Not far from the enormous Baths which the Emperor Diocletian,—as if to atone for preferring to reside in Nicomedia or Salona rather than in Rome,—had had built on the northeastern slope of the Viminal as far as the spot where the height merges into the Quirinal, there stood near the Collina Gate a singular structure, almost recalling in the ponderous splendor of its brilliantly-painted faÇade the royal palaces of Assyria and Persia, yet as fresh and new as if it had just emerged from the hands of architect and workmen, an architectural embodiment of the taste of an age which had a fancy for cleverly imitating the style of by-gone times, not only in the weak creations of a degenerate literature, but in other departments of human activity.

True, in this instance it had not been the architect’s whim or his employer’s taste, but a definite, practical purpose that had replaced the simple faÇade of the Roman dwelling by this fantastic luxury of the East. Behind the ponderous pillars adorned with heads of animals, Olbasanus, the Chaldean enchanter and conjuror of evil spirits, the declared favorite of the Roman ladies, practised his mysterious arts,—and thus the exterior of the spacious structure harmonized with the strange events that occurred within. The foreign aspect of the front might be regarded as a preparation for the chosen ones whom Olbasanus permitted to cross the threshold of his secret sanctuary.

Lucius Rutilius and Caius Bononius reached the door at the very moment it was opened from within, allowing a tall, thin figure, wrapped in a thick paenula, to pass into the street. Spite of the mild weather, the stranger had drawn over his head the hood worn as a protection from the rain.

Stepping a little aside, the two youths made room for the disguised figure.

“I ought to know that gait and bearing,” said Lucius Rutilius, looking after the hurrying form; but he vainly strove to recollect. Meantime the porter had not closed the door, but holding a lantern of chased silver with panes of oiled papyrus, admitted the two visitors.

Caius Bononius gave him a silver coin and asked if the Chaldean could be seen, according to his appointment.

The porter beckoned to one of the seven bearded Ethiopians who, clad in long robes confined around the hips by wide girdles inscribed with strange characters, stood waiting at the entrance of the corridor, and the man thus summoned silently led the new arrivals through the wainscoted ante-room. As he moved forward almost without a sound, the train of his cowl-like robe rustling softly over the floor, holding in his right hand a torch that cast spectral shadows on the countless joints and projections of the masonry, he himself seemed a supernatural being, well calculated to make a mysterious, agitating impression upon sensitive souls. The way led through a double row of short, heavy columns to a staircase whose basalt steps extended downward to a subterranean passage, just high enough to permit a tall man to walk upright under the ragged arch cut in the forms of stalactites. The smoke from the torch floated in horrible shapes along the roof. A heavy, oppressive atmosphere prevailed. On the right and left, in black cavities, lay an endless number of skulls. After a time the corridor turned; a second gallery opened, from which branched a third and fourth. At last the young men lost all idea of the direction in which they were going. Lucius Rutilius thought they must have long since reached the other side of the hill; Caius Bononius, on the contrary, was disposed to believe that the staircase which now led them into a spacious, dimly-lighted room, was not very far from the entrance flight at the end of the pillared corridor.

The apartment they entered was a masterpiece in the effective use of architectural, plastic, and decorative ornament. When the Ethiopian had retired with his blazing torch and let down the iron trap-door at the top of the stairs, the two youths at first supposed themselves to be in total darkness. True, a tiny pale-blue flame was burning at the back of the room in a candelabrum about the height of a man; but the rays it shed through the vast chamber were not sufficient to show eyes dazzled by the torch-glare anything more than the glimmering outlines of huge, ponderous masses. By degrees, however, their vision became accustomed to this feeble light, and Caius and Lucius discovered the elliptical arrangements of huge pillars, behind which ran a deep corridor that looked almost black. Only a pallid glimmer between the shadows of the columns showed that on the other side of this corridor extended a wall, following the line of the room within. Twelve of the pillars—that is, one-third of the whole number—which were directly opposite to the entrance, were artistically draped with countless floating black hangings, between which hung all kinds of chains, cords for suspending lamps, and other accessories, carefully arranged in such a manner as not to weaken the impression of height and space.

The ceiling of the room was slightly arched, but its construction, owing to the extreme height, could not be distinguished. At the end of the apartment, in front of the candelabrum, was a large square altar, also hung with dark cloth. Tripods, brazen monopodia[4] covered with all kinds of strange utensils, low stools, and various unrecognizable articles were arranged in symmetrical order on both sides. In the centre of the floor lay a rug about thirty feet square, painted or interwoven with mysterious figures; on each corner stood a candlestick even taller than the candelabrum at the end.

