from the lethargy of his mind. His boy was dead, and had died for
him!--and the old man's heart was broken!
'Medon!' said Olinthus, pityingly, 'arise, and fly! God is forth upon
the wings of the elements! The New Gomorrah is doomed!--Fly, ere the
fires consume thee!'
'He was ever so full of life!--he cannot be dead! Come hither!--place
your hand on his heart!--sure it beats yet?'
'Brother, the soul has fled! We will remember it in our prayers! Thou
canst not reanimate the dumb clay! Come, come--hark! while I speak, yon
crashing walls!--hark! yon agonizing cries! Not a moment is to be
lost!--Come!'
'I hear nothing!' said Medon, shaking his grey hair. 'The poor boy, his
love murdered him!'
'Come! come! forgive this friendly force.'
'What! Who could sever the father from the son?' And Medon clasped the
body tightly in his embrace, and covered it with passionate kisses.
'Go!' said he, lifting up his face for one moment. 'Go!--we must be
alone!'
'Alas!' said the compassionate Nazarene, 'Death hath severed ye
already!'
The old man smiled very calmly. 'No, no, no!' muttered, his voice
growing lower with each word--'Death has been more kind!'
With that his head drooped on His son's breast--his arms relaxed their
grasp. Olinthus caught him by the hand--the pulse had ceased to beat!
The last words of the father were the words of truth--Death had been
more kind!
Meanwhile Glaucus and Nydia were pacing swiftly up the perilous and
fearful streets. The Athenian had learned from his preserver that Ione
was yet in the house of Arbaces. Thither he fled, to release--to save
her! The few slaves whom the Egyptian had left at his mansion when he
had repaired in long procession to the amphitheatre, had been able to
offer no resistance to the armed band of Sallust; and when afterwards
the volcano broke forth, they had huddled together, stunned and
frightened, in the inmost recesses of the house. Even the tall
Ethiopian had forsaken his post at the door; and Glaucus (who left Nydia
without--the poor Nydia, jealous once more, even in such an hour!)
passed on through the vast hall without meeting one from whom to learn
the chamber of Ione. Even as he passed, however, the darkness that
covered the heavens increased so rapidly that it was with difficulty he
could guide his steps. The flower-wreathed columns seemed to reel and
tremble; and with every instant he heard the ashes fall cranchingly into
the roofless peristyle. He ascended to the upper rooms--breathless he
paced along, shouting out aloud the name of Ione; and at length he
heard, at the end of a gallery, a voice--her voice, in wondering reply!
To rush forward--to shatter the door--to seize Ione in his arms--to
hurry from the mansion--seemed to him the work of an instant! Scarce
had he gained the spot where Nydia was, than he heard steps advancing
towards the house, and recognized the voice of Arbaces, who had returned
to seek his wealth and Ione ere he fled from the doomed Pompeii. But so
dense was already the reeking atmosphere, that the foes saw not each
other, though so near--save that, dimly in the gloom, Glaucus caught the
moving outline of the snowy robes of the Egyptian.
They hastened onward--those three. Alas! whither? They now saw not a
step before them--the blackness became utter. They were encompassed
with doubt and horror!--and the death he had escaped seemed to Glaucus
only to have changed its form and augmented its victims.
Chapter VI
CALENUS AND BURBO. DIOMED AND CLODIUS. THE GIRL OF THE AMPHITHEATRE
AND JULIA.
THE sudden catastrophe which had, as it were, riven the very bonds of
society, and left prisoner and jailer alike free, had soon rid Calenus
of the guards to whose care the praetor had consigned him. And when the
darkness and the crowd separated the priest from his attendants, he
hastened with trembling steps towards the temple of his goddess. As he
crept along, and ere the darkness was complete, he felt himself suddenly
caught by the robe, and a voice muttered in his ear:
'Hist!--Calenus!--an awful hour!'
'Ay! by my father's head! Who art thou?--thy face is dim, and thy voice
is strange.
'Not know thy Burbo?--fie!'
'Gods!--how the darkness gathers! Ho, ho!--by yon terrific mountain,
what sudden blazes of lightning!'--How they dart and quiver! Hades is
loosed on earth!'
