Last Days of Pompeii Part 35

The sound-the shock, stunned the Athenian for several moments. When he recovered, the light still illuminated the scene-the earth still slid and trembled beneath! Ione lay senseless on the ground; but he saw her not yet-his eyes were fixed upon a ghastly face that seemed to emerge, without limbs or trunk, from the huge fragments of the shattered column-a face of unutterable pain, agony, and despair! The eyes shut and opened rapidly, as if sense were not yet fled; the lips quivered and grinned-then sudden stillness and darkness fell over the features, yet retaining that aspect of horror never to be forgotten!

So perished the wise Magician-the great Arbaces-the Hermes of the Burning Belt-the last of the royalty of Egypt!

Chapter IX

THE DESPAIR OF THE LOVERS. THE CONDITION OF THE MULt.i.tUDE.

GLAUCUS turned in grat.i.tude but in awe, caught Ione once more in his arms, and fled along the street, that was yet intensely luminous. But suddenly a duller shade fell over the air. Instinctively he turned to the mountain, and beheld! one of the two gigantic crests, into which the summit had been divided, rocked and wavered to and fro; and then, with a sound, the mightiness of which no language can describe, it fell from its burning base, and rushed, an avalanche of fire, down the sides of the mountain! At the same instant gushed forth a volume of blackest smoke-rolling on, over air, sea, and earth.

Another-and another-and another shower of ashes, far more profuse than before, scattered fresh desolation along the streets. Darkness once more wrapped them as a veil; and Glaucus, his bold heart at last quelled and despairing, sank beneath the cover of an arch, and, clasping Ione to his heart-a bride on that couch of ruin-resigned himself to die.

Meanwhile Nydia, when separated by the throng from Glaucus and Ione, had in vain endeavored to regain them. In vain she raised that plaintive cry so peculiar to the blind; it was lost amidst a thousand shrieks of more selfish terror. Again and again she returned to the spot where they had been divided-to find her companions gone, to seize every fugitive-to inquire of Glaucus-to be dashed aside in the impatience of distraction. Who in that hour spared one thought to his neighbor? Perhaps in scenes of universal horror, nothing is more horrid than the unnatural selfishness they engender. At length it occurred to Nydia, that as it had been resolved to seek the sea-sh.o.r.e for escape, her most probable chance of rejoining her companions would be to persevere in that direction. Guiding her steps, then, by the staff which she always carried, she continued, with incredible dexterity, to avoid the ma.s.ses of ruin that enc.u.mbered the path-to thread the streets-and unerringly (so blessed now was that accustomed darkness, so afflicting in ordinary life!) to take the nearest direction to the sea-side.

Poor girl!-her courage was beautiful to behold!-and Fate seemed to favor one so helpless! The boiling torrents touched her not, save by the general rain which accompanied them; the huge fragments of scoria shivered the pavement before and beside her, but spared that frail form: and when the lesser ashes fell over her, she shook them away with a slight tremor,' and dauntlessly resumed her course.

Weak, exposed, yet fearless, supported but by one wish, she was a very emblem of Psyche in her wanderings; of Hope, walking through the Valley of the Shadow; of the Soul itself-lone but undaunted, amidst the dangers and the snares of life!

Her path was, however, constantly impeded by the crowds that now groped amidst the gloom, now fled in the temporary glare of the lightnings across the scene; and, at length, a group of torch-bearers rushing full against her, she was thrown down with some violence.

'What!' said the voice of one of the party, 'is this the brave blind girl! By Bacchus, she must not be left here to die! Up, my Thessalian! So-so. Are you hurt? That's well! Come along with us! we are for the sh.o.r.e!'

'O Sall.u.s.t! it is thy voice! The G.o.ds be thanked! Glaucus! Glaucus! Glaucus! have ye seen him?'

'Not I. He is doubtless out of the city by this time. The G.o.ds who saved him from the lion will save him from the burning mountain.'

As the kindly epicure thus encouraged Nydia, he drew her along with him towards the sea, heeding not her pa.s.sionate entreaties that he would linger yet awhile to search for Glaucus; and still, in the accent of despair, she continued to shriek out that beloved name, which, amidst all the roar of the convulsed elements, kept alive a music at her heart.

