The Last Days of Pompeii Part 22

'As thou hast learned!--Can wisdom attain so far?'

'Wilt thou prove my knowledge, Ione, and behold the representation of thine own fate? It is a drama more striking than those of AEschylus: it is one I have prepared for thee, if thou wilt see the shadows perform their part.'

The Neapolitan trembled; she thought of Glaucus, and sighed as well as trembled: were their destinies to be united? Half incredulous, half believing, half awed, half alarmed by the words of her strange host, she remained for some moments silent, and then answered:

'It may revolt--it may terrify; the knowledge of the future will perhaps only embitter the present!'

'Not so, Ione. I have myself looked upon thy future lot, and the ghosts of thy Future bask in the gardens of Elysium: amidst the asphodel and the rose they prepare the garlands of thy sweet destiny, and the Fates, so harsh to others, weave only for thee the web of happiness and love.

Wilt thou then come and behold thy doom, so that thou mayest enjoy it beforehand?'

Again the heart of Ione murmured 'Glaucus'; she uttered a half-audible a.s.sent; the Egyptian rose, and taking her by the hand, he led her across the banquet-room--the curtains withdrew as by magic hands, and the music broke forth in a louder and gladder strain; they pa.s.sed a row of columns, on either side of which fountains cast aloft their fragrant waters; they descended by broad and easy steps into a garden. The eve had commenced; the moon was already high in heaven, and those sweet flowers that sleep by day, and fill, with ineffable odorous, the airs of night, were thickly scattered amidst alleys cut through the star-lit foliage; or, gathered in baskets, lay like offerings at the feet of the frequent statues that gleamed along their path.

'Whither wouldst thou lead me, Arbaces?' said Ione, wonderingly.

'But yonder,' said he, pointing to a small building which stood at the end of the vista. 'It is a temple consecrated to the Fates--our rites require such holy ground.'

They pa.s.sed into a narrow hall, at the end of which hung a sable curtain. Arbaces lifted it; Ione entered, and found herself in total darkness.

'Be not alarmed,' said the Egyptian, 'the light will rise instantly.'

While he so spoke, a soft, and warm, and gradual light diffused itself around; as it spread over each object, Ione perceived that she was in an apartment of moderate size, hung everywhere with black; a couch with draperies of the same hue was beside her. In the centre of the room was a small altar, on which stood a tripod of bronze. At one side, upon a lofty column of granite, was a colossal head of the blackest marble, which she perceived, by the crown of wheat-ears that encircled the brow, represented the great Egyptian G.o.ddess. Arbaces stood before the altar: he had laid his garland on the shrine, and seemed occupied with pouring into the tripod the contents of a brazen vase; suddenly from that tripod leaped into life a blue, quick, darting, irregular flame; the Egyptian drew back to the side of Ione, and muttered some words in a language unfamiliar to her ear; the curtain at the back of the altar waved tremulously to and fro--it parted slowly, and in the aperture which was thus made, Ione beheld an indistinct and pale landscape, which gradually grew brighter and clearer as she gazed; at length she discovered plainly trees, and rivers, and meadows, and all the beautiful diversity of the richest earth. At length, before the landscape, a dim shadow glided; it rested opposite to Ione; slowly the same charm seemed to operate upon it as over the rest of the scene; it took form and shape, and lo!--in its feature and in its form Ione beheld herself!

Then the scene behind the spectre faded away, and was succeeded by the representation of a gorgeous palace; a throne was raised in the centre of its hall, the dim forms of slaves and guards were ranged around it, and a pale hand held over the throne the likeness of a diadem.

A new actor now appeared; he was clothed from head to foot in a dark robe--his face was concealed--he knelt at the feet of the shadowy Ione--he clasped her hand--he pointed to the throne, as if to invite her to ascend it.

The Neapolitan's heart beat violently. 'Shall the shadow disclose itself?' whispered a voice beside her--the voice of Arbaces.

'Ah, yes!' answered Ione, softly.

Arbaces raised his hand--the spectre seemed to drop the mantle that concealed its form--and Ione shrieked--it was Arbaces himself that thus knelt before her.

'This is, indeed, thy fate!' whispered again the Egyptian's voice in her ear. 'And thou art destined to be the bride of Arbaces.'

Ione started--the black curtain closed over the phantasmagoria: and Arbaces himself--the real, the living Arbaces--was at her feet.

