 Book V. CHAPTER III. Thrice had salutes awakened from his morning sleep, and Thrice, recollecting that his friend was that day to perish, had he turned himself with a deep sigh once more to court oblivion. His sole object in life was to avoid pain, and where he could not avoid at least to forget it. At length, unable any longer to steep his consciousness in slumber, he raised himself from his incumbent posture, and discovered his favorite freedmen sitting by his bedside as usual. For salutes, who, as I have said, had a gentleman-like taste for the polite letters, was accustomed to be read to, for an hour or so, previous to his rising in the morning. No books to-day, no more tabulus, no more pinder for me, pinda, alas, alas! The very name recalls those games, to which our arena is the savage successor. Has it begun, the amphitheater? Are its rites commenced? Long since, O Salus, did you not hear the trumpets on the trampling feet? Aye-aye, but the gods be thanked, avid drowsy, and had only to turn round to fall asleep again. The gladiators must have been long in the ring. The vretches, none of my people have gone to the spectacle. Assuredly not, your orders were too strict. That is well, would the day were over. What is that letter yonder on the table? That? Oh, the letter brought to you last night, when you were too, uh, too drunk to read it, I suppose. No matter, it cannot be of much importance. Shall I open it for you, Salus? Do anything to divert my thoughts, poor Glaucus. The freedman opened the letter. What? Greek? said he. Some learned lady, I suppose. He glanced over the letter, and for some moments the irregular lines traced by the blind girl's hand puzzled him. Suddenly, however, his countenance exhibited emotion and surprise. Good gods, noble Salus! What have we done not to attend to this before? Hear me read. Nidia, the slave, to Salus, the friend of Glaucus. I am a prisoner in the house of Arbaques. Haste into the priator, procure my release, and we shall yet save Glaucus from the lion. There is another prisoner within these walls, whose witness can exonerate the Athenian from the charge against him, one who saw the crime, who can prove the criminal in a villain he is too unsuspected. Fly, hasten, quick, quick, bring with you armed men, lest resistance be made, and a cunning and dexterous smith, for the dungeon of my fellow prisoner is thick and strong. Oh, by thy right hand, and thy father's ashes, lose not a moment. Great Joe, exclaimed Salus, starting. And this day, Ney, within this hour perhaps he dies. What is to be done? I will instantly to the priator. Ney, not so. The priator, as well as Pansa, the editor himself, is the creature of the mob, and the mob will not hear of delay. There will not be bogged in the very moment of expectation. Besides, the publicity of the appeal would forewarn the cunning Egyptian. It is evident that he has some interest in these concealments. No. Fortunately, thy slaves are in thy house. I see the meaning, interrupted Salus, arms the slaves instantly. The streets are empty. We will ourselves hasten to the house of Arbekis, and release the prisoners. Quick, quick! What ho? That was there. My gown and sandals, the papers and the reed. I will write to the priator to beseech him to delay the sentence of Glaucus. For that, within an hour, we might yet prove him innocent. So, so, that is well. hasten with this devus to the priator, at the amphitheater. See it given to his own hand. Now then, oh ye gods, whose providence apicurus denied, befriend me, and I will call apicurus a liar. The Amphitheater once more. Glaucus and Elymthus had been placed together in that gloomy and narrow cell in which the criminals of the arena awaited their last and fearful struggle. Their eyes, of late accustomed to the darkness, scanned the faces of each other in this awful hour, and by that dim light, the paleness, which chased away the natural hues from either cheek, assumed a yet more ashy and ghastly whiteness. Yet their brows were erect and dauntless, their limbs did not tremble, their lips were compressed and rigid, their religion of the one, the pride of the other, the conscious innocence of both, and, it may be, the support derived from their mutual companionship elevated the victim into the hero. Hark, hearest thou that shout, they are growling over their human blood, said Elymthus. I hear, my heart grows sick, but the gods support me. The gods, oh rash young man, in this hour recognize only the one god. Have I not taught thee in the dungeon, wept for thee, prayed for thee? In my zeal and in my agony, have I not thought more of thy salvation than my own? Brave friend, answered Glockus solemnly, I have listened to thee with awe, with wonder, and with a secret tendency towards conviction. Had our lives been spared, I might gradually have weened myself from the tenants of my own faith and inclined to thine. But in this last hour it were a craven thing, and a base, to yield to hasty terror what should only be the result of lengthened meditation. Were I to embrace thy creed, and cast down my father's gods, should I not be bribed by thy promise of heaven, or awed by thy threats of hell? Elymthus, no. Think we of each other with equal charity, I honoring thy sincerity, thou pitying my blindness or my obdurate courage. As have been my deeds, such will be my reward, and the power or powers above will not judge harshly of human error, when it is linked with honesty of purpose and truth of heart. Speak we no more of this. Hush. Dost thou hear them drag ye on heavy body through the passage? Such as that clay will be ours soon. O heaven, O Christ, already I behold ye, cried the fervent Elymthus, lifting up his hands. I tremble not. I rejoice that the prison house shall soon be broken. Glockus bowed his head in silence. He felt the distinction between his fortitude and that of his fellow sufferer. The heathen did not tremble, but the Christian exalted. The door swung gratingly back. The gleam of spears shot along the walls. Glockus the Athenian, thy time has come, said a loud and clear voice. The lion awaits thee. I am ready, said the Athenian. Brother and comate, one last embrace. Bless me and farewell. The Christian opened his arms. He clasped the young heathen to his breast. He kissed his forehead in cheek. He sobbed aloud. His tears flowed fast and hot over the features of his new friend. Oh, could I have converted thee? I had not wept. Oh, that I might say to thee, We too shall sup this night in paradise. It may be so yet, answered the Greek, with a tremulous voice. They whom death part not, may meet yet be on the grave. On the earth, on the beautiful, the beloved earth, farewell forever. Were the officer, I attend you. Glockus tore himself away, and when he came forth into the air, its breath, which, though sunless, was hot and arid, smoked witheringly upon him. His frame, not yet restored from the effects of the deadly draft, shrank and trembled. The officers supported him. Courage, said one, thou art young, active, well-knit. They give thee a weapon, despair not, and thou mayest yet conquer. Glockus did not reply, but, ashamed of his infirmity, he made a desperate and convulsive effort, and regained the firmness of his nerves. They anointed his body, completely naked, saved by a sincture round his loins, placed a stylus, vain weapon, in his hand, and led him into the arena. And now, when the Greeks saw the eyes of thousands and tens of thousands upon him, he no longer felt that he was mortal. All evidence of fear, all fear itself, was gone. A red and haughty flush spread over the paleness of his features. He towered aloft to the full of his glorious stature. In the elastic beauty of his limbs and form, in his intent but unfrauning brow, in the high disdain, and in the indomitable soul, which breathed visibly, which spoke audibly from his attitude, his lip, his eye, he seemed the very incarnation, vivid and corporeal, of the valor of his land, of the divinity of its worship, at once a hero, and a god. The murmur of hatred and horror at his crime, which had greeted his entrance, died into the silence of involuntary admiration and half-compassionate respect, and with a quick and convulsive sigh, that seemed to move the whole mass of life as if it were one body, the gaze of the spectators turned from the Athenian to a dark uncouth object in the center of the arena. It was the graded den of the lion. By Venus, how warm it is, said Volvia, yet there is no sun. Would that those stupid sailors could have fastened up that gap in the awning? Oh, it is warm indeed. I turn sick. I faint, said the wife of Panza, even her experienced stoicism giving way at the struggle about to take place. The lion had been kept without food for 24 hours, and the animal had, during the whole morning, testified a singular and restless uneasiness, which the keeper had attributed to the pangs of hunger. Yet its bearing seemed rather that of fear than of rage. Its roar was painful and distressed, it hung its head, snuffed the air through the bars, then lay down, started again, and again uttered its wild and far-resounding cries. And now, in its den, it lay utterly dumb and mute, with distended nostrils forced hard against the grating and disturbing with a heaving breath the sand below on the arena. The editor's lip quivered. His cheek grew pale. He looked anxiously around, hesitated, delayed. The crowd became impatient. Slowly he gave the sign. The keeper, who was behind the den, cautiously removed the grating. And the lion leaped forth with a mighty and glad roar