style="font-size:15px;"> “Gerus. Lib.,” Cant. x. xviii.(O thou, whoever thou art, who through every use bendest Nature
to works foreign and strange; and by spying into her secrets,
enterest at thy will into the closest recesses of the human
mind—O speak! O tell me!)
Early the next morning the young Englishmen mounted their horses, and took the road towards Baiae. Glyndon left word at his hotel, that if Signor Zanoni sought him, it was in the neighbourhood of that once celebrated watering-place of the ancients that he should be found.
They passed by Viola’s house, but Glyndon resisted the temptation of pausing there; and after threading the grotto of Posilipo, they wound by a circuitous route back into the suburbs of the city, and took the opposite road, which conducts to Portici and Pompeii. It was late at noon when they arrived at the former of these places. Here they halted to dine; for Mervale had heard much of the excellence of the macaroni at Portici, and Mervale was a bon vivant.
They put up at an inn of very humble pretensions, and dined under an awning. Mervale was more than usually gay; he pressed the lacrima upon his friend, and conversed gayly.
“Well, my dear friend, we have foiled Signor Zanoni in one of his predictions at least. You will have no faith in him hereafter.”
“The ides are come, not gone.”
“Tush! If he be the soothsayer, you are not the Caesar. It is your vanity that makes you credulous. Thank Heaven, I do not think myself of such importance that the operations of Nature should be changed in order to frighten me.”
“But why should the operations of Nature be changed? There may be a deeper philosophy than we dream of—a philosophy that discovers the secrets of Nature, but does not alter, by penetrating, its courses.”
“Ah, you relapse into your heretical credulity; you seriously suppose Zanoni to be a prophet—a reader of the future; perhaps an associate of genii and spirits!”
Here the landlord, a little, fat, oily fellow, came up with a fresh bottle of lacrima. He hoped their Excellencies were pleased. He was most touched—touched to the heart, that they liked the macaroni. Were their Excellencies going to Vesuvius? There was a slight eruption; they could not see it where they were, but it was pretty, and would be prettier still after sunset.
“A capital idea!” cried Mervale. “What say you, Glyndon?”
“I have not yet seen an eruption; I should like it much.”
“But is there no danger?” asked the prudent Mervale.
“Oh, not at all; the mountain is very civil at present. It only plays a little, just to amuse their Excellencies the English.”
“Well, order the horses, and bring the bill; we will go before it is dark. Clarence, my friend—nunc est bibendum; but take care of the pede libero, which will scarce do for walking on lava!”
The bottle was finished, the bill paid; the gentlemen mounted, the landlord bowed, and they bent their way, in the cool of the delightful evening, towards Resina.
The wine, perhaps the excitement of his thoughts, animated Glyndon, whose unequal spirits were, at times, high and brilliant as those of a schoolboy released; and the laughter of the Northern tourists sounded oft and merrily along the melancholy domains of buried cities.
Hesperus had lighted his lamp amidst the rosy skies as they arrived at Resina. Here they quitted their horses, and took mules and a guide. As the sky grew darker and more dark, the mountain fire burned with an intense lustre. In various streaks and streamlets, the fountain of flame rolled down the dark summit, and the Englishmen began to feel increase upon them, as they ascended, that sensation of solemnity and awe which makes the very atmosphere that surrounds the Giant of the Plains of the Antique Hades.
It was night, when, leaving the mules, they ascended on foot, accompanied by their guide, and a peasant who bore a rude torch. The guide was a conversable, garrulous fellow, like most of his country and his calling; and Mervale, who possessed a sociable temper, loved to amuse or to instruct himself on every incidental occasion.
“Ah, Excellency,” said the guide, “your countrymen have a strong passion for the volcano. Long life to them, they bring us plenty of money! If our fortunes depended on the Neapolitans, we should starve.”
“True, they have no curiosity,” said Mervale. “Do you remember, Glyndon, the contempt with which that old count said to us, ‘You will go to Vesuvius, I suppose? I have never been; why should I go? You have cold, you have hunger, you have fatigue, you have danger, and all for nothing but to see fire, which looks just as well in a brazier as on a mountain.’ Ha! ha! the old fellow was right.”
“But, Excellency,” said the guide, “that is not all: some cavaliers think to ascend the mountain without our help. I am sure they deserve to tumble into the crater.”
“They must be bold fellows to go alone; you don’t often find such.”
“Sometimes among the French, signor. But the other night—I never was so frightened—I had been with an English party, and a lady had left a pocket-book on the mountain, where she had been sketching. She offered me a handsome sum to return for it, and bring it to her at Naples. So I went in the evening. I found it, sure enough, and was about to return, when I saw a figure that seemed to emerge from the crater itself. The air there was so pestiferous that I could not have conceived a human creature could breathe it, and live. I was so astounded that I stood still as a stone, till the figure came over the hot ashes, and stood before me, face to face. Santa Maria, what a head!”
“What! hideous?”
“No; so beautiful, but so terrible. It had nothing human in its aspect.”
“And what said the salamander?”
“Nothing! It did not even seem to perceive me, though I was near as I am to you; but its eyes seemed to emerge prying into the air. It passed by me quickly, and, walking across a stream of burning lava, soon vanished on the other side of the mountain. I was curious and foolhardy, and resolved to see if I could bear the atmosphere which this visitor had left; but though I did not advance within thirty yards of the spot at which he had first appeared, I was driven back by a vapour that wellnigh stifled me. Cospetto! I have spat blood ever since.”
“Now will I lay a wager that you fancy this fire-king must be Zanoni,” whispered Mervale, laughing.
The little party had now arrived nearly at the summit of the mountain; and unspeakably grand was the spectacle on which they gazed. From the crater arose a vapour, intensely dark, that overspread the whole background of the heavens; in the centre whereof rose a flame that assumed a form singularly beautiful. It might have been compared to a crest of gigantic feathers, the diadem of the mountain, high-arched, and drooping downward, with the hues delicately shaded off, and the whole shifting and tremulous as the plumage on a warrior’s helmet.
The glare of the flame spread, luminous and crimson, over the dark and rugged ground on which they stood, and drew an innumerable variety of shadows from crag and hollow. An oppressive and sulphureous exhalation served to increase the gloomy and sublime terror of the place. But on turning from the mountain, and towards the distant and unseen ocean, the contrast was wonderfully great; the
