APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/books/pompei/BOOK_3

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                           BOOK III


                          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 favourite 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 neighbouring 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 labour 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 labour, 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 colour 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
neighbours; 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 favoured 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
recognise.

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 labour, 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 colourless 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 entrance?'

'I have played on my lyre to Arbaces,' answered the Thessalian,
with embarrassment.

'And thou hast escaped the contagion from which thou hast saved
Ione?' returned the Neapolitan, in a voice too low for the ear of
Glaucus.

'Noble Ione, I have neither beauty nor station; I am a child,
and a slave, and blind. The despicable are ever safe.'

It was with a pained, and proud, and indignant tone that Nydia
made this humble reply; and Ione felt that she only wounded Nydia by
pursuing the subject. She remained silent, and the bark now floated
into the sea.

'Confess that I was right, Ione,' said Glaucus, 'in prevailing
on thee not to waste this beautiful noon in thy chamber- confess
that I was right.'

'Thou wert right, Glaucus,' said Nydia, abruptly.

'The dear child speaks for thee,' returned the Athenian. 'But
permit me to move opposite to thee, or our light boat will be
over-balanced.'

So saying, he took his seat exactly opposite to Ione, and
leaning forward, he fancied that it was her breath, and not the
winds of summer, that flung fragrance over the sea.

'Thou wert to tell me,' said Glaucus, 'why for so many days thy
door was closed to me?'

'Oh, think of it no more!' answered Ione, quickly; 'I gave my
ear to what I now know was the malice of slander.'

'And my slanderer was the Egyptian?'

Ione's silence assented to the question.

'His motives are sufficiently obvious.'

'Talk not of him,' said Ione, covering her face with her hands, as
if to shut out his very thought.

'Perhaps he may be already by the banks of the slow Styx,' resumed
Glaucus; 'yet in that case we should probably have heard of his death.
Thy brother, methinks, hath felt the dark influence of his gloomy
soul. When we arrived last night at thy house he left me abruptly.
Will he ever vouchsafe to be my friend?'

'He is consumed with some secret care,' answered Ione,
tearfully. 'Would that we could lure him from himself! Let us join
in that tender office.'

'He shall be my brother,' returned the Greek.

'How calmly,' said Ione, rousing herself from the gloom into which
her thoughts of Apaecides had plunged her- 'how calmly the clouds seem
to repose in heaven; and yet you tell me, for I knew it not myself,
that the earth shook beneath us last night.'

'It did, and more violently, they say, than it has done since
the great convulsion sixteen years ago: the land we live in yet nurses
mysterious terror; and the reign of Pluto, which spreads beneath our
burning fields, seems rent with unseen commotion. Didst thou not
feel the earth quake, Nydia, where thou wert seated last night? and
was it not the fear that it occasioned thee that made thee weep?'

'I felt the soil creep and heave beneath me, like some monstrous
serpent,' answered Nydia; 'but as I saw nothing, I did not fear: I
imagined the convulsion to be a spell of the Egyptian's. They say he
has power over the elements.'

'Thou art a Thessalian, my Nydia,' replied Glaucus, 'and hast a
national right to believe in magic.

'Magic!- who doubts it?' answered Nydia, simply: 'dost thou?'

'Until last night (when a necromantic prodigy did indeed appal
me), methinks I was not credulous in any other magic save that of
love!' said Glaucus, in a tremulous voice, and fixing his eyes on
Ione.

'Ah!' said Nydia, with a sort of shiver, and she awoke
mechanically a few pleasing notes from her lyre; the sound suited well
the tranquility of the waters, and the sunny stillness of the noon.

'Play to us, dear Nydia, said Glaucus- 'play and give us one of
thine old Thessalian songs: whether it be of magic or not, as thou
wilt- let it, at least, be of love!'

'Of love!' repeated Nydia, raising her large, wandering eyes, that
ever thrilled those who saw them with a mingled fear and pity; you
could never familiarise yourself to their aspect: so strange did it
seem that those dark wild orbs were ignorant of the day, and either so
fixed was their deep mysterious gaze, or so restless and perturbed
their glance, that you felt, when you encountered them, that same
vague, and chilling, and half-preternatural impression, which comes
over you in the presence of the insane- of those who, having a life
outwardly like your own, have a life within life- dissimilar-
unsearchable- unguessed!

'Will you that I should sing of love?' said she, fixing those eyes
upon Glaucus.

'Yes,' replied he, looking down.

She moved a little way from the arm of Ione, still cast round her,
as if that soft embrace embarrassed; and placing her light and
graceful instrument on her knee, after a short prelude, she sang the
following strain:

                NYDIA'S LOVE-SONG

                        I

        The Wind and the Beam loved the Rose,
          And the Rose loved one;
        For who recks the wind where it blows?
          Or loves not the sun?

                        II

        None knew whence the humble Wind stole,
          Poor sport of the skies-
        None dreamt that the Wind had a soul,
          In its mournful sighs!

                       III

        Oh, happy Beam! how canst thou prove
          That bright love of thine?
        In thy light is the proof of thy love.
          Thou hast but- to shine!

                        IV

        How its love can the Wind reveal?
          Unwelcome its sigh;
        Mute- mute to its Rose let it steal-
          Its proof is- to die!

'Thou singest but sadly, sweet girl,' said Glaucus; 'thy youth
only feels as yet the dark shadow of Love; far other inspiration
doth he wake, when he himself bursts and brightens upon us.

'I sing as I was taught,' replied Nydia, sighing.

'Thy master was love-crossed, then- try thy hand at a gayer air.
Nay, girl, give the instrument to me.' As Nydia obeyed, her hand
touched his, and, with that slight touch, her breast heaved- her cheek
flushed. Ione and Glaucus, occupied with each other, perceived not
those signs of strange and premature emotions, which preyed upon a
heart that, nourished by imagination, dispensed with hope.

And now, broad, blue, bright, before them, spread that halcyon
sea, fair as at this moment, seventeen centuries from that date, I
behold it rippling on the same divinest shores. Clime that yet
enervates with a soft and Circean spell- that moulds us insensibly,
mysteriously, into harmony with thyself, banishing the thought of
austerer labour, the voices of wild ambition, the contests and the
roar of life; filling us with gentle and subduing dreams, making
necessary to our nature that which is its least earthly portion, so
that the very air inspires us with the yearning and thirst of love.
Whoever visits thee seems to leave earth and its harsh cares behind-
to enter by the Ivory gate into the Land of Dreams. The young and
laughing Hours of the PRESENT- the Hours, those children of Saturn,
which he hungers ever to devour, seem snatched from his grasp. The
past- the future- are forgotten; we enjoy but the breathing time.
Flower of the world's garden- Fountain of Delight- Italy of Italy-
beautiful, benign Campania!- vain were, indeed, the Titans, if on this
spot they yet struggled for another heaven! Here, if God meant this
working-day life for a perpetual holiday, who would not sigh to
dwell for ever- asking nothing, hoping nothing, fearing nothing, while
thy skies shine over him- while thy seas sparkle at his feet- while
thine air brought him sweet messages from the violet and the orange-
and while the heart, resigned to- beating with- but one emotion, could
find the lips and the eyes, which flatter it (vanity of vanities!)
that love can defy custom, and be eternal?

It was then in this clime- on those seas, that the Athenian
gazed upon a face that might have suited the nymph, the spirit of
the place: feeding his eyes on the changeful roses of that softest
cheek, happy beyond the happiness of common life, loving, and
knowing himself beloved.

In the tale of human passion, in past ages, there is something
of interest even in the remoteness of the time. We love to feel within
us the bond which unites the most distant era- men, nations, customs
perish; THE AFFECTIONS ARE IMMORTAL!- they are the sympathies which
unite the ceaseless generations. The past lives again, when we look
upon its emotions- it lives in our own! That which was, ever is! The
magician's gift, that revives the dead- that animates the dust of
forgotten graves, is not in the author's skill- it is in the heart
of the reader!

Still vainly seeking the eyes of Ione, as, half downcast, half
averted, they shunned his own, the Athenian, in a low and soft
voice, thus expressed the feelings inspired by happier thoughts than
those which had coloured the song of Nydia.


                THE SONG OF GLAUCUS

                         I

    As the bark floateth on o'er the summer-lit sea,
    Floats my heart o'er the deeps of its passion for thee;
    All lost in the space, without terror it glides,
    For bright with thy soul is the face of the tides.
    Now heaving, now hush'd, is that passionate ocean,
      As it catches thy smile or thy sighs;
    And the twin-stars that shine on the wanderer's devotion
      Its guide and its god- are thine eyes!

                         II

    The bark may go down, should the cloud sweep above,
    For its being is bound to the light of thy love.
    As thy faith and thy smile are its life and its joy,
    So thy frown or thy change are the storms that destroy.
    Ah! sweeter to sink while the sky is serene,
      If time hath a change for thy heart!
    If to live be to weep over what thou hast been,
      Let me die while I know what thou art!

As the last words of the song trembled over the sea, Ione raised
her looks- they met those of her lover. Happy Nydia!- happy in thy
affliction, that thou couldst not see that fascinated and charmed
gaze, that said so much- that made the eye the voice of the soul- that
promised the impossibility of change!

But, though the Thessalian could not detect that gaze, she divined
its meaning by their silence- by their sighs. She pressed her hands
lightly across her breast, as if to keep down its bitter and jealous
thoughts; and then she hastened to speak- for that silence was
intolerable to her.

'After all, O Glaucus!' said she, 'there is nothing very
mirthful in your strain!'

'Yet I meant it to be so, when I took up thy lyre, pretty one.
Perhaps happiness will not permit us to be mirthful.'

