‘Medon!’ said Olinthus, pityingly, ’arise, and fly!  God is forth upon the wings of the elements!  The New Gomorrah is doomed!—­Fly, ere the fires consume thee!’

’He was ever so full of life!—­he cannot be dead!  Come hither!—­place your hand on his heart!—­sure it beats yet?’

’Brother, the soul has fled!  We will remember it in our prayers!  Thou canst not reanimate the dumb clay!  Come, come—­hark! while I speak, yon crashing walls!—­hark! yon agonizing cries!  Not a moment is to be lost!—­Come!’

‘I hear nothing!’ said Medon, shaking his grey hair.  ’The poor boy, his love murdered him!’

‘Come! come! forgive this friendly force.’

‘What!  Who could sever the father from the son?’ And Medon clasped the body tightly in his embrace, and covered it with passionate kisses.  ‘Go!’ said he, lifting up his face for one moment.  ’Go!—­we must be alone!’

‘Alas!’ said the compassionate Nazarene, ’Death hath severed ye already!’

The old man smiled very calmly.  ‘No, no, no!’ muttered, his voice growing lower with each word—­’Death has been more kind!’

With that his head drooped on His son’s breast—­his arms relaxed their grasp.  Olinthus caught him by the hand—­the pulse had ceased to beat!  The last words of the father were the words of truth—­Death had been more kind!

Meanwhile Glaucus and Nydia were pacing swiftly up the perilous and fearful streets.  The Athenian had learned from his preserver that Ione was yet in the house of Arbaces.  Thither he fled, to release—­to save her!  The few slaves whom the Egyptian had left at his mansion when he had repaired in long procession to the amphitheatre, had been able to offer no resistance to the armed band of Sallust; and when afterwards the volcano broke forth, they had huddled together, stunned and frightened, in the inmost recesses of the house.  Even the tall Ethiopian had forsaken his post at the door; and Glaucus (who left Nydia without—­the poor Nydia, jealous once more, even in such an hour!) passed on through the vast hall without meeting one from whom to learn the chamber of Ione.  Even as he passed, however, the darkness that covered the heavens increased so rapidly that it was with difficulty he could guide his steps.  The flower-wreathed columns seemed to reel and tremble; and with every instant he heard the ashes fall cranchingly into the roofless peristyle.  He ascended to the upper rooms—­breathless he paced along, shouting out aloud the name of Ione; and at length he heard, at the end of a gallery, a voice—­her voice, in wondering reply!  To rush forward—­to shatter the door—­to seize Ione in his arms—­to hurry from the mansion—­seemed to him the work of an instant!  Scarce had he gained the spot where Nydia was, than he heard steps advancing towards the house, and recognized the voice of Arbaces, who had returned to seek his wealth and Ione ere he fled from the doomed Pompeii.  But so dense was already the reeking atmosphere, that the foes saw not each other, though so near—­save that, dimly in the gloom, Glaucus caught the moving outline of the snowy robes of the Egyptian.