The Last Days of Pompeii Part 23

At one of the public edifices appropriated to the business of the city, workmen were employed upon the columns, and you heard the noise of their labor every now and then rising above the hum of the mult.i.tude: the columns are unfinished to this day!

All, then, united, nothing could exceed in variety the costumes, the ranks, the manners, the occupations of the crowd--nothing could exceed the bustle, the gaiety, the animation--where pleasure and commerce, idleness and labor, avarice and ambition, mingled in one gulf their motley rus.h.i.+ng, yet harmonius, streams.

Facing the steps of the Temple of Jupiter, with folded arms, and a knit and contemptuous brow, stood a man of about fifty years of age. His dress was remarkably plain--not so much from its material, as from the absence of all those ornaments which were worn by the Pompeians of every rank--partly from the love of show, partly, also, because they were chiefly wrought into those shapes deemed most efficacious in resisting the a.s.saults of magic and the influence of the evil eye. His forehead was high and bald; the few locks that remained at the back of the head were concealed by a sort of cowl, which made a part of his cloak, to be raised or lowered at pleasure, and was now drawn half-way over the head, as a protection from the rays of the sun. The color of his garments was brown, no popular hue with the Pompeians; all the usual admixtures of scarlet or purple seemed carefully excluded. His belt, or girdle, contained a small receptacle for ink, which hooked on to the girdle, a stilus (or implement of writing), and tablets of no ordinary size. What was rather remarkable, the cincture held no purse, which was the almost indispensable appurtenance of the girdle, even when that purse had the misfortune to be empty!

It was not often that the gay and egotistical Pompeians busied themselves with observing the countenances and actions of their neighbors; but there was that in the lip and eye of this bystander so remarkably bitter and disdainful, as he surveyed the religious procession sweeping up the stairs of the temple, that it could not fail to arrest the notice of many.

'Who is yon cynic?' asked a merchant of his companion, a jeweller.

'It is Olinthus,' replied the jeweller; 'a reputed Nazarene.'

The merchant shuddered. 'A dread sect!' said he, in a whispered and fearful voice. 'It is said that when they meet at nights they always commence their ceremonies by the murder of a new-born babe; they profess a community of goods, too--the wretches! A community of goods! What would become of merchants, or jewellers either, if such notions were in fas.h.i.+on?'

'That is very true,' said the jeweller; 'besides, they wear no jewels--they mutter imprecations when they see a serpent; and at Pompeii all our ornaments are serpentine.'

'Do but observe,' said a third, who was a fabricant of bronze, 'how yon Nazarene scowls at the piety of the sacrificial procession. He is murmuring curses on the temple, be sure. Do you know, Celcinus, that this fellow, pa.s.sing by my shop the other day, and seeing me employed on a statue of Minerva, told me with a frown that, had it been marble, he would have broken it; but the bronze was too strong for him. "Break a G.o.ddess!" said I. "A G.o.ddess!" answered the atheist; "it is a demon--an evil spirit!" Then he pa.s.sed on his way cursing. Are such things to be borne? What marvel that the earth heaved so fearfully last night, anxious to reject the atheist from her bosom?--An atheist, do I say?

worse still--a scorner of the Fine Arts! Woe to us fabricants of bronze, if such fellows as this give the law to society!'

'These are the incendiaries that burnt Rome under Nero,' groaned the jeweller.

While such were the friendly remarks provoked by the air and faith of the Nazarene, Olinthus himself became sensible of the effect he was producing; he turned his eyes round, and observed the intent faces of the acc.u.mulating throng, whispering as they gazed; and surveying them for a moment with an expression, first of defiance and afterwards of compa.s.sion, he gathered his cloak round him and pa.s.sed on, muttering audibly, 'Deluded idolaters!--did not last night's convulsion warn ye?

Alas! how will ye meet the last day?'

The crowd that heard these boding words gave them different interpretations, according to their different shades of ignorance and of fear; all, however, concurred in imagining them to convey some awful imprecation. They regarded the Christian as the enemy of mankind; the epithets they lavished upon him, of which 'Atheist' was the most favored and frequent, may serve, perhaps, to warn us, believers of that same creed now triumphant, how we indulge the persecution of opinion Olinthus then underwent, and how we apply to those whose notions differ from our own the terms at that day lavished on the fathers of our faith.

As Olinthus stalked through the crowd, and gained one of the more private places of egress from the forum, he perceived gazing upon him a pale and earnest countenance, which he was not slow to recognize.

Wrapped in a pallium that partially concealed his sacred robes, the young Apaecides surveyed the disciple of that new and mysterious creed, to which at one time he had been half a convert.

'Is he, too, an impostor? Does this man, so plain and simple in life, in garb, in mien--does he too, like Arbaces, make austerity the robe of the sensualist? Does the veil of Vesta hide the vices of the prost.i.tute?'

Olinthus, accustomed to men of all cla.s.ses, and combining with the enthusiasm of his faith a profound experience of his kind, guessed, perhaps, by the index of the countenance, something of what pa.s.sed within the breast of the priest. He met the survey of Apaecides with a steady eye, and a brow of serene and open candour.