The young men had about five minutes’ time in which to examine their surroundings by the dim light of the livid flame, then there was a sound like the distant notes of an Aeolian harp and, without their knowing how and whence he came, Olbasanus stood behind the cloth-draped altar.

“You do not come alone, Caius Bononius!” he said, in a musical voice. “No matter—I know. Most mortals cherish scruples about approaching, relying solely on their own strength, the rooms where the gods are to reveal themselves directly and indirectly. Let your companion, whoever he may be, also draw near; his quiet, devout presence will not disturb the Chaldean’s work.”

“You are mistaken, Olbasanus,” replied Caius Bononius, “the person accompanying me is the one who longs to address a question to the goddess. I, Caius Bononius, only sent my messenger to you in behalf of this youth; for, I confess, I never felt a desire to lift the veil from the future.”

“I am mistaken,” replied Olbasanus. “That is the lot of all human beings, and mine also, so long as I speak to you only as a feeble and perishable man. The favor of the gods, when I appeal to them, first casts into my soul the light that renders any error impossible. Well! Olbasanus is disposed to grant your wish, though as a man he cannot understand what could induce you to use this evasion.”

“The reasons are of small importance,” replied Bononius.

“Then you probably desire to have your companion’s name remain concealed from the prophet?”

Caius Bononius exchanged a hasty glance with his friend, then turning to Olbasanus, replied:

“If it is agreeable to you, yes!”

The Chaldean seemed to hesitate a few seconds.

“Greater power is required of the magician’s art when the questioner conceals his name,” he said slowly; “but since you earnestly desire....”

“We beseech it!” replied Bononius.

The Chaldean now came with measured pace from behind the altar.

“Granted!” he said solemnly.

Then he stretched out his hand, in which gleamed a small ivory wand. Instantly the spacious room glowed with a light as bright as that of day. Lamps not only burned in all the candelabra—but even between the pillars flames seemed to spring from the ground; shallow vessels appeared in which jets of light blazed steadily.

The two youths were almost blinded by the spectacle of this transformation. Lucius pressed his hand to his brow as if bewildered; Caius stood motionless, apparently scrutinizing, considering, examining. At last a smile of satisfaction flitted over his face. He seemed to have found the solution of this enigma, while Rutilius was still enthralled by the impression the miracle produced.

“Approach,” said the Chaldean in sonorous tones. “Stranger, what do you desire to know?”

Again the youths exchanged a glance; then Rutilius said:

“I would fain learn what the gods have allotted to me, in case I fulfil the most momentous and important design of my life.”

Olbasanus delayed his answer as before. At last he replied:

“I fear that is more vague than the gods permit. Can you not put your question more clearly; mention, without reserve, the design of which you speak?”

Rutilius felt Bononius secretly touch his arm.

“No,” he said quietly. “I beg you to try whether an answer cannot be obtained, even without a more exact definition.”

Olbasanus looked upward. A ray like a flash of lightning darted down.

“Granted,” he said, turning to Rutilius. “By all the terrors of the nether world, you are a favorite of the gods; they bestow such marked kindness only on the chosen ones whom they wish to bless. They usually punish distrust of their interpreter by perpetual silence.”

The two youths were growing more excited every instant; Lucius, because the Chaldean’s grave, dignified manner seemed a warrant for the earnestness and truth of what he was about to announce; Caius Bononius, because he was greatly disappointed,—he had been perfectly sure the magician would say that Lucius’ wish was not allowable.

Olbasanus now touched the altar with his wand. A clear note, like that produced by striking metal, echoed through the room, and a boy clad in white entered through the curtains at the right. He carried a brazier filled with red-hot coals, which he placed on one of the brass stools beside Olbasanus.

“Bring in the victim,” said the Chaldean.

The lad withdrew. Olbasanus seized a shovel, filled it with burning coals and carried it to one of the tripods, on which he carefully spread them, then returning to the altar raised his hands.

“Hecate!” he said in a hollow tone, “Mistress of the Nether World, Princess of Darkness and Shadows, Ruler of Demons and Departed Spirits, omnipotent, awful goddess! Neither primeval fate, nor any of the higher gods opposes what we design. So I implore thee to graciously grant what Olbasanus timidly whispers. Disclose the future to this youth, quench his thirst for the unfathomable, fill his eyes with clear vision, and teach him what ghosts and demons from east to west impart to thee. If thou art disposed to favor him who, like so many hundred others, appeals to thee, stir thy sacred element; let thy spirit fan the fiery flame and animate it with thy immortal breath!”

