Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Last Days of Pompeii

BOOK THE FOURTH 16. Chapter XVI (continued)

A voice from the recess of the darkness answered that burst of anguish. 'Who (it said) is my companion in this awful hour? Athenian Glaucus, it is thou?'

'So, indeed, they called me in mine hour of fortune: they may have other names for me now. And thy name, stranger?'

'Is Olinthus, thy co-mate in the prison as the trial.'

'What! he whom they call the Atheist? Is it the injustice of men that hath taught thee to deny the providence of the gods?'

'Alas!' answered Olinthus: 'thou, not I, art the true Atheist, for thou deniest the sole true God--the Unknown One--to whom thy Athenian fathers erected an altar. It is in this hour that I know my God. He is with me in the dungeon; His smile penetrates the darkness; on the eve of death my heart whispers immortality, and earth recedes from me but to bring the weary soul nearer unto heaven.'

'Tell me,' said Glaucus, abruptly, 'did I not hear thy name coupled with that of Apaecides in my trial? Dost thou believe me guilty?'

'God alone reads the heart! but my suspicion rested not upon thee.'

'On whom then?'

'Thy accuser, Arbaces.'

'Ha! thou cheerest me: and wherefore?'

'Because I know the man's evil breast, and he had cause to fear him who is now dead.'

With that, Olinthus proceeded to inform Glaucus of those details which the reader already knows, the conversion of Apaecides, the plan they had proposed for the detection of the impostures of the Egyptian upon the youthful weakness of the proselyte. 'Therefore,' concluded Olinthus, 'had the deceased encountered Arbaces, reviled his treasons, and threatened detection, the place, the hour, might have favored the wrath of the Egyptian, and passion and craft alike dictated the fatal blow.'