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                           BOOK IV


                          Chapter I


       REFLECTIONS ON THE ZEAL OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS.
     TWO MEN COME TO A PERILOUS RESOLVE. WALLS HAVE EARS,
                  PARTICULARLY SACRED WALLS


WHOEVER regards the early history of Christianity, will perceive
how necessary to its triumph was that fierce spirit of zeal, which,
fearing no danger, accepting no compromise, inspired its champions and
sustained its martyrs. In a dominant Church the genius of
intolerance betrays its cause- in a weak and persecuted Church, the
same genius mainly supports. It was necessary to scorn, to loathe,
to abhor the creeds of other men, in order to conquer the
temptations which they presented- it was necessary rigidly to
believe not only that the Gospel was the true faith, but the sole true
faith that saved, in order to nerve the disciple to the austerity of
its doctrine, and to encourage him to the sacred and perilous chivalry
of converting the Polytheist and the Heathen. The sectarian
sternness which confined virtue and heaven to a chosen few, which
saw demons in other gods, and the penalties of hell in other
religions- made the believer naturally anxious to convert all to
whom he felt the ties of human affection; and the circle thus traced
by benevolence to man was yet more widened by a desire for the glory
of God. It was for the honour of the Christian faith that the
Christian boldly forced its tenets upon the scepticism of some, the
repugnance of others, the sage contempt of the philosopher, the
pious shudder of the people- his very intolerance supplied him with
his fittest instruments of success; and the soft Heathen began at last
to imagine there must indeed be something holy in a zeal wholly
foreign to his experience, which stopped at no obstacle, dreaded no
danger, and even at the torture, or on the scaffold, referred a
dispute far other than the calm differences of speculative
philosophy to the tribunal of an Eternal Judge. It was thus that the
same fervour which made the Churchman of the middle age a bigot
without mercy, made the Christian of the early days a hero without
fear.

Of these more fiery, daring, and earnest natures, not the least
ardent was Olinthus. No sooner had Apaecides been received by the
rites of baptism into the bosom of the Church, than the Nazarene
hastened to make him conscious of the impossibility to retain the
office and robes of priesthood. He could not, it was evident,
profess to worship God, and continue even outwardly to honour the
idolatrous altars of the Fiend.

Nor was this all, the sanguine and impetuous mind of Olinthus
beheld in the power of Apaecides the means of divulging to the deluded
people the juggling mysteries of the oracular Isis. He thought
Heaven had sent this instrument of his design in order to disabuse the
eyes of the crowd, and prepare the way, perchance, for the
conversion of a whole city. He did not hesitate then to appeal to
all the new-kindled enthusiasm of Apaecides, to arouse his courage,
and to stimulate his zeal. They met, according to previous
agreement, the evening after the baptism of Apaecides, in the grove of
Cybele, which we have before described.

'At the next solemn consultation of the oracle,' said Olinthus, as
he proceeded in the warmth of his address, 'advance yourself to the
railing, proclaim aloud to the people the deception they endure,
invite them to enter, to be themselves the witness of the gross but
artful mechanism of imposture thou hast described to me. Fear not- the
Lord, who protected Daniel, shall protect thee; we, the community of
Christians, will be amongst the crowd; we will urge on the
shrinking: and in the first flush of the popular indignation and
shame, I myself, upon those very altars, will plant the palm-branch
typical of the Gospel- and to my tongue shall descend the rushing
Spirit of the living God.'

Heated and excited as he was, this suggestion was not unpleasing
to Apaecides. He was rejoiced at so early an opportunity of
distinguishing his faith in his new sect, and to his holier feelings
were added those of a vindictive loathing at the imposition he had
himself suffered, and a desire to avenge it. In that sanguine and
elastic overbound of obstacles (the rashness necessary to all who
undertake venturous and lofty actions), neither Olinthus nor the
proselyte perceived the impediments to the success of their scheme,
which might be found in the reverent superstition of the people
themselves, who would probably be loth, before the sacred altars of
the great Egyptian goddess, to believe even the testimony of her
priest against her power.

Apaecides then assented to this proposal with a readiness which
delighted Olinthus. They parted with the understanding that Olinthus
should confer with the more important of his Christian brethren on his
great enterprise, should receive their advice and the assurances of
their support on the eventful day. It so chanced that one of the
festivals of Isis was to be held on the second day after this
conference. The festival proffered a ready occasion for the design.
They appointed to meet once more on the next evening at the same spot;
and in that meeting were finally to be settled the order and details
of the disclosure for the following day.

It happened that the latter part of this conference had been
held near the sacellum, or small chapel, which I have described in the
early part of this work; and so soon as the forms of the Christian and
the priest had disappeared from the grove, a dark and ungainly
figure emerged from behind the chapel.

'I have tracked you with some effect, my brother flamen,'
soliloquised the eavesdropper; 'you, the priest of Isis, have not
for mere idle discussion conferred with this gloomy Christian. Alas!
that I could not hear all your precious plot: enough! I find, at
least, that you meditate revealing the sacred mysteries, and that
to-morrow you meet again at this place to plan the how and the when.
May Osiris sharpen my ears then, to detect the whole of your
unheard-of audacity! When I have learned more, I must confer at once
with Arbaces. We will frustrate you, my friends, deep as you think
yourselves. At present, my breast is a locked treasury of your
secret.'

Thus muttering, Calenus, for it was he, wrapped his robe round
him, and strode thoughtfully homeward.

                          Chapter II


   A CLASSIC HOST, COOK, AND KITCHEN. APAECIDES SEEKS IONE.
                      THEIR CONVERSATION


IT was then the day for Diomed's banquet to the most select of his
friends. The graceful Glaucus, the beautiful Ione, the official Pansa,
the high-born Clodius, the immortal Fulvius, the exquisite Lepidus,
the epicurean Sallust, were not the only honourers of his festival. He
expected, also, an invalid senator from Rome (a man of considerable
repute and favour at court), and a great warrior from Herculaneum, who
had fought with Titus against the Jews, and having enriched himself
prodigiously in the wars, was always told by his friends that his
country was eternally indebted to his disinterested exertions! The
party, however, extended to a yet greater number: for although,
critically speaking, it was, at one time, thought inelegant among
the Romans to entertain less than three or more than nine at their
banquets, yet this rule was easily disregarded by the ostentatious.
And we are told, indeed, in history, that one of the most splendid
of these entertainers usually feasted a select party of three hundred.
Diomed, however, more modest, contented himself with doubling the
number of the Muses. His party consisted of eighteen, no unfashionable
number in the present day.

It was the morning of Diomed's banquet; and Diomed himself, though
he greatly affected the gentleman and the scholar, retained enough
of his mercantile experience to know that a master's eye makes a ready
servant. Accordingly, with his tunic ungirdled on his portly
stomach, his easy slippers on his feet, a small wand in his hand,
wherewith he now directed the gaze, and now corrected the back, of
some duller menial, he went from chamber to chamber of his costly
villa.

He did not disdain even a visit to that sacred apartment in
which the priests of the festival prepare their offerings. On entering
the kitchen, his ears were agreeably stunned by the noise of dishes
and pans, of oaths and commands. Small as this indespensible chamber
seems to have been in all the houses of Pompeii, it was, nevertheless,
usually fitted up with all that amazing variety of stoves and
shapes, stew-pans and saucepans, cutters and moulds, without which a
cook of spirit, no matter whether he be an ancient or a modern,
declares it utterly impossible that he can give you anything to eat.
And as fuel was then, as now, dear and scarce in those regions,
great seems to have been the dexterity exercised in preparing as
many things as possible with as little fire. An admirable
contrivance of this nature may be still seen in the Neapolitan Museum,
viz., a portable kitchen, about the size of a folio volume, containing
stoves for four dishes, and an apparatus for heating water or other
beverages.

Across the small kitchen flitted many forms which the quick eye of
the master did not recognise.

'Oh! oh!' grumbled he to himself, 'that cursed Congrio hath
invited a whole legion of cooks to assist him. They won't serve for
nothing, and this is another item in the total of my day's expenses.
By Bacchus! thrice lucky shall I be if the slaves do not help
themselves to some of the drinking vessels: ready, alas, are their
hands, capacious are their tunics. Me miserum!'

The cooks, however, worked on, seemingly heedless of the
apparition of Diomed.

'Ho, Euclio, your egg-pan! What, is this the largest? it only
holds thirty-three eggs: in the houses I usually serve, the smallest
egg-pan holds fifty, if need be!'

'The unconscionable rogue!' thought Diomed; 'he talks of eggs as
if they were a sesterce a hundred!'

'By Mercury!' cried a pert little culinary disciple, scarce in his
novitiate; 'whoever saw such antique sweetmeat shapes as these?- It is
impossible to do credit to one's art with such rude materials. Why,
Sallust's commonest sweetmeat shape represents the whole siege of
Troy; Hector and Paris, and Helen... with little Astyanax and the
Wooden Horse into the bargain!'

'Silence, fool!' said Congrio, the cook of the house, who seemed
to leave the chief part of the battle to his allies. 'My master,
Diomed, is not one of those expensive good-for-noughts, who must
have the last fashion, cost what it will!'

'Thou liest, base slave!' cried Diomed, in a great passion- and
thou costest me already enough to have ruined Lucullus himself! Come
out of thy den, I want to talk to thee.'

The slave, with a sly wink at his confederates, obeyed the
command.

'Man of three letters,' said Diomed, with his face of solemn
anger, 'how didst thou dare to invite all those rascals into my
house?- I see thief written in every line of their faces.'

'Yet, I assure you, master, that they are men of most
respectable character- the best cooks of the place; it is a great
favour to get them. But for my sake...'

'Thy sake, unhappy Congrio!' interrupted Diomed; and by what
purloined moneys of mine, by what reserved filchings from marketing,
by what goodly meats converted into grease, and sold in the suburbs,
by what false charges for bronzes marred, and earthenware broken- hast
thou been enabled to make them serve thee for thy sake?'

'Nay, master, do not impeach my honesty! May the gods desert me
if...'

'Swear not!' again interrupted the choleric Diomed, 'for then
the gods will smite thee for a perjurer, and I shall lose my cook on
the eve of dinner. But, enough of this at present: keep a sharp eye on
thy ill-favoured assistants, and tell me no tales to-morrow of vases
broken, and cups miraculously vanished, or thy whole back shall be one
pain. And hark thee! thou knowest thou hast made me pay for those
Phrygian attagens enough, by Hercules, to have feasted a sober man for
a year together- see that they be not one iota over-roasted. The
last time, O Congrio, that I gave a banquet to my friends, when thy
vanity did so boldly undertake the becoming appearance of a Melian
crane- thou knowest it came up like a stone from AEtna- as if all
the fires of Phlegethon had been scorching out its juices. Be modest
this time, Congrio- wary and modest. Modesty is the nurse of great
actions; and in all other things, as in this, if thou wilt not spare
thy master's purse, at least consult thy master's glory.'

'There shall not be such a coena seen at Pompeii since the days of
Hercules.'

'Softly, softly- thy cursed boasting again! But I say, Congrio,
yon homunculus- yon pigmy assailant of my cranes- yon pert-tongued
neophyte of the kitchen, was there aught but insolence on his tongue
when he maligned the comeliness of my sweetmeat shapes? I would not be
out of the fashion, Congrio.'

'It is but the custom of us cooks,' replied Congrio, gravely, to
undervalue our tools, in order to increase the effect of our art.
The sweetmeat shape is a fair shape, and a lovely; but I would
recommend my master, at the first occasion, to purchase some new
ones of a...'

'That will suffice,' exclaimed Diomed, who seemed resolved never
to allow his slave to finish his sentences. 'Now, resume thy charge-
shine- eclipse thyself. Let men envy Diomed his cook- let the slaves
of Pompeii style thee Congrio the great! Go! yet stay- thou hast not
spent all the moneys I gave thee for the marketing?'
   '"All!" alas! the nightingales' tongues and the Roman tomacula, and
the oysters from Britain, and sundry other things, too numerous now to
recite, are yet left unpaid for. But what matter? every one trusts the
Archimagirus of Diomed the wealthy!'

'Oh, unconscionable prodigal!- what waste!- what profusion!- I
am ruined! But go, hasten- inspect!- taste!- perform!- surpass
thyself! Let the Roman senator not despise the poor Pompeian. Away,
slave- and remember, the Phrygian attagens.'

The chief disappeared within his natural domain, and Diomed rolled
back his portly presence to the more courtly chambers. All was to
his liking- the flowers were fresh, the fountains played briskly,
the mosaic pavements were as smooth as mirrors.

'Where is my daughter Julia?' he asked.

'At the bath.'

'Ah! that reminds me!- time wanes!- and I must bathe also.'

Our story returns to Apaecides. On awaking that day from the
broken and feverish sleep which had followed his adoption of a faith
so strikingly and sternly at variance with that in which his youth had
been nurtured, the young priest could scarcely imagine that he was not
yet in a dream; he had crossed the fatal river- the past was
henceforth to have no sympathy with the future; the two worlds were
distinct and separate- that which had been, from that which was to be.
To what a bold and adventurous enterprise he had pledged his life!- to
unveil the mysteries in which he had participated- to desecrate the
altars he had served- to denounce the goddess whose ministering robe
he wore! Slowly he became sensible of the hatred and the horror he
should provoke amongst the pious, even if successful; if frustrated in
his daring attempt, what penalties might he not incur for an offence
hitherto unheard of- for which no specific law, derived from
experience, was prepared; and which, for that very reason, precedents,
dragged from the sharpest armoury of obsolete and and inapplicable
legislation, would probably be distorted to meet! His friends- the
sister of his youth- could he expect justice, though he might
receive compassion, from them? This brave and heroic act would by
their heathen eyes be regarded, perhaps, as a heinous apostasy- at the
best as a pitiable madness.

He dared, he renounced, everything in this world, in the hope of
securing that eternity in the next, which had so suddenly been
revealed to him. While these thoughts on the one hand invaded his
breast, on the other hand his pride, his courage, and his virtue,
mingled with reminiscences of revenge for deceit, of indignant disgust
at fraud, conspired to raise and to support him.

The conflict was sharp and keen; but his new feelings triumphed
over his old: and a mighty argument in favour of wrestling with the
sanctities of old opinions and hereditary forms might be found in
the conquest over both, achieved by that humble priest. Had the
early Christians been more controlled by 'the solemn plausibilities of
custom'- less of democrats in the pure and lofty acceptation of that
perverted word- Christianity would have perished in its cradle!

As each priest in succession slept several nights together in
the chambers of the temple, the term imposed on Apaecides was not
yet completed; and when he had risen from his couch, attired
himself, as usual, in his robes, and left his narrow chamber, he found
himself before the altars of the temple.

In the exhaustion of his late emotions he had slept far into the
morning, and the vertical sun already poured its fervid beams over the
sacred place.

'Salve, Apaecides!' said a voice, whose natural asperity was
smoothed by long artifice into an almost displeasing softness of tone.
'Thou art late abroad; has the goddess revealed herself to thee in
visions?'

'Could she reveal her true self to the people, Calenus, how
incenseless would be these altars!'

'That,' replied Calenus, 'may possibly be true; but the deity is
wise enough to hold commune with none but priests.'

'A time may come when she will be unveiled without her own
acquiescence.'

'It is not likely: she has triumphed for countless ages. And
that which has so long stood the test of time rarely succumbs to the
lust of novelty. But hark ye, young brother! these sayings are
indiscreet.'

'It is not for thee to silence them,' replied Apaecides,
haughtily.

'So hot!- yet I will not quarrel with thee. Why, my Apaecides, has
not the Egyptian convinced thee of the necessity of our dwelling
together in unity? Has he not convinced thee of the wisdom of deluding
the people and enjoying ourselves? If not, oh, brother! he is not that
great magician he is esteemed.'

'Thou, then, hast shared his lessons?' said Apaecides, with a
hollow smile.

'Ay! but I stood less in need of them than thou. Nature had
already gifted me with the love of pleasure, and the desire of gain
and power. Long is the way that leads the voluptuary to the severities
of life; but it is only one step from pleasant sin to sheltering
hypocrisy. Beware the vengeance of the goddess, if the shortness of
that step be disclosed!'

'Beware, thou, the hour when the tomb shall be rent and the
rottenness exposed,' returned Apaecides, solemnly. 'Vale!'

With these words he left the flamen to his meditations. When he
got a few paces from the temple, he turned to look back. Calenus had
already disappeared in the entry room of the priests, for it now
approached the hour of that repast which, called prandium by the
ancients, answers in point of date to the breakfast of the moderns.
The white and graceful fane gleamed brightly in the sun. Upon the
altars before it rose the incense and bloomed the garlands. The priest
gazed long and wistfully upon the scene- it was the last time that
it was ever beheld by him!

He then turned and pursued his way slowly towards the house of
Ione; for before possibly the last tie that united them was cut in
twain- before the uncertain peril of the next day was incurred, he was
anxious to see his last surviving relative, his fondest as his
earliest friend.

He arrived at her house, and found her in the garden with Nydia.

'This is kind, Apaecides,' said Ione, joyfully; 'and how eagerly
have I wished to see thee!- what thanks do I not owe thee? How
churlish hast thou been to answer none of my letters- to abstain
from coming hither to receive the expressions of my gratitude! Oh!
thou hast assisted to preserve thy sister from dishonour! What, what
can she say to thank thee, now thou art come at last?'

'My sweet Ione, thou owest me no gratitude, for thy cause was
mine. Let us avoid that subject, let us recur not to that impious man-
how hateful to both of us! I may have a speedy opportunity to teach
the world the nature of his pretended wisdom and hypocritical
severity. But let us sit down, my sister; I am wearied with the heat
of the sun; let us sit in yonder shade, and, for a little while
longer, be to each other what we have been.'

Beneath a wide plane-tree, with the cistus and the arbutus
iclustering round them, the living fountain before, the greensward
beneath their feet; the gay cicada, once so dear to Athens, rising
merrily ever and anon amidst the grass; the butterfly, beautiful
emblem of the soul, dedicated to Psyche, and which has continued to
furnish illustrations to the Christian bard, rich in the glowing
colours caught from Sicilian skies, hovering about the sunny
flowers, itself like a winged flower- in this spot, and this scene,
the brother and the sister sat together for the last time on earth.
You may tread now on the same place; but the garden is no more, the
columns are shattered, the fountain has ceased to play. Let the
traveller search amongst the ruins of Pompeii for the house of Ione.
Its remains are yet visible; but I will not betray them to the gaze of
commonplace tourists. He who is more sensitive than the herd will
discover them easily: when he has done so, let him keep the secret.

They sat down, and Nydia, glad to be alone, retired to the farther
end of the garden.

'Ione, my sister,' said the young convert, 'place your hand upon
my brow; let me feel your cool touch. Speak to me, too, for your
gentle voice is like a breeze that hath freshness as well as music.
Speak to me, but forbear to bless me! Utter not one word of those
forms of speech which our childhood was taught to consider sacred!'

'Alas! and what then shall I say? Our language of affection is
so woven with that of worship, that the words grow chilled and trite
if I banish from them allusion to our gods.'

'Our gods!' murmured Apaecides, with a shudder: 'thou slightest my
request already.'

'Shall I speak then to thee only of Isis?'

'The Evil Spirit! No, rather be dumb for ever, unless at least
thou canst- but away, away this talk! Not now will we dispute and
cavil; not now will we judge harshly of each other. Thou, regarding me
as an apostate! and I all sorrow and shame for thee as an idolater.
No, my sister, let us avoid such topics and such thoughts. In thy
sweet presence a calm falls over my spirit. For a little while I
forget. As I thus lay my temples on thy bosom, as I thus feel thy
gentle arm embrace me, I think that we are children once more, and
that the heaven smiles equally upon both. For oh! if hereafter I
escape, no matter what peril; and it be permitted me to address thee
on one sacred and awful subject; should I find thine ear closed and
thy heart hardened, what hope for myself could countervail the despair
for thee? In thee, my sister, I behold a likeness made beautiful, made
noble, of myself. Shall the mirror live for ever, and the form
itself be broken as the potter's clay? Ah, no- no- thou wilt listen to
me yet! Dost thou remember how we went into the fields by Baiae,
hand in hand together, to pluck the flowers of spring? Even so, hand
in hand, shall we enter the Eternal Garden, and crown ourselves with
imperishable asphodel!'

