The Last Days of Pompeii Part 52

'What, ho! Nydia; the lamp is gone. Ah, traitress; and thou art gone too; but I'll catch thee--thou shalt smart for this!' The slave groped his way to the door; it was bolted from without: he was a prisoner instead of Nydia. What could he do? He did not dare to knock loud--to call out--lest Arbaces should overhear him, and discover how he had been duped; and Nydia, meanwhile, had probably already gained the garden-gate, and was fast on her escape.

'But,' thought he, 'she will go home, or, at least, be somewhere in the city. To-morrow, at dawn, when the slaves are at work in the peristyle, I can make myself heard; then I can go forth and seek her. I shall be sure to find and bring her back, before Arbaces knows a word of the matter. Ah! that's the best plan. Little traitress, my fingers itch at thee: and to leave only a bowl of water, too! Had it been wine, it would have been some comfort.'

While Sosia, thus entrapped, was lamenting his fate, and revolving his schemes to repossess himself of Nydia, the blind girl, with that singular precision and dexterous rapidity of motion, which, we have before observed, was peculiar to her, had pa.s.sed lightly along the peristyle, threaded the opposite pa.s.sage that led into the garden, and, with a beating heart, was about to proceed towards the gate, when she suddenly heard the sound of approaching steps, and distinguished the dreaded voice of Arbaces himself. She paused for a moment in doubt and terror; then suddenly it flashed across her recollection that there was another pa.s.sage which was little used except for the admission of the fair partakers of the Egyptian's secret revels, and which wound along the bas.e.m.e.nt of that ma.s.sive fabric towards a door which also communicated with the garden. By good fortune it might be open. At that thought, she hastily retraced her steps, descended the narrow stairs at the right, and was soon at the entrance of the pa.s.sage. Alas!

the door at the entrance was closed and secured. While she was yet a.s.suring herself that it was indeed locked, she heard behind her the voice of Calenus, and, a moment after, that of Arbaces in low reply.

She could not stay there; they were probably pa.s.sing to that very door.

She sprang onward, and felt herself in unknown ground. The air grew damp and chill; this rea.s.sured her. She thought she might be among the cellars of the luxurious mansion, or, at least, in some rude spot not likely to be visited by its haughty lord, when again her quick ear caught steps and the sound of voices. On, on, she hurried, extending her arms, which now frequently encountered pillars of thick and ma.s.sive form. With a tact, doubled in acuteness by her fear, she escaped these perils, and continued her way, the air growing more and more damp as she proceeded; yet, still, as she ever and anon paused for breath, she heard the advancing steps and the indistinct murmur of voices. At length she was abruptly stopped by a wall that seemed the limit of her path. Was there no spot in which she could hide? No aperture? no cavity? There was none! She stopped, and wrung her hands in despair; then again, nerved as the voices neared upon her, she hurried on by the side of the wall; and coming suddenly against one of the sharp b.u.t.tresses that here and there jutted boldly forth, she fell to the ground. Though much bruised, her senses did not leave her; she uttered no cry; nay, she hailed the accident that had led her to something like a screen; and creeping close up to the angle formed by the b.u.t.tress, so that on one side at least she was sheltered from view, she gathered her slight and small form into its smallest compa.s.s, and breathlessly awaited her fate.

Meanwhile Arbaces and the priest were taking their way to that secret chamber whose stores were so vaunted by the Egyptian. They were in a vast subterranean atrium, or hall; the low roof was supported by short, thick pillars of an architecture far remote from the Grecian graces of that luxuriant period. The single and pale lamp, which Arbaces bore, shed but an imperfect ray over the bare and rugged walls, in which the huge stones, without cement, were fitted curiously and uncouthly into each other. The disturbed reptiles glared dully on the intruders, and then crept into the shadow of the walls.

Calenus s.h.i.+vered as he looked around and breathed the damp, unwholesome air.

'Yet,' said Arbaces, with a smile, perceiving his shudder, 'it is these rude abodes that furnish the luxuries of the halls above. They are like the laborers of the world--we despise their ruggedness, yet they feed the very pride that disdains them.'

