The Last Days of Pompeii
Page 30
Chapter IV
THE STORY HALTS FOR A MOMENT AT AN EPISODE.
RESTLESS and anxious, Apaecides consumed the day in wandering throughthe most sequestered walks in the vicinity of the city. The sun wasslowly setting as he paused beside a lonely part of the Sarnus, ere yetit wound amidst the evidences of luxury and power. Only through openingsin the woods and vines were caught glimpses of the white and gleamingcity, in which was heard in the distance no din, no sound, nor 'busiesthum of men'. Amidst the green banks crept the lizard and thegrasshopper, and here and there in the brake some solitary bird burstinto sudden song, as suddenly stifled. There was deep calm around, butnot the calm of night; the air still breathed of the freshness and lifeof day; the grass still moved to the stir of the insect horde; and onthe opposite bank the graceful and white capella passed browsing throughthe herbage, and paused at the wave to drink.
As Apaecides stood musingly gazing upon the waters, he heard beside himthe low bark of a dog.
'Be still, poor friend,' said a voice at hand; 'the stranger's stepharms not thy master.' The convert recognized the voice, and, turning,he beheld the old mysterious man whom he had seen in the congregation ofthe Nazarenes.
The old man was sitting upon a fragment of stone covered with ancientmosses; beside him were his staff and scrip; at his feet lay a smallshaggy dog, the companion in how many a pilgrimage perilous and strange.
The face of the old man was as balm to the excited spirit of theneophyte: he approached, and craving his blessing, sat down beside him.
'Thou art provided as for a journey, father,' said he: 'wilt thou leaveus yet?'
'My son,' replied the old man, 'the days in store for me on earth arefew and scanty; I employ them as becomes me travelling from place toplace, comforting those whom God has gathered together in His name, andproclaiming the glory of His Son, as testified to His servant.'
'Thou hast looked, they tell me, on the face of Christ?'
'And the face revived me from the dead. Know, young proselyte to thetrue faith, that I am he of whom thou readest in the scroll of theApostle. In the far Judea, and in the city of Nain, there dwelt awidow, humble of spirit and sad of heart; for of all the ties of lifeone son alone was spared to her. And she loved him with a melancholylove, for he was the likeness of the lost. And the son died. The reedon which she leaned was broken, the oil was dried up in the widow'scruse. They bore the dead upon his bier; and near the gate of the city,where the crowd were gathered, there came a silence over the sounds ofwoe, for the Son of God was passing by. The mother, who followed thebier, wept--not noisily, but all who looked upon her saw that her heartwas crushed. And the Lord pitied her, and he touched the bier, andsaid, "I SAY UNTO THEE, ARISE," And the dead man woke and looked uponthe face of the Lord. Oh, that calm and solemn brow, that unutterablesmile, that careworn and sorrowful face, lighted up with a God'sbenignity--it chased away the shadows of the grave! I rose, I spoke, Iwas living, and in my mother's arms--yes, I am the dead revived! Thepeople shouted, the funeral horns rung forth merrily: there was a cry,"God has visited His people!" I heard them not--I felt--I saw--nothingbut the face of the Redeemer!'
The old man paused, deeply moved; and the youth felt his blood creep,and his hair stir. He was in the presence of one who had known theMystery of Death!
'Till that time,' renewed the widow's son, 'I had been as other men:thoughtless, not abandoned; taking no heed, but of the things of loveand life; nay, I had inclined to the gloomy faith of the earthlySadducee! But, raised from the dead, from awful and desert dreams thatthese lips never dare reveal--recalled upon earth, to testify the powersof Heaven--once more mortal, the witness of immortality; I drew a newbeing from the grave. O faded--O lost Jerusalem!--Him from whom came mylife, I beheld adjudged to the agonized and parching death! Far in themighty crowd I saw the light rest and glimmer over the cross; I heardthe hooting mob, I cried aloud, I raved, I threatened--none heeded me--Iwas lost in the whirl and the roar of thousands! But even then, in myagony and His own, methought the glazing eye of the Son of Man sought meout--His lip smiled, as when it conquered death--it hushed me, and Ibecame calm. He who had defied the grave for another--what was thegrave to him? The sun shone aslant the pale and powerful features, andthen died away! Darkness fell over the earth; how long it endured, Iknow not. A loud cry came through the gloom--a sharp and bittercry!--and all was silent.
'But who shall tell the terrors of the night?' I walked along thecity--the earth reeled to and fro, and the houses trembled to theirbase--theliving had deserted the streets, but not the Dead: through thegloom I saw them glide--the dim and ghastly shapes, in the cerements ofthe grave--with horror, and woe, and warning on their unmoving lips andlightless eyes!--they swept by me, as I passed--they glared upon me--Ihad been their brother; and they bowed their heads in recognition; theyhad risen to tell the living that the dead can rise!'
Again the old man paused, and, when he resumed, it was in a calmer tone.
'From that night I resigned all earthly thought but that of serving HIM.A preacher and a pilgrim, I have traversed the remotest corners of theearth, proclaiming His Divinity, and bringing new converts to His fold.I come as the wind, and as the wind depart; sowing, as the wind sows,the seeds that enrich the world.
'Son, on earth we shall meet no more. Forget not this hour,--what arethe pleasures and the pomps of life? As the lamp shines, so lifeglitters for an hour; but the soul's light is the star that burns forever, in the heart of inimitable space.'
It was then that their conversation fell upon the general and sublimedoctrines of immortality; it soothed and elevated the young mind of theconvert, which yet clung to many of the damps and shadows of that cellof faith which he had so lately left--it was the air of heaven breathingon the prisoner released at last. There was a strong and markeddistinction between the Christianity of the old man and that ofOlinthus; that of the first was more soft, more gentle, more divine.The heroism of Olinthus had something in it fierce and intolerant--itwas necessary to the part he was destined to play--it had in it more ofthe courage of the martyr than the charity of the saint. It aroused, itexcited, it nerved, rather than subdued and softened. But the wholeheart of that divine old man was bathed in love; the smile of the Deityhad burned away from it the leaven of earthlier and coarser passions,and left to the energy of the hero all the meekness of the child.
'And now,' said he, rising at length, as the sun's last ray died in thewest; 'now, in the cool of twilight, I pursue my way towards theImperial Rome. There yet dwell some holy men, who like me have beheldthe face of Christ; and them would I see before I die.'
'But the night is chill for thine age, my father, and the way is long,and the robber haunts it; rest thee till to-morrow.'
'Kind son, what is there in this scrip to tempt the robber? And theNight and the Solitude!--these make the ladder round which angelscluster, and beneath which my spirit can dream of God. Oh! none canknow what the pilgrim feels as he walks on his holy course; nursing nofear, and dreading no danger--for God is with him! He hears the windsmurmur glad tidings; the woods sleep in the shadow of Almightywings--the stars are the Scriptures of Heaven, the tokens of love, andthe witnesses of immortality. Night is the Pilgrim's day.' With thesewords the old man pressed Apaecides to his breast, and taking up hisstaff and scrip, the dog bounded cheerily before him, and with slowsteps and downcast eyes he went his way.
The convert stood watching his bended form, till the trees shut the lastglimpse from his view; and then, as the stars broke forth, he woke fromthe musings with a start, reminded of his appointment with Olinthus.