'How strange is it,' said Ione, changing a conversation which
oppressed her while it charmed- 'that for the last several days yonder
cloud has hung motionless over Vesuvius! Yet not indeed motionless,
for sometimes it changes its form; and now methinks it looks like some
vast giant, with an arm outstretched over the city. Dost thou see
the likeness- or is it only to my fancy?'

'Fair Ione! I see it also. It is astonishingly distinct. The giant
seems seated on the brow of the mountain, the different shades of
the cloud appear to form a white robe that sweeps over its vast breast
and limbs; it seems to gaze with a steady face upon the city below, to
point with one hand, as thou sayest, over its glittering streets,
and to raise the other (dost thou note it?) towards the higher heaven.
It is like the ghost of some huge Titan brooding over the beautiful
world he lost; sorrowful for the past- yet with something of menace
for the future.'

'Could that mountain have any connection with the last night's
earthquake? They say that, ages ago, almost in the earliest era of
tradition, it gave forth fires as AEtna still. Perhaps the flames
yet lurk and dart beneath.'

'It is possible,' said Glaucus, musingly.

'Thou sayest thou art slow to believe in magic,' said Nydia,
suddenly. 'I have heard that a potent witch dwells amongst the
scorched caverns of the mountain, and yon cloud may be the dim
shadow of the demon she confers with.'

'Thou art full of the romance of thy native Thessaly,' said
Glaucus; 'and a strange mixture of sense and all conflicting
superstitions.'

'We are ever superstitious in the dark,' replied Nydia. 'Tell me,'
she added, after a slight pause, 'tell me, O Glaucus! do all that
are beautiful resemble each other? They say you are beautiful, and
Ione also. Are your faces then the same? I fancy not, yet it ought
to be so.'

'Fancy no such grievous wrong to Ione,' answered Glaucus,
laughing. 'But we do not, alas! resemble each other, as the homely and
the beautiful sometimes do. Ione's hair is dark, mine light; Ione's
eyes are- what colour, Ione? I cannot see, turn them to me. Oh, are
they black? no, they are too soft. Are they blue? no, they are too
deep: they change with every ray of the sun- I know not their
colour: but mine, sweet Nydia, are grey, and bright only when Ione
shines on them! Ione's cheek is...'

'I do not understand one word of thy description,' interrupted
Nydia, peevishly. 'I comprehend only that you do not resemble each
other, and I am glad of it.'

'Why, Nydia?' said Ione.

Nydia coloured slightly. 'Because,' she replied, coldly, 'I have
always imagined you under different forms, and one likes to know one
is right.'

'And what hast thou imagined Glaucus to resemble?' asked Ione,
softly.

'Music!' replied Nydia, looking down.

'Thou art right,' thought Ione.

'And what likeness hast thou ascribed to Ione?'

'I cannot tell yet,' answered the blind girl; 'I have not yet
known her long enough to find a shape and sign for my guesses.'

'I will tell thee, then,' said Glaucus, passionately; 'she is like
the sun that warms- like the wave that refreshes.'

'The sun sometimes scorches, and the wave sometimes drowns,'
answered Nydia.

'Take then these roses,' said Glaucus; 'let their fragrance
suggest to thee Ione.'

'Alas, the roses will fade!' said the Neapolitan, archly.

Thus conversing, they wore away the hours; the lovers, conscious
only of the brightness and smiles of love; the blind girl feeling only
its darkness- its tortures- the fierceness of jealousy and its woe!

And now, as they drifted on, Glaucus once more resumed the lyre,
and woke its strings with a careless hand to a strain, so wildly and
gladly beautiful, that even Nydia was aroused from her reverie, and
uttered a cry of admiration.

'Thou seest, my child,' cried Glaucus, 'that I can yet redeem
the character of love's music, and that I was wrong in saying
happiness could not be gay. Listen, Nydia! listen, dear Ione! and
hear:


             THE BIRTH OF LOVE

                      I

        Like a Star in the seas above,
            Like a Dream to the waves of sleep-
        Up- up- THE INCARNATE LOVE-
            She rose from the charmed deep!
        And over the Cyprian Isle
        The skies shed their silent smile;
        And the Forest's green heart was rife
        With the stir of the gushing life-
        The life that had leap'd to birth,
        In the veins of the happy earth!
                Hail! oh, hail!
        The dimmest sea-cave below thee,
            The farthest sky-arch above,
        In their innermost stillness know thee:
            And heave with the Birth of Love!
                Gale! soft Gale!
        Thou comest on thy silver winglets,
            From thy home in the tender west,
        Now fanning her golden ringlets,
            Now hush'd on her heaving breast.
        And afar on the murmuring sand,
        The Seasons wait hand in hand
        To welcome thee, Birth Divine,
        To the earth which is henceforth thine.

                      II

        Behold! how she kneels in the shell,
        Bright pearl in its floating cell!
        Behold! how the shell's rose-hues,
            The cheek and the breast of snow,
        And the delicate limbs suffuse,
            Like a blush, with a bashful glow.
        Sailing on, slowly sailing
            O'er the wild water;
        All hail! as the fond light is hailing
            Her daughter,
                    All hail!
        We are thine, all thine evermore:
        Not a leaf on the laughing shore,
        Not a wave on the heaving sea,
            Nor a single sigh
            In the boundless sky,
        But is vow'd evermore to thee!

                     III

        And thou, my beloved one- thou,
        As I gaze on thy soft eyes now,
        Methinks from their depths I view
        The Holy Birth born anew;
        Thy lids are the gentle cell
            Where the young Love blushing lies;
        See! she breaks from the mystic shell,
            She comes from thy tender eyes!
                Hail! all hail!
        She comes, as she came from the sea,
        To my soul as it looks on thee;
            She comes, she comes!
        She comes, as she came from the sea,
        To my soul as it looks on thee!
                Hail! all hail!

                         Chapter III


                       THE CONGREGATION


FOLLOWED by Apaecides, the Nazarene gained the side of the Sarnus-
that river, which now has shrunk into a petty stream, then rushed
gaily into the sea, covered with countless vessels, and reflecting
on its waves the gardens, the vines, the palaces, and the temples of
Pompeii. From its more noisy and frequented banks, Olinthus directed
his steps to a path which ran amidst a shady vista of trees, at the
distance of a few paces from the river. This walk was in the evening a
favourite resort of the Pompeians, but during the heat and business of
the day was seldom visited, save by some groups of playful children,
some meditative poet, or some disputative philosophers. At the side
farthest from the river, frequent copses of box interspersed the
more delicate and evanescent foliage, and these were cut into a
thousand quaint shapes, sometimes into the forms of fauns and
satyrs, sometimes into the mimicry of Egyptian pyramids, sometimes
into the letters that composed the name of a popular or eminent
citizen. Thus the false taste is equally ancient as the pure; and
the retired traders of Hackney and Paddington, a century ago, were
little aware, perhaps, that in their tortured yews and sculptured box,
they found their models in the most polished period of Roman
antiquity, in the gardens of Pompeii, and the villas of the fastidious
Pliny.

This walk now, as the noonday sun shone perpendicularly through
the chequered leaves, was entirely deserted; at least no other forms
than those of Olinthus and the priest infringed upon the solitude.
They sat themselves on one of the benches, placed at intervals between
the trees, and facing the faint breeze that came languidly from the
river, whose waves danced and sparkled before them- a singular and
contrasted pair; the believer in the latest- the priest of the most
ancient- worship of the world!

'Since thou leftst me so abruptly,' said Olinthus, 'hast thou been
happy? has thy heart found contentment under these priestly robes?
hast thou, still yearning for the voice of God, heard it whisper
comfort to thee from the oracles of Isis? That sigh, that averted
countenance, give me the answer my soul predicted.'

'Alas!' answered Apaecides, sadly, 'thou seest before thee a
wretched and distracted man! From my childhood upward I have
idolised the dreams of virtue! I have envied the holiness of men
who, in caves and lonely temples, have been admitted to the
companionship of beings above the world; my days have been consumed
with feverish and vague desires; my nights with mocking but solemn
visions. Seduced by the mystic prophecies of an impostor, I have
indued these robes;- my nature (I confess it to thee frankly)- my
nature has revolted at what I have seen and been doomed to share in!
Searching after truth, I have become but the minister of falsehoods.
On the evening in which we last met, I was buoyed by hopes created
by that same impostor, whom I ought already to have better known. I
have- no matter- no matter! suffice it, I have added perjury and sin
to rashness and to sorrow. The veil is now rent for ever from my eyes;
I behold a villain where I obeyed a demigod; the earth darkens in my
sight; I am in the deepest abyss of gloom; I know not if there be gods
above; if we are the things of chance; if beyond the bounded and
melancholy present there is annihilation or an hereafter- tell me,
then, thy faith; solve me these doubts, if thou hast indeed the
power!'

'I do not marvel,' answered the Nazarene, 'that thou hast thus
erred, or that thou art thus sceptic. Eighty years ago there was no
assurance to man of God, or of a certain and definite future beyond
the grave. New laws are declared to him who has ears- a heaven, a true
Olympus, is revealed to him who has eyes- heed then, and listen.'

And with all the earnestness of a man believing ardently
himself, and zealous to convert, the Nazarene poured forth to
Apaecides the assurances of Scriptural promise. He spoke first of
the sufferings and miracles of Christ- he wept as he spoke: he
turned next to the glories of the Saviour's Ascension- to the clear
predictions of Revelation. He described that pure and unsensual heaven
destined to the virtuous- those fires and torments that were the
doom of guilt.

