The Last Days of Pompeii
Page 16
Chapter VIII
THE SOLITUDE AND SOLILOQUY OF THE EGYPTIAN. HIS CHARACTER ANALYSED.
WE must go back a few hours in the progress of our story. At the firstgrey dawn of the day, which Glaucus had already marked with white, theEgyptian was seated, sleepless and alone, on the summit of the lofty andpyramidal tower which flanked his house. A tall parapet around itserved as a wall, and conspired, with the height of the edifice and thegloomy trees that girded the mansion, to defy the prying eyes ofcuriosity or observation. A table, on which lay a scroll, filled withmystic figures, was before him. On high, the stars waxed dim and faint,and the shades of night melted from the sterile mountain-tops; onlyabove Vesuvius there rested a deep and massy cloud, which for severaldays past had gathered darker and more solid over its summit. Thestruggle of night and day was more visible over the broad ocean, whichstretched calm, like a gigantic lake, bounded by the circling shoresthat, covered with vines and foliage, and gleaming here and there withthe white walls of sleeping cities, sloped to the scarce rippling waves.
It was the hour above all others most sacred to the daring science ofthe Egyptian--the science which would read our changeful destinies inthe stars.
He had filled his scroll, he had noted the moment and the sign; and,leaning upon his hand, he had surrendered himself to the thoughts whichhis calculation excited.
'Again do the stars forewarn me! Some danger, then, assuredly awaitsme!' said he, slowly; 'some danger, violent and sudden in its nature.The stars wear for me the same mocking menace which, if our chroniclesdo not err, they once wore for Pyrrhus--for him, doomed to strive forall things, to enjoy none--all attacking, nothing gaining--battleswithout fruit, laurels without triumph, fame without success; at lastmade craven by his own superstitions, and slain like a dog by a tilefrom the hand of an old woman! Verily, the stars flatter when they giveme a type in this fool of war--when they promise to the ardour of mywisdom the same results as to the madness of his ambition--perpetualexercise--no certain goal!--the Sisyphus task, the mountain and thestone!--the stone, a gloomy image!--it reminds me that I am threatenedwith somewhat of the same death as the Epirote. Let me look again."Beware," say the shining prophets, "how thou passest under ancientroofs, or besieged walls, or overhanging cliffs--a stone hurled fromabove, is charged by the curses of destiny against thee!" And, at nodistant date from this, comes the peril: but I cannot, of a certainty,read the day and hour. Well! if my glass runs low, the sands shallsparkle to the last. Yet, if I escape this peril--ay, if Iescape--bright and clear as the moonlight track along the waters glowsthe rest of my existence. I see honors, happiness, success, shiningupon every billow of the dark gulf beneath which I must sink at last.What, then, with such destinies beyond the peril, shall I succumb to theperil? My soul whispers hope, it sweeps exultingly beyond the bodinghour, it revels in the future--its own courage is its fittest omen. IfI were to perish so suddenly and so soon, the shadow of death woulddarken over me, and I should feel the icy presentiment of my doom. Mysoul would express, in sadness and in gloom, its forecast of the drearyOrcus. But it smiles--it assures me of deliverance.'
As he thus concluded his soliloquy, the Egyptian involuntarily rose. Hepaced rapidly the narrow space of that star-roofed floor, and, pausingat the parapet, looked again upon the grey and melancholy heavens. Thechills of the faint dawn came refreshingly upon his brow, and graduallyhis mind resumed its natural and collected calm. He withdrew his gazefrom the stars, as, one after one, they receded into the depths ofheaven; and his eyes fell over the broad expanse below. Dim in thesilenced port of the city rose the masts of the galleys; along that martof luxury and of labor was stilled the mighty hum. No lights, save hereand there from before the columns of a temple, or in the porticoes ofthe voiceless forum, broke the wan and fluctuating light of thestruggling morn. From the heart of the torpid city, so soon to vibratewith a thousand passions, there came no sound: the streams of lifecirculated not; they lay locked under the ice of sleep. From the hugespace of the amphitheatre, with its stony seats rising one above theother--coiled and round as some slumbering monster--rose a thin andghastly mist, which gathered darker, and more dark, over the scatteredfoliage that gloomed in its vicinity. The city seemed as, after theawful change of seventeen ages, it seems now to the traveler,--a City ofthe Dead.'