Wondering and bewildered by words she could not comprehend, but
excited even to tears by the plaintiveness of their tone, Ione
listened to these outpourings of a full and oppressed heart. In truth,
Apaecides himself was softened much beyond his ordinary mood, which to
outward seeming was usually either sullen or impetuous. For the
noblest desires are of a jealous nature- they engross, they absorb the
soul, and often leave the splenetic humours stagnant and unheeded at
the surface. Unheeding the petty things around us, we are deemed
morose; impatient at earthly interruption to the diviner dreams, we
are thought irritable and churlish. For as there is no chimera
vainer than the hope that one human heart shall find sympathy in
another, so none ever interpret us with justice; and none, no, not our
nearest and our dearest ties, forbear with us in mercy! When we are
dead and repentance comes too late, both friend and foe may wonder
to think how little there was in us to forgive!

'I will talk to thee then of our early years,' said Ione. 'Shall
yon blind girl sing to thee of the days of childhood? Her voice is
sweet and musical, and she hath a song on that theme which contains
none of those allusions it pains thee to hear.'

'Dost thou remember the words, my sister?' asked Apaecides.

'Methinks yes; for the tune, which is simple, fixed them on my
memory.'

'Sing to me then thyself. My ear is not in unison with
unfamiliar voices; and thine, Ione, full of household associations,
has ever been to me more sweet than all the hireling melodies of Lycia
or of Crete. Sing to me!'

Ione beckoned to a slave that stood in the portico, and sending
for her lute, sang, when it arrived, to a tender and simple air, the
following verses:-

              REGRETS FOR CHILDHOOD

                       I

        It is not that our earlier Heaven
              Escapes its April showers,
        Or that to childhood's heart is given
              No snake amidst the flowers.
                  Ah! twined with grief
                  Each brightest leaf,
              That's wreath'd us by the Hours!
        Young though we be, the Past may sting,
              The present feed its sorrow;
        But hope shines bright on every thing
              That waits us with the morrow.
                  Like sun-lit glades,
                  The dimmest shades
              Some rosy beam can borrow.

                      II

        It is not that our later years
              Of cares are woven wholly,
        But smiles less swiftly chase the tears,
              And wounds are healed more slowly.
                  And Memory's vow
                  To lost ones now,
              Makes joys too bright, unholy.
        And ever fled the Iris bow
              That smiled when clouds were o'er us.
        If storms should burst, uncheered we go,
              A drearier waste before us-
                  And with the toys
                  Of childish joys,
              We've broke the staff that bore us!

Wisely and delicately had Ione chosen that song, sad though its
burthen seemed; for when we are deeply mournful, discordant above
all others is the voice of mirth: the fittest spell is that borrowed
from melancholy itself, for dark thoughts can be softened down when
they cannot be brightened; and so they lose the precise and rigid
outline of their truth, and their colours melt into the ideal. As
the leech applies in remedy to the internal sore some outward
irritation, which, by a gentler wound, draws away the venom of that
which is more deadly, thus, in the rankling festers of the mind, our
art is to divert to a milder sadness on the surface the pain that
gnaweth at the core. And so with Apaecides, yielding to the
influence of the silver voice that reminded him of the past, and
told but of half the sorrow born to the present, he forgot his more
immediate and fiery sources of anxious thought. He spent hours in
making Ione alternately sing to, and converse with him; and when he
rose to leave her, it was with a calmed and lulled mind.

'Ione,' said he, as he pressed her hand, 'should you hear my
name blackened and maligned, will you credit the aspersion?'

'Never, my brother, never!'

'Dost thou not imagine, according to thy belief, that the
evil-doer is punished hereafter, and the good rewarded?'

'Can you doubt it?'

'Dost thou think, then, that he who is truly good should sacrifice
every selfish interest in his zeal for virtue?'

'He who doth so is the equal of the gods.'

'And thou believest that, according to the purity and courage with
which he thus acts, shall be his portion of bliss beyond the grave?'

'So we are taught to hope.'

'Kiss me, my sister. One question more. Thou art to be wedded to
Glaucus: perchance that marriage may separate us more hopelessly-
but not of this speak I now- thou art to be married to Glaucus- dost
thou love him? Nay, my sister, answer me by words.'

'Yes!' murmured Ione, blushing.

'Dost thou feel that, for his sake, thou couldst renounce pride,
brave dishonour, and incur death? I have heard that when women
really love, it is to that excess.'

'My brother, all this could I do for Glaucus, and feel that it
were not a sacrifice. There is no sacrifice to those who love, in what
is borne for the one we love.'

'Enough! shall woman feel thus for man, and man feel less devotion
to his God?'

He spoke no more. His whole countenance seemed instinct and
inspired with a divine life: his chest swelled proudly; his eyes
glowed: on his forehead was writ the majesty of a man who can dare
to be noble! He turned to meet the eyes of Ione- earnest, wistful,
fearful- he kissed her fondly, strained her warmly to his breast,
and in a moment more he had left the house.

Long did Ione remain in the same place, mute and thoughtful. The
maidens again and again came to warn her of the deepening noon, and
her engagement to Diomed's banquet. At length she woke from her
reverie, and prepared, not with the pride of beauty, but listless
and melancholy, for the festival: one thought alone reconciled her
to the promised visit- she should meet Glaucus- she could confide to
him her alarm and uneasiness for her brother.

                         Chapter III


    A FASHIONABLE PARTY AND A DINNER A LA MODE IN POMPEII


MEANWHILE Sallust and Glaucus were slowly strolling towards the
house of Diomed. Despite the habits of his life, Sallust was not
devoid of many estimable qualities. He would have been an active
friend, a useful citizen- in short, an excellent man, if he had not
taken it into his head to be a philosopher. Brought up in the
schools in which Roman plagiarism worshipped the echo of Grecian
wisdom, he had imbued himself with those doctrines by which the
later Epicureans corrupted the simple maxims of their great master. He
gave himself altogether up to pleasure, and imagined there was no sage
like a boon companion. Still, however, he had a considerable degree of
learning, wit, and good nature; and the hearty frankness of his very
vices seemed like virtue itself beside the utter corruption of Clodius
and the prostrate effeminacy of Lepidus; and therefore Glaucus liked
him the best of his companions; and he, in turn, appreciating the
nobler qualities of the Athenian, loved him almost as much as a cold
muraena, or a bowl of the best Falernian.

'This is a vulgar old fellow, this Diomed,' said Sallust: 'but
he has some good qualities- in his cellar!'

'And some charming ones- in his daughter.'

'True, Glaucus: but you are not much moved by them, methinks. I
fancy Clodius is desirous to be your successor.'

'He is welcome. At the banquet of Julia's beauty, no guest, be
sure, is considered a musca.'

'You are severe: but she has, indeed, something of the
Corinthian about her- they will be well matched, after all! What
good-natured fellows we are to associate with that gambling
good-for-nought.'

'Pleasure unites strange varieties, answered Glaucus. 'He amuses
me...'

'And flatters- but then he pays himself well! He powders his
praise with gold-dust.'

'You often hint that he plays unfairly- think you so really?'

'My dear Glaucus, a Roman noble has his dignity to keep up-
dignity is very expensive- Clodius must cheat like a scoundrel, in
order to live like a gentleman.'

'Ha ha!- well, of late I have renounced the dice. Ah! Sallust,
when I am wedded to Ione, I trust I may yet redeem a youth of follies.
We are both born for better things than those in which we sympathise
now- born to render our worship in nobler temples than the stye of
Epicurus.'

'Alas!' returned Sallust, in rather a melancholy tone, 'what do we
know more than this- life is short- beyond the grave all is dark?
There is no wisdom like that which says "enjoy".'

'By Bacchus! I doubt sometimes if we do enjoy the utmost of
which life is capable.'

'I am a moderate man,' returned Sallust, 'and do not ask "the
utmost". We are like malefactors, and intoxicate ourselves with wine
and myrrh, as we stand on the brink of death; but, if we did not do
so, the abyss would look very disagreeable. I own that I was
inclined to be gloomy until I took so heartily to drinking- that is
a new life, my Glaucus.'

'Yes! but it brings us next morning to a new death.'

'Why, the next morning is unpleasant, I own; but, then, if it were
not so, one would never be inclined to read. I study betimes- because,
by the gods! I am generally unfit for anything else till noon.'

'Fie, Scythian!'

'Pshaw! the fate of Pentheus to him who denies Bacchus.'

'Well, Sallust, with all your faults, you are the best
profligate I ever met: and verily, if I were in danger of life, you
are the only man in all Italy who would stretch out a finger to save
me.'

'Perhaps I should not, if it were in the middle of supper.
  But, in truth, we Italians are fearfully selfish.'

'So are all men who are not free,' said Glaucus, with a sigh.
'Freedom alone makes men sacrifice to each other.'

'Freedom, then, must be a very fatiguing thing to an Epicurean,'
answered Sallust. 'But here we are at our host's.'

As Diomed's villa is one of the most considerable in point of size
of any yet discovered at Pompeii, and is, moreover, built much
according to the specific instructions for a suburban villa laid
down by the Roman architect, it may not be uninteresting briefly to
describe the plan of the apartments through which our visitors passed.

They entered, then, by the same small vestibule at which we have
before been presented to the aged Medon, and passed at once into a
colonnade, technically termed the peristyle; for the main difference
between the suburban villa and the town mansion consisted in
placing, in the first, the said colonnade in exactly the same place as
that which in the town mansion was occupied by the atrium. In the
centre of the peristyle was an open court, which contained the
impluvium.

From this peristyle descended a staircase to the offices;
another narrow passage on the opposite side communicated with a
garden; various small apartments surrounded the colonnade,
appropriated probably to country visitors. Another door to the left on
entering communicated with a small triangular portico, which
belonged to the baths; and behind was the wardrobe, in which were kept
the vests of the holiday suits of the slaves, and, perhaps, of the
master. Seventeen centuries afterwards were found those relics of
ancient finery calcined and crumbling: kept longer, alas! than their
thrifty lord foresaw.

Return we to the peristyle, and endeavour now to present to the
reader a coup d'oeil of the whole suite of apartments, which
immediately stretched before the steps of the visitors.

Let him then first imagine the columns of the portico, hung with
festoons of flowers; the columns themselves in the lower part
painted red, and the walls around glowing with various frescoes; then,
looking beyond a curtain, three parts drawn aside, the eye caught
the tablinum or saloon (which was closed at will by glazed doors,
now slid back into the walls). On either side of this tablinum were
small rooms, one of which was a kind of cabinet of gems; and these
apartments, as well as the tablinum, communicated with a long gallery,
which opened at either end upon terraces; and between the terraces,
and communicating with the central part of the gallery, was a hall, in
which the banquet was that day prepared. All these apartments,
though almost on a level with the street, were one story above the
garden; and the terraces communicating with the gallery were continued
into corridors, raised above the pillars which, to the right and left,
skirted the garden below.

Beneath, and on a level with the garden, ran the apartments we
have already described as chiefly appropriated to Julia.

In the gallery, then, just mentioned, Diomed received his guests.

The merchant affected greatly the man of letters, and,
therefore, he also affected a passion for everything Greek; he paid
particular attention to Glaucus.

'You will see, my friend,' said he, with a wave of his hand, 'that
I am a little classical here- a little Cecropian- eh? The hall in
which we shall sup is borrowed from the Greeks. It is an OEcus
Cyzicene. Noble Sallust, they have not, I am told, this sort of
apartment in Rome.'

'Oh!' replied Sallust, with a half smile; 'you Pompeians combine
all that is most eligible in Greece and in Rome; may you, Diomed,
combine the viands as well as the architecture!'

'You shall see- you shall see, my Sallust,' replied the
merchant. 'We have a taste at Pompeii, and we have also money.'

'They are two excellent things,' replied Sallust. 'But, behold,
the lady Julia!'

The main difference, as I have before remarked, in the manner of
life observed among the Athenians and Romans, was, that with the
first, the modest women rarely or never took part in entertainments;
with the latter, they were the common ornaments of the banquet; but
when they were present at the feast, it usually terminated at an early
hour.

Magnificently robed in white, interwoven with pearls and threads
of gold, the handsome Julia entered the apartment.

Scarcely had she received the salutation of the two guests, ere
Pansa and his wife, Lepidus, Clodius, and the Roman senator, entered
almost simultaneously; then came the widow Fulvia; then the poet
Fulvius, like to the widow in name if in nothing else; the warrior
from Herculaneum, accompanied by his umbra, next stalked in;
afterwards, the less eminent of the guests. Ione yet tarried.

It was the mode among the courteous ancients to flatter whenever
it was in their power: accordingly it was a sign of ill-breeding to
seat themselves immediately on entering the house of their host. After
performing the salutation, which was usually accomplished by the
same cordial shake of the right hand which we ourselves retain, and
sometimes, by the yet more familiar embrace, they spent several
minutes in surveying the apartment, and admiring the bronzes, the
pictures, or the furniture, with which it was adorned- a mode very
impolite according to our refined English notions, which place good
breeding in indifference. We would not for the world express much
admiration of another man's house, for fear it should be thought we
had never seen anything so fine before!

'A beautiful statue this of Bacchus!' said the Roman senator.

'A mere trifle!' replied Diomed.

'What charming paintings!' said Fulvia.

'Mere trifles!' answered the owner.

'Exquisite candelabra!' cried the warrior.

'Exquisite!' echoed his umbra.

'Trifles! trifles!' reiterated the merchant.

Meanwhile, Glaucus found himself by one of the windows of the
gallery, which communicated with the terraces, and the fair Julia by
his side.

'Is it an Athenian virtue, Glaucus,' said the merchant's daughter,
'to shun those whom we once sought?'

'Fair Julia- no!'

'Yet methinks, it is one of the qualities of Glaucus.'

'Glaucus never shuns a friend!' replied the Greek, with some
emphasis on the last word.

'May Julia rank among the number of his friends?'

'It would be an honour to the emperor to find a friend in one so
lovely.'

'You evade my question,' returned the enamoured Julia. 'But tell
me, is it true that you admire the Neapolitan Ione?'

'Does not beauty constrain our admiration?'

'Ah! subtle Greek, still do you fly the meaning of my words. But
say, shall Julia be indeed your friend?'

'If she will so favour me, blessed be the gods! The day in which I
am thus honoured shall be ever marked in white.'

'Yet, even while you speak, your eye is resting- your colour comes
and goes- you move away involuntarily- you are impatient to join
Ione!'

For at that moment Ione had entered, and Glaucus had indeed
betrayed the emotion noticed by the jealous beauty.

'Can admiration to one woman make me unworthy the friendship of
another? Sanction not so, O Julia the libels of the poets on your
sex!'

'Well, you are right- or I will learn to think so. Glaucus, yet
one moment! You are to wed Ione; is it not so?'

'If the Fates permit, such is my blessed hope.'

'Accept, then, from me, in token of our new friendship, a
present for your bride. Nay, it is the custom of friends, you know,
always to present to bride and bridegroom some such little marks of
their esteem and favouring wishes.'

'Julia! I cannot refuse any token of friendship from one like you.
I will accept the gift as an omen from Fortune herself.'

'Then, after the feast, when the guests retire, you will descend
with me to my apartment, and receive it from my hands. Remember!' said
Julia, as she joined the wife of Pansa, and left Glaucus to seek Ione.

The widow Fulvia and the spouse of the aedile were engaged in high
and grave discussion.

'O Fulvia! I assure you that the last account from Rome declares
that the frizzling mode of dressing the hair is growing antiquated;
they only now wear it built up in a tower, like Julia's, or arranged
as a helmet- the Galerian fashion, like mine, you see: it has a fine
effect, I think. I assure you, Vespius (Vespius was the name of the
Herculaneum hero) admires it greatly.'

'And nobody wears the hair like yon Neapolitan, in the Greek way.'

'What, parted in front, with the knot behind? Oh, no; how
ridiculous it is! it reminds one of the statue of Diana! Yet this Ione
is handsome, eh?'

'So the men say; but then she is rich: she is to marry the
Athenian- I wish her joy. He will not be long faithful, I suspect;
those foreigners are very faithless.'

'Oh, Julia!' said Fulvia, as the merchant's daughter joined
them; 'have you seen the tiger yet?'

'No!'

'Why, all the ladies have been to see him. He is so handsome!'

'I hope we shall find some criminal or other for him and the
lion,' replied Julia. 'Your husband (turning to Pansa's wife) is not
so active as he should be in this matter.'

'Why, really, the laws are too mild,' replied the dame of the
helmet. 'There are so few offences to which the punishment of the
arena can be awarded; and then, too, the gladiators are growing
effeminate! The stoutest bestiarii declare they are willing enough
to fight a boar or a bull; but as for a lion or a tiger, they think
the game too much in earnest.'

'They are worthy of a mitre," replied Julia, in disdain.

'Oh! have you seen the new house of Fulvius, the dear poet?'
said Pansa's wife.

'No: is it handsome?'

'Very!- such good taste. But they say, my dear, that he has such
improper pictures! He won't show them to the women: how ill-bred!'

'Those poets are always odd,' said the widow. 'But he is an
interesting man; what pretty verses he writes! We improve very much in
poetry: it is impossible to read the old stuff now.'

'I declare I am of your opinion, returned the lady of the
helmet. 'There is so much more force and energy in the modern school.'

The warrior sauntered up to the ladies.

'It reconciles me to peace,' said he, 'when I see such faces.'

'Oh! you heroes are ever flatterers,' returned Fulvia, hastening
to appropriate the compliment specially to herself.

'By this chain, which I received from the emperor's own hand,'
replied the warrior, playing with a short chain which hung round the
neck like a collar, instead of descending to the breast, according
to the fashion of the peaceful- 'By this chain, you wrong me! I am a
blunt man- a soldier should be so.'

'How do you find the ladies of Pompeii generally?' said Julia.

'By Venus, most beautiful! They favour me a little, it is true,
and that inclines my eyes to double their charms.'

'We love a warrior,' said the wife of Pansa.

'I see it: by Hercules! it is even disagreeable to be too
celebrated in these cities. At Herculaneum they climb the roof of my
atrium to catch a glimpse of me through the compluvium; the admiration
of one's citizens is pleasant at first, but burthensome afterwards.'

'True, true, O Vespius!' cried the poet, joining the group: 'I
find it so myself.'

'You!' said the stately warrior, scanning the small form of the
poet with ineffable disdain. 'in what legion have you served?'

'You may see my spoils, my exuviae, in the forum itself,' returned
the poet, with a significant glance at the women. 'I have been among
the tent-companions, the contubernales, of the great Mantuan himself.'

'I know no general from Mantua, said the warrior, gravely. 'What
campaign have you served?'

'That of Helicon.'

'I never heard of it.'

'Nay, Vespius, he does but joke,' said Julia, laughing.

'Joke! By Mars, am I a man to be joked!'

'Yes; Mars himself was in love with the mother of jokes,' said the
poet, a little alarmed. 'Know, then, O Vespius! that I am the poet
Fulvius. It is I who make warriors immortal!'

'The gods forbid!' whispered Sallust to Julia. 'If Vespius were
made immortal, what a specimen of tiresome braggadocio would be
transmitted to posterity!'

The soldier looked puzzled; when, to the infinite relief of
himself and his companions, the signal for the feast was given.

As we have already witnessed at the house of Glaucus the
ordinary routine of a Pompeian entertainment, the reader is spared any
second detail of the courses, and the manner in which they were
introduced.

Diomed, who was rather ceremonious, had appointed a nomenclator,
or appointer of places to each guest.

The reader understands that the festive board was composed of
three tables; one at the centre, and one at each wing. It was only
at the outer side of these tables that the guests reclined; the
inner space was left untenanted, for the greater convenience of the
waiters or ministri. The extreme corner of one of the wings was
appropriated to Julia as the lady of the feast; that next her, to
Diomed. At one corner of the centre table was placed the aedile; at
the opposite corner, the Roman senator- these were the posts of
honour. The other guests were arranged, so that the young (gentleman
or lady) should sit next each other, and the more advanced in years be
similarly matched. An agreeable provision enough, but one which must
often have offended those who wished to be thought still young.

The chair of Ione was next to the couch of Glaucus. The seats were
veneered with tortoiseshell, and covered with quilts stuffed with
feathers, and ornamented with costly embroideries. The modern
ornaments of epergne or plateau were supplied by images of the gods,
wrought in bronze, ivory, and silver. The sacred salt-cellar and the
familiar Lares were not forgotten. Over the table and the seats a rich
canopy was suspended from the ceiling. At each corner of the table
were lofty candelabra- for though it was early noon, the room was
darkened- while from tripods, placed in different parts of the room,
distilled the odour of myrrh and frankincense; and upon the abacus, or
sideboard, large vases and various ornaments of silver were ranged,
much with the same ostentation (but with more than the same taste)
that we find displayed at a modern feast.

The custom of grace was invariably supplied by that of libations
to the gods; and Vesta, as queen of the household gods, usually
received first that graceful homage.