The doubts which spring up to the mind of later reasoners, in
the immensity of the sacrifice of God to man, were not such as would
occur to an early heathen. He had been accustomed to believe that
the gods had lived upon earth, and taken upon themselves the forms
of men; had shared in human passions, in human labours, and in human
misfortunes. What was the travail of his own Alcmena's son, whose
altars now smoked with the incense of countless cities, but a toil for
the human race? Had not the great Dorian Apollo expiated a mystic
sin by descending to the grave? Those who were the deities of heaven
had been the lawgivers or benefactors on earth, and gratitude had
led to worship. It seemed therefore, to the heathen, a doctrine
neither new nor strange, that Christ had been sent from heaven, that
an immortal had indued mortality, and tasted the bitterness of
death. And the end for which He thus toiled and thus suffered- how far
more glorious did it seem to Apaecides than that for which the deities
of old had visited the nether world, and passed through the gates of
death! Was it not worthy of a God to, descend to these dim valleys, in
order to clear up the clouds gathered over the dark mount beyond- to
satisfy the doubts of sages- to convert speculation into certainty- by
example to point out the rules of life- by revelation to solve the
enigma of the grave- and to prove that the soul did not yearn in
vain when it dreamed of an immortality? In this last was the great
argument of those lowly men destined to convert the earth. As
nothing is more flattering to the pride and the hopes of man than
the belief in a future state, so nothing could be more vague and
confused than the notions of the heathen sages upon that mystic
subject. Apaecides had already learned that the faith of the
philosophers was not that of the herd; that if they secretly professed
a creed in some diviner power, it was not the creed which they thought
it wise to impart to the community. He had already learned, that
even the priest ridiculed what he preached to the people- that the
notions of the few and the many were never united. But, in this new
faith, it seemed to him that philosopher, priest, and people, the
expounders of the religion and its followers, were alike accordant:
they did not speculate and debate upon immortality, they spoke of as a
thing certain and assured; the magnificence of the promise dazzled
him- its consolations soothed. For the Christian faith made its
early converts among sinners! many of its fathers and its martyrs were
those who had felt the bitterness of vice, and who were therefore no
longer tempted by its false aspect from the paths of an austere and
uncompromising virtue. All the assurances of this healing faith
invited to repentance- they were peculiarly adapted to the bruised and
sore of spirit! the very remorse which Apaecides felt for his late
excesses, made him incline to one who found holiness in that
remorse, and who whispered of the joy in heaven over one sinner that
repenteth.

'Come,' said the Nazarene, as he perceived the effect he had
produced, come to the humble hall in which we meet- a select and a
chosen few; listen there to our prayers; note the sincerity of our
repentant tears; mingle in our simple sacrifice- not of victims, nor
of garlands, but offered by white-robed thoughts upon the altar of the
heart. The flowers that we lay there are imperishable- they bloom over
us when we are no more; nay, they accompany us beyond the grave,
they spring up beneath our feet in heaven, they delight us with an
eternal odour, for they are of the soul, they partake of its nature;
these offerings are temptations overcome, and sins repented. Come,
oh come! lose not another moment; prepare already for the great, the
awful journey, from darkness to light, from sorrow to bliss, from
corruption to immortality! This is the day of the Lord the Son, a
day that we have set apart for our devotions. Though we meet usually
at night, yet some amongst us are gathered together even now. What
joy, what triumph, will be with us all, if we can bring one stray lamb
into the sacred fold!'

There seemed to Apaecides, so naturally pure of heart, something
ineffably generous and benign in that spirit of conversation which
animated Olinthus- a spirit that found its own bliss in the
happiness of others- that sought in its wide sociality to make
companions for eternity. He was touched, softened, and subdued. He was
not in that mood which can bear to be left alone; curiosity, too,
mingled with his purer stimulants- he was anxious to see those rites
of which so many dark and contradictory rumours were afloat. He paused
a moment, looked over his garb, thought of Arbaces, shuddered with
horror, lifted his eyes to the broad brow of the Nazarene, intent,
anxious, watchful- but for his benefits, for his salvation! He drew
his cloak round him, so as wholly to conceal his robes, and said,
'Lead on, I follow thee.'

Olinthus pressed his hand joyfully, and then descending to the
river side, hailed one of the boats that plyed there constantly;
they entered it; an awning overhead, while it sheltered them from
the sun, screened also their persons from observation: they rapidly
skimmed the wave. From one of the boats that passed them floated a
soft music, and its prow was decorated with flowers- it was gliding
towards the sea.

'So,' said Olinthus, sadly, 'unconscious and mirthful in their
delusions, sail the votaries of luxury into the great ocean of storm
and shipwreck! we pass them, silent and unnoticed, to gain the land.'

Apaecides, lifting his eyes, caught through the aperture in the
awning a glimpse of the face of one of the inmates of that gay bark-
it was the face of Ione. The lovers were embarked on the excursion
at which we have been made present. The priest sighed, and once more
sunk back upon his seat. They reached the shore where, in the suburbs,
an alley of small and mean houses stretched towards the bank; they
dismissed the boat, landed, and Olinthus, preceding the priest,
threaded the labyrinth of lanes, and arrived at last at the closed
door of a habitation somewhat larger than its neighbours. He knocked
thrice- the door was opened and closed again, as Apaecides followed
his guide across the threshold.

They passed a deserted atrium, and gained an inner chamber of
moderate size, which, when the door was closed, received its only
light from a small window cut over the door itself. But, halting at
the threshold of this chamber, and knocking at the door, Olinthus
said, 'Peace be with you!' A voice from within returned, 'Peace with
whom?' 'The Faithful!' answered Olinthus, and the door opened;
twelve or fourteen persons were sitting in a semicircle, silent, and
seemingly absorbed in thought, and opposite to a crucifix rudely
carved in wood.

They lifted up their eyes when Olinthus entered, without speaking;
the Nazarene himself, before he accosted them, knelt suddenly down,
and by his moving lips, and his eyes fixed steadfastly on the
crucifix, Apaecides saw that he prayed inly. This rite performed,
Olinthus turned to the congregation- 'Men and brethren,' said he,
'start not to behold amongst you a priest of Isis; he hath sojourned
with the blind, but the Spirit hath fallen on him- he desires to
see, to hear, and to understand.'

'Let him,' said one of the assembly; and Apaecides beheld in the
speaker a man still younger than himself, of a countenance equally
worn and pallid, of an eye which equally spoke of the restless and
fiery operations of a working mind.

'Let him,' repeated a second voice, and he who thus spoke was in
the prime of manhood; his bronzed skin and Asiatic features bespoke
him a son of Syria- he had been a robber in his youth.

'Let him,' said a third voice; and the priest, again turning to
regard the speaker, saw an old man with a long grey beard, whom he
recognised as a slave to the wealthy Diomed.

'Let him,' repeated simultaneously the rest- men who, with two
exceptions, were evidently of the inferior ranks. In these exceptions,
Apaecides noted an officer of the guard, and an Alexandrian merchant.

'We do not,' recommenced Olinthus- 'we do not bind you to secrecy;
we impose on you no oaths (as some of our weaker brethren would do)
not to betray us. It is true, indeed, that there is no absolute law
against us; but the multitude, more savage than their rulers, thirst
for our lives. So, my friends, when Pilate would have hesitated, it
was the people who shouted "Christ to the cross!" But we bind you
not to our safety- no! Betray us to the crowd- impeach, calumniate,
malign us if you will- we are above death, we should walk cheerfully
to the den of the lion, or the rack of the torturer- we can trample
down the darkness of the grave, and what is death to a criminal is
eternity to the Christian.'

A low and applauding murmur ran through the assembly.

'Thou comest amongst us as an examiner, mayest thou remain a
convert! Our religion? you behold it! Yon cross our sole image, yon
scroll the mysteries of our Caere and Eleusis! Our morality? it is
in our lives!- sinners we all have been; who now can accuse us of a
crime? we have baptised ourselves from the past. Think not that this
is of us, it is of God. Approach, Medon,' beckoning to the old slave
who had spoken third for the admission of Apaecides, 'thou art the
sole man amongst us who is not free. But in heaven, the last shall
be first: so with us. Unfold your scroll, read and explain.'

Useless would it be for us to accompany the lecture of Medon, or
the comments of the congregation. Familiar now are those doctrines,
then strange and new. Eighteen centuries have left us little to
expound upon the lore of Scripture or the life of Christ. To us,
too, there would seem little congenial in the doubts that occurred
to a heathen priest, and little learned in the answers they receive
from men uneducated, rude, and simple, possessing only the knowledge
that they were greater than they seemed.

There was one thing that greatly touched the Neapolitan: when
the lecture was concluded, they heard a very gentle knock at the door;
the password was given, and replied to; the door opened, and two young
children, the eldest of whom might have told its seventh year, entered
timidly; they were the children of the master of the house, that
dark and hardy Syrian, whose youth had been spent in pillage and
bloodshed. The eldest of the congregation (it was that old slave)
opened to them his arms; they fled to the shelter- they crept to his
breast- and his hard features smiled as he caressed them. And then
these bold and fervent men, nursed in vicissitude, beaten by the rough
winds of life- men of mailed and impervious fortitude, ready to
affront a world, prepared for torment and armed for death- men, who
presented all imaginable contrast to the weak nerves, the light
hearts, the tender fragility of childhood, crowded round the
infants, smoothing their rugged brows and composing their bearded lips
to kindly and fostering smiles: and then the old man opened the scroll
and he taught the infants to repeat after him that beautiful prayer
which we still dedicate to the Lord, and still teach to our
children; and then he told them, in simple phrase, of God's love to
the young, and how not a sparrow falls but His eye sees it. This
lovely custom of infant initiation was long cherished by the early
Church, in memory of the words which said, 'Suffer little children
to come unto me, and forbid them not'; and was perhaps the origin of
the superstitious calumny which ascribed to the Nazarenes the crime
which the Nazarenes, when victorious, attributed to the Jew, viz.
the decoying children to hideous rites, at which they were secretly
immolated.

