Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Last Days of Pompeii

BOOK THE THIRD 10. Chapter X (continued)

'Hear me!' said the witch, breaking from a short reverie into which she was plunged after this last sentence of the Egyptian. 'Hear me! I am thy thing and thy slave! spare me! If I give to the maiden thou speakest of that which would destroy the life of Glaucus, I shall be surely detected--the dead ever find avengers. Nay, dread man! if thy visit to me be tracked, if thy hatred to Glaucus be known, thou mayest have need of thy archest magic to protect thyself!'

'Ha!' said Arbaces, stopping suddenly short; and as a proof of that blindness with which passion darkens the eyes even of the most acute, this was the first time when the risk that he himself ran by this method of vengeance had occurred to a mind ordinarily wary and circumspect.

'But,' continued the witch, 'if instead of that which shall arrest the heart, I give that which shall sear and blast the brain--which shall make him who quaffs it unfit for the uses and career of life--an abject, raving, benighted thing--smiting sense to drivelling youth to dotage--will not thy vengeance be equally sated--thy object equally attained?'

'Oh, witch! no longer the servant, but the sister--the equal of Arbaces--how much brighter is woman's wit, even in vengeance, than ours! how much more exquisite than death is such a doom!'

'And,' continued the hag, gloating over her fell scheme, 'in this is but little danger; for by ten thousand methods, which men forbear to seek, can our victim become mad. He may have been among the vines and seen a nymph--or the vine itself may have had the same effect--ha, ha! they never inquire too scrupulously into these matters in which the gods may be agents. And let the worst arrive--let it be known that it is a love-charm--why, madness is a common effect of philtres; and even the fair she that gave it finds indulgence in the excuse. Mighty Hermes, have I ministered to thee cunningly?'