This ceremony being performed, the slaves showered flowers upon
the couches and the floor, and crowned each guest with rosy
garlands, intricately woven with ribands, tied by the rind of the
linden-tree, and each intermingled with the ivy and the amethyst-
supposed preventives against the effect of wine; the wreaths of the
women only were exempted from these leaves, for it was not the fashion
for them to drink wine in public. It was then that the president
Diomed thought it advisable to institute a basileus, or director of
the feast- an important office, sometimes chosen by lot; sometimes, as
now, by the master of the entertainment.

Diomed was not a little puzzled as to his election. The invalid
senator was too grave and too infirm for the proper fulfilment of
his duty; the aedile Pansa was adequate enough to the task: but
then, to choose the next in official rank to the senator, was an
affront to the senator himself. While deliberating between the
merits of the others, he caught the mirthful glance of Sallust, and,
by a sudden inspiration, named the jovial epicure to the rank of
director, or arbiter bibendi.

Sallust received the appointment with becoming humility.

'I shall be a merciful king,' said he, 'to those who drink deep;
to a recusant, Minos himself shall be less inexorable. Beware!'

The slaves handed round basins of perfumed water, by which
lavation the feast commenced: and now the table groaned under the
initiatory course.

The conversation, at first desultory and scattered, allowed Ione
and Glaucus to carry on those sweet whispers, which are worth all
the eloquence in the world. Julia watched them with flashing eyes.

'How soon shall her place be mine!' thought she.

But Clodius, who sat in the centre table, so as to observe well
the countenance of Julia, guessed her pique, and resolved to profit by
it. He addressed her across the table in set phrases of gallantry; and
as he was of high birth and of a showy person, the vain Julia was
not so much in love as to be insensible to his attentions.

The slaves, in the interim, were constantly kept upon the alert by
the vigilant Sallust, who chased one cup by another with a celerity
which seemed as if he were resolved upon exhausting those capacious
cellars which the reader may yet see beneath the house of Diomed.
The worthy merchant began to repent his choice, as amphora after
amphora was pierced and emptied. The slaves, all under the age of
manhood (the youngest being about ten years old- it was they who
filled the wine- the eldest, some five years older, mingled it with
water), seemed to share in the zeal of Sallust; and the face of Diomed
began to glow as he watched the provoking complacency with which
they seconded the exertions of the king of the feast.

'Pardon me, O senator!' said Sallust; 'I see you flinch; your
purple hem cannot save you- drink!'

'By the gods,' said the senator, coughing, 'my lungs are already
on fire; you proceed with so miraculous a swiftness, that Phaeton
himself was nothing to you. I am infirm, O pleasant Sallust: you
must exonerate me.'

'Not I, by Vesta! I am an impartial monarch- drink.'

The poor senator, compelled by the laws of the table, was forced
to comply. Alas! every cup was bringing him nearer and nearer to the
Stygian pool.

'Gently! gently! my king,' groaned Diomed; 'we already begin
to...'

'Treason!' interrupted Sallust; 'no stern Brutus here!- no
interference with royalty!'

'But our female guests...'

'Love a toper! Did not Ariadne dote upon Bacchus?'

The feast proceeded; the guests grew more talkative and noisy; the
dessert or last course was already on the table; and the slaves bore
round water with myrrh and hyssop for the finishing lavation. At the
same time, a small circular table that had been placed in the space
opposite the guests suddenly, and as by magic, seemed to open in the
centre, and cast up a fragrant shower, sprinkling the table and the
guests; while as it ceased the awning above them was drawn aside,
and the guests perceived that a rope had been stretched across the
ceiling, and that one of those nimble dancers for which Pompeii was so
celebrated, and whose descendants add so charming a grace to the
festivities of Astley's or Vauxhall, was now treading his airy
measures right over their heads.

This apparition, removed but by a cord from one's pericranium, and
indulging the most vehement leaps, apparently with the intention of
alighting upon that cerebral region, would probably be regarded with
some terror by a party in May Fair; but our Pompeian revellers
seemed to behold the spectacle with delighted curiosity, and applauded
in proportion as the dancer appeared with the most difficulty to
miss falling upon the head of whatever guest he particularly
selected to dance above. He paid the senator, indeed, the peculiar
compliment of literally falling from the rope, and catching it again
with his hand, just as the whole party imagined the skull of the Roman
was as much fractured as ever that of the poet whom the eagle took for
a tortoise. At length, to the great relief of at least Ione, who had
not much accustomed herself to this entertainment, the dancer suddenly
paused as a strain of music was heard from without. He danced again
still more wildly; the air changed, the dancer paused again; no, it
could not dissolve the charm which was supposed to possess him! He
represented one who by a strange disorder is compelled to dance, and
whom only a certain air of music can cure. At length the musician
seemed to hit on the right tune; the dancer gave one leap, swung
himself down from the rope, alighted on the floor, and vanished.

One art now yielded to another; and the musicians who were
stationed without on the terrace struck up a soft and mellow air, to
which were sung the following words, made almost indistinct by the
barrier between and the exceeding lowness of the minstrelsy:-


             FESTIVE MUSIC SHOULD BE LOW

                         I

   Hark! through these flowers our music sends its greeting
      To your loved halls, where Psilas shuns the day;
   When the young god his Cretan nymph was meeting
      He taught Pan's rustic pipe this gliding lay:
         Soft as the dews of wine
            Shed in this banquet hour,
         The rich libation of Sound's stream divine,
            O reverent harp, to Aphrodite pour!

                        II

   Wild rings the trump o'er ranks to glory marching;
      Music's sublimer bursts for war are meet;
   But sweet lips murmuring under wreaths o'er-arching,
      Find the low whispers like their own most sweet.
         Steal, my lull'd music, steal
            Like womans's half-heard tone,
         So that whoe'er shall hear, shall think to feel
            In thee the voice of lips that love his own.

At the end of that song Ione's cheek blushed more deeply than
before, and Glaucus had contrived, under cover of the table, to
steal her hand.

'It is a pretty song,' said Fulvius, patronisingly.

'Ah! if you would oblige us!' murmured the wife of Pansa.

'Do you wish Fulvius to sing?' asked the king of the feast, who
had just called on the assembly to drink the health of the Roman
senator, a cup to each letter of his name.

'Can you ask?' said the matron, with a complimentary glance at the
poet.

Sallust snapped his fingers, and whispering the slave who came
to learn his orders, the latter disappeared, and returned in a few
moments with a small harp in one hand, and a branch of myrtle in the
other. The slave approached the poet, and with a low reverence
presented to him the harp.

'Alas! I cannot play,' said the poet.

'Then you must sing to the myrtle. It is a Greek fashion: Diomed
loves the Greeks- I love the Greeks- you love the Greeks- we all
love the Greeks- and between you and me this is not the only thing
we have stolen from them. However, I introduce this custom- I, the
king: sing, subject, sing!' The poet, with a bashful smile, took the
myrtle in his hands, and after a short prelude sang as follows, in a
pleasant and well-tuned voice:-


          THE CORONATION OF THE LOVES

                       I

          The merry Loves one holiday
             Were all at gambols madly;
          But Loves too long can seldom play
             Without behaving sadly.
          They laugh'd, they toy'd, they romp'd about,
          And then for change they all fell out.
          Fie, fie! how can they quarrel so?
             My Lesbia- ah, for shame, love
          Methinks 'tis scarce an hour ago
             When we did just the same, love.

                      II

       The Loves, 'tis thought, were free till then,
          They had no king or laws, dear;
       But gods, like men, should subject be,
          Say all the ancient saws, dear.
       And so our crew resolved, for quiet,
       To choose a king to curb their riot.
            A kiss: ah! what a grievous thing
              For both, methinks, 'twould be, child,
            If I should take some prudish king,
              And cease to be so free, child!

                      III

       Among their toys a Casque they found,
          It was the helm of Ares;
       With horrent plumes the crest was crown'd,
          It frightened all the Lares.
       So fine a king was never known-
       They placed the helmet on the throne.
       My girl, since Valour wins the world,
          They chose a mighty master;
       But thy sweet flag of smiles unfurled
          Would win the world much faster!

                      IV

    The Casque soon found the Loves too wild
       A troop for him to school them;
    For warriors know how one such child
       Has aye contrived to fool them.
    They plagued him so, that in despair
    He took a wife the plague to share.
          If kings themselves thus find the strife
             Of earth, unshared, severe, girl;
          Why just to halve the ills of life,
             Come, take your partner here, girl.

                       V

     Within that room the Bird of Love
        The whole affair had eyed then;
     The monarch hail'd the royal dove,
        And placed her by his side then:
     What mirth amidst the Loves was seen!
     'Long live,' they cried, 'our King and Queen.'
           Ah! Lesbia, would that thrones were mine,
              And crowns to deck that brow, love!
           And yet I know that heart of thine
              For me is throne enow, love!

                      VI

     The urchins hoped to tease the mate
        As they had teased the hero;
     But when the Dove in judgment sate
        They found her worse than Nero!
     Each look a frown, each word a law;
     The little subjects shook with awe.
     In thee I find the same deceit-
        Too late, alas! a learner!
     For where a mien more gently sweet?
        And where a tyrant sterner?

This song, which greatly suited the gay and lively fancy of the
Pompeians, was received with considerable applause, and the widow
insisted on crowning her namesake with the very branch of myrtle to
which he had sung. It was easily twisted into a garland, and the
immortal Fulvius was crowned amidst the clapping of hands and shouts
of Io triumphe! The song and the harp now circulated round the
party, a new myrtle branch being handed about, stopping at each person
who could be prevailed upon to sing.

The sun began now to decline, though the revellers, who had worn
away several hours, perceived it not in their darkened chamber; and
the senator, who was tired, and the warrior, who had to return to
Herculaneum, rising to depart, gave the signal for the general
dispersion. 'Tarry yet a moment, my friends,' said Diomed; 'if you
will go so soon, you must at least take a share in our concluding
game.'

So saying, he motioned to one of the ministri, and whispering him,
the slave went out, and presently returned with a small bowl
containing various tablets carefully sealed, and, apparently,
exactly similar. Each guest was to purchase one of these at the
nominal price of the lowest piece of silver: and the sport of this
lottery (which was the favourite diversion of Augustus, who introduced
it) consisted in the inequality, and sometimes the incongruity, of the
prizes, the nature and amount of which were specified within the
tablets. For instance, the poet, with a wry face, drew one of his
own poems (no physician ever less willingly swallowed his own
draught); the warrior drew a case of bodkins, which gave rise to
certain novel witticisms relative to Hercules and the distaff; the
widow Fulvia obtained a large drinking-cup; Julia, a gentleman's
buckle; and Lepidus, a lady's patch-box. The most appropriate lot
was drawn by the gambler Clodius, who reddened with anger on being
presented to a set of cogged dice.' A certain damp was thrown upon the
gaiety which these various lots created by an accident that was
considered ominous; Glaucus drew the most valuable of all the
prizes, a small marble statue of Fortune, of Grecian workmanship: on
handing it to him the slave suffered it to drop, and it broke in
pieces.

A shiver went round the assembly, and each voice cried
spontaneously on the gods to avert the omen.

Glaucus alone, though perhaps as superstitious as the rest,
affected to be unmoved.

'Sweet Neapolitan,' whispered he tenderly to Ione, who had
turned pale as the broken marble itself, 'I accept the omen. It
signifies that in obtaining thee, Fortune can give no more- she breaks
her image when she blesses me with thine.'

In order to divert the impression which this incident had
occasioned in an assembly which, considering the civilisation of the
guests, would seem miraculously superstitious, if at the present day
in a country party we did not often see a lady grow hypochondriacal on
leaving a room last of thirteen, Sallust now crowning his cup with
flowers, gave the health of their host. This was followed by a similar
compliment to the emperor; and then, with a parting cup to Mercury
to send them pleasant slumbers, they concluded the entertainment by
a last libation, and broke up the party. Carriages and litters were
little used in Pompeii, partly owing to the extreme narrowness of
the streets, partly to the convenient smallness of the city. Most of
the guests replacing their sandals, which they had put off in the
banquet-room, and induing their cloaks, left the house on foot
attended by their slaves.

Meanwhile, having seen Ione depart, Glaucus turning to the
staircase which led down to the rooms of Julia, was conducted by a
slave to an apartment in which he found the merchant's daughter
already seated.

'Glaucus!' said she, looking down, 'I see that you really love
Ione- she is indeed beautiful.'

'Julia is charming enough to be generous,' replied the Greek.
'Yes, I love Ione; amidst all the youth who court you, may you have
one worshipper as sincere.'

'I pray the gods to grant it! See, Glaucus, these pearls are the
present I destine to your bride: may Juno give her health to wear
them!'

So saying, she placed a case in his hand, containing a row of
pearls of some size and price. It was so much the custom for persons
about to be married to receive these gifts, that Glaucus could have
little scruple in accepting the necklace, though the gallant and proud
Athenian inly resolved to requite the gift by one of thrice its value.
Julia then stopping short his thanks, poured forth some wine into a
small bowl.

'You have drunk many toasts with my father,' said she smiling-
'one now with me. Health and fortune to your bride!'

She touched the cup with her lips and then presented it to
Glaucus. The customary etiquette required that Glaucus should drain
the whole contents; he accordingly did so. Julia, unknowing the deceit
which Nydia had practised upon her, watched him with sparkling eyes;
although the witch had told her that the effect might not be
immediate, she yet sanguinely trusted to an expeditious operation in
favour of her charms. She was disappointed when she found Glaucus
coldly replace the cup, and converse with her in the same unmoved
but gentle tone as before. And though she detained him as long as
she decorously could do, no change took place in his manner. 'But
to-morrow,' thought she, exultingly recovering her disappointment-
'to-morrow, alas for Glaucus!'

Alas for him, indeed!

                          Chapter IV


          THE STORY HALTS FOR A MOMENT AT AN EPISODE


RESTLESS and anxious, Apaecides consumed the day in wandering
through the most sequestered walks in the vicinity of the city. The
sun was slowly setting as he paused beside a lonely part of the
Sarnus, ere yet it wound amidst the evidences of luxury and power.
Only through openings in the woods and vines were caught glimpses of
the white and gleaming city, in which was heard in the distance no
din, no sound, nor 'busiest hum of men'. Amidst the green banks
crept the lizard and the grasshopper, and here and there in the
brake some solitary bird burst into sudden song, as suddenly
stifled. There was deep calm around, but not the calm of night; the
air still breathed of the freshness and life of day; the grass still
moved to the stir of the insect horde; and on the opposite bank the
graceful and white capella passed browsing through the herbage, and
paused at the wave to drink.

As Apaecides stood musingly gazing upon the waters, he heard
beside him the low bark of a dog.

'Be still, poor friend,' said a voice at hand; 'the stranger's
step harms not thy master.' The convert recognised the voice, and,
turning, he beheld the old mysterious man whom he had seen in the
congregation of the Nazarenes.

The old man was sitting upon a fragment of stone covered with
ancient mosses; beside him were his staff and scrip; at his feet lay a
small shaggy dog, the companion in how many a pilgrimage perilous
and strange.

The face of the old man was as balm to the excited spirit of the
neophyte: he approached, and craving his blessing, sat down beside
him.

'Thou art provided as for a journey, father,' said he: 'wilt
thou leave us yet?'

'My son,' replied the old man, 'the days in store for me on
earth are few and scanty; I employ them as becomes me travelling
from place to place, comforting those whom God has gathered together
in His name, and proclaiming the glory of His Son, as testified to His
servant.'

'Thou hast looked, they tell me, on the face of Christ?'

'And the face revived me from the dead. Know, young proselyte to
the true faith, that I am he of whom thou readest in the scroll of the
Apostle. In the far Judea, and in the city of Nain, there dwelt a
widow, humble of spirit and sad of heart; for of all the ties of
life one son alone was spared to her. And she loved him with a
melancholy love, for he was the likeness of the lost. And the son
died. The reed on which she leaned was broken, the oil was dried up in
the widow's cruse. They bore the dead upon his bier; and near the gate
of the city, where the crowd were gathered, there came a silence
over the sounds of woe, for the Son of God was passing by. The mother,
who followed the bier, wept- not noisily, but all who looked upon
her saw that her heart was crushed. And the Lord pitied her, and he
touched the bier, and said, "I SAY UNTO THEE, ARISE," And the dead man
woke and looked upon the face of the Lord. oh, that calm and solemn
brow, that unutterable smile, that careworn and sorrowful face,
lighted up with a God's benignity- it chased away the shadows of the
grave! I rose, I spoke, I was living, and in my mother's arms- yes,
I am the dead revived! The people shouted, the funeral horns rung
forth merrily: there was a cry, "God has visited His people!" I
heard them not- I felt- I saw- nothing but the face of the Redeemer!'

The old man paused, deeply moved; and the youth felt his blood
creep, and his hair stir. He was in the presence of one who had
known the Mystery of Death!

'Till that time,' renewed the widow's son, 'I had been as other
men: thoughtless, not abandoned; taking no heed, but of the things
of love and life; nay, I had inclined to the gloomy faith of the
earthly Sadducee! But, raised from the dead, from awful and desert
dreams that these lips never dare reveal- recalled upon earth, to
testify the powers of Heaven- once more mortal, the witness of
immortality; I drew a new being from the grave. O faded- O lost
Jerusalem!- Him from whom came my life, I beheld adjudged to the
agonised and parching death! Far in the mighty crowd I saw the light
rest and glimmer over the cross; I heard the hooting mob, I cried
aloud, I raved, I threatened- none heeded me- I was lost in the
whirl and the roar of thousands! But even then, in my agony and His
own, methought the glazing eye of the Son of Man sought me out- His
lip smiled, as when it conquered death- it hushed me, and I became
calm. He who had defied the grave for another- what was the grave to
him? The sun shone aslant the pale and powerful features, and then
died away! Darkness fell over the earth; how long it endured, I know
not. A loud cry came through the gloom- a sharp and bitter cry!- and
all was silent.

'But who shall tell the terrors of the night?' I walked along
the city- the earth reeled to and fro, and the houses trembled to
their base- the living had deserted the streets, but not the Dead:
through the gloom I saw them glide- the dim and ghastly shapes, in the
cerements of the grave- with horror, and woe, and warning on their
unmoving lips and lightless eyes!- they swept by me, as I passed- they
glared upon me- I had been their brother; and they bowed their heads
in recognition; they had risen to tell the living that the dead can
rise!'

Again the old man paused, and, when he resumed, it was in a calmer
tone.

'From that night I resigned all earthly thought but that of
serving HIM. A preacher and a pilgrim, I have traversed the remotest
corners of the earth, proclaiming His Divinity, and bringing new
converts to His fold. I come as the wind, and as the wind depart;
sowing, as the wind sows, the seeds that enrich the world.

'Son, on earth we shall meet no more. Forget not this hour,-
what are the pleasures and the pomps of life? As the lamp shines, so
life glitters for an hour; but the soul's light is the star that burns
for ever, in the heart of inimitable space.'

It was then that their conversation fell upon the general and
sublime doctrines of immortality; it soothed and elevated the young
mind of the convert, which yet clung to many of the damps and
shadows of that cell of faith which he had so lately left- it was
the air of heaven breathing on the prisoner released at last. There
was a strong and marked distinction between the Christianity of the
old man and that of Olinthus; that of the first was more soft, more
gentle, more divine. The heroism of Olinthus had something in it
fierce and intolerant- it was necessary to the part he was destined to
play- it had in it more of the courage of the martyr than the
charity of the saint. It aroused, it excited, it nerved, rather than
subdued and softened. But the whole heart of that divine old man was
bathed in love; the smile of the Deity had burned away from it the
leaven of earthlier and coarser passions, and left to the energy of
the hero all the meekness of the child.

'And now,' said he, rising at length, as the sun's last ray died
in the west; 'now, in the cool of twilight, I pursue my way towards
the Imperial Rome. There yet dwell some holy men, who like me have
beheld the face of Christ; and them would I see before I die.'

'But the night is chill for thine age, my father, and the way is
long, and the robber haunts it; rest thee till to-morrow.'

'Kind son, what is there in this scrip to tempt the robber? And
the Night and the Solitude!- these make the ladder round which
angels cluster, and beneath which my spirit can dream of God. Oh! none
can know what the pilgrim feels as he walks on his holy course;
nursing no fear, and dreading no danger- for God is with him! He hears
the winds murmur glad tidings; the woods sleep in the shadow of
Almighty wings- the stars are the Scriptures of Heaven, the tokens
of love, and the witnesses of immortality. Night is the Pilgrim's
day.' With these words the old man pressed Apaecides to his breast,
and taking up his staff and scrip, the dog bounded cheerily before
him, and with slow steps and downcast eyes he went his way.

The convert stood watching his bended form, till the trees shut
the last glimpse from his view; and then, as the stars broke forth, he
woke from the musings with a start, reminded of his appointment with
Olinthus.

