Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Last Days of Pompeii

BOOK THE FOURTH 7. Chapter VII (continued)

'No, Glaucus thou art awake. By this right hand and my father's head, thou seest one who may save thy life. Hark! I know what thou hast done, but I know also its excuse, of which thou thyself art ignorant. Thou hast committed murder, it is true--a sacrilegious murder--frown not--start not--these eyes saw it. But I can save thee--I can prove how thou wert bereaved of sense, and made not a free-thinking and free-acting man. But in order to save thee, thou must confess thy crime. Sign but this paper, acknowledging thy hand in the death of Apaecides, and thou shalt avoid the fatal urn.'

'What words are these?--Murder and Apaecides!--Did I not see him stretched on the ground bleeding and a corpse? and wouldst thou persuade me that I did the deed? Man, thou liest! Away!'

'Be not rash--Glaucus, be not hasty; the deed is proved. Come, come, thou mayst well be excused for not recalling the act of thy delirium, and which thy sober senses would have shunned even to contemplate. But let me try to refresh thy exhausted and weary memory. Thou knowest thou wert walking with the priest, disputing about his sister; thou knowest he was intolerant, and half a Nazarene, and he sought to convert thee, and ye had hot words; and he calumniated thy mode of life, and swore he would not marry Ione to thee--and then, in thy wrath and thy frenzy, thou didst strike the sudden blow. Come, come; you can recollect this!--read this papyrus, it runs to that effect--sign it, and thou art saved.'

'Barbarian, give me the written lie, that I may tear it! I the murderer of Ione's brother: I confess to have injured one hair of the head of him she loved! Let me rather perish a thousand times!'

'Beware!' said Arbaces, in a low and hissing tone; 'there is but one choice--thy confession and thy signature, or the amphitheatre and the lion's maw!'

As the Egyptian fixed his eyes upon the sufferer, he hailed with joy the signs of evident emotion that seized the latter at these words. A slight shudder passed over the Athenian's frame--his lip fell--an expression of sudden fear and wonder betrayed itself in his brow and eye.