ding for a world. These were of one deep blood-red hue of fire,
which lighted up the whole atmosphere far and wide; but, below, the
nether part of the mountain was still dark and shrouded, save in three
places, adown which flowed, serpentine and irregular, rivers of the
molten lava. Darkly red through the profound gloom of their banks, they
flowed slowly on, as towards the devoted city. Over the broadest there
seemed to spring a cragged and stupendous arch, from which, as from the
jaws of hell, gushed the sources of the sudden Phlegethon. And through
the stilled air was heard the rattling of the fragments of rock,
hurtling one upon another as they were borne down the fiery
cataracts--darkening, for one instant, the spot where they fell, and
suffused the next, in the burnished hues of the flood along which they
floated!

The slaves shrieked aloud, and, cowering, hid their faces. The Egyptian
himself stood transfixed to the spot, the glow lighting up his
commanding features and jewelled robes. High behind him rose a tall
column that supported the bronze statue of Augustus; and the imperial
image seemed changed to a shape of fire!

With his left hand circled round the form of Ione--with his right arm
raised in menace, and grasping the stilus which was to have been his
weapon in the arena, and which he still fortunately bore about him, with
his brow knit, his lips apart, the wrath and menace of human passions
arrested as by a charm, upon his features, Glaucus fronted the Egyptian!

Arbaces turned his eyes from the mountain--they rested on the form of
Glaucus! He paused a moment: 'Why,' he muttered, 'should I hesitate?
Did not the stars foretell the only crisis of imminent peril to which I
was subjected?--Is not that peril past?'

'The soul,' cried he aloud, 'can brave the wreck of worlds and the wrath
of imaginary gods! By that soul will I conquer to the last! Advance,
slaves!--Athenian, resist me, and thy blood be on thine own head! Thus,
then, I regain Ione!'

He advanced one step--it was his last on earth! The ground shook
beneath him with a convulsion that cast all around upon its surface. A
simultaneous crash resounded through the city, as down toppled many a
roof and pillar!--the lightning, as if caught by the metal, lingered an
instant on the Imperial Statue--then shivered bronze and column! Down
fell the ruin, echoing along the street, and riving the solid pavement
where it crashed!--The prophecy of t