the station and the houses
near it were left behind, no other building came in view. To the left
of the road, hidden behind its long earth-rampart, lay the dead city;
far beyond rose the dark shape of Vesuvius, crested with beacon-glow, a
small red fire, now angry, now murky, now for a time extinguished. The
long rumble of the train died away, and there followed silence
absolute, scarcely broken for a few minutes by a peasant singing in the
distance, the wailing song so often heard in the south of Italy.
Silence that was something more than the wonted soundlessness of night;
the haunting oblivion of a time long past, a melancholy brooding
voiceless upon the desolate home of forgotten generations.

A walk of ten minutes, and there shone light from windows. The lad ran
forward and turned in at the gate of a garden; Mallard followed, and
approached some persons who were standing at an open door. He speedily
made arrangements for his night's lodging, saw his room, and went to
the quarter of the inn where dinner was already in progress. This was a
building to itself, at one side of the garden. Through the doorway he
stepped immediately into a low-roofed hall, where a number of persons
sat at table. Pillars supported the ceiling in the middle, and the
walls were in several places painted with heads or landscapes, the work
of artists who had made their abode here; one or two cases with glass
doors showed relics of Pompeii.

Elgar was one of the company. When he became aware of Mallard's
arrival, he stood up with a cry of "All hail!" and pointed to a seat
near him.

"I began to be afraid you wouldn't come this evening. Try the risotto;
it's excellent. Ye gods! what an appetite I had when I sat down! To-day
have I ascended Vesuvius. How many bottles of wine I drank between
starting and returning I cannot compute; I never knew before what it
was to be athirst. Why, their vino di Vesuvio is for all the world like
cider; I thought at first I was being swindled--not an impossible thing
in these regions. I must tell you a story about a party of Americans I
encountered at Bosco Reale."

The guests numbered seven or eight; with one exception besides Elgar,
they were Germans, all artists of one kind or another, fellows of
genial appearance, loud in vivacious talk. The exception was a young
Englishman, somewhat oddly dressed, and with a great quantity of auburn
hair that rolled forward upon his distinguished brow. At a certain
_pens