Lord Harry Hawbury had been wandering
for three months on the Continent, and had finally
found himself in Naples. It was always a favorite
place of his, and he had established himself in comfortable
quarters on the Strada Nuova, from the windows of which
there was a magnificent view of the whole bay, with
Vesuvius, Capri, Baiae, and all the regions
round about. Here an old friend had unexpectedly
turned up in the person of Scone Dacres. Their
friendship had been formed some five or six years
before in South America, where they had made a hazardous
journey in company across the continent, and had thus
acquired a familiarity with one another which years
of ordinary association would have failed to give.
Scone Dacres was several years older than Lord Hawbury.
One evening Lord Hawbury had just
finished his dinner, and was dawdling about in a listless
way, when Dacres entered, quite unceremoniously, and
flung himself into a chair by one of the windows.
“Any Bass, Hawbury?” was
his only greeting, as he bent his head down, and ran
his hand through his bushy hair.
“Lachryma Christi?” asked
Hawbury, in an interrogative tone.
“No, thanks. That wine
is a humbug. I’m beastly thirsty, and as
dry as a cinder.”
Hawbury ordered the Bass, and Dacres
soon was refreshing himself with copious draughts.
The two friends presented a singular
contrast. Lord Hawbury was tall and slim, with
straight flaxen hair and flaxen whiskers, whose long,
pendent points hung down to his shoulders. His
thin face, somewhat pale, had an air of high refinement;
and an ineradicable habit of lounging, together with
a drawling intonation, gave him the appearance of
being the laziest mortal alive. Dacres, on the
other hand, was the very opposite of all this.
He was as tall as Lord Hawbury, but was broad-shouldered
and massive. He had a big head, a big mustache,
and a thick beard. His hair was dark, and covered
his head in dense, bushy curls. His voice was
loud, his manner abrupt, and he always sat bolt upright.
“Any thing up, Sconey?”
asked Lord Hawbury, after a pause, during which he
had been languidly gazing at his friend.
“Well, no, nothing, except that I’ve been
up Vesuvius.”
Lord Hawbury gave a long whistle.
“And how did you find the mountain?” he
asked; “lively?”
“Rather so. In fact, infernally
so,” added Dacres, thoughtfully. “Look
here, Hawbury, do you detect any smell of sulphur about
me?”
“Sulphur! What in the name
of sulphur! Why, now that you mention
it, I do notice something of a brimstone smell.
Sulphur! Why, man, you’re as strong as
a lighted match. What have you been doing with
yourself? Down inside, eh?”
Dacres made no answer for some time,
but sat stroking his beard with his left hand, while
his right held a cigar which he had just taken out
of a box at his elbow. His eyes were fixed upon
a point in the sky exactly half-way between Capri
and Baiae, and about ten degrees above the horizon.
“Hawbury,” said he, solemnly,
after about two minutes of portentous silence.
“Well, old man?”
“I’ve had an adventure.”
“An adventure! Well, don’t
be bashful. Breathe forth the tale in this confiding
ear.”
“You see,” said Dacres,
“I started off this morning for a ride, and
had no more intention of going to Vesuvius than to
Jericho.”
“I should hope not. What
business has a fellow like you with Vesuvius a
fellow that has scaled Cotopaxi, and all that sort
of thing? Not you.”
Dacres put the cigar thoughtfully
in his mouth, struck a light, and tried to light it,
but couldn’t. Then he bit the end off, which
he had forgotten to do before. Then he gave three
long, solemn, and portentous puffs. Then he took
the cigar between his first and second fingers, and
stretched his hand out toward Hawbury.
“Hawbury, my boy,” said he again.
“All right.”
“You remember the time when I got that bullet
in Uruguay?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I had a shot to-day.”
“A shot! The deuce you
had. Cool, too. Any of those confounded bandits
about? I thought that was all rot.”
“It wasn’t a real shot; only figurative.”
“Figurative!”
“Yes; it was a a girl.”
“By Jove!” cried Hawbury,
starting up from an easy posture which he had secured
for himself after fifteen minutes shifting and changing.
“A girl! You, Dacres, spooney! A fellow
like you, and a girl! By Jove!”
Hawbury fell back again, and appeared
to be vainly trying to grapple with the thought.
Dacres put his cigar between his lips again, and gave
one or two puffs at it, but it had gone out. He
pitched it out of the window, and struck his hand
heavily on the arm of his chair.
