 Book 3, Chapter 5 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 Anne Boulais. Last Days of Pompeii by Edward G. Bolwer-Lytton. Book 3, Chapter 5, Nydia Encounters Julia. Book 4 of The Heathen Sister and Converted Brother, an Athenian's notion of Christianity. What happiness to Ioni? What bliss to be ever by the side of Glaucus, to hear his voice. And she too can see him! Such was the soliloquy of the blind girl, as she walked alone and at twilight to the house of her new mistress. With her Glaucus had already preceded her. Suddenly she was interrupted in her fond thoughts by a female voice. Blind girl, wither goest thou. There is no pannier under thine arm. Hast thou sold all thy flowers? The person thus accosting Nydia was a lady of a handsome but a bold and unmaidenly countenance. It was Julia, the daughter of Diomed. Her veil was half-raised as she spoke. She was accompanied by Diomed himself and by a slave carrying a lantern before them. The merchant and his daughter were returning home from a supper at one of their neighbors. Thus thou not remember my voice, continued Julia? I am the daughter of Diomed, the wealthy. Ah, forgive me, yes, I recall the tones of your voice. No, noble Julia, I have no flowers to sell. I heard that thou were purchased by the beautiful Greek Glaucus. Is that true, pretty slave? Asked Julia. I serve the Neapolitan Ioni, replied Nydia evasively. Ah, and it is true then. Come, come, interrupted Diomed, with his cloak up to his mouth. The night grows cold. I cannot stay here while you pratt to that blind girl. Come, let her follow you home if you wish to speak to her. Do, child, said Julia, with the air of one not accustomed to be refused. I have much to ask of thee, come. I cannot this night, it grows late, answered Nydia. I must be at home. I am not free, noble Julia. What the meek Ioni will chide thee, I doubt not she is a second Thelestris. But come then, tomorrow. Do, remember I have been thy friend of old. I will obey thy wishes, answered Nydia, and Diomed again impatiently summoned his daughter. She was obliged to proceed. With the main question she had desired to put to Nydia, unasked. Meanwhile, we return to Ioni. The interval of time that had elapsed that day between the first and second visit of Glaucus had not been too gaily spent. She had received a visit from her brother. Since the night he had assisted in saving her from the Egyptian, she had not before seen him. Occupied with his own thoughts, thoughts of so serious and intense a nature, the young priest had thought little of his sister. In truth, men, perhaps of that fervent order of mine which is ever aspiring above earth, are but little prone to the earthlier affections, and it had been long since opacities had sought those soft and friendly interchanges of thought. Those sweet confidences which in his earlier youth had bound him to Ioni, and which are so natural to that endearing connection which existed between them. Ioni, however, had not ceased to regret his estrangement. She had attributed it, at present, to the engrossing duties of his severe fraternity. And often, amidst all her bright hopes and her new attachment to her betrothed, often, when she thought of her brother's brow prematurely furrowed, his unsmiling lip and vended frame, she sighed to think that the service of the gods could throw so deep a shadow over that earth which the gods created. But this day, when he visited her, there was a strange calmness on his features, a more quiet and self-possessed expression in his sunken eyes, then she had marked for years. This apparent improvement was but momentary. It was a false calm which the least breeze could ruffle. May the gods bless thee, my brother, she said, embracing him. The gods, speak not thus vaguely, perchance there is but one god. My brother? What if the sublime faith of the Nazarene be true? What if God be a monarch, one invisible, alone? What if these numerous countless deities whose altars fill the earth, be but evil demons seeking to wean us from the true creed? This may be the case, Ioni. Alas, can we believe it? Or if we believed, would it not be a melancholy faith? Answered the Neopollaton. What, all this beautiful world made only human? Mountain disenchanted of its o' red, the waters of their nymph? That beautiful prodigiality of faith which makes everything divine, consecrating the meanest flowers, bearing celestial whispers in the faintest breeze? Wouldst thou deny this and make the earth mere dust and clay? No, apacities. All that is brightest in our hearts is that very credulity which peoples the universe with gods. Ioni answered as a believer, in the posee of the old mythology would answer. We may judge by that reply how obstinate and hard the contest which Christianity had to endure among the heathens. The graceful superstition was never silent. Every, the most household, action of their lives was entwined with it. It was a portion of life itself, as the flowers are a part of the thyrsis. At every incident, they recurred to a god. Every cup of wine was prefaced by a libation. The very garlands on their households were dedicated to some divinity. Their ancestors themselves, made holy, presided as lares over their hearth and hall. So abundant was belief with them that in their own climes, at this hour, idolatry has never thoroughly been outrooted. It changes but its objects of worship. It appeals to innumerable saints where once it resorted to divinities and it pours its crowds and listening reverence to oracles at the shrines of Saint Januarius or Saint Stephen instead of those of Isis or Apollo. But these superstitions were not to the early Christians the object of contempt so much of as horror. They did not believe with the quiet skepticism of the heathen philosopher that the gods were inventions of the priest, nor even with the vulgar, that according to the dim light of history, they had been mortals like themselves. They imagined the heathen divinities to be evil spirits. They transplanted to Italy and to Greece the gloomy demons of India and the East. And in Jupiter or in Mars, they shuttered at the representative of Malak or of Satan. Opacities had not yet adopted formally the Christian faith, but he was already on the brink of it. He already participated the doctrines of Olympus. He already imagined that the lively imaginations of the heathen were the suggestions of the arch enemy of mankind. The innocent and natural answer of Ioni made him shudder. He hastened to reply vehemently and yet so confusedly that Ioni feared for his reason more than she dreaded his violence. Oh, my brother, she said, these hard duties of thine have shattered thy very sense. Come to me, Opacities, my brother, my own brother. Give me thy hand. Let me wipe the dew from thy brow. Chide me not now. I understand thee not. Think only that Ioni could not offend thee. Ioni said, Opacities, drying her towards him and regarding her tenderly. Can I think that this beautiful form, this kind heart, may be destined to an eternity of torment? Die Meliora, the gods forbid, said Ioni in the customary form of words by which her contemporaries thought an omen might be averted. The words and still more the superstition they implied, wounded the ear of Opacities. He rose, muttering to himself, turned from the chamber, then stopping halfway, gaze wistfully on Ioni and extended his arms. Ioni flew to them in joy. He kissed her earnestly and then he said, Farewell, my sister, when we next meet, may as thou be to me as nothing. Take thou, then, this embrace, full yet of all the tender reminisces of childhood when faith and hope, creeds, customs, interests, objects were the same to us. Now, the tie is to be broken. With these strange words, he left the house. The great and severest trial of the primitive Christians was indeed this. Their conversion separated them from their dearest bonds. They could not associate with beings whose commonest actions, whose commonest forms of speech were impregnated with idolatry. They shuttered at the blessings of love to their ears it was uttered in a demon's name. This, their misfortune, was their strength. If it divided them from the rest of the world, it was to unite them proportionally to each other. They were men of iron who wrought forth the word of God, and verily the bonds that bound them were of iron also. Glaucas found Ioni in tears. He had already assumed the sweet privilege to console. He drew from her a recital of her interview with her brother. But in her confused account of language, itself so confused to one not prepared for it, he was equally at a loss with Ioni to conceive the intentions or the meaning of opacities. Has thou ever heard much, she asked, of this new sect of the Nazarenes, of which my brother spoke? I have often heard enough of the votaries, replied Glaucas, but of their exact tenets I know not. Save that their doctrine there seemeth something preternatally chilling and morose. They live apart from their kind. They effect to be shocked even at our simple uses of garlands. They have no sympathies with the cheerful amusements of life. They utter awful threats of the coming destruction of the world. They appear, in one word, to have brought their unsmiling and gloomy creed out of the cave of Trafonius. Yet, continued Glaucas after a slight pause, they have not wanted men of great power and genius, nor converts, even among the aeropageites of Athens. Well, do I remember to have heard my father speak of one strange guest at Athens many years ago? Me thinks his name was Paul. My father was amongst a mighty crowd that gathered on one of our immemorial hills to hear this sage of the east expound. Through the wide throng there rang not a single murmur. The jest in the roar with which our native orators are received were hushed for him. And when on the loftiest summit of that hill, raised above the breathless crowd below, stood this mysterious visitor, his mean and his countenance odd every heart, even before a sound left his lips. He was a man, I have heard my father say, of no tall stature, but of noble and impressive mean. His robes were dark and ample. The declining sun, for it was evening, shone a slant upon his form as it rose aloft, motionless and commanding. His countenance was much worn and marked, as of one who had braved alike misfortune and the sternest vicissitude of many climbs. But his eyes were bright with an almost unearthly fire. And when he raised his arm to speak, it was with the majesty of a man into whom the spirit of a God hath rushed. Men of Athens, he is reported to have said, I find amongst ye an altar with this inscription to the unknown God, ye worship and ignorance the same deity I serve, to you unknown till now, to you be it now revealed. Then declared that solemn man, how this great maker of all things, who had appointed unto man his several tribes and his various homes, the Lord of earth and the universal heaven, dwelt not in temples made with hands, that his presence, his spirit were in the air we breathed. Our life and our being were with him. Thank you, he cried, that the invisible is like your statues of gold and marble. Thank you that he needed sacrifice from you, he who made heaven and earth. Then he spoke of fearful and coming times, of the end of the world, of a second rising of the dead, whereof an assurance had been given to man in the resurrection of the mighty being whose religion he came to preach. When he thus spoke, the long pent murmur went forth, and the philosophers that were mingled with the people muttered their sage contempt. There might you have seen the chilling frown of the stoic and the cynic sneer, and the Epicurean who believe is not even in our own Elysium, muttered a pleasant jest and swept laughing through the crowd, but the deep heart of the people was touched and thrilled, and they trembled, though they knew not why. For verily the stranger had the voice and majesty of a man to whom the unknown God had committed the preaching of his faith. I only listened with rapt attention, and the serious and earnest manner of the narrator betrayed the impression that he himself had received from one who had been amongst the audience, that on the hill of the heathen mars had heard the first tidings of the word of Christ. End of book three, chapter five. Book three, chapter six 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 Anne Boulet. Last Days of Pompeii by Edward G. Bolwer-Lighten. Book three, chapter six. The porter, the girl, and the gladiator. The door of Diomed's house stood open and Meadon, the old slave, sat at the bottom of the steps by which he ascended to the mansion. That luxurious mansion of the rich merchant of Pompeii is still to be seen just without the gates of the city. At the commencement of the street of tombs, it was a gay neighborhood, despite the dead. On