The sudden illumination, the bursts of the floods of lava, and the earthquake, which we have already described, chanced when Sall.u.s.t and his party had just gained the direct path leading from the city to the port; and here they were arrested by an immense crowd, more than half the population of the city. They spread along the field without the walls, thousands upon thousands, uncertain whither to fly. The sea had retired far from the sh.o.r.e; and they who had fled to it had been so terrified by the agitation and preternatural shrinking of the element, the gasping forms of the uncouth sea things which the waves had left upon the sand, and by the sound of the huge stones cast from the mountain into the deep, that they had returned again to the land, as presenting the less frightful aspect of the two. Thus the two streams of human beings, the one seaward, the other from the sea, had met together, feeling a sad comfort in numbers; arrested in despair and doubt.

'The world is to be destroyed by fire,' said an old man in long loose robes, a philosopher of the Stoic school: 'Stoic and Epicurean wisdom have alike agreed in this prediction: and the hour is come!'

'Yea; the hour is come!' cried a loud voice, solemn, but not fearful.

Those around turned in dismay. The voice came from above them. It was the voice of Olinthus, who, surrounded by his Christian friends, stood upon an abrupt eminence on which the old Greek colonists had raised a temple to Apollo, now timeworn and half in ruin.

As he spoke there came that sudden illumination which had heralded the death of Arbaces, and glowing over that mighty mult.i.tude, awed, crouching, breathless-never on earth had the faces of men seemed so haggard!-never had meeting of mortal beings been so stamped with the horror and sublimity of dread!-never till the last trumpet sounds, shall such meeting be seen again! And above those the form of Olinthus, with outstretched arm and prophet brow, girt with the living fires. And the crowd knew the face of him they had doomed to the fangs of the beast-then their victim-now their warner! and through the stillness again came his ominous voice: 'The hour is come!'

The Christians repeated the cry. It was caught up-it was echoed from side to side-woman and man, childhood and old age, repeated, not aloud, but in a smothered and dreary murmur: 'THE HOUR IS COME!'

At that moment, a wild yell burst through the air-and, thinking only of escape, whither it knew not, the terrible tiger of the desert leaped amongst the throng, and hurried through its parted streams. And so came the earthquake-and so darkness once more fell over the earth!

And now new fugitives arrived. Grasping the treasures no longer destined for their lord, the slaves of Arbaces joined the throng. One only of all their torches yet flickered on. It was borne by Sosia; and its light falling on the face of Nydia, he recognized the Thessalian.

'What avails thy liberty now, blind girl?' said the slave.

'Who art thou? canst thou tell me of Glaucus?'

'Ay; I saw him but a few minutes since.'

'Blessed be thy head! where?'

'Crouched beneath the arch of the forum-dead or dying!-gone to rejoin Arbaces, who is no more!'

Nydia uttered not a word, she slid from the side of Sall.u.s.t; silently she glided through those behind her, and retraced her steps to the city. She gained the forum-the arch; she stooped down-she felt around-she called on the name of Glaucus.

A weak voice answered-'Who calls on me? Is it the voice of the Shades? Lo! I am prepared!'

'Arise! follow me! Take my hand! Glaucus, thou shalt be saved!'

In wonder and sudden hope, Glaucus arose-'Nydia still? Ah! thou, then, art safe!'

The tender joy of his voice pierced the heart of the poor Thessalian, and she blessed him for his thought of her.

Half leading, half carrying Ione, Glaucus followed his guide. With admirable discretion, she avoided the path which led to the crowd she had just quitted, and, by another route, sought the sh.o.r.e.

After many pauses and incredible perseverance, they gained the sea, and joined a group, who, bolder than the rest, resolved to hazard any peril rather than continue in such a scene. In darkness they put forth to sea; but, as they cleared the land and caught new aspects of the mountain, its channels of molten fire threw a partial redness over the waves.

Utterly exhausted and worn out, Ione slept on the breast of Glaucus, and Nydia lay at his feet. Meanwhile the showers of dust and ashes, still borne aloft, fell into the wave, and scattered their snows over the deck. Far and wide, borne by the winds, those showers descended upon the remotest climes, startling even the swarthy African; and whirled along the antique soil of Syria and of Egypt (Dion Ca.s.sius).