“Yes, Hawbury, a girl; and spooney,
too as spooney as blazes; but I’ll
swear there isn’t such another girl upon the
whole face of the earth; and when you bear in mind
the fact that my observation, with extended view,
has surveyed mankind from China to Peru, you’ll
be able to appreciate the value of my statement.”
“All right, old man; and now for the adventure.”
“The adventure? Well, you
see, I started for a ride. Had a misty idea of
going to Sorrento, and was jogging along among a million
pigs or so at Portici, when I overtook a carriage
that was going slowly along. There were three
ladies in it. The backs of two of them were turned
toward me, and I afterward saw that one was old no
doubt the chaperon and the other was young.
But the third lady, Hawbury Well, it’s
enough to say that I, who have seen all women in all
lands, have never seen any thing like her. She
was on the front seat, with her face turned toward
me. She was small, a perfect blonde; hair short
and curling; a round, girlish face; dimpled cheeks,
and little mouth. Her eyes were large and blue;
and, as she looked at me, I saw such a bewitching
innocence, such plaintive entreaty, such pathetic trust,
such helpless, childlike I’ll be hanged
if I can find words to express what I want to say.
The English language doesn’t contain them.”
“Do it in Latin, then, or else
skip the whole description. All the same.
I know the whole story by heart. Love’s
young dream, and all that sort of thing, you know.”
“Well,” continued Dacres,
“there was something so confoundedly bewitching
in the little girl’s face that I found myself
keeping on at a slow pace in the rear of the carriage,
and feasting on her looks. Of course I wasn’t
rude about it or demonstrative.”
“Oh, of course. No demonstration.
It’s nothing to ride behind a carriage for several
hours, and ‘feast’ one’s self on
a pretty girl’s looks! But go on, old man.”
“Oh, I managed it without giving
offense. You see, there was such a beastly lot
of pigs, peasants, cows, dirty children, lazaroni,
and all that sort of thing, that it was simply impossible
to go any faster; so you see I was compelled to ride
behind. Sometimes, indeed, I fell a good distance
back.”
“And then caught up again to resume the ‘feast?’”
“Well yes.”
“But I don’t see what this has to do with
your going to Vesuvius.”
“It has every thing to do.
You see, I started without any fixed purpose, and
after I saw this carriage, I kept on insensibly after
it.”
“Oh, I see yes. By Jove!”
“And they drove up as far as they could.”
“Yes?”
“And I followed. You see,
I had nothing else to do and that little
girl! Besides, it was the most natural thing in
the world for me to be going up; and the fact that
I was bent on the same errand as themselves was sufficient
to account for my being near the carriage, and would
prevent them from supposing that I was following them.
So, you see, I followed, and at length they stopped
at the Hermitage. I left my horse there, and
strolled forward, without going very far away; my
only idea was to keep the girl in sight. I had
no idea that they would go any further. To ascend
the cone seemed quite out of the question. I
thought they would rest at the Hermitage, drink some
Lachryma Christi, and go back. But to my surprise,
as I was walking about, I saw the two young ladies
come out and go toward the cone.
“I kept out of the way, as you
may suppose, and watched them, wondering what idea
they had. As they passed I heard the younger
one the child-angel, you know, my
girl teasing the other to make the ascent
of the cone, and the other seemed to be quite ready
to agree to the proposal.
“Now, as far as the mere ascent
is concerned, of course you know that is not
much. The guides were there with straps and chairs,
and that sort of thing, all ready, so that there was
no difficulty about that. The real difficulty
was in these girls going off unattended; and I could
only account for it by supposing that the chaperon
knew nothing whatever about their proposal. No
doubt the old lady was tired, and the young ones went
out, as she supposed, for a stroll; and now,
as they proposed, this stroll meant nothing
less than an ascent of the cone. After all, there
is nothing surprising in the fact that a couple of
active and spirited girls should attempt this.
From the Hermitage it does not seem to be at all difficult,
and they had no idea of the actual nature of the task.
“What made it worse, however,
was the state of the mountain at this particular time.
I don’t know whether you have taken the trouble
to raise your eyes so high as the top of Vesuvius ”
Hawbury languidly shook his head.
“Well, I supposed not; but if
you had taken the trouble, you would have noticed
an ugly cloud which is generally regarded here as
ominous. This morning, you know, there was an
unusually large canopy of very dirty smoke overhead.
