Ione sank upon the couch, half-dead with terror.
Rapidly the eyes of Arbaces ran over the writing. He read it to the end, and then, as the letter fell from his hand, he said, in a voice of deceitful calmness, "Is the writer of this the man thou lovest?"
Ione sobbed, but answered not.
"Speak!" he demanded.
"It is--it is!"
"Then hear me," said Arbaces, sinking his voice into a whisper. "_Thou shalt go to thy tomb rather than to his arms_."
At this instant a curtain was rudely torn aside, and Glaucus and Apsecides appeared. There was a severe struggle, which might have had a more sinister ending had not the marble head of a G.o.ddess, shaken from its column, fallen upon Arbaces as he was about to stab the Greek, and struck the Egyptian senseless to the ground. As it was, Ione was saved, and she and her lover were then and for ever reconciled to one another.
_III.--The Love Philtre_
Clodius had not spoken without warrant when he had said that Julia, the daughter of the rich merchant Diomed, thought herself in love with Glaucus. But since Glaucus was denied to her, her thoughts were concentrated on revenge. In this mood she sought out Arbaces, presenting herself as one loving unrequitedly, and seeking in sorrow the aid of wisdom.
"It is a love charm," admitted Julia, "that I would seek from thy skill.
I know not if I love him who loves me not, but I know that I would see myself triumph over a rival. I would see him who has rejected me my suitor. I would see her whom he has preferred in her turn despised."
Very quickly Arbaces discerned Julia"s secret, and when he heard that Glaucus and Ione were shortly to be wedded, he gladly availed himself of this opportunity to rid himself of his hated rival. But he dealt not in love potions, he said; he would, however, take Diomed"s daughter to one who did--the witch who dwelt on the slopes of Vesuvius.
He kept his promise; but the entire philtre given to Julia was one which went direct to the brain, and the effects of which--for neither Arbaces nor his creature, the witch, wished to place themselves within the power of the law--were such as caused those who witnessed them to attribute them to some supernatural agency.
But once again, though less happily than on the former occasion, Nydia was destined to be the means of thwarting the schemes of the Egyptian.
The devotion of the blind flower-girl had deepened into love for her deliverer. She was jealous of Ione. Now, for Julia had taken her into confidence, and both believed in the love charm, she was confronted with another rival. By a simple ruse Nydia obtained the poisoned draught and in its place subst.i.tuted a phial of simple water.
At the close of a banquet given by Diomed, to which the Greek was invited, Julia duly administered that which she imagined to be the secret love potion. She was disappointed when she found Glaucus coldly replace the cup, and converse with her in the same unmoved tone as before.
"But to-morrow," thought she, "to-morrow, alas for Glaucus!"
Alas for him, indeed!
When Glaucus arrived at his own house that evening, Nydia was waiting for him. She had, as usual, been tending the flowers and had lingered awhile to rest herself.
"It has been warm," said Glaucus. "Wilt thou summon Davus? The wine I have drunk heats me, and I long for some cooling drink."
Here at once, suddenly and unexpectedly, the very opportunity that Nydia awaited presented itself. She breathed quickly. "I will prepare for you myself," said she, "the summer draught that Ione loves--of honey and weak wine cooled in snow."
"Thanks," said the unconscious Glaucus. "If Ione loves it, enough; it would be grateful were it poison."
Nydia frowned, and then smiled. She withdrew for a few moments, and returned with the cup containing the beverage. Glaucus took it from her hand.
What would not Nydia have given then to have seen the first dawn of the imagined love! Far different, as she stood then and there, were the thoughts and emotions of the blind girl from those of the vain Pompeian under a similar suspense!
Glaucus had raised the cup to his lips. He had already drained about a fourth of its contents, when, suddenly glancing upon the face of Nydia, he was so forcibly struck by its alteration, by its intense, and painful, and strange expression, that he paused abruptly, and still holding the cup near his lips, exclaimed. "Why, Nydia--Nydia, art thou ill or in pain? What ails thee, my poor child?"
As he spoke, he put down the cup--happily for him, unfinished--and rose from his seat to approach her, when a sudden pang shot coldly to his heart, and was followed by a wild, confused, dizzy sensation at the brain.
The floor seemed to glide from under him, his feet seemed to move on air, a mighty and unearthly gladness rushed upon his spirit. He felt too buoyant for the earth; he longed for wings--nay, it seemed as if he possessed them. He burst involuntarily into a loud and thrilling laugh.
He clapped his hands, he bounced aloft. Suddenly this perpetual transport pa.s.sed, though only partially, away. He now felt his blood rushing loudly and rapidly through his veins.
Then a kind of darkness fell over his eyes. Now a torrent of broken, incoherent, insane words gushed from his lips, and, to Nydia"s horror, he pa.s.sed the portico with a bound, and rushed down the starlit streets, striking fear into the hearts of all who saw him.
_IV.--The Day of Ghastly Night_
Anxious to learn if the drug had taken effect, Arbaces set out for Julia"s house on the morrow. On his way he encountered Apaecides. Hot words pa.s.sed between them, and stung by the scorn of the youth, he stabbed him into the heart with his stylus. At this moment Glaucus came along. Quick as thought the Egyptian struck the already half-senseless Greek to the ground, and steeping his stylus in the blood of Apaecides, and recovering his own, called loudly for help. The next moment he was accusing Glaucus of the crime.
