The Sorceress of Rome. Gallizier Nathan
the woman who had stung her pride with ill-veiled mockery, and while she slowly crept towards her opponent, her low voice, tremulous with scorn, stung as a needle would the naked flesh.
"And do you dream that Eckhardt of Meissen has aught to fear from you, fair Roxané? Deem you, that the proud Roxané with all her charms, could cause the general of the German host to make one step against his will?"
For a moment the two women stood face to face, measuring each other with deadly looks.
"And what if I would?" flashed Roxané.
Two white hands slowly but firmly encircled her throat.
"I would strangle you!" hissed Theodora, her face deadly pale.
Roxané's cheeks too had lost their colour. She knew her opponent and she instinctively felt she had reached the limit. She gave a little nervous laugh as she drew Theodora's reluctant hands from the marble whiteness of her throat, where their touch had left a rosy imprint.
"I do not wish your Saxon bear," she said. "If you can tame him, we come to his skin!"
"By Lucifer!" replied the Queen of the Groves, "did I but choose to, I would make him forget heaven and hell and bring him to my feet!"
"How dramatic!" sneered Benilo. "Words are air! We want proofs!"
She whirled upon him.
"And what will become of the snake, when the hunter appears?"
Benilo paled. For a moment his arrogance deserted him. Then he said with an ominous scowl:
"Let the hunter beware!"
She regarded him with icy contempt. Then she turned to the revellers.
"Since Benilo has dared to cross swords with me," she cried, "though I despise him and all of you, I accept the challenge, if there is one in this company who will confirm that it was Eckhardt who discomfited Vitelozzo."
From the background of the hall, where he had sat a silent listener, there came forward an individual in the gaudy attire of a Roman nobleman. He was robust and above the middle height, and the lineaments of his coarse face betrayed predominance of brute instincts over every nobler sentiment.
"Vitelozzo! Vitelozzo!" the guests shouted half amazed, half amused.
The robber-baron nodded as he faced Theodora on the edge of the circle.
"I have listened to your discourse," he snarled curtly. "For your opinions I care not. And as for the skullion to whom I gave in, – out of sheer good will, – ha, ha! – may the devil pull the boots from his legs! – 'twas no meaner a person than he, at whose cradle the fiend stood sponsor, Eckhardt – the general – but I will yet have the girl, I'll have her yet!"
And with a vigorous nod Vitelozzo took up a brimming decanter and transported himself into the background whence he had arisen.
His word had decided the question.
For a moment there was an intense hush. Then Theodora spoke:
"Eckhardt of Meissen, the commander of the German hosts, shall come to my court! He shall be as one of yourselves, a whimpering slave to my evil beauty! I will it, – and so it shall be!"
For a moment she glanced at Benilo and the blood froze in his veins. Heaven and earth would he have given now to have recalled the fateful challenge. But it was too late. For a time he trembled like an aspen. No one knew what he had read in Theodora's Medusa-like face.
Some of the revellers, believing the great tension relieved, now pushed eagerly forward, surrounding the Queen of the Groves and plying her with questions. They were all eager to witness a triumph so difficult to achieve, as they imagined, that even Theodora, though conscious of her invincible charms, had winced at the task.
But the Queen of Love seemed to have exchanged the attributes of her trade for those of a Fury, for she turned upon them like an animal wounded to death, that sees the hounds upon its track and cannot escape.
"Back! All of you!" she hissed, raising her arms and sweeping them aside. "What is it after all? Is he not a man, like – no! Not like you, not like you! – Why should I care for him? – Perhaps he has wife and child at home: – the devils will laugh the louder!"
She paused a moment, drawing a deep breath. Then she slowly turned towards the cringing Chamberlain. Her voice was slow and distinct and every word struck him as the blow from a whip.
"I accept your wager," she said, "and I warn you that I will win! Win, with all the world, with all your villainy, with the Devil himself against me. Eckhardt shall come to the Groves! But," she continued with terrible distinctness, "if aught befall him, ere we have stood face to face, I shall know the hand that struck the blow, were it covered by the deepest midnight that ever blushed at your foulness, and by the devil, – I will avenge it!"
After these words Theodora faced those assembled with her splendid height in all the glory of her beauty. Another moment she was gone.
For a time deep silence succeeded.
Never had such a scene been witnessed in the Groves. Never had the Queen of Love shown herself in so terrible a mood. Never had mortal dared to brave her anger, to challenge her wrath. Truly, the end of time must be nigh when her worshippers would dare defy the Goddess of the Shrine.
But after Theodora had disappeared, the strain gradually relaxed and soon wore away entirely. With all, save Benilo. His calm outward demeanour concealed only with an effort his terrible apprehensions, as he mixed freely, to divert suspicion, with the revellers. These thought the moments too precious to waste with idle speculations and soon the orgy roared anew through the great hall.
Benilo alone had retreated to its extreme end, where he allowed himself to drop into a divan, which had just been deserted by a couple, who had been swept away by the whirling Bacchanale. Here he sat for some time, his face buried in his hands, when looking up suddenly he found himself face to face with Hezilo.
"I have done it," he muttered, "and I fear I have gone too far!"
He paused, scanning the harper's face for approval. Its expression he could not see, but there was no shade of reproof in the voice which answered:
"At best you have but erred in the means."
"I wished to break her pride, to humble her, and now the tables are turned; it is I, who am grovelling in the dust."
"No woman was by such means ever wooed or won," the harper replied after a brief pause. "Theodora will win the wager. But whether she win or lose, she will despise you for ever more!"
Benilo pressed his hands against his burning temples.
"My heart is on fire! The woman maddens me with her devilish charms, until I am on the verge of delirium."
"You have been too pliant! You have become her slave! Her foot is on your neck! You have lost yourself! Better a monstrous villain, than a simpering idiot, who whines love-ditties under his lady's bower and bellows his shame to the enduring stars! Dare to be a man, – despite yourself!"
So absorbed was Benilo in his own thoughts, that the biting irony of the other's speech was lost upon him.
He extended his hand to his strange counsellor.
"It shall be as you say: The Rubicon is passed. I have no choice."
The stranger nodded, but he did not touch the proffered hand.
At last the Chamberlain rose to leave the hall.
The sounds of lutes and harps quivered through the Groves of Theodora; flutes and cymbals, sistrum and tympani mingled their harmonies with the tempest of sound that hovered over the great orgy, which was now at its height. The banquet-hall whirled round him like a vast architectural nightmare. Through the dizzy glare he beheld perspectives and seemingly endless colonnades. Everything sparkled, glittered, and beamed in the light of prismatic irises, that crossed and shattered each other in the air. Viewed through that burning haze even the inanimate objects seemed to have waked to some fantastic representation of life. – But through it all he saw one face, supremely fair in its marble cold disdain, – and unable to endure the sight longer