THE HILL OF VENUS

SOME by land, and some by sea, the revellers took their morning way along the coast towards the ruins of ancient Baiae. Francesco was on horseback, a friend having furnished him with an excellent mount. As he cantered on, the road continually revealed the far-sparkling sea. A flock of brilliant butterflies dipped and poised on the waters,—pleasure boats bound for the tryst. Ilaria! Ilaria! She and he were moving by different ways to the same goal.

Steeds proved swifter than sails that morning; the horsemen arrived half an hour before the boats. The place was a lonely wonder. The sloping hillsides, broken by the green hollows of an ancient amphitheatre, rose gently from the beach. From the turf, strewn with wild hyacinth, cyclamen, Star of Bethlehem and tiny fleurs-de-lys, great columns, half embedded in the ground, raised ivy-mantled shafts, now broken, now crowned with Corinthian capitals, which peered through trailing vines. Choice marbles, their rose or white mellowed to gold, lay scattered here and there, the surfaces, fluted or bevelled, still gleaming with the polish of by-gone centuries. Below and above the amphitheatre mysterious masonry broke the climbing slope. The ruins extended to the very verge of the sea.

Francesco ran down the bank as the first boat drew near. Under an awning of silk, shot with green and blue and gold, sat Ilaria, the Countess Violetta and Stefano Maconi. Violetta was rippling with joyous laughter. Ilaria smiled and the beauty of the day found its meaning. She had thrown aside the misty veil, with which she was wont to envelop herself. Her gown, or so Francesco thought, was the same which Proserpina had worn, in the "Triumph of Amor." At least, the same strange broideries shone among its folds.

She stepped lightly ashore. Her fingers rested on Francesco's hand and her eyes accepted his adoring look with a strange inscrutable expression.

"We have been sailing over marvels," cried Violetta wide-eyed. "Below the clear green waves rise palaces! We saw great white columns and a pavement of mosaics. Did we not, Madonna Ilaria?"

"Yes," said Ilaria, dreamily. "Had they not quivered in the light, we could have traced the pattern!"

"The palaces of the sea ladies," Violetta exclaimed gleefully. "I thought I saw one, but she turned out to be a fish!"

"The home of strange beings, at any rate," mused Ilaria,—"of flowers that are alive! Did you see that long blue ribbon sway and beckon to us?"

Ilaria's gravity and pallor seemed to have vanished with the mists of morning. She was flushed and gay,—almost too gay, Francesco thought. A startled quietude, as of one expectant, was upon her.

"I have bidden you to a land of enchantment," laughed Stefano Maconi as they climbed upwards. "We are still within the power of the sea, as you perceive," he added, when the company paused by the half-buried columns below the amphitheatre.

"It is true," said Francesco, pausing by a half-buried shaft. "The stone is fretted by the waves. See the clustered barnacles and tiny shells clinging half-way up!"

A party of cavaliers and their ladies met them on this spot.

As they exchanged greetings, all studied the strange sight.

"Probably," reflected a young page of the court, "it was the doing of Messer Vergilio."

"He had great power hereabout," asserted Andrea Ravignano, "and was a mighty clerk of necromancy. Perhaps it was he who built all these marvels!"

"It was the old Roman folk that built them, ages ago," said another. "A city rose here once, a marvel indeed, as these ruins tell. For their pleasure men built it, and here they lived and throve. And evil livers were they all, and slaves to the foul fiends, their gods!"

"But how did the city sink into the sea?" asked Violetta.

"That was the work of Messer Saint Paul," replied the other. "He landed here and preached the Cross of our Saviour, and when men would not heed but spat upon the cross and defied it, he laid the land under a curse, and it sank to the depths of the sea!"

"And when the waves had done their work,"—it was Ilaria, speaking dreamily, "they flowed back, and the ruins rested on a gentle hill. But forever and ever do they remember the sea!"

She sighed a little.

"The slope on which we sit is hollow within," ventured the youthful page. "Behind us is many a love-grotto, tunnelled deep and far. The country folk, when they run the harrow, find great walls. And so none dare come here of nights: strange things are seen!"

"Perhaps the waters will rise again some day and swallow Naples and the court, and we shall turn into sea-folk all," Ilaria said, laughing a little wildly. "Subjects of Lady Venus we should be. She was Queen of the Sea, I've heard!"

"Though Terce is hardly passed, such talk is not wise," said some one.

And two or three crossed themselves.

But as the light words drifted on, dim vistas of thought, at the end of which immemorial things were gleaming, had opened to Francesco.

Violetta had been deftly weaving a green garland of ivy.

"Dream no more, fairest," she turned smiling to Ilaria. "Tell me rather what flowers to weave into your chaplet. Of no strange blooms of the sea shall it be wrought, but, at your will, of roses or the small fior-da-lisa!"