                          Chapter V


                   THE PHILTRE. ITS EFFECT


WHEN Glaucus arrived at his own home, he found Nydia seated
under the portico of his garden. In fact, she had sought his house
in the mere chance that he might return at an early hour: anxious,
fearful, anticipative, she resolved upon seizing the earliest
opportunity of availing herself of the love-charm, while at the same
time she half hoped the opportunity might be deferred.

It was then, in that fearful burning mood, her heart beating,
her cheek flushing, that Nydia awaited the possibility of Glaucus's
return before the night. He crossed the portico just as the first
stars began to rise, and the heaven above had assumed its most
purple robe.

'Ho, my child, wait you for me?'

'Nay, I have been tending the flowers, and did but linger a little
while to rest myself'

'It has been warm,' said Glaucus, placing himself also on one of
the seats beneath the colonnade.

'Very.'

'Wilt thou summon Davus? The wine I have drunk heats me, and I
long for some cooling drink.'

Here at once, suddenly and unexpectedly, the very opportunity that
Nydia awaited presented itself; of himself, at his own free choice, he
afforded to her that occasion. She breathed quick- 'I will prepare for
you myself,' said she, 'the summer draught that Ione loves- of honey
and weak wine cooled in snow.'

'Thanks,' said the unconscious Glaucus. 'If Ione love it,
enough; it would be grateful were it poison.'

Nydia frowned, and then smiled; she withdrew for a few moments,
and returned with the cup containing the beverage. Glaucus took it
from her hand. What would not Nydia have given then for one hour's
prerogative of sight, to have watched her hopes ripening to effect- to
have seen the first dawn of the imagined love- to have worshipped with
more than Persian adoration the rising of that sun which her credulous
soul believed was to break upon her dreary night! Far different, as
she stood then and there, were the thoughts, the emotions of the blind
girl, from those of the vain Pompeian under a similar suspense. In the
last, what poor and frivolous passions had made up the daring whole!
What petty pique, what small revenge, what expectation of a paltry
triumph, had swelled the attributes of that sentiment she dignified
with the name of love! but in the wild heart of the Thessalian all was
pure, uncontrolled, unmodified passion- erring, unwomanly, frenzied,
but debased by no elements of a more sordid feeling. Filled with
love as with life itself, how could she resist the occasion of winning
love in return!

She leaned for support against the wall, and her face, before so
flushed, was now white as snow, and with her delicate hands clasped
convulsively together, her lips apart, her eyes on the ground, she
waited the next words Glaucus should utter.

Glaucus had raised the cup to his lips, he had already drained
about a fourth of its contents, when his eye suddenly glancing upon
the face of Nydia, he was so forcibly struck by its alteration, by its
intense, and painful, and strange expression, that he paused abruptly,
and still holding the cup near his lips, exclaimed:

'Why, Nydia! Nydia! I say, art thou ill or in pain? Nay, thy
face speaks for thee. What ails my poor child?' As he spoke, he put
down the cup and rose from his seat to approach her, when a sudden
pang shot coldly to his heart, and was followed by a wild, confused,
dizzy sensation at the brain. The floor seemed to glide from under
him- his feet seemed to move on air- a mighty and unearthly gladness
rushed upon his spirit- he felt too buoyant for the earth- he longed
for wings, nay, it seemed in the buoyancy of his new existence, as
if he possessed them. He burst involuntarily into a loud and thrilling
laugh. He clapped his hands- he bounded aloft- he was as a Pythoness
inspired; suddenly as it came this preternatural transport passed,
though only partially, away. He now felt his blood rushing loudly
and rapidly through his veins; it seemed to swell, to exult, to leap
along, as a stream that has burst its bounds, and hurries to the
ocean. It throbbed in his ear with a mighty sound, he felt it mount to
his brow, he felt the veins in the temples stretch and swell as if
they could no longer contain the violent and increasing tide- then a
kind of darkness fell over his eyes- darkness, but not entire; for
through the dim shade he saw the opposite walls glow out, and the
figures painted thereon seemed, ghost-like, to creep and glide. What
was most strange, he did not feel himself ill- he did not sink or
quail beneath the dread frenzy that was gathering over him. The
novelty of the feelings seemed bright and vivid- he felt as if a
younger health had been infused into his frame. He was gliding on to
madness- and he knew it not!

Nydia had not answered his first question- she had not been able
to reply- his wild and fearful laugh had roused her from her
passionate suspense: she could not see his fierce gesture- she could
not mark his reeling and unsteady step as he paced unconsciously to
and fro; but she heard the words, broken, incoherent, insane, that
gushed from his lips. She became terrified and appalled- she
hastened to him, feeling with her arms until she touched his knees,
and then falling on the ground she embraced them, weeping with
terror and excitement.

'Oh, speak to me! speak! you do not hate me?- speak, speak!'

'By the bright goddess, a beautiful land this Cyprus! Ho! how they
fill us with wine instead of blood! now they open the veins of the
Faun yonder, to show how the tide within bubbles and sparkles. Come
hither, jolly old god! thou ridest on a goat, eh?- what long silky
hair he has! He is worth all the coursers of Parthia. But a word
with thee- this wine of thine is too strong for us mortals. Oh!
beautiful! the boughs are at rest! the green waves of the forest
have caught the Zephyr and drowned him! Not a breath stirs the leaves-
and I view the Dreams sleeping with folded wings upon the motionless
elm; and I look beyond, and I see a blue stream sparkle in the
silent noon; a fountain- a fountain springing aloft! Ah! my fount,
thou wilt not put out rays of my Grecian sun, though thou triest
ever so hard with thy nimble and silver arms. And now, what form
steals yonder through the boughs? she glides like a moonbeam!- she has
a garland of oak-leaves on her head. In her hand is a vase upturned,
from which she pours pink and tiny shells and sparkling water. Oh!
look on yon face! Man never before saw its like. See! we are alone;
only I and she in the wide forest. There is no smile upon her lips-
she moves, grave and sweetly sad. Ha! fly, it is a nymph!- it is one
of the wild Napaeae! Whoever sees her becomes mad-fly! see, she
discovers me!'

'Oh! Glaucus! Glaucus! do you not know me? Rave not so wildly,
or thou wilt kill me with a word!'

A new change seemed now to operate upon the jarring and disordered
mind of the unfortunate Athenian. He put his hand upon Nydia's
silken hair; he smoothed the locks- he looked wistfully upon her face,
and then, as in the broken chain of thought one or two links were
yet unsevered, it seemed that her countenance brought its associations
of Ione; and with that remembrance his madness became yet more
powerful, and it swayed and tinged by passion, as he burst forth:

'I swear by Venus, by Diana, and by Juno, that though I have now
the world on my shoulders, as my countryman Hercules (ah, dull Rome!
whoever was truly great was of Greece; why, you would be godless if it
were not for us!)- I say, as my countryman Hercules had before me, I
would let it fall into chaos for one smile from Ione. Ah,
Beautiful,- Adored,' he added, in a voice inexpressibly fond and
plaintive, 'thou lovest me not. Thou art unkind to me. The Egyptian
hath belied me to thee- thou knowest not what hours I have spent
beneath thy casement- thou knowest not how I have outwatched the
stars, thinking thou, my sun, wouldst rise at last- and thou lovest me
not, thou forsakest me! Oh! do not leave me now! I feel that my life
will not be long; let me gaze on thee at least unto the last. I am
of the bright land of thy fathers- I have trod the heights of Phyle- I
have gathered the hyacinth and rose amidst the olive-groves of
Ilyssus. Thou shouldst not desert me, for thy fathers were brothers to
my own. And they say this land is lovely, and these climes serene, but
I will bear thee with me- Ho! dark form, why risest thou like a
cloud between me and mine? Death sits calmly dread upon thy brow- on
thy lip is the smile that slays: thy name is Orcus, but on earth men
call thee Arbaces. See, I know thee! fly, dim shadow, thy spells avail
not!'

'Glaucus! Glaucus!' murmured Nydia, releasing her hold and
falling, beneath the excitement of her dismay, remorse, and anguish,
insensible on the floor.

'Who calls?' said he in a loud voice. 'Ione, it is she! they
have borne her off- we will save her- where is my stilus? Ha, I have
it! I come, Ione, to thy rescue! I come! I come!'

So saying, the Athenian with one bound passed the portico, he
traversed the house, and rushed with swift but vacillating steps,
and muttering audibly to himself, down the starlit streets. The
direful potion burnt like fire in his veins, for its effect was
made, perhaps, still more sudden from the wine he had drunk
previously. Used to the excesses of nocturnal revellers, the citizens,
with smiles and winks, gave way to his reeling steps; they naturally
imagined him under the influence of the Bromian god, not vainly
worshipped at Pompeii; but they who looked twice upon his face started
in a nameless fear, and the smile withered from their lips. He
passed the more populous streets; and, pursuing mechanically the way
to Ione's house, he traversed a more deserted quarter, and entered now
the lonely grove of Cybele, in which Apaecides had held his
interview with Olinthus.

                          Chapter VI


      A REUNION OF DIFFERENT ACTORS. STREAMS THAT FLOWED
             APPARENTLY APART RUSH INTO ONE GULF


IMPATIENT to learn whether the fell drug had yet been administered
by Julia to his hated rival, and with what effect, Arbaces resolved,
as the evening came on, to seek her house, and satisfy his suspense.
It was customary, as I have before said, for men at that time to carry
abroad with them the tablets and the stilus attached to their
girdle; and with the girdle they were put off when at home. In fact,
under the appearance of a literary instrument, the Romans carried
about with them in that same stilus a very sharp and formidable
weapon. It was with his stilus that Cassius stabbed Caesar in the
senate-house. Taking, then, his girdle and his cloak, Arbaces left his
house, supporting his steps, which were still somewhat feeble
(though hope and vengeance had conspired greatly with his own
medical science, which was profound, to restore his natural strength),
by his long staff- Arbaces took his way to the villa of Diomed.

And beautiful is the moonlight of the south! In those climes the
night so quickly glides into the day, that twilight scarcely makes a
bridge between them. One moment of darker purple in the sky- of a
thousand rose-hues in the water- of shade half victorious over
light; and then burst forth at once the countless stars- the moon is
up- night has resumed her reign!

Brightly then, and softly bright, fell the moonbeams over the
antique grove consecrated to Cybele- the stately trees, whose date
went beyond tradition, cast their long shadows over the soil, while
through the openings in their boughs the stars shone, still and
frequent. The whiteness of the small sacellum in the centre of the
grove, amidst the dark foliage, had in it something abrupt and
startling; it recalled at once the purpose to which the wood was
consecrated- its holiness and solemnity.

With a swift and stealthy pace, Calenus, gliding under the shade
of the trees, reached the chapel, and gently putting back the boughs
that completely closed around its rear, settled himself in his
concealment; a concealment so complete, what with the fane in front
and the trees behind, that no unsuspicious passenger could possibly
have detected him. Again, all was apparently solitary in the grove:
afar off you heard faintly the voices of some noisy revellers or the
music that played cheerily to the groups that then, as now in those
climates, during the nights of summer, lingered in the streets, and
enjoyed, in the fresh air and the liquid moonlight, a milder day.

From the height on which the grove was placed, you saw through the
intervals of the trees the broad and purple sea, rippling in the
distance, the white villas of Stabiae in the curving shore, and the
dim Lectiarian hills mingling with the delicious sky. Presently the
tall figure of Arbaces, in his way to the house of Diomed, entered the
extreme end of the grove; and at the same instant Apaecides, also
bound to his appointment with Olinthus, crossed the Egyptian's path.

'Hem! Apaecides,' said Arbaces, recognising the priest at a
glance; 'when last we met, you were my foe. I have wished since then
to see you, for I would have you still my pupil and my friend.'

Apaecides started at the voice of the Egyptian; and halting
abruptly, gazed upon him with a countenance full of contending,
bitter, and scornful emotions.

'Villain and impostor!' said he at length; 'thou hast recovered
then from the jaws of the grave! But think not again to weave around
me thy guilty meshes. Retiarius, I am armed against thee!'

'Hush!' said Arbaces, in a very low voice- but his pride, which in
that descendant of kings was great, betrayed the wound it received
from the insulting epithets of the priest in the quiver of his lip and
the flush of his tawny brow. 'Hush! more low! thou mayest be
overheard, and if other ears than mine had drunk those sounds- why...'

'Dost thou threaten?- what if the whole city had heard me?'

'The manes of my ancestors would not have suffered me to forgive
thee. But, hold, and hear me. Thou art enraged that I would have
offered violence to thy sister. Nay, peace, peace, but one instant,
I pray thee. Thou art right; it was the frenzy of passion and of
jealousy- I have repented bitterly of my madness. Forgive me; I, who
never implored pardon of living man, beseech thee now to forgive me.
Nay, I will atone the insult- I ask thy sister in marriage- start not-
consider- what is the alliance of yon holiday Greek compared to
mine? Wealth unbounded- birth that in its far antiquity leaves your
Greek and Roman names the things of yesterday- science- but that
thou knowest! Give me thy sister, and my whole life shall atone a
moment's error.'

'Egyptian, were even I to consent, my sister loathes the very
air thou breathest: but I have my own wrongs to forgive- I may
pardon thee that thou hast made me a tool to thy deceits, but never
that thou hast seduced me to become the abettor of thy vices- a
polluted and a perjured man. Tremble!- even now I prepare the hour
in which thou and thy false gods shall be unveiled. Thy lewd and
Circean life shall be dragged to day- thy mumming oracles disclosed-
the fane of the idol Isis shall be a byword and a scorn- the name of
Arbaces a mark for the hisses of execration! Tremble!'

The flush on the Egyptian's brow was succeeded by a livid
paleness. He looked behind, before, around, to feel assured that
none were by; and then he fixed his dark and dilating eye on the
priest, with such a gaze of wrath and menace, that one, perhaps,
less supported than Apaecides by the fervent daring of a divine
zeal, could not have faced with unflinching look that lowering aspect.
As it was, however, the young convert met it unmoved, and returned
it with an eye of proud defiance.

'Apaecides,' said the Egyptian, in a tremulous and inward tone,
'beware! What is it thou wouldst meditate? Speakest thou- reflect,
pause before thou repliest- from the hasty influences of wrath, as yet
divining no settled purpose, or from some fixed design?'

'I speak from the inspiration of the True God, whose servant I now
am,' answered the Christian, boldly; 'and in the knowledge that by His
grace human courage has already fixed the date of thy hypocrisy and
thy demon's worship; ere thrice the sun has dawned, thou wilt know
all! Dark sorcerer, tremble, and farewell!'

All the fierce and lurid passions which he inherited from his
nation and his clime, at all times but ill concealed beneath the
blandness of craft and the coldness of philosophy, were released in
the breast of the Egyptian. Rapidly one thought chased another; he saw
before him an obstinate barrier to even a lawful alliance with Ione-
the fellow-champion of Glaucus in the struggle which had baffled his
designs- the reviler of his name- the threatened desecrator of the
goddess he served while he disbelieved- the avowed and approaching
revealer of his own impostures and vices. His love, his repute, nay,
his very life, might be in danger- the day and hour seemed even to
have been fixed for some design against him. He knew by the words of
the convert that Apaecides had adopted the Christian faith: he knew
the indomitable zeal which led on the proselytes of that creed. Such
was his enemy; he grasped his stilus- that enemy was in his power!
They were now before the chapel; one hasty glance once more he cast
around; he saw none near- silence and solitude alike tempted him.

'Die, then, in thy rashness!' he muttered; 'away, obstacle to my
rushing fates!'

And just as the young Christian had turned to depart, Arbaces
raised his hand high over the left shoulder of Apaecides, and
plunged his sharp weapon twice into his breast.

Apaecides fell to the ground pierced to the heart- he fell mute,
without even a groan, at the very base of the sacred chapel.

Arbaces gazed upon him for a moment with the fierce animal joy
of conquest over a foe. But presently the full sense of the danger
to which he was exposed flashed upon him; he wiped his weapon
carefully in the long grass, and with the very garments of his victim;
drew his cloak round him, and was about to depart, when he saw, coming
up the path, right before him, the figure of a young man, whose
steps reeled and vacillated strangely as he advanced: the quiet
moonlight streamed full upon his face, which seemed, by the
whitening ray, colourless as marble. The Egyptian recognised the
face and form of Glaucus. The unfortunate and benighted Greek was
chanting a disconnected and mad song, composed from snatches of
hymns and sacred odes, all jarringly woven together.

'Ha!' thought the Egyptian, instantaneously divining his state and
its terrible cause; 'so, then, the hell-draught works, and destiny
hath sent thee hither to crush two of my foes at once!'

Quickly, even ere this thought occurred to him, he had withdrawn
on one side of the chapel, and concealed himself amongst the boughs;
from that lurking place he watched, as a tiger in his lair, the
advance of his second victim. He noted the wandering and restless fire
in the bright and beautiful eyes of the Athenian; the convulsions that
distorted his statue-like features, and writhed his hueless lip. He
saw that the Greek was utterly deprived of reason. Nevertheless, as
Glaucus came up to the dead body of Apaecides, from which the dark red
stream flowed slowly over the grass, so strange and ghastly a
spectacle could not fail to arrest him, benighted and erring as was
his glimmering sense. He paused, placed his hand to his brow, as if to
collect himself, and then saying:

'What ho! Endymion, sleepest thou so soundly? What has the moon
said to thee? Thou makest me jealous; it is time to wake'- he
stooped down with the intention of lifting up the body.

Forgetting- feeling not- his own debility, the Egyptian sprung
from his hiding-place, and, as the Greek bent, struck him forcibly
to the ground, over the very body of the Christian; then, raising
his powerful voice to its highest pitch, he shouted:

'Ho, citizens- oh! help me!- run hither- hither!- A murder- a
murder before your very fane! Help, or the murderer escapes!' As he
spoke, he placed his foot on the breast of Glaucus: an idle and
superfluous precaution; for the potion operating with the fall, the
Greek lay there motionless and insensible, save that now and then
his lips gave vent to some vague and raving sounds.

As he there stood awaiting the coming of those his voice still
continued to summons, perhaps some remorse, some compunctious
visitings- for despite his crimes he was human- haunted the breast
of the Egyptian; the defenceless state of Glaucus- his wandering
words- his shattered reason, smote him even more than the death of
Apaecides, and he said, half audibly, to himself:

'Poor clay!- poor human reason; where is the soul now? I could
spare thee, O my rival- rival never more! But destiny must be
obeyed- my safety demands thy sacrifice.' With that, as if to drown
compunction, he shouted yet more loudly; and drawing from the girdle
of Glaucus the stilus it contained, he steeped it in the blood of
the murdered man, and laid it beside the corpse.

And now, fast and breathless, several of the citizens came
thronging to the place, some with torches, which the moon rendered
unnecessary, but which flared red and tremulously against the darkness
of the trees; they surrounded the spot.
  'Lift up yon corpse,' said the Egyptian, 'and guard well the
murderer.'

They raised the body, and great was their horror and sacred
indignation to discover in that lifeless clay a priest of the adored
and venerable Isis; but still greater, perhaps, was their surprise,
when they found the accused in the brilliant and admired Athenian.

'Glaucus!' cried the bystanders, with one accord; 'is it even
credible?'

'I would sooner,' whispered one man to his neighbour, 'believe
it to be the Egyptian himself.'

Here a centurion thrust himself into the gathering crowd, with
an air of authority.

'How! blood spilt! who the murderer?'

The bystanders pointed to Glaucus.

'He!- by Mars, he has rather the air of being the victim!

'Who accuses him?'

'I,' said Arbaces, drawing himself up haughtily; and the jewels
which adorned his dress flashing in the eyes of the soldier, instantly
convinced that worthy warrior of the witness's respectability.

'Pardon me- your name?' said he.

'Arbaces; it is well known methinks in Pompeii. Passing through
the grove, I beheld before me the Greek and the priest in earnest
conversation. I was struck by the reeling motions of the first, his
violent gestures, and the loudness of his voice; he seemed to me
either drunk or mad. Suddenly I saw him raise his stilus- I darted
forward- too late to arrest the blow. He had twice stabbed his victim,
and was bending over him, when, in my horror and indignation, I struck
the murderer to the ground. He fell without a struggle, which makes me
yet more suspect that he was not altogether in his senses when the
crime was perpetrated; for, recently recovered from a severe
illness, my blow was comparatively feeble, and the frame of Glaucus,
as you see, is strong and youthful.'

'His eyes are open now- his lips move,' said the soldier.
'Speak, prisoner, what sayest thou to the charge?'

'The charge- ha- ha! Why, it was merrily done; when the old hag
set her serpent at me, and Hecate stood by laughing from ear to ear-
what could I do? But I am ill- I faint- the serpent's fiery tongue
hath bitten me. Bear me to bed, and send for your physician; old
AEsculapius himself will attend me if you let him know that I am
Greek. Oh, mercy- mercy! I burn!- marrow and brain, I burn!'

