Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Last Days of Pompeii

BOOK THE FIFTH 6. Chapter VI (continued)

'Oh, Diomed!' she cried, 'shelter! shelter! See'--pointing to an infant clasped to her breast--'see this little one!--it is mine!--the child of shame! I have never owned it till this hour. But now I remember I am a mother! I have plucked it from the cradle of its nurse: she had fled! Who could think of the babe in such an hour, but she who bore it? Save it! save it!'

'Curses on thy shrill voice! Away, harlot!' muttered Clodius between his ground teeth.

'Nay, girl,' said the more humane Diomed; 'follow if thou wilt. This way--this way--to the vaults!'

They hurried on--they arrived at the house of Diomed--they laughed aloud as they crossed the threshold, for they deemed the danger over.

Diomed ordered his slaves to carry down into the subterranean gallery, before described, a profusion of food and oil for lights; and there Julia, Clodius, the mother and her babe, the greater part of the slaves, and some frightened visitors and clients of the neighborhood, sought their shelter.