The Last Days of Pompeii

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

  Chapter VI

  CALENUS AND BURBO. DIOMED AND CLODIUS. THE GIRL OF THE AMPHITHEATREAND JULIA.

  THE sudden catastrophe which had, as it were, riven the very bonds ofsociety, and left prisoner and jailer alike free, had soon rid Calenusof the guards to whose care the praetor had consigned him. And when thedarkness and the crowd separated the priest from his attendants, hehastened with trembling steps towards the temple of his goddess. As hecrept along, and ere the darkness was complete, he felt himself suddenlycaught by the robe, and a voice muttered in his ear:

  'Hist!--Calenus!--an awful hour!'

  'Ay! by my father's head! Who art thou?--thy face is dim, and thy voiceis strange.

  'Not know thy Burbo?--fie!'

  'Gods!--how the darkness gathers! Ho, ho!--by yon terrific mountain,what sudden blazes of lightning!'--How they dart and quiver! Hades isloosed on earth!'

  'Tush!--thou believest not these things, Calenus! Now is the time tomake our fortune!'

  'Ha!'

  'Listen! Thy temple is full of gold and precious mummeries!--let us loadourselves with them, and then hasten to the sea and embark! None willever ask an account of the doings of this day.'

  'Burbo, thou art right! Hush, and follow me into the temple. Who caresnow--who sees now--whether thou art a priest or not? Follow, and wewill share.'

  In the precincts of the temple were many priests gathered around thealtars, praying, weeping, grovelling in the dust. Impostors in safety,they were not the less superstitious in danger! Calenus passed them,and entered the chamber yet to be seen in the south side of the court.Burbo followed him--the priest struck a light. Wine and viands strewedthe table; the remains of a sacrificial feast.

  'A man who has hungered forty-eight hours,' muttered Calenus, 'has anappetite even in such a time.' He seized on the food, and devoured itgreedily. Nothing could perhaps, be more unnaturally horrid than theselfish baseness of these villains; for there is nothing more loathsomethan the valor of avarice. Plunder and sacrilege while the pillars ofthe world tottered to and fro! What an increase to the terrors ofnature can be made by the vices of man!

  'Wilt thou never have done?' said Burbo, impatiently; 'thy face purplesand thine eyes start already.'

  'It is not every day one has such a right to be hungry. Oh, Jupiter!what sound is that?--the hissing of fiery water! What! does the cloudgive rain as well as flame! Ha!--what! shrieks? And, Burbo, how silentall is now! Look forth!'

  Amidst the other horrors, the mighty mountain now cast up columns ofboiling water. Blent and kneaded with the half-burning ashes, thestreams fell like seething mud over the streets in frequent intervals.And full, where the priests of Isis had now cowered around the altars,on which they had vainly sought to kindle fires and pour incense, one ofthe fiercest of those deadly torrents, mingled with immense fragments ofscoria, had poured its rage. Over the bended forms of the priests itdashed: that cry had been of death--that silence had been of eternity!The ashes--the pitchy streams--sprinkled the altars, covered thepavement, and half concealed the quivering corpses of the priests!

  'They are dead,' said Burbo, terrified for the first time, and hurryingback into the cell. 'I thought not the danger was so near and fatal.'

  The two wretches stood staring at each other--you might have heard theirhearts beat! Calenus, the less bold by nature, but the more griping,recovered first.

  'We must to our task, and away!' he said, in a low whisper, frightenedat his own voice. He stepped to the threshold, paused, crossed over theheated floor and his dead brethren to the sacred chapel, and called toBurbo to follow. But the gladiator quaked, and drew back.

