The Last Days of Pompeii

E >> Edward George Bulwer Lytton >> The Last Days of Pompeii


'I have done,' replied the hag, laughing wildly; 'for in thy doom is she
who loves thee accursed. And not the less, that I heard her lips
breathe thy name, and know by what word to commend thee to the demons.
Glaucus--thou art doomed!' So saying, the witch turned from the
Athenian, and kneeling down beside her wounded favorite, which she
dragged from the hearth, she turned to them her face no more.

'O Glaucus!' said Ione, greatly terrified, 'what have we done?--Let us
hasten from this place; the storm has ceased. Good mistress, forgive
him--recall thy words--he meant but to defend himself--accept this
peace-offering to unsay the said': and Ione, stooping, placed her purse
on the hag's lap.

'Away!' said she, bitterly--'away! The oath once woven the Fates only
can untie. Away!'

'Come, dearest!' said Glaucus, impatiently. 'Thinkest thou that the
gods above us or below hear the impotent ravings of dotage? Come!'

Long and loud rang the echoes of the cavern with the dread laugh of the
Saga--she deigned no further reply.

The lovers breathed more freely when they gained the open air: yet the
scene they had witnessed, the words and the laughter of the witch, still
fearfully dwelt with Ione; and even Glaucus could not thoroughly shake
off the impression they bequeathed. The storm had subsided--save, now
and then, a low thunder muttered at the distance amidst the darker
clouds, or a momentary flash of lightning affronted the sovereignty of
the moon. With some difficulty they regained the road, where they found
the vehicle already sufficiently repaired for their departure, and the
carrucarius calling loudly upon Hercules to tell him where his charge
had vanished.

Glaucus vainly endeavored to cheer the exhausted spirits of Ione; and
scarce less vainly to recover the elastic tone of his own natural
gaiety. They soon arrived before the gate of the city: as it opened to
them, a litter borne by slaves impeded the way.

'It is too late for egress,' cried the sentinel to the inmate of the
litter.

'Not so,' said a voice, which the lovers started to hear; it was a voice
they well recognized. 'I am bound to the villa of Marcus Polybius. I
shall return shortly. I am Arbaces the Egyptian.'

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

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

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



Chapter X

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

ARBACES had tarried only till the cessation of the tempest allowed him,
under cover of night, to seek the Saga of Vesuvius. Borne by those of
his trustier slaves in whom in all more secret expeditions he was
accustomed to confide, he lay extended along his litter, and resigning
his sanguine heart to the contemplation of vengeance gratified and love
possessed. The slaves in so short a journey moved very little slower
than the ordinary pace of mules; and Arbaces soon arrived at the
commencement of a narrow path, which the lovers had not been fortunate
enough to discover; but which, skirting the thick vines, led at once to
the habitation of the witch. Here he rested the litter; and bidding his
slaves conceal themselves and the vehicle among the vines from the
observation of any chance passenger, he mounted alone, with steps still
feeble but supported by a long staff, the drear and sharp ascent.

Not a drop of rain fell from the tranquil heaven; but the moisture
dripped mournfully from the laden boughs of the vine, and now and then
collected in tiny pools in the crevices and hollows of the rocky way.

'Strange passions these for a philosopher,' thought Arbaces, 'that lead
one like me just new from the bed of death, and lapped even in health
amidst the roses of luxury, across such nocturnal paths as this; but
Passion and Vengeance treading to their goal can make an Elysium of a
Tartarus.' High, clear, and melancholy shone the moon above the road of
that dark wayfarer, glossing herself in every pool that lay before him,
and sleeping in shadow along the sloping mount. He saw before him the
same light that had guided the steps of his intended victims, but, no
longer contrasted by the blackened clouds, it shone less redly clear.

He paused, as at length he approached the mouth of the cavern, to
recover breath; and then, with his wonted collected and stately mien, he
crossed the unhallowed threshold.

The fox sprang up at the ingress of this newcomer, and by a long howl
announced another visitor to his mistress.

The witch had resumed her seat, and her aspect of gravelike and grim
repose. By her feet, upon a bed of dry weeds which half covered it, lay
the wounded snake; but the quick eye of the Egyptian caught its scales
glittering in the reflected light of the opposite fire, as it
writhed--now contracting, now lengthening, its folds, in pain and
unsated anger.

'Down, slave!' said the witch, as before, to the fox; and, as before,
the animal dropped to the ground--mute, but vigilant.

