Let the sports be resumed."
"To the lion with the Egyptian!" cried the people.
With that cry up sprang--on moved--thousands upon thousands! They rushed
from the heights--they poured down in the direction of the Egyptian. In
vain did the aedile command--in vain did the praetor lift his voice and
proclaim the law. The people had been already rendered savage.
Arbaces stretched his hand on high; over his lofty brow and royal
features there came an expression of unutterable solemnity and command.
"Behold!" he shouted with a voice which stilled the roar of the crowd;
"behold the gods protect the guiltless! The fires of the avenging Orcus
burst forth against the false witness of my accusers!"
The eyes of the crowd followed the gesture of the Egyptian, and beheld,
with ineffable dismay, a vast vapor shooting from the summit of
Vesuvius, in the form of a gigantic pine tree; the trunk,
blackness,--the branches, fire,--a fire that shifted and wavered in its
hues with every moment, now fiercely luminous, now of a dull and dying
red, that again blazed terrifically forth with intolerable glare.
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