Merton and the Italians arrived in safety at the spot where they had
left the mules; and not till they had recovered their own alarm and
breath did they think of Glyndon. But then, as the minutes passed and he
appeared not, Merton--whose heart was as good, at least, as human hearts
are in general--grew seriously alarmed. He insisted on returning to
search for his friend, and by dint of prodigal promises prevailed at
last on the guide to accompany him. The lower part of the mountain lay
calm and white in the starlight; and the guide’s practised eye could
discern all objects on the surface, at a considerable distance. They
had not, however, gone very far before they perceived two forms slowly
approaching towards them.
As they came near, Merton recognized the form of his friend. “Thank
Heaven, he is safe!” he cried, turning to the guide.
“Holy angels befriend us!” said the Italian, trembling; “behold the
very being that crossed me last Sabbath night. It is he, but his face is
human now!”
“Signor Inglese,” said the voice of Zicci as Glyndon, pale, wan, and
silent, returned passively the joyous greeting of Merton,--“Signor
Inglese, I told your friend we should meet to-night; you see you have
not foiled my prediction.”
“But how, but where?” stammered Merton, in great confusion and surprise.
“I found your friend stretched on the ground, overpowered by the
mephitic exhalation of the crater. I bore him to a purer atmosphere; and
as I know the mountain well, I have conducted him safely to you. This is
all our history. You see, sir, that were it not for that prophecy which
you desired to frustrate, your friend would, ere this time, have been
a corpse; one minute more, and the vapor had done its work. Adieu! good
night and pleasant dreams.”
“But, my preserver, you will not leave us,” said Glyndon, anxiously, and
speaking for the first time. “Will you not return with us?”
Zicci paused, and drew Glyndon aside. “Young man,” said he, gravely, “it
is necessary that we should again meet to-night. It is necessary that
you should, ere the first hour of morning, decide on your fate. Will you
marry Isabel di Pisani, or lose her forever? Consult not your friend; he
is sensible and wise, but not now is his wisdom needed. There are times
in life when from the imagination, and not the reason, should wisdom
come,--this for you is one of them. I ask not your answer now. Collect
your thoughts, recover your jaded and scattered spirits. It wants two
hours of midnight: at midnight I will be with you!”
“Incomprehensible being,” replied the Englishman, “I would leave the
life you have preserved in your own hands. But since I have known you,
my whole nature has changed. A fiercer desire than that of love burns
in my veins,--the desire, not to resemble, but to surpass my kind; the
desire to penetrate and to share the secret of your own existence; the
desire of a preternatural knowledge and unearthly power. Instruct me,
school me, make me thine; and I surrender to thee at once, and without a
murmur, the woman that, till I saw thee, I would have defied a world to
obtain.”
“I ask not the sacrifice, Glyndon,” replied Zicci, coldly, yet mildly,
“yet--shall I own it to thee?--I am touched by the devotion I have
inspired. I sicken for human companionship, sympathy, and friendship;
yet I dread to share them, for bold must be the man who can partake
my existence and enjoy my confidence. Once more I say to thee,
in compassion and in warning, the choice of life is in thy
hands,--to-morrow it will be too late. On the one hand, Isabel, a
tranquil home, a happy and serene life; on the other hand all is
darkness, darkness that even this eye cannot penetrate.”
“But thou hast told me that if I wed Isabel I must be contented to be
obscure; and if I refuse, that knowledge and power may be mine.”
“Vain man! knowledge and power are not happiness.”
“But they are better than happiness. Say, if I marry Isabel, wilt thou
be my master, my guide? Say this, and I am resolved.”
“Never! It is only the lonely at heart, the restless, the desperate,
that may be my pupils.”
“Then I renounce her! I renounce love, I renounce happiness. Welcome
solitude, welcome despair, if they are the entrances to thy dark and
sublime secret.”
“I will not take thy answer now; at midnight thou shalt give it in one
word,--ay, or no! Farewell till then!”
The mystic waved his hand, and descending rapidly, was seen no more.
Glyndon rejoined his impatient and wondering friend; but Merton, gazing
on his face, saw that a great change had passed there. The flexile and
dubious expression of youth was forever gone; the features were locked,
rigid, and stern; and so faded was the natural bloom that an hour seemed
to have done the work of years.
CHAPTER, XI.