The ocean itself--that serene and tideless sea--lay scarce less hushed,save that from its deep bosom came, softened by the distance, a faintand regular murmur, like the breathing of its sleep; and curving far, aswith outstretched arms, into the green and beautiful land, it seemedunconsciously to clasp to its breast the cities sloping to itsmargin--Stabiae, and Herculaneum, and Pompeii--those children anddarlings of the deep. 'Ye slumber,' said the Egyptian, as he scowledover the cities, the boast and flower of Campania; 'ye slumber!--wouldit were the eternal repose of death! As ye now--jewels in the crown ofempire--so once were the cities of the Nile! Their greatness hathperished from them, they sleep amidst ruins, their palaces and theirshrines are tombs, the serpent coils in the grass of their streets, thelizard basks in their solitary halls. By that mysterious law of Nature,which humbles one to exalt the other, ye have thriven upon their ruins;thou, haughty Rome, hast usurped the glories of Sesostris andSemiramis--thou art a robber, clothing thyself with their spoils! Andthese--slaves in thy triumph--that I (the last son of forgottenmonarchs) survey below, reservoirs of thine all-pervading power andluxury, I curse as I behold! The time shall come when Egypt shall beavenged! when the barbarian's steed shall make his manger in the GoldenHouse of Nero! and thou that hast sown the wind with conquest shalt reapthe harvest in the whirlwind of desolation!'
As the Egyptian uttered a prediction which fate so fearfully fulfilled,a more solemn and boding image of ill omen never occurred to the dreamsof painter or of poet. The morning light, which can pale so wanly eventhe young cheek of beauty, gave his majestic and stately features almostthe colors of the grave, with the dark hair falling massively aroundthem, and the dark robes flowing long and loose, and the armoutstretched from that lofty eminence, and the glittering eyes, fiercewith a savage gladness--half prophet and half fiend!
He turned his gaze from the city and the ocean; before him lay thevineyards and meadows of the rich Campania. The gate and walls--ancient,half Pelasgic--of the city, seemed not to bound its extent. Villas andvillages stretched on every side up the ascent of Vesuvius, not nearlythen so steep or so lofty as at present. For, as Rome itself is builton an exhausted volcano, so in similar security the inhabitants of theSouth tenanted the green and vine-clad places around a volcano whosefires they believed at rest for ever. From the gate stretched the longstreet of tombs, various in size and architecture, by which, on thatside, the city is as yet approached. Above all, rode the cloud-cappedsummit of the Dread Mountain, with the shadows, now dark, now light,betraying the mossy caverns and ashy rocks, which testified the pastconflagrations, and might have prophesied--but man is blind--that whichwas to come!
Difficult was it then and there to guess the causes why the tradition ofthe place wore so gloomy and stern a hue; why, in those smiling plains,for miles around--to Baiae and Misenum--the poets had imagined theentrance and thresholds of their hell--their Acheron, and their fabledStyx: why, in those Phlegrae, now laughing with the vine, they placedthe battles of the gods, and supposed the daring Titans to have soughtthe victory of heaven--save, indeed, that yet, in yon seared and blastedsummit, fancy might think to read the characters of the Olympianthunderbolt.
But it was neither the rugged height of the still volcano, nor thefertility of the sloping fields, nor the melancholy avenue of tombs, northe glittering villas of a polished and luxurious people, that nowarrested the eye of the Egyptian. On one part of the landscape, themountain of Vesuvius descended to the plain in a narrow and uncultivatedridge, broken here and there by jagged crags and copses of wild foliage.At the base of this lay a marshy and unwholesome pool; and the intentgaze of Arbaces caught the outline of some living form mov
ing by themarshes, and stooping ever and anon as if to pluck its rank produce.
'Ho!' said he, aloud, 'I have then, another companion in these unworldlynight--watches. The witch of Vesuvius is abroad. What! doth she, too,as the credulous imagine--doth she, too, learn the lore of the greatstars? Hath she been uttering foul magic to the moon, or culling (as herpauses betoken) foul herbs from the venomous marsh? Well, I must seethis fellow-laborer. Whoever strives to know learns that no human loreis despicable. Despicable only you--ye fat and bloated things--slavesof luxury--sluggards in thought--who, cultivating nothing but the barrensense, dream that its poor soil can produce alike the myrtle and thelaurel. No, the wise only can enjoy--to us only true luxury is given,when mind, brain, invention, experience, thought, learning, imagination,all contribute like rivers to swell the seas of SENSE!--Ione!'
As Arbaces uttered that last and charmed word, his thoughts sunk at onceinto a more deep and profound channel. His steps paused; he took nothis eyes from the ground; once or twice he smiled joyously, and then, ashe turned from his place of vigil, and sought his couch, he muttered,'If death frowns so near, I will say at least that I have lived--Ioneshall be mine!'
