The Last Days of Pompeii

by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

  ‘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!’