Page:The Coming Race, etc - 1888.djvu/316

302 danger, and all for nothing but to see fire, which just looks as well in a brazier as a mountain.' Ha.! ha! the old fellow was right."

"But, Excellency," said the guide, "that is not all: some cavaliers think to ascend the mountain without our help. I am sure they deserve to tumble into the crater."

"They must be bold fellows to go alone ; you don't often find such."

"Sometimes among the French, signer. But the other night—I never was so frightened. I had been with an English party; and a lady had left a pocket-book on the mountain, where she had been sketching. She offered me a handsome sum to return for it, and bring it to her at Naples. So I went in the evening,—I found it sure enough, and was about to return, when I saw a figure that seemed to emerge from the crater itself. The air was so pestiferous, that I could not have conceived a human creature could breathe it and live. I was so astounded that I stood as still as a stone, till the figure came over the hot ashes, and stood before me face to face. Santa Maria, what a head!"

"What, hideous!"

"No, so beautiful, but so terrible. It had nothing human in its aspect."

"And what said the Salamander?"

"Nothing! It did not even seem to perceive me, though I was as near as I am to you ; but its eyes seemed 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 well-nigh stifled me. Cospetto, I have spat blood ever since."

"It must be Zicci," whispered Glyndon.

"I knew you would say so,"; returned Merton, 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 over-spread 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 helm. The glare of the flame spread, luminous and crimson, over the dark and ragged ground on which