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"It makes the mountain look like a man-of-war," exclaimed Rafael, and the two pairs of eyes hardly saw anything else until they reached Naples. "Let us go to a hotel where we can see the fire at night, if it comes out of the volcano," said Edith; and they took rooms from which they could watch every mood of Vesuvius.
She knew, however, that slumbering and subterranean fires other than Vesuvius had erupted into light and life. She could see it by the new misery on his moonlit face, as she sat beside him. Yet she sat there in silence; there was so little that she could say. "Do you know, you've changed, Frank, these last few months!" he at last essayed.
Shores that curve in every line of beauty, holding out arm-like promontories, into whose embrace the tideless sea runs up; mountain-ranges whose tops in winter are covered with snow, and whose sides are draped with the luxuriant vegetation of the South; a large city rising in a series of semicircular terraces from the deep azure of the sea to the deep azure of the mountains, whose eastern architecture flushes to a vivid rosy hue in the afternoon light like some fabled city of the poets; and dominating the glorious horizon the double peak of Vesuvius forming the centre in which all the features of landscape loveliness are focussed crowned by its pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night.
Vesuvius, heavily laden at first with a cloud like that on Olympus when the gods are wrathful, by degrees passed from vision, withdrew its form into recesses of dun mists. The angry blue of Capri faded upon a troubled blending of sea and sky; everywhere the horizon contracted and grew mournful; rain began to fall. Miriam sank as the heavens darkened.
Of the ships in course of construction five, viz, the Charleston, Baltimore, Yorktown, Vesuvius, and the Petrel, have in that time been launched and are rapidly approaching completion; and in addition to the above, the Philadelphia, the San Francisco, the Newark, the Bennington, the Concord, and the Herreshoff torpedo boat are all under contract for delivery to the Department during the next year.
We were just about to go to bed early in the evening, and catch up on some of the sleep we had lost, when we heard of this Vesuvius expedition. There was to be eight of us in the party, and we were to leave Naples at midnight. We laid in some provisions for the trip, engaged carriages to take us to Annunciation, and then moved about the city, to keep awake, till twelve.
From Naples to the foot of Mt. Vesuvius there was first a drive of several hours, after which they went up to the crater over an inclined railway. "It is like looking at the entrance to the underworld," said Edith, as they looked down into the great chasm which holds so much mystery and terror; and she was glad to take the train back to the foot of the mountain.
It is said to resemble the volcanic mud by which Herculaneum was overwhelmed during the first eruption of Vesuvius, and which was produced by the torrents of rain mixing with the ashes as they were blown out of the volcano.
I never knew which I liked best, the moonlit ones when you sculled through silver and could see for miles, or the dark nights when the fishermen's torches stood for the sea, and a red zig-zag in the sky for old Vesuvius. We were happy. I don't mind owning it. We seemed not to have a care between us. My mates took no interest in my affairs, and Faustina's family did not appear to bother about her.
"I should like to have you," said Rollo; "but now I really want to know when you are going to be ready to go on towards Naples. I'd rather see Mount Vesuvius than all the paintings in the world, especially if there is a good blazing eruption coming out of it, and plenty of red-hot stones." "The first question to be settled," said Mr. George, "is, how we shall go."
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