And, with a thrilling and fierce groan, the Athenian fell back
in the arms of the bystanders.

'He raves,' said the officer, compassionately; 'and in his
delirium he has struck the priest. Hath any one present seen him
to-day!'

'I,' said one of the spectators, 'beheld him in the morning. He
passed my shop and accosted me. He seemed well and sane as the
stoutest of us!'

'And I saw him half an hour ago,' said another, 'passing up the
streets, muttering to himself with strange gestures, and just as the
Egyptian has described.'

'A corroboration of the witness! it must be too true. He must at
all events to the praetor; a pity, so young and so rich! But the crime
is dreadful: a priest of Isis, in his very robes, too, and at the base
itself of our most ancient chapel!'

At these words the crowd were reminded more forcibly, than in
their excitement and curiosity they had yet been, of the heinousness
of the sacrilege. They shuddered in pious horror.

'No wonder the earth has quaked,' said one, 'when it held such a
monster!'

'Away with him to prison- away!' cried they all.

And one solitary voice was heard shrilly and joyously above the
rest:

'The beasts will not want a gladiator now,


          Ho, ho, for the merry, merry show!


It was the voice of the young woman whose conversation with
Medon has been repeated.

'True- true- it chances in season for the games!' cried several;
and at that thought all pity for the accused seemed vanished. His
youth, his beauty, but fitted him better for the purpose of the arena.

'Bring hither some planks- or if at hand, a litter- to bear the
dead,' said Arbaces: 'a priest of Isis ought scarcely to be carried to
his temple by vulgar hands, like a butchered gladiator.'

At this the bystanders reverently laid the corpse of Apaecides
on the ground, with the face upwards; and some of them went in
search of some contrivance to bear the body, untouched by the profane.

It was just at that time that the crowd gave way to right and left
as a sturdy form forced itself through, and Olinthus the Christian
stood immediately confronting the Egyptian. But his eyes, at first,
only rested with inexpressible grief and horror on that gory side
and upturned face, on which the agony of violent death yet lingered.

'Murdered!' he said. 'Is it thy zeal that has brought thee to
this? Have they detected thy noble purpose, and by death prevented
their own shame?'

He turned his head abruptly, and his eyes fell full on the
solemn features of the Egyptian.

As he looked, you might see in his face, and even the slight
shiver of his frame, the repugnance and aversion which the Christian
felt for one whom he knew to be so dangerous and so criminal. It was
indeed the gaze of the bird upon the basilisk- so silent was it and so
prolonged. But shaking off the sudden chill that had crept over him,
Olinthus extended his right arm towards Arbaces, and said, in a deep
and loud voice:

'Murder hath been done upon this corpse! Where is the murderer?
Stand forth, Egyptian! For, as the Lord liveth, I believe thou art the
man!'

An anxious and perturbed change might for one moment be detected
on the dusky features of Arbaces; but it gave way to the frowning
expression of indignation and scorn, as, awed and arrested by the
suddenness and vehemence of the charge, the spectators pressed
nearer and nearer upon the two more prominent actors.

'I know,' said Arbaces, proudly, 'who is my accuser, and I guess
wherefore he thus arraigns me. Men and citizens, know this man for the
most bitter of the Nazarenes, if that or Christians be their proper
name! What marvel that in his malignity he dares accuse even an
Egyptian of the murder of a priest of Egypt!'

'I know him! I know the dog!' shouted several voices. 'It is
Olinthus the Christian- or rather the Atheist- he denies the gods!'

'Peace, brethren,' said Olinthus, with dignity, 'and hear me! This
murdered priest of Isis before his death embraced the Christian faith-
he revealed to me the dark sins, the sorceries of yon Egyptian- the
mummeries and delusions of the fane of Isis. He was about to declare
them publicly. He, a stranger, unoffending, without enemies! who
should shed his blood but one of those who feared his witness? Who
might fear that testimony the most?- Arbaces, the Egyptian!'

'You hear him!' said Arbaces; 'you hear him! he blasphemes! Ask
him if he believes in Isis!'

'Do I believe in an evil demon?' returned Olinthus, boldly.

A groan and shudder passed through the assembly. Nothing
daunted, for prepared at every time for peril, and in the present
excitement losing all prudence, the Christian continued:

'Back, idolaters! this clay is not for your vain and polluting
rites- it is to us- to the followers of Christ, that the last
offices due to a Christian belong. I claim this dust in the name of
the great Creator who has recalled the spirit!'

With so solemn and commanding a voice and aspect the Christian
spoke these words, that even the crowd forbore to utter aloud the
execration of fear and hatred which in their hearts they conceived.
And never, perhaps, since Lucifer and the Archangel contended for
the body of the mighty Lawgiver, was there a more striking subject for
the painter's genius than that scene exhibited. The dark trees- the
stately fane- the moon full on the corpse of the deceased- the torches
tossing wildly to and fro in the rear- the various faces of the motley
audience- the insensible form of the Athenian, supported, in the
distance, and in the foreground, and above all, the forms of Arbaces
and the Christian: the first drawn to its full height, far taller than
the herd around; his arms folded, his brow knit, his eyes fixed, his
lip slightly curled in defiance and disdain. The last bearing, on a
brow worn and furrowed, the majesty of an equal command- the
features stern, yet frank- the aspect bold, yet open- the quiet
dignity of the whole form impressed with an ineffable earnestness,
hushed, as it were, in a solemn sympathy with the awe he himself had
created. His left hand pointing to the corpse- his right hand raised
to heaven.

The centurion pressed forward again.

'In the first place, hast thou, Olinthus, or whatever be thy name,
any proof of the charge thou hast made against Arbaces, beyond thy
vague suspicions?'

Olinthus remained silent- the Egyptian laughed contemptuously.

'Dost thou claim the body of a priest of Isis as one of the
Nazarene or Christian sect?'

'I do.'

'Swear then by yon fane, yon statue of Cybele, by yon most ancient
sacellum in Pompeii, that the dead man embraced your faith!'

'Vain man! I disown your idols! I abhor your temples! How can I
swear by Cybele then?'

'Away, away with the Atheist! away! the earth will swallow us,
if we suffer these blasphemers in a sacred grove- away with him to
death!'

'To the beasts!' added a female voice in the centre of the
crowd; 'we shall have one a-piece now for the lion and tiger!'

'If, O Nazarene, thou disbelievest in Cybele, which of our gods
dost thou own?' resumed the soldier, unmoved by the cries around.

'None!'

'Hark to him! hark!' cried the crowd.

'O vain and blind!' continued the Christian, raising his voice:
'can you believe in images of wood and stone? Do you imagine that they
have eyes to see, or ears to hear, or hands to help ye? Is yon mute
thing carved by man's art a goddess!- hath it made mankind?- alas!
by mankind was it made. Lo! convince yourself of its nothingness- of
your folly.'

And as he spoke he strode across to the fane, and ere any of the
bystanders were aware of his purpose, he, in his compassion or his
zeal, struck the statue of wood from its pedestal.

'See!' cried he, 'your goddess cannot avenge herself. Is this a
thing to worship?'

Further words were denied to him: so gross and daring a sacrilege-
of one, too, of the most sacred of their places of worship- filled
even the most lukewarm with rage and horror. With one accord the crowd
rushed upon him, seized, and but for the interference of the
centurion, they would have torn him to pieces.

'Peace!' said the soldier, authoritatively- 'refer we this
insolent blasphemer to the proper tribunal- time has been already
wasted. Bear we both the culprits to the magistrates; place the body
of the priest on the litter- carry it to his own home.'

At this moment a priest of Isis stepped forward. 'I claim these
remains, according to the custom of the priesthood.'

'The flamen be obeyed,' said the centurion. 'How is the murderer?'

'Insensible or asleep.'

'Were his crimes less, I could pity him. On!'

Arbaces, as he turned, met the eye of that priest of Isis- it
was Calenus; and something there was in that glance, so significant
and sinister, that the Egyptian muttered to himself:

'Could he have witnessed the deed?'

A girl darted from the crowd, and gazed hard on the face of
Olinthus. 'By Jupiter, a stout knave! I say, we shall have a man for
the tiger now; one for each beast!'

'Ho!' shouted the mob; 'a man for the lion, and another for the
tiger! What luck! Io Paean!'

                         Chapter VII


     IN WHICH THE READER LEARNS THE CONDITION OF GLAUCUS.
      FRIENDSHIP TESTED. ENMITY SOFTENED. LOVE THE SAME,
               BECAUSE THE ONE LOVING IS BLIND


THE night was somewhat advanced, and the gay lounging places of
the Pompeians were still crowded. You might observe in the
countenances of the various idlers a more earnest expression than
usual. They talked in large knots and groups, as if they sought by
numbers to divide the half-painful, half-pleasurable anxiety which
belonged to the subject on which they conversed: it was a subject of
life and death.

A young man passed briskly by the graceful portico of the Temple
of Fortune- so briskly, indeed, that he came with no slight force full
against the rotund and comely form of that respectable citizen Diomed,
who was retiring homeward to his suburban villa.

'Holloa!' groaned the merchant, recovering with some difficulty
his equilibrium; 'have you no eyes? or do you think I have no feeling?
By Jupiter! you have well nigh driven out the divine particle; such
another shock, and my soul will be in Hades!'

'Ah, Diomed! is it you? forgive my inadvertence. I was absorbed in
thinking of the reverses of life. Our poor friend, Glaucus, eh! who
could have guessed it?'

'Well, but tell me, Clodius, is he really to be tried by the
senate?'

'Yes; they say the crime is of so extraordinary a nature that
the senate itself must adjudge it; and so the lictors are to induct
him formally.'

'He has been accused publicly, then?'

'To be sure; where have you been not to hear that?'

'Why, I have only just returned from Neapolis, whither I went on
business the very morning after his crime- so shocking, and at my
house the same night that it happened!'

'There is no doubt of his guilt,' said Clodius, shrugging his
shoulders; 'and as these crimes take precedence of all little
undignified peccadilloes, they will hasten to finish the sentence
previous to the games.'

'The games! Good gods!' replied Diomed, with a slight shudder:
'can they adjudge him to the beasts?- so young, so rich!'

'True; but then he is a Greek. Had he been a Roman, it would
have been a thousand pities. These foreigners can be borne with in
their prosperity; but in adversity we must not forget that they are in
reality slaves. However, we of the upper classes are always
tender-hearted; and he would certainly get off tolerably well if he
were left to us: for, between ourselves, what is a paltry priest of
Isis!- what Isis herself? But the common people are superstitious;
they clamour for the blood of the sacrilegious one. It is dangerous
not to give way to public opinion.'

'And the blasphemer- the Christian, or Nazarene, or whatever
else he be called?'

'Oh, poor dog! if he will sacrifice to Cybele or Isis, he will
be pardoned- if not, the tiger has him. At least, so I suppose; but
the trial will decide. We talk while the urn's still empty. And the
Greek may yet escape the deadly Theta of his own alphabet. But
enough of this gloomy subject. How is the fair Julia?'

'Well, I fancy.'

'Commend me to her. But hark! the door yonder creaks on its
hinges; it is the house of the praetor. Who comes forth? By Pollux! it
is the Egyptian! What can he want with our official friend!'

'Some conference touching the murder, doubtless,' replied
Diomed; 'but what was supposed to be the inducement to the crime?
Glaucus was to have married the priest's sister.'

'Yes: some say Apaecides refused the alliance. It might have
been a sudden quarrel. Glaucus was evidently drunk- nay, so much so as
to have been quite insensible when taken up, and I hear is still
delirious- whether with wine, terror, remorse, the Furies, or the
Bacchanals, I cannot say.'

'Poor fellow!- he has good counsel?'

'The best- Caius Pollio, an eloquent fellow enough. Pollio has
been hiring all the poor gentlemen and well-born spendthrifts of
Pompeii to dress shabbily and sneak about, swearing their friendship
to Glaucus (who would not have spoken to them to be made emperor!- I
will do him justice, he was a gentleman in his choice of
acquaintance), and trying to melt the stony citizens into pity. But it
will not do; Isis is mightily popular just at this moment.'

'And, by-the-by, I have some merchandise at Alexandria. Yes,
Isis ought to be protected.'

'True; so farewell, old gentleman: we shall meet soon; if not,
we must have a friendly bet at the Amphitheatre. All my calculations
are confounded by this cursed misfortune of Glaucus! He had bet on
Lydon the gladiator; I must make up my tablets elsewhere. Vale!'

Leaving the less active Diomed to regain his villa, Clodius strode
on, humming a Greek air, and perfuming the night with the odours
that steamed from his snowy garments and flowing locks.

'If,' thought he, 'Glaucus feed the lion, Julia will no longer
have a person to love better than me; she will certainly doat on me-
and so, I suppose, I must marry. By the gods! the twelve lines begin
to fail- men look suspiciously at my hand when it rattles the dice.
That infernal Sallust insinuates cheating; and if it be discovered
that the ivory is clogged, why farewell to the merry supper and the
perfumed billet- Clodius is undone! Better marry, then, while I may,
renounce gaming, and push my fortune (or rather the gentle Julia's) at
the imperial court.'

Thus muttering the schemes of his ambition, if by that high name
the projects of Clodius may be called, the gamester found himself
suddenly accosted; he turned and beheld the dark brow of Arbaces.

'Hail, noble Clodius! pardon my interruption; and inform me, I
pray you, which is the house of Sallust?'

'It is but a few yards hence, wise Arbaces. But does Sallust
entertain to-night?'

'I know not,' answered the Egyptian; 'nor am I, perhaps, one of
those whom he would seek as a boon companion. But thou knowest that
his house holds the person of Glaucus, the murderer.'

'Ay! he, good-hearted epicure, believes in the Greek's
innocence! You remind me that he has become his surety; and,
therefore, till the trial, is responsible for his appearance.' Well,
Sallust's house is better than a prison, especially that wretched hole
in the forum. But for what can you seek Glaucus?'

'Why, noble Clodius, if we could save him from execution it
would be well. The condemnation of the rich is a blow upon society
itself. I should like to confer with him- for I hear he has
recovered his senses- and ascertain the motives of his crime; they may
be so extenuating as to plead in his defence.'

'You are benevolent, Arbaces.'

'Benevolence is the duty of one who aspires to wisdom,' replied
the Egyptian, modestly. 'Which way lies Sallust's mansion?'

'I will show you,' said Clodius, 'if you will suffer me to
accompany you a few steps. But, pray what has become of the poor
girl who was to have wed the Athenian- the sister of the murdered
priest?'

'Alas! well-nigh insane! Sometimes she utters imprecations on
the murderer- then suddenly stops short- then cries, "But why curse?
Oh, my brother! Glaucus was not thy murderer- never will I believe
it!" Then she begins again, and again stops short, and mutters awfully
to herself, "Yet if it were indeed he?"'

'Unfortunate Ione!'

'But it is well for her that those solemn cares to the dead
which religion enjoins have hitherto greatly absorbed her attention
from Glaucus and herself: and, in the dimness of her senses, she
scarcely seems aware that Glaucus is apprehended and on the eve of
trial. When the funeral rites due to Apaecides are performed, her
apprehension will return; and then I fear me much that her friends
will be revolted by seeing her run to succour and aid the murderer
of her brother!'

'Such scandal should be prevented.'

'I trust I have taken precautions to that effect. I am her
lawful guardian, and have just succeeded in obtaining permission to
escort her, after the funeral of Apaecides, to my own house; there,
please the gods! she will be secure.'

'You have done well, sage Arbaces. And, now, yonder is the house
of Sallust. The gods keep you! Yet, hark you, Arbaces- why so gloomy
and unsocial? Men say you can be gay- why not let me initiate you into
the pleasures of Pompeii?- I flatter myself no one knows them better.'

'I thank you, noble Clodius: under your auspices I might
venture, I think, to wear the philyra: but, at my age, I should be
an awkward pupil.'

'Oh, never fear; I have made converts of fellows of seventy. The
rich, too, are never old.'

'You flatter me. At some future time I will remind you of your
promise.'

'You may command Marcus Clodius at all times- and so, vale!'

'Now,' said the Egyptian, soliloquising, 'I am not wantonly a
man of blood; I would willingly save this Greek, if, by confessing the
crime, he will lose himself for ever to Ione, and for ever free me
from the chance of discovery; and I can save him by persuading Julia
to own the philtre, which will be held his excuse. But if he do not
confess the crime, why, Julia must be shamed from the confession,
and he must die!- die, lest he prove my rival with the living- die,
that he may be my proxy with the dead! Will he confess?- can he not be
persuaded that in his delirium he struck the blow? To me it would give
far greater safety than even his death. Hem! we must hazard the
experiment.'

Sweeping along the narrow street, Arbaces now approached the house
of Sallust, when he beheld a dark form wrapped in a cloak, and
stretched at length across the threshold of the door.

So still lay the figure, and so dim was its outline, that any
other than Arbaces might have felt a superstitious fear, lest he
beheld one of those grim lemures, who, above all other spots,
haunted the threshold of the homes they formerly possessed. But not
for Arbaces were such dreams.

'Rise!' said he, touching the figure with his foot; 'thou
obstructest the way!'

'Ha! who art thou cried the form, in a sharp tone, and as she
raised herself from the ground, the starlight fell full on the pale
face and fixed but sightless eyes of Nydia the Thessalian. 'Who art
thou? I know the burden of thy voice.'

'Blind girl! what dost thou here at this late hour? Fie!- is
this seeming thy sex or years? Home, girl!'

'I know thee,' said Nydia, in a low voice, 'thou art Arbaces the
Egyptian': then, as if inspired by some sudden impulse, she flung
herself at his feet, and clasping his knees, exclaimed, in a wild
and passionate tone, 'Oh dread and potent man! save him- save him!
He is not guilty- it is I! He lies within, ill-dying, and I- I am
the hateful cause! And they will not admit me to him- they spurn the
blind girl from the hall. Oh, heal him! thou knowest some herb- some
spell- some countercharm, for it is a potion that hath wrought this
frenzy!

'Hush, child! I know all!- thou forgettest that I accompanied
Julia to the saga's home. Doubtless her hand administered the draught;
but her reputation demands thy silence. Reproach not thyself- what
must be, must: meanwhile, I seek the criminal- he may yet be saved.
Away!'

Thus saying, Arbaces extricated himself from the clasp of the
despairing Thessalian, and knocked loudly at the door.

In a few moments the heavy bars were heard suddenly to yield,
and the porter, half opening the door, demanded who was there.

'Arbaces- important business to Sallust relative to Glaucus. I
come from the praetor.'

The porter, half yawning, half groaning, admitted the tall form of
the Egyptian. Nydia sprang forward. 'How is he?' she cried; 'tell
me- tell me!'

'Ho, mad girl! is it thou still?- for shame! Why, they say he is
sensible.'

'The gods be praised!- and you will not admit me? Ah! I beseech
thee...'

'Admit thee!- no. A pretty salute I should prepare for these
shoulders were I to admit such things as thou! Go home!'

The door closed, and Nydia, with a deep sigh, laid herself down
once more on the cold stones; and, wrapping her cloak round her
face, resumed her weary vigil.

Meanwhile Arbaces had already gained the triclinium, where
Sallust, with his favourite freedman, sat late at supper.

'What! Arbaces! and at this hour!- Accept this cup.'

'Nay, gentle Sallust; it is on business, not pleasure, that I
venture to disturb thee. How doth thy charge?- they say in the town
that he has recovered sense.'

'Alas! and truly,' replied the good-natured but thoughtless
Sallust, wiping the tear from his eyes; 'but so shattered are his
nerves and frame that I scarcely recognise the brilliant and gay
carouser I was wont to know. Yet, strange to say, he cannot account
for the cause of the sudden frenzy that seized him- he retains but a
dim consciousness of what hath passed; and, despite thy witness,
wise Egyptian, solemnly upholds his innocence of the death of
Apaecides.'

'Sallust,' said Arbaces, gravely, 'there is much in thy friend's
case that merits a peculiar indulgence; and could we learn from his
lips the confession and the cause of his crime, much might be yet
hoped from the mercy of the senate; for the senate, thou knowest, hath
the power either to mitigate or to sharpen the law. Therefore it is
that I have conferred with the highest authority of the city, and
obtained his permission to hold a private conference this night with
the Athenian. Tomorrow, thou knowest, the trial comes on.'

'Well,' said Sallust, 'thou wilt be worthy of thy Eastern name and
fame if thou canst learn aught from him; but thou mayst try. Poor
Glaucus!- and he had such an excellent appetite! He eats nothing now!'

