Leah, the
tender-eyed, the slighted, is there; and Rachel, young and beautiful and
blushing beneath the ardent gaze of her handsome lover. "And Jacob loved
Rachel, and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel, thy younger
daughter."
How different the next scene! Heaven's wrath burst loose upon a single
community. Fire, the red-winged demon with brazen throat wide opened,
hangs his brooding wings upon an erstwhile happy city. Hades has climbed
through the crater of Vesuvius, and leaps in fiendish waves along the
land. Few the souls escaping, and God have mercy upon those who stumble
through the blinding darkness, made more torturingly hideous by the
intermittent flashes of lurid light. And yet there come three, whom the
darkness seems not to deter, nor obstacles impede. Only a blind person,
accustomed to constant darkness, and familiarized with these streets
could walk that way. Nearer they come, a burst of flames thrown into the
inky firmament by impish hands, reveals Glaucus, supporting the
half-fainting Ione, following Nydia, frail, blind, flower-loving Nydia,
sacrificing life for her unloving beloved.
And then the burning southern sun shone bright and golden o'er the
silken sails of the Nile serpent's ships; glinted on the armor and
weapons of the famous galley; shone with a warm caressing touch upon her
beauty, as though it loved this queen, as powerful in her sphere as he
in his.
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