And the stern paternal penitent seemed to feel in the innocence of
his children a return into early life- life ere yet it sinned: he
followed the motion of their young lips with an earnest gaze; he
smiled as they repeated, with hushed and reverent looks, the holy
words: and when the lesson was done, and they ran, released, and
gladly to his knee, he clasped them to his breast, kissed them again
and again, and tears flowed fast down his cheek- tears, of which it
would have been impossible to trace the source, so mingled they were
with joy and sorrow, penitence and hope- remorse for himself and
love for them!

Something, I say, there was in this scene which peculiarly
affected Apaecides; and, in truth, it is difficult to conceive a
ceremony more appropriate to the religion of benevolence, more
appealing to the household and everyday affections, striking a more
sensitive chord in the human breast.

It was at this time that an inner door opened gently, and a very
old man entered the chamber, leaning on a staff. At his presence,
the whole congregation rose; there was an expression of deep,
affectionate respect upon every countenance; and Apaecides, gazing
on his countenance, felt attracted towards him by an irresistible
sympathy. No man ever looked upon that face without love; for there
had dwelt the smile of the Deity, the incarnation of divinest love-
and the glory of the smile had never passed away.

'My children, God be with you!' said the old man, stretching his
arms; and as he spoke the infants ran to his knee. He sat down, and
they nestled fondly to his bosom. It was beautiful to see that
mingling of the extremes of life- the rivers gushing from their
early source- the majestic stream gliding to the ocean of eternity! As
the light of declining day seems to mingle earth and heaven, making
the outline of each scarce visible, and blending the harsh
mountain-tops with the sky, even so did the smile of that benign old
age appear to hallow the aspect of those around, to blend together the
strong distinctions of varying years, and to diffuse over infancy
and manhood the light of that heaven into which it must so soon vanish
and be lost.

'Father,' said Olinthus, 'thou on whose form the miracle of the
Redeemer worked; thou who wert snatched from the grave to become the
living witness of His mercy and His power; behold! a stranger in our
meeting- a new lamb gathered to the fold!'

'Let me bless him,' said the old man: the throng gave way.
Apaecides approached him as by an instinct: he fell on his knees
before him- the old man laid his hand on the priest's head, and
blessed him, but not aloud. As his lips moved, his eyes were upturned,
and tears- those tears that good men only shed in the hope of
happiness to another- flowed fast down his cheeks.

The children were on either side of the convert; his heart was
theirs- he had become as one of them- to enter into the kingdom of
Heaven.

                          Chapter IV


             THE STREAM OF LOVE RUNS ON. WHITHER?


DAYS are like years in the love of the young, when no bar, no
obstacle, is between their hearts- when the sun shines, and the course
runs smooth- when their love is prosperous and confessed. Ione no
longer concealed from Glaucus the attachment she felt for him, and
their talk now was only of their love. Over the rapture of the present
the hopes of the future glowed like the heaven above the gardens of
spring. They went in their trustful thoughts far down the stream of
time: they laid out the chart of their destiny to come; they
suffered the light of to-day to suffuse the morrow. In the youth of
their hearts it seemed as if care, and change, and death, were as
things unknown. Perhaps they loved each other the more because the
condition of the world left to Glaucus no aim and no wish but love;
because the distractions common in free states to men's affections
existed not for the Athenian; because his country wooed him not to the
bustle of civil life; because ambition furnished no counterpoise to
love: and, therefore, over their schemes and projects, love only
reigned. In the iron age they imagined themselves of the golden,
doomed only to live and to love.

To the superficial observer, who interests himself only in
characters strongly marked and broadly coloured, both the lovers may
seem of too slight and commonplace a mould: in the delineation of
characters purposely subdued, the reader sometimes imagines that there
is a want of character; perhaps, indeed, I wrong the real nature of
these two lovers by not painting more impressively their stronger
individualities. But in dwelling so much on their bright and
birdlike existence, I am influenced almost insensibly by the
forethought of the changes that await them, and for which they were so
ill prepared. It was this very softness and gaiety of life that
contrasted most strongly the vicissitudes of their coming fate. For
the oak without fruit or blossom, whose hard and rugged heart is
fitted for the storm, there is less fear than for the delicate
branches of the myrtle, and the laughing clusters of the vine.

They had now advanced far into August- the next month their
marriage was fixed, and the threshold of Glaucus was already
wreathed with garlands; and nightly, by the door of Ione, he poured
forth the rich libations. He existed no longer for his gay companions;
he was ever with Ione. In the mornings they beguiled the sun with
music: in the evenings they forsook the crowded haunts of the gay
for excursions on the water, or along the fertile and vine-clad plains
that lay beneath the fatal mount of Vesuvius. The earth shook no more;
the lively Pompeians forgot even that there had gone forth so terrible
a warning of their approaching doom. Glaucus imagined that convulsion,
in the vanity of his heathen religion, an especial interposition of
the gods, less in behalf of his own safety than that of Ione. He
offered up the sacrifices of gratitude at the temples of his faith;
and even the altar of Isis was covered with his votive garlands- as to
the prodigy of the animated marble, he blushed at the effect it had
produced on him. He believed it, indeed, to have been wrought by the
magic of man; but the result convinced him that it betokened not the
anger of a goddess.

Of Arbaces, they heard only that he still lived; stretched on
the bed of suffering, he recovered slowly from the effect of the shock
he had sustained- he left the lovers unmolested- but it was only to
brood over the hour and the method of revenge.

Alike in their mornings at the house of Ione, and in their evening
excursions, Nydia was usually their constant, and often their sole
companion. They did not guess the secret fires which consumed her- the
abrupt freedom with which she mingled in their conversation- her
capricious and often her peevish moods found ready indulgence in the
recollection of the service they owed her, and their compassion for
her affliction. They felt an interest in her, perhaps the greater
and more affectionate from the very strangeness and waywardness of her
nature, her singular alternations of passion and softness- the mixture
of ignorance and genius- of delicacy and rudeness- of the quick
humours of the child, and the proud calmness of the woman. Although
she refused to accept of freedom, she was constantly suffered to be
free; she went where she listed; no curb was put either on her words
or actions; they felt for one so darkly fated, and so susceptible of
every wound, the same pitying and compliant indulgence the mother
feels for a spoiled and sickly child- dreading to impose authority,
even where they imagined it for her benefit. She availed herself of
this licence by refusing the companionship of the slave whom they
wished to attend her. With the slender staff by which she guided her
steps, she went now, as in her former unprotected state, along the
populous streets: it was almost miraculous to perceive how quickly and
how dexterously she threaded every crowd, avoiding every danger, and
could find her benighted way through the most intricate windings of
the city. But her chief delight was still in visiting the few feet
of ground which made the garden of Glaucus- in tending the flowers
that at least repaid her love. Sometimes she entered the chamber where
he sat, and sought a conversation, which she nearly always broke off
abruptly- for conversation with Glaucus only tended to one subject-
Ione; and that name from his lips inflicted agony upon her. Often
she bitterly repented the service she had rendered to Ione: often
she said inly, 'If she had fallen, Glaucus could have loved her no
longer'; and then dark and fearful thoughts crept into her breast.

She had not experienced fully the trials that were in store for
her, when she had been thus generous. She had never before been
present when Glaucus and Ione were together; she had never heard
that voice so kind to her, so much softer to another. The shock that
crushed her heart with the tidings that Glaucus loved, had at first
only saddened and benumbed- by degrees jealousy took a wilder and
fiercer shape; it partook of hatred- it whispered revenge. As you
see the wind only agitate the green leaf upon the bough, while the
leaf which has lain withered and seared on the ground, bruised and
trampled upon till the sap and life are gone, is suddenly whirled
aloft- now here- now there- without stay and without rest; so the love
which visits the happy and the hopeful hath but freshness on its
wings! its violence is but sportive. But the heart that hath fallen
from the green things of life, that is without hope, that hath no
summer in its fibres, is torn and whirled by the same wind that but
caresses its brethren- it hath no bough to cling to- it is dashed from
path to path- till the winds fall, and it is crushed into the mire for
ever.

The friendless childhood of Nydia had hardened prematurely her
character; perhaps the heated scenes of profligacy through which she
had passed, seemingly unscathed, had ripened her passions, though they
had not sullied her purity. The orgies of Burbo might only have
disgusted, the banquets of the Egyptian might only have terrified,
at the moment; but the winds that pass unheeded over the soil leave
seeds behind them. As darkness, too, favours the imagination, so,
perhaps, her very blindness contributed to feed with wild and
delirious visions the love of the unfortunate girl. The voice of
Glaucus had been the first that had sounded musically to her ear;
his kindness made a deep impression upon her mind; when he had left
Pompeii in the former year, she had treasured up in her heart every
word he had uttered; and when any one told her that this friend and
patron of the poor flower-girl was the most brilliant and the most
graceful of the young revellers of Pompeii, she had felt a pleasing
pride in nursing his recollection. Even the task which she imposed
upon herself, of tending his flowers, served to keep him in her
mind; she associated him with all that was most charming to her
impressions; and when she had refused to express what image she
fancied Ione to resemble, it was partly, perhaps, that whatever was
bright and soft in nature she had already combined with the thought of
Glaucus. If any of my readers ever loved at an age which they would
now smile to remember- an age in which fancy forestalled the reason,
let them say whether that love, among all its strange and
complicated delicacies, was not, above all other and later passions,
susceptible of jealousy? I seek not here the cause: I know that it
is commonly the fact.

