A fire burned in the far recess of the cave; and over it was a small cauldron; on a tall and thin column of iron stood a rude lamp; over that part of the wall, at the base of which burned the fire, hung in many rows, as if to dry, a profusion of herbs and weeds.  A fox, couched before the fire, gazed upon the strangers with its bright and red eye—­its hair bristling—­and a low growl stealing from between its teeth; in the centre of the cave was an earthen statue, which had three heads of a singular and fantastic cast:  they were formed by the real skulls of a dog, a horse, and a boar; a low tripod stood before this wild representation of the popular Hecate.

But it was not these appendages and appliances of the cave that thrilled the blood of those who gazed fearfully therein—­it was the face of its inmate.  Before the fire, with the light shining full upon her features, sat a woman of considerable age.  Perhaps in no country are there seen so many hags as in Italy—­in no country does beauty so awfully change, in age, to hideousness the most appalling and revolting.  But the old woman now before them was not one of these specimens of the extreme of human ugliness; on the contrary, her countenance betrayed the remains of a regular but high and aquiline order of feature:  with stony eyes turned upon them—­with a look that met and fascinated theirs—­they beheld in that fearful countenance the very image of a corpse!—­the same, the glazed and lustreless regard, the blue and shrunken lips, the drawn and hollow jaw—­the dead, lank hair, of a pale grey—­the livid, green, ghastly skin, which seemed all surely tinged and tainted by the grave!

‘It is a dead thing,’ said Glaucus.

‘Nay—­it stirs—­it is a ghost or larva,’ faltered Ione, as she clung to the Athenian’s breast.

‘Oh, away, away!’ groaned the slave, ‘it is the Witch of Vesuvius!’

‘Who are ye?’ said a hollow and ghostly voice.  ‘And what do ye here?’

The sound, terrible and deathlike as it was—­suiting well the countenance of the speaker, and seeming rather the voice of some bodiless wanderer of the Styx than living mortal, would have made Ione shrink back into the pitiless fury of the storm, but Glaucus, though not without some misgiving, drew her into the cavern.

‘We are storm-beaten wanderers from the neighboring city,’ said he, ’and decoyed hither by yon light; we crave shelter and the comfort of your hearth.’

As he spoke, the fox rose from the ground, and advanced towards the strangers, showing, from end to end, its white teeth, and deepening in its menacing growl.

‘Down, slave!’ said the witch; and at the sound of her voice the beast dropped at once, covering its face with its brush, and keeping only its quick, vigilant eye fixed upon the invaders of its repose.  ’Come to the fire if ye will!’ said she, turning to Glaucus and his companions.  ’I never welcome living thing—­save the owl, the fox, the toad, and the viper—­so I cannot welcome ye; but come to the fire without welcome—­why stand upon form?’