CHAPTER IV

THE WAY OF THE CROSS

It was late on the following morning when Tristan

waked. The sun was high in the heavens and the perfumes from a thousand

gardens were wafted to his nostrils. He looked about bewildered. The

dream phantoms of the night still held his senses captive, and it was

some time ere he came to a realization of the present. In the dream of

the night he had lived over a scene in the past, conjuring back the

memory of one who had sent him on the Way of the Cross. The pitiless

rays of the Roman sun, which began to envelop the white houses and

walls, brought with them the realization of the present hour. He had

come to Rome to do penance, to start life anew and to forget. So she

had bade him do on that never-to-be forgotten eve of their parting. So

she had willed it, and he had obeyed.

How it all flooded back to him again in waves of anguish, the memory of

those days when the turrets of Avalon had faded from his aching sight,

when, together with a motley pilgrims' throng, he had tramped the dusty

sun-baked road, dead to all about him save the love that was cushioned

in his heart. How that parting from Hellayne still dominated all other

events, even though life and the world had fallen away from him and he

had only prayer for oblivion, for obliteration.

Yet even Hellayne's inexorable decree would not have availed to speed

him on a pilgrimage so fraught with hopelessness, that during all

that long journey Tristan hardly exchanged word or greeting with his

fellow pilgrims. It was her resolve, unfalteringly avowed, to leave the

world and enter a convent, if he refused to obey, which had eventually

compelled. Her own self-imposed penance should henceforth be to live,

lonely and heartbroken, by the side of an unbeloved consort, while

Tristan atoned far away, in the city of the popes, at the shrines of

the saints.

At night, when Tristan retired, at dawn, when he arose, Hellayne's

memory was with him, and every league that increased the distance

between them seemed to heighten his love and his anguish. But human

endurance has its limits, and at last he was seized by a great torpor,

a chill indifference that swept away and deadened every other feeling.

There was no longer a To-day, no longer a Yesterday, no longer a

To-morrow.

Such was Tristan's state of mind, when from the Tiburtine road he

first sighted the walls and towers of Rome, without definite purpose

or aim, drawn along, as it were, towards an uncertain goal by Fate's

invisible hand. Utterly indifferent as to what might befall among the

Seven Hills, he was at times dimly conscious of a presentiment that

ultimately he would end up his own days in one of those silent places

where all earthly hopes and desires are forever stilled. So much was

clear to him. Like the rest of the pilgrims who had wended their way to

St. Peter's seat, he would complete the circuit of the holy shrines,

kiss the feet of the Father of Christendom, do such penance as the

Pontiff should impose, and then attach himself to one party or another

in the pontifical city which held out hope for action, since the return

to his own native land was barred to him for evermore.

How he would bear up under the ordeal he did not know. How he would

support life away from Hellayne, without a word, a message, without

the assurance that all was well with her, whether now, his own fate

accomplished, others thronged about her in love and adulation,--he knew

not.

For the nonce he was resolved to let new scenes, new impressions sweep

away the great void of an aching heart, lighten the despair that filled

his soul.

In approaching the Eternal City he had felt scarcely any of the

elevation of spirit which has affected so many devout pilgrims. He

knew it was the seat of God's earthly Vice-regent, the capital of the

universal kingdom of the Church. He reminded himself of this and of the

priceless relics it contained, the tombs of the Apostles St. Peter and

St. Paul, the tombs of so many other martyrs, pontiffs and saints.

But in spite of all these memories he drew near the place with a

sinking dread, as if, by some instinct of premonition, he felt himself

dragged to the Cross on which at last he was to be crucified.

Many a pilgrim may have seen Rome for the first time with an

involuntary recollection of her past, with the hope that for him, too,

the future might hold the highest greatness.

Certainly no ambitious fancy cast a halo of romantic hope over the

great city as Tristan first saw her ancient walls. He felt safe enough

from any danger of greatness. He had nothing to recommend him. On the

contrary, something in his character would only serve to isolate him,

creating neither admiration nor sympathy.

All the weary road to Rome, the Rome he dreaded, had he prayed for

courage to cast himself at the feet of the Vicar of Christ. He did not

think then of the Pope, as of one of the great of the earth, but simply

as of one who stood in the world in God's place. So he would have

courage to seek him, confess to him and ask him what it was it behooved

him to do.

Thus he had walked on--with stammering steps, bruising his feet

against stones, tearing himself through briars--heeding nothing by the

way.

And now, the journey accomplished, he was here in supreme loneliness,

without guidance, human or divine, thrown upon himself, not knowing how

to still the pain, how to fill the void of an aching heart.

Would the light of Truth come to him out of the encompassing realms of

Doubt?

When Tristan descended into the great guest-chamber he found it almost

deserted. The pilgrims had set out early in the day to begin their

devotions before the shrines. The host of the Golden Shield placed

before his sombre and silent guest such viands as the latter found most

palatable, consisting of goat's milk, stewed lamb, barley bread and

figs, and Tristan did ample justice to the savory repast.

The heat of the day being intense, he resolved to wait until the sun

should be fairly on his downward course before he started out upon his

own business, a resolution which was strengthened by a suggestion from

the host, that few ventured abroad in Rome during the Siesta hours, the

Roman fever respecting neither rank nor garb.

Thus Tristan composed himself to patience, watching the host upon his

duties, and permitting his gaze to roam now and then through the narrow

windows upon the object he had first encountered upon his arrival: the

brown citadel, drowsing unresponsive in the noon-tide glow, a monument

of mystery and dark deeds, the Mausoleum of the Flavian Emperor--or, as

it was styled at the period of our story, the Castle of the Archangel.