of release. The keeper hastily retreated through the graded passage leading from the arena, and left the lord of the forest and his prey. Glockus had bent his limb so as to give himself the firmest posture at the expected rush of the lion, with his small and shining weapon raised on high in the faint hope that one well-directed thrust, for he knew that he should have time for but one, might penetrate through the eye to the brain of his grim foe. But to the unalterable astonishment of all, the beast seemed not even aware of the presence of the criminal. At the first moment of its release, it halted abruptly in the arena. It raised itself half on end, snuffing the upward air with impatient sighs. Then suddenly it sprang forward, but not on the Athenian. At half speed it circled round and round the space, turning its vast head from side to side with an anxious and perturbed gaze, as if seeking only some avenue of escape. Once or twice it endeavored to leap up the parapet that divided it from the audience. And, on failing, uttered rather a baffled howl than its deep-toned and kingly roar. It evinced no sign, either of wrath or hunger. Its tail drooped along the sand, instead of lashing its gaunt sides. And its eye, though it wandered at times to glock us, rolled again listlessly from him. At length, as if tired of attempting to escape, it crept with a moan into its cage, and once more laid itself down to rest. The first surprise of the assembly at the apathy of the lion soon grew converted into resentment at its cowardice, and the populace already merged their pity for the fate of glockus into angry compassion for their own disappointment. The editor called to the keeper, how is this? Take the goad, prick him forth, and then close the door of the den. As the keeper, with some fear but more astonishment, was preparing to obey, a loud cry was heard at one of the entrances of the arena. There was a confusion, a bustle, voices of remonstrance suddenly breaking forth, and suddenly silenced at the reply. All eyes turned in wonder at the interruption, towards the quarter of the disturbance. The crowd gave way, and suddenly Salastre appeared on the senatorial benches, his hair disheveled, breathless, heated, half exhausted. He cast his eyes hastily round the ring. Remove the Athenian, he cried. Haste, he is innocent! Arrest Arbyses the Egyptian, he is the murderer of Apicides. Art thou mad, O Salastre? said the pretor, rising from his seat? What means this raving? Remove the Athenian, quick, or his blood be on your head. Pretor, delay, and you answer with your own life to the emperor. I bring with me the eyewitness to the death of the priest Apicides. Room there, stand back, give way, people of Pompeii, fix every eye upon Arbyses, there he sits. Room there for the priest Calenus. Pale, haggard, fresh from the jaws of famine and of death, his face fallen, his eyes dull as a vultures, his broad frame gaunt as a skeleton. Calenus was supported into the very row in which Arbyses sat. His releasers had given him sparingly of food, but the chief sustenance that nerved his feeble limbs was revenge. The priest Calenus. Calenus, cried the mob, is it he? No, it is a dead man. It is the priest Calenus, said the pretor gravely. What has thou to say? Arbyses of Egypt is the murderer of Apicides, the priest of Isis. These eyes saw him deal the blow. It is from the dungeon into which he plunged me. It is from the darkness and horror of a death by famine that the gods have raised me to proclaim his crime. Release the Athenian, he is innocent. It is for this, then, that the lion spared him. A miracle, a miracle, cried Panza. A miracle, a miracle, shouted the people. Remove the Athenian, Arbyses to the lion. And that shout echoed from hill to vale, from coast to sea. Arbyses to the lion. Officers, remove the accused Glocus. Remove, but guard him yet, said the pretor. The gods lavish their wonders upon this day. As the pretor gave the word of release, there was a cry of joy. A female voice. A child's voice. And it was of joy. It ran through the heart of the assembly with electric force. It was touching. It was holy. That child's voice. And the populace echoed it back with sympathizing congratulation. Silence, said the grave pretor. Who is there? The blind girl, Nydia, answered Salist. It is her hand that has raised Kalenus from the grave and delivered Glocus from the lion. Of this, hereafter, said the pretor. Kalenus, priest of Isis, Thou accusest Arbyses of the murder of Apicides? I do. Thou didst behold the deed, pretor, with these eyes. Enough at present. The details must be reserved for more suiting time and place. Arbyses of Egypt, Thou hearst the charge against thee. Thou hast not yet spoken. What hast thou to say? The gaze of the crowd had long been riveted on Arbyses, but not until the confusion which he had betrayed at the first charge of Salis and the entrance of Kalenus had subsided. At the shout, Arbyses to the lion, he had indeed trembled, and the dark bronze of his cheek had taken a paler hue, but he had soon recovered his haughtiness and self-control. Proudly he returned the angry glare of the countless eyes around him, and replying now to the question of the pretor, he said, in that accent so peculiarly tranquil and commanding which characterized his tones. Pretor, this charge is so mad that it scarcely deserves reply. My first accuser is the noble Salis, the most intimate friend of Glocus. My second is a priest. I revere his garb and calling, but people of Pompeii ye know somewhat of the character of Kalenus. He is gripping and gold thirsty to a proverb. The witness of such men is to be bought. Pretor, I am innocent. Salis, said the magistrate, where found you Kalenus? In the dungeons of Arbyses. Egyptian, said the pretor, frowning, thou didst then dare to imprison a priest of the gods, and wherefore? Hear me, answered Arbyses, rising calmly, but with agitation visible on his face. This man came to threaten that he would make against me the charge he has now made, unless I would purchase his silence with half my fortune. I remonstrated, in vain. Peace there, let not the priest interrupt me. Noble pretor, and ye, O people, I was a stranger in the land. I knew myself innocent of crime. But the witness of a priest against me might yet destroy me. In my perplexity I decoyed him into the cell once he had been released, on the pretense that it was the coffer house of my gold. I resolved to detain him there until the fate of the true criminal was sealed, and his threats could avail no longer. But I meant no worse. I may have aired, but who amongst ye will not acknowledge the equity of self-preservation? Were I guilty, why was the witness of this priest silent at the trial? Then I had not detained or concealed him. Why did he not proclaim my guilt when I proclaimed that of Glockus? Pretor, this needs an answer. For the rest, I throw myself on your laws. I demand their protection. Remove hence the accused and the accuser. I will willingly meet and cheerfully abide by the decision of the legitimate tribunal. This is no place for further parlay. He says right, said the Pretor. Ho, guards, remove arbises. Guard Calenis. Salist, we hold you responsible for your accusation. Let the sports be resumed. What! cried Calenis, turning round to the people. Shall Isis be thus contend? Shall the blood of appeasities yet cry for vengeance? Shall justice be delayed now that it may be frustrated hereafter? Shall the lion be cheated of his lawful prey? A God! A God! I feel the God rush to my lips. To the lion! To the lion with arbises! His exhausted frame could support no longer the ferocious malice of the priest. He sank on the ground in strong convulsions. The foam gathered to his mouth. He was as a man, indeed, whom a supernatural power had entered. People saw and shuddered. It is a God that inspires the holy man. To the lion with the Egyptian! With that cry up sprang, on moved, thousands upon thousands. They rushed from the heights. They poured down in the direction of the Egyptian. Invane did the Edile command. Invane did the pre-tour lift his voice and proclaim the law. The people had been already rendered savage by the exhibition of blood. They thirsted for more. Their superstition was aided by their ferocity. Aroused, inflamed by the spectacle of their victims, they forgot the authority of their rulers. It was one of those dread popular convulsions common to crowds wholly ignorant. Half free and half servile, in which the peculiar constitution of the Roman provinces so frequently exhibited. The power of the pre-tour was as a reed beneath the whirlwind. Still, at his word, the guards had drawn themselves along the lower benches, on which the upper classes sat separate from the vulgar. They made but a feeble barrier. The waves of the human sea halted for a moment. To enable Arbyses to count the exact moment of his doom. In despair and in a terror which beat down even pride, he glanced his eyes over the rolling and rushing crowd. When, right above them, through the wide chasm which had been left in the Velaria, he beheld a strange and awful apparition. He beheld and his craft restored his courage. He stretched his hand on high. Over his lofty brow and royal features there came an expression of unutterable solemnity and command. Behold! he shouted with a voice of thunder which stilled the roar of the crowd. Behold! how the gods protect the guiltless! The fires of the avenging orcas burst forth against the false witness of my accusers. The eyes of the crowd followed the gesture of the