The character of Arbaces was one of those intricate and varied webs, inwhich even the mind that sat within it was sometimes confused andperplexed. In him, the son of a fallen dynasty, the outcast of a sunkenpeople, was that spirit of discontented pride, which ever rankles in oneof a sterner mould, who feels himself inexorably shut from the sphere inwhich his fathers shone, and to which Nature as well as birth no lessentitles himself. This sentiment hath no benevolence; it wars withsociety, it sees enemies in mankind. But with this sentiment did not goits common companion, poverty. Arbaces possessed wealth which equalledthat of most of the Roman nobles; and this enabled him to gratify to theutmost the passions which had no outlet in business or ambition.Travelling from clime to clime, and beholding still Rome everywhere, heincreased both his hatred of society and his passion for pleasure. Hewas in a vast prison, which, however, he could fill with the ministersof luxury. He could not escape from the prison, and his only object,therefore, was to give it the character of the palace. The Egyptians,from the earliest time, were devoted to the joys of sense; Arbacesinherited both their appetite for sensuality and the glow of imaginationwhich struck light from its rottenness. But still, unsocial in hispleasures as in his graver pursuits, and brooking neither superior norequal, he admitted few to his companionship, save the willing slaves ofhis profligacy. He was the solitary lord of a crowded harem; but, withall, he felt condemned to that satiety which is the constant curse ofmen whose intellect is above their pursuits, and that which once hadbeen the impulse of passion froze down to the ordinance of custom.From the disappointments of sense he sought to raise himself by thecultivation of knowledge; but as it was not his object to serve mankind,so he despised that knowledge which is practical and useful. His darkimagination loved to exercise itself in those more visionary and obscureresearches which are ever the most delightful to a wayward and solitarymind, and to which he himself was invited by the daring pride of hisdisposition and the mysterious traditions of his clime. Dismissing faithin the confused creeds of the heathen world, he reposed the greatestfaith in the power of human wisdom. He did not know (perhaps no one inthat age distinctly did) the limits which Nature imposes upon ourdiscoveries. Seeing that the higher we mount in knowledge the morewonders we behold, he imagined that Nature not only worked miracles inher ordinary course, but that she might, by the cabala of some mastersoul, be diverted from that course itself. Thus he pursued science,across her appointed boundaries, into the land of perplexity and shadow.From the truths of astronomy he wandered into astrological fallacy; fromthe secrets of chemistry he passed into the spectral labyrinth of magic;and he who could be sceptical as to the power of the gods, wascredulously superstitious as to the power of man.
The cultivation of magic, carried at that day to a singular height amongthe would-be wise, was especially Eastern in its origin; it was alien tothe early philosophy of the Greeks; nor had it been received by themwith favor until Ostanes, who accompanied the army of Xerxes,introduced, amongst the simple credulities of Hellas, the solemnsuperstitions of Zoroaster. Under the Roman emperors it had become,however, naturalized at Rome (a meet subject for Juvenal's fiery wit).Intimately connected with magic was the worship of Isis, and theEgyptian religion was the means by which was extended the devotion toEgyptian sorcery. The theurgic, or benevolent magic--the goetic, ordark and evil necromancy--were alike in pre-eminent repute during thefirst century of the Christian era; and the marvels of Faustus are notcomparable to those of Apollonius. Kings, courtiers, and sages, alltrembled before the professors of the dread science. And not the leastremarkable of his tribe was the most formidable and profound Arbaces.His fame and his discoveries were known to all the cultivators of magic;they even survived himself. But it was not by his real name that he washonored by the sorcerer and the sage: his real name, indeed, was unknownin Italy, for 'Arbaces' was not a genuinely Egyptian but a Medianappellation, which, in the admixture and unsettlement of the ancientraces, had become common in the country of the Nile; and there werevarious reasons, not only of pride, but of policy (for in youth he hadconspired against the majesty of Rome), which induced him to conceal histrue name and rank. But neither by the name he had borrowed from theMede, nor by that which in the colleges of Egypt would have attested hisorigin from kings, did the cultivators of magic acknowledge the potentmaster. He received from their homage a more mystic appellation, andwas long remembered in Magna Graecia and the Eastern plain by the nameof 'Hermes, the Lord of the Flaming Belt'. His subtle speculations andboasted attributes of wisdom, recorded in various volumes, were amongthose tokens 'of the curious arts' which the Christian converts mostjoyfully, yet most fearfully, burnt at Ephesus, depriving posterity ofthe proofs of the cunning of the fiend.
The conscience of Arbaces was solely of the intellect--it was awed by nomoral laws. If man imposed these checks upon the herd, so he believedthat man, by superior wisdom, could raise himself above them. 'If (hereasoned) I have the genius to impose laws, have I not the right tocommand my own creations? Still more, have I not the right tocontrol--to evade--to scorn--the fabrications of yet meaner intellectsthan my own?' Thus, if he were a villain, he justified his villainy bywhat ought to have made him virtuous--namely, the elevation of hiscapacities.