'Rise, servant of Nox and Erebus!' said Arbaces, commandingly; 'a
superior in thine art salutes thee! rise, and welcome him.'

At these words the hag turned her gaze upon the Egyptian's towering form
and dark features. She looked long and fixedly upon him, as he stood
before her in his Oriental robe, and folded arms, and steadfast and
haughty brow. 'Who art thou,' she said at last, 'that callest thyself
greater in art than the Saga of the Burning Fields, and the daughter of
the perished Etrurian race?'

'I am he,' answered Arbaces, 'from whom all cultivators of magic, from
north to south, from east to west, from the Ganges and the Nile to the
vales of Thessaly and the shores of the yellow Tiber, have stooped to
learn.'

'There is but one such man in these places,' answered the witch, 'whom
the men of the outer world, unknowing his loftier attributes and more
secret fame, call Arbaces the Egyptian: to us of a higher nature and
deeper knowledge, his rightful appellation is Hermes of the Burning
Girdle.'

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

As he spoke he drew aside his robe, and revealed a cincture seemingly of
fire, that burned around his waist, clasped in the centre by a plate
whereon was engraven some sign apparently vague and unintelligible but
which was evidently not unknown to the Saga. She rose hastily, and
threw herself at the feet of Arbaces. 'I have seen, then,' said she, in
a voice of deep humility, 'the Lord of the Mighty Girdle--vouchsafe my
homage.'

'Rise,' said the Egyptian; 'I have need of thee.'

So saying, he placed himself on the same log of wood on which Ione had
rested before, and motioned to the witch to resume her seat.

'Thou sayest,' said he, as she obeyed, 'that thou art a daughter of the
ancient Etrurian tribes; the mighty walls of whose rock-built cities yet
frown above the robber race that hath seized upon their ancient reign.
Partly came those tribes from Greece, partly were they exiles from a
more burning and primeval soil. In either case art thou of Egyptian
lineage, for the Grecian masters of the aboriginal helot were among the
restless sons whom the Nile banished from her bosom. Equally, then, O
Saga! thy descent is from ancestors that swore allegiance to mine own.
By birth as by knowledge, art thou the subject of Arbaces. Hear me,
then, and obey!'

The witch bowed her head.

'Whatever art we possess in sorcery,' continued Arbaces, 'we are
sometimes driven to natural means to attain our object. The ring and
the crystal, and the ashes and the herbs, do not give unerring
divinations; neither do the higher mysteries of the moon yield even the
possessor of the girdle a dispensation from the necessity of employing
ever and anon human measures for a human object. Mark me, then: thou
art deeply skilled, methinks, in the secrets of the more deadly herbs;
thou knowest those which arrest life, which burn and scorch the soul
from out her citadel, or freeze the channels of young blood into that
ice which no sun can melt. Do I overrate thy skill? Speak, and truly!'

'Mighty Hermes, such lore is, indeed, mine own. Deign to look at these
ghostly and corpse-like features; they have waned from the hues of life
merely by watching over the rank herbs which simmer night and day in yon
cauldron.'

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

'It is well,' said he; 'thou hast learned that maxim of all the deeper
knowledge which saith, "Despise the body to make wise the mind." But to
thy task. There cometh to thee by to-morrow's starlight a vain maiden,
seeking of thine art a love-charm to fascinate from another the eyes
that should utter but soft tales to her own: instead of thy philtres,
give the maiden one of thy most powerful poisons. Let the lover breathe
his vows to the Shades.'

The witch trembled from head to foot.

'Oh pardon! pardon! dread master,' said she, falteringly, 'but this I
dare not. The law in these cities is sharp and vigilant; they will
seize, they will slay me.'

'For what purpose, then, thy herbs and thy potions, vain Saga?' said
Arbaces, sneeringly.

The witch hid her loathsome face with her hands.

'Oh! years ago,' said she, in a voice unlike her usual tones, so
plaintive was it, and so soft, 'I was not the thing that I am now. I
loved, I fancied myself beloved.'

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

'Patience,' resumed the witch; 'patience, I implore. I loved! another
and less fair than I--yes, by Nemesis! less fair--allured from me my
chosen. I was of that dark Etrurian tribe to whom most of all were
known the secrets of the gloomier magic. My mother was herself a saga:
she shared the resentment of her child; from her hands I received the
potion that was to restore me his love; and from her, also, the poison
that was to destroy my rival. Oh, crush me, dread walls! my trembling
hands mistook the phials, my lover fell indeed at my feet; but dead!
dead! dead! Since then, what has been life to me I became suddenly old,
I devoted myself to the sorceries of my race; still by an irresistible
impulse I curse myself with an awful penance; still I seek the most
noxious herbs; still I concoct the poisons; still I imagine that I am to
give them to my hated rival; still I pour them into the phial; still I
fancy that they shall blast her beauty to the dust; still I wake and see
the quivering body, the foaming lips, the glazing eyes of my
Aulus--murdered, and by me!'

