_ CHAPTER VIII. ARBACES ENCOUNTERS GLAUCUS AND IONE
ADVANCING, as men grope for escape in a dungeon, Ione and her lover continued their uncertain way. At the moments when the volcanic lightnings lingered over the streets, they were enabled, by that awful light, to steer and guide their progress: yet, little did the view it presented to them cheer or encourage their path. In parts, where the ashes lay dry and uncommixed with the boiling torrents, cast upward from the mountain at capricious intervals, the surface of the earth presented a leprous and ghastly white. In other places, cinder and rock lay matted in heaps, from beneath which emerged the half-hid limbs of some crushed and mangled fugitive. The groans of the dying were broken by wild shrieks of women's terror--now near, now distant--which, when heard in the utter darkness, were rendered doubly appalling by the crushing sense of helplessness and the uncertainty of the perils around; and clear and distinct through all were the mighty and various noises from the Fatal Mountain; its rushing winds; its whirling torrents; and, from time to time, the burst and roar of some more fiery and fierce explosion. And ever as the winds swept howling along the street, they bore sharp streams of burning dust, and such sickening and poisonous vapors, as took away, for the instant, breath and consciousness, followed by a rapid revulsion of the arrested blood, and a tingling sensation of agony trembling through every nerve and fibre of the frame.
'Oh, Glaucus! my beloved! my own!--take me to thy arms! One embrace! let me feel thy arms around me--and in that embrace let me die--I can no more!'
'For my sake, for my life--courage, yet, sweet Ione--my life is linked with thine: and see--torches--this way! Lo! how they brave the Wind! Ha! they live through the storm--doubtless, fugitives to the sea! we will join them.'
As if to aid and reanimate the lovers, the winds and showers came to a sudden pause; the atmosphere was profoundly still--the mountain seemed at rest, gathering, perhaps, fresh fury for its next burst; the torch-bearers moved quickly on. 'We are nearing the sea,' said, in a calm voice, the person at their head. 'Liberty and wealth to each slave who survives this day! Courage! I tell you that the gods themselves have assured me of deliverance. On!'
Redly and steadily the torches flashed full on the eyes of Glaucus and Ione, who lay trembling and exhausted on his bosom. Several slaves were bearing, by the light, panniers and coffers, heavily laden; in front of them--a drawn sword in his hand--towered the lofty form of Arbaces.
'By my fathers!' cried the Egyptian, 'Fate smiles upon me even through these horrors, and, amidst the dreadest aspects of woe and death, bodes me happiness and love. Away, Greek! I claim my ward, Ione!'
'Traitor and murderer!' cried Glaucus, glaring upon his foe, 'Nemesis hath guided thee to my revenge!--a just sacrifice to the shades of Hades, that now seem loosed on earth. Approach--touch but the hand of Ione, and thy weapon shall be as a reed--I will tear thee limb from limb!'
Suddenly, as he spoke, the place became lighted with an intense and lurid glow. Bright and gigantic through the darkness, which closed around it like the walls of hell, the mountain shone--a pile of fire! Its summit seemed riven in two; or rather, above its surface there seemed to rise two monster shapes, each confronting each, as Demons contending for a world. These were of one deep blood-red hue of fire, which lighted up the whole atmosphere far and wide; but, below, the nether part of the mountain was still dark and shrouded, save in three places, adown which flowed, serpentine and irregular, rivers of the molten lava. Darkly red through the profound gloom of their banks, they flowed slowly on, as towards the devoted city. Over the broadest there seemed to spring a cragged and stupendous arch, from which, as from the jaws of hell, gushed the sources of the sudden Phlegethon. And through the stilled air was heard the rattling of the fragments of rock, hurtling one upon another as they were borne down the fiery cataracts--darkening, for one instant, the spot where they fell, and suffused the next, in the burnished hues of the flood along which they floated!
The slaves shrieked aloud, and, cowering, hid their faces. The Egyptian himself stood transfixed to the spot, the glow lighting up his commanding features and jewelled robes. High behind him rose a tall column that supported the bronze statue of Augustus; and the imperial image seemed changed to a shape of fire!
With his left hand circled round the form of Ione--with his right arm raised in menace, and grasping the stilus which was to have been his weapon in the arena, and which he still fortunately bore about him, with his brow knit, his lips apart, the wrath and menace of human passions arrested as by a charm, upon his features, Glaucus fronted the Egyptian!
Arbaces turned his eyes from the mountain--they rested on the form of Glaucus! He paused a moment: 'Why,' he muttered, 'should I hesitate? Did not the stars foretell the only crisis of imminent peril to which I was subjected?--Is not that peril past?'
'The soul,' cried he aloud, 'can brave the wreck of worlds and the wrath of imaginary gods! By that soul will I conquer to the last! Advance, slaves!--Athenian, resist me, and thy blood be on thine own head! Thus, then, I regain Ione!'
He advanced one step--it was his last on earth! The ground shook beneath him with a convulsion that cast all around upon its surface. A simultaneous crash resounded through the city, as down toppled many a roof and pillar!--the lightning, as if caught by the metal, lingered an instant on the Imperial Statue--then shivered bronze and column! Down fell the ruin, echoing along the street, and riving the solid pavement where it crashed!--The prophecy of the stars was fulfilled!
The sound--the shock, stunned the Athenian for several moments. When he recovered, the light still illuminated the scene--the earth still slid and trembled beneath! Ione lay senseless on the ground; but he saw her not yet--his eyes were fixed upon a ghastly face that seemed to emerge, without limbs or trunk, from the huge fragments of the shattered column--a face of unutterable pain, agony, and despair! The eyes shut and opened rapidly, as if sense were not yet fled; the lips quivered and grinned--then sudden stillness and darkness fell over the features, yet retaining that aspect of horror never to be forgotten!
So perished the wise Magician--the great Arbaces--the Hermes of the Burning Belt--the last of the royalty of Egypt! _