Most men have more or less the passion for power; in Arbaces thatpassion corresponded exactly to his character. It was not the passionfor an external and brute authority. He desired not the purple and thefasces, the insignia of vulgar command. His youthful ambition oncefoiled and defeated, scorn had supplied its place--his pride, hiscontempt for Rome--Rome, which had become the synonym of the world(Rome, whose haughty name he regarded with the same disdain as thatwhich Rome herself lavished upon the barbarian), did not permit him toaspire to sway over others, for that would render him at once the toolor creature of the emperor. He, the Son of the Great Race ofRameses--he execute the orders of, and receive his power from,another!--the mere notion filled him with rage. But in rejecting anambition that coveted nominal distinctions, he but indulged the more inthe ambition to rule the heart. Honoring mental power as the greatestof earthly gifts, he loved to feel that power palpably in himself, byextending it over all whom he encountered. Thus had he ever sought theyoung--thus had he ever fascinated and controlled them. He loved tofind subjects in men's souls--to rule over an invisible and immaterialempire!--had he been less sensual and less wealthy, he might have soughtto become the founder of a new religion. As it was, his energies werechecked by his pleasures. Besides, however, the vague love of this moralsway (vanity so dear to sages!) he was influenced by a singular anddreamlike devotion to all that belonged to the mystic Land his ancestorshad swayed. Although he disbelieved in her deities, he believed in theallegories they represented (or rather he interpreted those allegoriesanew). He loved to keep alive the worship of Egypt,
because he thusmaintained the shadow and the recollection of her power. He loaded,therefore, the altars of Osiris and of Isis with regal donations, andwas ever anxious to dignify their priesthood by new and wealthyconverts. The vow taken--the priesthood embraced--he usually chose thecomrades of his pleasures from those whom he made his victims, partlybecause he thus secured to himself their secrecy--partly because he thusyet more confirmed to himself his peculiar power. Hence the motives ofhis conduct to Apaecides, strengthened as these were, in that instance,by his passion for Ione.
He had seldom lived long in one place; but as he grew older, he grewmore wearied of the excitement of new scenes, and he had sojourned amongthe delightful cities of Campania for a period which surprised evenhimself. In fact, his pride somewhat crippled his choice of residence.His unsuccessful conspiracy excluded him from those burning climes whichhe deemed of right his own hereditary possession, and which now cowered,supine and sunken, under the wings of the Roman eagle. Rome herself washateful to his indignant soul; nor did he love to find his richesrivalled by the minions of the court, and cast into comparative povertyby the mighty magnificence of the court itself. The Campanian citiesproffered to him all that his nature craved--the luxuries of anunequalled climate--the imaginative refinements of a voluptuouscivilization. He was removed from the sight of a superior wealth; hewas without rivals to his riches; he was free from the spies of ajealous court. As long as he was rich, none pried into his conduct. Hepursued the dark tenour of his way undisturbed and secure.
It is the curse of sensualists never to love till the pleasures of sensebegin to pall; their ardent youth is frittered away in countlessdesires--their hearts are exhausted. So, ever chasing love, and taughtby a restless imagination to exaggerate, perhaps, its charms, theEgyptian had spent all the glory of his years without attaining theobject of his desires. The beauty of to-morrow succeeded the beauty ofto-day, and the shadows bewildered him in his pursuit of the substance.When, two years before the present date, he beheld Ione, he saw, for thefirst time, one whom he imagined he could love. He stood, then, uponthat bridge of life, from which man sees before him distinctly a wastedyouth on the one side, and the darkness of approaching age upon theother: a time in which we are more than ever anxious, perhaps, to secureto ourselves, ere it be yet too late, whatever we have been taught toconsider necessary to the enjoyment of a life of which the brighter halfis gone.
With an earnestness and a patience which he had never before commandedfor his pleasures, Arbaces had devoted himself to win the heart of Ione.It did not content him to love, he desired to be loved. In this hope hehad watched the expanding youth of the beautiful Neapolitan; and,knowing the influence that the mind possesses over those who are taughtto cultivate the mind, he had contributed willingly to form the geniusand enlighten the intellect of Ione, in the hope that she would be thusable to appreciate what he felt would be his best claim to heraffection: viz, a character which, however criminal and perverted, wasrich in its original elements of strength and grandeur. When he feltthat character to be acknowledged, he willingly allowed, nay, encouragedher, to mix among the idle votaries of pleasure, in the belief that hersoul, fitted for higher commune, would miss the companionship of hisown, and that, in comparison with others, she would learn to loveherself. He had forgot, that as the sunflower to the sun, so youthturns to youth, until his jealousy of Glaucus suddenly apprised him ofhis error. From that moment, though, as we have seen, he knew not theextent of his danger, a fiercer and more tumultuous direction was givento a passion long controlled. Nothing kindles the fire of love like thesprinkling of the anxieties of jealousy; it takes then a wilder, a moreresistless flame; it forgets its softness; it ceases to be tender; itassumes something of the intensity--of the ferocity--of hate.