For a time fortune favoured the Egyptian. Glaucus, his strong frame still under the influence of the poison, was sentenced to encounter a lion in the amphitheatre, with no weapon beyond the incriminating stylus. Nydia, in her terror, confessed to the Egyptian the exchange of the love philtre. She he imprisoned in his own house. Calenus, who had witnessed the deed, sought Arbaces with the intention of using his knowledge to his own profit. He, by a stratagem, was incarcerated in one of the dungeons of the Egyptian"s dwelling. The law gave Ione into the guardianship of Arbaces. But, for a third time, Nydia was the means of frustrating the plans of Arbaces.
The blind girl, when vainly endeavouring to escape from the toils of the Egyptian, overheard, in his garden, the conversation of Arbaces and Calenus; and she heard the cries of Calenus from behind the door of the chamber in which he was imprisoned. She herself was caught again by Arbaces" servant, but she contrived to bribe her keeper to take a message to Glaucus"s friend, Sall.u.s.t; and he, taking his servants to Arbaces" house released the two captives, and reached the arena with them, to accuse Arbaces before the mult.i.tude at the very moment when the lion was being goaded to attack the Greek, and Arbaces" victory seemed within his grasp.
Even now the nerve of the Egyptian did not desert him. He met the charge with his accustomed coolness. But the frenzied accusation of the priest of Isis turned the huge a.s.sembly against him. With loud cries they rose from their seats and poured down toward the Egyptian.
Lifting his eyes at this terrible moment, Arbaces beheld a strange and awful apparition. He beheld, and his craft restored his courage. He stretched his hand on high; over his lofty brow and royal features there came an expression of unutterable solemnity and command.
"Behold," he shouted, with a voice of thunder, which stilled the roar of the crowd, "behold how the G.o.ds protect the guiltless! The fires of the avenging Orcus burst forth against the false witness of my accusers!"
The eyes of the crowd followed the gesture of the Egyptian, and beheld, with ineffable dismay, a vast vapour shooting from the summit of Vesuvius in the form of a gigantic pine-tree; the trunk blackness, the branches fire--a fire that shifted and wavered in its hues with every moment, now fiercely luminous, now of a dull and dying red, that again blazed terrifically forth with intolerable glare. The earth shook. The walls of the theatre trembled. In the distance was heard the crash of falling roofs. The cloud seemed to roll towards the a.s.sembly, casting forth from its bosom showers of ashes mixed with fragments of burning stone. Then the burning mountain cast up columns of boiling water.
In the ghastly night thus rushing upon the realm of noon, all thought of justice and of Arbaces left the minds of the terrified people. There ensued a mad flight for the sea. Through the darkness Nydia guided Glaucus, now partly recovered from the effects of the poisoned draught, and Ione to the sh.o.r.e. Her blindness rendered the scene familiar to her alone.
While Arbaces perished with the majority, these three eventually gained the sea, and joined a group, who, bolder than the rest, resolved to hazard any peril rather than continue on the stricken land.
Utterly exhausted, Ione slept on the breast of Glaucus, and Nydia lay at his feet. Meanwhile, showers of dust and ashes fell into the waves, scattered their snows over the deck of the vessel they had boarded, and, borne by the winds, descended upon the remotest climes, startling even the swarthy African, and whirling along the antique soil of Syria and of Egypt.
Meekly, softly, beautifully dawned at last the light over the trembling deep! The winds were sinking into rest, the foam died from the azure of that delicious sea. Around the east thin mists caught gradually the rosy hues that heralded the morning. Light was about to resume her reign.
There was no shout from the mariners at the dawning light--it had come too gradually, and they were too wearied for such sudden bursts of joy--but there was a low, deep murmur of thankfulness amidst those watchers of the long night. They looked at each other, and smiled; they took heart. They felt once more that there was a world around and a G.o.d above them!
In the silence of the general sleep Nydia had risen gently. Bending over the face of Glaucus, she softly kissed him. She felt for his hand; it was locked in that of Ione. She sighed deeply, and her face darkened.
Again she kissed his brow, and with her hair wiped from it the damps of night.
"May the G.o.ds bless you, Athenian!" she murmured "May you be happy with your beloved one! May you sometimes remember Nydia! Alas! she is of no further use on earth."
With these words she turned away. A sailor, half-dozing on the deck, heard a slight splash on the waters. Drowsily he looked up, and behind, as the vessel bounded merrily on, he fancied he saw something white above the waves; but it vanished in an instant. He turned round again and dreamed of his home and children.
When the lovers awoke, their first thought was of each other, their next of Nydia. Every crevice of the vessel was searched--there was no trace of her! Mysterious from first to last, the blind Thessalian had vanished from the living world! They guessed her fate in silence, and Glaucus and Ione, while they drew nearer to each other, feeling each other the world itself, forgot their deliverance, and wept as for a departed sister.
The Last of the Barons