The benevolent epicure was moved sensibly at this thought. He
sighed, and ordered his slaves to refill his cup.

'Night wanes,' said the Egyptian; 'suffer me to see thy ward now.'

Sallust nodded assent, and led the way to a small chamber, guarded
without by two dozing slaves. The door opened; at the request of
Arbaces, Sallust withdrew- the Egyptian was alone with Glaucus.

One of those tall and graceful candelabra common to that day,
supporting a single lamp, burned beside the narrow bed. Its rays
fell palely over the face of the Athenian, and Arbaces was moved to
see how sensibly that countenance had changed. The rich colour was
gone, the cheek was sunk, the lips were convulsed and pallid; fierce
had been the struggle between reason and madness, life and death.
The youth, the strength of Glaucus had conquered; but the freshness of
blood and soul- the life of life- its glory and its zest, were gone
for ever.

The Egyptian seated himself quietly beside the bed; Glaucus
still lay mute and unconscious of his presence. At length, after a
considerable pause, Arbaces thus spoke:

'Glaucus, we have been enemies. I come to thee alone and in the
dead of night- thy friend, perhaps thy saviour.'

As the steed starts from the path of the tiger, Glaucus sprang
up breathless- alarmed, panting at the abrupt voice, the sudden
apparition of his foe. Their eyes met, and neither, for some
moments, had power to withdraw his gaze. The flush went and came
over the face of the Athenian, and the bronzed cheek of the Egyptian
grew a shade more pale. At length, with an inward groan, Glaucus
turned away, drew his hand across his brow, sunk back, and muttered:

'Am I still dreaming?'

'No, Glaucus thou art awake. By this right hand and my father's
head, thou seest one who may save thy life. Hark! I know what thou
hast done, but I know also its excuse, of which thou thyself art
ignorant. Thou hast committed murder, it is true- a sacrilegious
murder- frown not- start not- these eyes saw it. But I can save
thee- I can prove how thou wert bereaved of sense, and made not a
free-thinking and free-acting man. But in order to save thee, thou
must confess thy crime. Sign but this paper, acknowledging thy hand in
the death of Apaecides, and thou shalt avoid the fatal urn.'

'What words are these?- Murder and Apaecides!- Did I not see him
stretched on the ground bleeding and a corpse? and wouldst thou
persuade me that I did the deed? Man, thou liest! Away!'

'Be not rash- Glaucus, be not hasty; the deed is proved. Come,
come, thou mayst well be excused for not recalling the act of thy
delirium, and which thy sober senses would have shunned even to
contemplate. But let me try to refresh thy exhausted and weary memory.
Thou knowest thou wert walking with the priest, disputing about his
sister; thou knowest he was intolerant, and half a Nazarene, and he
sought to convert thee, and ye had hot words; and he calumniated thy
mode of life, and swore he would not marry Ione to thee- and then,
in thy wrath and thy frenzy, thou didst strike the sudden blow.
Come, come; you can recollect this!- read this papyrus, it runs to
that effect- sign it, and thou art saved.'

'Barbarian, give me the written lie, that I may tear it! I the
murderer of Ione's brother: I confess to have injured one hair of
the head of him she loved! Let me rather perish a thousand times!'

'Beware!' said Arbaces, in a low and hissing tone; 'there is but
one choice- thy confession and thy signature, or the amphitheatre
and the lion's maw!'

As the Egyptian fixed his eyes upon the sufferer, he hailed with
joy the signs of evident emotion that seized the latter at these
words. A slight shudder passed over the Athenian's frame- his lip
fell- an expression of sudden fear and wonder betrayed itself in his
brow and eye.

'Great gods!' he said, in a low voice, 'what reverse is this? It
seems but a little day since life laughed out from amidst roses-
Ione mine- youth, health, love, lavishing on me their treasures; and
now- pain, madness, shame, death! And for what? What have I done?
Oh, I am mad still?'

'Sign, and be saved!' said the soft, sweet voice of the Egyptian.

'Tempter, never!' cried Glaucus, in the reaction of rage. 'Thou
knowest me not: thou knowest not the haughty soul of an Athenian!
The sudden face of death might appal me for a moment, but the fear
is over. Dishonour appals for ever! Who will debase his name to save
his life? who exchange clear thoughts for sullen days? who will
belie himself to shame, and stand blackened in the eyes of love? If to
earn a few years of polluted life there be so base a coward, dream
not, dull barbarian of Egypt! to find him in one who has trod the same
sod as Harmodius, and breathed the same air as Socrates. Go! leave
me to live without self-reproach- or to perish without fear!'

'Bethink thee well! the lion's fangs: the hoots of the brutal mob:
the vulgar gaze on thy dying agony and mutilated limbs: thy name
degraded; thy corpse unburied; the shame thou wouldst avoid clinging
to thee for aye and ever!'

'Thou ravest; thou art the madman! shame is not in the loss of
other men's esteem- it is in the loss of our own. Wilt thou go?- my
eyes loathe the sight of thee! hating ever, I despise thee now!'

'I go,' said Arbaces, stung and exasperated, but not without
some pitying admiration of his victim, 'I go; we meet twice again-
once at the Trial, once at the Death! Farewell!'

The Egyptian rose slowly, gathered his robes about him, and left
the chamber. He sought Sallust for a moment, whose eyes began to
reel with the vigils of the cup: 'He is still unconscious, or still
obstinate; there is no hope for him.'

'Say not so,' replied Sallust, who felt but little resentment
against the Athenian's accuser, for he possessed no great austerity of
virtue, and was rather moved by his friend's reverses than persuaded
of his innocence- 'say not so, my Egyptian! so good a drinker shall be
saved if possible. Bacchus against Isis!'

'We shall see,' said the Egyptian.

Suddenly the bolts were again withdrawn- the door unclosed;
Arbaces was in the open street; and poor Nydia once more started
from her long watch.

'Wilt thou save him?' she cried, clasping her hands.

'Child, follow me home; I would speak to thee- it is for his
sake I ask it.'

'And thou wilt save him?'

No answer came forth to the thirsting ear of the blind girl:
Arbaces had already proceeded far up the street; she hesitated a
moment, and then followed his steps in silence.

'I must secure this girl,' said he, musingly, 'lest she give
evidence of the philtre; as to the vain Julia, she will not betray
herself.'

                         Chapter VIII


                      A CLASSIC FUNERAL


WHILE Arbaces had been thus employed, Sorrow and Death were in the
house of Ione. It was the night preceding the morn in which the solemn
funeral rites were to be decreed to the remains of the murdered
Apaecides. The corpse had been removed from the temple of Isis to
the house of the nearest surviving relative, and Ione had heard, in
the same breath, the death of her brother and the accusation against
her betrothed. That first violent anguish which blunts the sense to
all but itself, and the forbearing silence of her slaves, had
prevented her learning minutely the circumstances attendant on the
fate of her lover. His illness, his frenzy, and his approaching trial,
were unknown to her. She learned only the accusation against him,
and at once indignantly rejected it; nay, on hearing that Arbaces
was the accuser, she required no more to induce her firmly and
solemnly to believe that the Egyptian himself was the criminal. But
the vast and absorbing importance attached by the ancients to the
performance of every ceremonial connected with the death of a
relation, had, as yet, confined her woe and her convictions to the
chamber of the deceased. Alas! it was not for her to perform that
tender and touching office, which obliged the nearest relative to
endeavour to catch the last breath- the parting soul- of the beloved
one: but it was hers to close the straining eyes, the distorted
lips: to watch by the consecrated clay, as, fresh bathed and anointed,
it lay in festive robes upon the ivory bed; to strew the couch with
leaves and flowers, and to renew the solemn cypress-branch at the
threshold of the door. And in these sad offices, in lamentation and in
prayer, Ione forgot herself. It was among the loveliest customs of the
ancients to bury the young at the morning twilight; for, as they
strove to give the softest interpretation to death, so they poetically
imagined that Aurora, who loved the young, had stolen them to her
embrace; and though in the instance of the murdered priest this
fable could not appropriately cheat the fancy, the general custom
was still preserved."

The stars were fading one by one from the grey heavens, and
night slowly receding before the approach of morn, when a dark group
stood motionless before Ione's door. High and slender torches, made
paler by the unmellowed dawn, cast their light over various
countenances, hushed for the moment in one solemn and intent
expression. And now there arose a slow and dismal music, which
accorded sadly with the rite, and floated far along the desolate and
breathless streets; while a chorus of female voices (the Praeficae
so often cited by the Roman poets), accompanying the Tibicen and the
Mysian flute, woke the following strain:


                THE FUNERAL DIRGE

    O'er the sad threshold, where the cypress bough
       Supplants the rose that should adorn thy home,
    On the last pilgrimage on earth that now
       Awaits thee, wanderer to Cocytus, come!
    Darkly we woo, and weeping we invite-
       Death is thy host- his banquet asks thy soul,
    Thy garlands hang within the House of Night,
       And the black stream alone shall fill thy bowl.
    No more for thee the laughter and the song,
       The jocund night- the glory of the day!
    The Argive daughters' at their labours long;
       The hell-bird swooping on its Titan prey-
    The false AEolides upheaving slow,
       O'er the eternal hill, the eternal stone;
    The crowned Lydian, in his parching woe,
       And green Callirrhoe's monster-headed son-

    These shalt thou see, dim shadowed through the dark,
       Which makes the sky of Pluto's dreary shore;
    Lo! where thou stand'st, pale-gazing on the bark,
       That waits our rite to bear thee trembling o'er!
    Come, then! no more delay!- the phantom pines
       Amidst the Unburied for its latest home;
    O'er the grey sky the torch impatient shines-
       Come, mourner, forth!- the lost one bids thee come.

As the hymn died away, the group parted in twain; and placed
upon a couch, spread with a purple pall, the corpse of Apaecides was
carried forth, with the feet foremost. The designator, or marshal of
the sombre ceremonial, accompanied by his torch-bearers, clad in
black, gave the signal, and the procession moved dreadly on.

First went the musicians, playing a slow march- the solemnity of
the lower instruments broken by many a louder and wilder burst of
the funeral trumpet: next followed the hired mourners, chanting
their dirges to the dead; and the female voices were mingled with
those of boys, whose tender years made still more striking the
contrast of life and death- the fresh leaf and the withered one. But
the players, the buffoons, the archimimus (whose duty it was to
personate the dead)- these, the customary attendants at ordinary
funerals, were banished from a funeral attended with so many
terrible associations.

The priests of Isis came next in their snowy garments, barefooted,
and supporting sheaves of corn; while before the corpse were carried
the images of the deceased and his many Athenian forefathers. And
behind the bier followed, amidst her women, the sole surviving
relative of the dead- her head bare, her locks dishevelled, her face
paler than marble, but composed and still, save ever and anon, as some
tender thought- awakened by the music, flashed upon the dark
lethargy of woe, she covered that countenance with her hands, and
sobbed unseen; for hers were not the noisy sorrow, the shrill
lament, the ungoverned gesture, which characterised those who honoured
less faithfully. In that age, as in all, the channel of deep grief
flowed hushed and still.

And so the procession swept on, till it had traversed the streets,
passed the city gate, and gained the Place of Tombs without the
wall, which the traveller yet beholds.

Raised in the form of an altar- of unpolished pine, amidst whose
interstices were placed preparations of combustible matter- stood
the funeral pyre; and around it drooped the dark and gloomy
cypresses so consecrated by song to the tomb.

As soon as the bier was placed upon the pile, the attendants
parting on either side, Ione passed up to the couch, and stood
before the unconscious clay for some moments motionless and silent.
The features of the dead had been composed from the first agonised
expression of violent death. Hushed for ever the terror and the doubt,
the contest of passion, the awe of religion, the struggle of the
past and present, the hope and the horror of the future!- of all
that racked and desolated the breast of that young aspirant to the
Holy of Life, what trace was visible in the awful serenity of that
impenetrable brow and unbreathing lip? The sister gazed, and not a
sound was heard amidst the crowd; there was something terrible, yet
softening, also, in the silence; and when it broke, it broke sudden
and abrupt- it broke, with a loud and passionate cry- the vent of
long-smothered despair.

'My brother! my brother!' cried the poor orphan, falling upon
the couch; 'thou whom the worm on thy path feared not- what enemy
couldst thou provoke? Oh, is it in truth come to this? Awake! awake!
We grew together! Are we thus torn asunder? Thou art not dead- thou
sleepest. Awake! awake!'

The sound of her piercing voice aroused the sympathy of the
mourners, and they broke into loud and rude lament. This startled,
this recalled Ione; she looked up hastily and confusedly, as if for
the first time sensible of the presence of those around.

'Ah!' she murmured with a shiver, 'we are not then alone!' With
that, after a brief pause, she rose; and her pale and beautiful
countenance was again composed and rigid. With fond and trembling
hands, she unclosed the lids of the deceased; but when the dull glazed
eye, no longer beaming with love and life, met hers, she shrieked
aloud, as if she had seen a spectre. Once more recovering herself
she kissed again and again the lids, the lips, the brow; and with
mechanic and unconscious hand, received from the high priest of her
brother's temple the funeral torch.

The sudden burst of music, the sudden song of the mourners
announced the birth of the sanctifying flame.


           HYMN TO THE WIND

                 I

     On thy couch of cloud reclined,
     Wake, O soft and sacred Wind!
     Soft and sacred will we name thee,
     Whosoe'er the sire that claim thee-
     Whether old Auster's dusky child,
     Or the loud son of Eurus wild;
     Or his who o'er the darkling deeps,
     From the bleak North, in tempest sweeps;
     Still shalt thou seem as dear to us
     As flowery-crowned Zephyrus,
     When, through twilight's starry dew,
     Trembling, he hastes his nymph to woo.

                 II

     Lo! our silver censers swinging,
     Perfumes o'er thy path are flinging-
     Ne'er o'er Tempe's breathless valleys,
     Ne'er o'er Cypria's cedarn alleys,
     Or the Rose-isle's moonlit sea,
     Floated sweets more worthy thee.
     Lo! around our vases sending
     Myrrh and nard with cassia blending:
     Paving air with odours meet,
     For thy silver-sandall'd feet!

                III

     August and everlasting air!
        The source of all that breathe and be,
     From the mute clay before thee bear
        The seeds it took from thee!
     Aspire, bright Flame! aspire!
        Wild wind!- awake, awake!
     Thine own, O solemn Fire!
        O Air, thine own retake!

                 IV

     It comes! it comes! Lo! it sweeps,
        The Wind we invoke the while!
     And crackles, and darts, and leaps
        The light on the holy pile!
     It rises! its wings interweave
     With the flames- how they howl and heave!
           Toss'd, whirl'd to and fro,
           How the flame-serpents glow!
           Rushing higher and higher,
           On- on, fearful Fire!
           Thy giant limbs twined
           With the arms of the Wind!
     Lo! the elements meet on the throne
     Of death- to reclaim their own!

                  V

     Swing, swing the censer round-
     Tune the strings to a softer sound!
     From the chains of thy earthly toil,
     From the clasp of thy mortal coil,
     From the prison where clay confined thee,
     The hands of the flame unbind thee!
           O Soul! thou art free- all free!
     As the winds in their ceaseless chase,
        When they rush o'er their airy sea,
     Thou mayst speed through the realms of space,
        No fetter is forged for thee!
     Rejoice! o'er the sluggard tide
     Of the Styx thy bark can glide,
     And thy steps evermore shall rove
     Through the glades of the happy grove;
     Where, far from the loath'd Cocytus,
     The loved and the lost invite us.
     Thou art slave to the earth no more!
        O soul, thou art freed!- and we?-
     Ah! when shall our toil be o'er?
        Ah! when shall we rest with thee?

And now high and far into the dawning skies broke the fragrant
fire; it flushed luminously across the gloomy cypresses- it shot above
the massive walls of the neighbouring city; and the early fisherman
started to behold the blaze reddening on the waves of the creeping
sea.

But Ione sat down apart and alone, and, leaning her face upon
her hands, saw not the flame, nor heard the lamentation of the
music: she felt only one sense of loneliness- she had not yet
arrived to that hallowing sense of comfort, when we know that we are
not alone- that the dead are with us!

The breeze rapidly aided the effect of the combustibles placed
within the pile. By degrees the flame wavered, lowered, dimmed, and
slowly, by fits and unequal starts, died away- emblem of life
itself; where, just before, all was restlessness and flame, now lay
the dull and smouldering ashes.

The last sparks were extinguished by the attendants- the embers
were collected. Steeped in the rarest wine and the costliest odours,
the remains were placed in a silver urn, which was solemnly stored
in one of the neighbouring sepulchres beside the road; and they placed
within it the vial full of tears, and the small coin which poetry
still consecrated to the grim boatman. And the sepulchre was covered
with flowers and chaplets, and incense kindled on the altar, and the
tomb hung round with many lamps.

But the next day, when the priest returned with fresh offerings to
the tomb, he found that to the relics of heathen superstition some
unknown hands had added a green palm-branch. He suffered it to remain,
unknowing that it was the sepulchral emblem of Christianity.

When the above ceremonies were over, one of the Praeficae three
times sprinkled the mourners from the purifying branch of laurel,
uttering the last word, 'Ilicet!'- Depart!- and the rite was done.

But first they paused to utter- weepingly and many times- the
affecting farewell, 'Salve Eternum!' And as Ione yet lingered, they
woke the parting strain.


            SALVE ETERNUM

                  I

     Farewell! O soul departed!
        Farewell! O sacred urn!
     Bereaved and broken-hearted,
        To earth the mourners turn.
     To the dim and dreary shore,
     Thou art gone our steps before!
     But thither the swift Hours lead us,
     And thou dost but a while precede us,
                   Salve- salve!
     Loved urn, and thou solemn cell,
     Mute ashes!- farewell, farewell!
                   Salve- salve!

                 II

        Ilicet- ire licet-
     Ah, vainly would we part!
     Thy tomb is the faithful heart.
     About evermore we bear thee;
     For who from the heart can tear thee?
     Vainly we sprinkle o'er us
        The drops of the cleansing stream;
     And vainly bright before us
        The lustral fire shall beam.
     For where is the charm expelling
     Thy thought from its sacred dwelling?
     Our griefs are thy funeral feast,
     And Memory thy mourning priest.
                   Salve- salve!

                 III

        Ilicet- ire licet!
     The spark from the hearth is gone
        Wherever the air shall bear it;
     The elements take their own-
        The shadows receive thy spirit.
     It will soothe thee to feel our grief,
        As thou glid'st by the Gloomy River!
     If love may in life be brief,
        In death it is fixed for ever.
                   Salve- salve!
     In the hall which our feasts illume,
     The rose for an hour may bloom;
     But the cypress that decks the tomb-
     The cypress is green for ever!
                   Salve- salve!

                          Chapter IX


            IN WHICH AN ADVENTURE HAPPENS TO IONE


WHILE some stayed behind to share with the priests the funeral
banquet, Ione and her handmaids took homeward their melancholy way.
And now (the last duties to her brother performed) her mind awoke from
its absorption, and she thought of her allianced, and the dread charge
against him. Not- as we have before said- attaching even a momentary
belief to the unnatural accusation, but nursing the darkest
suspicion against Arbaces, she felt that justice to her lover and to
her murdered relative demanded her to seek the praetor, and
communicate her impression, unsupported as it might be. Questioning
her maidens, who had hitherto- kindly anxious, as I have said, to save
her the additional agony- refrained from informing her of the state of
Glaucus, she learned that he had been dangerously ill: that he was
in custody, under the roof of Sallust; that the day of his trial was
appointed.

'Averting gods,' she exclaimed; 'and have I been so long forgetful
of him? Have I seemed to shun him? O! let me hasten to do him justice-
to show that I, the nearest relative of the dead, believe him innocent
of the charge. Quick! quick! let us fly. Let me soothe- tend- cheer
him! and if they will not believe me; if they will not lead to my
conviction; if they sentence him to exile or to death, let me share
the sentence with him!'

Instinctively she hastened her pace, confused and bewildered,
scarce knowing whither she went; now designing first to seek the
praetor, and now to rush to the chamber of Glaucus. She hurried on-
she passed the gate of the city- she was in the long street leading up
the town. The houses were opened, but none were yet astir in the
streets; the life of the city was scarce awake- when lo! she came
suddenly upon a small knot of men standing beside a covered litter.
A tall figure stepped from the midst of them, and Ione shrieked
aloud to behold Arbaces.

'Fair Ione!' said he, gently, and appearing not to heed her alarm:
'my ward, my pupil! forgive me if I disturb thy pious sorrows; but the
praetor, solicitous of thy honour, and anxious that thou mayest not
rashly be implicated in the coming trial; knowing the strange
embarrassment of thy state (seeking justice for thy brother, but
dreading punishment to thy betrothed)- sympathising, too, with thy
unprotected and friendless condition, and deeming it harsh that thou
shouldst be suffered to act unguided and mourn alone- hath wisely
and paternally confided thee to the care of thy lawful guardian.
Behold the writing which intrusts thee to my charge!'

