surrounding gloom
with a horrid lustre, and blending with the subterranean rumblings
of the earthquake the thunder of the upper air.

From this cause the Amphitheatre may be considered the central spot
of interest in Pompeii. What little has been told of the fate of
the city gathers around this place, and to him who sits upon those
seats there is a more vivid realization of that awful scene than
can be obtained anywhere else.

On reaching the Amphitheatre they seated themselves on the stone
steps, about half way up the circle of seats, and each one gave
way to the feelings that filled him. They had walked now for hours,
and all of them felt somewhat wearied, so that the rest on these
seats was grateful. Here they sat and rested.

CHAPTER XIX.

_Lofty classical enthusiasm of David, and painful Lack of feeling
on the Part of Frank.--David, red hot with the Flow of the Past,
is suddenly confronted with the Present.--The Present dashes Cold
Water upon his glowing Enthusiasm.--The Gates.--Minor, Aeacus, and
Rhadamanthus.--The Culprits._

As they thus rested on the seats of the Amphitheatre, the classical
enthusiasm of David rose superior to fatigue, and his enthusiastic
feelings burst forth without restraint, in a long and somewhat
incoherent rhapsody about the fell of Pompeii. Full before them,
as they sat, rose Vesuvius; and they saw that which helped them to
reproduce the past more vividly, for even now the dense, dark cloud
of the volcano was gathering, and the thick smoke-volumes were
rolling forth from the crater. Far into the heavens the smoke clouds
arose, ascending in a dark pillar till they reached the upper strata
of the atmosphere, where they unfolded themselves, and spread out
afar--to the east, and the west, and the north, and the south. Some
such appearance as this the mountain may have had, as it towered
gloomily before the Pompeians on that day of days. Some such scene
as this may have appeared, only deepened into terrors a thousand
fold more gloomy, to the population of the doomed city, as they
gathered here on these seats for the last time.

Such were the ideas of David Clark; and these ideas he poured
forth in a long rhapsody, full of wild enthusiasm. At length,
however, that enthusiasm flagged, and he was compelled to stop
for want of breath.

"O, that's all very fine," said Frank, suddenly, as David stopped,
and breaking the silence which had followed his eloquent
outburst,--"that's a