第160章

THE sudden catastrophe which had, as it were, riven the very bonds of society, and left prisoner and jailer alike free, had soon rid Calenus of the guards to whose care the praetor had consigned him. And when the darkness and the crowd separated the priest from his attendants, he hastened with trembling steps towards the temple of his goddess. As he crept along, and ere the darkness was complete, he felt himself suddenly caught by the robe, and a voice muttered in his ear:

'Hist!--Calenus!--an awful hour!'

'Ay! by my father's head! Who art thou?--thy face is dim, and thy voice is strange.

'Not know thy Burbo?--fie!'

'Gods!--how the darkness gathers! Ho, ho!--by yon terrific mountain, what sudden blazes of lightning!'--How they dart and quiver! Hades is loosed on earth!'

'Tush!--thou believest not these things, Calenus! Now is the time to make our fortune!'

'Ha!'

'Listen! Thy temple is full of gold and precious mummeries!--let us load ourselves with them, and then hasten to the sea and embark! None will ever ask an account of the doings of this day.'

'Burbo, thou art right! Hush, and follow me into the temple. Who cares now--who sees now--whether thou art a priest or not? Follow, and we will share.'

In the precincts of the temple were many priests gathered around the altars, praying, weeping, grovelling in the dust. Impostors in safety, they were not the less superstitious in danger! Calenus passed them, and entered the chamber yet to be seen in the south side of the court. Burbo followed him--the priest struck a light. Wine and viands strewed the table; the remains of a sacrificial feast.

'A man who has hungered forty-eight hours,' muttered Calenus, 'has an appetite even in such a time.' He seized on the food, and devoured it greedily. Nothing could perhaps, be more unnaturally horrid than the selfish baseness of these villains; for there is nothing more loathsome than the valor of avarice. Plunder and sacrilege while the pillars of the world tottered to and fro! What an increase to the terrors of nature can be made by the vices of man!

'Wilt thou never have done?' said Burbo, impatiently; 'thy face purples and thine eyes start already.'

'It is not every day one has such a right to be hungry. Oh, Jupiter! what sound is that?--the hissing of fiery water! What! does the cloud give rain as well as flame! Ha!--what! shrieks? And, Burbo, how silent all is now!

Look forth!'

Amidst the other horrors, the mighty mountain now cast up columns of boiling water. Blent and kneaded with the half-burning ashes, the streams fell like seething mud over the streets in frequent intervals. And full, where the priests of Isis had now cowered around the altars, on which they had vainly sought to kindle fires and pour incense, one of the fiercest of those deadly torrents, mingled with immense fragments of scoria, had poured its rage.

Over the bended forms of the priests it dashed: that cry had been of death--that silence had been of eternity! The ashes--the pitchy streams--sprinkled the altars, covered the pavement, and half concealed the quivering corpses of the priests!

'They are dead,' said Burbo, terrified for the first time, and hurrying back into the cell. 'I thought not the danger was so near and fatal.'

The two wretches stood staring at each other--you might have heard their hearts beat! Calenus, the less bold by nature, but the more griping, recovered first.

'We must to our task, and away!' he said, in a low whisper, frightened at his own voice. He stepped to the threshold, paused, crossed over the heated floor and his dead brethren to the sacred chapel, and called to Burbo to follow. But the gladiator quaked, and drew back.