of imaginary gods! By that soul will I conquer to the last! Advance,
slaves!--Athenian, resist me, and thy blood be on thine own head! Thus,
then, I regain Ione!'
He advanced one step--it was his last on earth! The ground shook
beneath him with a convulsion that cast all around upon its surface. A
simultaneous crash resounded through the city, as down toppled many a
roof and pillar!--the lightning, as if caught by the metal, lingered an
instant on the Imperial Statue--then shivered bronze and column! Down
fell the ruin, echoing along the street, and riving the solid pavement
where it crashed!--The prophecy of the stars was fulfilled!
The sound--the shock, stunned the Athenian for several moments. When he
recovered, the light still illuminated the scene--the earth still slid
and trembled beneath! Ione lay senseless on the ground; but he saw her
not yet--his eyes were fixed upon a ghastly face that seemed to emerge,
without limbs or trunk, from the huge fragments of the shattered
column--a face of unutterable pain, agony, and despair! The eyes shut
and opened rapidly, as if sense were not yet fled; the lips quivered and
grinned--then sudden stillness and darkness fell over the features, yet
retaining that aspect of horror never to be forgotten!
So perished the wise Magician--the great Arbaces--the Hermes of the
Burning Belt--the last of the royalty of Egypt!
Chapter IX
THE DESPAIR OF THE LOVERS. THE CONDITION OF THE MULTITUDE.
GLAUCUS turned in gratitude but in awe, caught Ione once more in his
arms, and fled along the street, that was yet intensely luminous. But
suddenly a duller shade fell over the air. Instinctively he turned to
the mountain, and beheld! one of the two gigantic crests, into which the
summit had been divided, rocked and wavered to and fro; and then, with a
sound, the mightiness of which no language can describe, it fell from
its burning base, and rushed, an avalanche of fire, down the sides of
the mountain! At the same instant gushed forth a volume of blackest
smoke--rolling on, over air, sea, and earth.
Another--and another--and another shower of ashes, far more profuse than
before, scattered fresh desolation along the streets. Darkness once more
wrapped them as a veil; and Glaucus, his bold heart at last quelled and
despairing, sank beneath the cover of an arch, and, clasping Ione to his
heart--a bride on that couch of ruin--resigned himself to die.
Meanwhile Nydia, when separated by the throng from Glaucus and Ione, had
in vain endeavored to regain them. In vain she raised that plaintive
cry so peculiar to the blind; it was lost amidst a thousand shrieks of
more selfish terror. Again and again she returned to the spot where
they had been divided--to find her companions gone, to seize every
fugitive--to inquire of Glaucus--to be dashed aside in the impatience of
distraction. Who in that hour spared one thought to his neighbor?
Perhaps in scenes of universal horror, nothing is more horrid than the
unnatural selfishness they engender. At length it occurred to Nydia,
that as it had been resolved to seek the sea-shore for escape, her most
probable chance of rejoining her companions would be to persevere in
that direction. Guiding her steps, then, by the staff which she always
carried, she continued, with incredible dexterity, to avoid the masses
of ruin that encumbered the path--to thread the streets--and unerringly
(so blessed now was that accustomed darkness, so afflicting in ordinary
life!) to take the nearest direction to the sea-side.
Poor girl!--her courage was beautiful to behold!--and Fate seemed to
favor one so helpless! The boiling torrents touched her not, save by
the general rain which accompanied them; the huge fragments of scoria
shivered the pavement before and beside her, but spared that frail form:
and when the lesser ashes fell over her, she shook them away with a
slight tremor,' and dauntlessly resumed her course.
Weak, exposed, yet fearless, supported but by one wish, she was a very
emblem of Psyche in her wanderings; of Hope, walking through the Valley
of the Shadow; of the Soul itself--lone but undaunted, amidst the
dangers and the snares of life!
Her path was, however, constantly impeded by the crowds that now groped
amidst the gloom, now fled in the temporary glare of the lightnings
across the scene; and, at length, a group of torch-bearers rushing full
against her, she was thrown down with some violence.
'What!' said the voice of one of the party, 'is this the brave blind
girl! By Bacchus, she must not be left here to die! Up, my Thessalian!