'Tush!--thou believest not these things, Calenus! Now is the time to
make our fortune!'
'Ha!'
'Listen! Thy temple is full of gold and precious mummeries!--let us load
ourselves with them, and then hasten to the sea and embark! None will
ever ask an account of the doings of this day.'
'Burbo, thou art right! Hush, and follow me into the temple. Who cares
now--who sees now--whether thou art a priest or not? Follow, and we
will share.'
In the precincts of the temple were many priests gathered around the
altars, praying, weeping, grovelling in the dust. Impostors in safety,
they were not the less superstitious in danger! Calenus passed them,
and entered the chamber yet to be seen in the south side of the court.
Burbo followed him--the priest struck a light. Wine and viands strewed
the table; the remains of a sacrificial feast.
'A man who has hungered forty-eight hours,' muttered Calenus, 'has an
appetite even in such a time.' He seized on the food, and devoured it
greedily. Nothing could perhaps, be more unnaturally horrid than the
selfish baseness of these villains; for there is nothing more loathsome
than the valor of avarice. Plunder and sacrilege while the pillars of
the world tottered to and fro! What an increase to the terrors of
nature can be made by the vices of man!
'Wilt thou never have done?' said Burbo, impatiently; 'thy face purples
and thine eyes start already.'
'It is not every day one has such a right to be hungry. Oh, Jupiter!
what sound is that?--the hissing of fiery water! What! does the cloud
give rain as well as flame! Ha!--what! shrieks? And, Burbo, how silent
all is now! Look forth!'
Amidst the other horrors, the mighty mountain now cast up columns of
boiling water. Blent and kneaded with the half-burning ashes, the
streams fell like seething mud over the streets in frequent intervals.
And full, where the priests of Isis had now cowered around the altars,
on which they had vainly sought to kindle fires and pour incense, one of
the fiercest of those deadly torrents, mingled with immense fragments of
scoria, had poured its rage. Over the bended forms of the priests it
dashed: that cry had been of death--that silence had been of eternity!
The ashes--the pitchy streams--sprinkled the altars, covered the
pavement, and half concealed the quivering corpses of the priests!
'They are dead,' said Burbo, terrified for the first time, and hurrying
back into the cell. 'I thought not the danger was so near and fatal.'
The two wretches stood staring at each other--you might have heard their
hearts beat! Calenus, the less bold by nature, but the more griping,
recovered first.
'We must to our task, and away!' he said, in a low whisper, frightened
at his own voice. He stepped to the threshold, paused, crossed over the
heated floor and his dead brethren to the sacred chapel, and called to
Burbo to follow. But the gladiator quaked, and drew back.
'So much the better,' thought Calenus; 'the more will be my booty.'
Hastily he loaded himself with the more portable treasures of the
temple; and thinking no more of his comrade, hurried from the sacred
place. A sudden flash of lightning from the mount showed to Burbo, who
stood motionless at the threshold, the flying and laden form of the
priest. He took heart; he stepped forth to join him, when a tremendous
shower of ashes fell right before his feet. The gladiator shrank back
once more. Darkness closed him in. But the shower continued
fast--fast; its heaps rose high and suffocatingly--deathly vapors
steamed from them. The wretch gasped for breath--he sought in despair
again to fly--the ashes had blocked up the threshold--he shrieked as his
feet shrank from the boiling fluid. How could he escape? he could not
climb to the open space; nay, were he able, he could not brave its
horrors. It were best to remain in the cells, protected, at least, from
the fatal air. He sat down and clenched his teeth. By degrees, the
atmosphere from without--stifling and venomous--crept into the chamber.
He could endure it no longer. His eyes, glaring round, rested on a
sacrificial axe, which some priest had left in the chamber: he seized
it. With the desperate strength of his gigantic arm, he attempted to hew
his way through the walls.
Meanwhile, the streets were already thinned; the crowd had hastened to
disperse itself under shelter; the ashes began to fill up the lower
parts of the town; but, here and there, you heard the steps of fugitives
cranching them warily, or saw their pale and haggard faces by the blue
glare of the lightning, or the more unsteady glare of torches, by which
they endeavored to steer their steps. But ever and anon, the boiling
water, or the straggling ashes, mysterious and gusty winds, rising and
dying in a breath, extinguished these wandering lights, and with them
the last living hope of those who bore them.
