. The sorceress of Rome. ce, stony in its marble-cold disdain, the monk turned and left the church through thesacristy. For a moment Theodora remained as one spell-boimd,then she drew her mantle more closely about her and leftthe sepulchre by an exit situated in an opposite direction. Nosooner had her footsteps died to silence when two shadowyforms sped noiselessly through the incense-saturated dusk ofS. Pietro in Montorio, pausing on the threshold of the door,through which the monk Cyprianus had gained the open. I need that man! whispered the taller into the ear ofhis companion, pointing with
. The sorceress of Rome. ce, stony in its marble-cold disdain, the monk turned and left the church through thesacristy. For a moment Theodora remained as one spell-boimd,then she drew her mantle more closely about her and leftthe sepulchre by an exit situated in an opposite direction. Nosooner had her footsteps died to silence when two shadowyforms sped noiselessly through the incense-saturated dusk ofS. Pietro in Montorio, pausing on the threshold of the door,through which the monk Cyprianus had gained the open. I need that man! whispered the taller into the ear ofhis companion, pointing with shadowy finger to the swiftlyvanishing form of the monk. 104 THE DEATH WATCH The other nodded with a horrid grin, which glowed upon hisvisage like phosphorus upon a skull. With a quick nod of understanding, the Grand Chamberlainand John of the Catacombs quitted the steps of S. Pietro inMontorio. Darkness fell. Night enveloped the trembling world with her star embroidered robe of dark azure. 195 CHAPTER XVI THE CONCLAVE-. VAST concourse surrounded theportals of the Vatican. Itseemed as if the entire popula-tion of Rome, from the Portadel Popolb to the Coliseum,from the baths of Diocletian toCastel San Angelo, had as-sembled by appointment in thePiazza of St. Peter. For sodense was the multitude, that itspressure filled the adjacent thoroughfares, the crowds clinginground columns, winding along the broken outlines of the walls,and grouping themselves among the ruins of temples and fallenporticoes. The eyes of aU were fixed upon that wing of the pontificalpalace where the Conclave, hurriedly convoked, was assembled,and as Gregory V had now been dead sixteen days, the cardinalswere proceeding with the election of a new Pope. Never pos-sibly, from the hour when the first successor of St. Peter mountedthe throne of the Apostle, had there been exhibited so muchunrest and disquietude as there was in this instance to beobserved among the masses. The rumour that Gregory haddied of poiso
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