uttered but one cry, 'THE EARTHQUAKE! THE EARTHQUAKE!' and passing
unmolested from the midst of them, Apaecides and his companions, without
entering the house, hastened down one of the alleys, passed a small open
gate, and there, sitting on a little mound over which spread the gloom
of the dark green aloes, the moonlight fell on the bended figure of the
blind girl--she was weeping bitterly.
BOOK THE THIRD
Chapter I
THE FORUM OF THE POMPEIANS. THE FIRST RUDE MACHINERY BY WHICH THE NEW
ERA OF THE WORLD WAS WROUGHT.
IT was early noon, and the forum was crowded alike with the busy and the
idle. As at Paris at this day, so at that time in the cities of Italy,
men lived almost wholly out of doors: the public buildings, the forum,
the porticoes, the baths, the temples themselves, might be considered
their real homes; it was no wonder that they decorated so gorgeously
these favorite places of resort--they felt for them a sort of domestic
affection as well as a public pride. And animated was, indeed, the
aspect of the forum of Pompeii at that time! Along its broad pavement,
composed of large flags of marble, were assembled various groups,
conversing in that energetic fashion which appropriates a gesture to
every word, and which is still the characteristic of the people of the
south. Here, in seven stalls on one side the colonnade, sat the
money-changers, with their glittering heaps before them, and merchants
and seamen in various costumes crowding round their stalls. On one
side, several men in long togas were seen bustling rapidly up to a
stately edifice, where the magistrates administered justice--these were
the lawyers, active, chattering, joking, and punning, as you may find
them at this day in Westminster. In the centre of the space, pedestals
supported various statues, of which the most remarkable was the stately
form of Cicero. Around the court ran a regular and symmetrical
colonnade of Doric architecture; and there several, whose business drew
them early to the place, were taking the slight morning repast which
made an Italian breakfast, talking vehemently on the earthquake of the
preceding night as they dipped pieces of bread in their cups of diluted
wine. In the open space, too, you might perceive various petty traders
exercising the arts of their calling. Here one man was holding out
ribands to a fair dame from the country; another man was vaunting to a
stout farmer the excellence of his shoes; a third, a kind of
stall-restaurateur, still so common in the Italian cities, was supplying
many a hungry mouth with hot messes from his small and itinerant stove,
while--contrast strongly typical of the mingled bustle and intellect of
the time--close by, a schoolmaster was expounding to his puzzled pupils
the elements of the Latin grammar.' A gallery above the portico, which
was ascended by small wooden staircases, had also its throng; though, as
here the immediate business of the place was mainly carried on, its
groups wore a more quiet and serious air.
Every now and then the crowd below respectfully gave way as some senator
swept along to the Temple of Jupiter (which filled up one side of the
forum, and was the senators' hall of meeting), nodding with ostentatious
condescension to such of his friends or clients as he distinguished
amongst the throng. Mingling amidst the gay dresses of the better
orders you saw the hardy forms of the neighboring farmers, as they made
their way to the public granaries. Hard by the temple you caught a view
of the triumphal arch, and the long street beyond swarming with
inhabitants; in one of the niches of the arch a fountain played,
cheerily sparkling in the sunbeams; and above its cornice rose the
bronzed and equestrian statue of Caligula, strongly contrasting the gay
summer skies. Behind the stalls of the money-changers was that building
now called the Pantheon; and a crowd of the poorer Pompeians passed
through the small vestibule which admitted to the interior, with
panniers under their arms, pressing on towards a platform, placed
between two columns, where such provisions as the priests had rescued
from sacrifice were exposed for sale.
At one of the public edifices appropriated to the business of the city,
workmen were employed upon the columns, and you heard the noise of their
labor every now and then rising above the hum of the multitude: the
columns are unfinished to this day!
All, then, united, nothing could exceed in variety the costumes, the
ranks, the manners, the occupations of the crowd--nothing could exceed
the bustle, the gaiety, the animation--where pleasure and commerce,
idleness and labor, avarice and ambition, mingled in one gulf their
motley rushing, yet harmonius, streams.
