'It is like my vengeance,' said he, as he gazed; 'the sky is clear, but
the cloud moves on.'
Chapter IX
STORM IN THE SOUTH. THE WITCH'S CAVERN.
IT was when the heats of noon died gradually away from the earth, that
Glaucus and Ione 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 biga, already described in the early portion of this
work; that appropriated to the matrons, was termed carpentum, which had
commonly two wheels; the ancients used also a sort of litter, a vast
sedan-chair, more commodiously arranged than the modern, inasmuch 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 travelling 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 britska. It was a vehicle of this description that the lovers,
accompanied by one female slave of Ione, 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 Ione
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 grey 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 grey eye--which, still beneath Ausonian skies,
recalls the eclogues of Maro, browsing half-way up the hills; and the
grapes, already purple with the smiles of the deepening summer, glowed
out from the arched festoons, which hung pendent from tree to tree.
Above them, light clouds floated in the serene heavens, sweeping so
slowly athwart the firmament that they scarcely seemed to stir; while,
on their right, they caught, ever and anon, glimpses of the waveless
sea, with some light bark skimming its 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 arbutus and the vine, which she
wreathes over the arid and burning soil of yon extinct volcano. Ah! in
such an hour and scene as this, well might we imagine that the Faun
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 Nymphs ceased, beautiful Ione, when thou wert 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 prodigal exuberance, which soon exhausts itself by overflowing!
They arrived at the ruins; they examined them with that fondness with
which we trace 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 serried clouds. The
suddenness of storms in that climate is something almost preternatural,
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.
'Swifter, good Carrucarius!' cried 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.
'Dost thou fear?' whispered Glaucus, as he sought excuse in the storm to
come nearer to Ione.
'Not with thee,' said she, 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 Ione, who was fortunately unhurt; with some difficulty they
raised the carruca (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 poured 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 to the carruca--but, 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 Ione. 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,' said he,
'half-way 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 Nymphs have left a shelter.' While thus saying he moved from
the trees, and, looking wistfully towards the mountain, discovered
through the advancing gloom a red and tremulous light at no considerable
distance. 'That must come,' said he, 'from the hearth of some shepherd
or vine-dresser--it will guide us to some hospitable retreat. Wilt thou
stay here, while I--yet no--that would be to leave thee to danger.'
'I will go with you cheerfully,' said Ione. 'Open as the space seems,
it is better than the treacherous shelter of these boughs.'
Half leading, half carrying Ione, Glaucus, accompanied by the trembling
female slave, advanced towards 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, save 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-grey 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 redly 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 Misenum, with its lofty brow, to the beautiful
Sorrentum and the giant hills behind.
Our lovers stopped in perplexity and doubt, when suddenly, as the
darkness that gloomed 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 paled 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 transversely athwart 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, couched
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 centre 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, to hideousness the most appalling and revolting. But the old
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 lustreless regard, the blue and shrunken lips, the drawn and
hollow jaw--the dead, lank hair, of a pale grey--the livid, 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 Ione, as she clung to
the Athenian's breast.
'Oh, away, away!' groaned the slave, 'it is the Witch of Vesuvius!'
'Who are ye?' said a hollow and ghostly voice. 'And what do ye here?'
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 Styx than living mortal, would have made Ione
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,' said he, 'and
decoyed hither by yon 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 thing--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 gazed stonily upon them as
Glaucus now released Ione 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
flame. The slave, encouraged by the boldness of her superiors, divested
herself also of her long palla, and crept timorously to the opposite
corner of the hearth.
