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Elmo fade away, Capri vanish like a purple mist, Ischia and Procida melt insensibly into the blue of the marvellous bay; and watching the spark which trembled on the distant summit of Vesuvius like the dying eye of that cruel destiny from which she fled, the rescued happy woman exulted in the belief that she was at last sailing through serene seas.
As she spoke she was looking at him, and she saw a slight change come over his face. "Do you think " she began, and paused. "I wonder if she was reading," she added, slowly, after a moment. "Even the children have their secrets," he answered. As he spoke he turned his head and looked out of the window towards Ischia. "How clear it is to-night! There will be no storm." "No. We can dine outside.
The great charm of the house was its terrace, fifty feet long by twenty-five wide, and protected by a stone balustrade, massive and carved, hanging over the blue Mediterranean, and giving to view Vesuvius, Ischia, and all the coast of glorious sea.
Two or three of us had been resting ourselves among the tranquil and beautiful scenery of the island of Ischia, eighteen miles out in the harbor, for two days; we called it "resting," but I do not remember now what the resting consisted of, for when we got back to Naples we had not slept for forty-eight hours.
But throughout the long intervals when Vesuvius was at rest it was noted that Etna and Ischia were more or less disturbed. In 1538 a startling evidence was given that there was no decline of energy in the volcanic system of Southern Italy.
It lies in amphitheatre form on the shore of the classic bay, which is shut in from the sea by the island of Capri, extending in part across its entrance to the southeast, while to the northwest loom up the beautiful islands of Procida and Ischia, so full of sad and historic associations.
The first of these substances is extremely rare at Teneriffe; and I never found it in the lavas of Vesuvius; but those of Etna contain it in abundance. This last, which is so common in the basaltic lavas of the island of Ischia, does not begin to appear at Teneriffe, till we approach the volcano.
Of course, this is mere conjecture of mine. They may have gone on the hills behind the town instead, or they may have stood leaning over the garden-wall of her mother's little villa, looking at the passers-by in the deep lane, thinking about nothing in the world, and talking about it all the sunny afternoon, until Ischia was purple with the last light, and the olive terraces behind them began to lose their gray bloom.
During its outflow more than 2,000,000,000 cubic feet of molten lava was spread out over a space of three square miles. There have been several eruptions since its date, but none of marked prominence, though the mountain is rarely quiescent for any lengthened period. South-eastward of Ischia, between Calabria and Sicily, the Lipari Islands arrest attention for the volcanic phenomena they present.
It lies only three miles from the curving end of the promontory, and is about twenty miles due south of Naples. In this atmosphere distances dwindle. The nearest land, to the northwest, is the larger island of Ischia, distant nearly as far as Naples; yet Capri has the effect of being anchored off the bay to guard the entrance.
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