The skeleton frame of the witch shook beneath strong convulsions.

Arbaces gazed upon her with a curious though contemptuous eye.

'And this foul thing has yet human emotions!' thought he; 'still she
cowers over the ashes of the same fire that consumes Arbaces!--Such are
we all! Mystic is the tie of those mortal passions that unite the
greatest and the least.'

He did not reply till she had somewhat recovered herself, and now sat
rocking to and fro in her seat, with glassy eyes fixed on the opposite
flame, and large tears rolling down her livid cheeks.

'A grievous tale is thine, in truth,' said Arbaces. 'But these emotions
are fit only for our youth--age should harden our hearts to all things
but ourselves; as every year adds a scale to the shell-fish, so should
each year wall and incrust the heart. Think of those frenzies no more!
And now, listen to me again! By the revenge that was dear to thee, I
command thee to obey me! it is for vengeance that I seek thee! This
youth whom I would sweep from my path has crossed me, despite my
spells:--this thing of purple and broidery, of smiles and glances,
soulless and mindless, with no charm but that of beauty--accursed be
it!--this insect--this Glaucus--I tell thee, by Orcus and by Nemesis, he
must die.'

And working himself up at every word, the Egyptian, forgetful of his
debility--of his strange companion--of everything but his own vindictive
rage, strode, with large and rapid steps, the gloomy cavern.

'Glaucus! saidst thou, mighty master!' said the witch, abruptly; and her
dim eye glared at the name with all that fierce resentment at the memory
of small affronts so common amongst the solitary and the shunned.

'Ay, so he is called; but what matters the name? Let it not be heard as
that of a living man three days from this date!'

'Hear me!' said the witch, breaking from a short reverie into which she
was plunged after this last sentence of the Egyptian. 'Hear me! I am thy
thing and thy slave! spare me! If I give to the maiden thou speakest of
that which would destroy the life of Glaucus, I shall be surely
detected--the dead ever find avengers. Nay, dread man! if thy visit to
me be tracked, if thy hatred to Glaucus be known, thou mayest have need
of thy archest magic to protect thyself!'

'Ha!' said Arbaces, stopping suddenly short; and as a proof of that
blindness with which passion darkens the eyes even of the most acute,
this was the first time when the risk that he himself ran by this method
of vengeance had occurred to a mind ordinarily wary and circumspect.

'But,' continued the witch, 'if instead of that which shall arrest the
heart, I give that which shall sear and blast the brain--which shall
make him who quaffs it unfit for the uses and career of life--an abject,
raving, benighted thing--smiting sense to drivelling youth to
dotage--will not thy vengeance be equally sated--thy object equally
attained?'

'Oh, witch! no longer the servant, but the sister--the equal of
Arbaces--how much brighter is woman's wit, even in vengeance, than ours!
how much more exquisite than death is such a doom!'

'And,' continued the hag, gloating over her fell scheme, 'in this is but
little danger; for by ten thousand methods, which men forbear to seek,
can our victim become mad. He may have been among the vines and seen a
nymph--or the vine itself may have had the same effect--ha, ha! they
never inquire too scrupulously into these matters in which the gods may
be agents. And let the worst arrive--let it be known that it is a
love-charm--why, madness is a common effect of philtres; and even the
fair she that gave it finds indulgence in the excuse. Mighty Hermes,
have I ministered to thee cunningly?'

'Thou shalt have twenty years' longer date for this,' returned Arbaces.
'I will write anew the epoch of thy fate on the face of the pale
stars--thou shalt not serve in vain the Master of the Flaming Belt. And
here, Saga, carve thee out, by these golden tools, a warmer cell in this
dreary cavern--one service to me shall countervail a thousand
divinations by sieve and shears to the gaping rustics.' So saying, he
cast upon the floor a heavy purse, which clinked not unmusically to the
ear of the hag, who loved the consciousness of possessing the means to
purchase comforts she disdained. 'Farewell,' said Arbaces, 'fail
not--outwatch the stars in concocting thy beverage--thou shalt lord it
over thy sisters at the Walnut-tree,' when thou tellest them that thy
patron and thy friend is Hermes the Egyptian. To-morrow night we meet
again.'