Arbaces resolved to lose no further time upon cautious and perilouspreparations: he resolved to place an irrevocable barrier betweenhimself and his rivals: he resolved to possess himself of the person ofIone: not that in his present love, so long nursed and fed by hopespurer than those of passion alone, he would have been contented withthat mere possession. He desired the heart, the soul, no less than thebeauty, of Ione; but he imagined that once separated by a daring crimefrom the rest of mankind--once bound to Ione by a tie that memory couldnot break, she would be driven to concentrate her thoughts in him--thathis arts would complete his conquest, and that, according to the truemoral of the Roman and the Sabine, the empire obtained by force would becemented by gentler means. This resolution was yet more confirmed in himby his belief in the prophecies of the stars: they had long foretold tohim this year, and even the present month, as the epoch of some dreaddisaster, menacing life itself. He was driven to a certain and limiteddate. He resolved to crowd, monarch-like, on his funeral pyre all thathis soul held most dear. In his own words, if he were to die, heresolved to feel that he had lived, and that Ione should be his own.
Chapter IX
WHAT BECOMES OF IONE IN THE HOUSE OF ARBACES. THE FIRST SIGNAL OF THEWRATH OF THE DREAD FOE.
WHEN Ione entered the spacious hall of the Egyptian, the same awe whichhad crept over her brother impressed itself also upon her: there seemedto her as to him something ominous and warning in the still and mournfulfaces of those dread Theban monsters, whose majestic and passionlessfeatures the marble so well portrayed:
Their look, with the reach of past ages, was wise, And the soul of eternity thought in their eyes.The tall AEthiopian slave grinned as he admitted her, and motioned toher to proceed. Half-way up the hall she was met by Arbaces himself, infestive robes, which glittered with jewels. Although it was broad daywithout, the mansion, according to the practice of the luxurious, wasartificially darkened, and the lamps cast their still and odor-givinglight over the rich floors and ivory roofs.
'Beautiful Ione,' said Arbaces, as he bent to touch her hand, 'it is youthat have eclipsed the day--it is your eyes that light up the halls--itis your breath which fills them with perfumes.'
'You must not talk to me thus,' said Ione, smiling, 'you forget thatyour lore has sufficiently instructed my mind to render these gracefulflatteries to my person unwelcome. It was you who taught me to disdainadulation: will you unteach your pupil?'
There was something so frank and charming in the manner of Ione, as shethus spoke, that the Egyptian was more than ever enamoured, and morethan ever disposed to renew the offence he had committed; he, however,answered quickly and gaily, and hastened to renew the conversation.
He led her through the various chambers of a house, which seemed tocontain to her eyes, inexperienced to other splendor than the minuteelegance of Campanian cities, the treasures of the world.
In the walls were set pictures of inestimable art, the lights shone overstatues of the noblest age of Greece. Cabinets of gems, each cabinetitself a gem, filled up the interstices of the columns; the mostprecious woods lined the thresholds and composed the doors; gold andjewels seemed lavished all around. Sometimes they were alone in theserooms--sometimes they passed through silent rows of slaves, who,kneeling as she passed, proffered to her offerings of bracelets, ofchains, of gems, which the Egyptian vainly entreated her to receive.
'I have often heard,' said she, wonderingly, 'that you were rich; but Inever dreamed of the amount of your wealth.'
'Would I could coin it all,' replied the Egyptian, 'into one crown,which I might place upon that snowy brow!'
'Alas! the weight would crush me; I should be a second Tarpeia,'answered Ione, laughingly.
'But thou dost not disdain riches, O Ione! they know not what life iscapable of who are not wealthy. Gold is the great magician of earth--itrealizes our dreams--it gives them the power of a god--there is agrandeur, a sublimity, in its possession; it is the mightiest, yet themost obedient of our slaves.'
The artful Arbaces sought to dazzle the young Neapolitan by histreasures and his eloquence; he sought to awaken in her the desire to bemistress of what she surveyed: he hoped that she would confound theowner with the possessions,
and that the charms of his wealth would bereflected on himself. Meanwhile, Ione was secretly somewhat uneasy atthe gallantries which escaped from those lips, which, till lately, hadseemed to disdain the common homage we pay to beauty; and with thatdelicate subtlety, which woman alone possesses, she sought to ward offshafts deliberately aimed, and to laugh or to talk away the meaning fromhis warming language. Nothing in the world is more pretty than thatsame species of defence; it is the charm of the African necromancer whoprofessed with a feather to turn aside the winds.