Egyptian and beheld. With ineffable dismay, a vast vapor shooting from the summit of Vesuvius, in the form of a gigantic pine tree. The trunk blackness. The branches fire. A fire that shifted and wavered in its hues with every moment. Now fiercely luminous, now of a dull and dying red, that again blazed terrifically forth with intolerable glare. There was a dead heart-sunken silence, through which there suddenly broke the roar of the lion, which was echoed back from within the building by the sharper and fiercer yells of its fellow beast. Dread seers were they of the burden of the atmosphere, and the wild prophets of the wrath to come. Then there arose on high the universal shrieks of women. The men stared at each other, but were dumb. At that moment they felt the earth shake beneath their feet. The walls of the theater trembled, and beyond in the distance they heard the crash of falling roofs. An instant more and the mountain clouds seemed to roll towards them, dark and rapid, like a torrent. At the same time, it cast forth from its bosom a shower of ashes mixed with vast fragments of burning stone. Over the crushing vines, over the desolate streets, over the amphitheater itself, far and wide, with many a mighty splash in the agitated sea, fell that awful shower. No longer thought the crowd of justice or of embassies. Safety for themselves was their sole thought. Each turned to fly, each dashing, pressing, crushing against the other, trampling recklessly over the fallen amidst groans and oaths and prayers, and sudden shrieks. The enormous crowd vomited itself forth through the numerous passages. Withers should they fly. Some, anticipating a second earthquake, hastened to their homes to load themselves with their more costly goods, and escape while it was yet time. Others, dreading the showers of ashes that now fell fast, torrent upon torrent, over the streets, rushed under the roofs of the nearest houses or temples or sheds, shelter of any kind, for protection from the terrors of the open air. But darker and larger and mightier spread the cloud above them. It was a sudden and more ghastly night rushing upon the realm of noon. End of Book 5, Chapter 4. Book 5, Chapter 5 of the Last Days of Pompeii. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton, Book 5, Chapter 5. The Cell of the Prisoner and the Den of the Dead, Grief Unconscious of Horror. Stunned by his reprieve, doubting that he was awake, Glockus had been led by the officers of the arena into a small cell within the walls of the theater. They threw a loose robe over his form and crowded round in congratulation and wonder. There was an impatient and fretful cry without the cell. The throng gave way, and the blind girl, led by some gentler hand, flung herself at the feet of Glockus. It was I who have saved thee, she sobbed, now let me die. Nydia, my child, my preserver. Oh, let me feel thy touch, thy breath. Yes, yes, thou livest. We are not too late. That dread door, he thought it would never yield, and callenus. Oh, his voice was as the dying wind among tombs. We had to wait. Gods, it seemed ours, air, food, and wine restored to him something of strength. But thou livest. Thou livest yet, and I. I have saved thee. This effecting scene was soon interrupted by the event just described. The mountain, the earthquake, resounded from side to side. The officers fled with the rest. They left Glockus and Nydia to save themselves as they might. As the sense of the dangers around them flashed on the Athenian, his generous heart recurred to Elythus. He, too, was reprieved from the tiger by the hand of the gods. Should he be left to a no less fatal death in the neighboring cell? Taking Nydia by the hand, Glockus hurried across the passages. He gained the den of the Christian. He found Elythus kneeling and in prayer. Arise, arise, my friend, he cried. Save thyself and fly. See? Nature is thy dread deliverer. He lent forth the bewildered Christian and pointed to the cloud which advanced darker and darker, disgorging forth showers of ashes and pumice stones, and bade him harken to the cries and trampling rush of the scattered crowd. This is the hand of God. God be praised, said Elythus devoutly. Fly, seek thy brethren. Concert with them thy escape. Farewell. Elythus did not answer. Neither did he mark the retreating form of his friend. High thoughts and solemn absorbed his soul, and in the enthusiasm of his kindling heart, he exalted in the mercy of God rather than trembled at the evidence of his power. At length he roused himself, and hurried on. He scarce knew wither. The open doors of a dark, desolate cell suddenly appeared on his path. Through the gloom within there flared and flickered a single lamp, and by its light he saw three grim and naked forms stretched on the earth in death. His feet were suddenly arrested, for, amidst the terror of that drear recess, the spolarium of the arena, he heard a low voice calling on the name of Christ. He could not resist lingering at that appeal. He entered the den, and his feet were dabbled in the slow streams of blood that gushed from the corpses over the sand. Who, said the Nazarene, calls upon the Son of God? No answer came forth, and turning round, Elythus beheld, by the light of the lamp, an old gray-headed man sitting on the floor and supporting in his lap the head of one of the dead. The features of the dead man were firmly and rigidly locked in the last sleep, but over the lip there played a fierce smile, not the Christian's smile of hope, but the dark sneer of hatred and defiance. Yet on the face still lingered the beautiful roundless of early youth. The hair curled thick and glossy over the unwrinkled brow, and the down of manhood but slightly shaded the marble of the hueless cheek. And over this face spent one of such unutterable sadness, of such yearning tenderness, of such fawn and such deep despair. The tears of the old man fell fast and hot, but he did not feel them, and when his lips moved and he mechanically uttered the prayer of his benign and hopeful faith, neither his heart nor his sense responded to the words. It was but the involuntary emotion that broke from the lethargy of his mind. His boy was dead, and had died for him, and the old man's heart was broken. Medan, said Alintas, pityingly, arise and fly. God is forth upon the wings of the elements. The new Gamora is doomed. Fly, ere the fires consume thee. He was ever so full of life. He cannot be dead. Come hither, place your hand on his heart. Sure it beats yet. Brother, the soul has fled. We will remember it in our prayers. Thou canst not reanimate the dumb clay. Come. Come. Hark, while I speak. Yon crashing walls. Hark, yon angonizing cries. Not a moment is to be lost. Come. I hear nothing, said Medan, shaking his gray hair. The poor boy, his love murdered him. Come. Come. Forgive this friendly force. What? Who would sever the father from the son? And Medan clasped the body tightly in his embrace, and covered it with passionate kisses. Go, said he, lifting up his face for one moment. Go. We must be alone. Alas, said the compassionate Nazarene, death has severed ye already. The old man smiled very calmly. No, no, no. Muddered, his voice growing lower with each word. Death has been more kind. With that his head drooped to his son's breast. His arms relaxed their grasp. Olymphus caught him by the hand. The pulse had ceased to beat. The last words of the father were the words of truth. Death had been more kind. Meanwhile, Glaucus and Nidia were pacing swiftly up the perilous and fearful streets. The Athenian had learned from his preserver that Ioni was yet in the house of Arbyses. Thither he fled, to release, to save her. The few slaves whom the Egyptian had left at his mansion when he had repaired in the long procession to the Amphitheater had been able to offer no resistance to the armed band of Celest. And when afterwards the volcano broke forth, they huddled together, stunned and frightened, in the inmost recesses of the house. Even the tall Ethiopian had forsaken his post at the door. And Glaucus, who left Nidia without, the poor Nidia, jealous once more, even in such an hour, passed on through the vast hall without meeting one from whom to learn the chamber of Ioni. Even as he passed, however, the darkness that covered the heavens increased so rapidly that it was with difficulty that he could guide his steps. The flower-wreathed columns seemed to reel and tremble, and with every instant he heard the ashes fall crunchingly into the roofless peristyle. He ascended to the upper rooms, breathless he paced along, shouting out aloud the name of Ioni, and at length he heard, at the end of a gallery, a voice, her voice, in wondering reply. To rush forward, to shatter the door, to seize Ioni in his arms, to hurry from the mansion seemed to him the work of an instant. Scares had he gained the spot where Nidia was, then he heard the steps advancing towards the house, and recognized the voice of Arbyses, who had returned to seek his wealth and Ioni ere he fled from the doomed Pompeii. But so dense was already the reeking atmosphere, that the foes saw not each other, though so near, save that, dimly in the gloom, Glockus caught the moving outline of the snowy robes of the Egyptian. They hastened onward, those three. Alas, wither, they now saw not a step before them, the blackness became utter, they were encompassed with doubt and horror, and the death he had escaped seemed to Glockus only to have changed its form and augmented its victims. End of book 5, chapter 5. Book 5, chapter 6 of the last days of Pompeii. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The last days of Pompeii by Edward G. Woolward-Litton. Book 5, chapter 6. Calenis and Berbo, Diomed and Claudius, the girl of the amphitheater and Julia. The sudden catastrophe which had, as it were, riven the very bonds of society and left prisoner and jailer alike free, had soon rid Calenis of the guards to whose care the pre-tour had consigned him. And when the darkness and the crowd separated the priest from his attendants, he hastened with trembling steps towards the temple of his goddess. As he crept along and ere the darkness was complete, he felt himself suddenly caught by the robe and a voice muttered in his ear. Hisst, Calenis, an awful hour. I, by my father's head, who art thou? Thy face is dim and thy voice is strange. No, not thy Berbo. Fee. God's, how the darkness gathers. Ho, ho, by yon terrific mountain, what sudden blazes of lightning, how they dart and quiver, Hades is loosed on earth. Tush, thou believest not these things, Calenis? Now is the time to make our fortune. Ha! Listen, thy temple is full of gold and precious mummies. Let us load ourselves with them, and then hasten to the sea and embark. None will ever ask an account of the doings of this day. Berbo, thou are right. Hush, and follow me into the temple. Who cares now? Who sees now, whether thou art priest or not? Follow, and we will share. In the precincts of the temple were many priests gathered around the altars, praying, weeping, groveling in the dust. Impostors in safety, they were not the less superstitious in danger. Calenis passed them, and entered the chamber, yet to be seen in the south side of the court. Berbo followed him. The priests struck a light. Wine and viands strove the table. There remains of a sacrificial feast. A man who has hungered 48 hours, muttered Calenis, has an appetite even in such a time. He seized on the food and devoured it greedily. Nothing could perhaps be more unnaturally horrid than the selfish baseness of these villains, for there is nothing more loathsome than the valor of avarice. Plunder and sacrilege, while the pillars of the world tottered to and fro. What an increase to the terrors of nature can be made by the vices of man. What thou never have done, said Berbo, impatiently, thy face purples, and thine eyes start already. It is not every day one has such a right to be hungry. O Jupiter, what sound is that? The hissing of fiery water. What, does the cloud give rain as well as flame? Ha, what shrieks! And, Berbo, how silent all is now. Look forth. Amidst the other horrors, the mighty mountain now cast up columns of boiling water. Blent and kneaded with the half-burning ashes, the streams fell like seething mud over the streets in frequent intervals. And full, where the priests of ices had now cowered around the altars, on which they had vainly sucked to kindle fires and pour incense, one of the fiercest of those deadly torrents, mingled with immense fragments of scoria, had poured its rage. Over the bended forms of the priests it dashed, that cry had been of death, that silence had been of eternity. The ashes, the pitchy streams sprinkled the altars, covered the pavement, and half concealed the quivering corpses of the priests. They are dead, said Berbo, terrified for the first time, and hurrying back into the cell. I thought not, the danger was so near and fatal. The two wretches stood staring at each other. You might have heard their hearts beat. Kalanus, the less bold by nature, but the more gripping, recovered first. We must to our task and away, he said, in a low whisper, frightened at his own voice. He stepped to the threshold, paused, crossed over the heated floor and his dead brethren to the sacred chapel, and called to Berbo to follow. But the gladiator quaked and drew back. So much the better, thought Kalanus. The more will be my booty. Hastily he loaded himself with the more portable treasures of the temple, and thinking no more of his comrade hurried from the sacred place. A sudden flash of lightning from the mount showed to Berbo, who stood motionless at the threshold, the flying and laden form of the priest. He took heart. He stepped forth to join him, when a tremendous shower of ashes fell right across his feet. The gladiator shrank back once more. Darkness closed him in. But the shower continued fast, fast. Its heaps rose high and suffocatingly. Deathly vapors steamed from them. The wretch gasped for breath. He sought in despair again to fly. The ashes had blocked up the threshold. He shrieked as his feet shrank from the boiling fluid. How could he escape? He could not climb to the open space. Nay, were he able, he could not brave its horrors. It were best to remain in the cells, protected, at least, from the fatal air. He sat down and clenched his teeth. By degrees, the atmosphere from without, stifling and venomous, crept into the chamber. He could endure it no longer. His eyes, glaring round, rested on a sacrificial ax, which some priest had left in the chamber. He seized it. With the desperate strength of his gigantic arm, he attempted to hew his way through the walls. Meanwhile, the streets were already thinned. The crowd had hastened to disperse itself under shelter. The ashes began to fill up the lower parts of the town. But, here and there, you heard the steps of fugitives crunching them warily, or saw their pale and haggard faces by the blue glare of the lightning, or the more unstudied glare of torches, by which they endeavored to steer their steps. But ever and on, the boiling water, or the straggling ashes, mysterious and gusty winds, rising and dying in a breath, extinguished these wandering lights, and with them the last living hope of those who bore them. In the street that leads to the gate of Herculaneum, Claudius now bent his perplexed and doubtful way. If I can gain the open country, thought he, doubtless there will be various vehicles beyond the gate, and Herculaneum is not far distant. Thank, Mercury. I have little to lose, and that little is about me. Hola! Help there! Help! cried Aquarellus in frightened voice. I have fallen down. My torch has gone out. My slaves have deserted me. I am Diomed, the rich Diomed. Ten thousand sistercies to him who helps me. At the same moment Claudius felt himself caught by the feet. Ill fortune to thee, let me go, fool! said the gambler. Oh, help me up. Give me thy hand. There, rise. Is this Claudius? I know the voice. Whither flyest thou? Towards Herculaneum. Blessed be the gods. Our way is the same, then as far as the gate. Why not take refuge in my villa? Thou knowest the long range of subterranean cellars beneath the basement. That shelter? What shower can penetrate? You speak well, said Claudius amusingly, and by storing the cellar with food we can remain there even some days, should these wondrous storms endure so long. Oh, blessed be he who invented gates to a city! cried Diomed. See, they have placed a light within Yonarch. By that let us guide our steps. The air was now still for a few minutes. The lamp from the gate streamed out far and clear. The fugitives hurried on. They gained the gate. They passed by the Roman sentry. The lightning flashed over his livid face and polished helmet. But his stern features were composed even in their awe. He remained erect and motionless at his post. The hour itself had not animated the machine of the ruthless majesty of Rome into the reasoning and self-acting man. There he stood, amidst the crashing elements. He had not received the permission to desert his station and escape. Diomed and his companion hurried on, when suddenly a female form rushed a thwart their way. It was the girl whose ominous voice had been raised so often and so gladly in anticipation of the merry show. Oh, Diomed! she cried. Shelter! Shelter! See, pointing to an infant clasp to her breast. See this little one. It is mine. The child of shame. I have never owned it till this hour. But now I remember I am a mother. I have plucked it from the cradle of its nurse. She had fled. Who could think of the babe in such an hour, but she who bore it? Save it! Save it! Curses on thy shrill voice. Away, harlot! muttered Claudius between his ground teeth. Nay, girl! said the more humane Diomed. Follow if thou wilt. This way, this way, to the vaults. They hurried on. They arrived at the house of Diomed. They laughed aloud as they crossed the threshold, for they deemed the danger over. Diomed ordered his slaves to carry down into the subterranean gallery before described a profusion of food and oil for lights, and there, Julia, Claudius, the mother and her babe, the greater part of the slaves, and some frightened visitors and clients of the neighborhood, sought their shelter. End of Book 5, Chapter 6. Book 5, Chapter 7 of Last Days of Pompeii. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Philippa. Last Days of Pompeii by Edward G. Bulwuliton. Book 5, Chapter 7. The Progress of the Destruction. The cloud, which had scattered so deep a murkiness over the day, had now settled into a solid and impenetrable mass. It resembled less even the thickest gloom of a night in the open air than the close and blind darkness of some narrow room. But in proportion as the blackness gathered did the lightnings around Vesuvius increase in their vivid and scorching glare. Nor was their horrible beauty confined to the usual hues of fire. No rainbow ever rivaled their varying and prodigal dyes. Now brightly blue as the most azure depth of a southern sky, now of a livid and snake-like green, darting restlessly to and fro as the folds of an enormous serpent, now of a lurid and intolerable crimson gushing forth through the columns of smoke far and wide, and lighting up the whole city from arch to arch, then suddenly dying into a sickly paleness like the ghost of their own life. In the pauses of the showers you heard the rumbling of the earth beneath, and the groaning waves of the tortured sea, or lower still and audible but to the watch of intensest fear, the grinding and hissing murmur of the escaping gases through the chasms of the distant mountain. Sometimes the cloud appeared to break from its solid mass, and by the lightning to assume quaint and vast mimicries of human or of monster shapes, striding across the gloom, hurtling one upon the other, and vanishing swiftly into the turbulent abyss of shade, so that to the eyes and fancies of the affrighted wanderers the unsubstantial vapours were as the bodily forms of gigantic foes, the agents of terror and of death. The ashes in many places were already knee-deep, and the boiling showers which came from the steaming breath of the volcano forced their way into the houses, bearing with them a strong and suffocating vapour. In some places immense fragments of rock hurled upon the house roofs, bore down along the street masses of confused ruin, which yet more and more with every hour obstructed the way, and as the day advanced the motion of the earth was more sensibly felt, the footing seemed to slide and creep, nor could chariot or litter be kept steady even on the most level ground. Sometimes the huger stones striking against each other as they fell broke into countless fragments, emitting sparks of fire which caught whatever was combustible within their reach, and along the plains beyond the city the darkness was now terribly relieved, for several houses and even vineyards had been set on flames, and at various intervals the fires rose suddenly and fiercely against the solid gloom. To add to this partial relief of the darkness the citizens had here and there in the more public places such as the porticoes of temples and the entrances to the forum endeavoured to place rows of torches, but these rarely continued long, the showers and the winds extinguished them, and the sudden darkness into which their sudden birth was converted had something in it doubly terrible, and doubly impressing on the impotence of human hopes the lesson of despair. Frequently, by the momentary light of these torches, parties of fugitives encountered each other, some hurrying towards the sea, others flying from the sea back to the land, for the ocean had retreated rapidly from the shore, and uttered darkness lay over it, and upon its groaning and tossing waves, the storm of cinders and rock fell without the protection which the streets and roofs afforded to the land, wild, haggard, ghastly with supernatural fears these groups encountered each other, but without the leisure to speak, to consult, to advise, for the showers fell now frequently, though not continuously, extinguishing the lights which showed to each band the deathlike faces of the other, and hurrying all to seek refuge beneath the nearest shelter. The whole elements of civilisation were broken up, ever and unknown, by the flickering lights you saw the thief hastening by the most solemn authorities of the law laden with, and fearfully chuckling over, the produce of his sudden gains. If in the darkness wife was separated from husband, or parent from child, vain was the hope of reunion. Each hurried blindly and confusedly on, nothing in all the various and complicated machinery of social life was left save the primal law of self-preservation. Through this awful scene did the Athenian wade his way, accompanied by Ioni and the blind girl. Suddenly a rush of hundreds in their path to the sea swept by them. Nidia was torn from the side of Glaucas, who with Ioni was born rapidly onward, and when the crowd, whose forms they saw not so thick as the gloom, were gone, Nidia was still separated from their side. Glaucas shouted her name. No answer came. They retraced their steps, in vain. They could not discover her. It was evident she had been swept along some opposite direction by the human current. Their friend, their preserver, was lost. And hitherto Nidia had been their guide. Her blindness rendered the scene familiar to her alone. Accustomed through a perpetual night to thread the windings of the city, she had led them unerringly towards the seashore, by which they had resolved to escape. Now which way could they wend? All was rayless to them, a maze without a clue. Wirried, despondent, bewildered, they, however, passed along, the ashes falling upon their heads, the fragmentary stones dashing up in sparkles before their feet. Alas, alas, murmurd Ioni, I can go no farther. My steps sink among the scorching cinders. Fly, dearest, beloved, fly, and leave me to my fate. Hush, my betrothed, my bride! Death with thee is sweeter than life without thee. Yet wither, oh, wither, can we direct ourselves through the gloom. Already it seems that we have made but a circle, and are in the very spot which we quitted an hour ago. Oh, gods! Yon rock, see, it hath riven the roof before us! It is death to move through the streets! Blessed lightning, see, I only see, the portico of the temple of fortune is before us. Let us creep beneath it, it will protect us from the showers. He caught his beloved in his arms, and with difficulty and labour gained the temple. He bore her to the remota and more sheltered part of the portico, and leaned over her that he might shield her with his own form from the lightning and the showers. The beauty and the unselfishness of love could hallow even that dismal time. Who is there? said the trembling and hollow voice of one who had preceded them into their place of refuge. Yet, what matters? The crush of the ruined world forbids us to friends or foes. I only turned at the sound of the voice, and with a faint shriek cowered again beneath the arms of Glarkus. And he, looking in the direction of the voice, beheld the cause of her alarm. Through the darkness glared forth two burning eyes. The lightning flashed and lingered a thwart the temple, and Glarkus with a shudder perceived the lion to which he had been doomed couched beneath the pillars, and close beside it, unwitting of the vicinity, lay the giant form of him who had accosted them, the wounded gladiator, Neger. That lightning had revealed to each other the form of beast and man, yet the instinct of both was quelled. Nay, the lion crept nearer and nearer to the gladiator as for companionship, and the gladiator did not recede or tremble. The revolution of nature had dissolved her lighter terrors as well as her wounded ties. While they were thus terribly protected, a group of men and women bearing torches passed by the temple, they were the congregation of the Nazarenes, and a sublime and unearthly emotion had not indeed quelled their oar, but it had robbed oar of fear. They had long believed, according to the error of the early Christians, that the last day was at hand. They imagined now that the day had come. Whoa! whoa! cried in a shrill and piercing voice the elder at their head. Behold, the Lord descended the judgment. He maketh fire come down from heaven in the sight of men. Whoa! whoa! ye strong and mighty. Whoa! to ye of the faskies and the purple. Whoa! to the idolator and the worshipper of the beast. Whoa! to ye who pour forth the blood of saints and gloat over the death pangs of the sons of God. Whoa! to the harlot of the sea. Whoa! whoa! And with a loud and deep chorus, the troop chanted forth along the wild horrors of the air. Whoa! to the harlot of the sea. Whoa! whoa! The Nazarenes paced slowly on, their torches still flickering in the storm, their voices still raised in menace and solemn warning, till, lost amid the windings in the streets, the darkness of the atmosphere, and the silence of death again fell over the scene. There was one of the frequent pauses in the showers, and Glaucas encouraged I only once more to proceed. Just as they stood, hesitating, on the last step of the portico, an old man with a bag in his right hand, and leaning upon a youth tottered by. The youth bore a torch. Glaucas recognized the two as father and son, miser and prodigal. Father, said the youth, if you cannot move more swiftly, I must leave you, or we both perish. Fly, boy, then, and leave thy sire. But I cannot fly to starve, give me thy bag of gold, and the youth snatched at it. Wretch! wouldst thou rob thy father? I, who can tell the tale in this hour, miser perish? The boy struck the old man to the ground, plucked the bag from his relaxing hand, and fled onward with a shrill yell. Ye gods! cried Glaucas, are ye blind then, even in the dark? Such crimes may well confound the guiltless with the guilty in one common ruin. I only on, on! End of B. V. VII B. V. V. V. V. Our bay-case encounters Glaucas and Yone. Advancing, as men grove for escape in a dungeon, Yone and her lover continued their uncertain way. At the moment when the volcanic lightning slingered over the streets, they were enabled by that awful light to steer and guide their progress. Yet little did the view it presented to them cheer or encourage their path. In parts, where the ashes lay dry and uncommixed with the boiling torrents, cast upward from the mountain at capricious intervals, the surface of the earth presented a lepros and ghastly white. In other places, cinder and rock lay matted in heaps, from beneath which emerged the half-head limbs of some crushed and