When Glaucus returned to Pompeii, Nydia had told another year of
life; that year, with its sorrows, its loneliness, its trials, had
greatly developed her mind and heart; and when the Athenian drew her
unconsciously to his breast, deeming her still in soul as in years a
child- when he kissed her smooth cheek, and wound his arm round her
trembling frame, Nydia felt suddenly, and as by revelation, that those
feelings she had long and innocently cherished were of love. Doomed to
be rescued from tyranny by Glaucus- doomed to take shelter under his
roof- doomed to breathe, but for so brief a time, the same air- and
doomed, in the first rush of a thousand happy, grateful, delicious
sentiments of an overflowing heart, to hear that he loved another;
to be commissioned to that other, the messenger, the minister; to feel
all at once that utter nothingness which she was- which she ever
must be, but which, till then, her young mind had not taught her- that
utter nothingness to him who was all to her; what wonder that, in
her wild and passionate soul, all the elements jarred discordant; that
if love reigned over the whole, it was not the love which is born of
the more sacred and soft emotions? Sometimes she dreaded only lest
Glaucus should discover her secret; sometimes she felt indignant
that it was not suspected: it was a sign of contempt- could he imagine
that she presumed so far? Her feelings to Ione ebbed and flowed with
every hour; now she loved her because he did; now she hated him for
the same cause. There were moments when she could have murdered her
unconscious mistress; moments when she could have laid down life for
her. These fierce and tremulous alternations of passion were too
severe to be borne long. Her health gave way, though she felt it
not- her cheek paled- her step grew feebler- tears came to her eyes
more often, and relieved her less.

One morning, when she repaired to her usual task in the garden
of the Athenian, she found Glaucus under the columns of the peristyle,
with a merchant of the town; he was selecting jewels for his
destined bride. He had already fitted up her apartment; the jewels
he bought that day were placed also within it- they were never fated
to grace the fair form of Ione; they may be seen at this day among the
disinterred treasures of Pompeii, in the chambers of the studio at
Naples.

'Come hither, Nydia; put down thy vase, and come hither. Thou must
take this chain from me- stay- there, I have put it on. There,
Servilius, does it not become her?'

'Wonderfully!' answered the jeweller; for jewellers were well-bred
and flattering men, even at that day. 'But when these ear-rings
glitter in the ears of the noble Ione, then, by Bacchus! you will
see whether my art adds anything to beauty.'

'Ione?' repeated Nydia, who had hitherto acknowledged by smiles
and blushes the gift of Glaucus.

'Yes,' replied the Athenian, carelessly toying with the gems; 'I
am choosing a present for Ione, but there are none worthy of her.'

He was startled as he spoke by an abrupt gesture of Nydia; she
tore the chain violently from her neck, and dashed it on the ground.

'How is this? What, Nydia, dost thou not like the bauble? art thou
offended?'

'You treat me ever as a slave and as a child,' replied the
Thessalian, with ill-suppressed sobs, and she turned hastily away to
the opposite corner of the garden.

Glaucus did not attempt to follow, or to soothe; he was
offended; he continued to examine the jewels and to comment on their
fashion- to object to this and to praise that, and finally to be
talked by the merchant into buying all; the safest plan for a lover,
and a plan that any one will do right to adopt, provided always that
he can obtain an Ione!

When he had completed his purchase and dismissed the jeweller,
he retired into his chamber, dressed, mounted his chariot, and went to
Ione. He thought no more of the blind girl, or her offence; he had
forgotten both the one and the other.

He spent the forenoon with his beautiful Neapolitan, repaired
thence to the baths, supped (if, as we have said before, we can justly
so translate the three o'clock coena of the Romans) alone, and abroad,
for Pompeii had its restaurateurs- and returning home to change his
dress ere he again repaired to the house of Ione, he passed the
peristyle, but with the absorbed reverie and absent eyes of a man in
love, and did not note the form of the poor blind girl, bending
exactly in the same place where he had left her. But though he saw her
not, her ear recognised at once the sound of his step. She had been
counting the moments to his return. He had scarcely entered his
favourite chamber, which opened on the peristyle, and seated himself
musingly on his couch, when he felt his robe timorously touched,
and, turning, he beheld Nydia kneeling before him, and holding up to
him a handful of flowers- a gentle and appropriate peace-offering- her
eyes, darkly upheld to his own, streamed with tears.

'I have offended thee,' said she, sobbing, 'and for the first
time. I would die rather than cause thee a moment's pain- say that
thou wilt forgive me. See! I have taken up the chain; I have put it
on: I will never part from it- it is thy gift.'

'My dear Nydia,' returned Glaucus, and raising her, he kissed
her forehead, 'think of it no more! But why, my child, wert thou so
suddenly angry? I could not divine the cause?'

'Do not ask!' said she, colouring violently. 'I am a thing full of
faults and humours; you know I am but a child- you say so often: is it
from a child that you can expect a reason for every folly?'

'But, prettiest, you will soon be a child no more; and if you
would have us treat you as a woman, you must learn to govern these
singular impulses and gales of passion. Think not I chide: no, it is
for your happiness only I speak.'

'It is true,' said Nydia, 'I must learn to govern myself I must
bide, I must suppress, my heart. This is a woman's task and duty;
methinks her virtue is hypocrisy.'

'Self-control is not deceit, my Nydia,' returned the Athenian; and
that is the virtue necessary alike to man and to woman; it is the true
senatorial toga, the badge of the dignity it covers!'

'Self-control! self-control! Well, well, what you say is right!
When I listen to you, Glaucus, my wildest thoughts grow calm and
sweet, and a delicious serenity falls over me. Advise, ah! guide me
ever, my preserver!'

'Thy affectionate heart will be thy best guide, Nydia, when thou
hast learned to regulate its feelings.'

'Ah! that will be never,' sighed Nydia, wiping away her tears.

'Say not so: the first effort is the only difficult one.'

'I have made many first efforts,' answered Nydia, innocently. 'But
you, my Mentor, do you find it so easy to control yourself? Can you
conceal, can you even regulate, your love for Ione?'

'Love! dear Nydia: ah! that is quite another matter,' answered the
young preceptor.

'I thought so!' returned Nydia, with a melancholy smile. 'Glaucus,
wilt thou take my poor flowers? Do with them as thou wilt- thou
canst give them to Ione,' added she, with a little hesitation.

'Nay, Nydia,' answered Glaucus, kindly, divining something of
jealousy in her language, though he imagined it only the jealousy of a
vain and susceptible child; 'I will not give thy pretty flowers to any
one. Sit here and weave them into a garland; I will wear it this
night: it is not the first those delicate fingers have woven for me.'

The poor girl delightedly sat down beside Glaucus. She drew from
her girdle a ball of the many-coloured threads, or rather slender
ribands, used in the weaving of garlands, and which (for it was her
professional occupation) she carried constantly with her, and began
quickly and gracefully to commence her task. Upon her young cheeks the
tears were already dried, a faint but happy smile played round her
lips- childlike, indeed, she was sensible only of the joy of the
present hour: she was reconciled to Glaucus: he had forgiven her-
she was beside him- he played caressingly with her silken hair- his
breath fanned her cheek- Ione, the cruel Ione, was not by- none
other demanded, divided, his care. Yes, she was happy and forgetful;
it was one of the few moments in her brief and troubled life that it
was sweet to treasure, to recall. As the butterfly, allured by the
winter sun, basks for a little in the sudden light, ere yet the wind
awakes and the frost comes on, which shall blast it before the eve-
she rested beneath a beam, which, by contrast with the wonted skies,
was not chilling; and the instinct which should have warned her of its
briefness, bade her only gladden in its smile.

'Thou hast beautiful locks,' said Glaucus. 'They were once, I ween
well, a mother's delight.'

Nydia sighed; it would seem that she had not been born a slave;
but she ever shunned the mention of her parentage, and, whether
obscure or noble, certain it is that her birth was never known by
her benefactors, nor by any one in those distant shores, even to the
last. The child of sorrow and of mystery, she came and went as some
bird that enters our chamber for a moment; we see it flutter for a
while before us, we know not whence it flew or to what region it
escapes.

Nydia sighed, and after a short pause, without answering the
remark, said:

'But do I weave too many roses in my wreath, Glaucus? They tell me
it is thy favourite flower.'

'And ever favoured, my Nydia, be it by those who have the soul
of poetry: it is the flower of love, of festival; it is also the
flower we dedicate to silence and to death; it blooms on our brows
in life, while life be worth the having; it is scattered above our
sepulchre when we are no more.'

'Ah! would,' said Nydia, 'instead of this perishable wreath,
that I could take thy web from the hand of the Fates, and insert the
roses there!'

'Pretty one! thy wish is worthy of a voice so attuned to song;
it is uttered in the spirit of song; and, whatever my doom, I thank
thee.'

'Whatever thy doom! is it not already destined to all things
bright and fair? My wish was vain. The Fates will be as tender to thee
as I should.'

'It might not be so, Nydia, were it not for love! While youth
lasts, I may forget my country for a while. But what Athenian, in
his graver manhood, can think of Athens as she was, and be contented
that he is happy, while she is fallen?- fallen, and for ever?'

'And why for ever?'

'As ashes cannot be rekindled- as love once dead can never revive,
so freedom departed from a people is never regained. But talk we not
of these matters unsuited to thee.'

'To me, oh! thou errest. I, too, have my sighs for Greece; my
cradle was rocked at the foot of Olympus; the gods have left the
mountain, but their traces may be seen- seen in the hearts of their
worshippers, seen in the beauty of their clime: they tell me it is
beautiful, and I have felt its airs, to which even these are harsh-
its sun, to which these skies are chill. Oh! talk to me of Greece!
Poor fool that I am, I can comprehend thee! and methinks, had I yet
lingered on those shores, had I been a Grecian maid whose happy fate
it was to love and to be loved, I myself could have armed my lover for
another Marathon, a new Plataea. Yes, the hand that now weaves the
roses should have woven thee the olive crown!'