'And whither goes yon dim gallery to the left asked Calenus; 'in this depth of gloom it seems without limit, as if winding into Hades.'

'On the contrary, it does but conduct to the upper rooms,' answered Arbaces, carelessly: 'it is to the right that we steer to our bourn.'

The hall, like many in the more habitable regions of Pompeii, branched off at the extremity into two wings or pa.s.sages; the length of which, not really great, was to the eye considerably exaggerated by the sudden gloom against which the lamp so faintly struggled. To the right of these alae, the two comrades now directed their steps.

'The gay Glaucus will be lodged to-morrow in apartments not much drier, and far less s.p.a.cious than this,' said Calenus, as they pa.s.sed by the very spot where, completely wrapped in the shadow of the broad, projecting b.u.t.tress, cowered the Thessalian.

'Ay, but then he will have dry room, and ample enough, in the arena on the following day. And to think,' continued Arbaces, slowly, and very deliberately--'to think that a word of thine could save him, and consign Arbaces to his doom!'

'That word shall never be spoken,' said Calenus.

'Right, my Calenus! it never shall,' returned Arbaces, familiarly leaning his arm on the priest's shoulder: 'and now, halt--we are at the door.'

The light trembled against a small door deep set in the wall, and guarded strongly by many plates and bindings of iron, that intersected the rough and dark wood. From his girdle Arbaces now drew a small ring, holding three or four short but strong keys. Oh, how beat the griping heart of Calenus, as he heard the rusty wards growl, as if resenting the admission to the treasures they guarded!

'Enter, my friend,' said Arbaces, 'while I hold the lamp on high, that thou mayst glut thine eyes on the yellow heaps.'

The impatient Calenus did not wait to be twice invited; he hastened towards the aperture.

Scarce had he crossed the threshold, when the strong hand of Arbaces plunged him forwards.

'The word shall never be spoken!' said the Egyptian, with a loud exultant laugh, and closed the door upon the priest.

Calenus had been precipitated down several steps, but not feeling at the moment the pain of his fall, he sprung up again to the door, and beating at it fiercely with his clenched fist, he cried aloud in what seemed more a beast's howl than a human voice, so keen was his agony and despair: 'Oh, release me, release me, and I will ask no gold!'

The words but imperfectly penetrated the ma.s.sive door, and Arbaces again laughed. Then, stamping his foot violently, rejoined, perhaps to give vent to his long-stifled pa.s.sions:

'All the gold of Dalmatia,' cried he, 'will not buy thee a crust of bread. Starve, wretch! thy dying groans will never wake even the echo of these vast halls; nor will the air ever reveal, as thou gnawest, in thy desperate famine, thy flesh from thy bones, that so perishes the man who threatened, and could have undone, Arbaces! Farewell!'

'Oh, pity--mercy! Inhuman villain; was it for this...'

The rest of the sentence was lost to the ear of Arbaces as he pa.s.sed backward along the dim hall. A toad, plump and bloated, lay unmoving before his path; the rays of the lamp fell upon its unshaped hideousness and red upward eye. Arbaces turned aside that he might not harm it.

'Thou art loathsome and obscene,' he muttered, 'but thou canst not injure me; therefore thou art safe in my path.'

The cries of Calenus, dulled and choked by the barrier that confined him, yet faintly reached the ear of the Egyptian. He paused and listened intently.

'This is unfortunate,' thought he; 'for I cannot sail till that voice is dumb for ever. My stores and treasures lie, not in yon dungeon it is true, but in the opposite wing. My slaves, as they move them, must not hear his voice. But what fear of that? In three days, if he still survive, his accents, by my father's beard, must be weak enough, then!--no, they could not pierce even through his tomb. By Isis, it is cold!--I long for a deep draught of the spiced Falernian.'

With that the remorseless Egyptian drew his gown closer round him, and resought the upper air.

Chapter XIV

NYDIA ACCOSTS CALENUS.