'Oh, Ione!' said he, pa.s.sionately gazing upon her, 'listen to one who has long struggled vainly with his love. I adore thee! The Fates do not lie--thou art destined to be mine--I have sought the world around, and found none like thee. From my youth upward, I have sighed for such as thou art. I have dreamed till I saw thee--I wake, and I behold thee.

Turn not away from me, Ione; think not of me as thou hast thought; I am not that being--cold, insensate, and morose, which I have seemed to thee. Never woman had lover so devoted--so pa.s.sionate as I will be to Ione. Do not struggle in my clasp: see--I release thy hand. Take it from me if thou wilt--well be it so! But do not reject me, Ione--do not rashly reject--judge of thy power over him whom thou canst thus transform. I, who never knelt to mortal being, kneel to thee. I, who have commanded fate, receive from thee my own. Ione, tremble not, thou art my queen--my G.o.ddess--be my bride! All the wishes thou canst form shall be fulfilled. The ends of the earth shall minister to thee--pomp, power, luxury, shall be thy slaves. Arbaces shall have no ambition, save the pride of obeying thee. Ione, turn upon me those eyes--shed upon me thy smile. Dark is my soul when thy face is hid from it: s.h.i.+ne over me, my sun--my heaven--my daylight!--Ione, Ione--do not reject my love!'

Alone, and in the power of this singular and fearful man, Ione was not yet terrified; the respect of his language, the softness of his voice, rea.s.sured her; and, in her own purity, she felt protection. But she was confused--astonished: it was some moments before she could recover the power of reply.

'Rise, Arbaces!' said she at length; and she resigned to him once more her hand, which she as quickly withdrew again, when she felt upon it the burning pressure of his lips. 'Rise! and if thou art serious, if thy language be in earnest...'

'If!' said he tenderly.

'Well, then, listen to me: you have been my guardian, my friend, my monitor; for this new character I was not prepared--think not,' she added quickly, as she saw his dark eyes glitter with the fierceness of his pa.s.sion--'think not that I scorn--that I am untouched--that I am not honored by this homage; but, say--canst thou hear me calmly?'

'Ay, though thy words were lightning, and could blast me!'

'I love another!' said Ione, blus.h.i.+ngly, but in a firm voice.

'By the G.o.ds--by h.e.l.l!' shouted Arbaces, rising to his fullest height; 'dare not tell me that--dare not mock me--it is impossible!--Whom hast thou seen--whom known? Oh, Ione, it is thy woman's invention, thy woman's art that speaks--thou wouldst gain time; I have surprised--I have terrified thee. Do with me as thou wilt--say that thou lovest not me; but say not that thou lovest another!'

'Alas!' began Ione; and then, appalled before his sudden and unlooked-for violence, she burst into tears.

Arbaces came nearer to her--his breath glowed fiercely on her cheek; he wound his arms round her--she sprang from his embrace. In the struggle a tablet fell from her bosom on the ground: Arbaces perceived, and seized it--it was the letter that morning received from Glaucus. Ione sank upon the couch, half dead with terror.

Rapidly the eyes of Arbaces ran over the writing; the Neapolitan did not dare to gaze upon him: she did not see the deadly paleness that came over his countenance--she marked not his withering frown, nor the quivering of his lip, nor the convulsions that heaved his breast. He read it to the end, and then, as the letter fell from his hand, he said, in a voice of deceitful calmness:

'Is the writer of this the man thou lovest?'

Ione sobbed, but answered not.

'Speak!' he rather shrieked than said.

'It is--it is!

'And his name--it is written here--his name is Glaucus!'

Ione, clasping her hands, looked round as for succour or escape.

'Then hear me,' said Arbaces, sinking his voice into a whisper; 'thou shalt go to thy tomb rather than to his arms! What! thinkest thou Arbaces will brook a rival such as this puny Greek? What! thinkest thou that he has watched the fruit ripen, to yield it to another! Pretty fool--no! Thou art mine--all--only mine: and thus--thus I seize and claim thee!' As he spoke, he caught Ione in his arms; and, in that ferocious grasp, was all the energy--less of love than of revenge.

But to Ione despair gave supernatural strength: she again tore herself from him--she rushed to that part of the room by which she had entered--she half withdrew the curtain--he had seized her--again she broke away from him--and fell, exhausted, and with a loud shriek, at the base of the column which supported the head of the Egyptian G.o.ddess.

Arbaces paused for a moment, as if to regain his breath; and thence once more darted upon his prey.

