The Hill of Venus. Gallizier Nathan
know if the sacrifice availed?"
Francesco again relapsed into silence.
Out of the mist before his eyes there rose his own life. He saw its shimmering past, – all the allurement for happiness it held out, – and the dreary future decreed for him, to atone for another's sin.
"What is required to make a monk of me?" he queried with a dead voice. "What cloister am I to enter?"
The sick man breathed quickly.
"All these matters have I arranged. From His Holiness himself have I letters, sanctioning the matter. You will be given the right of friar's orders that shall free you at times from the weariness and monotony of the cloister. In all difficulties or troubles you will appeal directly to the Pontiff! These privileges are great!"
"The Pontiff!" Francesco uttered with a start. "Pope Clement IV is the mortal enemy of those to whom I have pledged my troth, to whom I owe allegiance. I am a Ghibelline!" he concluded, as if struck by a new thought. "I can never become a monk!"
For a moment the elder Villani lay silent, as if dazed by this sudden unforeseen resistance. He forced himself to answer calmly and not to betray his own misgivings.
"Your reasons are mere sophistry!" he said, after a brief pause. "Has the party of Conradino the power to pave your way to Heaven, – to save my soul from perdition? To insure your mother's eternal peace? Your path lies henceforth with the Church, from which only my own perverseness and blindness had severed you. For you henceforth there are no commands save those of the Holy Father! What are Guelphs and Ghibellines to you in this of all homes, – when I am lying at the door of death?"
"They will look upon me as an ingrate, a renegade, a traitor, – and she of all, – she – "
He covered his face with his hands.
"What say you?" asked his father drearily.
"Where am I to go?" came the monotonous response.
"You will repair to Monte Cassino, there to serve your novitiate. Your time is to be shortened by special dispensation. At the end of that period you will be called to Rome, to enter the Chapter House of the Order of St. John. It holds out greater honor and privileges than any in the world. You will take your orders directly from His Holiness. The path to glory and to holiness lies open to you. Are you satisfied?"
A moan came from Francesco's lips.
"My strength is failing, – your word, – to God!"
Francesco stood beside his father's death-bed, his arms hanging limply by his side. His damp hair clung closely to his head. His eyes were dull and unseeing.
Like a breath of the evening wind his youth had passed from him. His gaze was not upon his father's face, but turned inwardly upon the great aching void where his happiness had been.
When he spoke his words were low, his tone and his face alike without expression.
"In the sight of God, I promise to become a monk!"
The old man, straining to catch the words, drank them into his soul.
His face relaxed. A sigh passed his lips. His failing strength had apparently returned to him.
"You may call Fra Anselmo," he said gently. "But first, my son, kneel to receive my blessing!"
Francesco stumbled blindly to the bedside and forced himself to kneel. He shivered, as the sick man's hot, dry hand lay upon his hair, and only by main force he restrained himself from crying out aloud.
Then the whispered phrase of the benediction fell meaningless upon his ear:
"Pax tecum nunc et per omnia saecula, – Amen!" —
CHAPTER II
THE PLEDGE
IN the antechamber of the elder Villani's sick-room, during the talk between father and son, the monks had quietly waited the termination of the interview. The Prior sat alone on a settle in a corner, his tonsured head bent so low that his face was unreadable, while with nervous fingers he stroked the cloth of his brown robe. One of the monks was engaged in expounding some dogma to his companions who obviously paid little heed to his words. A strange friar, who had on the previous night arrived from Rome, sat with the confessor of San Cataldo, but neither of them spoke. They, too, seemed to be listening for the sound of footsteps in the corridor. The two mediciners, more at ease, sat murmuring professionally between themselves, careless of the mental unrest of their colleagues of the soul. None in the room, save the strange friar, knew what the elder Villani was saying to his son, but there were few even among these world-strange men who had not guessed the truth long ago.
The minutes dragged. The floating wicks in the quaint stone lamps wavered and flickered restlessly in their sconces, while the uneven light from the cresset-lantern, hung in the centre of the chamber, cast distorted shadows over floor and ceiling. To all present the wait was tedious. To the strange friar whose eyes roamed ever again towards the sick-chamber, it seemed interminable, and ever and anon the monk at his side leaned uneasily towards him. "Gregorio Villani will find the task no easy one. He had better left it to one of us!"
Nevertheless, when their wait was ended, and the leather hangings of the door were raised by a white hand, all in the room were startled, and gazed alert with wondering eyes, and lips on which the words had died.
It was a strange apparition that entered. For a moment each was aware of a slender figure which seemed to sway even as it grasped the curtain, of a face ghastly white, framed in a wealth of dishevelled hair, of a voice whose sound seemed but the hoarse whisper of a ghost, as he staggered towards the strange friar.
"My father desires your presence."
The monk arose quickly, glancing furtively at the face of the youth, then exchanging a swift glance with the Prior. At the same time one of the mediciners started up.
With an unspoken "Not yet!" the Prior waved him back, and Francesco followed the strange friar from the room.
A swift repugnance against his companion, seemingly born of the moment, filled the youth, as side by side they traversed the short passage-way. At the door of the sick-room, which they were about to enter, the monk suddenly paused and turned.
"You have consented?" he whispered.
Francesco's lips formed an answer, barely audible, but which the monk at his side caught at once.
Something akin to a look of involuntary admiration stole over his face and something akin to a gleam of pity flickered in his eyes. The admiration was for the mental powers of the elder Villani, which, it seemed, not even approaching Death could vanquish. The fleeting pity was for the son. But not unmingled with both was a look of triumph for himself.
On entering the sick-room the monk stepped at once to the side of the dying man. Gregorio Villani's cheeks were slightly flushed, his eyes were brilliant, but his voice was weaker than it had been.
"Francesco has granted my last wish," he said, looking searchingly into the friar's face. "Have you the briefs that are required for his going?"
The friar produced a bundle from his cassock, which he placed on the bed. Gregorio Villani took up the first scroll.
"To this one, containing the pledge, Francesco shall put his name," he said, with a glance at his son. "The second is a letter from my own hand, to the monastery and chapter, which His Holiness has decreed for him. The third is the special dispensation, granting friar's order to Francesco. Treasure it well, my son, for it will prove the greatest boon of your life! And now, in presence of this witness, you shall sign your pledge to me and to the Church!"
He looked imploringly at the youth, who stood by with pale face and eyes from which every gleam of gladness had faded. When Francesco made no reply, the strange monk stepped to a table on which there were scattered sundry writing utensils, and dipping a pen in a composition serving as ink, brought it to Francesco.
The latter stared for a moment from the friar to his father, his eyes ablaze. Then he reached out, snatched the pen from the monk's hand and dashed it on the floor.
"Does not my word suffice?"