Chapter X

THE NEXT MORNING. THE FATE OF NYDIA.

AND meekly, softly, beautifully, dawned at last the light over the trembling deep!-the winds were sinking into rest-the foam died from the glowing azure of that delicious sea. Around the east, thin mists caught gradually the rosy hues that heralded the morning; Light was about to resume her reign. Yet, still, dark and ma.s.sive in the distance, lay the broken fragments of the destroying cloud, from which red streaks, burning dimlier and more dim, betrayed the yet rolling fires of the mountain of the 'Scorched Fields'. The white walls and gleaming columns that had adorned the lovely coasts were no more. Sullen and dull were the sh.o.r.es so lately crested by the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The darlings of the deep were s.n.a.t.c.hed from her embrace! Century after century shall the mighty Mother stretch forth her azure arms, and know them not-moaning round the sepulchres of the Lost!

There was no shout from the mariners at the dawning light-it had come too gradually, and they were too wearied for such sudden bursts of joy-but there was a low, deep murmur of thankfulness amidst those watchers of the long night. They looked at each other and smiled-they took heart-they felt once more that there was a world around, and a G.o.d above them! And in the feeling that the worst was pa.s.sed, the overwearied ones turned round, and fell placidly to sleep. In the growing light of the skies there came the silence which night had wanted: and the bark drifted calmly onward to its port. A few other vessels, bearing similar fugitives, might be seen in the expanse, apparently motionless, yet gliding also on. There was a sense of security, of companionship, and of hope, in the sight of their slender masts and white sails. What beloved friends, lost and missed in the gloom, might they not bear to safety and to shelter!

In the silence of the general sleep, Nydia rose gently. She bent over the face of Glaucus-she inhaled the deep breath of his heavy slumber-timidly and sadly she kissed his brow-his lips; she felt for his hand-it was locked in that of Ione; she sighed deeply, and her face darkened. Again she kissed his brow, and with her hair wiped from it the damps of night. 'May the G.o.ds bless you, Athenian!' she murmured: 'may you be happy with your beloved one!-may you sometimes remember Nydia! Alas! she is of no further use on earth!'

With these words she turned away. Slowly she crept along by the fori, or platforms, to the farther side of the vessel, and, pausing, bent low over the deep; the cool spray dashed upward on her feverish brow. 'It is the kiss of death,' she said 'it is welcome.' The balmy air played through her waving tresses-she put them from her face, and raised those eyes-so tender, though so lightless-to the sky, whose soft face she had never seen!

'No, no!' she said, half aloud, and in a musing and thoughtful tone, 'I cannot endure it; this jealous, exacting love-it shatters my whole soul in madness! I might harm him again-wretch that I was! I have saved him-twice saved him-happy, happy thought: why not die happy?-it is the last glad thought I can ever know. Oh! sacred Sea! I hear thy voice invitingly-it hath a freshening and joyous call. They say that in thy embrace is dishonour-that thy victims cross not the fatal Styx-be it so!-I would not meet him in the Shades, for I should meet him still with her! Rest-rest-rest! there is no other Elysium for a heart like mine!'

A sailor, half dozing on the deck, heard a slight splash on the waters. Drowsily he looked up, and behind, as the vessel merrily bounded on, he fancied he saw something white above the waves; but it vanished in an instant. He turned round again, and dreamed of his home and children.

When the lovers awoke, their first thought was of each other-their next of Nydia! She was not to be found-none had seen her since the night. Every crevice of the vessel was searched-there was no trace of her. Mysterious from first to last, the blind Thessalian had vanished for ever from the living world! They guessed her fate in silence: and Glaucus and Ione, while they drew nearer to each other (feeling each other the world itself), forgot their deliverance, and wept as for a departed sister.

Chapter The Last

WHEREIN ALL THINGS CEASE LETTER FROM GLAUCUS TO SALl.u.s.t, TEN YEARS AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII.

'Athens.