After these words he advanced a few steps to the tripod and gazed intently at the glowing coals. Lucius and Caius had also approached. Suddenly the bits of coal began to move slowly. There was a surging and seething, as if the force of some unknown vitality pervaded the blazing brands, until at last the movements grew weaker and finally ceased.

The Chaldean stepped back, folded his arms, and bowed.

The white-robed boy now appeared, leading a black lamb by a rope that glistened like silver. Binding the animal firmly to the altar, he approached the two youths and offered them an onyx dish. His attitude was unmistakable. Lucius took some gold coins from the purse hanging at his belt and placed them in the vessel. The boy thanked him and again retired behind the curtain.

Olbasanus, holding his magic wand in his right hand and pressing the left on his heart, lowered his eyes, saying to Lucius Rutilius:

“Kneel, my son. According to ancient custom we will slaughter a black animal to the goddess of the Under World. Pray that the holy rite may succeed! The entrails of the beast, inspired by Hecate’s divine breath, will announce to us what we are striving to know—not in mysterious symbols, which require interpretation, but in plain characters that are familiar to human eyes. Victim of Hecate, die!”

He raised the wand over his head. The black lamb fell as if struck by lightning. Directly after, two attendants on the sacrificial rites appeared—pallid youths clad in Greek chitons and Persian trousers, with gay kerchiefs bound about their heads.

“Stranger,”—Olbasanus turned to Lucius,—“approach and touch the animal which has succumbed to the attack of my helpful demons.”

Lucius Rutilius, who was growing more timid and faint-hearted every moment, advanced. The animal’s limbs were already stiff. As the youth grasped the woolly fleece, the lamb’s head fell back, showing the glazed eyes.

The attendants removed the rug from the altar-slab and laid the victim on it; while Lucius Rutilius held the beast’s forefoot clasped in his left hand, one of the youths gave the Chaldean the knife. The lamb was opened and Olbasanus, muttering all sorts of magic formulas, removed the heart and the liver. The next moment the animal was taken away and the altar cleansed from the blood by large linen cloths dyed black.

Olbasanus held the heart and liver in his outstretched left hand until the slaves had put a brazen plate on the altar, then laying the entrails on the metal, he waved his wand and said to Lucius:

“Approach and read!”

At these words a sound like the roll of thunder echoed through the room. Lucius Rutilius, with a throbbing heart, bent over the plate. There, in the centre of the still-smoking liver, appeared in distinct Greek letters:

T?????S—Death.

The young patrician staggered back.

“Death!” he murmured, as if benumbed.

Caius Bononius had also advanced to read the large, somewhat irregular characters of the prophecy. Panting for breath, he gnawed his lips, frowned, and clenched his fist, as if he needed some physical means to help him resist the impression of this incomprehensible miracle. He acknowledged to himself that he lacked any explanation for it; yet his clear, unprejudiced reason rebelled against what his eyes could not deny. He touched the writing with his finger—it did not wipe off. That Olbasanus had not written it himself, either before or while he placed the liver on the metal plate, Caius Bononius could swear by all the gods. Already a troubled “If it should be true?” was darting through his mind, when glancing aside he detected the almost imperceptible smile with which the magician was watching the sceptical examination of the inscription. To the young man’s penetration this smile contained a singular meaning. It was not the lofty expression of pity and divinely-bestowed power, which in the full possession of its sacred might looks condescendingly down upon the bewildered doubter; but the crafty smile of the Greek who has succeeded in defrauding his foe of a piece in the game of draughts, or the daring adventurer who has accomplished a bold deed and successfully effaced every trace of his action. Thus, in this strange fashion, the philosopher, where logic left him in the lurch, drew fresh power of resistance from the domain of feeling; the instinct that led him to consider the affair trivial because the person was suspicious.

“Do you still doubt, Caius?” whispered Lucius with quivering lips. “Come; I know enough now. How I shall bear it remains in the hands of the gods.”

“I doubt more than ever,” replied Bononius. “The day will come when I shall unravel this mystery. Now, I beseech you, don’t desert me and above all yourself and your hopes so unceremoniously. Put more questions to him, ask for other signs! They say he makes the goddess’s voice speak from a skull; and Heliodorus’ daughter herself wrote to you that the magician brought Hecate’s flaming form from the night-heavens. Outweigh his marvels with gold, but let him do what he can, for the sake of truth and the prosperity of your happy future. I now long more than ever to behold—and be able to despise—all his arts.”

