y luminous, now of
a dull and dying red, that again blazed terrifically forth with
intolerable glare.

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 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!

The cloud advanced, darker, disgorging showers of ashes and pumice
stones; and, amid the other horrors, the mighty mountain now cast
up columns of boiling water. Blent and kneaded with the half-burning
ashes, the streams fell like seething mud over the streets, in
frequent intervals.

The cloud, which had scattered so deep a murkiness over the day, at
length settled into a solid and impenetrable mass. But in proportion
as the blackness gathered did the lightnings around Vesuvius increase
in their vivid and scorching glare.

Nor was their horrible beauty confined to their hues of fire. Now
brightly blue, as the most azure depth of a southern sky; now of a
livid and snake-like green, darting restlessly to and fro, as the
folds of an enormous serpent; now of a lurid and intolerable crimson,
gushing forth through the columns of smoke far and wide, and lighting
up all Pompeii; then suddenly dying into a sickly paleness, like the
ghost of its own life!

In the pauses of the showers were heard the rumbling of the earth
beneath, and the groaning waves of the tortured sea; or, lower still,
and audible but to the watch of intensest fear, the grinding and
hissing murmur of the escaping gases through the chasms of the distant
mountain.

The ashes, in many places, were already knee-deep; and in some places
immense fragments of rock, hurled upon the house-roofs, bore down
along the streets masses of confused ruin, which yet more and more,
with every hour, obstructed the way; and, as the day advanced, the
motion of the earth was more sensibly felt; the footing seemed to
slide and creep, nor could chariot or litter be kept steady, even on
the most level ground.

Sometimes the huger stones, strikin