“Nothing!  It did not even seem to perceive me, though I was near as I am to you; but its eyes seemed to emerge prying into the air.  It passed by me quickly, and, walking across a stream of burning lava, soon vanished on the other side of the mountain.  I was curious and foolhardy, and resolved to see if I could bear the atmosphere which this visitor had left; but though I did not advance within thirty yards of the spot at which he had first appeared, I was driven back by a vapour that wellnigh stifled me.  Cospetto!  I have spat blood ever since.”

“Now will I lay a wager that you fancy this fire-king must be Zanoni,” whispered Mervale, laughing.

The little party had now arrived nearly at the summit of the mountain; and unspeakably grand was the spectacle on which they gazed.  From the crater arose a vapour, intensely dark, that overspread the whole background of the heavens; in the centre whereof rose a flame that assumed a form singularly beautiful.  It might have been compared to a crest of gigantic feathers, the diadem of the mountain, high-arched, and drooping downward, with the hues delicately shaded off, and the whole shifting and tremulous as the plumage on a warrior’s helmet.

The glare of the flame spread, luminous and crimson, over the dark and rugged ground on which they stood, and drew an innumerable variety of shadows from crag and hollow.  An oppressive and sulphureous exhalation served to increase the gloomy and sublime terror of the place.  But on turning from the mountain, and towards the distant and unseen ocean, the contrast was wonderfully great; the heavens serene and blue, the stars still and calm as the eyes of Divine Love.  It was as if the realms of the opposing principles of Evil and of Good were brought in one view before the gaze of man!  Glyndon—­once more the enthusiast, the artist—­was enchained and entranced by emotions vague and undefinable, half of delight and half of pain.  Leaning on the shoulder of his friend, he gazed around him, and heard with deepening awe the rumbling of the earth below, the wheels and voices of the Ministry of Nature in her darkest and most inscrutable recess.  Suddenly, as a bomb from a shell, a huge stone was flung hundreds of yards up from the jaws of the crater, and falling with a mighty crash upon the rock below, split into ten thousand fragments, which bounded down the sides of the mountain, sparkling and groaning as they went.  One of these, the largest fragment, struck the narrow space of soil between the Englishmen and the guide, not three feet from the spot where the former stood.  Mervale uttered an exclamation of terror, and Glyndon held his breath, and shuddered.

“Diavolo!” cried the guide.  “Descend, Excellencies,—­descend! we have not a moment to lose; follow me close!”