Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Last Days of Pompeii

BOOK THE THIRD 9. Chapter IX (continued)

'Hast thou dwelt here long?' said Glaucus, after a pause, feeling uncomfortably oppressed beneath a silence so appalling.

'Ah, long!--yes.'

'It is but a drear abode.'

'Ha! thou mayst well say that--Hell is beneath us!' replied the hag, pointing her bony finger to the earth. 'And I will tell thee a secret--the dim things below are preparing wrath for ye above--you, the young, and the thoughtless, and the beautiful.'

'Thou utterest but evil words, ill becoming the hospitable,' said Glaucus; 'and in future I will brave the tempest rather than thy welcome.'

'Thou wilt do well. None should ever seek me--save the wretched!'

'And why the wretched?' asked the Athenian.

'I am the witch of the mountain,' replied the sorceress, with a ghastly grin; 'my trade is to give hope to the hopeless: for the crossed in love I have philtres; for the avaricious, promises of treasure; for the malicious, potions of revenge; for the happy and the good, I have only what life has--curses! Trouble me no more.

With this the grim tenant of the cave relapsed into a silence so obstinate and sullen, that Glaucus in vain endeavored to draw her into farther conversation. She did not evince, by any alteration of her locked and rigid features, that she even heard him. Fortunately, however, the storm, which was brief as violent, began now to relax; the rain grew less and less fierce; and at last, as the clouds parted, the moon burst forth in the purple opening of heaven, and streamed clear and full into that desolate abode. Never had she shone, perhaps, on a group more worthy of the painter's art. The young, the all-beautiful Ione, seated by that rude fire--her lover already forgetful of the presence of the hag, at her feet, gazing upward to her face, and whispering sweet words--the pale and affrighted slave at a little distance--and the ghastly hag resting her deadly eyes upon them; yet seemingly serene and fearless (for the companionship of love hath such power) were these beautiful beings, things of another sphere, in that dark and unholy cavern, with its gloomy quaintness of appurtenance. The fox regarded them from his corner with his keen and fiery eye: and as Glaucus now turned towards the witch, he perceived for the first time, just under her seat, the bright gaze and crested head of a large snake: whether it was that the vivid coloring of the Athenian's cloak, thrown over the shoulders of Ione, attracted the reptile's anger--its crest began to glow and rise, as if menacing and preparing itself to spring upon the Neapolitan--Glaucus caught quickly at one of the half-burned logs upon the hearth--and, as if enraged at the action, the snake came forth from its shelter, and with a loud hiss raised itself on end till its height nearly approached that of the Greek.