mangled fugitive. The groans of the dying were broken by wild shrieks of women's terror, now near now distant, which when heard in the utter darkness were rendered doubly appalling by the crushing sense of helplessness and the uncertainty of the perils around. And clear and distinct through all were the mighty and various noises from the fatal mountain. Its rushing winds, its whirling torrents, and from time to time the burst and roar of some more fury and fierce explosion. And ever as the winds swept howling along the street, they bore sharp streams of burning dust, and such sickening and poisonous vapours, as took away for the instant breast unconsciousness, followed by a rapid revulsion of the arrested blood, and a tingling sensation of agony trembling through every nerve and fiber of the frame. Oh Glacus, my beloved, my own, take me to thy arms, one embrace, let me feel thy arms around me, and in that embrace let me die, I can no more. For my sake, for my life, courage yet, sweet Yone, my life is linked with Zion, and see torches this way, low, how they brave the wind, ha, they live through the storm, doubtless fugitives to the sea, we will join them. As if to aid and reanimate the lovers, the winds and showers came to a sudden pause, the atmosphere was profoundly still. The mountain seemed at rest, gathering perhaps fresh fury for its next burst. The torch-bearers moved quickly on. We are nearing the sea, said in a calm voice the person at their head, liberty and wealth to each slave who survives this day, courage, I tell you that the gods themselves have assured me of deliverance, own. Readly and steadily the torches flushed full on the eyes of Glacus and Yone, who lay trembling and exhausted on his bosom. Several slaves were bearing by the light, panniers and coffers heavily laden, in front of them a drawn sword in his hand, toward the lofty form of Arbaques. By my father's crowd the Egyptian, fate smiles upon me even through these horrors, and amidst the dreadest aspects of woe and death, bodes me happiness and love. Away, Greek, I claim my word, Yone. Traitor and murderer, cried Glacus, glaring upon his foe, Nemesis has guided thee to my remange. I just sacrificed to the shades of Hades, that now seem loosed on earth. Approach, touch but the hand of Yone, and thy weapon shall be as read. I will tear thee, limb for limb. Suddenly as he spoke the place became lighted with an intense and lurid glow. Bright and gigantic through the darkness which closed around it like the walls of hell, the mountain shorn, a pile of fire. Its summits seemed driven in two, or rather above its surface there seemed to rise to monster shapes, each confronting each, as demons contending for a world. These were of one deep blood red hue of fire, which lighted up the whole atmosphere far and wide. But below, the nether part of the mountain was still dark and shrouded, save in three places, a down which flowed serpentine and irregular, rivers of the mountain lava. Darkly red through the profound gloom of their banks, they flowed slowly on, as towards the devoted city. Over the broadest there seemed to spring a cragged, a stupendous arch, from which, as from the jaws of hell, gushed the sources of the sudden flaketon. And through the stilled air was heard, the rattling of the fragments of rock, hurtling one upon another as they were brought down, the fury cataracts. Darkening for one instant the spot where they fell, and suffused the next, in the burnished hues of a flood along which they floated. The slaves reeked aloud and covering hid their faces. The Egyptian himself stood transfixed to the spot, the glow lighting up his commanding features and jeweled her robes. High behind him rose a tall column that supported the bronze statue of Augustus, and the imperial image seemed changed to a shape of fire. With his left hand circled round the form of Yone, with his right arm raised in menace, and grasping the stylus which was to have been his weapon in the arena, and which he is still fortunately bore about him, with his brow knit, his lips apart, the wroths and menace of human passions arrested as by a charm upon his features. Glaucos fronted the Egyptian. Arbaquis turned his eyes from the mountain. They rested on the form of Glaucos. He paused a moment. Why, he muttered, should I hesitate? Did not the stars foretell the only crisis of imminent peril to which I was subjected? Is not that peril past? The soul cried he aloud, can brave the wreck of worlds and the wrath of imaginary gods. By that soul will I conquer to the last. Advanced slaves, Athenian resist me, and thy blood be on thine own head. Thus then I regain Yone. He advanced one step. It was his last on earth. The ground shook beneath him with a convulsion that cast all around upon its surface. A simultaneous crash resounded through the city, as down toppled many a roof and pillar. The lightning, as if caught by the metal, lingered an instant on the imperial statue. Then shivered bronze and column, down fell the ruin, echoing along the street, and ribbing the solid pavement where it crashed. The prophecy of the stars was fulfilled. The sound, the shock, stunned the Athenian for several moments. When he recovered, the light still illuminated the scene. The earth still slid and trembled beneath. Yone lay senseless on the ground, but he saw her not yet. His eyes were fixed upon a ghastly face that seemed to emerge, without limbs or trunk, from the huge fragments of the scattered column. A face of unutterable pain, agony, and despair. The eyes shut and opened rapidly, as if sense were not yet fled. The lips quivered and grinned. Then sudden stillness and darkness fell over the features, yet retaining that aspect of horror never to be forgotten. So perished the wise magician, the great Arbaikis, the Hermes of the burning belt, the last of the royalty of Egypt. End of Book 5, Chapter 8 Book 5, Chapter 9 of Last Days of Pompeii This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Last Days of Pompeii by Edward G. Bulver-Luton Book 5, Chapter 9 The Despair of the Lovers, the Condition of the Multitude Glaucus turned in gratitude, but in awe, caught Yorna once more in his arms, and fled along the street that was yet intensely luminous. But suddenly a duller shade fell over the air. Instinctively he turned to the mountain and beheld. One of the two gigantic crests, into which the summit had been divided, rocked and wavered to and fro, and then was the sound, the mindfulness of which no language can describe. It fell from its burning base, and rushed, an avalanche of fire, down the sides of the mountain. At the same instant gushed forth a volume of blackest smoke, rolling on over air, sea and earth. Another, and another, and another shower of ashes, far more profused than before, scattered fresh desolation along the streets. Darkness once more wrapped them as a whale, and Glaucus, his bold heart at last quelled and despairing, sank beneath the cover of an arch, and clasping Yorna to his heart, a bride on that couch of ruin, resigned himself to die. Meanwhile Nidia, one separated by the strong from Glaucus and Yorna, had in vain endeavored to regain them. In vain she raised the plaintive cry so peculiar to the blind. It was lost amidst the thousand shrieks of more selfish terror. Again and again she returned to the spot where they had been divided, to find her companions gone, to seize every fugitive, to inquire of Glaucus, to be dashed aside in the impatience of distraction. Who in that hour spared one thought to his neighbour? Perhaps in scenes of universal horror nothing is more horrid than the unnatural selfishness, say, and gender. At length it occurred to Nidia that as it had been resolved to seek the seashore for escape, their most probable chance of rejoining her companions would be to persevere in that direction. Guiding her steps then, by the stuff which she always carried, she continued, with incredible dexterity, to avoid the message of ruin that encumbered the path, to thread the streets, and, anerrically, so blessed now was that accustomed darkness saw afflicting in ordinary life to take the nearest direction to the seaside. Poor girl, her courage was beautiful to behold, and fate seemed to favour one so helpless. The boiling torrents touched her knot, saved by the general rain which accompanied them. The huge fragments of scoria shivered the pavement before and beside her, but spared that frail form. And when the lesser ashes fell over her, she shook them away with a slight tremor, and downlessly resumed her course. Weak exposed yet fearless. Supported but by one wish, she was a very emblem of psiche in her wanderings, of hope, walking through the volley of the shadow, of the soul itself, alone but undaunted, amidst the dangers and the snares of life. Her path was, however, constantly impeded by the crowds, that now groped amidst the gloom, now fled in the temporary glare of the lightnings across the scene, and at length, a group of torch-bearers rushing full against her, she was thrown down with some violence. What said the voice of one of the party? Is this the brave, blind girl? By Bacchus, she must not be left here to die. Up might a salient. So so. Are you heard? That's well. Come along with us. We are for the shore. Oh, solace, is it thy voice? The gods be thanked. Glaucus, Glaucus, Glaucus, have you seen him? Not I. He is doubtless out of the city by this time. The gods who saved him from the lion, will save him from the burning mountain. As the kindly epicure thus encouraged Nidia, he drew her along with