of fugitives, or saw the pale and haggard faces by the blue glare of torches, by which they endeavored to steer their steps. But ever and anon, the boiling water, the straggling ashes, or mysterious and gusty winds rising and dying in a breath, extinguished these wandering lights, and with them the last living hope of those who bore them.

"Help there! Help!" cried a frightened voice. “I have fallen down-my torch has gone out—ten thousand sesterces to him who helps me-oh, help me, give me thy hand." See!- they have placed a light within yon arch at the gate; by that let us guide our steps.

The air became still for a few minutes; the lamps from the gate streamed out far and clear; the fugitives hurried on-they gained the gate— they passed by the Roman sentry; the lightning flashed over his livid face and his polished helmet, but his stern features were composed even in his awe. He remained erect and motionless at his post. That hour itself had not animated the machine of the ruthless majesty of Rome into the reasoning and self-acting man. There he stood, amid the crashing elements; he had not received the permission to desert his station and escape.

Spell and pronounce :-gigantic, column, intolerable, theater, anticipate, horror, vomited, summit, amphitheater, kneaded, Pompeii, vengeance, terrifically, majesty, prodigious, and Vesuvius.

Synonyms. - luminous —lucid; bright; clear; transparent; perspicuous; shining. anticipate - expect; foresee; forestall; precede; pre-occupy. enormous — huge; vast; immense; excessive; prodigious; immoderate. permission-leave; liberty; license; allowance.

THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII-Continued.

The cloud, which had scattered so deep a murkiness over the day, had now settled into a solid and impenetrable mass. It resembled less even the thickest gloom of a night in the open air than the close and blind darkness of some narrow room. 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 the usual hues of fire; no rainbow ever rivaled their varying dyes. 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 the whole city from arch to arch-then suddenly dying into a sickly paleness!

In the pauses of the showers, you 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.

Sometimes the cloud appeared to break from its solid mass, and, by the lightning, to assume quaint and vast mimicries of human or of monster shapes, striding across the gloom, hurtling one upon the

other, and vanishing swiftly into the turbulent abyss of shade; so that, to the eyes and fancies of the affrighted wanderers, the unsubstantial vapors were as the bodily forms of gigantic foes-the agents of terror and death.

The ashes in many places were already kneedeep; and the boiling showers which came from the streaming breath of the volcano forced their way into the houses, bearing with them a strong and suffocating vapor.

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, striking against one another as they fell, broke into countless fragments, emitting sparks of fire, which caught whatever was combustible within their reach; and along the plains beyond the city the darkness was terribly relieved; for several houses, and even vineyards, had caught fire.

To add to this partial relief of the darkness, the citizens had, here and there in the more public places, such as the porticoes of temples and the entrances to the Forum, endeavored to place rows of torches; but these rarely continued long; the showers and the winds extinguished them, and the sudden darkness into which their fitful light was converted had something in it doubly terrible and doubly impressive on the impotence of human hopes, the lesson of despair.

Frequently, by the momentary light of these torches, parties of fugitives encountered one another, some hurrying toward the sea, others flying from the sea back to the land, for the ocean had retreated rapidly from the shore. An utter darkness lay over it, and upon its groaning and tossing waves, the storm of cinders and rocks fell, and without the protection which the streets and roofs afforded on the land.

Wild, haggard, ghastly with supernatural fears, these groups encountered one another, but without the leisure to speak, consult, or advise; for the showers fell frequently, though not continuously, extinguishing the lights, which showed to each band the death-like faces of the other, and hurrying all to seek refuge beneath the nearest shelter. All the elements of civilization seemed to be broken up.

Ever and anon, by the flickering lights, one saw the thief hastening by the most solemn authorities of the law, laden with, and fearfully chuckling over, the produce of his sudden gains.

If in the darkness, wife was separated from husband, or parent from child, vain was the hope of reunion. Each hurried blindly and confusedly on.

The groans of the dying were broken by wild shrieks of women's terror-now near, now distant -which, when heard in the utter darkness, were rendered doubly appalling by the crushing sense of helplessness and the uncertainty of the perils around.

Clear and distinct through all were the mighty and various noises from the Fatal Mountain; its rushing winds; its whirling torrents; and, from

time to time, the burst and roar of some more fiery and fierce explosion.

Ever as the winds swept howling along the street, they bore sharp streams of burning dust, and such sickening and poisonous vapors as took away, for the instant, breath and consciousness, followed by a tingling sensation of agony, trembling through every nerve and fiber of the frame.

The sea had retired far from the shore; and the people who had fled to it had been so terrified by the agitation and preternatural shrinking. of the element, the gasping forms of the uncouth sea-things which the waves had left upon the sand, and by the sound of the huge stones cast from the mountain into the deep, that they had retired again to the land, as presenting the less frightful aspect of the two.

Thinking

A wild yell burst through the air! only of escape, whither it knew not, the terrible tiger of the desert leaped among the throng and hurried through its parted streams. And so came the earthquake- and so darkness once more fell over the earth!

And meekly, softly, beautifully, dawned at last the light over the trembling deep!-the winds were sinking into rest-the foam died from the glowing azure of that now beautiful sea.

Around the east, thin mists caught gradually the rosy hues that heralded the morning. Light was about to resume her reign.

Yet, still, dark, and massive in the distance, lay the broken fragments of the destroying cloud, from which red streaks, burning dimlier and dimlier, betrayed the yet rolling fires of the mountain of the "Scorched Fields."