"He who, as I, loves best the sea, loves best the rose," replied Ilaria smiling. "While he who climbs the height adores the lily!"

She glanced, as she spoke at Francesco, whose gaze had never for a moment abandoned her. Never had she seemed so fair to him, so utterly adorable, stirring in his soul the slumbering fires of desire.

Violetta quickly finished her wreath of eglantine, and dropped it lightly on Ilaria's brow.

"Why fear we ghosts in this radiant air?" laughed she.

"Perhaps we are the ghosts,—ghosts of our former selves," suggested Ilaria.

"No phantom heart beats in my bosom," laughed Stefano Maconi.

And a look of meaning, or so Francesco felt, passed between them.

"Fair phantom, let us tread a measure!" pleaded Violetta. "What was this green level made for, if not for the beating of gentle feet?"

"And when the measure is over," said Francesco in an undertone, as they rose, "perhaps Madonna Ilaria will graciously vouchsafe me a few moments?"

She nodded assent; but he could see her eyelids quiver, and her breath came fast. The measure finished, Stefano Maconi at once proposed a new diversion, from which neither could escape, and time wore on, while the light grew more intense and the sky burned a deeper blue. Ill at ease, Francesco withdrew from the pastimes at last and climbed the hill behind the amphitheatre. He was displeased and nervous. Ilaria, he was sure, shrank from Stefano Maconi; yet was there not some secret bond between them?

Would Ilaria come to him? He trembled, as in Avellino of old, and his heart beat faster at the thought.

The hill was richly draped in ferns and swaying vines. Idly he pushed aside a mass of ivy: a passage opened behind, deep-vaulted, paved with broken fragments of mosaic. Stalactites dripped from the roof, through the verdure of thick maiden-hair fern. The gloom looked grateful. Francesco stepped within and, looking out on the blue day from the waving green frame-work, saw Ilaria and Stefano Maconi approaching, engaged in eager talk. She was flushed and bore herself haughtily.

Francesco stepped quietly out into the light, unnoticed by Ilaria's companion. Ilaria evidently saw him at once. She paused and dismissed the other, regardless of his somewhat insistent protests. With half-ironic salutation she turned down the hill. Whether or no Stefano had caught sight of Francesco, as he went, was difficult to say.

Ilaria came towards the grotto, trailing her draperies, her brow troubled and sad beneath the gay chaplet.

"The sun is hot,—one craves shelter," she said lightly, yet with a tremor in her voice.

Francesco, without replying, lifted the ivy curtain and with a mute gesture invited her to enter.

They stood in the dusky gloom, speechless, hidden from each other, till their gaze became accustomed to the shade.

He was helplessly unable to break the silence. Fear, joy, desire, doubt were tossing him. The breath came fast.

She raised her arms and caught her white throat.

"How cool it is, how sweet!" she said. "At Avellino," and she glanced at him half shyly, "you would never take me to your grotto!"

"Ah! But this grotto," he tried to speak as lightly as she, "we have found together!"

"Together!" she reflected, looking away from him. "It is a word we have not often had occasion to use,—you and I."

"Why might we not in the days to come?"

The words were on his lips; he held them back.

Ilaria waited, her hand pressed to her side, her look full of mingled tenderness and dread.

As he kept silence, she sighed, almost, it would seem, with relief.

"I wish to explore the cave," she said suddenly. "Come with me, if you like!"

And with quick steps she started into the darkness.

"Take care! Take care, Lariella!" cried Francesco, unconsciously using the familiar diminutive, forgotten so long ago.

She took no heed and he hurried after her, terror-stricken, he knew not why. She kept in advance, moving swiftly and lightly over the dark uneven ground. For a short distance the dusk deepened, then a sudden light, shining from a crack in the vaulting, revealed in startling contrast a great blackness by the side of which there gleamed something weird, ghost-like.

Ilaria screamed and stumbled. The passage, widening beneath her feet, broke downwards into a pool of the waters of Styx. A lost stair had betrayed her.

Francesco, speeding forward, caught her garments, drew her back. She staggered and yielded to his arms. They leaned together against the wall of the grotto. The earth had fallen away a little at the shock, revealing in the uncertain light the white figure of a woman.

They both stared at it, holding their breath.

The image stood embedded in the rocky cavity, whither some force had in past ages carried her from her old position, for she had evidently presided over the Piscina, or the bath of some rich Roman, who rejoiced in her Greek fairness. The face was free, but soil and mould had given it a half-sinister expression. The limbs, so far as visible,—and the earth in falling away had left one white side of the body entirely bare,—were perfect.

Ilaria struggled to free herself from Francesco's embrace and sank, half fainting, at the statue's base.