“You are blaspheming, Caius!” said the startled Lucius. “Suppose the terrible goddess, the destroyer of my life, should punish you!”

“Punish me? For what? If it is she, she ought to be grateful to me for revealing the abuse of her name; but it is not, otherwise she would have dragged yonder fellow into the eternal gulf long ago.”

A pause ensued. Olbasanus seemed to be secretly gloating over the impression his prophecy had produced on the two young men, for he imagined that Caius Bononius’s whispered words were the expression of wondering anxiety.

“The Mistress of Night has prophesied death to me,” Rutilius at last began. “But one thing still weighs on my mind. May I be permitted to question farther?”

“Question,” replied Olbasanus.

“Then I would fain know whether this destiny can be averted by no sacrifice, no deed of expiation. If it is in your power, let me learn this. Implore the goddess to pronounce the oracle to the questioner in her own terrible voice.”

As before the Chaldean looked upward; as before lightning flashed; and raising his wand he exclaimed:

“Granted!”

Again he drew from the altar the mysterious metallic sound that summoned the white-robed boy. At an unintelligible order from the Chaldean, the lad went to a monopodium that stood near and took from it a little casket set with gems, which he placed beside the magician. Then the onyx vessel again appeared, and Lucius Rutilius’s gold coins fell rattling within. Directly after the dark curtain between the two pillars behind the altar was drawn aside, revealing a semicircular niche lighted by a bluish lamp. The wizard took from the casket a small vessel, whose contents he burned on the brazier of coals. A fragrant smoke rose to the ceiling, and at the same moment all the lights went out except the bluish lamp, whose glimmering rays showed a grinning skull on the floor of the niche.

Olbasanus beckoned to the questioner. Resting both hands on the altar, Lucius Rutilius was to gaze into the ghostly niche and hear the decree of the terrible goddess. As Caius Bononius also wished to see and hear, he, too, was obliged to grasp the edge of the altar with his right hand.

“Be silent and vanish, ye spirits and demons,” the Chaldean now began in a mysterious tone. “Be silent and vanish, for Hecate, the Inscrutable, will herself speak to this creature of the dust through the symbol of her omnipotence, the skull on the floor of her sanctuary. The fleshless, brainless skeleton, once the seat of thought, the extinct lamp of a long-forgotten human life, will serve the Invisible One for an abode when she rises from the depths of the nether-world. Announce to me, Omnipotent One, has the breath of thy divine life entered this mouldering shell?”

A hollow, horrible: “Thou sayest it,” echoed from the lofty forehead of the skull.

Lucius Rutilius started violently. Caius Bononius thought himself deceived in the direction from which the voice came, and leaning forward listened breathlessly.

Olbasanus had bowed his face upon the altar, as if the presence of the immortal goddess bent his head in timid reverence. Now he slowly rose.

“Be merciful unto us, Thou Mistress of all!” he said, extending his hands towards the niche as if imploring protection. “This youth desires to know whether the destiny thy sternness predicts is as inevitable as a decree of fate, and if not—what he must do to avert the terrible doom.”

After a pause the voice again echoed from the skull: “His fate is inevitable if he executes what he has planned,” came from the horrible cavity in a whisper so distinct that even Bononius could no longer doubt. “In resignation lies the sole salvation of his life. This, Hecate, who removes all that her breath has touched, announces to him.”

With these words a terrible peal of thunder resounded through the hall. The skull in the niche began to stir, and—incredible marvel—grow smaller, like a cloud in the evening sky which gradually melts into nothing. The two young men gazed fixedly at the mysterious phenomenon. Two minutes more, and the skull had entirely vanished from the shining floor—it had not sunk into the earth, but, as it were, fallen to pieces, blown away, dissolved in smoke like a phantom.

When Caius Bononius looked up, he saw his friend lying apparently lifeless on the altar steps.

“It is all over,” he murmured, pale with horror, as Bononius touched him on the shoulder.

For a time Caius left the sorrowing youth to his despair. Olbasanus, who was probably accustomed to such scenes, waited silently a few steps off.

“Lucius,” the young sage began after a little hesitation, “consider only one thing! The gods, if they exist, must be regarded as the incarnation of everything that is sublime. But the nobler, purer, and therefore more akin to the gods a man’s nature is, the more decidedly he is repelled by the horrible and ghostly. The very idea of divinities, even of a deity ruling the realm of death, forbids us to believe incidents such as we have just witnessed to be the expression of their will. I, too, cannot guess this Chaldean’s enigmas; but I doubt with all the power of my mind that they are what he declares them to be. Do you also doubt, Lucius! Own to him that you do; don’t spare your money, and ask fresh testimony. Your Hero, you said, saw the goddess of death; do you, too, request a sight of her, in order either to believe implicitly or find the lever by which you can overthrow all these incomprehensible things.”

