Thou didst behold the deed?"

Praetor with these eyes-

Enough at present the details must be reserved for a more suiting time and place. Arbaces of Egypt, thou hearest the charge against thee thou hast not yet spoken what hast thou to say?"

The gaze of the crowd had been long riveted on Arbaces; but not until the confusion which he had betrayed at the first charge of Sallust and the entrance of Calenus had subsided. At the shout, Arbaces to the lion!" he had indeed trembled, and the dark bronze on his cheek had taken a paler hue. But he had soon recovered his haughtiness and self-control. Proudly he returned the angry glare of the countless eyes around him; and replying now to the question of the pr tor, he said, in that accent so peculiarly tranquil and commanding, which characterized his tones:

Praetor, this charge is so mad that it scarcely deserves reply. My first accuser is the noble Sallust the most intimate friend of Glaucus! my second is a priest; I revere his garb and calling but, people of Pompeii! ye know somewhat of the character of Calenus he is griping and gold-thirsty to a proverb; the witness of such men is to be bought! Praetor, -I am innocent!"

" Sallust, said the magistrate, " where found you Calenus!"

"In the dungeons of Arbaces."

"Egyptian," said the praetor, frowning, "thou didst, then, dare to imprison a priest of the gods and wherefore?"

" Hear me," answered Arbaces, rising calmly, but with agitation visible in his face. This man came to threaten that he would make against me the charge he has now made, unless I would purchase his silence with half my fortune ; I remonstrated in vain. Peace there let not the priest interrupt me! Noble praetor and ye, O people! I was a stranger in the land I knew myself innocent of crime but the witness of a priest against me might yet destroy me. In my perplexity I decoyed him to the cell whence he has been released, on pretence that it was the coffer-house of my gold. I resolved to detain him there until the fate of the true criminal was sealed, and his threats could avail no longer ; but I meant no worse. I may have erred but who among ye will not acknowledge the equity of self-preservation? Were I guilty, why was the witness of this priest silent at the trial? then I had not detained or concealed him. Why did he not proclaim my guilt when I proclaimed that of Glaucus? Praetor, this needs an answer. For the rest, I throw myself on your laws. I demand their protection. Remove hence the accused and the accuser. I will willingly meet, and cheerfully abide by, the decision of the legitimate tribunal. This is no place for further parley."

He says right," said the praetor. Ho! guards remove Arbaces guard Calenus! Sallust, we hold you responsible for your accusation. Let the sports be resumed."

What!" cried Calenus, turning round to the people, shall Isis be thus contemned? Shall the blood of Ap cides yet cry for vengeance? Shall justice be delayed now, that it may be frustrated hereafter? Shall the lion be cheated of his lawful prey? A god! a god! I feel the god rush to my lips! To the lion to the lion with Arbaces"

His exhausted frame could support no longer the ferocious malice of the priest; he sank on the ground in strong convulsions the foam gathered to his mouth he was as a man, indeed, whom a supernatural power had entered. The people saw, and shuddered.

"It is a god that inspires the holy man! To the lion with the Egyptian."

With that cry up sprang on moved thousands upon thousands! They rushed from the heights they poured down in the direction of the Egyptian. In vain did the dile command in vain did the praetor lift his voice and proclaim the law. The people had been already rendered savage by the exhibition of blood they thirsted for more their superstition was aided by their ferocity.

Aroused inflamed by the spectacle of their victims, they forgot the authority of their rulers. It was one of those dread popular convulsions common to crowds wholly ignorant, half free and half servile; and which the peculiar constitution of the Roman provinces so frequently exhibited. The power of the praetor was as a reed beneath the whirlwind; still, at his word the guards had drawn themselves along the lower benches, on which the upper classes sat separate from the vulgar. They made but a feeble barrier the waves of the human sea halted for a moment, to enable Arbaces to count the exact moment of his doom! In despair, and in a terror which beat down even pride, he glanced his eyes over the rolling and rushing crowd when, right above them, through the wide chasm which had been left in the velaria, he beheld a strange and awful apparition he beheld and his craft restored his courage!

He stretched his hand on high ; over his lofty brow and royal features there came an expression of unutterable solemnity and command.

"Behold!'' he shouted with a voice of thunder, which stilled the roar of the crowd behold how the gods protect the guiltless! The fires of the avenging Orcus burst forth against the false witness of my accusers!

The eyes of the crowd followed the gesture of the Egyptian, and beheld, with ineffable dismay, a vast vapor shooting from the summit of Vesuvius, in the form of a gigantic pine-tree; the trunk, blackness the branches, fire! a fire that shifted and wavered in hues with every moment, now fiercely luminous, now of a dull and dying red, that again blazed terrifically forth with intolerable glare!

There was a dead, heart-sunken silence through which there suddenly broke the roar of the lion, which was echoed back from within the building by the sharper and fiercer yells of its fellow beast. Dread seers were they of the burden of the atmosphere, and wild prophets of the wrath to come!

Then there arose on high the universal shrieks of women; the men stared at each other, but were dumb. At that moment they felt the earth shake beneath their feet; the walls of the theater trembled; and, beyond in the distance, they heard the crash of failing roofs; an instant more and the mountain-cloud seemed to roll toward them, dark and rapid, like a torrent ; at the same time, it cast forth from its bosom a shower of ashes mixed with vast fragments of burning stone! Over the crushing vines over the desolate streets over the amphitheater itself far and wide with many a mighty splash in the agitated sea fell that awful shower!

No longer thought the crowd of justice or of Arbaces; safety for themselves was their sole thought. Each turned to fly each dashing, pressing, crushing, against the other. Trampling recklessly over the fallen amid groans, and oaths, and prayers, and sudden shrieks, the enormous crowd vomited itself forth through the numerous passages. Whither should they fly! Some, anticipating a second earthquake, hastened to their homes to load themselves with their most costly goods, and escape while it was yet time; others, dreading the showers of ashes that now fell fast, torrent upon torrent, over the streets, rushed under the roofs of the nearest houses, or temples, or sheds shelter of any kind for protection from the terrors of the open air. But darker, and larger, and mightier, spread the cloud above them. It was a sudden and more ghastly Night rushing upon the realm of Noon!