At that instant the curtain was rudely torn aside, the Egyptian felt a fierce and strong grasp upon his shoulder. He turned--he beheld before him the flas.h.i.+ng eyes of Glaucus, and the pale, worn, but menacing, countenance of Apaecides. 'Ah,' he muttered, as he glared from one to the other, 'what Fury hath sent ye hither?'

'Ate,' answered Glaucus; and he closed at once with the Egyptian.

Meanwhile, Apaecides raised his sister, now lifeless, from the ground; his strength, exhausted by a mind long overwrought, did not suffice to bear her away, light and delicate though her shape: he placed her, therefore, on the couch, and stood over her with a brandis.h.i.+ng knife, watching the contest between Glaucus and the Egyptian, and ready to plunge his weapon in the bosom of Arbaces should he be victorious in the struggle. There is, perhaps, nothing on earth so terrible as the naked and unarmed contest of animal strength, no weapon but those which Nature supplies to rage. Both the antagonists were now locked in each other's grasp--the hand of each seeking the throat of the other--the face drawn back--the fierce eyes flas.h.i.+ng--the muscles strained--the veins swelled--the lips apart--the teeth set--both were strong beyond the ordinary power of men, both animated by relentless wrath; they coiled, they wound, around each other; they rocked to and fro--they swayed from end to end of their confined arena--they uttered cries of ire and revenge--they were now before the altar--now at the base of the column where the struggle had commenced: they drew back for breath--Arbaces leaning against the column--Glaucus a few paces apart.

'O ancient G.o.ddess!' exclaimed Arbaces, clasping the column, and raising his eyes toward the sacred image it supported, 'protect thy chosen--proclaim they vengeance against this thing of an upstart creed, who with sacrilegious violence profanes thy resting-place and a.s.sails thy servant.'

As he spoke, the still and vast features of the G.o.ddess seemed suddenly to glow with life; through the black marble, as through a transparent veil, flushed luminously a crimson and burning hue; around the head played and darted coruscations of livid lightning; the eyes became like b.a.l.l.s of lurid fire, and seemed fixed in withering and intolerable wrath upon the countenance of the Greek. Awed and appalled by this sudden and mystic answer to the prayer of his foe, and not free from the hereditary superst.i.tions of his race, the cheeks of Glaucus paled before that strange and ghastly animation of the marble--his knees knocked together--he stood, seized with a divine panic, dismayed, aghast, half unmanned before his foe! Arbaces gave him not breathing time to recover his stupor: 'Die, wretch!' he shouted, in a voice of thunder, as he sprang upon the Greek; 'the Mighty Mother claims thee as a living sacrifice!' Taken thus by surprise in the first consternation of his superst.i.tious fears, the Greek lost his footing--the marble floor was as smooth as gla.s.s--he slid--he fell. Arbaces planted his foot on the breast of his fallen foe. Apaecides, taught by his sacred profession, as well as by his knowledge of Arbaces, to distrust all miraculous interpositions, had not shared the dismay of his companion; he rushed forward--his knife gleamed in the air--the watchful Egyptian caught his arm as it descended--one wrench of his powerful hand tore the weapon from the weak grasp of the priest--one sweeping blow stretched him to the earth--with a loud and exulting yell Arbaces brandished the knife on high. Glaucus gazed upon his impending fate with unwinking eyes, and in the stern and scornful resignation of a fallen gladiator, when, at that awful instant, the floor shook under them with a rapid and convulsive throe--a mightier spirit than that of the Egyptian was abroad!--a giant and crus.h.i.+ng power, before which sunk into sudden impotence his pa.s.sion and his arts. IT woke--it stirred--that Dread Demon of the Earthquake--laughing to scorn alike the magic of human guile and the malice of human wrath. As a t.i.tan, on whom the mountains are piled, it roused itself from the sleep of years, it moved on its tortured couch--the caverns below groaned and trembled beneath the motion of its limbs. In the moment of his vengeance and his power, the self-prized demiG.o.d was humbled to his real clay. Far and wide along the soil went a hoa.r.s.e and rumbling sound--the curtains of the chamber shook as at the blast of a storm--the altar rocked--the tripod reeled, and high over the place of contest, the column trembled and waved from side to side--the sable head of the G.o.ddess tottered and fell from its pedestal--and as the Egyptian stooped above his intended victim, right upon his bended form, right between the shoulder and the neck, struck the marble ma.s.s!

The shock stretched him like the blow of death, at once, suddenly, without sound or motion, or semblance of life, upon the floor, apparently crushed by the very divinity he had impiously animated and invoked!

