Part 23

"Yes, yes, I know you," Perpetua answered him, gently; but to herself she said, "Poor soul! poor soul!" and she wondered what she could do to help the afflicted thing. If her father had returned he would know what to do--or one of the holy brothers of the Church. Even while she reflected two forms rose against the sky, coming from the pathway, giant figures with skins like burnished copper, clad with a barbaric splendor, with pelts of leopards over their shoulders, and having great rings of gold upon their arms and in their ears.

"This is the place," said one; and, "Knock at the door," ordered the other. Perpetua stepped out of the shadow of the trees towards them. Robert, following her action with his eyes, saw the men and knew them, amazed, for his Moorish slaves Zal and Rustum. He asked himself why they were there, and could not answer the question; yet some memory seemed to be trying to assert itself in his troubled brain, and he watched what followed vaguely as one shackled by sleep.

"What do you seek?" Perpetua asked of the new-comers.

The one who had spoken last questioned her.

"Are you the daughter of Theron the executioner?"

"I am she," Perpetua answered.

The other black giant spoke.

"You must come with us. Your father has sent for you. He lies sick at Syracuse."

Perpetua gave a great cry.

"My father sick! I will go with you at once."

The sound of her cry seemed to rend the veil of forgetfulness that hung about the brain of Robert. He knew now why these men had come, sent by Hildebrand in obedience to his King's command. For the first time in his foolish life Robert felt his heart throb with pity, his spirit rise in arms against injustice. The girl who had disdained him in his pride had been kind to him in his misery; she should suffer no wrong from him. He limped into the open space and waved the Saracens aside with a gesture of command, while he called to Perpetua:

"No, no; do not go with them. It is a trick, a lie." Advancing fiercely upon the slaves, who stared at the sudden appearance of the discredited jester, he cried out: "I have changed my mind. Begone!" Then, reading only derision and denial on their countenances, he raged at them.

"Do you not know me, fellows? I am the King!"

The black slaves grinned evilly. One of them turned to Perpetua, who, in her eagerness to join her father, listened with impatience to the grotesque assertions of the fool.

"Come, maiden, come," he said. "There is no time to lose." Then as Robert interposed himself between the girl and the slave, the slave roared at him, "Out of the way, fool!"

Robert felt his members tremble at the ferocity of the monster who was wont to kiss his hand, but he stood his ground.

"She shall not go," he said.

"I say she shall," the black answered, and with his huge hand he dealt Robert a blow that beat him brutally to the earth. Perpetua sprang forward to prevent further cruelty, but the slave paid no further heed to the prostrate man. Catching Perpetua by the hands, they hurried her at full speed down the mountain-path to the place where a litter was waiting.

Robert lay alone on the summit of the hill, dizzy with pain and rage, beating the earth with his clinched fists and moaning to himself: "I am the King! I am the King! I am the King!"

VIII

PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN

A little way from the city Lycabetta had found, dedicated to our Lady of Delights, a fitting shelter for herself and for her attendant nymphs. This was the palace of a dead and heirless duke, somewhile abandoned and now renewed with life and color by the gold of the Neapolitan. It stood apart in spacious gardens that were girdled so thickly with groves of cypresses that none save the initiated could dream of the wonders masked by the melancholy trees. But those initiated knew well that behind the solemn barrier there smiled a kind of earthly paradise--pleasances where even the flowerful soil of Sicily seemed extravagantly prolific of color, extravagantly prodigal of odors; thickets wherein the great god Pan might have delighted to lurk; fair colonnades thick-carpeted with the petals of roses and framed to greet all cool, benevolent breezes; temples to exquisite divinities; fountains lapsing, murmurous as the laughter of youth, into great basins whose smooth waters welcomed smooth bodies; grottoes deep and mysterious, affording shelter in the fiercest heats. To these enchanted privacies the young and rich who had followed Robert from Naples and had welcomed his coming to Sicily made pilgrimage, and day and night pleasure held there her pagan court as if the wild cry had never been heard by Thamus, the pilot, calling from the islands of Paxæ and heralding the coming of the white Christ.

On this night the House of Pleasure was unusually quiet. Those who guarded the golden gates denied admission to all who could not conjure with the King's name, and Lycabetta was alone with her favorite women, fair, Greek-faced girls with fair, Greek names--Glycerium, Hypsipyle, Euphrosyne, Lysidice. The room that shrined her beauty was a marvellous medley of the styles of many architectures, of the arts of many lands, as if the streams of wealth and splendor flowing from all the sources of the world had carried thither its rarest treasures. Greece, Rome, Byzantium, the genius of the Saracen, and the vigor of the Norman had shared in the decoration of those walls, gorgeous with gold and color, hung with sumptuous tapestries woven with alluring figures from the legends of love. The floor, inlaid with iridescent tiles that Persian hands had painted, was strewn with costly stuffs and furs. Before a life-size statue in bronze of Venus, a copy of that Venus Callipyge given by Heliogabalus to Syracuse, a fire of shifting, many-tinted flames burned on a metal tripod, whose stems represented the figures of beautiful, nude women. The air was heavily scented from the burning woods and spices in the brazier, sandal and cinnamon and cassia. Hanging lamps, of strangely fantastic design, filled the wide room with delicate light.

Lycabetta, the triumphant jewel of all this gorgeous setting, reclined upon a golden couch that was made soft for her body with rare furs, and bright--to enhance her whiteness--with brilliant silks. Clad in thin, transparent webs, whose shifting shimmer recalled, whenever she stirred her limbs, the glitter of the serpent, Lycabetta lay with a look of weariness on her face, while Hypsipyle fanned her softly with a huge feather fan of black and white ostrich plumes. Glycerium, seated by the head of the couch, was busy in adorning her mistress's black hair with flowers. At her feet Euphrosyne nursed a kind of lute and sang the Venus song in a small, sweet voice:

"Venus whispered from her nest: 'White Adonis, bright Adonis! Love is better than the best, Heaven is hidden in my breast, Take delight and leave the rest, Blithe Adonis, lithe Adonis!'

"Venus stretched her arms and said: 'Shy Adonis, sly Adonis! Gather blooms and make a bed Of the scented petals shed By the roses, white and red, Brisk Adonis, frisk Adonis!'

"Venus murmured with a sigh: 'Dumb Adonis, numb Adonis! Fast the golden moments fly, Love and let the world go by, Be a god before you die, Child Adonis, wild Adonis!'"

Lycabetta yawned and lifted up her hand. Euphrosyne ceased in her singing.