him towards the sea, heeding not her passionate entreaties, that he would linger yet awhile to search for Glaucus. And still is the accent of despair, she continued to shriek out that beloved name, which amidst all the roar of the convulsed elements, kept alive a music at her heart. The sudden illumination, the burst of the floods of lava, and the earthquake, which we have already described, chanced when Salust and his party had just gained the direct path leading from the city to the port. And here they were arrested by an immense crowd, more than half the population of the city. They spread along the field without the walls, thousands upon thousands, uncertain whether to fly. The sea had retired far from the shore, and they who had fled to it had been so terrified by the agitation and perternatural shrinking of the element, the gasping forms of the uncoathed sea-things which the waves had left upon the sand, and by the sound of the huge stones cast from the mountain into the deep, that they had returned again to the land, as presenting the less frightful aspect of the two. Thus the two streams of human beings, the one seaward, the other from the sea, had met together, feeling a sad comfort in numbers, arrested in despair and doubt. The world is to be destroyed by fire, said an old man in long loose robes, a philosopher of the Stoic School. Stoic and Epicurean wisdom have alike agreed in this prediction, and the hour is come. Yeah, the hour is come, cried a loud voice, solemn but not fearful. Those around turned in dismay. The voice came from above them. It was the voice of Olenseth, who surrounded by his Christian friends, stood upon an abrupt eminence on which the Old Greek colonists had raised a temple to Apollo, now time-worn and half in ruin. As he spoke there came that sudden illumination which had heralded the death of Arbaques, and glowing oars at mighty multitude, aved, crouching, breathless, never on earth had the faces of men seemed so haggard. Never had meeting of mortal beings been so stamped with the horror and sublimity of dread. Never till the last trumpet sounds shall such meeting be seen again. And above those the form of Olenseth, with outstretched arm and prophet brow, girded with the living fires. And the crowd knew the face of him they had doomed to the fangs of the beast, then their victim, now their warner. And through the stillness again came his ominous voice, the hour is come. The Christians repeated the cry. It was caught up. It was echoed from side to side. Woman and man, childhood and old age, repeated, not allowed but in a smothered and dreary murmur. The hour is come. At that moment a wild yell burst through the air, and thinking only of escape, whether it knew not, the terrible tiger of the desert leaped amongst the strong, and hurried through its parted streams. And so came the earthquake, and so darkness once more fell over the earth. And now new fugitives arrived, grasping the treasures no longer destined for their lord. The slaves of Arbaki's joined the throng, one only of all their torches yet flickered on. It was borne by Sosia, and its light falling on the face of Nidia, he recognized the Cithalian. What a wail's thy liberty now, blind girl, said the slave. Who art thou, canst thou tell me of Glaucus? I, I saw him but a few minutes since. Blessed be thy head, where? Crouched beneath the arch of the forum, dead or dying, gone to rejoin Arbaki's, who is no more. Nidia uttered not a word. She slid from the side of Salust. Silently she glided through souls behind her, and retraced her steps to the city. She gained the forum, the arch, she stooped down. She felt round, she called on the name of Glaucus. A weak voice answered, coquelsingly. Is it the voice of the Shades? Lo, I am prepared. Arise, follow me, take my hand. Glaucus, thou shalt be saved. In wonder and sudden hope Glaucus arose. Nidia still? Ah, Zeus and Arsave. The tender joy of his voice pierced the heart of the poor Tessalian, and she blessed him for his thought of her. Half-leading, half-carrying Yone, Glaucus followed his guide. With admirable discretion she avoided the path which led to the crowd she had just quitted, and by another route sought the shore. After many poses and incredible perseverance they gained the sea, and joined a group, who, bolder than the rest, resolved to hazard any peril rather than continue in such a scene. In darkness they put forth to sea, but as they cleared the land and caught new aspects of the mountain, its channels of molten fire, through a partial regness over the waves. Utterly exhausted and worn out, Yone slept on the breast of Glaucus, and Nidia lay at his feet. Meanwhile the showers of dust and ashes, still worn aloft, fell into the wave, and scattered their snows over the deck. Far and wide, borne by the winds, though showers descended upon the remotest climbs, startling even the swarthy African, and whirled along the antique soil of Syria and of Egypt, Dion Cassius. The fate of Nidia. And meekly, softly, beautifully, dawned at last the light over the trembling deep. The winds were sinking into rest, the foam died from the glowing azure of that delicious sea. Around the east, thin mists caught gradually the rosy hues that heralded the morning. Light was about to resume her reign. Yet still, dark and massive in the distance lay the broken fragments of the destroying cloud, from which red streaks, burning dimlier and more dim, betrayed the yet rolling fires of the mountain of the scorched fields. The white walls and gleaming columns that had adorned the lovely coasts were no more. Sullen and dull were the shores so lately crested by the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The darlings of the deep were snatched from her embrace. Century after century shall the mighty mother stretch forth her azure arms, and know them not, moaning round the sepulchres of the lost. There was no shout from the mariners at the dawning light. It had come too gradually, and they were too wearied for such sudden bursts of joy. But there was a low, deep murmur of thankfulness amidst those watches of the long night. They looked at each other and smiled. They took heart. They felt once more that there was a world around and a god above them. And in the feeling that the worst was passed, the over wearied ones turned round and fell placidly to sleep. In the growing light of the skies there came the silence which night had wanted, and the bark drifted calmly onward to its port. A few other vessels bearing similar fugitives might be seen in the expanse, apparently motionless, its gliding also on. There was a sense of security, of companionship, and of hope in the sight of their slender masts and white sails. What beloved friends lost and missed in the gloom might they not bear to safety and to shelter. In the silence of the general sleep Nidia rose gently. She bent over the face of Glaucus. She inhaled the deep breath of his heavy slumber. Timidly and sadly she kissed his brow—his lips. She felt for his hand it was locked in that of Ioni. She sighed deeply and her face darkened. Again she kissed his brow, and with her hair wiped from it the damps of night. May the gods bless you, Athenian, she murmured. May you be happy with your beloved one. May you sometimes remember Nidia. Alas! she is of no further use on earth. With these words she turned away. Slowly she crept along by the foray or platforms to the farther side of the vessel, and pausing bent low over the deep. The cool spray dashed upward on her feverish brow. It is the kiss of death, said she. It is welcome. The balmy air played through her waving tresses. She put them from her face, and raised those eyes, so tender though so light-less, to the sky whose soft face she had never seen. No, no, she said, half-allowed, and an amusing and thoughtful tone. I cannot endure it. This jealous, exacting love! It shatters my whole soul in madness. I might harm him again, wretch that I was. I have saved him, twice saved him. Happy, happy thought! Why not die happy? It is the last glad thought I can ever know. Oh, sacred sea! I hear thy voice invitingly. It hath a freshening and joyous call. They say that in thy embrace is dishonour, that thy victims cross not the fatal sticks. Be it so. I would not meet him in the shades, for I should meet him still with her. Rest, rest, rest. There is no other Elysium for a heart like mine. A sailor half-dosing on the deck, heard a slight splash on the waters. Drowsily he looked up, and behind, as the vessel merrily bounded on, he fancied he saw something white above the waves, but it vanished in an instant. He turned round again, and dreamed of his home and children. When the lovers awoke, their first thought was of each other, their next of Nidia. She was not to be found. None had seen her since the night. Every crevice of the vessel was searched. There was no trace of her. Mysterious from first to last, the blind Thessalion had vanished forever from the living world. They guessed her fate in silence, and Glaucous and Ioni, while they drew nearer to each other, feeling each other the world itself, forgot their deliverance, and wept as for a departed sister. By Edward G. Bulver-Litton Book V. CHAPTERS OF THE LAST Where in all things sees Letter from Glaucous to Solost, ten years after the destruction of Pompeii Athens Glaucous to his beloved Solost, greeting and health. You request me to visit you at Rome? No, Solost, come rather to me at Athens. I have foresworn the imperial city. It's mighty tumult and hollow joys. In my own land henceforth I dwell