I might boast that, during all this scene of horror, not a sigh or expression of fear escaped me, had not my support been grounded in that miserable, though mighty, consolation, that all mankind were involved in the same calamity, and that I was perishing with the world itself. At last this dreadful darkness was dissipated by degrees, like a cloud or smoke; the real day returned, and even the sun shone out, though with a lurid light, like when an eclipse is coming on. Every object that presented itself to our eyes--which were extremely weakened--seemed changed, being covered deep with ashes as if with snow. We returned to Misenum, where we refreshed ourselves as well as we could, and passed an anxious night between hope and fear; though, indeed, with a much larger share of the latter; for the earthquake still continued, while many frenzied persons ran up and down, heightening their own and their friends' calamities by terrible predictions. However, my mother and I, notwithstanding the danger we had passed and that which still threatened us, had no thoughts of leaving the place till we could receive some news of my uncle. And now you will read this narrative without any view of inserting it in your history, of which it is not in the least worthy; and indeed you must put it down to your own request if it should appear not worth even the trouble of a letter. Farewell. LORD EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON The Amphitheatre at Pompeii was crowded to the doors. A lion was at large in the arena, and the populace surged toward an Egyptian priest, Arbaces, demanding that he be thrown down to be devoured. As the mob rolled around him, intent on his death, Arbaces noted a strange and awful apparition. His craft made him courageous; he stretched forth his hand. "Behold!" he shouted with a voice of thunder, which stilled the roar of the crowd; "behold how the gods 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 vapor 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! There was a dead, heart-sunken silence--through which there suddenly broke the roar of the lion, which was echoed back from within the building by the sharper and fiercer yells of its fellow-beast. Dread seers were they of the burden of the atmosphere, and wild prophets of the wrath to come!