GLAUCUS to his beloved Sall.u.s.t-greeting and health!-You request me to visit you at Rome-no, Sall.u.s.t, come rather to me at Athens! I have forsworn the Imperial City, its mighty tumult and hollow joys. In my own land henceforth I dwell for ever. The ghost of our departed greatness is dearer to me than the gaudy life of your loud prosperity. There is a charm to me which no other spot can supply, in the porticoes hallowed still by holy and venerable shades. In the olive-groves of Ilyssus I still hear the voice of poetry-on the heights of Phyle, the clouds of twilight seem yet the shrouds of departed freedom-the heralds-the heralds-of the morrow that shall come! You smile at my enthusiasm, Sall.u.s.t!-better be hopeful in chains than resigned to their glitter. You tell me you are sure that I cannot enjoy life in these melancholy haunts of a fallen majesty. You dwell with rapture on the Roman splendors, and the luxuries of the imperial court. My Sall.u.s.t-"non sum qualis eram"-I am not what I was! The events of my life have sobered the bounding blood of my youth. My health has never quite recovered its wonted elasticity ere it felt the pangs of disease, and languished in the damps of a criminal's dungeon. My mind has never shaken off the dark shadow of the Last Day of Pompeii-the horror and the desolation of that awful ruin!-Our beloved, our remembered Nydia! I have reared a tomb to her shade, and I see it every day from the window of my study. It keeps alive in me a tender recollection-a not unpleasing sadness-which are but a fitting homage to her fidelity, and the mysteriousness of her early death. Ione gathers the flowers, but my own hand wreathes them daily around the tomb. She was worthy of a tomb in Athens!

'You speak of the growing sect of the Christians in Rome. Sall.u.s.t, to you I may confide my secret; I have pondered much over that faith-I have adopted it. After the destruction of Pompeii, I met once more with Olinthus-saved, alas! only for a day, and falling afterwards a martyr to the indomitable energy of his zeal. In my preservation from the lion and the earthquake he taught me to behold the hand of the unknown G.o.d! I listened-believed-adored! My own, my more than ever beloved Ione, has also embraced the creed!-a creed, Sall.u.s.t, which, shedding light over this world, gathers its concentrated glory, like a sunset, over the next! We know that we are united in the soul, as in the flesh, for ever and for ever! Ages may roll on, our very dust be dissolved, the earth shrivelled like a scroll; but round and round the circle of eternity rolls the wheel of life-imperishable-unceasing! And as the earth from the sun, so immortality drinks happiness from virtue, which is the smile upon the face of G.o.d! Visit me, then, Sall.u.s.t; bring with you the learned scrolls of Epicurus, Pythagoras, Diogenes; arm yourself for defeat; and let us, amidst the groves of Academus, dispute, under a surer guide than any granted to our fathers, on the mighty problem of the true ends of life and the nature of the soul.

'Ione-at that name my heart yet beats!-Ione is by my side as I write: I lift my eyes, and meet her smile. The sunlight quivers over Hymettus: and along my garden I hear the hum of the summer bees. Am I happy, ask you? Oh, what can Rome give me equal to what I possess at Athens? Here, everything awakens the soul and inspires the affections-the trees, the waters, the hills, the skies, are those of Athens!-fair, though mourning-mother of the Poetry and the Wisdom of the World. In my hall I see the marble faces of my ancestors. In the Ceramicus, I survey their tombs! In the streets, I behold the hand of Phidias and the soul of Pericles. Harmodius, Aristogiton-they are everywhere-but in our hearts!-in mine, at least, they shall not perish! If anything can make me forget that I am an Athenian and not free, it is partly the soothing-the love-watchful, vivid, sleepless-of Ione-a love that has taken a new sentiment in our new creed-a love which none of our poets, beautiful though they be, had shadowed forth in description; for mingled with religion, it partakes of religion; it is blended with pure and unworldly thoughts; it is that which we may hope to carry through eternity, and keep, therefore, white and unsullied, that we may not blush to confess it to our G.o.d! This is the true type of the dark fable of our Grecian Eros and Psyche-it is, in truth, the soul asleep in the arms of love. And if this, our love, support me partly against the fever of the desire for freedom, my religion supports me more; for whenever I would grasp the sword and sound the sh.e.l.l, and rush to a new Marathon (but Marathon without victory), I feel my despair at the chilling thought of my country's impotence-the crushing weight of the Roman yoke, comforted, at least, by the thought that earth is but the beginning of life-that the glory of a few years matters little in the vast s.p.a.ce of eternity-that there is no perfect freedom till the chains of clay fall from the soul, and all s.p.a.ce, all time, become its heritage and domain. Yet, Sall.u.s.t, some mixture of the soft Greek blood still mingles with my faith. I can share not the zeal of those who see crime and eternal wrath in men who cannot believe as they. I shudder not at the creed of others. I dare not curse them-I pray the Great Father to convert. This lukewarmness exposes me to some suspicion amongst the Christians: but I forgive it; and, not offending openly the prejudices of the crowd, I am thus enabled to protect my brethren from the danger of the law, and the consequences of their own zeal. If moderation seem to me the natural creature of benevolence, it gives, also, the greatest scope to beneficence.