In the street that leads to the gate of Herculaneum, Clodius now bent
his perplexed and doubtful way. 'If I can gain the open country,'
thought he, 'doubtless there will be various vehicles beyond the gate,
and Herculaneum is not far distant. Thank Mercury! I have little to
lose, and that little is about me!'
'Holla!--help there--help!' cried a querulous and frightened voice. 'I
have fallen down--my torch has gone out--my slaves have deserted me. I
am Diomed--the rich Diomed--ten thousand sesterces to him who helps me!'
At the same moment, Clodius felt himself caught by the feet. 'Ill
fortune to thee--let me go, fool,' said the gambler.
'Oh, help me up!--give me thy hand!'
'There--rise!'
'Is this Clodius? I know the voice! Whither fliest thou?'
'Towards Herculaneum.'
'Blessed be the gods! our way is the same, then, as far as the gate.
Why not take refuge in my villa? Thou knowest the long range of
subterranean cellars beneath the basement--that shelter, what shower can
penetrate?'
'You speak well,' said Clodius musingly. 'And by storing the cellar
with food, we can remain there even some days, should these wondrous
storms endure so long.'
'Oh, blessed be he who invented gates to a city!' cried Diomed.
'See!--they have placed a light within yon arch: by that let us guide
our steps.'
The air was now still for a few minutes: the lamp from the gate streamed
out far and clear: the fugitives hurried on--they gained the gate--they
passed by the Roman sentry; the lightning flashed over his livid face
and polished helmet, but his stern features were composed even in their
awe! He remained erect and motionless at his post. That hour itself
had not animated the machine of the ruthless majesty of Rome into the
reasoning and self-acting man. There he stood, amidst the crashing
elements: he had not received the permission to desert his station and
escape.
Diomed and his companion hurried on, when suddenly a female form rushed
athwart their way. It was the girl whose ominous voice had been raised
so often and so gladly in anticipation of 'the merry show'.
'Oh, Diomed!' she cried, 'shelter! shelter! See'--pointing to an infant
clasped to her breast--'see this little one!--it is mine!--the child of
shame! I have never owned it till this hour. But now I remember I am a
mother! I have plucked it from the cradle of its nurse: she had fled!
Who could think of the babe in such an hour, but she who bore it? Save
it! save it!'
'Curses on thy shrill voice! Away, harlot!' muttered Clodius between
his ground teeth.
'Nay, girl,' said the more humane Diomed; 'follow if thou wilt. This
way--this way--to the vaults!'
They hurried on--they arrived at the house of Diomed--they laughed aloud
as they crossed the threshold, for they deemed the danger over.
Diomed ordered his slaves to carry down into the subterranean gallery,
before described, a profusion of food and oil for lights; and there
Julia, Clodius, the mother and her babe, the greater part of the slaves,
and some frightened visitors and clients of the neighborhood, sought
their shelter.
Chapter VII
THE PROGRESS OF THE DESTRUCTION.
THE cloud, which had scattered so deep a murkiness over the day, had now
settled into a solid and impenetrable mass. It resembled less even the
thickest gloom of a night in the open air than the close and blind
darkness of some narrow room. But in proportion as the blackness
gathered, did the lightnings around Vesuvius increase in their vivid and
scorching glare. Nor was their horrible beauty confined to the usual
hues of fire; no rainbow ever rivalled their varying and prodigal dyes.
Now brightly blue as the most azure depth of a southern sky--now of a
livid and snakelike green, darting restlessly to and fro as the folds of
an enormous serpent--now of a lurid and intolerable crimson, gushing
forth through the columns of smoke, far and wide, and lighting up the
whole city from arch to arch--then suddenly dying into a sickly
paleness, like the ghost of their own life!
In the pauses of the showers, you heard the rumbling of the earth
beneath, and the groaning waves of the tortured sea; or, lower still,
and audible but to the watch of intensest fear, the grinding and hissing
murmur of the escaping gases through the chasms of the distant mountain.
