Among the Brigands Part 20

After inspecting the chamber just mentioned, they were taken to a place where they saw what had once been the pedestal of a statue.

Here Michael Angelo showed them a hollow niche, which was so contrived that one might conceal himself there, and speak words which the ignorant and superst.i.tious populace might believe to come from the idol's own stony lips. This one thing showed the full depth of ancient ignorance and superst.i.tion; and over this Michael Angelo waxed quite eloquent, and proceeded to deliver himself of a number of impressive sentences of a highly important character, which he uttered with that fluent volubility peculiar to the whole race of guides, ciceroni, and showmen, in all parts of the world.

These moral maxims were part of Michael Angelo's regular routine, and the moment that he found himself here in this Temple of Isis, the stream of wisdom would always begin to flow.

The next place to which Michael Angelo intended to take them was the amphitheatre, which could be seen from where they were standing.

All this time David had been more eager than any of the others, and far more profoundly moved. He felt his soul stirred to its inmost depth by the thrilling scenes through which he had been moving. It seemed to him as though there were revealed here to his eyes, in one glance, all that he had been laboriously acquiring from books by the study of years. But this was better than books.

These Roman houses, into which he could walk, were far better than any number of plans or engraved prints, however accurately done.

These temples afforded an insight into the old pagan religion better far than volumes of description. These streets, and shops, and public squares, and wall, and gates, and tombs, all gave him an insight into the departed Roman civilization that was far fresher, and more vivid, and more profound, than any that he had ever gained before. It seemed to him that one day was too small for such a place. He must come again and again, he thought. He was unwilling to go on with the rest, but lingered longer than any over each spot, and was always the last to quit any place which they visited.

They stopped on their way at the Tragic and Comic Theatres, and at length reached the Amphitheatre itself. This edifice is by far the largest in the city, and is better preserved than any.

It is built of large blocks of a dark volcanic stone, and constructed in that ma.s.sive style which the Romans lived, and of which they have left the best examples in these huge amphitheatres.

As this Amphitheatre now stands, it might still serve for one of those displays for which it was built. Tier after tier those seats arise, which once had accommodations for fifteen or twenty thousand human beings. On these, it is said, the Pompeians were seated when that awful volcanic storm burst forth by which the city was rained. Down from these seats they fled in wildest disorder, all panic-stricken, rus.h.i.+ng down the steps, and crowding through the doorways, trampling one another under foot, in that mad race for life; while overhead the storm gathered darker and darker, and the showers of ashes fell, and the suffocating sulphuric vapors arose, and amid the volcanic storm the lightnings of the sky flashed forth, illuminating all the surrounding gloom with a horrid l.u.s.tre, and blending with the subterranean rumblings of the earthquake the thunder of the upper air.

From this cause the Amphitheatre may be considered the central spot of interest in Pompeii. What little has been told of the fate of the city gathers around this place, and to him who sits upon those seats there is a more vivid realization of that awful scene than can be obtained anywhere else.

On reaching the Amphitheatre they seated themselves on the stone steps, about half way up the circle of seats, and each one gave way to the feelings that filled him. They had walked now for hours, and all of them felt somewhat wearied, so that the rest on these seats was grateful. Here they sat and rested.

CHAPTER XIX.

_Lofty cla.s.sical enthusiasm of David, and painful Lack of feeling on the Part of Frank.--David, red hot with the Flow of the Past, is suddenly confronted with the Present.--The Present dashes Cold Water upon his glowing Enthusiasm.--The Gates.--Minor, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus.--The Culprits._

As they thus rested on the seats of the Amphitheatre, the cla.s.sical enthusiasm of David rose superior to fatigue, and his enthusiastic feelings burst forth without restraint, in a long and somewhat incoherent rhapsody about the fell of Pompeii. Full before them, as they sat, rose Vesuvius; and they saw that which helped them to reproduce the past more vividly, for even now the dense, dark cloud of the volcano was gathering, and the thick smoke-volumes were rolling forth from the crater. Far into the heavens the smoke clouds arose, ascending in a dark pillar till they reached the upper strata of the atmosphere, where they unfolded themselves, and spread out afar--to the east, and the west, and the north, and the south. Some such appearance as this the mountain may have had, as it towered gloomily before the Pompeians on that day of days. Some such scene as this may have appeared, only deepened into terrors a thousand fold more gloomy, to the population of the doomed city, as they gathered here on these seats for the last time.

Such were the ideas of David Clark; and these ideas he poured forth in a long rhapsody, full of wild enthusiasm. At length, however, that enthusiasm flagged, and he was compelled to stop for want of breath.

"O, that's all very fine," said Frank, suddenly, as David stopped, and breaking the silence which had followed his eloquent outburst,--"that's all very fine, of course. You have a habit, David, my son, of going into raptures over old bones and old stones, but after all, I'd just like to ask you one question."

"What's that?" asked David, a little sharply.

"Why, this. Has this place, after all, come up to your idea?" And Frank looked at him with very anxious eyes.

