Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/463

Rh to her, encumbered with age and corpulency, the attempt was impossible; that she could willingly meet death if she did not become the means of my death also. But I refused to leave her, and taking her hand forced her to come along with me. She complied unwillingly, and not without many reproaches for being the cause of my detention. The ashes began to fall upon us, but in small quantities; I looked round, and saw a thick smoke rolling after us, like a flood. On this I said to my mother, ‘Let us whilst we can yet see, turn out of the high road, lest we should be pressed to death in the dark by the crowd which followed us.’ Scarcely had we removed ourselves before the darkness increased to such a degree that it was not like a night without a moon, but a closed room in which all the lights were put out. Nothing was to be heard but the lamentation of the women, the cries of the children, and the shouting of the men; some called aloud for their parents, some for their husbands, knowing them only by their voices. Some bewailed their own misfortunes, others those of their neighbors; some wished to die from the very fear of death; many called upon the gods, others, disbelieving in the gods, thought that the last eternal night was come in which the world was to be destroyed. Others again increased the real by imaginary dangers, and made the terrified multitudes believe that Misenum had fallen or was in flames. At length a glimpse of light appeared, which we imagined to be rather an approaching burst of fire, as in truth it was, than the return of day. The fire, however, stopped short of us; and again we were immersed in thick