So--so. Are you hurt? That's well! Come along with us! we are for the
shore!'
'O Sallust! it is thy voice! The gods be thanked! Glaucus! Glaucus!
Glaucus! have ye seen him?'
'Not I. He is doubtless out of the city by this time. The gods who
saved him from the lion will save him from the burning mountain.'
As the kindly epicure thus encouraged Nydia, he drew her along with him
towards the sea, heeding not her passionate entreaties that he would
linger yet awhile to search for Glaucus; and still, in the accent of
despair, she continued to shriek out that beloved name, which, amidst
all the roar of the convulsed elements, kept alive a music at her heart.
The sudden illumination, the bursts of the floods of lava, and the
earthquake, which we have already described, chanced when Sallust and
his party had just gained the direct path leading from the city to the
port; and here they were arrested by an immense crowd, more than half
the population of the city. They spread along the field without the
walls, thousands upon thousands, uncertain whither to fly. The sea had
retired far from the shore; and they who had fled to it had been so
terrified by the agitation and preternatural shrinking of the element,
the gasping forms of the uncouth sea things which the waves had left
upon the sand, and by the sound of the huge stones cast from the
mountain into the deep, that they had returned again to the land, as
presenting the less frightful aspect of the two. Thus the two streams
of human beings, the one seaward, the other from the sea, had met
together, feeling a sad comfort in numbers; arrested in despair and
doubt.
'The world is to be destroyed by fire,' said an old man in long loose
robes, a philosopher of the Stoic school: 'Stoic and Epicurean wisdom
have alike agreed in this prediction: and the hour is come!'
'Yea; the hour is come!' cried a loud voice, solemn, but not fearful.
Those around turned in dismay. The voice came from above them. It was
the voice of Olinthus, who, surrounded by his Christian friends, stood
upon an abrupt eminence on which the old Greek colonists had raised a
temple to Apollo, now timeworn and half in ruin.
As he spoke there came that sudden illumination which had heralded the
death of Arbaces, and glowing over that mighty multitude, awed,
crouching, breathless--never on earth had the faces of men seemed so
haggard!--never had meeting of mortal beings been so stamped with the
horror and sublimity of dread!--never till the last trumpet sounds,
shall such meeting be seen again! And above those the form of Olinthus,
with outstretched arm and prophet brow, girt with the living fires. And
the crowd knew the face of him they had doomed to the fangs of the
beast--then their victim--now their warner! and through the stillness
again came his ominous voice:
'The hour is come!'
The Christians repeated the cry. It was caught up--it was echoed from
side to side--woman and man, childhood and old age, repeated, not aloud,
but in a smothered and dreary murmur:
'THE HOUR IS COME!'
At that moment, a wild yell burst through the air--and, thinking only of
escape, whither it knew not, the terrible tiger of the desert leaped
amongst the throng, and hurried through its parted streams. And so came
the earthquake--and so darkness once more fell over the earth!
And now new fugitives arrived. Grasping the treasures no longer
destined for their lord, the slaves of Arbaces joined the throng. One
only of all their torches yet flickered on. It was borne by Sosia; and
its light falling on the face of Nydia, he recognized the Thessalian.
'What avails thy liberty now, blind girl?' said the slave.
'Who art thou? canst thou tell me of Glaucus?'
'Ay; I saw him but a few minutes since.'
'Blessed be thy head! where?'
'Crouched beneath the arch of the forum--dead or dying!--gone to rejoin
Arbaces, who is no more!'
Nydia uttered not a word, she slid from the side of Sallust; silently
she glided through those behind her, and retraced her steps to the city.
She gained the forum--the arch; she stooped down--she felt around--she
called on the name of Glaucus.
A weak voice answered--'Who calls on me? Is it the voice of the Shades?
Lo! I am prepared!'
'Arise! follow me! Take my hand! Glaucus, thou shalt be saved!'
In wonder and sudden hope, Glaucus arose--'Nydia still? Ah! thou, then,
art safe!'
The tender joy of his voice pierced the heart of the poor Thessalian,
and she blessed him for his thought of her.
Half leading, half carrying Ione, Glaucus followed his guide. With
admirable discretion, she avoided the path which led to the crowd she
had just quitted, and, by another route, sought the shore.