Facing the steps of the Temple of Jupiter, with folded arms, and a knit
and contemptuous brow, stood a man of about fifty years of age. His
dress was remarkably plain--not so much from its material, as from the
absence of all those ornaments which were worn by the Pompeians of every
rank--partly from the love of show, partly, also, because they were
chiefly wrought into those shapes deemed most efficacious in resisting
the assaults of magic and the influence of the evil eye. His forehead
was high and bald; the few locks that remained at the back of the head
were concealed by a sort of cowl, which made a part of his cloak, to be
raised or lowered at pleasure, and was now drawn half-way over the head,
as a protection from the rays of the sun. The color of his garments was
brown, no popular hue with the Pompeians; all the usual admixtures of
scarlet or purple seemed carefully excluded. His belt, or girdle,
contained a small receptacle for ink, which hooked on to the girdle, a
stilus (or implement of writing), and tablets of no ordinary size. What
was rather remarkable, the cincture held no purse, which was the almost
indispensable appurtenance of the girdle, even when that purse had the
misfortune to be empty!
It was not often that the gay and egotistical Pompeians busied
themselves with observing the countenances and actions of their
neighbors; but there was that in the lip and eye of this bystander so
remarkably bitter and disdainful, as he surveyed the religious
procession sweeping up the stairs of the temple, that it could not fail
to arrest the notice of many.
'Who is yon cynic?' asked a merchant of his companion, a jeweller.
'It is Olinthus,' replied the jeweller; 'a reputed Nazarene.'
The merchant shuddered. 'A dread sect!' said he, in a whispered and
fearful voice. 'It is said that when they meet at nights they always
commence their ceremonies by the murder of a new-born babe; they profess
a community of goods, too--the wretches! A community of goods! What
would become of merchants, or jewellers either, if such notions were in
fashion?'
'That is very true,' said the jeweller; 'besides, they wear no
jewels--they mutter imprecations when they see a serpent; and at Pompeii
all our ornaments are serpentine.'
'Do but observe,' said a third, who was a fabricant of bronze, 'how yon
Nazarene scowls at the piety of the sacrificial procession. He is
murmuring curses on the temple, be sure. Do you know, Celcinus, that
this fellow, passing by my shop the other day, and seeing me employed on
a statue of Minerva, told me with a frown that, had it been marble, he
would have broken it; but the bronze was too strong for him. "Break a
goddess!" said I. "A goddess!" answered the atheist; "it is a demon--an
evil spirit!" Then he passed on his way cursing. Are such things to be
borne? What marvel that the earth heaved so fearfully last night,
anxious to reject the atheist from her bosom?--An atheist, do I say?
worse still--a scorner of the Fine Arts! Woe to us fabricants of bronze,
if such fellows as this give the law to society!'
'These are the incendiaries that burnt Rome under Nero,' groaned the
jeweller.
While such were the friendly remarks provoked by the air and faith of
the Nazarene, Olinthus himself became sensible of the effect he was
producing; he turned his eyes round, and observed the intent faces of
the accumulating throng, whispering as they gazed; and surveying them
for a moment with an expression, first of defiance and afterwards of
compassion, he gathered his cloak round him and passed on, muttering
audibly, 'Deluded idolaters!--did not last night's convulsion warn ye?
Alas! how will ye meet the last day?'
The crowd that heard these boding words gave them different
interpretations, according to their different shades of ignorance and of
fear; all, however, concurred in imagining them to convey some awful
imprecation. They regarded the Christian as the enemy of mankind; the
epithets they lavished upon him, of which 'Atheist' was the most favored
and frequent, may serve, perhaps, to warn us, believers of that same
creed now triumphant, how we indulge the persecution of opinion Olinthus
then underwent, and how we apply to those whose notions differ from our
own the terms at that day lavished on the fathers of our faith.
As Olinthus stalked through the crowd, and gained one of the more
private places of egress from the forum, he perceived gazing upon him a
pale and earnest countenance, which he was not slow to recognize.
Wrapped in a pallium that partially concealed his sacred robes, the
young Apaecides surveyed the disciple of that new and mysterious creed,
to which at one time he had been half a convert.