He stayed not to hear the valediction or the thanks of the witch; with a
quick step he passed into the moonlit air, and hastened down the
mountain.

The witch, who followed his steps to the threshold, stood at the
entrance of the cavern, gazing fixedly on his receding form; and as the
sad moonlight streamed over her shadowy form and deathlike face,
emerging from the dismal rocks, it seemed as if one gifted, indeed, by
supernatural magic had escaped from the dreary Orcus; and, the foremost
of its ghostly throng, stood at its black portals--vainly summoning his
return, or vainly sighing to rejoin him. The hag, then slowly
re-entering the cave, groaningly picked up the heavy purse, took the
lamp from its stand, and, passing to the remotest depth of her cell, a
black and abrupt passage, which was not visible, save at a near
approach, closed round as it was with jutting and sharp crags, yawned
before her: she went several yards along this gloomy path, which sloped
gradually downwards, as if towards the bowels of the earth, and, lifting
a stone, deposited her treasure in a hole beneath, which, as the lamp
pierced its secrets, seemed already to contain coins of various value,
wrung from the credulity or gratitude of her visitors.

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

She replaced the stone, and continued her path onward for some paces,
when she stopped before a deep irregular fissure in the earth. Here, as
she bent--strange, rumbling, hoarse, and distant sounds might be heard,
while ever and anon, with a loud and grating noise which, to use a
homely but faithful simile, seemed to resemble the grinding of steel
upon wheels, volumes of streaming and dark smoke issued forth, and
rushed spirally along the cavern.

'The Shades are noisier than their wont,' said the hag, shaking her grey
locks; and, looking into the cavity, she beheld, far down, glimpses of a
long streak of light, intensely but darkly red. 'Strange!' she said,
shrinking back; 'it is only within the last two days that dull, deep
light hath been visible--what can it portend?'

The fox, who had attended the steps of his fell mistress, uttered a
dismal howl, and ran cowering back to the inner cave; a cold shuddering
seized the hag herself at the cry of the animal, which, causeless as it
seemed, the superstitions of the time considered deeply ominous. She
muttered her placatory charm, and tottered back into her cavern, where,
amidst her herbs and incantations, she prepared to execute the orders of
the Egyptian.

'He called me dotard,' said she, as the smoke curled from the hissing
cauldron: 'when the jaws drop, and the grinders fall, and the heart
scarce beats, it is a pitiable thing to dote; but when,' she added, with
a savage and exulting grin, 'the young, and the beautiful, and the
strong, are suddenly smitten into idiocy--ah, that is terrible! Burn,
flame--simmer herb--swelter toad--I cursed him, and he shall be cursed!'

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


Chapter XI

PROGRESS OF EVENTS. THE PLOT THICKENS. THE WEB IS WOVEN, BUT THE NET
CHANGES HANDS.

'AND you have the courage then, Julia, to seek the Witch of Vesuvius
this evening; in company, too, with that fearful man?'

'Why, Nydia?' replied Julia, timidly; 'dost thou really think there is
anything to dread? These old hags, with their enchanted mirrors, their
trembling sieves, and their moon-gathered herbs, are, I imagine, but
crafty impostors, who have learned, perhaps, nothing but the very charm
for which I apply to their skill, and which is drawn but from the
knowledge of the field's herbs and simples. Wherefore should I dread?'

'Dost thou not fear thy companion?'

'What, Arbaces? By Dian, I never saw lover more courteous than that
same magician! And were he not so dark, he would be even handsome.'

Blind as she was, Nydia had the penetration to perceive that Julia's
mind was not one that the gallantries of Arbaces were likely to terrify.
She therefore dissuaded her no more: but nursed in her excited heart the
wild and increasing desire to know if sorcery had indeed a spell to
fascinate love to love.

'Let me go with thee, noble Julia,' said she at length; 'my presence is
no protection, but I should like to be beside thee to the last.'

'Thine offer pleases me much,' replied the daughter of Diomed. 'Yet how
canst thou contrive it? we may not return until late, they will miss
thee.'

'Ione is indulgent,' replied Nydia. 'If thou wilt permit me to sleep
beneath thy roof, I will say that thou, an early patroness and friend,
hast invited me to pass the day with thee, and sing thee my Thessalian
songs; her courtesy will readily grant to thee so light a boon.'

