The Argosy — page 257: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

240 In Sunny Climes. q But if the path is almost invisible, your horse knows his way blind- fold, and neither errs nor stumbles. Besides that, you are not alone, for the landlord of the little.inn at Pompeii is probably with you—he or some other equally trustworthy guide. After a long and slow ascent, you reach the mouth of the crater. It is horrible to contemplate. As you gaze downward, shuddering, an almost insane desire seizes you to hurl yourself into that yawning | gulf. A far-off hissing sound seems to penetrate your ears, as if this were purgatory and the souls of the condemned were in torment. — Flame and smoke and a sulphureous vapour appear to rage and con- tend for victory. You are blinded and choked. A shower of ashes, an extra volume of cloud, send you backward with an exclamation of dismay. You feel as if another eruption were about to happen— — another Pompeii to be buried in hopeless ruin. Your guide laughs at your nervousness. In his case familiarity has | bred contempt. To him, that which may happen at any moment | never happens at all. The long-expected passes into the regions of the impossible. He fears no eruption, no living tomb, no buried, city. Though all his earthly possessions are at the foot of this | sometime holocaust to Nemesis, he sleeps as calmly in his bed as | though death and danger did not at all times over-shadow him! [I suppose we are all alike in this matter, minus the few exceptions who | prove the rule. ‘This must be why, to the old man of sixty, even death itself, the only certain thing in life, seems more visions farther off, than it does to the youth of twenty. | As you gaze into this awful gulf—though you cannot see far down —suddenly a stream of lava hisses upwards and runs down the hill side. Fortunately, it is not on your side. But again you exclaim? and again your guide manifests his superior indifference. Then he) manages to embed a coin in a piece of the lava whilst it is yet hot, and by-and-by, if he has been successful, he will present it to you i as a souvenir of your visit. As a remembrance it is superfluous. No one who has mountedy — Vesuvius by night will ever forget the sensation. You seem to stand| — face to face with death. At any moment you may be overtaken by the most horrible of fates. Your grave, like that of Moses, shall be) — unknown. But you are fascinated, and you gaze and gaze into the)’ — fiery furnace, the yawning gulf, the black pit of destruction. Instine- f tively a terrible verse rings in your ears, and you pray to escape the) doom: “ Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” You find that it is a greater ordeal to go down again than if wa to come up. If you walk, you grope and stumble, and your footing seems uncertain. You cannot divest yourself of a sensation that the avenging mountain has only delayed your fate with a refined cruelty! With every step it seems about to open and swallow you up. Imagine | such a moment: far worse even than that moment when at sea ." behold your vessel sinking and the waters closing around you. _ a Gomicdooks.com Zz