The Sorceress of Rome. Gallizier Nathan
high noon, soon obscured the monks from view, even before the last echoes of their sombre chant had died away.
Without a fixed purpose in his mind, save that of observing the temper of the populace, Eckhardt permitted himself to be swept along with the crowds. Idlers mostly and inquisitive gapers, they constituted the characteristic Roman mob, always swarming wherever there was anything to be seen, however trifling the cause and insignificant the attraction. They were those who, not choosing to work, lived by brawls and sedition, the descendants of that uproarious mob, which in the latter days of the empire filled the upper rows in theatre and circus, the descendants of the rabble, whose suffrage no Cæsar was too proud to court in the struggle against the free and freedom-loving remnants of the aristocracy.
But there were foreign elements which lent life and contrast to the picture, elements which in equal number and profusion no other city of the time, save Constantinople, could offer to the bewildered gaze of the spectator.
Moors from the Western Caliphate of Cordova, Saracens from the Sicilian conquest, mingled with white-robed Bedouins from the desert; Greeks from the Morea, Byzantines, Epirotes, Albanians, Jews, Danes, Poles, Slavs and Magyars, Lombards, Burgundians and Franks, Sicilians, Neapolitans and Venetians, heightened by the contrast of speech, manner and garb the dazzling kaleidoscopic effect of the scene, while the powerful Northern veterans of the German king thrust their way with brutal contempt through the dregs of Romulus.
After having extricated himself from the motley throngs, Eckhardt, continuing his course to southward and following the Leonine wall, soon found himself in the barren solitudes of Trastevere. Here he slackened his pace, and, entering a cypress avenue, seated himself on a marble bench, a relic of antiquity, offering at once shade and repose.
Here he fell into meditation.
Three years had elapsed since the death of a young and beloved wife, who had gone from him after a brief but mysterious illness, baffling the skill of the physicians. In the ensuing solitude he had acquired grave habits of reflection. This day he was in a more thoughtful mood than common. This day more than ever, he felt the void which nothing on earth could fill. What availed his toils, his love of country, his endurance of hardships? What was he the better now, in that he had marched and watched and bled and twice conquered Rome for the empire? What was this ambition, leading him up the steepest paths, by the brinks of fatal precipices? He scarcely knew now, it was so long ago. Had Ginevra lived, he would indeed have prized honour and renown and a name, that was on all men's lips. And Eckhardt fell to thinking of the bright days, when the very skies seemed fairer for her presence. Time, who heals all sorrows, had not alleviated his grief. At his urgent request he had been relieved of his Roman command. The very name of the city was odious to him since her death. Appointed to the office of Great Warden of the East and entrusted with the defence of the Eastern border lands against the ever-recurring invasions of Bulgarians and Magyars, the formidable name of the conqueror of Rome had in time faded to a mere memory.
Not so in the camp. Men said he bore a charmed existence, and indeed his counsels showed the forethought and caution of the skilled leader, while his personal conduct was remarkable for a reckless disregard of danger. It was observed, though, that a deep and abiding melancholy had taken possession of the once free and easy commander. Only under the pressure of imminent danger did he seem to brighten into his former self. At other times he was silent, preoccupied. But the Germans loved their leader. They discussed him by their watch-fires; they marvelled how one so ready on the field was so sparing with the wine cup, how the general who could stop to fill his helmet from the running stream under a storm of arrows and javelins and drink composedly with a jest and a smile could be so backward at the revels.
In the year 996, Crescentius, the Senator of Rome raised the standards of revolt, expelled Gregory the Fifth and nominated a rival pontiff in the infamous John the Sixteenth. Otto, then a mere youth of sixteen summers, had summoned his hosts to the rescue of his friend, the rightful pontiff. Reluctantly, and only moved by the tears of the Empress Theophano, who placed the child king in his care and charge, Eckhardt had resumed the command of the invading army. Twice had he put down the rebellion of the Romans, reducing Crescentius to the state of a vassal, and meting out terrible punishment to the hapless usurper of the tiara. After recrossing the Alps, he had once more turned his attention to the bleak, sombre forests of the North, when the imperial youth was seized with an unconquerable desire to make Rome the capital of the empire. Neither prayers nor persuasions, neither the threats of the Saxon dukes nor the protests of the electors could shake Otto's indomitable will. Eckhardt was again recalled from the wilds of Poland to lead the German host across the Alps.