'Dark Egyptian!' cried Ione, drawing herself proudly aside;
'begone! It is thou that hast slain my brother! Is it to thy care, thy
hands yet reeking with his blood, that they will give the sister Ha!
thou turnest pale! thy conscience smites thee! thou tremblest at the
thunderbolt of the avenging god! Pass on, and leave me to my woe!'

'Thy sorrows unstring thy reason, Ione,' said Arbaces,
attempting in vain his usual calmness of tone. 'I forgive thee. Thou
wilt find me now, as ever, thy surest friend. But the public streets
are not the fitting place for us to confer- for me to console thee.
Approach, slaves! Come, my sweet charge, the litter awaits thee.'

The amazed and terrified attendants gathered round Ione, and clung
to her knees.

'Arbaces,' said the eldest of the maidens, 'this is surely not the
law! For nine days after the funeral, is it not written that the
relatives of the deceased shall not be molested in their homes, or
interrupted in their solitary grief?'

'Woman!' returned Arbaces, imperiously waving his hand, 'to
place a ward under the roof of her guardian is not against the funeral
laws. I tell thee I have the fiat of the praetor. This delay is
indecorous. Place her in the litter.'

So saying, he threw his arm firmly round the shrinking form of
Ione. She drew back, gazed earnestly in his face, and then burst
into hysterical laughter:

'Ha, ha! this is well- well! Excellent guardian- paternal law! Ha,
ha!' And, startled herself at the dread echo of that shrill and
maddened laughter, she sunk, as it died away, lifeless upon the
ground... A minute more, and Arbaces had lifted her into the litter.
The bearers moved swiftly on, and the unfortunate Ione was soon
borne from the sight of her weeping handmaids.

                          Chapter X


 WHAT BECOMES OF NYDIA IN THE HOUSE OF ARBACES. THE EGYPTIAN
   FEELS COMPASSION FOR GLAUCUS. COMPASSION IS OFTEN A VERY
                USELESS VISITOR TO THE GUILTY


IT will be remembered that, at the command of Arbaces, Nydia
followed the Egyptian to his home, and conversing there with her, he
learned from the confession of her despair and remorse, that her hand,
and not Julia's, had administered to Glaucus the fatal potion. At
another time the Egyptian might have conceived a philosophical
interest in sounding the depths and origin of the strange and
absorbing passion which, in blindness and in slavery, this singular
girl had dared to cherish; but at present he spared no thought from
himself. As, after her confession, the poor Nydia threw herself on her
knees before him, and besought him to restore the health and save
the life of Glaucus- for in her youth and ignorance she imagined the
dark magician all-powerful to effect both- Arbaces, with unheeding
ears, was noting only the new expediency of detaining Nydia a prisoner
until the trial and fate of Glaucus were decided. For if, when he
judged her merely the accomplice of Julia in obtaining the philtre, he
had felt it was dangerous to the full success of his vengeance to
allow her to be at large- to appear, perhaps, as a witness- to avow
the manner in which the sense of Glaucus had been darkened, and thus
win indulgence to the crime of which he was accused- how much more was
she likely to volunteer her testimony when she herself had
administered the draught, and, inspired by love, would be only
anxious, at any expense of shame, to retrieve her error and preserve
her beloved? Besides, how unworthy of the rank and repute of Arbaces
to be implicated in the disgrace of pandering to the passion of Julia,
and assisting in the unholy rites of the Saga of Vesuvius! Nothing
less, indeed, than his desire to induce Glaucus to own the murder of
Apaecides, as a policy evidently the best both for his own permanent
safety and his successful suit with Ione, could ever have led him to
contemplate the confession of Julia.

As for Nydia, who was necessarily cut off by her blindness from
much of the knowledge of active life, and who, a slave and a stranger,
was naturally ignorant of the perils of the Roman law, she thought
rather of the illness and delirium of her Athenian, than the crime
of which she had vaguely heard him accused, or the chances of the
impending trial. Poor wretch that she was, whom none addressed, none
cared for, what did she know of the senate and the sentence- the
hazard of the law- the ferocity of the people- the arena and the
lion's den? She was accustomed only to associate with the thought of
Glaucus everything that was prosperous and lofty- she could not
imagine that any peril, save from the madness of her love, could
menace that sacred head. He seemed to her set apart for the
blessings of life. She only had disturbed the current of his felicity;
she knew not, she dreamed not that the stream, once so bright, was
dashing on to darkness and to death. It was therefore to restore the
brain that she had marred, to save the life that she had endangered
that she implored the assistance of the great Egyptian.

'Daughter,' said Arbaces, waking from his reverie, 'thou must rest
here; it is not meet for thee to wander along the streets, and be
spurned from the threshold by the rude feet of slaves. I have
compassion on thy soft crime- I will do all to remedy it. Wait here
patiently for some days, and Glaucus shall be restored.' So saying,
and without waiting for her reply, he hastened from the room, drew the
bolt across the door, and consigned the care and wants of his prisoner
to the slave who had the charge of that part of the mansion.

Alone, then, and musingly, he waited the morning light, and with
it repaired, as we have seen, to possess himself of the person of
Ione.

His primary object, with respect to the unfortunate Neapolitan,
was that which he had really stated to Clodius, viz., to prevent her
interesting herself actively in the trial of Glaucus, and also to
guard against her accusing him (which she would, doubtless, have done)
of his former act of perfidy and violence towards her, his ward-
denouncing his causes for vengeance against Glaucus- unveiling the
hypocrisy of his character- and casting any doubt upon his veracity in
the charge which he had made against the Athenian. Not till he had
encountered her that morning- not till he had heard her loud
denunciations- was he aware that he had also another danger to
apprehend in her suspicion of his crime. He hugged himself now at
the thought that these ends were effected: that one, at once the
object of his passion and his fear, was in his power. He believed more
than ever the flattering promises of the stars; and when he sought
Ione in that chamber in the inmost recesses of his mysterious
mansion to which he had consigned her- when he found her overpowered
by blow upon blow, and passing from fit to fit, from violence to
torpor, in all the alternations of hysterical disease- he thought more
of the loveliness which no frenzy could distort than of the woe
which he had brought upon her. In that sanguine vanity common to men
who through life have been invariably successful, whether in fortune
or love, he flattered himself that when Glaucus had perished- when his
name was solemnly blackened by the award of a legal judgment, his
title to her love for ever forfeited by condemnation to death for
the murder of her own brother- her affection would be changed to
horror; and that his tenderness and his passion, assisted by all the
arts with which he well knew how to dazzle woman's imagination,
might elect him to that throne in her heart from which his rival would
be so awfully expelled. This was his hope: but should it fail, his
unholy and fervid passion whispered, 'At the worst, now she is in my
power.'

Yet, withal, he felt that uneasiness and apprehension which
attended upon the chance of detection, even when the criminal is
insensible to the voice of conscience- that vague terror of the
consequences of crime, which is often mistaken for remorse at the
crime itself. The buoyant air of Campania weighed heavily upon his
breast; he longed to hurry from a scene where danger might not sleep
eternally with the dead; and, having Ione now in his possession, he
secretly resolved, as soon as he had witnessed the last agony of his
rival, to transport his wealth- and her, the costliest treasure of
all, to some distant shore.

'Yes,' said he, striding to and fro his solitary chamber- 'yes,
the law that gave me the person of my ward gives me the possession
of my bride. Far across the broad main will we sweep on our search
after novel luxuries and inexperienced pleasures. Cheered by my stars,
supported by the omens of my soul, we will penetrate to those vast and
glorious worlds which my wisdom tells me lie yet untracked in the
recesses of the circling sea. There may this heart, possessed of love,
grow once more alive to ambition- there, amongst nations uncrushed
by the Roman yoke, and to whose ear the name of Rome has not yet
been wafted, I may found an empire, and transplant my ancestral creed;
renewing the ashes of the dead Theban rule; continuing in yet
grander shores the dynasty of my crowned fathers, and waking in the
noble heart of Ione the grateful consciousness that she shares the lot
of one who, far from the aged rottenness of this slavish civilisation,
restores the primal elements of greatness, and unites in one mighty
soul the attributes of the prophet and the king.' From this exultant
soliloquy, Arbaces was awakened to attend the trial of the Athenian.

The worn and pallid cheek of his victim touched him less than
the firmness of his nerves and the dauntlessness of his brow; for
Arbaces was one who had little pity for what was unfortunate, but a
strong sympathy for what was bold. The congenialities that bind us
to others ever assimilate to the qualities of our own nature. The hero
weeps less at the reverses of his enemy than at the fortitude with
which he bears them. All of us are human, and Arbaces, criminal as
he was, had his share of our common feelings and our mother clay.
Had he but obtained from Glaucus the written confession of his
crime, which would, better than even the judgment of others, have lost
him with Ione, and removed from Arbaces the chance of future
detection, the Egyptian would have strained every nerve to save his
rival. Even now his hatred was over- his desire of revenge was slaked:
he crushed his prey, not in enmity, but as an obstacle in his path.
Yet was he not the less resolved, the less crafty and persevering,
in the course he pursued, for the destruction of one whose doom was
become necessary to the attainment of his objects: and while, with
apparent reluctance and compassion, he gave against Glaucus the
evidence which condemned him, he secretly, and through the medium of
the priesthood, fomented that popular indignation which made an
effectual obstacle to the pity of the senate. He had sought Julia;
he had detailed to her the confession of Nydia; he had easily,
therefore, lulled any scruple of conscience which might have led her
to extenuate the offence of Glaucus by avowing her share in his
frenzy: and the more readily, for her vain heart had loved the fame
and the prosperity of Glaucus- not Glaucus himself, she felt no
affection for a disgraced man- nay, she almost rejoiced in the
disgrace that humbled the hated Ione. If Glaucus could not be her
slave, neither could he be the adorer of her rival. This was
sufficient consolation for any regret at his fate. Volatile and
fickle, she began again to be moved by the sudden and earnest suit
of Clodius, and was not willing to hazard the loss of an alliance with
that base but high-born noble by any public exposure of her past
weakness and immodest passion for another. All things then smiled upon
Arbaces- all things frowned upon the Athenian.

                          Chapter XI


                 NYDIA AFFECTS THE SORCERESS


WHEN the Thessalian found that Arbaces returned to her no more-
when she was left, hour after hour, to all the torture of that
miserable suspense which was rendered by blindness doubly intolerable,
she began, with outstretched arms, to feel around her prison for
some channel of escape; and finding the only entrance secure, she
called aloud, and with the vehemence of a temper naturally violent,
and now sharpened by impatient agony.

'Ho, girl!' said the slave in attendance, opening the door; art
thou bit by a scorpion? or thinkest thou that we are dying of
silence here, and only to be preserved, like the infant Jupiter, by
a hullabaloo?'

'Where is thy master? and wherefore am I caged here? I want air
and liberty: let me go forth!'

'Alas! little one, hast thou not seen enough of Arbaces to know
that his will is imperial! He hath ordered thee to be caged; and caged
thou art, and I am thy keeper. Thou canst not have air and liberty;
but thou mayst have what are much better things- food and wine.'

'Proh Jupiter!' cried the girl, wringing her hands; 'and why am
I thus imprisoned? What can the great Arbaces want with so poor a
thing as I am?'

'That I know not, unless it be to attend on thy new mistress,
who has been brought hither this day.'

'What! Ione here?'

'Yes, poor lady; she liked it little, I fear. Yet, by the Temple
of Castor! Arbaces is a gallant man to the women. Thy lady is his
ward, thou knowest.'

'Wilt thou take me to her?'

'She is ill- frantic with rage and spite. Besides, I have no
orders to do so; and I never think for myself. When Arbaces made me
slave of these chambers, he said, "I have but one lesson to give thee-
while thou servest me, thou must have neither ears, eyes, nor thought;
thou must be but one quality- obedience."'

'But what harm is there in seeing Ione?'

'That I know not; but if thou wantest a companion, I am willing to
talk to thee, little one, for I am solitary enough in my dull
cubiculum. And, by the way, thou art Thessalian- knowest thou not some
cunning amusement of knife and shears, some pretty trick of telling
fortunes, as most of thy race do, in order to pass the time

'Tush, slave, hold thy peace! or, if thou wilt speak, what hast
thou heard of the state of Glaucus?'

'Why, my master has gone to the Athenian's trial; Glaucus will
smart for it!'

'For what?'

'The murder of the priest Apaecides.'

'Ha!' said Nydia, pressing her hands to her forehead; 'something
of this I have indeed heard, but understand not. Yet, who will dare to
touch a hair of his head?'

'That will the lion, I fear.'

'Averting gods! what wickedness dost thou utter?'

'Why, only that, if he be found guilty, the lion, or may be the
tiger, will be his executioner.'

Nydia leaped up, as if an arrow had entered her heart; she uttered
a piercing scream; then, falling before the feet of the slave, she
cried, in a tone that melted even his rude heart:

'Ah! tell me thou jestest- thou utterest not the truth- speak,
speak!'

'Why, by my faith, blind girl, I know nothing of the law; it may
not be so bad as I say. But Arbaces is his accuser, and the people
desire a victim for the arena. Cheer thee! But what hath the fate of
the Athenian to do with thine?'

'No matter, no matter- he has been kind to me: thou knowest not,
then, what they will do? Arbaces his accuser! O fate! The people-
the people! Ah! they can look upon his face- who will be cruel to
the Athenian!- Yet was not Love itself cruel to him?'

So saying, her head drooped upon her bosom: she sunk into silence;
scalding tears flowed down her cheeks; and all the kindly efforts of
the slave were unable either to console her or distract the absorption
of her reverie.

When his household cares obliged the ministrant to leave her room,
Nydia began to re-collect her thoughts. Arbaces was the accuser of
Glaucus; Arbaces had imprisoned her here; was not that a proof that
her liberty might be serviceable to Glaucus? Yes, she was evidently
inveigled into some snare; she was contributing to the destruction
of her beloved! Oh, how she panted for release! Fortunately, for her
sufferings, all sense of pain became merged in the desire of escape;
and as she began to revolve the possibility of deliverance, she grew
calm and thoughtful. She possessed much of the craft of her sex, and
it had been increased in her breast by her early servitude. What slave
was ever destitute of cunning? She resolved to practise upon her
keeper; and calling suddenly to mind his superstitious query as to her
Thessalian art, she hoped by that handle to work out some method of
release. These doubts occupied her mind during the rest of the day and
the long hours of night; and, accordingly, when Sosia visited her
the following morning, she hastened to divert his garrulity into
that channel in which it had before evinced a natural disposition to
flow.

She was aware, however, that her only chance of escape was at
night; and asccordingly she was obliged with a bitter pang at the
delay to defer till then her purposed attempt.

'The night,' said she, 'is the sole time in which we can well
decipher the decrees of Fate- then it is thou must seek me. But what
desirest thou to learn?'

'By Pollux! I should like to know as much as my master; but that
is not to be expected. Let me know, at least, whether I shall save
enough to purchase my freedom, or whether this Egyptian will give it
me for nothing. He does such generous things sometimes. Next,
supposing that be true, shall I possess myself of that snug taberna
among the Myropolia, which I have long had in my eye? 'Tis a genteel
trade that of a perfumer, and suits a retired slave who has
something of a gentleman about him!'

'Ay! so you would have precise answers to those questions?-
there are various ways of satisfying you. There is the Lithomanteia,
or Speaking-stone, which answers your prayer with an infant's voice;
but, then, we have not that precious stone with us- costly is it and
rare. Then there is the Gastromanteia, whereby the demon casts pale
and deadly images upon the water, prophetic of the future. But this
art requires also glasses of a peculiar fashion, to contain the
consecrated liquid, which we have not. I think, therefore, that the
simplest method of satisfying your desire would be by the Magic of
Air.'

'I trust,' said Sosia, tremulously, 'that there is nothing very
frightful in the operation? I have no love for apparitions.'

'Fear not; thou wilt see nothing; thou wilt only hear by the
bubbling of water whether or not thy suit prospers. First, then, be
sure, from the rising of the evening star, that thou leavest the
garden-gate somewhat open, so that the demon may feel himself
invited to enter therein; and place fruits and water near the gate
as a sign of hospitality; then, three hours after twilight, come
here with a bowl of the coldest and purest water, and thou shalt learn
all, according to the Thessalian lore my mother taught me. But
forget not the garden-gate- all rests upon that: it must be open
when you come, and for three hours previously.'

'Trust me,' replied the unsuspecting Sosia; 'I know what a
gentleman's feelings are when a door is shut in his face, as the
cookshop's hath been in mine many a day; and I know, also, that a
person of respectability, as a demon of course is, cannot but be
pleased, on the other hand, with any little mark of courteous
hospitality. Meanwhile, pretty one, here is thy morning's meal.'

'But what of the trial?'

'Oh, the lawyers are still at it- talk, talk- it will last over
all to-morrow.'

'To-morrow? You are sure of that?'

'So I hear.'

'And Ione?'

'By Bacchus! she must be tolerably well, for she was strong enough
to make my master stamp and bite his lip this morning. I saw him
quit her apartment with a brow like a thunderstorm.'

'Lodges she near this?'

'No- in the upper apartments. But I must not stay prating here
longer. Vale!'

                         Chapter XII


            A WASP VENTURES INTO THE SPIDER'S WEB


THE second night of the trial had set in; and it was nearly the
time in which Sosia was to brave the dread Unknown, when there
entered, at that very garden-gate which the slave had left ajar-
not, indeed, one of the mysterious spirits of earth or air, but the
heavy and most human form of Calenus, the priest of Isis. He
scarcely noted the humble offerings of indifferent fruit, and still
more indifferent wine, which the pious Sosia had deemed good enough
for the invisible stranger they were intended to allure. 'Some
tribute,' thought he, 'to the garden god. By my father's head! if
his deityship were never better served, he would do well to give up
the godly profession. Ah! were it not for us priests, the gods would
have a sad time of it. And now for Arbaces- I am treading a quicksand,
but it ought to cover a mine. I have the Egyptian's life in my
power- what will he value it at?'

As he thus soliloquised, he crossed through the open court into
the peristyle, where a few lamps here and there broke upon the
empire of the starlit night; and issuing from one of the chambers that
bordered the colonnade, suddenly encountered Arbaces.

'Ho! Calenus- seekest thou me?' said the Egyptian; and there was a
little embarrassment in his voice.

'Yes, wise Arbaces- I trust my visit is not unseasonable?'

'Nay- it was but this instant that my freedman Callias sneezed
thrice at my right hand; I knew, therefore, some good fortune was in
store for me- and, lo! the gods have sent me Calenus.'

'Shall we within to your chamber, Arbaces?'

'As you will; but the night is clear and balmy- I have some
remains of languor yet lingering on me from my recent illness- the air
refreshes me- let us walk in the garden- we are equally alone there.'

'With all my heart,' answered the priest; and the two friends
passed slowly to one of the many terraces which, bordered by marble
vases and sleeping flowers, intersected the garden.

'It is a lovely night,' said Arbaces- 'blue and beautiful as
that on which, twenty years ago, the shores of Italy first broke
upon my view. My Calenus, age creeps upon us- let us, at least, feel
that we have lived.'

'Thou, at least, mayst arrogate that boast,' said Calenus, beating
about, as it were, for an opportunity to communicate the secret
which weighed upon him, and feeling his usual awe of Arbaces still
more impressively that night, from the quiet and friendly tone of
dignified condescension which the Egyptian assumed- 'Thou, at least,
mayst arrogate that boast. Thou hast had countless wealth- a frame
on whose close-woven fibres disease can find no space to enter-
prosperous love- inexhaustible pleasure- and, even at this hour,
triumphant revenge.'

'Thou alludest to the Athenian. Ay, to-morrow's sun the fiat of
his death will go forth. The senate does not relent. But thou
mistakest: his death gives me no other gratification than that it
releases me from a rival in the affections of Ione. I entertain no
other sentiment of animosity against that unfortunate homicide.'

'Homicide!' repeated Calenus, slowly and meaningly; and, halting
as he spoke, he fixed his eyes upon Arbaces. The stars shone pale
and steadily on the proud face of their prophet, but they betrayed
there no change: the eyes of Calenus fell disappointed and abashed. He
continued rapidly- 'Homicide! it is well to charge him with that
crime; but thou, of all men, knowest that he is innocent.'

'Explain thyself,' said Arbaces, coldly; for he had prepared
himself for the hint his secret fears had foretold.