'Is he, too, an impostor? Does this man, so plain and simple in life,
in garb, in mien--does he too, like Arbaces, make austerity the robe of
the sensualist? Does the veil of Vesta hide the vices of the
prostitute?'
Olinthus, accustomed to men of all classes, and combining with the
enthusiasm of his faith a profound experience of his kind, guessed,
perhaps, by the index of the countenance, something of what passed
within the breast of the priest. He met the survey of Apaecides with a
steady eye, and a brow of serene and open candour.
'Peace be with thee!' said he, saluting Apaecides.
'Peace!' echoed the priest, in so hollow a tone that it went at once to
the heart of the Nazarene.
'In that wish,' continued Olinthus, 'all good things are
combined--without virtue thou canst not have peace. Like the rainbow,
Peace rests upon the earth, but its arch is lost in heaven. Heaven
bathes it in hues of light--it springs up amidst tears and clouds--it is
a reflection of the Eternal Sun--it is an assurance of calm--it is the
sign of a great covenant between Man and God. Such peace, O young man!
is the smile of the soul; it is an emanation from the distant orb of
immortal light. PEACE be with you!'
'Alas!' began Apaecides, when he caught the gaze of the curious
loiterers, inquisitive to know what could possibly be the theme of
conversation between a reputed Nazarene and a priest of Isis. He
stopped short, and then added in a low tone: 'We cannot converse here, I
will follow thee to the banks of the river; there is a walk which at
this time is usually deserted and solitary.'
Olinthus bowed assent. He passed through the streets with a hasty step,
but a quick and observant eye. Every now and then he exchanged a
significant glance, a slight sign, with some passenger, whose garb
usually betokened the wearer to belong to the humbler classes; for
Christianity was in this the type of all other and less mighty
revolutions--the grain of mustard-seed was in the heart of the lowly.
Amidst the huts of poverty and labor, the vast stream which afterwards
poured its broad waters beside the cities and palaces of earth took its
neglected source.
Chapter II
THE NOONDAY EXCURSION ON THE CAMPANIAN SEAS.
'BUT tell me, Glaucus,' said Ione, as they glided down the rippling
Sarnus in their boat of pleasure, 'how camest thou with Apaecides to my
rescue from that bad man?'
'Ask Nydia yonder,' answered the Athenian, pointing to the blind girl,
who sat at a little distance from them, leaning pensively over her lyre;
'she must have thy thanks, not we. It seems that she came to my house,
and, finding me from home, sought thy brother in his temple; he
accompanied her to Arbaces; on their way they encountered me, with a
company of friends, whom thy kind letter had given me a spirit cheerful
enough to join. Nydia's quick ear detected my voice--a few words
sufficed to make me the companion of Apaecides; I told not my associates
why I left them--could I trust thy name to their light tongues and
gossiping opinion?--Nydia led us to the garden gate, by which we
afterwards bore thee--we entered, and were about to plunge into the
mysteries of that evil house, when we heard thy cry in another
direction. Thou knowest the rest.'
Ione blushed deeply. She then raised her eyes to those of Glaucus, and
he felt all the thanks she could not utter. 'Come hither, my Nydia,'
said she, tenderly, to the Thessalian.
'Did I not tell thee that thou shouldst be my sister and friend? Hast
thou not already been more?--my guardian, my preserver!'
'It is nothing,' answered Nydia coldly, and without stirring.
'Ah! I forgot,' continued Ione, 'I should come to thee'; and she moved
along the benches till she reached the place where Nydia sat, and
flinging her arms caressingly round her, covered her cheeks with kisses.
Nydia was that morning paler than her wont, and her countenance grew
even more wan and colorless as she submitted to the embrace of the
beautiful Neapolitan. 'But how camest thou, Nydia,' whispered Ione, 'to
surmise so faithfully the danger I was exposed to? Didst thou know
aught of the Egyptian?'
'Yes, I knew of his vices.'
'And how?'
'Noble Ione, I have been a slave to the vicious--those whom I served
were his minions.'
'And thou hast entered his house since thou knewest so well that private