"The peril is over," said Francesco, and echoes filled the whole cavern with murmuring. "Dearest, be not afraid! Look at me!"

As her head drooped, he knelt beside her, half distraught, and rubbed her wrists and forehead with water from the pool.

She opened her eyes and smiled at him, as a child might.

"FontÉ Gaia!" she whispered.

The words had been in his own mind.

Lifting her hand, she touched and stroked the marble, and the awe grew in her eyes.

"Feel!" she said. "This is not marble! It is very flesh, though turned to stone!"

And she shuddered.

"Only a statue, dearest!" he answered soothingly. "Around Naples, they say, the earth is full of such!"

"It is the White Lady!"

She had risen now and regained her self-control, and she spoke with unwonted dignity and calm.

"It is the White Lady," she repeated, "but you know, you have never consented to her spells. She rules here in the dusk! How you tremble! There is no need! Sunlight for you is but a few paces away! See, I will go with you to the entrance of the grotto!"

In truth a strange tremor had seized him. He stood as if unable to leave the spot. She was looking on his face with anxious eyes.

"Doubtless," he said at last, and despised himself as he spoke, "you would prefer other company than mine in the presence of your White Lady!"

She raised her white hands to her throat again, and laughed, a laugh which the vaults re-echoed as a sob.

"Forgive,—forgive! I am cruel!" cried Francesco. "I know not what I say!"

"You are overheated," she said. "Bathe your brows, as you have bathed mine. It is true, I did not find the touch so cooling."

"The waters of LethÉ," said Francesco very slowly. "Shall I bathe my brows in them indeed? Already, simply standing by them, I think I have forgotten many things. I have a better thought. Will you drink of them with me, Ilaria? It would not be the first time we have tasted of the same cup in the presence of Venus!"

Was he mistaken? Or, in the glimmering light, did he see a shadow passing over the flower-soft face?

She did not reply, but softly stroked his hair.

Her touch burned, electrified him. For a moment he submitted to the sensation, then, as her soft, white hands stole around his throat, he folded her in a close embrace and kissed her passionately on her lips.

From the waters came the swinging rhythm of the Barcarole.

The time for metaphors had passed. He raised his head.

"I love you, Ilaria," he stammered, drunk with her sweetness, "love you, as I have never loved anything on earth. Ilaria—Ilaria—"

"Are we not free?" she whispered, her lips very close to his.

He kissed them again and again, then tossed back his head.

"Free?" he said. "Who is free? Ghostly powers, fates from ancient days,—drive us, flesh and blood, whither they will!"

She shook her head, and on her lips played the old-time childhood smile.

"Have you forgot?" she whispered into his ear, holding him very close. "But it is not for me to remind you—"

With a sudden change her restraint had vanished.

"We are among the shades," she continued, "where Proserpina should be at home. The world of sun is far!"

"I love you—" he stammered, gazing at her with wide, hungry eyes.

She bent back his head, till their eyes met.

She gazed at him with all the love she bore him. Then, drawing him close, she whispered a word in his ear.

He closed his eyes in mortal anguish.

"All creation knows it,—all things, animate and inanimate: but not I,—not I!"

"Take me!" Ilaria said calmly, her face very white. "Yes—I will drink with you! But first—a libation to Venus!"

She gathered a little water in her hands and sprinkled it at the feet of the statue.

He stared at her for a moment, speechless, full of wonder at her strange bearing. She was very pale, but in her eyes there gleamed a subtle fire, which kindled the spark in his soul.

"We have no cup," he said trembling.

But she, stooping swiftly, gathered water once more in the hollow of her palms and raised them to his face.

"Drink!" she whispered eagerly. "Drink, while yet we dare!"

He stooped to the soft white hands and held them close to his mouth, kissing them again and again when he had drank.

"Come!" she said softly.

He did not stir. She bent over him.

"Francesco! I love you—come!"

He fell prone at her feet, with a sob that shook his whole frame as with convulsions.

"Oh! That I might,—that I might! I would not sully your white purity for all there is in earth, or heaven!"

For a moment she stood rigid, white, dazed.

Suddenly he felt two arms winding themselves about his neck, two soft lips were pressed upon his own in one long, delirious kiss—then he saw Ilaria precipitately retrace her steps, and Stefano Maconi peer into the grotto.

After a time Francesco emerged into the sunlight, bewildered, dazed. Ilaria had joined the revellers, and he sank down upon a rock and covered his face with his hands.

His heart and his soul were bleeding to death within him; and like his own phantom he at last arose and walked towards the sea. The revellers had lost themselves in the depths of the groves. Again and again the swinging rhythm of their song was borne to him on the soft, fragrant breezes; yet there was but one thought in his heart, one name on his lips, as his feet bore him slowly through the blossoming wilderness: "Ilaria! Ilaria!"—