  'So much the better,' thought Calenus; 'the more will be my booty.'Hastily he loaded himself with the more portable treasures of thetemple; and thinking no more of his comrade, hurried from the sacredplace. A sudden flash of lightning from the mount showed to Burbo, whostood motionless at the threshold, the flying and laden form of thepriest. He took heart; he stepped forth to join him, when a tremendousshower of ashes fell right before his feet. The gladiator shrank backonce more. Darkness closed him in. But the shower continuedfast--fast; its heaps rose high and suffocatingly--deathly vaporssteamed from them. The wretch gasped for breath--he sought in despairagain to fly--the ashes had blocked up the threshold--he shrieked as hisfeet shrank from the boiling fluid. How could he escape? he could notclimb to the open space; nay, were he able, he could not brave itshorrors. It were best to remain in the cells, protected, at least, fromthe fatal air. He sat down and clenched his teeth. By degrees, theatmosphere from without--stifling and venomous--crept into the chamber.He could endure it no longer. His eyes, glaring round, rested on asacrificial axe, which some priest had left in the chamber: he seizedit. With the desperate strength of his gigantic arm, he attempted to hewhis way through the walls.

  Meanwhile, the streets were already thinned; the crowd had hastened todisperse itself under shelter; the ashes began to fill up the lowerparts of the town; but, here and there, you heard the steps of fugitivescranching them warily, or saw their pale and haggard faces by the blueglare of the lightning, or the more unsteady glare of torches, by whichthey endeavored to steer their steps. But ever and anon, the boilingwater, or the straggling ashes, mysterious and gusty winds, rising anddying in a breath, extinguished these wandering lights, and with themthe last living hope of those who bore them.

  In the street that leads to the gate of Herculaneum, Clodius now benthis perplexed and doubtful way. 'If I can gain the open country,'thought he, 'doubtless there will be various vehicles beyond the gate,and Herculaneum is not far distant. Thank Mercury! I have little tolose, and that little is about me!'

  'Holla!--help there--help!' cried a querulous and frightened voice. 'Ihave fallen down--my torch has gone out--my slaves have deserted me. Iam Diomed--the rich Diomed--ten thousand sesterces to him who helps me!'

  At the same moment, Clodius felt himself caught by the feet. 'Illfortune to thee--let me go, fool,' said the gambler.

  'Oh, help me up!--give me thy hand!'

  'There--rise!'

  'Is this Clodius? I know the voice! Whither fliest thou?'

  'Towards Herculaneum.'

  'Blessed be the gods! our way is the same, then, as far as the gate.Why not take refuge in my villa? Thou knowest the long range ofsubterranean cellars beneath the basement--that shelter, what shower canpenetrate?'

  'You speak well,' said Clodius musingly. 'And by storing the cellarwith food, we can remain there even some days, should these wondrousstorms endure so long.'

  'Oh, blessed be he who invented gates to a city!' cried Diomed.'See!--they have placed a light within yon arch: by that let us guideour steps.'

  The air was now still for a few minutes: the lamp from the gate streamedout far and clear: the fugitives hurried on--they gained the gate--theypassed by the Roman sentry; the lightning flashed over his livid faceand polished helmet, but his stern features were composed even in theirawe! He remained erect and motionless at his post. That hour itselfhad not animated the machine of the ruthless majesty of Rome into thereasoning and self-acting man. There he stood, amidst the crashingelements: he had not received the permission to desert his station andescape.

  Diomed and his companion hurried on, when suddenly a female form rushedathwart their way. It was the girl whose ominous voice had been raisedso often and so gladly in anticipation of 'the merry show'.

  'Oh, Diomed!' she cried, 'shelter! shelter! See'--pointing to an infantclasped to her breast--'see this little one!--it is mine!--the child ofshame! I have never owned it till this hour. But now I remember I am amother! I have plucked it from the cradle of its nurse: she had fled!Who could think of the babe in such an hour, but she who bore it? Saveit! save it!'

  'Curses on thy shrill voice! Away, harlot!' muttered Clodius betweenhis ground teeth.

  'Nay, girl,' said the more humane Diomed; 'follow if thou wilt. Thisway--this way--to the vaults!'

&nb
sp; They hurried on--they arrived at the house of Diomed--they laughed aloudas they crossed the threshold, for they deemed the danger over.

  Diomed ordered his slaves to carry down into the subterranean gallery,before described, a profusion of food and oil for lights; and thereJulia, Clodius, the mother and her babe, the greater part of the slaves,and some frightened visitors and clients of the neighborhood, soughttheir shelter.