The Egyptian was intoxicated and subdued by her grace even more than byher beauty: it was with difficulty that he suppressed his emotions;alas! the feather was only powerful against the summer breezes--it wouldbe the sport of the storm.
Suddenly, as they stood in one hall, which was surrounded by draperiesof silver and white, the Egyptian clapped his hands, and, as if byenchantment, a banquet rose from the floor--a couch or throne, with acrimson canopy, ascended simultaneously at the feet of Ione--and at thesame instant from behind the curtains swelled the invisible and softestmusic.
Arbaces placed himself at the feet of Ione--and children, young andbeautiful as Loves, ministered to the feast.
The feast was over, the music sank into a low and subdued strain, andArbaces thus addressed his beautiful guest:
'Hast thou never in this dark and uncertain world--hast thou neveraspired, my pupil, to look beyond--hast thou never wished to put asidethe veil of futurity, and to behold on the shores of Fate the shadowyimages of things to be? For it is not the past alone that has itsghosts: each event to come has also its spectrum--its shade; when thehour arrives, life enters it, the shadow becomes corporeal, and walksthe world. Thus, in the land beyond the grave, are ever two impalpableand spiritual hosts--the things to be, the things that have been! If byour wisdom we can penetrate that land, we see the one as the other, andlearn, as I have learned, not alone the mysteries of the dead, but alsothe destiny of the living.'
'As thou hast learned!--Can wisdom attain so far?'
'Wilt thou prove my knowledge, Ione, and behold the representation ofthine own fate? It is a drama more striking than those of AEschylus: itis one I have prepared for thee, if thou wilt see the shadows performtheir part.'
The Neapolitan trembled; she thought of Glaucus, and sighed as well astrembled: were their destinies to be united? Half incredulous, halfbelieving, half awed, half alarmed by the words of her strange host, sheremained for some moments silent, and then answered:
'It may revolt--it may terrify; the knowledge of the future will perhapsonly embitter the present!'
'Not so, Ione. I have myself looked upon thy future lot, and the ghostsof thy Future bask in the gardens of Elysium: amidst the asphodel andthe 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 itbeforehand?'
Again the heart of Ione murmured 'Glaucus'; she uttered a half-audibleassent; the Egyptian rose, and taking her by the hand, he led her acrossthe banquet-room--the curtains withdrew as by magic hands, and the musicbroke forth in a louder and gladder strain; they passed a row ofcolumns, on either side of which fountains cast aloft their fragrantwaters; they descended by broad and easy steps into a garden. The evehad commenced; the moon was already high in heaven, and those sweetflowers that sleep by day, and fill, with ineffable odorous, the airs ofnight, were thickly scattered amidst alleys cut through the star-litfoliage; or, gathered in baskets, lay like offerings at the feet of thefrequent 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 theend of the vista. 'It is a temple consecrated to the Fates--our ritesrequire such holy ground.'
They passed into a narrow hall, at the end of which hung a sablecurtain. Arbaces lifted it; Ione entered, and found herself in totaldarkness.
'Be not alarmed,' said the Egyptian, 'the light will rise instantly.'While he so spoke, a soft, and warm, and gradual light diffused itselfaround; as it spread over each object, Ione perceived that she was in anapartment of moderate size, hung everywhere with black; a couch withdraperies of the same hue was beside her. In the centre of the room wasa small altar, on which stood a tripod of bronze. At one side, upon alofty 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 goddess. Arbaces stood before the altar:he had laid his garland on the shrine, and seemed occupied with pouringinto the tripod the contents of a brazen vase; suddenly from that tripodleaped into life a blue, quick, darting, irregular flame; the Egyptiandrew back to the side of Ione, and muttered some words in a languageunfamiliar to her ear; the curtain at the back of the altar wavedtremulously to and fro--it parted slowly, and in the aperture which wasthus made, Ione beheld an indistinct and pale landscape, which graduallygrew brighter and clearer as she gazed; at length she discovered plainlytrees, and rivers, and meadows, and all the beautiful diversity of therichest earth. At length, before the landscape, a dim shadow glided; itrested opposite to Ione; slowly the same charm seemed to operate upon itas over the rest of the scene; it took form and shape, and lo!--in itsfeature and in its form Ione beheld herself!