'Nay, ask for thyself!' said the haughty Julia. 'I stoop to request no
favor from the Neapolitan!'

'Well, be it so. I will take my leave now; make my request, which I
know will be readily granted, and return shortly.'

'Do so; and thy bed shall be prepared in my own chamber.' With that,
Nydia left the fair Pompeian.

On her way back to Ione she was met by the chariot of Glaucus, on whose
fiery and curveting steeds was riveted the gaze of the crowded street.

He kindly stopped for a moment to speak to the flower-girl.

'Blooming as thine own roses, my gentle Nydia! and how is thy fair
mistress?--recovered, I trust, from the effects of the storm?'

'I have not seen her this morning,' answered Nydia, 'but...'

'But what? draw back--the horses are too near thee.'

'But think you Ione will permit me to pass the day with Julia, the
daughter of Diomed?--She wishes it, and was kind to me when I had few
friends.'

'The gods bless thy grateful heart! I will answer for Ione's
permission.'

'Then I may stay over the night, and return to-morrow?' said Nydia,
shrinking from the praise she so little merited.

'As thou and fair Julia please. Commend me to her; and hark ye, Nydia,
when thou hearest her speak, note the contrast of her voice with that of
the silver-toned Ione. Vale!'

His spirits entirely recovered from the effect of the past night, his
locks waving in the wind, his joyous and elastic heart bounding with
every spring of his Parthian steeds, a very prototype of his country's
god, full of youth and of love--Glaucus was borne rapidly to his
mistress.

Enjoy while ye may the present--who can read the future?

As the evening darkened, Julia, reclined within her litter, which was
capacious enough also to admit her blind companion, took her way to the
rural baths indicated by Arbaces. To her natural levity of disposition,
her enterprise brought less of terror than of pleasurable excitement;
above all, she glowed at the thought of her coming triumph over the
hated Neapolitan.

A small but gay group was collected round the door of the villa, as her
litter passed by it to the private entrance of the baths appropriated to
the women.

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

'True, Clodius,' said Sallust: 'it is probably the litter of his
daughter Julia. She is rich, my friend; why dost thou not proffer thy
suit to her?'

'Why, I had once hoped that Glaucus would have married her. She does
not disguise her attachment; and then, as he gambles freely and with
ill-success...'

'The sesterces would have passed to thee, wise Clodius. A wife is a
good thing--when it belongs to another man!'

'But,' continued Clodius, 'as Glaucus is, I understand, to wed the
Neapolitan, I think I must even try my chance with the dejected maid.
After all, the lamp of Hymen will be gilt, and the vessel will reconcile
one to the odor of the flame. I shall only protest, my Sallust, against
Diomed's making thee trustee to his daughter's fortune.'

'Ha! ha! let us within, my comissator; the wine and the garlands wait
us.'

Dismissing her slaves to that part of the house set apart for their
entertainment, Julia entered the baths with Nydia, and declining the
offers of the attendants, passed by a private door into the garden
behind.

'She comes by appointment, be sure,' said one of the slaves.

'What is that to thee?' said a superintendent, sourly; 'she pays for the
baths, and does not waste the saffron. Such appointments are the best
part of the trade. Hark! do you not hear the widow Fulvia clapping her
hands? Run, fool--run!'

Julia and Nydia, avoiding the more public part of the garden, arrived at
the place specified by the Egyptian. In a small circular plot of grass
the stars gleamed upon the statue of Silenus--the merry god reclined
upon a fragment of rock--the lynx of Bacchus at his feet--and over his
mouth he held, with extended arm, a bunch of grapes, which he seemingly
laughed to welcome ere he devoured.

'I see not the magician,' said Julia, looking round: when, as she spoke,
the Egyptian slowly emerged from the neighboring foliage, and the light
fell palely over his sweeping robes.

'Salve, sweet maiden!--But ha! whom hast thou here? we must have no
companions!'

'It is but the blind flower-girl, wise magician,' replied Julia:
'herself a Thessalian.'

'Oh! Nydia!' said the Egyptian. 'I know her well.'

Nydia drew back and shuddered.

'Thou hast been at my house, methinks!' said he, approaching his voice
to Nydia's ear; 'thou knowest the oath!--Silence and secrecy, now as
then, or beware!'

'Yet,' he added, musingly to himself, 'why confide more than is
necessary, even in the blind--Julia, canst thou trust thyself alone with
me? Believe me, the magician is less formidable than he seems.'