"This place?" said David. "What, Pompeii? Come up to my idea? Why, of course it has. What makes you ask such a question as that? I never spent such a day in all my life."

"Well, for my part," said Frank, in a very candid tone, "I'll be honest. I confess I'm disappointed."

And saying this, Frank shook his head defiantly, and looked at all the other boys, with the air of one who was ready and willing to maintain his position.

"Disappointed!" exclaimed David, in an indescribable tone, in which reproach, astonishment, and disgust were all blended together.

"Yes," said Frank, firmly, "disappointed--utterly, completely, and tee-totally. I'll tell you what my idea was. My idea was, that the streets would be streets, in the first place. Well, they're not _streets_ at all. They're mere _lanes_. They're nothing more than _foot-paths_. Secondly, my idea was, that the houses would be _houses_. Well, they're not. They're old ruins; heaps of dust and bricks--"

"Nonsense!" interrupted David, in indignant tones. "How could the houses be standing after being buried for so many centuries? You forget what a tremendous weight of ashes, and stones, and earth, lay upon their roofs. Houses! Why, did you expect to find couches to lie on? or chairs--"

"Well," said Frank, "my quarrel with Pompeii doesn't end here.

For, you see, even if the houses were whole and uninjured, what would they be? Poor affairs enough. Just think how small they are. Rooms ten by twelve. Narrow pa.s.sage-ways for halls, that'll scarcely allow two people to pa.s.s each other. The rooms are closets. The ceilings were all low. And then look at the temples. I expected to find stone walls and marble columns. But what have I found? Nothing but shams--pillars built of bricks, and plastered over to resemble marble. Do you call that the right style of thing? Why, at home we sneer at lath-and-plaster Gothic. Why should we admire lath-and-plaster Greek because it's in Pompeii? Then, again, look at the Forums --miserable little places that'll only hold about fifty people."

"Pooh!" said David; "as if they didn't know what was large enough!"

"I don't doubt that they knew it," said Frank. "But what I say is, that if these were large enough for them, what a poor lot they must have, been!"

"After all," said David, "Pompeii was not a great city. It was only a small city. You expect to find here the magnificence of Rome."

"No, I don't. I merely expect to find something that'll carry out the promise of those pictures that they make of scenes in Pompeii.

Why, there isn't anything in the whole town, except, perhaps, this place, that looks large enough for an ordinary person to move about in. Look at the walls--miserable things twenty feet high. Look at the streets--only wide enough for a single cart. Look at the sidewalks--only wide enough for a single man. The only thing in the whole town that comes up to my idea is the Amphitheatre. This is respectable. It corresponds with the pictures, and the descriptions of travellers. But as to all the rest, I have only to remark that they are, first, mean; secondly, small; and thirdly, in outrageously bad taste."

Frank ceased, and looked steadfastly at David.

David looked at Frank, but his feelings were too strong for utterance.

His indignation at this desecration of a place that was so hallowed in his eyes could not be expressed. He turned his face away in silent scorn, and fixed his gaze on Vesuvius.

They waited a long time, and when at length they prepared to leave Pompeii, it was late in the day. All the other visitors had left long before, and they were the last in the city. They walked along looking round them till the last, and at length reached the entrance.

Michael Angelo went off to get the carriage. They waited a little while to take a last look, and then pa.s.sed through the gate. Here they found themselves confronted by three officials, the custodians of the place.

One of these addressed them in very fair English.

"Messieurs," said he, "before you leave, I haf to inquire--Deed you take anyting out from Pompeii?"

"Take anything?" said Uncle Moses, in an indignant voice. "What do you mean?"

"A tousand pardons, sare," said the other, politely. "It ees a formaletee. I mean de leetle stones, de pieces of steek, wood, plastair. Ha! De reliques, de souvenirs."

He was rather an unpleasant looking man, with a very sallow face, high cheek-bones, and a heavy goatee on the tip of his chin, which wagged up and down as he talked in quite a wonderful way.

"Stones, sticks, plaster?" said Uncle Moses. "Course not."

The official looked intently at him, and then at the boys. After this he conversed with his companion in Italian. These companions were quite as unprepossessing in their appearance as himself. Then the first speaker turned to the boys.

"You, sare," said he to Frank, in rather an unpleasant tone, "haf you de stones or de bones?"

"Not a stone, not a bone," said Frank, smilingly. "I did take a few at first, but I pitched them away."

"And you, sare?" said he to Bob.

"Don't deal in such articles," said Bob, with a grin--"not in my line--not my style."

"Pardon," said the official, with a sickly smile, "but I must put de usual interrogatoree. You, sare?" and he addressed himself to David.

David turned pale.

He hesitated for a moment.

"Well," said he, "I believe I _have_ got a few little stones, just two or three, you know; little relics, you know."

"Ah! ver good, ver nais," said the official, with the suns.h.i.+ne of perfect content illuminating his sallow features. "And you, sare?"

he continued, turning to Clive.