the opposite side, but at some yards nearer the gate, was a spacious hostelry, at which those brought by business or by pleasure to Pompeii often stopped to refresh themselves. In the space before the entrance of the inn, now stood wagons and carts and chariots. Some just arrived, some just quitting. In all the bustle of an animated and popular resort of public entertainment, before the door, some farmers, seated on a bench by a small circular table, were talking over their morning cups on the affairs of their calling. On the side of the door itself was painted gaily and freshly the eternal sign of the checkers. By the roof of the inn stretched a terrace, on which some females, wives of the farmers above mentioned, were. Some seated, some leaning over the railing and conversing with their friends below. In a deep recess, at a little distance, was a covered seat, in which some two or three poorer travelers were resting themselves and shaking the dust from their garments. On the other side stretched a wide space, originally the burial ground of a more ancient race than the present desidents of Pompeii and now converted into a ustrinum or place for the burning of the dead. Above this rose the terraces of a gay villa, half hid by trees. The tombs themselves, with their graceful and varied shapes, the flowers and the foliage that surrounded them made no melancholy feature in the prospect. Hard by the gate of the city, in a small niche stood the still form of the well-disciplined Roman century. The sun shining brightly on his polished crest and the lance on which he leaned. The gate itself was divided into three arches, the center one for vehicles, the others for foot passengers. And on either side rose the massive walls which girth the city, composed, patched, repaired at a thousand different epics, according as war, time, or the earthquake had shattered that vain protection. At frequent intervals rose square towers, whose summits broke in a picturesque rudeness the regular line of the wall and contrasted well with the modern buildings gleaming whitely by. The curving road, which in that direction leads from Pompeii to Herculaneum, wound out of sight amidst hanging vines, above which frowned the sullen majesty of Vesuvius. Has thou heard the news, old Meadon? said a young woman, with a picture in her hand, as she paused by Diomed's door to gossip a moment with the slave, ere she repaired to the neighboring inn to fill the vessel, and coquette with the travelers. News, what news, said the slave, raising his eyes moodily from the ground. Why, there passed through the gate this morning, no doubt ere thou wert well awake, such a visitor to Pompeii. I, said the slave, indifferently. Yes, a present from the noble Pompaneanus. A present, I thought thou sayest a visitor. It is both visitor and present. No, oh dull and stupid, that it is a most beautiful young tiger for our approaching games in the amphitheater. Hear you that, Meadon. Oh, what pleasure. I declare I shall not sleep a wink till I see it. They say it has such a roar. Poor fool, said Meadon, sadly and cynically. Fool, me no fool, old cur. It is a pretty thing, a tiger, especially if we could but find somebody for him to eat. We have now a lion and a tiger. Only consider that, Meadon, and for want of two good criminals, perhaps we shall be forced to see them eat each other. By the by. Your son is a gladiator, a handsome man and a strong. Can you not persuade him to fight the tiger? Do now, you would oblige me mightily. Nay, you would be a benefactor to the whole town. Va, va, said the slave, with great asperity. Think of thine own danger, ere thou thus press of my poor boy's death. My own danger, said the girl, frightened and looking hastily around. Avert the omen, let thy words fall on thine own head. And the girl, as she spoke, touched a talisman suspended round her neck. Thine own danger, what danger threatens me. Had the earthquake but a few nights since, no warning, said Meadon, has it not a voice? Did it not say to us all, prepare for death, the end of all things is at hand? Bah, stuff, said the young woman, settling the folds of her tunic. Now thou talkest as they say the Nazarenes talked. Me thinks thou art one of them. Well, I can prat with thee, gray croaker, no more. Thou growest worse and worse. Ballet, oh, Hercules, send us a man for the lion, and another for the tiger. Ho, ho, for the merry, merry show, with a forest of faces in every row. Low, the swordsman, bold as the son of Alkemena. Sweep side by side, or the hushed arena. Talk while you may, you will hold your breath when they meet in the grasp of the glowing death. Tramp, tramp, how gaily they go. Ho, ho, for the merry, merry show. Chanting in a silver and clear voice this feminine ditty, and holding up her tunic from the dusty road, the young woman stepped lightly across the crowded hostelry. My poor son, said the slave, half-allowed, is it for things like this thou art to be butchered? Oh, faith of Christ, I could worship thee in all sincerity, were it but for the horror which thou inspire us for these bloody lists. The old man's head sank dejectedly on his breast. He remained silent and absorbed, but every now and then with the corner of his sleeve he wiped his eyes. His heart was with his son. He did not see the figure that now approached from the gate with a quick step, and a somewhat fierce and reckless gate and carriage. He did not lift his eyes till the figure paused opposite the place where he sat, and with a soft voice addressed him by the name of Father. My boy, my lighten, is it indeed thou? Said the old man joyfully. Oh, thou work present to my thoughts. I am glad to hear it, my father, said the gladiator, respectfully touching the knees and the beard of the slave, and soon may I be always present with thee, not in thought only. Yes, my son, but not in this world, replied the slave mournfully. Talk not thus, O my sire, look cheerfully, for I feel so. I am sure that I shall win the day, and then the gold I gain buys thy freedom. Oh, Father, it was but a few days since that I was taunted by one, two, whom I would gladly have undeceived, for he is more generous than the rest of his equals. He is not Roman. He is of Athens. By him I was taunted with the lust of gain. When I demanded what some was the prize of victory, alas, he knew little of the soul of lighten. My boy, my boy, said the old slave, as, slowly ascending the steps, he conducted his son to his own little chamber, communicating with the entrance hall, which in this villa was the peristyle, not the atrium. You may see it now. It is the third floor to the right on entering. The first door conducts to the staircase. The second is but a false recess, in which there stood a statue of bronze. Generous, affectionate, pious are thy motives, said Meeden, when they were thus secured from observation. Thy deed itself is guilt, thou art to risk thy blood for thy father's freedom, that might be forgiven. But the prize of victory is the blood of another. Oh, that is a deadly sin. No object can purify it, forbearer, forbearer. Rather would I be a slave forever than purchase liberty on such terms. Hush, my father, replied lighten, somewhat impatiently, thou hast picked up in this new creed of thine, of which I pray thee not to speak to me. For the gods that gave me strength denied me wisdom. And I understand not one word of what thou often preachest to me. Thou hast picked up, I say, in this new creed, some singular fantasies of right and wrong. Pardon me if I offend thee, but reflect, against whom shall I contend? Oh, couldest thou know those wretches with whom? For thy sake, I assort. Thou wouldst think I purified earth by removing one of them. Beasts, whose very lips drop blood, things all savage, undisciplined in their very courage, ferocious, heartless, senseless. No tie of life can bind them. They know not fear, it is true. But neither know they gratitude nor charity nor love. They are made but for their own career, to slaughter without pity, to die without dread. Can thy gods, whosoever they be, look with wrath on a conflict with such as these, and in such a cause? Oh, my father, wherever the powers above gaze down on the earth, they behold no duty so sacred, so sanctifying, as the sacrifice offered to an aged parent, by the piety of a grateful son. The poor old slave, himself deprived of the lights of knowledge, and only late a convert to the Christian faith, knew not with what arguments to enlighten an ignorance at once so dark, and yet so beautiful in its error. His first impulse was to throw himself on his son's breast, his next to start a way to wring his hands, and in the attempt to reprove, his broken voice lost itself in weeping. And if, resumed Leiden, if thy deity, me thinks thou wilt own but one, be indeed that benevolent and pitying power which thou assertest him to be, he will know also that thy very faith in him first confirmed me in that determination thou blamest. How, what mean you, said the slave? Why, thou knowest that I, sold in my childhood as a slave, was set free at Rome by the will of my master, whom I had been unfortunate enough to please. I hastened to Pompeii to see thee. I found thee already aged and infirm, under the yoke of a capricious and pampered Lord. Thou hast lately adopted this new faith, and its adoption made thy slavery doubly painful to thee. It took away all the softening charm of custom, which reconciles us so often to the worst. Didest thou not complain to me that thou werest compelled to offices that were not odious to thee as a slave, but guilty as a Nazarene? Didest thou not tell me that thy soul shook with remorse when thou werest compelled to place even a crumb of cake before the lares that watch over yon Impluvium, that thy soul was torn by a perpetual struggle? Didest thou not tell me that even by pouring wine before the threshold and calling on the name of some Grecian deity, thou didst fear that thou were incurring penalties worse than those of Tentelus? An eternity of tortures more terrible than those of the Tartarian fields? Didest thou not tell me this? I wondered. I could not comprehend. Nor, by Hercules, could I now, but I was thy son, and my soul task was to compassionate and to relieve. Could I hear thy groans? Could I witness thy mysterious horrors, thy constant anguish, and remain inactive? No, by the immortal gods. The thought struck me like light from Olympus. I had no money, but I had strength and youth. These were thy gifts. I could sell these in my turn for thee. I learned the amounts of thy ransom. I learned that the usual prize of a victorious gladiator would doubly pay it. I became a gladiator. I linked myself with those accursed men, scorning, loathing, while I joined. I acquired their skill. Blessed be the lesson. It shall teach me to free my father. Oh, that thou couldst hear Olympus side the old man, more and more affected by the virtue of his son, but not less strongly convinced of the criminality of his purpose. I will hear the whole world talk if thou wilt, answered the gladiator Gaeli, but not till thou art a slave no more. Beneath thy own roof, my father, thou shalt puzzle this dull brain all day long. I, and all night too, if it give thee pleasure. Oh, such a spot as I have chalked out for thee. It is one of the 999 shops of the old Julia Felix in the sunny part of the city, where thou mayest bask before the door in the day. And I will sell the oil and the wine for thee, my father. And then, please Venus, or if it does not please her, since thou loveest not her name, it is all one to Leiden. Then I say, perhaps thou mayest have a daughter too, to tend thy gray hairs, and hear shrill voices at thy knee, that shall call thee Leiden's father. Ah, we shall be so happy, the prize can purchase all. Cheer thee, cheer up, my sire, and now I must away, day wears. The Lannista waits me. Come, thy blessing. As Leiden thus spoke, he had already quitted the dark chain bur of his father. And speaking eagerly, though in a whispered tone, they now stood at the same place in which we introduced the porter at his post. Oh, bless thee, bless thee, my brave boy, said Meeden fervently. And may the great power that reads all hearts see the nobleness of thine, and forgive its error. The tall shape of the gladiator passed swiftly down the path. The eyes of the slave followed its light but stately steps till the last glimpse was gone. And then, sinking once more on his seat, his eyes again fastened themselves on the ground. His form, mute and unmoving, as a thing of stone. His heart, who, in our happier age, can even imagine its struggles, its commotion. May I enter, said his sweet boys, is thy mistress Julia within? The slave mechanically motioned to the visitor to enter, but she who addressed him could not see the gesture. She repeated her question