LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2246, 10 May 1881, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE MTSTEET OF LORD BRACKENBURY; A NOVEL. BY AMELIA B. EDWAHDS, Author of "Barbara’s History,” •* Dobenbam’s Vow.” Ac. (Continued.) For a long time the two women stayed there, watching the crowd and the moontain. The atmosphere was as stag rant and oppressive as if they had been standing under the dome of a bnge conservatory. The quay below seemed paved with he&da. And what with tho reflected glare on sea and sky, and what with the light from street-lamps and carriages-lamps and open windows (every house being lit from top to bottom, and every window crowded), the whole outside spectacle was as visible as if seen by the lurrid light of a stormy sunset Vesuvius, meanwhile, looking frightfully near, seemed enveloped in a fiery laoswork ; while all along that line of fated villages, the flames were distinctly seen stalking from point to point—the houses catching fire one after another like rows of nutshells ; each house looking for a few moments as If all its windows were illuminated; then blazing np like a bonfire ; then crashing in, sending up a shower of sparks, and ornmbling to cinders. There was a dreadful fascination about these horning houses which, unseen till overtaken hy their doom, started irto sight in lines of fire and vanished by the light of their own destruction.

But Naples—careless, pleasure-loving Naples— could not long be sad, even though the mountain was thundering at her gates, and the lava working Its dread will before her very windows. Already the first shook of awe was spent ; already the populace had began once more to oaronse and make merry. The theatres, it is true, were closed, but the wine-shops were open ; and as night ad vanced, the customary hubbub of fiddling, thrumming, singing, and castanette-playing broke oat even more madly than nsnal among the waterside pnrllens of the city. Then a strange incident occurred. In the midst of all this ghastly gaiety, in the midst of all this tnmnlt of wheels, and feet, and voices, and revelry, there came a lull 5 such as befals sometimes in the crisis of a tornado. And then, suddenly, there was a flare of torches and a sound of penitential chanting ; and there appeared, marching with measured tread, a procession of priests and acolytes. One bore aloft a blackened oilpainting in a tawdry frame ; the rest carried torches, and candles, and breviaries. And still as they approached, followed by a vast concourse of the poorest of the population, the crowd parted, fell upon its knees, bnrst Into shrieks and wailings and lamentations, and swelled with its thousand voices this dolorons litany ; “ Sanoto Januario, ora pro nobis !" They passed, and the procession swept out of sight with its wild following. And then the crowd closed np behind, and the carriages moved on, and the jollity and revelry broke oat afresh.

* So Nero sang when Borne was burning !’ said Countess Castelrosso. * Bnt, at least, he pnt on his tragic robes and sang of Troy in flames. These contemptible Neapolitans look npon Vesuvius as a big cracker, let off for their amusement.’

Then, settling herself in an easy chair by the open window—for they had now gone upstairs to Winifred’s room on the third floor—she added, with a coaxing smile:

* Yon are sure you don’t mind letting me stay here with you, dear Lady Brackenbury, till onr wandering husbands come back?’

* I should go beside myself with terror, if I were alone,’ Winifred replied. ‘How long do you think they will be gone ?’ * Oh, all night, I dare say.’ * All night!’ The Conntoss laughed. ‘ 1. ear Lady Brackenbnry, does that horrify you 7 Think of the distance; thing of the state of the roads; the crowds ; the confusion ; the difficulty ’ * And the danger 1’ * Oh, as to that, I don’t believe there is much danger. One is too apt to talk of the lava as if it were a raging torent; but it doesn't move very fast, after all. How fast, Lady Brackenbnry ? Well, perhaps after the rate of a mile, or a mile and a half, an hour ; but then something must be allowed for the differences in the ground. Those streams that we see flowing dbwn the cone run faster, of course, than the lava in the Atrio del Cavallo.’

* And where do yon think they are by this time? Where is danta Anastasia ?”