'If such a day could come!' said Glaucus, catching the
enthusiasm of the blind Thessalian, and half rising.- 'But no! the sun
has set, and the night only bids us be forgetful- and in forgetfulness
be gay- weave still the roses!'

But it was with a melancholy tone of forced gaiety that the
Athenian uttered the last words: and sinking into a gloomy reverie, he
was only wakened from it, a few minutes afterwards, by the voice of
Nydia, as she sang in a low tone the following words, which he had
once taught her:-


          THE APOLOGY FOR PLEASURE

                       I

          Who will assume the bays
             That the hero wore?
          Wreaths on the Tomb of Days
             Gone evermore!
          Who shall disturb the brave,
          Or one leaf on their holy grave?
          The laurel is vowed to them,
          Leave the bay on its sacred stem!
             But this, the rose, the fading rose,
             Alike for slave and freeman grows.

                      II

          If Memory sit beside the dead
             With tombs her only treasure;
          If Hope is lost and Freedom fled,
             The more excuse for Pleasure.
          Come, weave the wreath, the roses weave,
             The rose at least is ours:
          To feeble hearts our fathers leave,
             In pitying scorn, the flowers!

                      III

             On the summit, worn and hoary,
          Of Phyle's solemn hill,
          The tramp of the brave is still!
          And still in the saddening Mart,
          The pulse of that mighty heart,
             Whose very blood was glory!
          Glaucopis forsakes her own,
             The angry gods forget us;
          But yet, the blue streams along,
          Walk the feet of the silver Song;
          And the night-bird wakes the moon;
          And the bees in the blushing noon
             Haunt the heart of the old Hymettus.
          We are fallen, but not forlorn,
             If something is left to cherish;
          As Love was the earliest born,
             So Love is the last to perish.

                      IV

          Wreathe then the roses, wreathe
             The BEAUTIFUL still is ours,
          While the stream shall flow and the sky
                                      shall glow,
          The BEAUTIFUL still is ours!
          Whatever is fair, or soft, or bright,
          In the lap of day or the arms of night,
          Whispers our soul of Greece- of Greece,
          And hushes our care with a voice of peace.
             Wreathe then the roses, wreathe!
             They tell me of earlier hours;
          And I hear the heart of my Country breathe
             From the lips of the Stranger's flowers.

                          Chapter V


 NYDIA ENCOUNTERS JULIA. INTERVIEW OF THE HEATHEN SISTER AND
   CONVERTED BROTHER. AN ATHENIAN'S NOTION OF CHRISTIANITY


WHAT happiness to Ione! 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, whither Glaucus
had already preceded her. Suddenly she was interrupted in her fond
thoughts by a female voice.

'Blind flower-girl, whither 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
neighbours'.

'Dost 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 wert purchased by the beautiful Greek
Glaucus; is that true, pretty slave?' asked Julia.

'I serve the Neapolitan, Ione,' 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 prate 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 Ione will chide thee?- Ay, I doubt not she is a
second Thalestris. But come, then, to-morrow: 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 Ione. 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 mind which is ever aspiring
above earth, are but little prone to the earthlier affections; and
it had been long since Apaecides had sought those soft and friendly
interchanges of thought, those sweet confidences, which in his earlier
youth had bound him to Ione, and which are so natural to that
endearing connection which existed between them.

Ione, however, had not ceased to regret his estrangement: she
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 bended
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, than 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!' said she, 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, Ione!'

'Alas! can we believe it? or if we believed, would it not be a
melancholy faith answered the Neapolitan. 'What! all this beautiful
world made only human!- mountain disenchanted of its Oread- the waters
of their Nymph- that beautiful prodigality 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, Apaecides: all that is brightest
in our hearts is that very credulity which peoples the universe with
gods.'

Ione answered as a believer in the poesy 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 thyrsus. At every incident
they recurred to a god, every cup of wine was prefaced by a
libation; the very garlands on their thresholds 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, in listening reverence, to oracles at the shrines of
St. Januarius or St. Stephen, instead of to those of Isis or Apollo.

But these superstitions were not to the early Christians the
object of contempt so much as of horror. They did not believe, with
the quiet scepticism of the heathen philosopher, that the gods were
inventions of the priests; 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 shuddered at the
representative of Moloch or of Satan.

Apaecides had not yet adopted formally the Christian faith, but he
was already on the brink of it. He already participated the
doctrines of Olinthus- 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 Ione made him
shudder. He hastened to reply vehemently, and yet so confusedly,
that Ione feared for his reason more than she dreaded his violence.

'Ah, my brother!' said she, 'these hard duties of thine have
shattered thy very sense. Come to me, Apaecides, 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 Ione could not
offend thee!'

'Ione,' said Apaecides, drawing 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?'

'Dii meliora! the gods forbid!' said Ione, 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 Apaecides. He rose, muttering to himself, turned from the
chamber, then, stopping, half way, gazed wistfully on Ione, and
extended his arms.

Ione flew to them in joy; he kissed her earnestly, and then he
said:

'Farewell, my sister! when we next meet, thou mayst be to me as
nothing; take thou, then, this embrace- full yet of all the tender
reminiscences 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
shuddered at the blessing 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!

Glaucus found Ione 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
Ione to conceive the intentions or the meaning of Apaecides.

'Hast thou ever heard much,' asked she, 'of this new sect of the
Nazarenes, of which my brother spoke?'

'I have often heard enough of the votaries,' returned Glaucus,
'but of their exact tenets know I naught, save that in their
doctrine there seemeth something preternaturally chilling and
morose. They live apart from their kind; they affect 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
Trophonius. Yet,' continued Glaucus, after a slight pause, 'they
have not wanted men of great power and genius, nor converts, even
among the Areopagites of Athens. Well do I remember to have heard my
father speak of one strange guest at Athens, many years ago;
methinks 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 and 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 mien and his countenance awed 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 mien; his robes were dark
and ample; the declining sun, for it was evening, shone aslant 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 climes; 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 in 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. "Think you," he cried,
"that the Invisible is like your statues of gold and marble? Think you
that He needeth sacrifice from you: He who made heaven and earth?"
Then spake he 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's sneer; and the Epicurean, who believeth 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.'

Ione listened with wrapt 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!

                          Chapter VI


           THE PORTER. THE GIRL. AND THE GLADIATOR


THE door of Diomed's house stood open, and Medon, the old slave,
sat at the bottom of the steps by which you 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 neighbourhood, 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 chequers.
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 travellers 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 denizens of Pompeii, and now converted into the
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 sentry, the sun shining brightly on his
polished crest, and the lance on which he leaned. The gate itself
was divided into three arches, the centre one for vehicles, the others
for the foot-passengers; and on either side rose the massive walls
which girt the city, composed, patched, repaired at a thousand
different epochs, according as war, time, or the earthquake had
shattered that vain protection. At frequent intervals rose square
towers, whose summits broke in 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.

'Hast thou heard the news, old Medon?' said a young woman, with
a pitcher in her hand, as she paused by Diomed's door to gossip a
moment with the slave, ere she repaired to the neighbouring inn to
fill the vessel, and coquet with the travellers.

'The 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!'

'Ay,' said the slave, indifferently.

'Yes, a present from the noble Pomponianus.'

'A present! I thought thou saidst a visitor?'

'It is both visitor and present. Know, O dull and stupid! that
it is a most beautiful young tiger, for our approaching games in the
amphitheatre. Hear you that, Medon? 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 Medon, sadly and cynically.

'Fool me no fool, old churl! 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, Medon! 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.'

'Vah! vah!' said the slave, with great asperity; 'think of thine
own danger ere thou thus pratest 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
Medon. '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- methinks
thou art one of them. Well, I can prate with thee, grey croaker, no
more: thou growest worse and worse- Vale! O 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!
           Lo, the swordsmen, bold as the son of Alcmena,
           Sweep, side by side, o'er 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 to the crowded hostelry.

'My poor son!' said the slave, half aloud, '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
inspirest 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 gait 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 Lydon! is it indeed thou?' said the old man, joyfully.
'Ah, thou wert present to my thoughts.'

'I am glad to hear it, my father,' said the gladiator,
respectfully touching the knees and 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! my father, it was but a few days since that I was
taunted, by one, too, 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 sum was the prize of victory. Alas! he little knew the soul of
Lydon!'

'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 door 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 as are thy motives,' said Medon, 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. Forbear! forbear! rather would I be a
slave for ever than purchase liberty on such terms!'

'Hush, my father!' replied Lydon, 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! couldst 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,
unprincipled 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 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 away to wring his hands; and in
the attempt to reprove, his broken voice lost itself in weeping.

'And if,' resumed Lydon- 'if thy Deity (methinks 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 fortunate
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 hadst 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. Didst thou not complain to me that thou wert compelled to
offices that were not odious to thee as a slave, but guilty as a
Nazarene? Didst thou not tell me that thy soul shook with remorse when
thou wert 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? Didst thou not tell me that even by pouring wine before
the threshold, and calling on the name of some Grecian deity, thou
didst fear thou wert incurring penalties worse than those of Tantalus,
an eternity of tortures more terrible than those of the Tartarian
fields? Didst thou not tell me this? I wondered, I could not
comprehend; nor, by Hercules! can I now: but I was thy son, and my
sole task was to compassionate and 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 amount 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 Olinthus!' sighed 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, gaily; 'but not till thou art a slave no more. Beneath
thy own roof, my father, thou shalt puzzle this dull brain all day
long, ay, 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 nine hundred and
ninety-nine shops of old Julia Felix, in the sunny part of the city,
where thou mayst 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 lovest not her name, it is all
one to Lydon)- then, I say, perhaps thou mayst have a daughter, too,
to tend thy grey hairs, and hear shrill voices at thy knee, that shall
call thee "Lydon'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 lanista waits me. Come! thy blessing!'