This time there was some delay before Lucius Rutilius could be persuaded. But at last, becoming more and more influenced by his friend’s calmness, he yielded and made the request Bononius directed.

Olbasanus’s penetration had long since anticipated this turn of affairs. He silently led the two youths through half-a-dozen paths running in different directions across the dark park. Situated on a gently-rising hill, the magician’s garden covered a square of several hundred feet, which was enclosed like a sanctuary by walls almost as high as a house, and overgrown with ivy and other climbing vines. Here and there fountains played in alabaster basins; strange statues, looking like pallid shades in the starlight of the moonless night, stood like spectral guards amid the shrubbery. Ancient evergreen-oaks and plane-trees spread their many-branching crowns.

In the centre of the grounds was a circle about sixty yards in diameter. Here the magician paused with his companions.

“Your wish is a presumptuous one!” he said to Lucius Rutilius. “Only in rare cases does the goddess grant so insolent a desire. But you, I repeat, seem to be chosen as an object of her special favor. Hecate”—he folded his arms across his breast—“wills it, and will appear to you. Nay, she will even tolerate the presence of him who stands as a sympathizing friend by your side. But—I warn you! Remember Semele, who wished to behold Zeus in all his Olympian majesty and was consumed in anguish in his arms. True, death and destruction will not come to you from the sight of the Inscrutable One, for she appears of her own free will, not constrained by any oath binding upon the gods. But even thus the vision will confuse your mind and senses, stir your heart with dread and horror. Surrounded by scorching flames she will cross the starry sky, visible only to your eyes and mine, and overwhelming awe will stream from her shoulders like rain from a thunder-cloud. Never will you be able to efface this terrible spectacle from your memory. Therefore, do not brave the crushing vision too long! As soon as you have once beheld it, bow your head in reverence and hide your face with your trembling hands. No question to the Immortal One is needed. Her voice has already announced that your destiny is fixed; therefore she will come from the left, from the regions of the west; and flame across to the east. If her own favor and mercy could avert this fate—and she alone in rare cases can loose bonds the fettered one himself could rend by no sacrifice, no atonement—she would rise from the right like the sun and vanish towards the left. Now,—are you prepared?”

“We are,” replied Rutilius.

Olbasanus threw himself on the ground. Gently striking his forehead thrice against the hard trodden earth, he cried in a tone of despairing fervor:

“Hecate, Princess of the Nether World, Mistress of all that has breath, show thyself to the eyes of this chosen youth, and, if it is possible for thee, rise from the regions of the east.”

Suddenly a strange, ghostly rustling echoed on the air, a whirring like the distant sound of mighty wings. A blazing fiery glare flamed in the sky—but from the west. The apparition crossed the heavens with furious speed,—half concealed by the boughs of a row of lofty elms.

“Hide your faces, unhappy men!” the Chaldean had shouted at the first ray of light, and in tones so sharp, so full of real terror, that Lucius Rutilius involuntarily obeyed.

Even Caius Bononius had shrunk back and did not look up fairly and steadily until the fiery vision had already sunk far in the east behind the dark horizon.

Lucius Rutilius, half fainting with excitement, was led away by Olbasanus and Caius Bononius. The Chaldean interrupted a question from the latter by the quiet remark:

“The time Olbasanus placed at your disposal has long since elapsed. Other grief-laden mortals are already impatiently awaiting his aid.”

At the end of five minutes Lucius Rutilius had recovered sufficiently to set out on his way home with the young philosopher. When Caius Bononius, on reaching his friend’s house, held out his hand, whispering: “Calm yourself, Lucius,” he received no reply. Staggering like a drunken man Lucius hurried through the passage leading from the door to the atrium, and sought his couch, to lie awake all night.

Caius Bononius also found himself indescribably agitated. The gulf between what he had witnessed and what his reason and judgment had long since decided concerning the nature of things and the meaning of the world was too irreconcilable, not to lead the mind of one so eager in the pursuit of knowledge to try to restore in some way the interrupted harmony. Until early dawn he paced by lamplight up and down his study or the peristyle, searching, weighing, and rejecting, till at last, almost tired to death, he flung himself, still in his toga and tunic, upon his couch and fell asleep.