timidly, but in a louder voice. Am I not told thee, said the slave peevishly? Enter. Fink said the speaker plaintively, and the slave, roused by the tone, looked up and recognized the blind flower girl. Sorrow can sympathize with affliction. He raised himself and guided her steps to the head of the adjacent staircase, by which you descended to Julia's apartment, where, summoning a female slave, he consigned her to the charge of the blind girl. End of Book Three, Chapter Six. Book Three, Chapter Seven 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 Anne Boulet. Last Days of Pompeii by Edward G. Bolwer-Lighton. Book Three, Chapter Seven. The dressing room of a Pompeian beauty, important conversation between Julia and Nydia. The elegant Julia sat in her chamber with her slaves around her. Like the cubiculeum which joined it, the room was small, but much larger than the usual apartments appropriated to sleep, which were so diminutive that few who have ever not seen the bed chambers, even in the gayest mansions, can form any notion of the petty pigeonholes in which the citizens of Pompeii evidently thought it desirable to pass the night. But in fact, bed with the ancients was not that grave, serious, and important part of domestic mysteries which it is with us. The couch itself was more like a very narrow and small sofa, light enough to be transported easily and by the occupant himself, from place to place. And it was, no doubt, constantly shifted from chamber to chamber according to the caprice of the inmate, or the changes of the season, for that side of the house which was crowded in one month might perhaps be carefully avoided in the next. There was also among the Italians of that period a singular and fastidious apprehension of too much daylight. Their darkened chambers, which first appeared to us the result of a negligent architecture, were the effect of the most elaborate study. In their porticoes and gardens, they courted the sun whenever it so pleased their luxurious tastes. In the interior of their houses, they sought rather the coolness and the shade. Julia's apartment at that season was in the lower part of the house, immediately beneath the state rooms above and looking upon the garden, with which it was on a level. The wide door, which was glazed, alone admitted the morning rays. Yet her eye, accustomed to a certain darkness, was sufficiently acute to perceive exactly what colors were the most becoming. What shade of the delicate rouge gave the brightest beam to her dark glance, and the most youthful freshness to her cheek. On the table before which she sat was a small and circular mirror of the most polished steel, round which, in precise order, were arranged the cosmetics in ungulance. The perfumes in the paints, the jewels and combs, the ribbons and the gold pins, which were destined to add to the natural attractions of beauty, the assistance of art, and the capricious allurements of fashion. Through the dimness of the room glowed brightly the vivid and various colorings of the wall in all the dazzling frescoes of Pompeii and taste. Before the dressing table and under the feet of Julia was spread a carpet woven from the looms of the east. Near at hand, on another table, was a silver basin and ewer, an extinguished lamp of most exquisite workmanship in which the artist had represented a cupid reposing under the spreading branches of a myrtle tree, and a small roll of papyrus, containing the softest elegies of Tybulus. Before the door which communicated with the cubiculum hung a curtain richly broidered with gold flowers, such was the dressing room of a beauty 18 centuries ago. The fair Julia leaned indolently back on her seat while the ornatrix, i.e. hairdresser, slowly piled, one above the other, a mass of small curls, dexterously weaving the false with the true and carrying the whole fabric to a height that seemed to place the head rather at the center than the summit of the human form. Her tunic of a deep amber which well set off her dark hair and somewhat in brown complexion, swept in ample folds to her feet which were cased in slippers, fastened round the slender angle by white thongs while a profusion of pearls were embroidered in the slipper itself, which was of purple and turned slightly upward as do the Turkish slippers at this day. An old slave, skilled by long experience in the arcana of the toilet, stood beside the hairdresser with the broad and studded girdle of her mistress over her arm and giving from time to time, mingled with judicious flattery to the lady herself, instructions to the mason of the ascending pile. Put that pin rather more to the right. Lower, stupid one. Do you not observe how even those beautiful eyebrows are? You would think you were dressing Karina, whose face is all of one side. Now put in the flowers. What fool, not that dull pink. You are not suiting the colors to the dim cheeks of Chloris. It must be the brightest flowers that can alone suit the cheek of the young Julia. Gently, said the lady, stamping her foot violently, you pull my hair as if you were plucking a weed. Dull thing, continued the directress of the ceremony. Do you not know how delicate is your mistress? You are not dressing the coarse horse hair of the widow Fulvia. Now then, the ribbon, that's right. Fair Julia, look in the mirror. Saw you ever anything so lovely as yourself when, after numerable comments, difficulties, and delays, the intricate tower was at length completed. The next preparation was that of giving to the eyes the soft language. Produced by a dark powder applied to the lids and brows, a small patch cut in the form of a crescent, skillfully placed by the rosy lips, attracted attention to their dimples and to the teeth to which already every art had been applied in order to heighten the dazzle of their natural whiteness. To another slave, hitherto idle, was now consigned the charge of arranging the jewels, the earrings of pearl, two to each ear, the massive bracelets of gold, the chain formed of rings of the same metal, to which a talisman cut in crystals was attached, the graceful buckle on the left shoulder, in which was set an exquisite cameo of psyche, the girdle of purple ribbon, richly wrought with threads of gold and clasped by interlacing serpents, and lastly the various rings, fitted to every joint of the white and slender fingers. The toilet was now arranged according to the last mode of Rome. The fair Julia regarded herself for the last gaze of complacent vanity, and reclining again upon her seat, she bathed the youngest of her slaves in a listless tone to read to her the enamored couplets of tabulas. This lecture was still preceding when a female slave admitted Nydia into the presence of the lady of the place. Solvay, Julia, said the flower girl, arresting her steps within a few paces from the spot where Julia sat, and crossing her arms upon her breast. I have obeyed your commands. You have done well, flower girl, answered the lady. Approach, you may take a seat. One of the slaves placed a stool by Julia, and Nydia seated herself. Julia looked hard at the Thessalian for some moments in rather unembarrassed silence. She then motioned her attendance to withdraw and to close the door. When they were alone, she said, looking mechanically at Nydia and forgetting that she was with one who could not observe her countenance. You serve the Neapolitan Ioni? I am with her at present, answered Nydia. Is she as handsome as they say? I know not, replied Nydia. How can I judge? Ah, I should have remembered, but thou hast ears, if not eyes. Do thy fellow slaves tell thee she is handsome? Slaves talking with one another forget to flatter even their mistress. They tell me that she is beautiful. Hmm, they say that she is tall. Yes, why so am I, dark-haired? I have heard so. So am I, and doth Glaucus visit her much? Daily, replied Nydia with a half-suppressed sigh. Daily, indeed. Does he find her handsome? I should think so, since they are soon to be wedded. Wedded, cried Julia, turning pale even through the false roses on her cheek and starting from her couch. Nydia did not, of course, perceive the emotion she had caused. Julia remained a long time silent, but her heaving breast and flashing eyes would have betrayed. To one who could have seen, the wound her vanity had sustained. They tell me thou art a Thessalian, she said at last, breaking silence. And truly, Thessaly is a land of magic and of witches, of talisman and of love filters, said Julia. It has ever been celebrated for its sorcerers, returned Nydia timidly. Knowest thou then, blind Thessalian, of any love charms? I, said the flower girl, coloring. I? How should I? No, assuredly not. The worst for thee, I could have given thee gold enough to purchase thy freedom, hadest thou been more wise. But what, asked Nydia, can induce the beautiful and wealthy Julia to ask that question of her servant? Has she not money and youth and loveliness? Are they not love charms enough to dispense with magic? To all but one person in the world, answered Julia hotly. But me thinks thy blindness is infectious and, but no matter. And that one person, said Nydia eagerly, is not Glaucus, replied Julia, with the customary deceit of her sex? Glaucus? No. Nydia drew her breath more freely and after a short pause, Julia recommenced. But talking of Glaucus and his attachment to this Neapolitan reminded me of the influence of love spells, which, for I ought know or care, she may have exercised upon him. Blind girl, I love. And shall Julia live to say it? Am love not in return? This humbles, nay, not humbles, but it stings my pride. I would see this ingrate at my feet, not in order that I might raise, but that I might spurn him. When they told me thou werethesalian, I imagined thy young mind might have learned the dark secrets of thy climb. Alas, no, murmured Nydia, would it had. Thanks, at least for that kindly wish, said Julia, unconscious of what was passing in the breast of the flower girl. But tell me, thou hurtest the gossip of slaves, always prone to these dim beliefs, always ready to apply sorcery for their own low loves. Has thou ever heard of an eastern magician in the city who possesses the art of which thou art ignorant? No vain chyromancer, no juggler of the marketplace, but some more potent and mighty magician of India, or of Egypt? Of Egypt? Yes, said Nydia, shuddering. What Pompeon has not heard of our bases? Our bases? True, replied Julia, grasping at the recollection. They say he is a man above all the petty and false impostures of dull pretenders, that he is versed in the learning of the stars and the secrets of the ancient nox. Why not in the mysteries of love? If there be one magician living whose art is above that of others, it is that dread man, answered Nydia, and she felt her talisman while she spoke. Is he too wealthy to divine for money? continued Julia, sneeringly. Can I not visit him? It is an evil mansion for the young and the beautiful, replied Nydia. I have heard, too, that he languishes in an evil mansion, said Julia, catching only the first sentence. Why so? The orgies of his midnight leisure are impure and polluted. At least, so says rumor. By series, by pan, by civilly. Thou dost but provoke my curiosity, instead of exciting my fears, returned the wayward and pampered Pompeon. I will seek in question of his lore. If to these orgies love be admitted, why the more likely he knows its secrets? Nydia did not answer. I will seek him this very day, resumed Julia. Nay, why not this very hour? At daylight and in his present state, thou hast assuredly the less to fear, answered Nydia, yielding to her own sudden and secret wish to learn if the dark Egyptian were indeed possessed of those spells to rivet and attract love, of which the Thessalian had so often heard. Then who dare insult the rich daughter of Diomed? said Julia hotly. I will go. May I visit thee afterwards to learn the result? asked Nydia anxiously. Kiss me for thy interest in Julia's honor, answered the lady. Yes, assuredly. This eve we sub abroad. Come hither at the same hour tomorrow, and thou shalt know all. I may have to employ thee too, but enough for the present. Stay, take this bracelet for the new thought thou hast inspired me with. Remember, if thou service Julia, she is grateful and she is generous. I cannot take thy presence, said Nydia, putting aside the bracelet, but young as I am, I can sympathize unbought with those who love and love in vain. Sayest thou so, returned Julia, thou speakest like a free woman, and thou shalt yet be free. Farewell. End of Book Three, Chapter Seven. Book Three, Chapter Eight 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 Anne Boullet. Last Days of Pompeii by Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton. Book Three, Chapter Eight. Julia seeks Arbasis, the results of that interview. Arbasis