* Ah, my dear Lady Brackenbnry, now yon puzzle me! Santa Anastasia is a long way off —far beyond San Sebastiano and Massa ; bat, although I saw it to-day from the Observatory, I conid not give you the least idea of its whereabouts. And as for ‘ oes Messieurs,' I don’t suppose they know where they are themselves I’ After this—the Countess being too tired to talk, and Winifred too anxious—the conversation flagged ; and by and by, despite the trembling of the floors and the shaking of the windows, the fair American fell fast asleep. Still Winifred waked and watched ; still the idle world of Naples came and went; while yonder, rushing up from the burning heart of ‘ the great globe itself, ’ rose ana fell and overflowed that terrible fountain of fire. A glowing roof of smoke had spread, meanwhile, over plain and bay ; and all the sky was reddened, and the h: uses and the shipping were lighted, and the stars were extinguished, by that lurid canopy which half obscured and half revealed the horrors of the night. And where were they all this time ? The Countess guessed rightty, when she conjectured that ‘ces Messieurs ’ themselves would hardly be able to answer that question. Where, indeed ! Driving hither and thither, backwards and forwards, in gloom, and confusion, and haste; starting first for Santa Anastasia by way of the high road, and when within half a mile of Pontioelli, being turned back by a party of mounted carabineers—returning as far ns Barra—taking to the by-roads, and making for San Sebastiano—getting so near that they can feel the hot blast off the lava, and see the fire playing in tongues cf flame along the vines—then being again driven back by mounted guards—plunging into a labyrinth of lanes—making a long detour for La Oercola, a filth village, almost down in the valley, upon which the lava is fast descending—sticking fast in a ‘ block ’ of carts and waggons, in some of which whole fan iliea are

passing the night, alighting and leaving the driver to his fate, with instructions to take the carriage back, if possible, to Barra, to await their return —starting off on foot with the guide, and following their leader across country—clambering over fences and stone walla—dashing recklessly through patches of standing corn—threading the dusky mazes of vineyards and mulberry orchards —coming out into the yards of a deserted farm-house—discovering that they have all this time been bearing too far to the northward—tracking up the bed of a dry torrent —-scaling a hillside p'anted with ancient olive-trees, and emerging olose nnder the walls of a large building which looms dark against the red glare in the sky. Here, breathless and bafiled, they pause to rooonnoitre. ‘ Where the devil are we ?’ shouts Lancelot, impatiently; and, shout as he may, it is with difficulty he makes himself heard. ‘ ' on seem to know as little of the country as we do.’ Th- guide putting both hands to his month, shouts back that this must be the Convent of the Cappuccini. ‘ What Cappucoini ?’ * The Cappuccir.i of 'an Lorenzo.’ c What is Sun Lorenzo ? A village ?’ The gu'do shakes his bund. ‘ A district. Farm—woods—vineyards. Convent property.’ Then, pointing higher, he is understood to say that there is a terrace above, from which the Signori may see the lava, the burning towns, the first plain—everything. Let them follow him. So, through a tangle of bushes and briars, they climb the last steep bit, and emerge upon a platform outside the Convent gates. Here, huddled under the walla, they find a little crowd of fugitive country folk, chiefly women and children, to whom a couple of monks are distributing a dole of food and, wine. Hot, thirsty, tired, the two Englishmen and their guide thankfully accept their share of the charity. Their arrival attracts no attention. Their appearance—though Lancelot has lost his hat, a d all throe have hands and clothes torn by tho briars, and boots ent to pieces by the stones—excites no surprise. Are they not refugees, like the rest ?

The convent stands high on the extreme point of a spur of Monte Somma. The plain and city of Naples, the bay from Portloi to Ischia, the whole mountain-side, from South Anastasia on the east to the Hermitage on. the west, are v'sihle from the terrace outside its gates. But to-night one half of that panorama is blotted out in darkness ; the other half shut off by & curtain of smoke and fire. For, standing here aloft and in safety, those on the terrace look down upon the whole terrible scene. Yonder, from the gates of the Atrio del Cavallo, pouring forth as from the very mouth of hell, they behold, the whole course of that rolling river of lava. Swelled by hundreds of affluents, it spreads to right and left as it rushes out upon the upper plain—it widens into a vast, heaving, red hot, semi fluid sea—it spills over in long reaches of fire which flow down towards the valley, devouring all before them. That river is two mile-i broad at its widest flowing, and where the suburbs of La Oercola are blazing, the lava has ploughed its way through vineyards six mi es from its source.