'Peace be with thee!' said he, saluting Apaecides.

'Peace!' echoed the priest, in so hollow a tone that it went at once to the heart of the Nazarene.

'In that wish,' continued Olinthus, 'all good things are combined--without virtue thou canst not have peace. Like the rainbow, Peace rests upon the earth, but its arch is lost in heaven. Heaven bathes it in hues of light--it springs up amidst tears and clouds--it is a reflection of the Eternal Sun--it is an a.s.surance of calm--it is the sign of a great covenant between Man and G.o.d. Such peace, O young man!

is the smile of the soul; it is an emanation from the distant orb of immortal light. PEACE be with you!'

'Alas!' began Apaecides, when he caught the gaze of the curious loiterers, inquisitive to know what could possibly be the theme of conversation between a reputed Nazarene and a priest of Isis. He stopped short, and then added in a low tone: 'We cannot converse here, I will follow thee to the banks of the river; there is a walk which at this time is usually deserted and solitary.'

Olinthus bowed a.s.sent. He pa.s.sed through the streets with a hasty step, but a quick and observant eye. Every now and then he exchanged a significant glance, a slight sign, with some pa.s.senger, whose garb usually betokened the wearer to belong to the humbler cla.s.ses; for Christianity was in this the type of all other and less mighty revolutions--the grain of mustard-seed was in the heart of the lowly.

Amidst the huts of poverty and labor, the vast stream which afterwards poured its broad waters beside the cities and palaces of earth took its neglected source.

Chapter II

THE NOONDAY EXCURSION ON THE CAMPANIAN SEAS.

'BUT tell me, Glaucus,' said Ione, as they glided down the rippling Sarnus in their boat of pleasure, 'how camest thou with Apaecides to my rescue from that bad man?'

'Ask Nydia yonder,' answered the Athenian, pointing to the blind girl, who sat at a little distance from them, leaning pensively over her lyre; 'she must have thy thanks, not we. It seems that she came to my house, and, finding me from home, sought thy brother in his temple; he accompanied her to Arbaces; on their way they encountered me, with a company of friends, whom thy kind letter had given me a spirit cheerful enough to join. Nydia's quick ear detected my voice--a few words sufficed to make me the companion of Apaecides; I told not my a.s.sociates why I left them--could I trust thy name to their light tongues and gossiping opinion?--Nydia led us to the garden gate, by which we afterwards bore thee--we entered, and were about to plunge into the mysteries of that evil house, when we heard thy cry in another direction. Thou knowest the rest.'

Ione blushed deeply. She then raised her eyes to those of Glaucus, and he felt all the thanks she could not utter. 'Come hither, my Nydia,'

said she, tenderly, to the Thessalian.

'Did I not tell thee that thou shouldst be my sister and friend? Hast thou not already been more?--my guardian, my preserver!'

'It is nothing,' answered Nydia coldly, and without stirring.

'Ah! I forgot,' continued Ione, 'I should come to thee'; and she moved along the benches till she reached the place where Nydia sat, and flinging her arms caressingly round her, covered her cheeks with kisses.

Nydia was that morning paler than her wont, and her countenance grew even more wan and colorless as she submitted to the embrace of the beautiful Neapolitan. 'But how camest thou, Nydia,' whispered Ione, 'to surmise so faithfully the danger I was exposed to? Didst thou know aught of the Egyptian?'

'Yes, I knew of his vices.'

'And how?'

'n.o.ble Ione, I have been a slave to the vicious--those whom I served were his minions.'

'And thou hast entered his house since thou knewest so well that private entrance?'

'I have played on my lyre to Arbaces,' answered the Thessalian, with embarra.s.sment.

'And thou hast escaped the contagion from which thou hast saved Ione?'

returned the Neapolitan, in a voice too low for the ear of Glaucus.

'n.o.ble Ione, I have neither beauty nor station; I am a child, and a slave, and blind. The despicable are ever safe.'

It was with a pained, and proud, and indignant tone that Nydia made this humble reply; and Ione felt that she only wounded Nydia by pursuing the subject. She remained silent, and the bark now floated into the sea.

'Confess that I was right, Ione,' said Glaucus, 'in prevailing on thee not to waste this beautiful noon in thy chamber--confess that I was right.'

'Thou wert right, Glaucus,' said Nydia, abruptly.

'The dear child speaks for thee,' returned the Athenian. 'But permit me to move opposite to thee, or our light boat will be over-balanced.'

So saying, he took his seat exactly opposite to Ione, and leaning forward, he fancied that it was her breath, and not the winds of summer, that flung fragrance over the sea.

'Thou wert to tell me,' said Glaucus, 'why for so many days thy door was closed to me?'

'Oh, think of it no more!' answered Ione, quickly; 'I gave my ear to what I now know was the malice of slander.'

'And my slanderer was the Egyptian?'

Ione's silence a.s.sented to the question.