'The Earth has preserved her children,' said Glaucus, staggering to his feet. 'Blessed be the dread convulsion! Let us wors.h.i.+p the providence of the G.o.ds!' He a.s.sisted Apaecides to rise, and then turned upward the face of Arbaces; it seemed locked as in death; blood gushed from the Egyptian's lips over his glittering robes; he fell heavily from the arms of Glaucus, and the red stream trickled slowly along the marble. Again the earth shook beneath their feet; they were forced to cling to each other; the convulsion ceased as suddenly as it came; they tarried no longer; Glaucus bore Ione lightly in his arms, and they fled from the unhallowed spot. But scarce had they entered the garden than they were met on all sides by flying and disordered groups of women and slaves, whose festive and glittering garments contrasted in mockery the solemn terror of the hour; they did not appear to heed the strangers--they were occupied only with their own fears. After the tranquillity of sixteen years, that burning and treacherous soil again menaced destruction; they uttered but one cry, 'THE EARTHQUAKE! THE EARTHQUAKE!' and pa.s.sing unmolested from the midst of them, Apaecides and his companions, without entering the house, hastened down one of the alleys, pa.s.sed a small open gate, and there, sitting on a little mound over which spread the gloom of the dark green aloes, the moonlight fell on the bended figure of the blind girl--she was weeping bitterly.

BOOK THE THIRD

Chapter I

THE FORUM OF THE POMPEIANS. THE FIRST RUDE MACHINERY BY WHICH THE NEW ERA OF THE WORLD WAS WROUGHT.

IT was early noon, and the forum was crowded alike with the busy and the idle. As at Paris at this day, so at that time in the cities of Italy, men lived almost wholly out of doors: the public buildings, the forum, the porticoes, the baths, the temples themselves, might be considered their real homes; it was no wonder that they decorated so gorgeously these favorite places of resort--they felt for them a sort of domestic affection as well as a public pride. And animated was, indeed, the aspect of the forum of Pompeii at that time! Along its broad pavement, composed of large flags of marble, were a.s.sembled various groups, conversing in that energetic fas.h.i.+on which appropriates a gesture to every word, and which is still the characteristic of the people of the south. Here, in seven stalls on one side the colonnade, sat the money-changers, with their glittering heaps before them, and merchants and seamen in various costumes crowding round their stalls. On one side, several men in long togas were seen bustling rapidly up to a stately edifice, where the magistrates administered justice--these were the lawyers, active, chattering, joking, and punning, as you may find them at this day in Westminster. In the centre of the s.p.a.ce, pedestals supported various statues, of which the most remarkable was the stately form of Cicero. Around the court ran a regular and symmetrical colonnade of Doric architecture; and there several, whose business drew them early to the place, were taking the slight morning repast which made an Italian breakfast, talking vehemently on the earthquake of the preceding night as they dipped pieces of bread in their cups of diluted wine. In the open s.p.a.ce, too, you might perceive various petty traders exercising the arts of their calling. Here one man was holding out ribands to a fair dame from the country; another man was vaunting to a stout farmer the excellence of his shoes; a third, a kind of stall-restaurateur, still so common in the Italian cities, was supplying many a hungry mouth with hot messes from his small and itinerant stove, while--contrast strongly typical of the mingled bustle and intellect of the time--close by, a schoolmaster was expounding to his puzzled pupils the elements of the Latin grammar.' A gallery above the portico, which was ascended by small wooden staircases, had also its throng; though, as here the immediate business of the place was mainly carried on, its groups wore a more quiet and serious air.

Every now and then the crowd below respectfully gave way as some senator swept along to the Temple of Jupiter (which filled up one side of the forum, and was the senators' hall of meeting), nodding with ostentatious condescension to such of his friends or clients as he distinguished amongst the throng. Mingling amidst the gay dresses of the better orders you saw the hardy forms of the neighboring farmers, as they made their way to the public granaries. Hard by the temple you caught a view of the triumphal arch, and the long street beyond swarming with inhabitants; in one of the niches of the arch a fountain played, cheerily sparkling in the sunbeams; and above its cornice rose the bronzed and equestrian statue of Caligula, strongly contrasting the gay summer skies. Behind the stalls of the money-changers was that building now called the Pantheon; and a crowd of the poorer Pompeians pa.s.sed through the small vestibule which admitted to the interior, with panniers under their arms, pressing on towards a platform, placed between two columns, where such provisions as the priests had rescued from sacrifice were exposed for sale.