Then the scene behind the spectre faded away, and was succeeded by therepresentation of a gorgeous palace; a throne was raised in the centreof 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 darkrobe--his face was concealed--he knelt at the feet of the shadowyIone--he clasped her hand--he pointed to the throne, as if to invite herto ascend it.
The Neapolitan's heart beat violently. 'Shall the shadow discloseitself?' 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 thatconcealed its form--and Ione shrieked--it was Arbaces himself that thusknelt before her.
'This is, indeed, thy fate!' whispered again the Egyptian's voice in herear. 'And thou art destined to be the bride of Arbaces.'
Ione started--the black curtain closed over the phantasmagoria: andArbaces himself--the real, the living Arbaces--was at her feet.
'Oh, Ione!' said he, passionately gazing upon her, 'listen to one whohas long struggled vainly with his love. I adore thee! The Fates donot 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 suchas 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 amnot that being--cold, insensate, and morose, which I have seemed tothee. Never woman had lover so devoted--so passionate as I will be toIone. Do not struggle in my clasp: see--I release thy hand. Take itfrom me if thou wilt--well be it so! But do not reject me, Ione--do notrashly reject--judge of thy power over him whom thou canst thustransform. I, who never knelt to mortal being, kneel to thee. I, whohave commanded fate, receive from thee my own. Ione, tremble not, thouart my queen--my goddess--be my bride! All the wishes thou canst formshall 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 uponme thy smile. Dark is my soul when thy face is hid from it: shine overme, 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 notyet terrified; the respect of his language, the softness of his voice,reassured her; and, in her own purity, she felt protection. But she wasconfused--astonished: it was some moments before she could recover thepower of reply.
'Rise, Arbaces!' said she at length; and she resigned to him once morehe
r hand, which she as quickly withdrew again, when she felt upon it theburning pressure of his lips. 'Rise! and if thou art serious, if thylanguage be in earnest...'
'If!' said he tenderly.
'Well, then, listen to me: you have been my guardian, my friend, mymonitor; for this new character I was not prepared--think not,' sheadded quickly, as she saw his dark eyes glitter with the fierceness ofhis passion--'think not that I scorn--that I am untouched--that I am nothonored 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, blushingly, but in a firm voice.
'By the gods--by hell!' shouted Arbaces, rising to his fullest height;'dare not tell me that--dare not mock me--it is impossible!--Whom hastthou seen--whom known? Oh, Ione, it is thy woman's invention, thywoman's art that speaks--thou wouldst gain time; I have surprised--Ihave terrified thee. Do with me as thou wilt--say that thou lovest notme; but say not that thou lovest another!'
'Alas!' began Ione; and then, appalled before his sudden andunlooked-for violence, she burst into tears.
Arbaces came nearer to her--his breath glowed fiercely on her cheek; hewound his arms round her--she sprang from his embrace. In the strugglea tablet fell from her bosom on the ground: Arbaces perceived, andseized it--it was the letter that morning received from Glaucus. Ionesank upon the couch, half dead with terror.
Rapidly the eyes of Arbaces ran over the writing; the Neapolitan did notdare to gaze upon him: she did not see the deadly paleness that cameover his countenance--she marked not his withering frown, nor thequivering of his lip, nor the convulsions that heaved his breast. Heread 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; 'thoushalt go to thy tomb rather than to his arms! What! thinkest thouArbaces will brook a rival such as this puny Greek? What! thinkest thouthat he has watched the fruit ripen, to yield it to another! Prettyfool--no! Thou art mine--all--only mine: and thus--thus I seize andclaim thee!' As he spoke, he caught Ione in his arms; and, in thatferocious grasp, was all the energy--less of love than of revenge.
But to Ione despair gave supernatural strength: she again tore herselffrom him--she rushed to that part of the room by which she hadentered--she half withdrew the curtain--he had seized her--again shebroke away from him--and fell, exhausted, and with a loud shriek, at thebase of the column which supported the head of the Egyptian goddess.Arbaces paused for a moment, as if to regain his breath; and thence oncemore darted upon his prey.
At that instant the curtain was rudely torn aside, the Egyptian felt afierce and strong grasp upon his shoulder. He turned--he beheld beforehim the flashing eyes of Glaucus, and the pale, worn, but menacing,countenance of Apaecides. 'Ah,' he muttered, as he glared from one tothe 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 tobear her away, light and delicate though her shape: he placed her,therefore, on the couch, and stood over her with a brandishing knife,watching the contest between Glaucus and the Egyptian, and ready toplunge his weapon in the bosom of Arbaces should he be victorious in thestruggle. There is, perhaps, nothing on earth so terrible as the nakedand unarmed contest of animal strength, no weapon but those which Naturesupplies to rage. Both the antagonists were now locked in each other'sgrasp--the hand of each seeking the throat of the other--the face drawnback--the fierce eyes flashing--the muscles strained--the veinsswelled--the lips apart--the teeth set--both were strong beyond theordinary power of men, both animated by relentless wrath; they coiled,they wound, around each other; they rocked to and fro--they swayed fromend to end of their confined arena--they uttered cries of ire andrevenge--they were now before the altar--now at the base of the columnwhere the struggle had commenced: they drew back for breath--Arbacesleaning against the column--Glaucus a few paces apart.