'Arbaces,' answered Calenus, sinking his voice into a whisper,
'I was in the sacred grove, sheltered by the chapel and the
surrounding foliage. I overheard- I marked the whole. I saw thy weapon
pierce the heart of Apaecides. I blame not the deed- it destroyed a
foe and an apostate.'

'Thou sawest the whole!' said Arbaces, drily; 'so I imagined- thou
wert alone

'Alone!' returned Calenus, surprised at the Egyptian's calmness.

'And wherefore wert thou hid behind the chapel at that hour?'

'Because I had learned the conversion of Apaecides to the
Christian faith- because I knew that on that spot he was to meet the
fierce Olinthus- because they were to meet there to discuss plans
for unveiling the sacred mysteries of our goddess to the people- and I
was there to detect, in order to defeat them.'

'Hast thou told living ear what thou didst witness?'

'No, my master: the secret is locked in thy servant's breast.'

'What! even thy kinsman Burbo guesses it not! Come, the truth!'

'By the gods...'

'Hush! we know each other- what are the gods to us?'

'By the fear of thy vengeance, then- no!'

'And why hast thou hitherto concealed from me this secret? Why
hast thou waited till the eve of the Athenian's condemnation before
thou hast ventured to tell me that Arbaces is a murderer? And having
tarried so long, why revealest thou now that knowledge?'

'Because- because...' stammered Calenus, colouring and in
confusion.

'Because,' interrupted Arbaces, with a gentle smile, and tapping
the priest on the shoulder with a kindly and familiar gesture-
'because, my Calenus (see now, I will read thy heart, and explain
its motives)- because thou didst wish thoroughly to commit and
entangle me in the trial, so that I might have no loophole of
escape; that I might stand firmly pledged to perjury and to malice, as
well as to homicide; that having myself whetted the appetite of the
populace to blood, no wealth, no power, could prevent my becoming
their victim: and thou tellest me thy secret now, ere the trial be
over and the innocent condemned, to show what a desperate web of
villainy thy word to-morrow could destroy; to enhance in this, the
ninth hour, the price of thy forbearance; to show that my own arts, in
arousing the popular wrath, would, at thy witness, recoil upon myself;
and that if not for Glaucus, for me would gape the jaws of the lion!
Is it not so?'

'Arbaces, replied Calenus, losing all the vulgar audacity of his
natural character, 'verily thou art a Magician; thou readest the heart
as it were a scroll.'

'It is my vocation,' answered the Egyptian, laughing gently.
'Well, then, forbear; and when all is over, I will make thee rich.'

'Pardon me,' said the priest, as the quick suggestion of that
avarice, which was his master-passion, bade him trust no future chance
of generosity; 'pardon me; thou saidst right- we know each other. If
thou wouldst have me silent, thou must pay something in advance, as an
offer to Harpocrates.' If the rose, sweet emblem of discretion, is
to take root firmly, water her this night with a stream of gold.'

'Witty and poetical!' answered Arbaces, still in that bland
voice which lulled and encouraged, when it ought to have alarmed and
checked, his griping comrade. 'Wilt thou not wait the morrow?'

'Why this delay? Perhaps, when I can no longer give my testimony
without shame for not having given it ere the innocent man suffered,
thou wilt forget my claim; and, indeed, thy present hesitation is a
bad omen of thy future gratitude.'

'Well, then, Calenus, what wouldst thou have me pay thee?'

'Thy life is, very precious, and thy wealth is very great,'
returned the priest, grinning.

'Wittier and more witty. But speak out- what shall be the sum?'

'Arbaces, I have heard that in thy secret treasury below,
beneath those rude Oscan arches which prop thy stately halls, thou
hast piles of gold, of vases, and of jewels, which might rival the
receptacles of the wealth of the deified Nero. Thou mayst easily spare
out of those piles enough to make Calenus among the richest priests of
Pompeii, and yet not miss the loss.'

'Come, Calenus,' said Arbaces, winningly, and with a frank and
generous air, 'thou art an old friend, and hast been a faithful
servant. Thou canst have no wish to take away my life, nor I a
desire to stint thy reward: thou shalt descend with me to that
treasury thou referrest to, thou shalt feast thine eyes with the blaze
of uncounted gold and the sparkle of priceless gems; and thou shalt
for thy own reward, bear away with thee this night as much as thou
canst conceal beneath thy robes. Nay, when thou hast once seen what
thy friend possesses, thou wilt learn how foolish it would be to
injure one who has so much to bestow. When Glaucus is no more, thou
shalt pay the treasury another visit. Speak I frankly and as a
friend?'

'Oh, greatest, best of men!' cried Calenus, almost weeping with
joy, 'canst thou thus forgive my injurious doubts of thy justice,
thy generosity?'

'Hush! one other turn and we will descend to the Oscan arches.'

                         Chapter XIII


        THE SLAVE CONSULTS THE ORACLE. THEY WHO BLIND
            THEMSELVES THE BLIND MAY FOOL. TWO NEW
                 PRISONERS MADE IN ONE NIGHT


IMPATIENTLY Nydia awaited the arrival of the no less anxious
Sosia. Fortifying his courage by plentiful potations of a better
liquor than that provided for the demon, the credulous ministrant
stole into the blind girl's chamber.

'Well, Sosia, and art thou prepared? Hast thou the bowl of pure
water?'

'Verily, yes: but I tremble a little. You are sure I shall not see
the demon? I have heard that those gentlemen are by no means of a
handsome person or a civil demeanour.'

'Be assured! And hast thou left the garden-gate gently open?'

'Yes; and placed some beautiful nuts and apples on a little
table close by?'

'That's well. And the gate is open now, so that the demon may pass
through it?'

'Surely it is.'

'Well, then, open this door; there- leave it just ajar. And now,
Sosia, give me the lamp.'

'What, you will not extinguish it?'

'No; but I must breathe my spell over its ray. There is a spirit
in fire. Seat thyself.'

The slave obeyed; and Nydia, after bending for some moments
silently over the lamp, rose, and in a low voice chanted the following
rude:


   INVOCATION TO THE SPECTRE OF THE AIR

     Loved alike by Air and Water
     Aye must be Thessalia's daughter;
     To us, Olympian hearts, are given
     Spells that draw the moon from heaven.
        All that Egypt's learning wrought-
        All that Persia's Magian taught-
     Won from song, or wrung from flowers,
     Or whisper'd low by fiend- are ours.

     Spectre of the viewless air!
     Hear the blind Thessalian's prayer!
     By Erictho's art, that shed
     Dews of life when life was fled-
     By lone Ithaca's wise king,
     Who could wake the crystal spring
     To the voice of prophecy?
     By the lost Eurydice,
     Summon'd from the shadowy throng,
     As the muse-son's magic song-
     By the Colchian's awful charms,
     When fair-haired Jason left her arms-

     Spectre of the airy halls,
     One who owns thee duly calls!
     Breathe along the brimming bowl,
     And instruct the fearful soul
     In the shadowy things that lie
     Dark in dim futurity.
     Come, wild demon of the air,
     Answer to thy votary's prayer!
        Come! oh, come!

     And no god on heaven or earth-
     Not the Paphian Queen of Mirth,
     Not the vivid Lord of Light,
     Nor the triple Maid of Night,
     Nor the Thunderer's self shall be
     Blest and honour'd more than thee!
        Come! oh, come!

'The spectre is certainly coming,' said Sosia. 'I feel him running
along my hair!'

'Place thy bowl of water on the ground. Now, then, give me thy
napkin, and let me fold up thy face and eyes.'

'Ay! that's always the custom with these charms. Not so tight,
though: gently- gently!'

'There- thou canst not see?'

'See, by Jupiter! No! nothing but darkness.'

'Address, then, to the spectre whatever question thou wouldst
ask him, in a low-whispered voice, three times. If thy question is
answered in the affirmative, thou wilt hear the water ferment and
bubble before the demon breathes upon it; if in the negative, the
water will be quite silent.'

'But you will not play any trick with the water, eh?'

'Let me place the bowl under thy feet- so. Now thou wilt
perceive that I cannot touch it without thy knowledge.'

'Very fair. Now, then, O Bacchus! befriend me. Thou knowest that I
have always loved thee better than all the other gods, and I will
dedicate to thee that silver cup I stole last year from the burly
carptor (butler), if thou wilt but befriend me with this
water-loving demon. And thou, O Spirit! listen and hear me. Shall I be
enabled to purchase my freedom next year? Thou knowest; for, as thou
livest in the air, the birds have doubtless acquainted thee with every
secret of this house,- thou knowest that I have filched and pilfered
all that I honestly- that is, safely- could lay finger upon for the
last three years, and I yet want two thousand sesterces of the full
sum. Shall I be able, O good Spirit! to make up the deficiency in
the course of this year? Speak- Ha! does the water bubble? No; all
is as still as a tomb.- Well, then, if not this year, in two years?-
Ah! I hear something; the demon is scratching at the door; he'll be
here presently.- In two years, my good fellow: come now, two; that's a
very reasonable time. What! dumb still! Two years and a half- three-
four? ill fortune to you, friend demon! You are not a lady, that's
clear, or you would not keep silence so long. Five- six- sixty
years? and may Pluto seize you! I'll ask no more.' And Sosia, in a
rage, kicked down the water over his legs. He then, after much
fumbling and more cursing, managed to extricate his head from the
napkin in which it was completely folded- stared round- and discovered
that he was in the dark.

'What, ho! Nydia; the lamp is gone. Ah, traitress; and thou art
gone too; but I'll catch thee- thou shalt smart for this!' The slave
groped his way to the door; it was bolted from without: he was a
prisoner instead of Nydia. What could he do? He did not dare to
knock loud- to call out- lest Arbaces should overhear him, and
discover how he had been duped; and Nydia, meanwhile, had probably
already gained the garden-gate, and was fast on her escape.

'But,' thought he, 'she will go home, or, at least, be somewhere
in the city. To-morrow, at dawn, when the slaves are at work in the
peristyle, I can make myself heard; then I can go forth and seek
her. I shall be sure to find and bring her back, before Arbaces
knows a word of the matter. Ah! that's the best plan. Little
traitress, my fingers itch at thee: and to leave only a bowl of water,
too! Had it been wine, it would have been some comfort.'

While Sosia, thus entrapped, was lamenting his fate, and revolving
his schemes to repossess himself of Nydia, the blind girl, with that
singular precision and dexterous rapidity of motion, which, we have
before observed, was peculiar to her, had passed lightly along the
peristyle, threaded the opposite passage that led into the garden,
and, with a beating heart, was about to proceed towards the gate, when
she suddenly heard the sound of approaching steps, and distinguished
the dreaded voice of Arbaces himself. She paused for a moment in doubt
and terror; then suddenly it flashed across her recollection that
there was another passage which was little used except for the
admission of the fair partakers of the Egyptian's secret revels, and
which wound along the basement of that massive fabric towards a door
which also communicated with the garden. By good fortune it might be
open. At that thought, she hastily retraced her steps, descended the
narrow stairs at the right, and was soon at the entrance of the
passage. Alas! the door at the entrance was closed and secured.
While she was yet assuring herself that it was indeed locked, she
heard behind her the voice of Calenus, and, a moment after, that of
Arbaces in low reply. She could not stay there; they were probably
passing to that very door. She sprang onward, and felt herself in
unknown ground. The air grew damp and chill; this reassured her. She
thought she might be among the cellars of the luxurious mansion, or,
at least, in some rude spot not likely to be visited by its haughty
lord, when again her quick ear caught steps and the sound of voices.
On, on, she hurried, extending her arms, which now frequently
encountered pillars of thick and massive form. With a tact, doubled in
acuteness by her fear, she escaped these perils, and continued her
way, the air growing more and more damp as she proceeded; yet,
still, as she ever and anon paused for breath, she heard the advancing
steps and the indistinct murmur of voices. At length she was
abruptly stopped by a wall that seemed the limit of her path. Was
there no spot in which she could hide? No aperture? no cavity? There
was none! She stopped, and wrung her hands in despair; then again,
nerved as the voices neared upon her, she hurried on by the side of
the wall; and coming suddenly against one of the sharp buttresses that
here and there jutted boldly forth, she fell to the ground. Though
much bruised, her senses did not leave her; she uttered no cry; nay,
she hailed the accident that had led her to something like a screen;
and creeping close up to the angle formed by the buttress, so that
on one side at least she was sheltered from view, she gathered her
slight and small form into its smallest compass, and breathlessly
awaited her fate.

Meanwhile Arbaces and the priest were taking their way to that
secret chamber whose stores were so vaunted by the Egyptian. They were
in a vast subterranean atrium, or hall; the low roof was supported
by short, thick pillars of an architecture far remote from the Grecian
graces of that luxuriant period. The single and pale lamp, which
Arbaces bore, shed but an imperfect ray over the bare and rugged
walls, in which the huge stones, without cement, were fitted curiously
and uncouthly into each other. The disturbed reptiles glared dully
on the intruders, and then crept into the shadow of the walls.

Calenus shivered as he looked around and breathed the damp,
unwholesome air.

'Yet,' said Arbaces, with a smile, perceiving his shudder, 'it
is these rude abodes that furnish the luxuries of the halls above.
They are like the labourers of the world- we despise their ruggedness,
yet they feed the very pride that disdains them.'

'And whither goes yon dim gallery to the left asked Calenus; 'in
this depth of gloom it seems without limit, as if winding into Hades.'

'On the contrary, it does but conduct to the upper rooms,'
answered Arbaces, carelessly: 'it is to the right that we steer to our
bourn.'

The hall, like many in the more habitable regions of Pompeii,
branched off at the extremity into two wings or passages; the length
of which, not really great, was to the eye considerably exaggerated by
the sudden gloom against which the lamp so faintly struggled. To the
right of these alae, the two comrades now directed their steps.

'The gay Glaucus will be lodged to-morrow in apartments not much
drier, and far less spacious than this,' said Calenus, as they
passed by the very spot where, completely wrapped in the shadow of the
broad, projecting buttress, cowered the Thessalian.

'Ay, but then he will have dry room, and ample enough, in the
arena on the following day. And to think,' continued Arbaces,
slowly, and very deliberately- 'to think that a word of thine could
save him, and consign Arbaces to his doom!'

'That word shall never be spoken,' said Calenus.

'Right, my Calenus! it never shall,' returned Arbaces,
familiarly leaning his arm on the priest's shoulder: 'and now, halt-
we are at the door.'

The light trembled against a small door deep set in the wall,
and guarded strongly by many plates and bindings of iron, that
intersected the rough and dark wood. From his girdle Arbaces now
drew a small ring, holding three or four short but strong keys. Oh,
how beat the griping heart of Calenus, as he heard the rusty wards
growl, as if resenting the admission to the treasures they guarded!

'Enter, my friend,' said Arbaces, 'while I hold the lamp on
high, that thou mayst glut thine eyes on the yellow heaps.'

The impatient Calenus did not wait to be twice invited; he
hastened towards the aperture.

Scarce had he crossed the threshold, when the strong hand of
Arbaces plunged him forwards.

'The word shall never be spoken!' said the Egyptian, with a loud
exultant laugh, and closed the door upon the priest.

Calenus had been precipitated down several steps, but not
feeling at the moment the pain of his fall, he sprung up again to
the door, and beating at it fiercely with his clenched fist, he
cried aloud in what seemed more a beast's howl than a human voice,
so keen was his agony and despair: 'Oh, release me, release me, and
I will ask no gold!'

The words but imperfectly penetrated the massive door, and Arbaces
again laughed. Then, stamping his foot violently, rejoined, perhaps to
give vent to his long-stifled passions:

'All the gold of Dalmatia,' cried he, 'will not buy thee a crust
of bread. Starve, wretch! thy dying groans will never wake even the
echo of these vast halls; nor will the air ever reveal, as thou
gnawest, in thy desperate famine, thy flesh from thy bones, that so
perishes the man who threatened, and could have undone, Arbaces!
Farewell!'

'Oh, pity- mercy! Inhuman villain; was it for this...'

The rest of the sentence was lost to the ear of Arbaces as he
passed backward along the dim hall. A toad, plump and bloated, lay
unmoving before his path; the rays of the lamp fell upon its
unshaped hideousness and red upward eye. Arbaces turned aside that
he might not harm it.

'Thou art loathsome and obscene,' he muttered, 'but thou canst not
injure me; therefore thou art safe in my path.'

The cries of Calenus, dulled and choked by the barrier that
confined him, yet faintly reached the ear of the Egyptian. He paused
and listened intently.

'This is unfortunate,' thought he; 'for I cannot sail till that
voice is dumb for ever. My stores and treasures lie, not in yon
dungeon it is true, but in the opposite wing. My slaves, as they
move them, must not hear his voice. But what fear of that? In three
days, if he still survive, his accents, by my father's beard, must
be weak enough, then!- no, they could not pierce even through his
tomb. By Isis, it is cold!- I long for a deep draught of the spiced
Falernian.'

With that the remorseless Egyptian drew his gown closer round him,
and resought the upper air.

                         Chapter XIV


                    NYDIA ACCOSTS CALENUS


WHAT words of terror, yet of hope, had Nydia overheard! The next
day Glaucus was to be condemned; yet there lived one who could save
him, and adjudge Arbaces to his doom, and that one breathed within a
few steps of her hiding-place! She caught his cries and shrieks- his
imprecations- his prayers, though they fell choked and muffled on
her ear. He was imprisoned, but she knew the secret of his cell: could
she but escape- could she but seek the praetor he might yet in time be
given to light, and preserve the Athenian. Her emotions almost stifled
her; her brain reeled- she felt her sense give way- but by a violent
effort she mastered herself,- and, after listening intently for
several minutes, till she was convinced that Arbaces had left the
space to solitude and herself, she crept on as her ear guided her to
the very door that had closed upon Calenus. Here she more distinctly
caught his accents of terror and despair. Thrice she attempted to
speak, and thrice her voice failed to penetrate the folds of the heavy
door. At length finding the lock, she applied her lips to its small
aperture, and the prisoner distinctly heard a soft tone breathe his
name.

His blood curdled- his hair stood on end. That awful solitude,
what mysterious and preternatural being could penetrate! 'Who's
there?' he cried, in new alarm; 'what spectre- what dread larva, calls
upon the lost Calenus?'

'Priest,' replied the Thessalian, 'unknown to Arbaces, I have
been, by the permission of the gods, a witness to his perfidy. If I
myself can escape from these walls, I may save thee. But let thy voice
reach my ear through this narrow passage, and answer what I ask.'

'Ah, blessed spirit,' said the priest, exultingly, and obeying the
suggestion of Nydia, 'save me, and I will sell the very cups on the
altar to pay thy kindness.'

'I want not thy gold- I want thy secret. Did I hear aright?
Canst thou save the Athenian Glaucus from the charge against his
life?'

'I can- I can!- therefore (may the Furies blast the foul
Egyptian!) hath Arbaces snared me thus, and left me to starve and
rot!'

'They accuse the Athenian of murder: canst thou disprove the
accusation?'

'Only free me, and the proudest head of Pompeii is not more safe
than his. I saw the deed done- I saw Arbaces strike the blow; I can
convict the true murderer and acquit the innocent man. But if I
perish, he dies also. Dost thou interest thyself for him? Oh,
blessed stranger, in my heart is the urn which condemns or frees him!'

'And thou wilt give full evidence of what thou knowest?'

'Will!- Oh! were hell at my feet- yes! Revenge on the false
Egyptian!- revenge!- revenge! revenge!'

As through his ground teeth Calenus shrieked forth those last
words, Nydia felt that in his worst passions was her certainty of
his justice to the Athenian. Her heart beat: was it to be her proud
destiny to preserve her idolised- her adored? Enough,' said she,
'the powers that conducted me hither will carry me through all. Yes, I
feel that I shall deliver thee. Wait in patience and hope.'

'But be cautious, be prudent, sweet stranger. Attempt not to
appeal to Arbaces- he is marble. Seek the praetor- say what thou
knowest- obtain his writ of search; bring soldiers, and smiths of
cunning- these locks are wondrous strong! Time flies- I may starve-
starve! if you are not quick! Go- go! Yet stay- it is horrible to be
alone!- the air is like a charnel- and the scorpions- ha! and the pale
larvae; oh! stay, stay!'

'Nay,' said Nydia, terrified by the terror of the priest, and
anxious to confer with herself- 'nay, for thy sake, I must depart.
Take hope for thy companion- farewell!'

So saying, she glided away, and felt with extended arms along
the pillared space until she had gained the farther end of the hall
and the mouth of the passage that led to the upper air. But there
she paused; she felt that it would be more safe to wait awhile,
until the night was so far blended with the morning that the whole
house would be buried in sleep, and so that she might quit it
unobserved. she, therefore, once more laid herself down, and counted
the weary moments. In her sanguine heart, joy was the predominant
emotion. Glaucus was in deadly peril- but she should save him!