take!
Clasp'd to thy guardian breast,
Soft let me sink to rest:
But wake me--ah, wake!
And tell me with words and sighs,
But more with thy melting eyes,
That my sun is not set--
That the Torch is not quench'd at the Urn
That we love, and we breathe, and burn,
Tell me--thou lov'st me yet!

BOOK THE SECOND

Chapter I

A FLASH HOUSE IN POMPEII, AND THE GENTLEMEN OF THE CLASSIC RING.

TO one of those parts of Pompeii, which were tenanted not by the lords
of pleasure, but by its minions and its victims; the haunt of gladiators
and prize-fighters; of the vicious and the penniless; of the savage and
the obscene; the Alsatia of an ancient city--we are now transported.

It was a large room, that opened at once on the confined and crowded
lane. Before the threshold was a group of men, whose iron and
well-strung muscles, whose short and Herculean necks, whose hardy and
reckless countenances, indicated the champions of the arena. On a shelf,
without the shop, were ranged jars of wine and oil; and right over this
was inserted in the wall a coarse painting, which exhibited gladiators
drinking--so ancient and so venerable is the custom of signs! Within
the room were placed several small tables, arranged somewhat in the
modern fashion of 'boxes', and round these were seated several knots of
men, some drinking, some playing at dice, some at that more skilful game
called 'duodecim scriptae', which certain of the blundering learned have
mistaken for chess, though it rather, perhaps, resembled backgammon of
the two, and was usually, though not always, played by the assistance of
dice. The hour was in the early forenoon, and nothing better, perhaps,
than that unseasonable time itself denoted the habitual indolence of
these tavern loungers.

Yet, despite the situation of the house and the character of its
inmates, it indicated none of that sordid squalor which would have
characterized a similar haunt in a modern city. The gay disposition of
all the Pompeians, who sought, at least, to gratify the sense even where
they neglected the mind, was typified by the gaudy colors which
decorated the walls, and the shapes, fantastic but not inelegant, in
which the lamps, the drinking-cups, the commonest household utensils,
were wrought.

'By Pollux!' said one of the gladiators, as he leaned against the wall
of the t