WHAT words of terror, yet of hope, had Nydia overheard! The next day Glaucus was to be condemned; yet there lived one who could save him, and adjudge Arbaces to his doom, and that one breathed within a few steps of her hiding-place! She caught his cries and shrieks--his imprecations--his prayers, though they fell choked and m.u.f.fled on her ear. He was imprisoned, but she knew the secret of his cell: could she but escape--could she but seek the praetor he might yet in time be given to light, and preserve the Athenian. Her emotions almost stifled her; her brain reeled--she felt her sense give way--but by a violent effort she mastered herself,--and, after listening intently for several minutes, till she was convinced that Arbaces had left the s.p.a.ce to solitude and herself, she crept on as her ear guided her to the very door that had closed upon Calenus. Here she more distinctly caught his accents of terror and despair. Thrice she attempted to speak, and thrice her voice failed to penetrate the folds of the heavy door. At length finding the lock, she applied her lips to its small aperture, and the prisoner distinctly heard a soft tone breathe his name.

His blood curdled--his hair stood on end. That awful solitude, what mysterious and preternatural being could penetrate! 'Who's there?' he cried, in new alarm; 'what spectre--what dread larva, calls upon the lost Calenus?'

'Priest,' replied the Thessalian, 'unknown to Arbaces, I have been, by the permission of the G.o.ds, a witness to his perfidy. If I myself can escape from these walls, I may save thee. But let thy voice reach my ear through this narrow pa.s.sage, and answer what I ask.'

'Ah, blessed spirit,' said the priest, exultingly, and obeying the suggestion of Nydia, 'save me, and I will sell the very cups on the altar to pay thy kindness.'

'I want not thy gold--I want thy secret. Did I hear aright? Canst thou save the Athenian Glaucus from the charge against his life?'

'I can--I can!--therefore (may the Furies blast the foul Egyptian!) hath Arbaces snared me thus, and left me to starve and rot!'

'They accuse the Athenian of murder: canst thou disprove the accusation?'

'Only free me, and the proudest head of Pompeii is not more safe than his. I saw the deed done--I saw Arbaces strike the blow; I can convict the true murderer and acquit the innocent man. But if I perish, he dies also. Dost thou interest thyself for him? Oh, blessed stranger, in my heart is the urn which condemns or frees him!'

'And thou wilt give full evidence of what thou knowest?'

'Will!--Oh! were h.e.l.l at my feet--yes! Revenge on the false Egyptian!--revenge!--revenge! revenge!'

As through his ground teeth Calenus shrieked forth those last words, Nydia felt that in his worst pa.s.sions was her certainty of his justice to the Athenian. Her heart beat: was it to be her proud destiny to preserve her idolized--her adored? Enough,' said she, 'the powers that conducted me hither will carry me through all. Yes, I feel that I shall deliver thee. Wait in patience and hope.'

'But be cautious, be prudent, sweet stranger. Attempt not to appeal to Arbaces--he is marble. Seek the praetor--say what thou knowest--obtain his writ of search; bring soldiers, and smiths of cunning--these locks are wondrous strong! Time flies--I may starve--starve! if you are not quick! Go--go! Yet stay--it is horrible to be alone!--the air is like a charnel--and the scorpions--ha! and the pale larvae; oh! stay, stay!'

'Nay,' said Nydia, terrified by the terror of the priest, and anxious to confer with herself--'nay, for thy sake, I must depart. Take hope for thy companion--farewell!'

So saying, she glided away, and felt with extended arms along the pillared s.p.a.ce until she had gained the farther end of the hall and the mouth of the pa.s.sage that led to the upper air. But there she paused; she felt that it would be more safe to wait awhile, until the night was so far blended with the morning that the whole house would be buried in sleep, and so that she might quit it un.o.bserved. She, therefore, once more laid herself down, and counted the weary moments. In her sanguine heart, joy was the predominant emotion. Glaucus was in deadly peril--but she should save him!

Chapter XV

ARBACES AND IONE. NYDIA GAINS THE GARDEN. WILL SHE ESCAPE AND SAVE THE ATHENIAN?

WHEN Arbaces had warmed his veins by large draughts of that spiced and perfumed wine so valued by the luxurious, he felt more than usually elated and exultant of heart. There is a pride in triumphant ingenuity, not less felt, perhaps, though its object be guilty. Our vain human nature hugs itself in the consciousness of superior craft and self-obtained success--afterwards comes the horrible reaction of remorse.