As Lydon thus spoke, he had already quitted the dark chamber 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.

'O bless thee! bless thee, my brave boy!' said Medon, 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 a sweet voice. '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.

'Have I not told thee!' said the slave, peevishly: 'enter.'

'Thanks,' said the speaker, plaintively; and the slave, roused
by the tone, looked up, and recognised the blind flower-girl. Sorrow
can sympathise 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 to
her the charge of the blind girl.

                         Chapter VII


           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 cubiculum which adjoined it, the room was small, but
much larger than the usual apartments appropriated to sleep, which
were so diminutive, that few who have not seen the bed-chambers,
even in the gayest mansions, can form any notion of the petty
pigeon-holes 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 appear 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
colours 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
ranged the cosmetics and the unguents- the perfumes and the paints-
the jewels and combs- the ribands 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 colourings of the
wall, in all the dazzling frescoes of Pompeian 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 Tibullus. Before the
door, which communicated with the cubiculum, hung a curtain richly
broidered with gold flowers. Such was the dressing-room of a beauty
eighteen 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 centre than the summit of the human form.

Her tunic, of a deep amber, which well set off her dark hair and
somewhat embrowned complexion, swept in ample folds to her feet, which
were cased in slippers, fastened round the slender ankle 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 all 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?- One would
think you were dressing Corinna, whose face is all of one side. Now
put in the flowers- what, fool!- not that dull pink- you are not
suiting colours to the dim cheek of Chloris: it must be the
brightest flowers that can alone suit the cheek of the young Julia.'

'Gently!' said the lady, stamping her small foot violently: you
pull my hair as if you were plucking up 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 horsehair of the widow Fulvia. Now, then, the riband- that's
right. Fair Julia, look in the mirror; saw you ever anything so lovely
as yourself?'

When, after innumerable comments, difficulties, and delays, the
intricate tower was at length completed, the next preparation was that
of giving to the eyes the soft languish, produced by a dark powder
applied to the lids and brows; a small patch cut in the form of a
crescent, skilfully 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 ear-rings 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 riband, 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 with a last gaze of complacent
vanity, and reclining again upon her seat, she bade the youngest of
her slaves, in a listless tone, read to her the enamoured couplets
of Tibullus. This lecture was still proceeding, when a female slave
admitted Nydia into the presence of the lady of the place.

'Salve, 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
an embarrassed silence. She then motioned her attendants to
withdraw, and to close the door. When they were alone, she said,
looking mechanically from Nydia, and forgetful that she was with one
who could not observe her countenance:

'You serve the Neapolitan, Ione?'

'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.'

'Hem!- say they 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' returned Nydia, with a half-suppressed sigh.

'Daily, indeed! Does he find her handsome?'

'I should think so, since they are so 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,' said she, at last breaking
silence.

'And truly!'

'Thessaly is the land of magic and of witches, of talismans and of
love-philtres,' 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, colouring; 'I! how should I? No,
assuredly not!'

'The worse for thee; I could have given thee gold enough to have
purchased thy freedom hadst 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, haughtily:
'but methinks 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 ought I know
or care, she may have exercised upon him. Blind girl, I love, and-
shall Julia live to say it?- am loved 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 wert Thessalian, I imagined thy young mind
might have learned the dark secrets of thy clime.'

'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 hearest the gossip of slaves, always prone to
these dim beliefs; always ready to apply to sorcery for their own
low loves- hast thou ever heard of any Eastern magician in this
city, who possesses the art of which thou art ignorant? No vain
chiromancer, no juggler of the market-place, but some more potent
and mighty magician of India or of Egypt?'

'Of Egypt?- yes!' said Nydia, shuddering. 'What Pompeian has not
heard of Arbaces?'

'Arbaces! 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.

'He is 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 rumour.'

'By Ceres, by Pan, and by Cybele! thou dost but provoke my
curiosity, instead of exciting my fears,' returned the wayward and
pampered Pompeian. 'I will seek and question him of his lore. If to
these orgies love be admitted- why the more likely that 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.

'And who dare insult the rich daughter of Diomed?' said Julia,
haughtily. 'I will go.'

'May I visit thee afterwards to learn the result?' asked Nydia,
anxiously.

'Kiss me for thy interest in Julia's honour,' answered the lady.
'Yes, assuredly. This eve we sup abroad- come hither at the same
hour to-morrow, 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 servest
Julia, she is grateful and she is generous.'

'I cannot take thy present,' said Nydia, putting aside the
bracelet; 'but young as I am, I can sympathise 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!'

                         Chapter VIII


      JULIA SEEKS ARBACES. THE RESULT OF THAT INTERVIEW


ARBACES 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 fragrantly 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,' thought he, '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 boy Greek- 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! Oh! Ate, if thou art indeed a goddess, fill me with thy
direst Inspiration!' The Egyptian 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
Arbaces.

'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 Ione.

The first glance of the visitor now entering the apartment
sufficed to undeceive so erring a fancy. True, she was about the
same height as Ione, 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 the peerless Neapolitan- the
chaste 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 Arbaces, gazing on 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.'

'Draw near, fair stranger,' said Arbaces; '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 Arbaces 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?' said he, with a strange and slight smile.

'Canst thou ask, O wise Arbaces? Is not thy knowledge the very
gossip theme of Pompeii?'

'Some little lore have I indeed, treasured up,' replied Arbaces:
'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 Arbaces, 'can unrequited love be the lot of so fair a
form, whose modelled proportions are visible even beneath the folds of
thy graceful robe? Deign, 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 in unhappy love,' said he; well,
turn that face on the ungrateful one: what other love-charm can I give
thee?'

'Oh, cease these courtesies!' said Julia; 'it is a love-charm,
indeed, that I would ask from thy skill!'

'Fair stranger!' replied Arbaces, 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 Arbaces, and farewell!'

'Stay,' said Arbaces, who, despite his passion for Ione, was not
unmoved by the beauty of his visitor; and had he been in the flush
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
philtres and potions to those whose trade is in such knowledge, yet am
I 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, art thou
unmarried, as thy dress betokens?'

'Yes,' said Julia.

'And, being unblest with fortune, wouldst 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 grave 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, impetuously, as the blood rushed to
his cheek; 'there is but one Athenian, young and noble, in Pompeii.
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 dews 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 Arbaces: she fears that name,
and will give thee her most potent philtres.'

'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 of 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 that 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, impetuously. '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 to-morrow: 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. 'To-morrow eve, then,
order thy litter- thou hast one at thy command?'

'Surely- yes,' returned the purse-proud Julia.

'Order 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 Silenus, in the copse 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 Arbaces, the sorcerer of Egypt,
that Ione shall never wed with Glaucus.'

'And that Glaucus shall be mine,' added Julia, filling up the
incompleted sentence.

'Thou hast said it!' replied Arbaces; and Julia, half frightened
at this unhallowed appointment, but urged on by jealousy and the pique
of rivalship, even more than love, resolved to fulfil it.

Left alone, Arbaces 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,' said he again, but in a
calmer voice; 'I could not myself have given to her the poison, that
shall be indeed a philtre!- his death might be thus tracked to my
door. But the witch- ay, there is the fit, the natural agent of my
designs!'

He summoned one of his slaves, bade him hasten 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 read in the signs of their 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,' said he, as he gazed; 'the sky is
clear, but the cloud moves on.'

                          Chapter IX


           A 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 labour; 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 endeavoured, 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 labour 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 neighbouring 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.

'We disturb you, I fear,' said the silver voice of Ione, 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,' said she, suddenly, and after a long pause, 'are ye
brother and sister?'

'No,' said Ione, blushing.

'Are ye married?'

'Not so,' replied Glaucus.

'Ho, lovers!- ha!- ha!- ha!' and the witch laughed so loud and
so long that the caverns rang again.

The heart of Ione stood still at that strange mirth. Glaucus
muttered a rapid counterspell to the omen- and the slave turned as
pale as the cheek of the witch herself.

'Why dost thou laugh, old crone?' said Glaucus, somewhat
sternly, as he concluded his invocation.

'Did I laugh?' said the hag, absently.

'She is in her dotage,' whispered Glaucus: as he said this, he
caught the eye of the hag fixed upon him with a malignant and vivid
glare.

'Thou liest!' said she, abruptly.

'Thou art an uncourteous welcomer,' returned Glaucus.

'Hush! provoke her not, dear Glaucus!' whispered Ione.

'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- loathe- loathe- ha!- ha!-
ha!'

It was now Ione's turn to pray against the unpleasing prophecy.

'The gods forbid!' said she. 'Yet, poor woman, thou knowest little
of love, or thou wouldst know that it never changes.'

'Was I young once, think ye?' returned 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.

'Hast thou dwelt here long?' said Glaucus, after a pause,
feeling uncomfortably oppressed beneath a silence so appalling.

'Ah, long!- yes.'

'It is but a drear abode.'

'Ha! thou mayst 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 should 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 philtres; 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 silence so
obstinate and sullen, that Glaucus in vain endeavoured to draw her
into farther conversation. She did not evince, by 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 Ione, 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 its gloomy quaintness
of appurtenance. 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 and
crested head of a large snake: whether it was that the vivid colouring
of the Athenian's cloak, thrown over the shoulders of Ione,
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
his 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 ghastliness
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,' said she, 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 haply 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 treasurer of wrath- I curse thee! and thou art
cursed! May thy love be blasted- may thy name be blackened- may the
infernals mark thee- may thy heart wither and scorch- may thy last
hour recall to thee the prophet voice of the Saga of Vesuvius! And
thou,' she added, turning sharply towards Ione, and raising her
right arm, when Glaucus burst impetuously on her speech:

'Hag!' cried he, '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 favourite,
which she dragged from the hearth, she turned to them her face no
more.