was seated in a chamber which opened on a kind of balcony or portico that fronted his garden. His cheek was pale and worn with the sufferings he had endured, but his iron frame had already recovered from the severest effects of that accident which had frustrated his fell designs in the moment of victory. The air that came frequently to his brow revived his languid senses, and the blood circulated more freely than it had done for days through his shrunken veins. So then, he thought, the storm of fate has broken and blown over. The evil which my lore predicted, threatening life itself, has chanced, and yet I live. It came as the stars foretold, and now the long, bright, and prosperous career which was to succeed that evil, if I survived it, smiles beyond. I have passed, I have subdued the latest danger of my destiny. Now I have but to lay out the gardens of my future fate, unterrified and secure. First then, of all my pleasures, even before that of love shall come revenge. This Greek boy, who has crossed my passion, thwarted my designs, baffled me even when the blade was about to drink his accursed blood, shall not a second time escape me. But for the method of my vengeance, of that let me ponder well, O Ate, if thou art indeed a goddess, fill me with thy direst inspiration. The Egyptians sank into an intent reverie, which did not seem to present to him any clear or satisfactory suggestions. He changed his position restlessly, as he revolved scheme after scheme, which no sooner occurred than it was dismissed. Several times he struck his breast and groaned aloud, with the desire of vengeance, and a sense of his impotence to accomplish it. While thus absorbed, a boy-slave timidly entered the chamber. A female evidently of rank from her dress, and that of the single slave who attended her, waited below and sought an audience with our bases. A female? His heart beat quick. Is she young? Her face is concealed by her veil, but her form is slight, yet round, as that of youth. Admit her, said the Egyptian, for a moment his vain heart dreamed the stranger might be Ioni. The first glance of the visitor, now entering the apartment, suffice to undeceive so airing a fancy. True, she was about the same height as Ioni, and perhaps the same age. True, she was finely and richly formed. But where was that undulating and ineffable grace, which accompanied every motion of that peerless Neapolitan? The chase and decorous garb, so simple, even in the care of its arrangement, the dignified yet bashful step, the majesty of womanhood and its modesty? Pardon me that I rise with pain, said our bases, gazing at the stranger. I am still suffering from recent illness. Do not disturb thyself, O great Egyptian, returned Julia, seeking to disguise the fear she already experienced beneath the ready resort of flattery, and forgive an unfortunate female who seeks consolation from thy wisdom. On nearer, fair stranger, said our bases, and speak without apprehension or reserve. Julia placed herself on a seat beside the Egyptian, and, wonderingly, gazed around an apartment whose elaborate and costly luxuries shamed even the ornate enrichment of her father's mansion. Fearfully, too, she regarded the hieroglyphical inscriptions on the walls, the faces of the mysterious images which at every corner gazed upon her, the tripod at a little distance, and, above all, the grave and remarkable countenance of our bases himself. A long white robe like a veil half-covered his raven locks and flowed to his feet. His face was made even more impressive by its present paleness, and his dark and penetrating eyes seemed to pierce the shelter of her veil, and explore the secrets of her vain and unfeminine soul. And what, said his low, deep voice, brings thee, O maiden, to the house of the eastern stranger? His fame, replied Julia, in what, he said, with a strange and slight smile, canst thou ask, O wise our bases, is not thy knowledge the very gossip theme of Pompeii? Some little lore I have indeed treasured up, replied our bases. But in what can such serious and sterile secrets benefit the ear of beauty? Alas, said Julia, a little cheered by the accustomed accents of adulation, does not sorrow fly to wisdom for relief, and they who love unrequitedly are not they the chosen victims of grief? Ha, said our bases, can unrequited love be the lot of so fair a form whose model proportions are visible even beneath the folds of thy graceful robe? Dane, O maiden, to lift thy veil, that I may see, at least, if the face correspond in loveliness with the form. Not unwilling, perhaps, to exhibit her charms and thinking they were likely to interest the magician in her fate, Julia, after some slight hesitation, raised her veil, and revealed a beauty which, but for art, had been indeed attractive to the fixed gaze of the Egyptian. Thou comest to me for advice and unhappy love, he said, well, turn that face on the ungrateful one, what other love charm can I give thee? O, cease these courtesies, said Julia, it is a love charm indeed that I would ask from thy skill. Fair stranger, replied our bases, somewhat scornfully. Love spells are not among the secrets I have wasted the midnight oil to attain. Is it indeed so? Then pardon me, great our bases, and farewell. Stay, said our bases, who, despite his passion for Ioni, was not unmoved by the beauty of his visitor, and had he been in the flesh of a more assured health, might have attempted to console the fair Julia by other means than those of supernatural wisdom. Stay, although I confess that I have left the witchery of filters and potions to those whose trade is in such knowledge, yet I am myself not so dull to beauty, but that in earlier youth I may have employed them in my own behalf. I may give thee advice, at least, if thou wilt be candid with me. Tell me, then, first, are thou unmarried as thy dress betokens? Yes, said Julia, and, being unblessed with fortune, wouldest thou allure some wealthy suitor? I am richer than he who disdains me, strange and more strange, and thou lovest him who loves not thee? I know not if I love him, answered Julia haughtily, but I know that I would see myself triumph over a rival. I would see him who rejected me my suitor. I would see her whom he has preferred in her turn despised. A natural ambition and a womanly, said the Egyptian, in a tone too grey for irony. Yet more, fair maiden, wilt thou confide to me the name of thy lover? Can he be Pompeian and despise wealth, even if blind to beauty? He is of Athens, answered Julia, looking down. Ha! cried the Egyptian, impestuously, as the blood rushed to his cheek. There is but one Athenian, young and noble, in Pompey. Can it be Glaucus of whom thou speakest? Ah, betray me not, so indeed they call him. The Egyptian sank back, gazing vacantly on the averted face of the merchant's daughter, and muttering inly to himself. This conference, with which he had hitherto only trifled, amusing himself with the credulity and vanity of his visitor, might it not minister to his revenge? I see thou canst assist me not, said Julia, offended by his continued silence. Guard at least my secret. Once more. Farewell. Maiden, said the Egyptian, in an earnest and serious tone, thy suit hath touched me. I will minister to thy will. Listen to me. I have not myself dabbled in these lesser mysteries, but I know one who hath. At the base of Vesuvius, less than a league from the city, there dwells a powerful witch. Beneath the rank dues of the new moon, she has gathered the herbs which possess the virtue to chain love in eternal fetters. Her art can bring thy lover to thy feet. Seek her, and mention to her the name of our bases. She fears that name, and will give thee her most potent filters. Alas! answered Julia, I know not the road to the home of her whom thou speakest of. The way, short though it be, is long to traverse for a girl who leaves unknown the house over her father. The country is entangled with wild vines, and dangerous with precipitous caverns. I dare not trust to mere strangers to guide me. The reputation of women of my rank is easily tarnished, and though I care not who knows that I love Glaucus, I would not have it imagined that I obtained his love by a spell. Were I but three days advanced in health, said the Egyptian, rising and walking, as if to try his strength across the chamber, but with irregular and feeble steps, I myself would accompany thee. Well, thou must wait. But Glaucus is soon to wed the hated Neapolitan. Wed? Yes, in the early part of next month. So soon, art thou well advised of this? From the lips of her own slave. It shall not be, said the Egyptian impestuously. Fear nothing, Glaucus shall be thine. Yet how, when thou obtainest it, canst thou administer to him this potion? My father has invited him, and, I believe, the Neapolitan also, to a banquet on the day following tomorrow. I shall then have the opportunity to administer it. So be it, said the Egyptian, with eyes flashing such fierce joy, that Julia's gaze sank trembling beneath them. Tomorrow eve, then, order thy litter, thou hast one at thy command. Surely, yes, return the purse-proud Julia. After thy litter, at two miles distance from the city, is a house of entertainment, frequented by the wealthier Pompeians, from the excellence of its baths, and the beauty of its gardens. There canst thou pretend only to shape thy course. There, ill or dying, I will meet thee by the statue of Salinas, in the coaps that skirts the garden. And I myself will guide thee to the witch. Let us wait till, with the evening star, the goats of the herdsmen are gone to rest. When the dark twilight conceals us, and none shall cross our steps, go home and fear not. By Hades swears our bases. The sorcerer of Egypt, that Ioni, shall never wed with Glaucus. And that Glaucus shall be mine, added Julia, filling up the incomplete sentence. Thou hast said it, replied our bases. And Julia, half-frightened at this unhallowed appointment, but urged on by jealousy and the peak of rivalship, even more than love, resolved to fulfill it. Left alone, our bases burst forth. Bright stars that never lie, ye already begin the execution of your promises, success in love, and victory over foes, for the rest of my smooth existence. In the very hour when my mind could devise no clue to the goal of vengeance, have ye sent this fair fool for my guide? He paused in deep thought. Yes, he said again, but in a calmer voice, I could not myself have given to her the poison that shall indeed be a filter. His death might be thus tracked to my door, but the witch, I, there is the fit, the natural agent of my designs. He summoned one of his slaves, bade him hastened to track the steps of Julia, and acquaint himself with her name and condition. This done, he stepped forth into the portico. The skies were serene and clear, but he, deeply red in the signs of various change, beheld in one mass of cloud, far on the horizon, which the wind began slowly to agitate, that a storm was brooding above. It is like my vengeance, he said, as he gazed. The sky is clear, but the cloud moves on. Days of Pompeii, by Edward G. Bolverleiton. Book 3, Chapter 9. Storm in the South, The Witch's Cavern. It was when the heats of noon died gradually away from the earth, that Glaucus and Ioni went forth to enjoy the cooled and grateful air. At that time, various carriages were in use among the Romans. The one most used by the richer citizens, when they required no companion in their excursion, was the Bega, already described in the early portion of this work. That, appropriated to the matrons, was termed the carpentum, which had commonly two wheels. The ancients used also a sort of litter, a vast sedan chair, more commodiously arranged than the modern, in as much as the occupant thereof, could lie down at ease, instead of being perpendicularly and stiffly jostled up and down. There was another carriage used both for traveling and for excursions in the country. It was commodious, containing three or four persons with ease, having a covering which could be raised at pleasure, and, in short, answering very much the purpose of, though very different in shape from, the modern briska. It was a vehicle of this description that the lovers, accompanied by one female slave of Ioni, now used in their excursion. About ten miles from the city, there was at that day an old ruin, the remains of a temple evidently Grecian, and as for Glaucus and Ioni, everything Grecian possessed an interest. They had agreed to visit these ruins. It was thither they were now bound. Their road lay among vines and olive groves, till, winding more and more towards the higher ground of Vesuvius, the path grew rugged. The mules moved slowly and with labor, and at every opening in the wood they beheld those gray and horrent caverns indenting the parched rock, which Strabo has described, but