the death-pangs of the sons of God! Woe to the harlot of
the sea!--woe! woe!'

And with a loud and deep chorus, the troop chanted forth along the wild
horrors of the air, 'Woe to the harlot of the sea!--woe! woe!'

The Nazarenes paced slowly on, their torches still flickering in the
storm, their voices still raised in menace and solemn warning, till,
lost amid the windings in the streets, the darkness of the atmosphere
and the silence of death again fell over the scene.

There was one of the frequent pauses in the showers, and Glaucus
encouraged Ione once more to proceed. Just as they stood, hesitating,
on the last step of the portico, an old man, with a bag in his right
hand and leaning upon a youth, tottered by. The youth bore a torch.
Glaucus recognized the two as father and son--miser and prodigal.

'Father,' said the youth, 'if you cannot move more swiftly, I must leave
you, or we both perish!'

'Fly, boy, then, and leave thy sire!'

'But I cannot fly to starve; give me thy bag of gold!' And the youth
snatched at it.

'Wretch! wouldst thou rob thy father?'

'Ay! who can tell the tale in this hour? Miser, perish!'

The boy struck the old man to the ground, plucked the bag from his
relaxing hand, and fled onward with a shrill yell.

'Ye gods!' cried Glaucus: 'are ye blind, then, even in the dark? Such
crimes may well confound the guiltless with the guilty in one common
ruin. Ione, on!--on!'

Chapter VIII

ARBACES ENCOUNTERS GLAUCUS AND IONE.

ADVANCING, as men grope for escape in a dungeon, Ione and her lover
continued their uncertain way. At the moments when the volcanic
lightnings lingered over the streets, they were enabled, by that awful
light, to steer and guide their progress: yet, little did the view it
presented to them cheer or encourage their path. In parts, where the
ashes lay dry and uncommixed with the boiling torrents, cast upward from
the mountain at capricious intervals, the surface of the earth presented
a leprous and ghastly white. In other places, cinder and rock lay
matted in heaps, from beneath which emerged the half-hid limbs of some
crushed and mangled fugitive. The groans of the dying were broken by
wild shrieks of women's terror--now near, now distant--which, when heard
in the utter darkness, were rendered doubly appalling by the crushing
sense of helplessness and the uncertainty of the perils around; and
clear and distinct through all were the mighty and various