his honor. Strike him

through the woman he loves."

For a pace Basil was silent. Could Theodora have read his thoughts at

this moment the weapon would not have dropped from her nerveless grasp.

"Ah!" he said, and a film seemed to pass over his eyes in the

utterance. "There is nothing that shall be left undone--through his

honor--through the woman he loves."

She utterly abandoned herself to him now, suffering his endearments and

kisses like a thing of stone and thereby rousing his passions to their

highest pitch. She could have strangled him like a poisonous reptile

that defiled her body, but, after having suffered his embrace for a

time, she suddenly shook herself free of him.

"My lord--what of our plans? How much longer must I wait ere the

clarions announce to Rome that the Emperor's Tomb harbors a new

mistress? What of Alberic? What of Hassan Abdullah, the Saracen?"

Basil was regarding her with a mixture of savage passion, doubt,

incredulity and something like fear.

"The death-hounds are on Alberic's scent," he said at last, with

an effort to steady his voice, and hold in leash his feelings,

which threatened to master him, as his eyes devoured the woman's

beauty.--"Hassan Abdullah is even now in Rome."

"Can we rely upon him and his Saracens when the hour tolls that shall

see Theodora mistress of Rome?"

"Weighing a sack of gold against the infidel's treachery, it is safe to

predict that the scales will tip in favor of the bribe--so it be large

enough."

"Be lavish with him, and if his heart be set on other matters--"

She paused, regarding the man with an inscrutable look. Shrewd as he

was, he caught not its meaning.

"Why not entrust to his care the Lady Hellayne?"

The devilish suggestion seemed to find not as enthusiastic a reception

as she had anticipated.

"After having seen the Lady Theodora," Basil said, his eyes avoiding

those of the woman, "I fear the Lady Hellayne will appear poor in

Hassan Abdullah's eyes."

Theodora had grown pensive.

"I do not think so. To me she seemed like a snow-capped volcano. All

ice without, all fire within. Perchance I should bow to your better

judgment, my lord, and perchance to Hassan Abdullah's, whose good taste

in preferring the Lady Theodora cannot be gainsaid. But, our guests are

becoming impatient. Take me to the palace."

Basil barred the woman's way.

"And when you have reached the summit of your desire, will you remember

certain nuptials consummated in a certain chamber in the Emperor's

Tomb, between two placed as we are and mated as we?"

Theodora's lips curved in one of those rare smiles which brought him to

whom she gave it to her feet, her abject slave.

"I shall remember, my lord," she said, and, linking her arm in his,

they strode towards the palace.