forever. The ghost of our departed greatness is dearer to me than the gaudy life of your loud prosperity. There is a charm to me which no other spot can supply. In the porticoes hallowed still by holy and venerable shades. In the olive groves of Elysis I still hear the voice of poetry. On the heights of Phile the clouds of twilight seem yet the shrouds of departed freedom. The heralds, the heralds of the morrow that shall come. You smile at my enthusiasm, Solost. Better be hopeful in chains than resign to their glitter. You tell me you are sure that I cannot enjoy life in these melancholy hounds of a fallen majesty. You dwell with rapture in the romance blenders, and the luxuries of the imperial court. My Solost, non sum qualis erum, I am not what I was. The events of my life have sobered the bounding blood of my youth. My health has never quite recovered. It's wanted elasticity. Here it felt the pangs of disease, and languished in the damps of a criminal's dungeon. My mind has never shaken off the dark shadow of the last day of Pompeii, the horror and the desolation of that awful ruin. Our beloved, our remembered Nidia, I have reared at home to her shade, and I see it every day from the window of my study. It keeps alive in me a tender recollection, a not unpleasing sadness, which are but a fitting homage to her fidelity, and the mysteriousness of her early death. Yone gathers the flowers, but my own hand breathes them daily around the tomb. She has worthy of a tomb in Athens. You speak of the growing sect of the Christians in Rome. Solost, to you I may confide my secret. I have pondered much over that face. I have adopted it. After the destruction of Pompeii, I met once more with Olensos, saved, alas, only for a day, and falling afterwards a martyr to the indomitable energy of his zeal. In my preservation from the lion and the earthquake, he taught me to behold the hand of the unknown god. I listened, believed, adored. My own, my more than ever beloved Yone, has also embraced the creed. I creed, Solost, which shedding light over this world gathers its concentrated glory, like a sunset over the next. We know that we are united in the soul, as in the flesh, forever and forever. Ages may roll on, our very dust be dissolved. The earth shriveled like a scroll, but round and round the circle of eternity rolls the wheel of life, imperishable and seizing. And at the earth from the sun, so immortality drinks happiness from virtue, which is the smile upon the face of God. Visit me, then, Solost, bring with you the learned scrolls of Epicurus, Pythagoras, Diogenes, arm yourself for defeat, and let us, amidst the crowds of Akademus, dispute under a sure guide than any granted to our fathers, on the mighty problem of the true ends of life and the nature of the soul. Yone, at that name my heart yet beats, Yone is by my side as I write. I lift my eyes and meet her smile. The sunlight quivers over hermeters, and along my garden I hear the hum of the summer bees. Am I happy, ask you? Oh, what can Rome give me equal to what I possess at Athens? Here everything awakens the soul and inspires the affections. The trees, the waters, the hills, the skies are those of Athens. Fair, though mourning mother of the poetry and the wisdom of the world. In my hall I see the marble faces of my ancestors. In the Keramikus I survey their tombs. In the streets I behold the hand of Phidias and the soul of Pericles. Harmodius, Aristogeten, they are everywhere, but in our hearts. In mine at least they shall not perish. If anything can make me forget that I am an Athenian and not free, it is partly the soothing. The love, watchful, vivid, sleepless of Yone. A love that has taken a new sentiment in our new creed. A love which none of our poets, beautiful thou they be, had shadowed forth in description. For mingled with religion it partakes of religion. It is blended with pure and unworldly thoughts. It is that which we may hope to carry through eternity, and keeps therefore white and unsullied, that we may not blush to confess it to our God. This is the true type of the dark fable of our Grecian errors and psiche. It is, in truth, the soul asleep in the arms of love. And if this our love, support me partly against the fever of the desire for freedom, my religion supports me more. For whenever I would grasp the sword and sound the shell, and rush to new marathon, but marathon without victory. I feel my despair at the chilling thought of my country's impotence, the crushing weight of the Roman yoke, comforted at least by the thought that earth is but the beginning of life, that the glory of a few years matters little in the vast space of eternity, that there is no perfect freedom till the chains of clay fall from the soul, and all space, all time, become its heritage and domain. Yet, soulless, some mixture of the soft Greek blood still mingles with my faith. I can share not the zeal of those who see crime and eternal wrath in men, who cannot believe as they. I shudder not at the creed of others. I dare not curse them. I praise the great Father to convert. This lukewarmness exposes me to some suspicion amongst the Christians, but I forgive it, and not offending openly the prejudices of the crowd. I am thus enabled to protect my brethren from the danger of the law, and the consequences of their own zeal. If moderation seemed to me the natural creature of benevolence, it gives also the greatest scope to beneficence. Such sin or solace is my life, such my opinions. In this manner I greet existence and await death. And though glad-hearted and kindly pupil of Epicurus, though, but come hither and see what enjoyments, but hopes are ours, and not the splendour of imperial banquets, nor the shouts of the crowded circles, nor the noisy forum, nor the glittering theatre, nor the luxuriant gardens, nor the voluptuous baths of Rome, shall seem to thee to constitute a life of more vivid and uninterrupted happiness than that which though so unreasonably piteased as the career of Glaucus the Athenian. Farewell! Nearly seventeenth centuries had rolled away when the city of Pompeii was disinterred from its silent tomb, all vivid with undimmed hues, its walls fresh as if painted yesterday, not a hue faded on the rich mosaic of its floors. In its forum they have finished columns as left by the workman's hand, in its gardens the sacrificial tripod, in its halls the chest of treasure, in its baths the strigial, in its theatres the counter of admission, in its saloons the furniture and the lamp, in its triclinia the fragments of the last feast, in its cubicula the perfumes and the rogue of fated beauty, and everywhere the bones and skeletons of those who once moved the springs of that minute yet gorgeous machine of luxury and of life. In the house of Diomed, in the subterranean vaults, twenty skeletons, one of a babe, were discovered in one spot by the door, covered by a fine ash and dust that had evidently been waft through slowly through the apertures, until it had filled the whole space. There were jewels and coins, candelabra for an availing light, and wine hardened in the amphora for a prolongation of agonized life. The sand, consolidated by dams, had taken the forms of the skeletons as in a cast, and the traveller may yet see the impression of a female neck and bosom of young and round proportions, the trace of the fated Julia. It seems to the inquirer, as if the air had been gradually changed into a sulfurous vapor, the inmates of the vaults had rushed to the door to find it closed and blocked up by the scoria without, and in their attempts to force it had been suffocated with the atmosphere. In the garden was found a skeleton with a key by its bony hand, and near it a bag of coins. This is believed to have been the master of the house, the unfortunate deomed, who had probably sought to escape by the garden, and been destroyed either by the vapours or some fragment of stone. Besides some silver raises lay another skeleton, probably of the slave. The houses of Salost and of Pansa, the temple of Isis, with the juggling concealments behind the statues, the larking place of its holy oracles, add now a bird to the gaze of the curious. In one of the chambers of that temple was found a huge skeleton with an axe beside it. Two walls had been pierced by the axe. The victim could penetrate no further. In the midst of the city was found another skeleton, by the side of which was a heap of coins, and many of the mystic ornaments of the feign of Isis. Death had fallen upon him in his avarice, and Calanus perished, simultaneously with Burbell. As the excavators cleared on through the mass of ruin, they found the skeleton of a man, literally severed in two, by a prostrate column. The skull was of so striking a conformation, so boldly marked in its intellectual as well as its worst physical developments, that it has excited the constant speculation of every itinerant believer in the theories of Sportsheim, who has gazed upon the ruined palace of the mind. Still, after the lapse of ages, the traveller may survey that airy hall within whose cunning galleries and elaborate chambers once sought, reasoned, dreamed, and sinned the soul of Arbeques the Egyptian. Viewing the various witnesses of a social system which has passed from the world by ever, a stranger from the remote and barbarian isle which the Imperial Roman shivered when he named, posed amidst the delights of the soft Campania and composed this history. End of book 5, chapters the last, and this is also the end of The Last Days of Pompeii, by Edward G. Bulver-Lytton.