On returning from Vesuvius or Pompeii you enter Naples through its most
animated, its most Neapolitan quarter, through that quarter in which
Modern life most closely resembles the Ancient, and in which, when, on
a fair day, the thoroughfare swarms alike with Indolence and Trade, you
are impressed at once with the recollection of that restless, lively
race from which the population of Naples derives its origin; so that in
one day you may see at Pompeii the habitations of a remote age, and on
the Mole at Naples you may imagine you behold the very beings with which
those habitations had been peopled. The language of words is dead, but
the language of gestures remains little impaired. A fisherman,--peasant,
of Naples will explain to you the motions, the attitudes, the gestures
of the figures painted on the antique vases better than the most learned
antiquary of Gottingen or Leipsic.
But now, as the Englishmen rode slowly through the deserted streets,
lighted but by the lamps of heaven, all the gayety of the day was hushed
and breathless. Here and there, stretched under a portico or a dingy
booth, were sleeping groups of houseless lazzaroni,--a tribe now happily
merging this indolent individuality amidst an energetic and active
population.
The Englishmen rode on in silence, for Glyndon neither appeared to heed
or hear the questions and comments of Merton, and Merton himself was
almost as weary as the jaded animal he bestrode.
Suddenly the silence of earth and ocean was broken by the sound of a
distant clock, that proclaimed the last hour of night. Glyndon started
from his revery, and looked anxiously around. As the final stroke died,
the noise of hoofs rang on the broad stones of the pavement, and from a
narrow street to the right emerged the form of a solitary horseman. He
neared the Englishmen, and Glyndon recognized the features and mien of
Zicci.
“What! do we meet again, signor?” said Merton, in a vexed but drowsy
tone.
“Your friend and I have business together,” replied Zicci, as he wheeled
his powerful and fiery steed to the side of Glyndon; “but it will be
soon transacted. Perhaps you, sir, will ride on to your hotel.”
“Alone?”
“There is no danger,” returned Zicci, with a slight expression of
disdain in his voice.
“None to me, but to Glyndon?”
“Danger from me? Ah! perhaps you are right.”
“Go on, my dear Merton,” said Glyndon. “I will join you before you reach
the hotel.”
Merton nodded, whistled, and pushed his horse into a kind of amble.
“Now your answer,--quick.”
“I have decided: the love of Isabel has vanished from my heart. The
pursuit is over.”
“You have decided?”
“I have.”
“Adieu! join your friend.”
Zicci gave the rein to his horse; it sprang forward with a bound; the
sparks flew from its hoofs, and horse and rider disappeared amidst the
shadows of the street whence they had emerged.
Merton was surprised to see his friend by his side, a minute after they
had parted.
“What business can you have with Zicci? Will you not confide in me?”
“Merton, do not ask me to-night; I am in a dream.”
“I do not wonder at it, for even I am in a sleep. Let us push on.”
In the retirement of his chamber, Glyndon sought to recollect his
thoughts. He sat down on the foot of his bed and pressed his hands
tightly to his throbbing temples. The events of the last few hours, the
apparition of the gigantic and shadowy Companion of the Mystic amidst
the fires and clouds of Vesuvius, the strange encounter with Zicci
himself on a spot in which he could never have calculated on finding
Glyndon, filled his mind with emotions, in which terror and awe the
least prevailed. A fire, the train of which had long been laid, was
lighted at his heart,--the asbestos fire that, once lit, is never to be
quenched. All his early aspiration, his young ambition, his longings
for the laurel, were mingled in one passionate yearning to overpass
the bounds of the common knowledge of man, and reach that solemn spot,
between two worlds, on which the mysterious stranger appeared to have
fixed his home.
Far from recalling with renewed affright the remembrance of the
apparition that had so appalled him, the recollection only served to
kindle and concentrate his curiosity into a burning focus. He had said
aright,--love had vanished from his heart; there was no longer a serene
space amidst its disordered elements for human affection to move and
breathe. The enthusiast was rapt from this earth; and he would have
surrendered all that beauty ever promised, that mortal hope ever
whispered, for one hour with Zicci beyond the portals of the visible
world.
He rose, oppressed and fevered with the new thoughts that raged within
him, and threw open his casement for air. The ocean lay suffused in the
starry light, and the stillness of the heavens never more eloquently
preached the morality of repose to the madness of earthly passions. But
such was Glyndon’s mood that their very hush only served to deepen the
wild desires that preyed upon his soul. And the solemn stars, that are
mysteries in themselves, seemed by a kindred sympathy to agitate the
wings of the spirit no longer contented with its cage. As he gazed, a
star shot from its brethren and vanished from the depth of space!