which the various revolutions of time and the volcano have removed from the present aspect of the mountain. The sun, sloping towards his descent, cast long and deep shadows over the mountain. Here and there they still heard the rustic reed of the shepherd amongst copses of the beechwood and wild oak. Sometimes they marked the form of the silk-haired and graceful capella, with its wreathing horn and bright gray eye, which, still beneath the Alsonian skies, recalls the eclogues of morrow, browsing halfway up the hills, and the grapes, already purple with the smiles of the deepening summer, glowed out from the arch festoons, which hung pendant from tree to tree. Above them, light clouds floated in the serene heavens, sweeping so slowly a thwart the affirmament that they scarcely seemed to stir, while, on their right, they caught, ever in a non, glimpses of the wabless sea. With sunlight bark skimming at surface, and the sunlight breaking over the deep in those countless and softest hues so peculiar to that delicious sea. How beautiful, said Glaucus, in a half-whispered tone, is that expression by which we call earth our mother, with what a kindly equal love she pours her blessings upon her children, and even to those sterile spots to which nature has denied beauty, she yet contrives to dispense her smiles. Witness the arbitus and the vine, which she reads over the arid and burning soil of yon extinct volcano. In such an hour and seen as this, well might we imagine that the fawn should peep forth from those green festoons, or that we might trace the steps of the mountain nymph through the thickest mazes of the glade, but the nymph ceased, beautiful Ioni, when thou warch created. There is no tongue that flatters like a lover's, and yet, in the exaggeration of his feelings, flattery seems to him commonplace, strange and prodigical exuberance, which soon exhausts itself by overflowing. They arrived at the ruins. They examined them with that fondness with which we traced the hallowed and household vestiges of our own ancestry. They lingered there till Hesperus appeared in the rosy heavens, and then returning homeward in the twilight, they were more silent than they had been, for in the shadow and beneath the stars they felt more oppressively their mutual love. It was at this time that the storm which the Egyptian had predicted began to creep visibly over them. At first, a low and distant thunder gave warning of the approaching conflict of the elements, and then rapidly rushed above the dark ranks of the Syrian clouds. The suddenness of storms in that climate is something almost pre-tranatural and might well suggest to early superstition the notion of a divine agency. A few large drops broke heavily among the boughs that half overhung their path. And then, swift and intolerably bright, the forked lightning darted across their very eyes and was swallowed up by the increasing darkness. Swift or good car o' carious, said Glaucus to the driver, the tempest comes on apace. The slave urged on the mules. They went swift over the uneven and stony road. The clouds thickened, near and more near broke the thunder, and fast rushed the dashing rain. Does thou fear, whispered Glaucus, as he sought excuse in the storm to come nearer to Ioni? Not with thee, she said softly. At that instant, the carriage, fragile and ill-contrived, as, despite their graceful shapes, were for practical uses most of such inventions at that time, struck violently into a deep rut, over which lay a log of fallen wood. The driver, with a curse, stimulated his mules yet faster for the obstacle. The wheel was torn from the socket and the carriage suddenly overset. Glaucus quickly extricating himself from the vehicle, hastened to assist Ioni, who was fortunately unhurt. With some difficulty, they raised the caraca, or carriage, and found that it ceased any longer even to afford them shelter. The springs that fastened the covering were snapped asunder, and the rain pour fast and fiercely into the interior. In this dilemma, what was to be done? They were yet some distance from the city. No house, no aid, seemed near. There is, said the slave, a smith about a mile off, I could seek him and he might fasten at least the wheel of the caraca by Jupiter. How the rain beats, my mistress will be wet before I come back. Run thither at least, said Glaucus. We must find the best shelter we can till you return. The lane was overshadowed with trees, beneath the amplest of which Glaucus drew Ioni. He endeavored by stripping his own cloak to shield her yet more from the rapid rain, but it descended with a fury that broke through all puny obstacles. And suddenly, while Glaucus was yet whispering courage to his beautiful charge, the lightning struck one of the trees immediately before them and split with a mighty crash its huge trunk in twain. This awful incident apprised them of the danger they braved in their present shelter, and Glaucus looked anxiously round for some less perilous place of refuge. We are now, he said, halfway up the ascent of Vesuvius. There ought to be some cavern or hollow in the vine-clad rocks. Could we but find it? In which the deserting dimps have left a shelter. While thus saying, he moved from the trees and looking wistfully toward the mountain, discovered through the advancing gloom a red and tremulous light at no considerable distance. That must come, he said, from the hearth of some shepherd or vine dresser. It will guide us to some hospitable retreat. Will thou stay here while I? Yet, no, that would be to leave thee to danger. I will go with you cheerfully, said Ioni. Open as the space seems, it is better than the treacherous shelter of these boughs. Half leading, half carrying Ioni, Glaucus, accompanied by the trembling female slave, advanced toward the light, which yet burned red and steadfastly. At length, the space was no longer open, wild vines entangled their steps and hid from them, saved by imperfect intervals, the guiding beam. But faster and fiercer came the rain and the lightning assumed its most deadly and blasting form. They were still therefore impelled onward, hoping at last, if the light eluded them, to arrive at some cottage or some friendly cavern. The vines grew more and more intricate. The light was entirely snatched from them, but a narrow path, which they trod with labor and pain, guided only by the constant and long lingering flashes of the storm, continued to lead them towards its direction. The rain ceased suddenly, precipitous and rough crags of scorched lava frowned before them, rendered more fearful by the lightning that illumined the dark and dangerous soil. Sometimes the blaze lingered over the iron-gray heaps of scoria, covered in part with ancient mosses or stunted trees, as if seeking in vain for some gentler product of earth, more worthy of its ire, and sometimes leaving the whole of that part of the scene in darkness. The lightning, broad and sheeted, hung readily over the ocean, tossing far below until its waves seemed glowing into fire. And so intense was the blaze that it brought vividly into view even the sharp outline of the more distant windings of the bay, from the eternal messenium with its lofty brow to the beautiful serentum and the giant hills behind. Our lovers stopped in perplexity and doubt, when suddenly, as the darkness that gloom between the fierce flashes of lightning, once more wrapped them round, they saw near but high before them the mysterious light. Another blaze in which heaven and earth were reddened, made visible to them the whole expanse. No house was near, but just where they had beheld the light, they thought they saw in the recess of the cavern the outline of a human form. The darkness once more returned. The light no longer pale beneath the fires of heaven, burned forth again. They resolved to ascend towards it. They had to wind their way among vast fragments of stone, here and there overhung with wild bushes, but they gained nearer and nearer to the light, and at length they stood opposite the mouth of a kind of cavern, apparently formed by huge splinters of rock that had fallen traversely athort each other. And, looking into the gloom, each drew back involuntarily with a superstitious fear and chill. A fire burned in the far recess of the cave, and over it was a small cauldron. On a tall and thin column of iron stood a rude lamp. Over that part of the wall, at the base of which burned the fire, hung in many rows as if to dry, a profusion of herbs and weeds. A fox, crouched before the fire, gazed upon the strangers with its bright and red eye, its hair bristling and a low growl stealing from between its teeth. In the center of the cave was an earthen statue, which had three heads of a singular and fantastic cast. They were formed by the real skulls of a dog, a horse and a boar. A low tripod stood before this wild representation of the popular Hecate. But it was not these appendages and appliances of the cave that thrilled the blood of those who gazed fearfully therein. It was the face of its inmate. Before the fire, with the light shining full upon her features, sat a woman of considerable age. Perhaps in no country are there seen so many hags as in Italy. In no country does beauty so awfully change. In age, two hideousness the most appalling and revolting. But the woman now before them was not one of these specimens of the extreme of human ugliness. On the contrary, her countenance betrayed the remains of a regular but high and aquiline order of feature. With stony eyes turned upon them, with a look that met and fascinated theirs, they beheld in that fearful countenance the very image of a corpse. The same, the glazed and lusterless regard, the blue and shrunken lips, the drawn and hollow jaw, the dead, lank hair of a pale gray, the vivid green, ghastly skin which seemed all surely tinged and tainted by the grave. It is a dead thing, said Glaucus. Nay, it stirs. It is a ghost or larva, faltered Ioni as she clung to the Athenian's breast. Oh, away, away, grown the slave. It is the witch of Vesuvius. Who are ye? Said a hollow and ghostly voice. And what do ye hear? The sound, terrible and deathlike as it was, suiting well the countenance of the speaker, and seeming rather the voice of some bodiless wanderer of the sticks than living mortal. Would have made Ioni shrink back into the pitiless fury of the storm. But Glaucus, though not without some misgiving, drew her into the cavern. We are storm-beaten wanderers from the neighboring city, he said, and decoyed hither by yawn light, we crave shelter and the comfort of your hearth. As he spoke, the fox rose from the ground and advanced towards the strangers, showing from end to end its white teeth and deepening in its menacing growl. Down, slave, said the witch, and at the sound of her voice, the beast dropped at once, covering its face with its brush and keeping only its quick, vigilant eye fixed upon the invaders of its repose. Come to the fire if ye will, said she, turning to Glaucus and his companions. I never welcome living things, save the owl, the fox, the toad, and the viper. So I cannot welcome ye, but come to the fire without welcome. Why stand upon form? The language in which the hag addressed them was a strange and barbarous Latin, interlarded with many words of some more rude and ancient dialect. She did not stir from her seat, but gaze stoneily upon them as Glaucus now released Ioni of her outer wrapping garments and making her place herself on a log of wood, which was the only other seat he perceived at hand, fanned with his breath the embers into a more glowing fire. The slave, encouraged by the boldness of her superiors, divested herself also of her long pala and creptomorously to the opposite corner of the hearth. We disturb you, I fear, said the silver voice of Ioni in conciliation. The witch did not reply. She seemed like one who has awakened for a moment from the dead and has then relapsed once more into the eternal slumber. Tell me, she said suddenly and after a long pause, are ye brother and sister? No, said Ioni, blushing. Are ye married? Not so, replied Glaucus. Oh, lovers! Ha, ha, ha! And the witch laughed so loud and so long that the caverns rang again. The heart of Ioni stood still at that strange mirth. Glaucus muttered a rapid counter spell to the omen and the slave turned as pale as the cheek of the witch herself. Why dost thou laughed, old crone? Said Glaucus, somewhat sternly, as he concluded his invocation. Did I laugh? Said the hag absently. She is in her dotted, whispered Glaucus. As he said this, he caught the eye of the hag fixed upon him with a malignant and vivid glare. Thou liest, she said abruptly. Thou art an uncourteous welcomeer, returned Glaucus. Hush, provoke her not, dear Glaucus, whispered Ioni. I will tell thee why I laughed when I discovered ye were lovers, said