I knew by the look of things that it was not a very
pleasant place to go to. But of course they could
not be supposed to know any thing of the kind, and
their very ignorance made them rash.
“Well, I walked along after
them, not knowing what might turn up, but determined
to keep them in sight. Those beggars with chairs
were not to be trusted, and the ladies had gold enough
about them to tempt violence. What a reckless
old devil of a chaperon she was, to let those young
girls go! So I walked on, cursing all the time
the conventionalities of civilization that prevented
me from giving them warning. They were rushing
straight on into danger, and I had to keep silent.
“On reaching the foot of the
cone a lot of fellows came up to them, with chairs
and straps, and that sort of thing. They employed
some of them, and, mounting the chairs, they were
carried up, while I walked up by myself at a distance
from which I could observe all that was going on.
The girls were quite merry, appeared to be enchanted
with their ride up the cone, enjoyed the novelty of
the sensation, and I heard their lively chatter and
their loud peals of ringing laughter, and longed more
than ever to be able to speak to them.
“Now the little girl that I
had first seen the child-angel, you know seemed,
to my amazement, to be more adventurous than the other.
By her face you would suppose her to be as timid as
a dove, and yet on this occasion she was the one who
proposed the ascent, urged on her companion, and answered
all her objections. Of course she could not have
really been so plucky as she seemed. For my part,
I believe the other one had more real pluck of the
two, but it was the child-angel’s ignorance
that made her so bold. She went up the cone as
she would have gone up stairs, and looked at the smoke
as she would have looked at a rolling cloud.
“At length the bearers stopped,
and signified to the girls that they could not go
any further. The girls could not speak Italian,
or any other language apparently than English, and
therefore could not very well make out what the bearers
were trying to say, but by their gestures they might
have known that they were warning them against going
any further. One might have supposed that no warning
would have been needed, and that one look upward would
have been enough. The top of the cone rose for
upward of a hundred feet above them, its soil composed
of lava blocks and ashes intermingled with sulphur.
In this soil there were a million cracks and crevices,
from which sulphurous smoke was issuing; and the smoke,
which was but faint and thin near where they stood,
grew denser farther up, till it intermingled with
the larger volumes that rolled up from the crater.
“Now, as I stood there, I suddenly
heard a wild proposal from the child-angel.
“‘Oh, Ethel,’ she said, ‘I’ve
a great mind to go up ’”
Here Hawbury interrupted his friend:
“What’s that? Was
that her friend’s name?” he asked, with
some animation. “Ethel? odd,
too. Ethel? H’m. Ethel? Brunette,
was she?”
“Yes.”
“Odd, too; infernally odd.
But, pooh! what rot! Just as though there weren’t
a thousand Ethels!”
“What’s that you’re saying about
Ethel?” asked Dacres.
“Oh, nothing, old man.
Excuse my interrupting you. Go ahead. How
did it end?”
“Well, the child-angel said, ‘Ethel, I’ve
a great mind to go up.’
“This proposal Ethel scouted in horror and consternation.
“‘You must not you shall not!’
she cried.
“‘Oh, it’s nothing,
it’s nothing,’ said the child-angel.
’I’m dying to take a peep into the crater.
It must be awfully funny. Do come; do, do come,
Ethel darling.’
“‘Oh, Minnie, don’t,’
cried the other, in great alarm. And I now learned
that the child-angel’s name was Minnie.
‘Minnie,’ she cried, clinging to the child-angel,
’you must not go. I would not have come
up if I had thought you would be so unreasonable.’
“‘Ethel,’ said the
other, ’you are really getting to be quite a
scold. How ridiculous it is in you to set yourself
up in this place as a duenna! How can I help
going up? and only one peep. And I never saw a
crater in my life, and I’m dying to know what
it looks like. I know it’s awfully funny;
and it’s horrid in you to be so unkind about
it. And I really must go. Won’t you
come? Do, do, dear dearest darling,
do do do!’
“Ethel was firm, however, and
tried to dissuade the other, but to no purpose; for
at length, with a laugh, the child-angel burst away,
and skipped lightly up the slope toward the crater.
“‘Just one peep,’
she said. ’Come, Ethel, I must, I really
must, you know.’
“She turned for an instant as
she said this, and I saw the glory of her child-face
as it was irradiated by a smile of exquisite sweetness.