Meanwhile increasing rumours of the impending End of Time began to upheave and disturb the minds. A mystical trend of thought pervaded the world, and as the Millennium drew nearer and nearer pilgrims of all ages and all stages began to journey Rome-ward, to obtain forgiveness for their sins, and to die within the pale of the Church. At first he resisted the strange malady of the age, which slowly but irresistibly attacked every order of society. But its morbid influences, seconded by the memory of his past happiness, revived during his last journey to Rome, at last threw Eckhardt headlong into the dark waves of monasticism.
During the present, to his mind, utterly purposeless expedition, it had seemed to Eckhardt that there was no other salvation for the loneliness in his heart, save that which beamed from the dismal gloom of the cloister. At other times a mighty terror of the great lonesomeness of monastic life seized him. The pulses of life began to throb strangely, surging as a great wave to his heart and threatening to precipitate him anew into the shifting scenes of the world. Yet neither mood endured.
Ginevra's image had engraved itself upon his heart in lines deep as those which the sculptors trace on ivory with tools reddened with fire. Vainly had he endeavoured to cloud its memory by occupying his mind with matters of state, for the love he felt for her, dead in her grave, inspired him with secret terror. Blindly he was groping through the labyrinth for a clue – It is hard to say: "Thy will be done."
Passing over the sharp, sudden stroke, so numbing to his senses at the time, that a long interval had to elapse, ere he woke to its full agony; passing over the subsequent days of yearning, the nights of vain regret, the desolation which had laid waste his life, – Eckhardt pondered over the future. There was something ever wanting even to complete the dull torpor of that resignation, which philosophy inculcates and common sense enjoins. In vain he looked about for something on which to lean, for something which would lighten his existence. The future was cold and gray, and with spectral fingers the memories of the past seemed to point down the dull and cheerless way. He had lost himself in the labyrinth of life, since her guiding hand had left him, and now his soul was racked by conflicting emotions; the desire for the peace of a recluse, and the longing for such a life of action, as should temporarily drown the voices of anguish in his heart.
When he arose Rome was bathed in the crimson after glow of departing day. The Tiber presented an aspect of peculiar tranquillity. Hundreds of boats with many-coloured sails and fantastically decorated prows stretched along the banks. Barges decorated with streamers and flags were drawn up along the quays and wharfs. The massive gray ramparts of Castel San Angelo glowed in the rich colours of sunset, and high in the azure hung motionless the great standard, with the marble horses and the flaming torch.
Retracing his steps, Eckhardt soon found himself in the heart of Rome. An almost endless stream of people, recruiting themselves from all clans and classes, flowed steadily through the ancient Via Sacra. Equally dense crowds enlivened the Appian Way and the adjoining thoroughfares, leading to the Forum. In the Navona, then enjoying the distinction of the fashionable promenade of the Roman nobility, the throngs were densest and a vast array of vehicles from the two-wheeled chariot to the Byzantine lectica thronged the aristocratic thoroughfare. Seemingly interminable processions divided the multitudes, and the sombre and funereal chants of pilgrims and penitents resounded on every side.
Pressing onward step for step, Eckhardt reached the arch of Titus; thence, leaving the fountain of Meta Sudans, and the vast ruins of the Flavian Amphitheatre to the right, he turned into the street leading to the Caelimontana Gate, known at this date by the name of Via di San Giovanni in Laterano. Here the human congestion was somewhat relieved. Some patrician chariots dashed up and down the broad causeway; graceful riders galloped along the gravelled road, while