the old woman. It was because it is a pleasure to the old and withered to look upon young hearts like yours and to know the time will come when you will loathe each other. Loth, loathe, ha, ha, ha! It was now Ioni's turn to pray against the unpleasing prophecy. The gods forbid, she said. Yet, poor woman, thou knowest little of love or thou wouldest know that it never changes. Was I young once, think ye, return the hag quickly, and am I old and hideous and deathly now? Such as is the form, so is the heart. With these words, she sank again into a stillness profound and fearful as if the cessation of life itself. Has thou dwell here long? Said Glaucus after a pause, feeling uncomfortably oppressed beneath the silence so appalling. Ah, long, yes. It is but a drear abode. Ha, thou may as well say that. Hell is beneath us, replied the hag, pointing her bony finger to the earth, and I will tell thee a secret. The dim things below are preparing wrath for ye above, you, the young, and the thoughtless and the beautiful. Thou utterest but evil words, ill becoming the hospitable, said Glaucus, and in future I will brave the tempest rather than thy welcome. Thou wilt do well, none shall ever seek me, save the wretched. And why the wretched, asked the Athenian, I am the witch of the mountain, replied the sorceress with a ghastly grin. My trade is to give hope to the hopeless. For the crossed in love I have filters, for the avaricious promises of treasure, for the malicious potions of revenge, for the happy and the good I have only what life has, curses, trouble me no more. With this the grim tenant of the cave relapsed into a silent so obstinate and sullen that Glaucus in vain endeavored to draw her into further conversation. She did not events, but any alteration of her locked and rigid features that she even heard him. Fortunately, however, the storm, which was brief as violent, began now to relax. The rain grew less and less fierce, and at last, as the clouds parted, the moon burst forth in the purple opening of heaven, and streamed clear and full into that desolate abode. Never had she shone, perhaps, on a group more worthy of the painter's art. The young, the all-beautiful Ioni, seated by that rude fire, her lover already forgetful of the presence of the hag, at her feet, gazing upward to her face, and whispering sweet words, the pale and affrighted slave at a little distance, and the ghastly hag resting her deadly eyes upon them. Yet seemingly serene and fearless, for the companionship of love hath such power, were these beautiful beings, things of another sphere, in that dark and unholy cavern, with his gloomy quaintness of a pertinence. The fox regarded them from his corner with his keen and fiery eye, and as Glaucus now turned towards the witch, he perceived for the first time, just under her seat, the bright gaze encrested head of a large snake. Whether it was that vivid coloring of the Athenian's cloak, thrown over the shoulders of Ioni, attracted the reptile's anger. Its crest began to glow and rise, as if menacing and preparing itself to spring upon the Neapolitan. Glaucus caught quickly at one of the half-burned logs upon the hearth, and as if enraged at the action, the snake came forth from its shelter, and with a loud hiss, raised itself on end, till its height nearly approached that of the Greek. Witch, cried Glaucus, command thy creature, or thou wilt see it dead. It has been despoiled of its venom, said the witch, aroused at its threat, but ere the words had left her lip, the snake had sprung upon Glaucus. Quick and watchful, the agile Greek leaped lightly aside, and struck so fell and dexterous a blow on the head of the snake that it fell prostrate and writhing among the embers of the fire. The hag sprung up and stood confronting Glaucus with a face which would have befitted the fiercest of the furies. So utterly dire and wrathful was its expression, yet even in horror and gasliness, preserving the outline and trace of beauty, and utterly free from that coarse grotesque at which the imaginations of the North have sought the source of terror. Thou hast, she said, in a slow and steady voice, which belied the expression of her face, so much was it passionless and calm. Thou hast had shelter under my roof, and warmth at my hearth. Thou hast returned evil for good. Thou hast smitten and happily slain the thing that loved me and was mine. Nay, more, the creature above all others, consecrated to gods and deemed venerable by man. Now hear thy punishment, by the moon who is the guardian of the sorceress, by Orcus who is the treasure of wrath. I curse thee and thou art cursed. May thy love be blessed, may thy name be blackened, may the infernals mark thee. May thy heart wither and scorch. May thy last hour recall to thee the profit voice of the saga of Vesuvius. And thou, she added, turning sharply towards Ioni and raising her right arm, when Glaucus burst impetuously on her speech. Hag, he cried, forbear, me thou hast cursed, and I commit myself to the gods. I defy and scorn thee, but breathe, but one word against Yon maiden. And I will convert the oath on thy foul lips to thy dying groan, beware. I have done, replied the hag, laughing wildly, for in thy doom is she who loves thee accursed, and not the less, that I heard her lips breathe thy name, and know by what word to commend thee to the demons. Glaucus, thou art doomed. So saying, the witch turned from the Athenian, and kneeling down beside her wounded favorite, which she dragged from the hearth, she turned to them, her face no more. Oh Glaucus, said Ioni, greatly terrified. What have we done? Let us hasten from this place. The storm has ceased. Good mistress, forgive him. Recall thy words. He meant but to defend himself. Accept this peace offering to unsay the said. And Ioni, stooping, placed her purse on the hag's lap. Away, she said bitterly, away. The oath once woven, the fates only can untie. Away, come, dearest, said Glaucus, impatiently. Thinkest thou that the gods above us or below hear the impotent ravings of dotage? Come, long and loud rang the echoes of the cavern with the dread laugh of the saga. She daying no further reply. The lovers breathed more freely when they gained the open air. Yet the scene they had witnessed, the words and the laughter of the witch, still fearfully dwelt with Ioni. And even Glaucus could not thoroughly shake off the impression they had bequeathed. The storm had subsided, save now and then, a low thunder muttered in the distance amidst the darker clouds, or a momentary flash of lightning affronted the sovereignty of the moon. With some difficulty, they regained the road, where they found the vehicle already sufficiently repaired for their departure. And the car who carry is calling loudly upon Hercules to tell him where his charge had vanished. Glaucus vainly endeavored to cheer the exhausted spirits of Ioni and scarce less vainly to recover the elastic tone of his own natural guillotine. They soon arrived before the gate of the city. As it opened to them, a litter borne by slaves impeded their way. It is too late for egress, cried the sentinel to the inmate of the litter. Not so said a voice, which the lovers started to hear. It was a voice they well recognized. I am bound to the villa of Marcus Polybius. I shall return shortly. I am our Basis, the Egyptian. The scruples of him at the gate were removed, and the litter passed close beside the carriage that bore the lovers. Our Basis at this hour scarce recovered too, me thinks. Wither or for what can he leave the city, said Glaucus. Alas, replied Ioni, bursting into tears, my soul feels so more and more the omen of evil. Preserve us, O ye gods, or at least, she murmured inly, preserve my Glaucus. End of Book 3, Chapter 9. Book 3, Chapter 10 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 Anne Boulete. Last Days of Pompeii by Edward G. Bolgerleiton. Book 3, Chapter 10. The Lord of the Burning Belt and his Minion. Fate writes her prophecy in red letters, but who shall read them? Our Basis had tarried only till the cessation of the tempest allowed him, under cover of night, to seek the saga of Vesuvius. Born by those of his trustier slaves, in whom in all more secret expeditions he was accustomed to confide, he lay extended along his litter, and resigning his sanguine heart to the contemplation of vengeance, gratified, and love possessed. The slaves, in so short a journey, moved very little slower than the ordinary pace of mules, and our Basis soon arrived at the commencement of a narrow path, which the lovers had not been fortunate enough to discover. But which, skirting the thick vines, led at once to the habitation of the witch. Here he rested the litter, and bidding his slaves conceal themselves and the vehicle among the vines from the observation of any chance passenger, he mounted alone, the steps still feeble but supported by a long staff, the drear and sharp ascent. Not a drop of rain fell from the tranquil heaven, but the moisture dripped mournfully from the laden vows of the vine, and now and then collected in tiny pools in the crevices and hollows of the rocky way. Strange passions these for a philosopher, thought our Basis, that lean one like me just knew from the bed of death, and lapped even in health amidst the roses of luxury, across such nocturnal paths as this. But passion and vengeance treading to their goal can make an Elysium of a Tartarus. High, clear and melancholy shown the moon above the road of that dark wayfarer, glossing herself in every pool that lay before him, and sleeping in shadow along the sloping mount. He saw before him the same light that had guided the steps of his intended victims, but no longer contrasted by the blackened clouds, it shone less readily clear. He paused, as at length he approached the mouth of the cavern to recover breath, and then, with his wanted collected and stately mean, he crossed the unhallowed threshold. The fox sprang up at the ingress of this newcomer, and by a long howl announced another visitor to his mistress. The witch had resumed her seat and her aspect of grave-like and grim repose. By her feet upon a bed of dry weeds which half covered it, lay the wounded snake, but the quick eye of the Egyptian caught its scales glittering in the reflected light of the opposite fire, as it writhed, now contracting, now lengthening its folds in pain and unsated anger. Down, slave, said the witch as before to the fox, and as before, the animal dropped to the ground, mute but vigilant. Rise, servant of nox and arabus, said our bases commandingly. A superior in thine art salutes thee. Rise and welcome him. At these words, the hag turned her gaze upon the Egyptian's towering form and dark features. She looked long and fixedly upon him, as he stood before her in his oriental robe and folded arms and steadfast and haughty brow. Who art thou, she said at last, that callest thyself greater in art than the saga of the burning fields and the daughter of the Paris Etrurian race? I am he, answered our bases, from whom all cultivators of magic, from north to south, from east to west, from the Ganges and the Nile to the veils of Thessaly and the shores of the Yellow Tiber, have stoop to learn. There is but one such man in these places, answered the witch, whom the men of the outer world, unknowing his loftier attributes and more secret fame, call our bases the Egyptian. To us of a higher nature and deeper knowledge, his rightful appellation is Hermes of the burning girdle. Look again, return our bases, I am he. As he spoke, he drew aside his robe and revealed a censure seemingly of fire that burned round his waist. Clasped in the center by a plate whereupon was engraven, some sign apparently vague and unintelligible, but which was evidently not unknown to the saga. She rose hastily and threw herself at the feet of our bases. I have seen then, said she, in a voice of deep humility, the Lord of the mighty girdle, vouchsafe my homage. Rise, said the Egyptian, I have need of thee. So saying, he placed himself on the same log of wood on which Ioni had rested before and motioned to the witch to resume her seat. Thou sayest, said he, as she obeyed, that thou art a daughter of the ancient Etrurian tribes. The mighty walls of those rock-built cities yet frown above the robber race that hath seized upon their ancient reign. Partly came those tribes from Greece. Partly were the exiles from a more burning and primeval soil. In either case, thou art of Egyptian lineage. For the Grecian masters of the aboriginal hellet were among the restless sons whom the Nile banished from her bosom. Equally then, O saga, thy descent is from ancestors that swore allegiance to mine own. By birth and by knowledge art thou the subject of our bases. Hear me then and obey. The witch bowed her head. Whatever art we possess in sorcery, continued