The play of feature, the light of her eyes, and the
expression of innocence and ignorance unconscious
of danger, filled me with profound sadness. And
there was I, standing alone, seeing that sweet child
flinging herself to ruin, and yet unable to prevent
her, simply because I was bound hand and foot by the
infernal restrictions of a miserable and a senseless
conventionality. Dash it, I say!”
As Dacres growled out this Hawbury
elevated his eyebrows, and stroked his long, pendent
whiskers lazily with his left hand, while with his
right he drummed on the table near him.
“Well,” resumed Dacres,
“the child-angel ran up for some distance, leaving
Ethel behind. Ethel called after her for some
time, and then began to follow her up. Meanwhile
the guides, who had thus far stood apart, suddenly
caught sight of the child-angel’s figure, and,
with a loud warning cry, they ran after her.
They seemed to me, however, to be a lazy lot, for
they scarce got up as far as the place where Ethel
was. Now, you know, all this time I was doomed
to inaction. But at this juncture I strolled
carelessly along, pretending not to see any thing
in particular; and so, taking up an easy attitude,
I waited for the denouement. It was a terrible
position too. That child-angel! I would
have laid down my life for her, but I had to stand
idle, and see her rush to fling her life away.
And all because I had not happened to have the mere
formality of an introduction.”
“Well, you know, I stood there
waiting for the denouement. Now it happened that,
as the child-angel went up, a brisk breeze had started,
which blew away all the smoke, so that she went along
for some distance without any apparent inconvenience.
I saw her reach the top; I saw her turn and wave her
hand in triumph. Then I saw her rush forward
quickly and nimbly straight toward the crater.
She seemed to go down into it. And then the wind
changed or died away, or both, for there came a vast
cloud of rolling smoke, black, cruel, suffocating;
and the mountain crest and the child-angel were snatched
from my sight.
“I was roused by a shriek from
Ethel. I saw her rush up the slope, and struggle
in a vain endeavor to save her friend. But before
she had taken a dozen steps down came the rolling
smoke, black, wrathful, and sulphurous; and I saw
her crouch down and stagger back, and finally emerge
pale as death, and gasping for breath. She saw
me as I stood there; in fact, I had moved a little
nearer.
“‘Oh, Sir,’ she
cried, ‘save her! Oh, my God, she’s
lost!’
“This was very informal, you
know, and all that sort of thing; but she had
broken the ice, and had accosted me; so I waived
all ceremony, and considered the introduction sufficient.
I took off my hat, and told her to calm herself.
“But she only wrung her hands,
and implored me to save her friend.
“And now, my boy, lucky was
it for me that my experience at Cotopaxi and Popocatepetl
had been so thorough and so peculiar. My knowledge
came into play at this time. I took my felt hat
and put it over my mouth, and then tied it around
my neck so that the felt rim came over my cheeks and
throat. Thus I secured a plentiful supply of air,
and the felt acted as a kind of ventilator to prevent
the access to my lungs of too much of the sulphurous
vapor. Of course such a contrivance would not
be good for more than five minutes; but then, you
know, five minutes were all that I wanted.
“So up I rushed, and, as the
slope was only about a hundred feet, I soon reached
the top. Here I could see nothing whatever.
The tremendous smoke-clouds rolled all about on every
side, enveloping me in their dense folds, and shutting
every thing from view. I heard the cry of the
asses of guides, who were howling where I left them
below, and were crying to me to come back the
infernal idiots! The smoke was impenetrable;
so I got down on my hands and knees and groped about.
I was on her track, and knew she could not be far
away. I could not spend more than five minutes
there, for my felt hat would not assist me any longer.
About two minutes had already passed. Another
minute was taken up in creeping about on my hands
and knees. A half minute more followed.
I was in despair. The child-angel I saw must have
run in much further than I had supposed, and perhaps
I could not find her at all. A sickening fear
came to me that she had grown dizzy, or had slid down
over the loose sand into the terrific abyss of the
crater itself. So another half minute passed;
and now only one minute was left.”
“I don’t see how you managed
to be so confoundedly accurate in your reckoning.
How was it? You didn’t carry your watch
in one hand, and feel about with the other, I suppose?”
“No; but I looked at my watch
at intervals. But never mind that. Four
minutes, as I said, were up, and only one minute remained,
and that was not enough to take me back. I was
at the last gasp already, and on the verge of despair,
when suddenly, as I crawled on, there lay the child-angel
full before me, within my reach.