After many pauses and incredible perseverance, they gained the sea, and
joined a group, who, bolder than the rest, resolved to hazard any peril
rather than continue in such a scene. In darkness they put forth to
sea; but, as they cleared the land and caught new aspects of the
mountain, its channels of molten fire threw a partial redness over the
waves.
Utterly exhausted and worn out, Ione slept on the breast of Glaucus, and
Nydia lay at his feet. Meanwhile the showers of dust and ashes, still
borne aloft, fell into the wave, and scattered their snows over the
deck. Far and wide, borne by the winds, those showers descended upon
the remotest climes, startling even the swarthy African; and whirled
along the antique soil of Syria and of Egypt (Dion Cassius).
Chapter X
THE NEXT MORNING. THE FATE OF NYDIA.
AND meekly, softly, beautifully, dawned at last the light over the
trembling deep!--the winds were sinking into rest--the foam died from
the glowing azure of that delicious sea. Around the east, thin mists
caught gradually the rosy hues that heralded the morning; Light was
about to resume her reign. Yet, still, dark and massive in the
distance, lay the broken fragments of the destroying cloud, from which
red streaks, burning dimlier and more dim, betrayed the yet rolling
fires of the mountain of the 'Scorched Fields'. The white walls and
gleaming columns that had adorned the lovely coasts were no more.
Sullen and dull were the shores so lately crested by the cities of
Herculaneum and Pompeii. The darlings of the deep were snatched from
her embrace! Century after century shall the mighty Mother stretch
forth her azure arms, and know them not--moaning round the sepulchres of
the Lost!
There was no shout from the mariners at the dawning light--it had come
too gradually, and they were too wearied for such sudden bursts of
joy--but there was a low, deep murmur of thankfulness amidst those
watchers of the long night. They looked at each other and smiled--they
took heart--they felt once more that there was a world around, and a God
above them! And in the feeling that the worst was passed, the
overwearied ones turned round, and fell placidly to sleep. In the
growing light of the skies there came the silence which night had
wanted: and the bark drifted calmly onward to its port. A few other
vessels, bearing similar fugitives, might be seen in the expanse,
apparently motionless, yet gliding also on. There was a sense of
security, of companionship, and of hope, in the sight of their slender
masts and white sails. What beloved friends, lost and missed in the
gloom, might they not bear to safety and to shelter!
In the silence of the general sleep, Nydia rose gently. She bent over
the face of Glaucus--she inhaled the deep breath of his heavy
slumber--timidly and sadly she kissed his brow--his lips; she felt for
his hand--it was locked in that of Ione; she sighed deeply, and her face
darkened. Again she kissed his brow, and with her hair wiped from it the
damps of night. 'May the gods bless you, Athenian!' she murmured: 'may
you be happy with your beloved one!--may you sometimes remember Nydia!
Alas! she is of no further use on earth!'
With these words she turned away. Slowly she crept along by the fori,
or platforms, to the farther side of the vessel, and, pausing, bent low
over the deep; the cool spray dashed upward on her feverish brow. 'It
is the kiss of death,' she said 'it is welcome.' The balmy air played
through her waving tresses--she put them from her face, and raised those
eyes--so tender, though so lightless--to the sky, whose soft face she
had never seen!
'No, no!' she said, half aloud, and in a musing and thoughtful tone, 'I
cannot endure it; this jealous, exacting love--it shatters my whole soul
in madness! I might harm him again--wretch that I was! I have saved
him--twice saved him--happy, happy thought: why not die happy?--it is
the last glad thought I can ever know. Oh! sacred Sea! I hear thy
voice invitingly--it hath a freshening and joyous call. They say that in
thy embrace is dishonour--that thy victims cross not the fatal Styx--be
it so!--I would not meet him in the Shades, for I should meet him still
with her! Rest--rest--rest! there is no other Elysium for a heart like
mine!'
A sailor, half dozing on the deck, heard a slight splash on the waters.
Drowsily he looked up, and behind, as the vessel merrily bounded on, he
fancied he saw something white above the waves; but it vanished in an
instant. He turned round again, and dreamed of his home and children.