our bases, we are sometimes driven to natural means to attain our object. The ring and the crystal and the ashes and the herbs do not give unerring divinations. Neither do the higher mysteries of the moon yield even the possessor of the girdle, a dispensation from the necessity of employing ever and anon human measures for a human object. Mark me then. Thou art deeply skilled, me thinks, in the secrets of the more deadly herbs. Thou knowest those which arrest life, which burn and scorch the soul from out her citadel, or freeze the channels of young blood into that ice which no sun can melt. Do I overrate thy skill? Speak, and truly. Mighty Hermes, such lore is indeed mine own. Dain to look at these ghostly and corpse-like features. They have waned from the hues of life merely by watching over the rank herbs which simmer night and day in Yon Calderon. The Egyptian moved his seat from so unblessed and so unhealthful a vicinity as the witch spoke. It is well, he said. Thou hast learned that maxim of all the deeper knowledge which seeth despise the body to make wise the mind, but to thy task. There cometh to thee by tomorrow's starlight a vain maiden, seeking of thine art a love charm to fascinate from another the eyes that should utter but soft tales to her own. Instead of thy filters, give the maiden one of thy most powerful poisons. Let the lover breathe his vows to the shades. The witch trembled from head to foot. Oh, pardon, pardon, dreadmaster, said she, falteringly. But this I dare not. The law in these cities is sharp and vigilant. They will seize. They will slay me. For what purpose, then, thy herbs and thy potions, vain saga, said our bases, sneeringly. The witch hid her lonesome face with her hands. Oh, years ago, she said in a voice unlike her usual tones, so plaintive was it and so soft. I was not the thing that I am now. I loved. I fancy myself beloved. And what connection hath thy love, witch, with my commands, said our bases, impestuously. Patience, resume the witch. Patience, I implore you. I loved another and less fair than I, yes, by nemesis, less fair. Allured from me my chosen. I was of that dark Etrurian tribe to whom most of all were known the secrets of the gloomier magic. My mother was herself a saga. She shared the resentment of her child. From her hands I received the potion that was to restore me his love. And from her, also, the poison that was to destroy my rival. Oh, crushed me dread walls. My trembling hands mistook the files. My lover fell indeed at my feet. But dead, dead, dead. Since then, what has been life to me, I became suddenly old. I devoted myself to the sorceries of my race. Still, by an irresistible impulse, I cursed myself with an awful penance. Still, I seek the most noxious herbs. Still, I concoct the poisons. Still, I imagine that I am to give them to my hated rival. Still, I pour them into the file. Still, I fancy that they shall blast her beauty to the dust. Still, I wake and see the quivering body, the foaming lips, the gazing eyes of my alas, murdered and by me. The skeleton frame of the witch shook beneath strong convulsions. Our bases gazed upon her with a curious, though contemptuous, eye. And this foul thing has yet human emotions, thought he. Still, she cowers over the ashes of the same fire that consumes our bases. Such are we all. Mystic is the tie of those mortal passions that unite the greatest and the least. He did not reply till she had somewhat recovered herself and now sat rocking to and fro in her seat, with glassy eyes fixed on the opposite flame and large tears rolling down her livid cheeks. A grievous tale is thine in truth, said our bases. But these emotions are fit only for our youth. Age should harden our hearts to all things but ourselves, as every year adds a scale to the shellfish. So should each year wall and encrust the heart. Think of these frenzies no more, and now listen to me again. By the revenge that was dear to thee, I command thee to obey me. It is for vengeance that I seek thee. This youth whom I would sweep from my path has crossed me, despite my spells. This thing of purple embroidery, of smiles and glances, soulless and mindless, with no charm but that of beauty. A cursed be it, this insect, this glaucus. I tell thee by orcus and by nemesis, he must die. And working himself up at every word, the Egyptian, forgetful of his debility, of his strange companion, of everything but his own vindictive rage, strode, with large and rapid steps, the gloomy cavern. Glaucus sayest thou, mighty master, said the witch abruptly, and her dim eye glared at the name with all that fierce resentment, at the memory of small of friends so common amongst the solitary and the shun. I, so he is called, but what matters the name? Let it not be heard as that of a living man three days from this date. Hear me, said the witch, breaking from a short reverie into which she was plunged after this last sentence of the Egyptian. Hear me, I am thy thing and thy slave, spare me. If I give to the maiden thou speakest of that which would destroy the life of Glaucus, I shall be surely detected, the dead ever find avengers. Nay, dread man, if thy visit to me be tracked, if thy hatred to Glaucus be known, thou mayest have need of thy arches magic to protect thyself. Ha, said our bases, stopping suddenly short, and as a proof of that blindness with which passion darkens the eyes even of the most acute. This was the first time when the risk that he himself ran by this method of vengeance had occurred to a mind ordinarily wary in circumspect. But, continued the witch, if instead of that which arrest the heart, I give that which shall sear and blast the brain, which shall make him who quakes it unfit for the uses and career of life, an abject, raving, benighted thing, smiting scents to driveling youth to dotage, will not thy vengeance be equally sated, thy object equally attained? Oh, witch, no longer the servant but the sister, the equal of our bases, how much brighter is woman's wit, even in vengeance than ours? How much more exquisite than death is such a doom? And, continued the hag, gloating over her fell scheme, in this is but little danger, for by 10,000 methods, which men forbear to seek, can our victim become mad? He may have been among the vines and seen a nymph, or the vine itself may have had the same effect. Ha, ha, they never inquired too scrupulously into these matters in which the gods may be agents, and let the worst arrive, let it be known that it is a love charm. Why, madness is a common effect of filters, and even the fair, she that gave it, finds indulgence in the excuse. Mighty Hermes, have I ministered to thee cunningly? Thou shalt have 20 years longer date for this, returned our bases. I will write anew the epic of thy fate on the face of the pale stars. Thou shalt not serve in vain the master of the flaming belt. And here, saga, carve thee out by these golden tools, a warmer cell in this dreary cavern. One service to me shall countervail a thousand divinations by sieve and shears to the gaping rustics. So saying, he cast upon the floor a heavy purse, which clinked not unmusically to the ear of the hag, who loved the consciousness of possessing the means to purchase comfort she disdained. Farewell, said our bases, fail not. Out watch the stars in concocting thy beverage. Thou shalt lord it over thy sisters at the walnut tree. When thou tellest them thy patron and thy friend is Hermes the Egyptian. Tomorrow night we meet again. He stayed not to hear the valediction or the thanks of the witch. With a quick step, he passed into the moonlit air and hastened down the mountain. The witch, who followed his steps to the threshold, stood at the entrance of the cavern, gazing fixedly on his receding form, and as the sad moonlight streamed over her shadowy form and death-like face emerging from the dismal rocks, it seemed as if one gifted indeed by supernatural magic had escaped from the dreary orcus and the foremost of its ghostly throng stood at its black portals, vainly summoning his return or vainly sighing to rejoin him. The hag, then slowly re-entering the cave, groaningly picked up the heavy purse, took the lamp from its stand, and passing to the remotest depth of her cell. A black and abrupt passage, which was not visible, save at a near approach, closed round as it was with jutting and sharp crags, yawned before her. She went several yards along this gloomy path, which sloped gradually downwards, as if towards the bowels of the earth, and, lifting a stone, deposited her treasure in a hole beneath, which, as the lamp pierced its secrets, seemed already to contain coins of various value, rung from the credulity or gratitude of her visitors. I love to look at you, she said, apostrophizing the monies, for when I see you, I feel that I am indeed of power, and I am to have 20 years longer life to increase your store. Oh thou great Hermes! She replaced the stone and continued her path onward for some paces, when she stopped before a deep irregular fissure in the earth. Here, as she bent, strange, rumbling, hoarse and distant sounds might be heard, while ever and anon, with a loud and grating noise which, to use a homely but faithful simile, seemed to resemble the grinding of steel upon wheels. Volumes of streaming and dark smoke issued forth, and rushed spiraling along the cavern. The shades are noisier than their want, said the hag, shaking her gray locks, and looking into the cavity, she beheld, far down, glimpses of a long streak of light, intensely but darkly red. Strange, she said, shrinking back, it is only within the last two days that dull, deep light hath been visible. What can it portend? The fox, who had attended the steps of his felmistress, uttered a dismal howl, and ran cowering back to the inner cave. A cold shuddering seized the hag herself at the cry of the animal, which, causeless as it seemed, the superstitions of the time considered deeply ominous. She muttered her placatory charm, and tottered back into her cavern, where, amidst her herbs and incantations, she prepared to execute the orders of the Egyptian. He called me daughter, said she, as the smoke curled from the hissing cauldron. When the jaws drop, and the grinders fall, and the heart scarce beats, it is a pitiable thing to dote. But when, she added, with a savage and exulting grin, the young, and the beautiful, and the strong, are suddenly smitten into idiocy, ah, that is terrible. Burn, flame, simmer, herb, swelter, toad, I curse him, and he shall be cursed. On that night, and at the same hour, which witnessed the dark and unholy interview between our bases and the saga, opacities was baptized. End of book three, chapter 10. Book three, chapter 11 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 Anne Boulet. Last days of Pompeii by Edward G. Bolwer-Lytton. Book three, chapter 11. Progress of events, the plot thickens. The web is woven, but the net changes hands. And you have the courage then, Julia, to seek the witch of Vesuvius this evening, in company too with that fearful man? Why, Nydia, replied Julia timidly, does thou really think there is anything to dread? These old hags, with their enchanted mirrors, their trembling sieves, and their moon-gathered herbs are, I imagine, but crafty imposters, who have learned, perhaps, nothing but the very charm for which I apply to their skill, and which is drawn from the knowledge of the fields, herbs, and symbols. Wherefore should I dread? Does thou not fear thy companion? What are bases? By Diane, I never saw a lover more courteous than that same magician. And were he not so dark, he would be even handsome. Blind as she was, Nydia had the penetration to perceive that Julia's mind was not one that the gallantries of our bases were likely to terrify. She therefore dissuaded her no more, but nursed in her excited heart the wild and increasing desire to know if sorcery had indeed a spell to fascinate love to love. Let me go with thee, noble Julia, she said at length. My presence is no protection, but I should like to be beside thee to the last. Thine offer pleases me much, replied the daughter of Diomed. Yet how canst thou contrive it? We may not return until late, they will miss thee. Ioni is indulgent, replied Nydia. If thou wilt permit me to sleep beneath thy roof, I will say that thou, an early patroness and friend, hast invited me to pass the day with thee, and sing thee my Thessalian songs. Her courtesy will readily grant to thee so light a boon. Nay, ask for thyself, said the haughty Julia, I stoop to request no favor from the Neapolitan. Well, be it so, I will take my leave now, make my request, which I know will be readily granted, and return shortly. Do so, and thy bed shall be prepared in my own chamber. With that Nydia left the fair of Pompeian. On her way back to Ioni, she was met by the