w gave Ione into the
guardianship of Arbaces. But, for a third time, Nydia was the means of
frustrating the plans of Arbaces.

The blind girl, when vainly endeavouring to escape from the toils of the
Egyptian, overheard, in his garden, the conversation of Arbaces and
Calenus; and she heard the cries of Calenus from behind the door of the
chamber in which he was imprisoned. She herself was caught again by
Arbaces' servant, but she contrived to bribe her keeper to take a
message to Glaucus's friend, Sallust; and he, taking his servants to
Arbaces' house released the two captives, and reached the arena with
them, to accuse Arbaces before the multitude at the very moment when the
lion was being goaded to attack the Greek, and Arbaces' victory seemed
within his grasp.

Even now the nerve of the Egyptian did not desert him. He met the charge
with his accustomed coolness. But the frenzied accusation of the priest
of Isis turned the huge assembly against him. With loud cries they rose
from their seats and poured down toward the Egyptian.

Lifting his eyes at this terrible moment, Arbaces 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 vapour 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. The earth shook. The
walls of the theatre trembled. In the distance was heard the crash of
falling roofs. The cloud seemed to roll towards the assembly, casting
forth from its bosom showers of ashes mixed with fragments of burning
stone. Then the burning mountain cast up columns of boiling water.

In the ghastly night thus rushing upon the realm of noon, all thought of
justice and of Arbaces left the minds of the terrified people. There
ensued a mad flight for the sea. Through the darkness Nydia guided
Glaucus, now part