'O ancient goddess!' exclaimed Arbaces, clasping the column, and raisinghis eyes toward the sacred image it supported, 'protect thychosen--proclaim they vengeance against this thing of an upstart creed,who with sacrilegious violence profanes thy resting-place and assailsthy servant.'
As he spoke, the still and vast features of the goddess seemed suddenlyto glow with life; through the black marble, as through a transparentveil, flushed luminously a crimson and burning hue; around the headplayed and darted coruscations of livid lightning; the eyes became likeballs of lurid fire, and seemed fixed in withering and intolerable wrathupon the countenance of the Greek. Awed and appalled by this sudden andmystic answer to the prayer of his foe, and not free from the hereditarysuperstitions of his race, the cheeks of Glaucus paled before thatstrange and ghastly animation of the marble--his knees knockedtogether--he stood, seized with a divine panic, dismayed, aghast, halfunmanned before his foe! Arbaces gave him not breathing time to recoverhis stupor: 'Die, wretch!' he shouted, in a voice of thunder, as hesprang upon the Greek; 'the Mighty Mother claims thee as a livingsacrifice!' Taken thus by surprise in the first consternation of hissuperstitious fears, the Greek lost his footing--the marble floor was assmooth as glass--he slid--he fell. Arbaces planted his foot on thebreast of his fallen foe. Apaecides, taught by his sacred profession,as well as by his knowledge of Arbaces, to distrust all miraculousinterpositions, had not shared the dismay of his companion; he rushedforward--his knife gleamed in the air--the watchful Egyptian caught hisarm as it descended--one wrench of his powerful hand tore the weaponfrom the weak grasp of the priest--one sweeping blow stretched him tothe earth--with a loud and exulting yell Arbaces brandished the knife onhigh. Glaucus gazed upon his impending fate with unwinking eyes, and inthe stern and scornful resignation of a fallen gladiator, when, at thatawful instant, the floor shook under them with a rapid and convulsivethroe--a mightier spirit than that of the Egyptian was abroad!--a giantand crushing power, before which sunk into sudden impotence his passionand his arts. IT woke--it stirred--that Dread Demon of theEarthquake--laughing to scorn alike the magic of human guile and themalice of human wrath. As a Titan, on whom the mountains are piled, itroused itself from the sleep of years, it moved on its torturedcouch--the caverns below groaned and trembled beneath the motion of itslimbs. In the moment of his vengeance and his power, the self-prizeddemigod was humbled to his real clay. Far and wide along the soil wenta hoarse and rumbling sound--the curtains of the chamber shook as at theblast of a storm--the altar rocked--the tripod reeled, and high over theplace of contest, the column trembled and waved from side to side--thesable head of the goddess tottered and fell from its pedestal--and asthe Egyptian stooped above his intended victim, right upon his bendedform, right between the shoulder and the neck, struck the marble mass!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 andinvoked!
'The Earth has preserved her children,' said Glaucus, staggering to hisfeet. 'Blessed be the dread convulsion! Let us worship the providenceof the gods!' He assisted Apaecides to rise, and then turned upward theface of Arbaces; it seemed locked as in death; blood gushed from theEgyptian's lips over his glittering robes; he fell heavily from the armsof Glaucus, and the red stream trickled slowly along the marble. Againthe earth shook beneath their feet; they were forced to cling to eachother; the convulsion ceased as suddenly as it came; they tarried nolonger; Glaucus bore Ione lightly in his arms, and they fled from theunhallowed spot. But s
carce had they entered the garden than they weremet on all sides by flying and disordered groups of women and slaves,whose festive and glittering garments contrasted in mockery the solemnterror of the hour; they did not appear to heed the strangers--they wereoccupied only with their own fears. After the tranquillity of sixteenyears, that burning and treacherous soil again menaced destruction; theyuttered but one cry, 'THE EARTHQUAKE! THE EARTHQUAKE!' and passingunmolested from the midst of them, Apaecides and his companions, withoutentering the house, hastened down one of the alleys, passed a small opengate, and there, sitting on a little mound over which spread the gloomof the dark green aloes, the moonlight fell on the bended figure of theblind girl--she was weeping bitterly.