chariot of Glaucus, on whose fiery and curvit-ting steeds was riveted the gaze of the crowded street. He kindly stopped for a moment to speak to the flower girl. Blooming as thine own roses, my gentle Nydia, and how is thy fair mistress? Recovered, I trust, from the effects of the storm. I have not seen her this morning, answered Nydia, but, but what? Draw back, the horses are too near thee. But thank you, Ioni, will permit me to pass the day with Julia, the daughter of Diomed. She wishes it and was kind to me when I had few friends. The gods bless thy grateful heart. I will answer for Ioni's permission. Then may I stay over the night and return tomorrow, said Nydia, shrinking from the praise she so little merited. As thou and fair Julia please, commend me to her and hark ye, Nydia, when thou hearest her speak. Note the contrast of her voice with that of the silver-toned Ioni. Ballet! His spirits entirely recovered from the effect of the past night, his locks waving in the wind, his joyous and elastic heart bounding with every spring of his Parthian steeds, a very prototype of his country's God, full of youth and of love, Glaucus was born rapidly to his mistress. Enjoy while ye may the present, who can read the future. As the evening darkened, Julia, reclined within her litter, which was capacious enough also to admit her blind companion, took her way to the rural baths indicated by our bases. To her natural levity of disposition, her enterprise brought less of terror than of pleasurable excitement. Above all, she glowed at the thought of her coming triumph over the hated Neapolitan. A small but gay group was collected round the door of the villa. As her litter passed by it to the private entrance of the baths appropriated to the women. Me thanks by this dim light, said one of the bystanders, I recognize the slaves of Diomed. True, Claudius said salutes, it is probably the litter of his daughter Julia. She is rich, my friend. Why does thou not pro-offer thy suit to her? Why, I had once hoped that Glaucus would have married her. She does not disguise her attachment. And then as he gambles freely and with ill success, the Cestirsties would have passed to thee, wise Claudius. A wife is a good thing when it belongs to another man. But, continued Claudius, as Glaucus is, I understand, to wed the Neapolitan, I think I must even try my chance with the dejected maid. After all, the lamp of hymen will be guilt, and the vessel will reconcile one to the odor of the flame. I shall only protest, my salutes, against Diomed's making thee trustee to his daughter's fortune. Ha, ha, let us within, my commisitor. The wine and the garlands await us. Dismissing her slaves to that part of the house set apart for their entertainment, Julia entered the baths with Nydia, and declining the offers of the attendants, passed by a private door into the garden behind. She comes by appointment, be sure, said one of the slaves. What is that to thee, said a superintendent, sourly? She pays for the baths, and does not waste the saffron. Such appointments are the best part of the trade. Hark, do you not hear the widow, Fulvia, clapping her hands? Run, Ful, run! Julia and Nydia, avoiding the more public part of the garden, arrived at the place specified by the Egyptian. In a small circular plot of grass, the stars gleamed upon the statue of Salinas. The merry god reclined upon a fragment of rock, the lengths of Bacchus at his feet, and over his mouth he held, with extended arm, a bunch of grapes, which he seemingly laughed to welcome air he devoured. I see not the magician, said Julia, looking round. When, as she spoke, the Egyptian slowly emerged from the neighboring foliage, and the light fell palely over his sweeping robes. Salve, sweet maiden, but ha! Whom hast thou here? We must have no companions. It is but the blind flower girl, wise magician, replied Julia, herself a Thessalian. Oh, Nydia, said the Egyptian. I know her well. Nydia drew back and shuttered. Thou hast been at my house, me things, said he, approaching his voice to Nydia's ear. Thou knowest the oath, silence and secrecy, now as then, or beware. Yet, he added musingly to himself, why confide more than is necessary, even in the blind? Julia, canst thou trust thyself alone with me? Believe me, the magician is less formidable than he seems. As he spoke, he gently drew Julia aside. The witch loves not many visitors at once, said he, leave Nydia here till your return. She can be of no assistance to us, and, for protection, your own beauty suffices, your own beauty and your own rank. Yes, Julia, I know thy name and birth. Come, trust thyself with me, fair rival of the youngest of the niads. The vain Julia was not, as we have seen, easily affrighted. She was moved by the flattery of our bases, and she readily consented to suffer Nydia to await her return, nor did Nydia press her presence. At the sound of the Egyptian's voice, all her terror of him returned. She felt a sentiment of pleasure at learning she was not to travel in his companionship. She returned to the bathhouse, and in one of the private chambers waited their return. Many and bitter were the thoughts of this wild girl as she sat there in her eternal darkness. She thought of her own desolate fate, far from her native land, far from the bland cares that once assuaged the April sorrows of childhood, deprived of the light of day, with none but strangers to guide her steps, a curse by the one soft feeling of her heart, loving and without hope, save the dim and unholy ray which shot across her mind, as her Thessalian fancies questioned of the force of spells and the gifts of magic. Nature had sown in the heart of this poor girl the seeds of virtue never destined to ripen. The lessons of adversity were not always salutary. Sometimes they softened and amend, but as often they endurate and pervert. If we consider ourselves more harshly treated by fate than those around us and do not acknowledge in our own deeds the justice of the severity, we become too apt to deem the world our enemy, to case ourselves in defiance, to wrestle against our softer self and to indulge the darker passions which are so easily fermented by the sense of injustice. Sold early into slavery, sentenced to assorted taskmaster, exchanging her situation, only yet more to embitter her lot, the kindlier feelings naturally profused in the breast of Nydia were nipped and blighted. Her sense of right and wrong was confused by a passion to which she had so madly surrendered herself and the same intense and tragic emotions which we read of in the women of the classic age, Amira, Amadea and which hurried and swept away the whole soul when once delivered to love, ruled and rioted in her breast. Time passed, a light step entered the chamber where Nydia yet indulged her gloomy meditations. Oh, thank me, the immortal gods, said Julia. I have returned. I have left that terrible cavern. Come, Nydia, let us away forthwith. It was not till they were seated in the litter that Julia spoke again. Oh, she said, tremblingly, such a scene, such fearful incantations, and the dead face of the hag. But let us talk not of it. I have obtained the potion. She pleasures its effect. My rival shall be suddenly indifferent to his eye. And I, I alone, the idol of Glaucus. Glaucus, exclaimed Nydia. I, I told the girl at first that it was not the Athenian whom I loved, but I see now that I may trust thee wholly. It is the beautiful Greek. What then were Nydia's emotions? She had connived, she had assisted in tearing Glaucus from Ioni, but only to transfer by all the power of magic, his affections yet more hopelessly to another. Her heart swelled almost to suffocation. She gasped for breath. In the darkness of the vehicle, Julia did not perceive the agitation of her companion. She went on rapidly dilating on the promised effect of her acquisition, and on her approaching triumph over Ioni. Every now and then, abruptly digressing to the horror of the scene she had quitted, the unmoved mean of our bases and his authority over the dreadful saga. Meanwhile, Nydia recovered herself possession, a thought flashed across her. She slept in the chamber of Julia. She might possess herself of the potion. They arrived at the house of Diomed and descended to Julia's apartment where the night's repasse awaited them. Drink, Nydia, thou must be cold. The air was chill tonight. As for me, my veins are yet ice. And Julia, unhesitatingly, quaked deep drops of the spiced wine. Thou hast the potion, said Nydia. Let me hold it in my hands. How small the file is! Of what color is the draft? Clear as crystal, replied Julia, as she retook the filter. Thou couldst not tell it from this water. The witch assures me it is tasteless. Small though the file, it suffices for a life's fidelity. It is to be poured into any liquid and Glaucous will only know what he has quaked by the effect. Exactly like this water in appearance. Yes, sparkling and colorless as this. How bright it seems. It is as the very essence of moonlit dues. Bright thing, how thou shinest on my hopes through thy crystal vase. And how is it sealed? But by one little stopper, I withdraw it now. The draft gives no odor. Strange that that which speaks to neither sense should thus command all. Is the effect instantaneous? Usually, but sometimes it remains dormant for a few hours. Oh, how sweet is this perfume, said Nydia suddenly, as she took up a small bottle on the table and bent over its fragrant contents. Thinkest thou so? The bottle is set with gems of some value. Thou wouldst not have the bracelet yester mourn. Will thou take the bottle? It ought to be such perfumes as these that should remind one who cannot see of the generous Julia. If the bottle be not too costly. Oh, I have a thousand costlier ones. Take it, child. Nydia bowed her gratitude and placed the bottle in her vest. And the draft would be equally efficacious whoever administers it. If the most hideous hag beneath the sun bestowed it, such is its asserted virtue that Glaucas would deem her beautiful and none but her. Julia, worn by the wine and the reaction of her spirits, was now all animation and delight. She laughed loud and topped on a hundred matters. Nor was it till the night had advanced far towards morning that she summoned her slaves and undressed. When they were dismissed, she said to Nydia, I will not suffer this holy draft to quit my presence till the hour comes for its use. Lie under my pillow, bright spirit, and give me happy dreams. So saying, she placed the potion under her pillow. Nydia's heart beat violently. Why dost thou drink that unmixed water, Nydia? Take the wine by its side. I am fevered, replied the blind girl, and the water cools me. I will place this bottle by my bedside. It refreshes in these summer nights when the do's of sleep fall not on our lips. Fear, Julia, I must leave thee very early. So I only bids, perhaps before thou art awake. Accept, therefore, now my congratulations. Thanks, when next we meet, you may find Glaucas at my feet. They had retired to their couches and Julia, worn out by the excitement of the day, soon slept. But anxious and burning thoughts rolled over the mind of the wakeful Thessalian. She listened to the calm breathing of Julia, and her ear, accustomed to the finest distinctions of sound, speedily assured her of the deep slumber of her companion. Now befriend me, Venus, she said softly. She rose gently and poured the perfume from the gift of Julia upon the marble floor. She rinsed it several times carefully with the water that was beside her. And then easily finding the bed of Julia, for night to her was as day. She pressed her trembling hand under the pillow and seized the potion. Julia stirred not. Her breath regularly found the burning cheek of the blind girl. Nydia then, opening the file, poured its contents into the bottle, which easily contained them. And then refilling the former reservoir of the potion with that limpid water which Julia had assured her it so resembled. She once more placed the file in his former place. She then stole again to her couch and waited. With what thoughts, the dawning day? The sun had risen, Julia slept still. Nydia noiselessly dressed herself, placed her treasure carefully in her vest, took up her staff and hastened to quit the house. The porter, Meeden, saluted her kindly as she descended the steps that led to the street. She heard him not. Her mind was confused and lost in the world to mulchless thoughts. Each thought a passion. She felt the pure morning air upon her cheek, but it cooled not her scorching veins. Glaucus, she murmured. All the love charms of the wildest magic could not make thee love me as I love thee. Ioni, ah, away hesitation, away remorse. Glaucus, my fate is in thy smile and thine hope. Oh joy, oh transport, thy fate is in these hands. End of book three, chapter 11.