“Yes,” continued Dacres,
after a pause, “there she lay, just in my grasp,
just at my own last gasp. One second more and
it must have been all up. She was senseless,
of course. I caught her up; I rose and ran back
as quick as I could, bearing my precious burden.
She was as light as a feather no weight
at all. I carried her as tenderly as if she was
a little baby. As I emerged from the smoke Ethel
rushed up to me and set up a cry, but I told her to
keep quiet and it would be all right. Then I
directed the guides to carry her down, and I myself
then carried down the child-angel.
“You see I wasn’t going
to give her up. I had had hard work enough getting
her. Besides, the atmosphere up there was horrible.
It was necessary, first of all, to get her down to
the foot of the cone, where she could have pure air,
and then resuscitate her. Therefore I directed
the guides to take down Ethel in a chair, while I carried
down the child-angel. They had to carry her down
over the lava blocks, but I went to a part of the
cone where it was all loose sand, and went down flying.
I was at the bottom a full half hour before the others.
“Then I laid her upon the loose
sand; and I swear to you, Hawbury, never in all my
life have I seen such a sight. She lay there before
my eyes a picture of loveliness beyond imagination as
beautiful as a dream more like a child-angel
than ever. Her hair clustered in golden curls
over her white brow, her little hands were folded meekly
over her breast, her lips were parted into a sweet
smile, the gentle eyes no longer looked at me with
the piteous, pleading, trustful, innocent expression
which I had noticed in them before, and her hearing
was deaf to the words of love and tenderness that
I lavished upon her.”
“Good!” muttered Hawbury;
“you talk like a novel. Drive on, old man.
I’m really beginning to feel excited.”
“’The fact is,”
said Dacres, “I have a certain set of expressions
about the child-angel that will come whenever I begin
to describe her.”
“It strikes me, though, that
you are getting on pretty well. You were speaking
of ‘love and tenderness.’ Well?”
“Well, she lay there senseless,
you know, and I gently unclasped her hands and began
to rub them. I think the motion of carrying her,
and the fresh air, had both produced a favorable effect;
for I had not rubbed her hands ten minutes when she
gave a low sigh. Then I rubbed on, and her lips
moved. I bent down close so as to listen, and
I heard her say, in a low voice,
“‘Am I at home?’
“‘Yes,’ said I,
gently, for I thought it was best to humor her delirious
fancy.
“Then she spoke again:
“‘Is that you, papa dear?’
“‘Yes, darling,’
said I, in a low voice; and I kissed her in a kind
of paternal way, so as to reassure her, and comfort
her, and soothe her, and all that sort of thing, you
know.”
At this Hawbury burst into a shout of laughter.
“What the mischief are you making
that beastly row about?” growled Dacres.
“Excuse me, old boy. I
couldn’t help it. It was at the idea of
your doing the father so gravely.”
“Well, am I not old enough to
be her father? What else could I do? She
had such a pleading, piteous way. By Jove!
Besides, how did she know any thing about it?
It wasn’t as if she was in her senses. She
really thought I was her father, you know.
And I’m sure I almost felt as if I was, too.”
“All right, old man, don’t get huffy.
Drive on.”
“Well, you know, she kept her
eyes closed, and didn’t say another word till
she heard the voice of Ethel at a distance. Then
she opened her eyes, and got up on her feet.
Then there was no end of a row kissing,
crying, congratulating, reproaching, and all that sort
of thing. I withdrew to a respectful distance
and waited. After a time they both came to me,
and the child-angel gave me a look that made me long
to be a father to her again. She held out her
little hand, and I took it and pressed it, with my
heart beating awfully. I was horribly embarrassed.
“‘I’m awfully grateful
to you,’ she said; ’I’m sure I’d
do any thing in the world to repay you. I’m
sure I don’t know what would have become of
me if it hadn’t been for you. And I hope
you’ll excuse me for putting you to so much
trouble. And, oh!’ she concluded, half to
herself, ‘what will Kitty say now?’”
“Kitty! Who’s Kitty?”
“I don’t know.”
“All right. Never mind. Drive on,
old chap.”
“Well, I mumbled something or
other, and then offered to go and get their carriage.
But they would not hear of it. The child-angel
said she could walk. This I strongly dissuaded
her from doing, and Ethel insisted that the men should
carry her. This was done, and in a short time
we got back to the Hermitage, where the old lady was
in no end of a worry. In the midst of the row
I slipped away, and waited till the carriage drove
off. Then I followed at a sufficient distance
not to be observed, and saw where their house was.”