'O Glaucus!' said Ione, 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 Ione, stooping,
placed her purse on the hag's lap.

'Away!' said she, 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 deigned 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 Ione; and even Glaucus could not thoroughly
shake off the impression they bequeathed. The storm had subsided-
save, now and then, a low thunder muttered at 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 carrucarius calling loudly upon Hercules to
tell him where his charge had vanished.

Glaucus vainly endeavoured to cheer the exhausted spirits of Ione;
and scarce less vainly to recover the elastic tone of his own
natural gaiety. They soon arrived before the gate of the city: as it
opened to them, a litter borne by slaves impeded the 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 recognised. 'I am bound to the villa of Marcus
Polybius. I shall return shortly. I am Arbaces the Egyptian.'

The scruples of him at the gate were removed, and the litter
passed close beside the carriage that bore the lovers.

'Arbaces, at this hour!- scarce recovered too, methinks!-
Whither and for what can he leave the city?' said Glaucus.

'Alas!' replied Ione, bursting into tears, 'my soul feels still
more and more the omen of evil. Preserve us, O ye Gods! or at
least,' she murmured inly, 'preserve my Glaucus!'

                          Chapter X


         THE LORD OF THE BURNING BELT AND HIS MINION.
           FATE WRITES HER PROPHECY IN RED LETTERS,
                   BUT WHO SHALL READ THEM?


ARBACES had tarried only till the cessation of the tempest allowed
him, under cover of night, to seek the Saga of Vesuvius. Borne 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 Arbaces 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, with 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 boughs 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 Arbaces, 'that
lead one like me just new 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 shone 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 redly clear.

He paused, as at length he approached the mouth of the cavern,
to recover breath; and then, with his wonted collected and stately
mien, 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 gravelike 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 Erebus!' said Arbaces, 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 perished Etrurian race?'

'I am he,' answered Arbaces, 'from whom all cultivators of
magic, from north to south, from east to west, from the Ganges and the
Nile to the vales of Thessaly and the shores of the yellow Tiber, have
stooped 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 Arbaces the Egyptian: to us of a higher
nature and deeper knowledge, his rightful appellation is Hermes of the
Burning Girdle.'

'Look again, returned Arbaces: 'I am he.'

As he spoke he drew aside his robe, and revealed a cincture
seemingly of fire, that burned around his waist, clasped in the centre
by a plate whereon 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 Arbaces. '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 Ione
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 whose rock-built
cities yet frown above the robber race that hath seized upon their
ancient reign. Partly came those tribes from Greece, partly were
they exiles from a more burning and primeval soil. In either case
art thou of Egyptian lineage, for the Grecian masters of the
aboriginal helot 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 as by knowledge, art
thou the subject of Arbaces. Hear me, then, and obey!'

The witch bowed her head.

'Whatever art we possess in sorcery,' continued Arbaces, 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, methinks, 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. Deign 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 cauldron.'

The Egyptian moved his seat from so unblessed or so unhealthful
a vicinity as the witch spoke.

'It is well,' said he; 'thou hast learned that maxim of all the
deeper knowledge which saith, "Despise the body to make wise the
mind." But to thy task. There cometh to thee by to-morrow'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 philtres, 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! dread master,' 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 Arbaces, sneeringly.

The witch hid her loathsome face with her hands.

'Oh! years ago,' said she, 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 fancied myself beloved.'

'And what connection hath thy love, witch, with my commands?' said
Arbaces, impetuously.

'Patience,' resumed the witch; 'patience, I implore. 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, crush me, dread
walls! my trembling hands mistook the phials, 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 curse 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 phial; still I fancy that they shall blast her beauty to
the dust; still I wake and see the quivering body, the foaming lips,
the glazing eyes of my Aulus- murdered, and by me!'

The skeleton frame of the witch shook beneath strong convulsions.

Arbaces 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 Arbaces!-
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 Arbaces. '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
shell-fish, so should each year wall and incrust the heart. Think of
those 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 and broidery,
of smiles and glances, soulless and mindless, with no charm but that
of beauty- accursed 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! saidst 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 affronts so common amongst the solitary and the
shunned.

'Ay, 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 archest magic to protect
thyself!'

'Ha!' said Arbaces, 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 and
circumspect.

'But,' continued the witch, 'if instead of that which shall arrest
the heart, I give that which shall sear and blast the brain- which
shall make him who quaffs it unfit for the uses and career of life- an
abject, raving, benighted thing- smiting sense to drivelling 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
Arbaces- 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 ten thousand 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 inquire 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 philtres; and
even the fair she that gave it finds indulgence in the excuse.
Mighty Hermes, have I ministered to thee cunningly?'

'Thou shalt have twenty years' longer date for this,' returned
Arbaces. 'I will write anew the epoch 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 comforts she disdained. 'Farewell,'
said Arbaces, 'fail not- outwatch the stars in concocting thy
beverage- thou shalt lord it over thy sisters at the Walnut-tree,'
when thou tellest them that thy patron and thy friend is Hermes the
Egyptian. To-morrow 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 deathlike 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, wrung from the credulity or gratitude of her
visitors.

'I love to look at you,' said she, apostrophising the moneys; 'for
when I see you I feel that I am indeed of power. And I am to have
twenty years' longer life to increase your store! O 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 spirally along the cavern.

'The Shades are noisier than their wont,' said the hag, shaking
her grey 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 fell mistress,
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 dotard,' 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 cursed him, and he
shall be cursed!'

On that night, and at the same hour which witnessed the dark and
unholy interview between Arbaces and the Saga, Apaecides was baptised.

                          Chapter XI


            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; 'dost 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 impostors, who have learned, perhaps, nothing
but the very charm for which I apply to their skill, and which is
drawn but from the knowledge of the field's herbs and simples.
Wherefore should I dread?'

'Dost thou not fear thy companion?'

'What, Arbaces? By Dian, I never saw 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 Arbaces 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,' said she 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.'

'Ione 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 favour 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 Pompeian.

On her way back to Ione she was met by the chariot of Glaucus,
on whose fiery and curveting 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 think you Ione 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 Ione's
permission.'

'Then I may stay over the night, and return to-morrow?' 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 Ione. Vale!'

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 borne
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 Arbaces. 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.

'Methinks, by this dim light,' said one of the bystanders, 'I
recognise the slaves of Diomed.'

'True, Clodius,' said Sallust: 'it is probably the litter of his
daughter Julia. She is rich, my friend; why dost thou not proffer
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 sesterces would have passed to thee, wise Clodius. A wife
is a good thing- when it belongs to another man!'

'But,' continued Clodius, '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 gilt, and the vessel will
reconcile one to the odour of the flame. I shall only protest, my
Sallust, against Diomed's making thee trustee to his daughter's
fortune.'

'Ha! ha! let us within, my comissator; the wine and the garlands
wait 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, fool- 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 Silenus- the
merry god reclined upon a fragment of rock- the lynx of Bacchus at his
feet- and over his mouth he held, with extended arm, a bunch of
grapes, which he seemingly laughed to welcome ere he devoured.

'I see not the magician,' said Julia, looking round: when, as
she spoke, the Egyptian slowly emerged from the neighbouring
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 shuddered.

'Thou hast been at my house, methinks!' 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 Naiads!'

The vain Julia was not, as we have seen, easily affrighted; she
was moved by the flattery of Arbaces, 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 Bath-house, 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, accursed
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 are not always
salutary- sometimes they soften and amend, but as often they
indurate 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 a
sordid taskmaster, exchanging her situation, only yet more to embitter
her lot- the kindlier feelings, naturally profuse 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- a Myrrha, a Medea- 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, thanked be 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 again
spoke.

'Oh!' said she, 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 pledges its effect. My rival shall
be suddenly indifferent to his eye, and I, I alone, the idol of
Glaucus!'

'Glaucus!' exclaimed Nydia.

'Ay! I told thee, 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 Ione; 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 Ione, every now
and then abruptly digressing to the horror of the scene she had
quitted- the unmoved mien of Arbaces, and his authority over the
dreadful Saga.

Meanwhile Nydia recovered her self-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 repast awaited them.

'Drink, Nydia, thou must be cold, the air was chill to-night; as
for me, my veins are yet ice.'

And Julia unhesitatingly quaffed deep draughts of the spiced wine.

'Thou hast the potion,' said Nydia; 'let me hold it in my hands.
How small the phial is! of what colour is the draught?'

'Clear as crystal,' replied Julia, as she retook the philtre;
'thou couldst not tell it from this water. The witch assures me it
is tasteless. Small though the phial, it suffices for a life's
fidelity: it is to be poured into any liquid; and Glaucus will only
know what he has quaffed by the effect.'

'Exactly like this water in appearance?'

'Yes, sparkling and colourless as this. How bright it seems! it is
as the very essence of moonlit dews. 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 draught gives
no odour. 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 yestermorn- wilt 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 draught would be equally efficacious, whoever administers
it?'

'If the most hideous hag beneath the sun bestowed it, such is
its asserted virtue that Glaucus would deem her beautiful, and none
but her!'

Julia, warmed by wine, and the reaction of her spirits, was now
all animation and delight; she laughed loud, and talked 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 draught 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 dews of sleep fall not on our lips. Fair Julia, I
must leave thee very early- so Ione bids- perhaps before thou art
awake; accept, therefore, now my congratulations.'

'Thanks: when next we meet you may find Glaucus 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!' said she, 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 fanned the burning cheek of the blind girl. Nydia,
then, opening the phial, 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 phial in its 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, Medon, 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 whirl of tumultuous 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. Ione!- ah; away
hesitation! away remorse! Glaucus, my fate is in thy smile; and thine!
O hope! O joy! O transport, thy fate is in these hands!'