 | XII. Visions—A Phantasy |  |
12. XII.
THE mist before my face parted; I saw a vast plain under me. Already I could perceive by the warm, soft air which fanned my cheek that I was no longer in Russia, nor did the plain which I saw bear any resemblance to our Russian steppes. This was a vast dark expanse, apparently quite waste, not even grass-grown, with here and there pools of stagnant water which shone like the fragments of a shattered mirror, and in the far distance I vaguely recognized the still unrippled sea. Large stars shone through the rents of the clouds; a ceaseless thousand-voiced, yet not a loud hum, rose up on all sides; wonderfully it rang, this pervading, drowsy murmur, this night voice of the wilderness.
"The Pontine Marshes," Ellis said. "Do you hear the frogs? Do you smell the sulphur?"
"The Pontine Marshes!" I repeated with a sudden sense of depression. "Why should we loiter over so dreary a place? Let us hasten to Rome."
"Rome is not far," Ellis replied; "prepare yourself!"
Our flight was along the old road from Latium. A wild ox lazily stretched his rough, shapeless head with its shaggy mane and its curving horns up from the sticky slime. He glared about him with his little evil eyes and blew a cloud of steam from his wet nostrils, as if he were defiantly conscious of our presence.
"We are nearing Rome!" whispered Ellis. "Look, look up!" I raised my eyes.
What is the black line there at the world's edge? Are those the high arches of a giant bridge? What is the stream that flows beneath? Why is it broken here and there? No, this is no bridge, it is an old aqueduct. Round us lies the sacred Campagna; there in the distance are the Alban Hills, the rising moon gilds their summits and softens the ridge-line of the acqueduct.
We checked ourselves abruptly, and hung poised in the air above a lonely ruin. No one could have declared its use in other times, whether palace, strong-hold or mausoleum. Black ivy clung to it on every side with its fatal embrace; the half-crumbled walls yawned like a vengeance below us. A damp odor of decay rose from this heap of thickset stones, from which the coating of plaster had long since mouldered away.
"Here!" Ellis said, and stretched out her hand. "Here! Say three times loudly, the name of the great Roman."
"What will follow?"
"You will see."
I reflected for a moment. "Divus Caius Julius Cæsar!" I shouted suddenly, "Divus Caius Julius Cæsar," I repeated yet more loudly, "Cæsar!"
| XII. Visions—A Phantasy | |