From this stronghold, less than a decade ago, a woman had lorded it

over the city of Rome, as renowned for her evil beauty as for the

profligacy and licentiousness of her court. In time her regime had been

swept away, yet there were rumors, dark and sinister, of one who had

succeeded to her evil estate. None dared openly avow it, but Tristan

had surprised guarded whispers during his long journey. Some accounted

her a sorceress, some a thing wholly evil, some the precursor of the

Anti-Christ. And he had never ceased to wonder at the tales which

enlivened the camp-fires, the reports of her beauty, her daring, her

unscrupulous ambition.

On the whole, Tristan's prospects in Rome seemed barren enough. Service

might perchance be obtained with the Senator, who would doubtlessly

welcome a stout arm and a true heart. This alternative failing, Tristan

was utterly at sea as to what he would do, the prescribed rounds of

obediences before the shrines and the penances accomplished. He felt as

one who has lost his purpose in life, even before he had been conscious

of his goal.

The strange incidents of his first night in Rome had gradually faded

from Tristan's mind with the re-awakening memory of Hellayne, never

once forgotten, but for the moment drowned in the deluge of strange

events that had almost swept him off his feet.

As the sun was veering towards the west and the lengthening shadows,

presaging dusk, began to roll down from the hills it suffered Tristan

no longer in the Inn of the Golden Shield. He strode out and made for

the heart of Rome.

The desolate aspect of high-noon had changed materially. Tristan began

to note the evidences of life in the Pontifical City. Merchants,

beggars, monks, men-at-arms, condottieri, sbirri,--the followers of the

great feudal houses, hurried to and fro, bent upon their respective

pursuits, and above them, silent and fateful in the evening glow,

towered the Archangel's Castle, the tomb of a former Master of the

World. It reared its massive honey-colored bulk on the edge of the

yellow Tiber and beyond rose the dark green cypresses of the Pincian

Hill. Innumerable spires, domes, pinnacles and towers rose, red-litten

by the sunset, into the stilly evening air. Bells were softly tolling

and a distant hum like the bourdon note of a great organ, rose up from

the other side of the Tiber, where the multitudes of the Eternal City

trod the dust of the Cæsars into the churches of the Cross.

Interminable processions traversed the city amidst anthems and chants,

for, on this day, masses were being sung and services offered up in the

Lateran Basilica, the Mother Church of Rome, in honor of Him who cried

in the wilderness.

In silent awe and wonder Tristan pursued his way towards the heart of

the city. And, as he did so, the spectacle which had unfolded itself to

his gaze became more varied and manifold on every turn.

The lone pilgrim could not but admit that the shadows of worldly

empire, which had deserted her, still clung to Rome in her ruins, even

though to him the desolation which dominated all sides had but a vague

and dreamlike meaning.

Even at this period of deepest darkness and humiliation the world

still converged upon Rome, and in the very centre of the web sat the

successor of St. Peter, the appointed guardian of Heaven and Earth.

The chief pagan monuments still existed: the Pantheon of Agrippa and

the Septizonium of Alexander Severus; the mighty remains of the ancient

fanes about the Forum and the stupendous ruins of the Colosseum. But

among them rose the fortress towers of the Roman nobles. Right there,

before him, dominating the narrow thoroughfare, rose the great fortress

pile of the Frangipani, behind the Arch of the Seven Candles. Farther

on the Tomb of Cæcilia Metella presented an aspect at once sinister

and menacing, transformed as it now was into the stronghold of the

Cenci, while the Cætani castle on the opposite side attracted a sort of

wondering attention from him.

This then was the Rome of which he had heard such marvelous tales!

The city of palaces, basilicas and shrines had sunk to this! Her

magnificent thoroughfares had become squalid streets, her monuments

were crumbled and forgotten, or worse, they were abused by every

lawless wretch who cared to seize upon them and build thereon his

fortress or palace. A dismal fate indeed to have fallen to the former

mistress of the world! Far better, he thought, to be deserted and

forgotten utterly, like many a former seat of empire, far better to

be overgrown with grass and dock and nettle, to be left to dream and

oblivion than to survive in low estate as had this city on the banks of

the Tiber.

With these reflections, engendered no less by the air of desolation

than by the occasional appearance of armed bands of feudal soldiery who

hurled defiance at each other, Tristan found himself drawn deeper and

deeper into the heart of Rome, a hotbed of open and silent rebellion

against the rule of any one who dared to lord it over the degenerate

descendants of the former masters of the world. Here representatives

of the nations of all the earth jostled one another and the poor dregs

of Romulus; or peoples of wilder aspect from Persia or Egypt, within

whose mind floated mysterious Oriental wisdom, bequeathed from the dawn

of Time. And as the scope of Tristan's observation widened, the demon

of disillusion unfolded gloomy wings over the far horizon of his soul.

And the Tiber rolled calmly on below, catching in its turbid waves the

golden sunset glow.

Now and then he encountered the armed retinue of some feudal baron

clattering along the narrow ill-paved streets, chasing pedestrians into

adjacent doorways and porticoes and pursuing their precipitate retreat

with outbursts of banter and mirth.

Unfamiliar as Tristan was with the factions that usurped the dominion

of the Seven Hills, the escutcheons and coats-of-arms of these

marauding parties meant little to him. Now and then however it would

chance that two rival factions clashed, each disputing the other's

passage. Then, only, did he become alive to the dangers that beset the

unwary in the city of the Pontiff, and a sudden spirit of recklessness

and daring, born of the moment, prompted the desire to plunge into

this seething vortex, if but to purchase temporary oblivion and relief.

He faced the many dangers of the streets, loitering here and there and

curiously eyeing all things, and would eventually have lost himself,

when the mantle of night began to fall on the Seven Hills, had he not

instinctively remarked that the ascending road removed him from the

river.