the populace surged toward an Egyptian priest,
Arbaces, demanding that he be thrown down to be devoured. As the mob
rolled around him, intent on his death, Arbaces noted a strange and
awful apparition. His craft made him courageous; he stretched forth his
hand.

"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 its 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 theatre trembled, and beyond, in
the distance, they heard the crash of falling 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 Amphitheatre 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 more 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 neare