20
Chapter
WALPURGIS-NIGHT
THE spring in Naples had advanced with eager foot; in her gait she revealed
the truth of her godhead; and by the end of April there was no wreath of snow
on Apennine, or Alban, or Apulian Hill.
The last day of the month was hot and still as midsummer; the slopes of
Posillippo begged a breath from Ocean, and were denied. So heavy a haze
hung on the sea that not only Capri, not only the blue spur that stabs the
sunset, but Vesuvius itself, were hidden from the Villa where Iliel and her
friends were nested.
Sunset was sombre and splendid; the disc itself was but a vague intensity
of angry Indian red. His agony spilt a murky saffron through the haze; and
the edges of the storm-clouds on the horizon, fantastically shapen, cast up a
veritable mirage, exaggerated and distorted images of their own scarred
crests, that shifted and changed, so that one might have sworn that monsters
— dragons, hippogriffs, chimaerae — were moving in the mist, a saturnalia
of phantasms.
Iliel impatiently awaited the moment of darkness, when she could meet the
Old Lady and start for the Sabbath. She had noticed a long conference that
day between Sister Clara and the two men; and she was sure that they were
themselves arranging for their departure. The suspicion was confirmed when,
one after the other, they came to wish her a good night. [277] She was more
than ever determined to follow them to the Sabbath.
By nine o'clock everything was still in the garden, save for the tread of
Brother Onofrio's patrol, who paced the upper terrace, chanting in the soft
and low, yet stern, tones of his well-modulated voice, the exorcism that
magical guardians have sung for so many ages, with its refrain: "On them
will I impose my will, the Law of Light."
Iliel gave her little cough, and found herself immediately upon the path she
knew so well. It only took her a few minutes to reach the rock, and there was