Even now, as they look upon it, the lava above La Cercola is seen to divide ; and, dividing, sends a thin red stream in the direction of the cultivated slopes at the foot of the spur on which ths convent stands,

At this sight, a panic-stricken cry goes up from the little crowd upon the terrace. They are all San Lorenzo folk ; and when the lava bore down upon La Cercola, they made sure that their own vineyards and olive woods were safe. Now only Our Lady and the Blessed Saints can save their homes, their crops, their all 1 The women fall on their knees, weeping j the men clench their teeth and hats } the friars stard mute. Their lands are doomed. It is the will of heaven.

Already that thin red stream has widened to a river, and is fast rolling onward. There are no Christian souls under those roofs yonder ; in that homestead beyond the mol* berry orchard; In that house among the vines. Where Is Andrea Petruoelli ? Ho was here a moment ago. Where is his brother Gaetano ? See ! there they go ; racing like madmen down the hill-side.

Great God 1 their mother is at the farm. Their mother, the widow Francesca Petmcelli ; their wives; their sisters ; all their womenkind.

The next moment, every man who waa npon that terrace is rushing down to give what help he can. The guide, hastilybinding a handkerchief about his own head, gives his slouch hat to Lancelot. They get along as they can ; running, jumping, stumbling over the broken ground. Emerging, lower down, from the gloom of the olive wood, they cross the torrent bed up which they climbed just now. But betweenthia point and the Petruoelli farm there is still a mile or more of vineyards. Fink follows incredulous. That people not raving mad should stay in Iheir houses in the face of such a peril as this, seems to him impossible. But Lancelot knows better. Lancelot knows the obstinate fatalism, the blind superstition, with which the Vesuviait peasant clings to his own four walls. Ho sprinkles bis threshold with holy water, and believes that the fever cannot pass it, though his neighbors are dying close by. He seta up a little image of the Madcnna on hia vineyard fence, confident that the lava will tarn aside and spare it. Meanwhile they plunge on, trampling the green grapes; leaping the boundaries j making straight for the more distant mulberry orchards, beyond which rises a groat light, like the light of a forest on fire. Now they are breathing sulphur and smoke ; and now, suddenly they are looking down upon a burning bonse, surrounded by stacks, and barns and outbuildings in flames. Behind those stacks and barns, behind those poplars, which look like obelisks of fire, there comes a steadily advancing wave of incandescent lava, red aa molten metal, wide as the river Sela In the plains of Ptestum, higher than twice the height of the tallest man. It comes neither flowing nor rolling, bnt nnbrokenly, like a moving embankment propelled from behind ; unhasting, nnrestlng, irresistible as fate. But there is no time to gaze—no time to think! Yonder, driven at full galop, goes a cart crowded with women and children; and. here, darting to and fro across the yards, are a number of men (they look like sailors) saving what they can of household goods and farm implements. The bouse seems full of fire ; bnt against that end-window stands a ladder. There is a man at the window ! A. man with something—a child, surely ! in his arms. He comes down quickly, steadily. Leaping the last gate at a bound, the two Enelishmon made for the open, meeting him half-way. * Are there still any to be saved ?' A stalwart man, bareheaded, boarded, clasped the rescued child to his breast with one arm, pointing baok authoritatively with the other. He seems to soy *Go on 1’ But the roar of the flames and the thunder of the mountain drown all human sounds ; and he rushes by unheard. Unheard, but not unseen ; for the light, though only for a second, fell full upon hia face. And Lancelot stands as if struck to stone. It was grey dawn when Winifred, worn ont with watching, fell at last into a troubled sleep. It was grey day—Vesuvius halfhidden under a heavy smoke-cloud, and the savage roar of the eruption subdued to a deep an i distant thundering—when she awcke. ‘ Lancelot!’ Haggard and smoko-blackened, his clothes torn, his hands bleeding and blistered, be stood bef re her. ‘Lancelot! —oh, thank God! Where is Mr Fink ? Where is the Countess! ’ ‘ She has this moment left the room. Fink is with her. Ho is all right—only a little burned and knocked about like myself.’ ‘ Burned ? Heavens .' where have you been ? But you are saG —safe I' ‘ Oh, yes ;wu are safe enough. We have been in no real danger; but .... Winifred, I have something to tell you.’ ‘ Something to tell me ? Why do you look like that! You frighten me .... what is it ?’ Ho took her bands in his. Ho dropped his voice to a whisper. * I have seen him—Cuthbert—my brother —face to face !’ ITo be continued on Saturday.')