Part 27 (1/2)

With torch-bearing crowds the streets of Aricia were jammed. From gate to gate of the town they crawled, wading slowly through the press of revellers. Along the road to the Grove they were as a chip floated along on a tide of torchbearers, for the parties of wors.h.i.+ppers converging to their great local yearly festival from Tusculum, Tibur, Cora, Pometia, Lanuvium and Ardea formed a continuous procession, their pulsing torch-flames looking strange and blurred through the fog.

When they reached the top of the ridge enclosing the Lake, Vocco dismounted and trusted his roan to one of Nemestronia's extra bearers, as horses were not allowed within the Grove or its precincts.

Not much before midnight the bearers swung sharply at the brink of the cliff and plunged down the steep narrow road cut along its face.

Brinnaria felt the dampness of the lake air on her cheek.

By the Lake the fog was, if possible, more impenetrable than elsewhere.

The Grove, the lodging for the cripples and invalids who thronged the place to be cured, the vast halls about the temple, the temple itself, all were doubly whelmed in the darkness and the mist.

Brinnaria made out only the six channelled vermilion columns of the temple portico and the black boughs of the sacred oak. These, to right and left of the temple area, showed vaguely in the light of thousands of torches in the hands of the throng packed about it.

Respect for a closed litter with sixteen bearers accompanied by a gentleman in a Senator's robes won them a way through the crowd, the torches surging in waves of flame as they ploughed through.

When they reached the margin of the open s.p.a.ce, Brinnaria, choking with the realization that she had arrived too late, peered between the drawn curtains of her litter and saw the pavement of the temple-area bright under the splendor of the torch-rays; saw a dozen young women, dressed in gowns of a startling deep orange, standing in a row clear of the torch-bearing crowd; saw the five aldermen of Aricia in their official robes, grouped about the square marble altar; saw before the altar a circular s.p.a.ce of clipped turf midway of the area pavement, saw standing on it to the right of the altar the King of the Grove, clad in his barbaric smock of dingy undyed black wool, his three-stranded necklace of raw turquoises broad on his bosom, the fox-tails of his fox-skin cap trailing by his ears; saw facing him Almo, bare-kneed, his hunting-boots of soft leather like chamois-skin coming half way up to his calves, his leek-green tunic covering him only to mid-thigh, his head bare, his right hand waving an oak bough.

After she recognized Almo and glimpsed the bough in his hand she hardly looked at him. She stared, fascinated, at the white marble altar on which, as an offering to Diana of the Underworld, the victor of the fight would lay the corpse of his victim.

The Dictator of Aricia, chief of the Aldermen, raised his hand. From somewhere in the darkness behind the dozen simpering wenches appeared two slaves, each carrying a small round s.h.i.+eld and a double-headed battle-axe. The s.h.i.+elds had painted on each a horse, the battle-axes were of the pattern always seen in pictures of the legendary Amazons.

The blade of each axe-head was shaped like a crescent moon. From the inner side projected a flat, thick shank, by which the blade was fastened to the helve. The curve of each blade made almost a half circle, the tips of the crescents almost touched the haft between them, so that their outer cutting-edges made a nearly complete circle of razor-sharp steel, from which protruded the keen spear-head tipping the shaft.

Two of the aldermen received these accoutrements from the slaves.

Brinnaria noticed that one of the other aldermen held the broad, gold-mounted, jeweled scabbard containing the great scimitar with which the King of the Grove kept girt, waking or sleeping. She even noted how its belt trailed from his hands and the s.h.i.+ne of its gloss-leather in the torch-rays.

The two aldermen handed a s.h.i.+eld and an axe to each contestant. One took from Almo the oak-bough and pa.s.sed it to the Dictator.

The two champions fitted the s.h.i.+elds on their arms, balanced them, and hefted their battle-axes. Each a.s.sumed the posture that suited him best, his feet well under him. So they stood facing each other, waiting for the signal.

The King of the Grove was a stocky, solidly-built ruffian of medium height and weight. Almo seemed much taller and very much slenderer and lighter. His delicate features and thin nose contrasted strangely to the high cheek-bones, small, close-set eyes, and wide, flat nostrils of his antagonist.

The Dictator waved the oak-bough and shouted.

The two champions warily approached each other.

Each kept his left foot forward; each crouched, as it were, inside the s.h.i.+eld tight against his shoulder; each held his axe aloft.

Each struck, each dodged, Almo awkwardly, his axe trailing behind him after it missed.

The stocky man thought he saw his chance and whirled his weapon, bringing it down in a terrible sweep. Craftily Almo caught it against his s.h.i.+eld, just below the upper rim, horribly it grated against the bronze plating of the s.h.i.+eld, with the full weight of the mighty swing it buried itself in the sod.

The force of his blow carried the a.s.sailant with it so that he almost fell face forward on the sward.

Before he could recover himself Almo's ready axe swung.

Brinnaria saw it flash in the air. Then she saw the fox-skin cap in two halves, a horrid red void between.

”Oh Vocco,” she called, ”t-t-take me home, t-t-take me home.” At that volcanic instant, at the bitterest moment of her life, what kept back her tears was her tendency to laugh at the fact, that, ill the midst of her agony, she did not forget to stutter.

CHAPTER XVIII - FURY