'Such, then, O Sall.u.s.t! is my life-such my opinions. In this manner I greet existence and await death. And thou, glad-hearted and kindly pupil of Epicurus, thou... But come hither, and see what enjoyments, what hopes are ours-and not the splendor of imperial banquets, nor the shouts of the crowded circus, nor the noisy forum, nor the glittering theatre, nor the luxuriant gardens, nor the voluptuous baths of Rome-shall seem to thee to const.i.tute a life of more vivid and uninterrupted happiness than that which thou so unreasonably pitiest as the career of Glaucus the Athenian!-Farewell!'

Nearly Seventeen Centuries had rolled away when the City of Pompeii was disinterred from its silent tomb, all vivid with undimmed hues; its walls fresh as if painted yesterday-not a hue faded on the rich mosaic of its floors-in its forum the half-finished columns as left by the workman's hand-in its gardens the sacrificial tripod-in its halls the chest of treasure-in its baths the strigil-in its theatres the counter of admission-in its saloons the furniture and the lamp-in its triclinia the fragments of the last feast-in its cubicula the perfumes and the rouge of faded beauty-and everywhere the bones and skeletons of those who once moved the springs of that minute yet gorgeous machine of luxury and of life! In the house of Diomed, in the subterranean vaults, twenty skeletons (one of a babe) were discovered in one spot by the door, covered by a fine ashen dust, that had evidently been wafted slowly through the apertures, until it had filled the whole s.p.a.ce. There were jewels and coins, candelabra for unavailing light, and wine hardened in the amphorae for a prolongation of agonized life. The sand, consolidated by damps, had taken the forms of the skeletons as in a cast; and the traveler may yet see the impression of a female neck and bosom of young and round proportions-the trace of the fated Julia! It seems to the inquirer as if the air had been gradually changed into a sulphurous vapor; the inmates of the vaults had rushed to the door, to find it closed and blocked up by the scoria without, and in their attempts to force it, had been suffocated with the atmosphere.

In the garden was found a skeleton with a key by its bony hand, and near it a bag of coins. This is believed to have been the master of the house-the unfortunate Diomed, who had probably sought to escape by the garden, and been destroyed either by the vapors or some fragment of stone. Beside some silver vases lay another skeleton, probably of a slave.

The houses of Sall.u.s.t and of Pansa, the Temple of Isis, with the juggling concealments behind the statues-the lurking-place of its holy oracles-are now bared to the gaze of the curious. In one of the chambers of that temple was found a huge skeleton with an axe beside it: two walls had been pierced by the axe-the victim could penetrate no farther. In the midst of the city was found another skeleton, by the side of which was a heap of coins, and many of the mystic ornaments of the fane of Isis. Death had fallen upon him in his avarice, and Calenus perished simultaneously with Burbo! As the excavators cleared on through the ma.s.s of ruin, they found the skeleton of a man literally severed in two by a prostrate column; the skull was of so striking a conformation, so boldly marked in its intellectual as well as its worse physical developments, that it has excited the constant speculation of every itinerant believer in the theories of Spurzheim who has gazed upon that ruined palace of the mind. Still, after the lapse of ages, the traveler may survey that airy hall within whose cunning galleries and elaborate chambers once thought, reasoned, dreamed, and sinned, the soul of Arbaces the Egyptian.

Viewing the various witnesses of a social system which has pa.s.sed from the world for ever-a stranger, from that remote and barbarian Isle which the Imperial Roman shivered when he named, paused amidst the delights of the soft Campania and composed this history!