generations of His death the Saviour had followers in heathen Pompeii even among actors.

Here is another curious inscription conceived in a very different spirit, and scratched upon the wall of the house of a certain Cecilius Jucundus: "Quis amat valeat. Pereat qui nescit amare. Bis tanto pereat, quisquis amare vetat," which I may render, "May the lover flourish! Bad luck to him who turns his back on love! But to him who bars the lover's path-damnation!"

Jucundus was a banker. It is not difficult to imagine that this vigorous screed was inscribed upon the wall by some poor aspirant for his daughter's hand, to whom he had shown the door.

The old tradition was that Pompeii perished during the summer months. As our guide-book points out, however, this theory is entirely refuted by one curious little circumstance. Near the Stabian Gate in December 1889 were discovered some human bodies and a tree, which in the words of the book "was poured there, as one habitually is used to do the liquid chalk," so that "besides the impress of its thick past remained as engraved on the ashes" the remains of the leaves and of the berries.

From the cast obtained thus obscurely (which we saw) botanists were enabled to identify the tree with its leaves and fruit as a variety of lauris nobilis, whereof the berries do not ripen until late autumn. As these particular berries were quite ripe when the ashes covered them, Pompeii, it is clear, must have perished in the winter months.

I will confess that I leave this place with a deep professional grudge against that admirable romancer, the late Lord Lytton. Who is there of our trade that would not like to write a novel about Pompeii? But Lytton bars the way. Not that it would be difficult to find another and quite different plot. It is his title which presages failure to all who would follow in his path. Had he called his book "Glaucus," or "The

Blind Girl," or "A Judgment from Heaven," or anything else, it would not have mattered. But every one has heard of the novel named "The Last Days of Pompeii," and he who tried to treat of that city and event with the pen of fiction would certainly hear of it also. It is even possible that he might become involved in correspondence on the hoary theme of literary plagiarism.

CHAPTER V

NAPLES то LARNACA

THE morning of our departure from Naples came, and we departed, this time very early. Long before "the saffron-tinted dawn," as I remember when a boy at school I used to translate the Homeric phrase, had touched the red pillar of smoke above Vesuvius, I was up and doing my experienced best to arouse my companion, by arranging the electric lights in such an artistic fashion that their unveiled and concentrated rays struck full upon his "slumber-curtained eyes." But he is an excellent sleeper, and the effort was a failure. Therefore stronger measures had to be

found.

At length we were off, the extreme earliness of the hour saving me something considerable in the matter of hotel tips. By the time we reached the station, however, every Italian connected with the place was wide-awake and quite ready to receive the largesse of the noble foreigner. I think that I had to fee about ten men at that station, at least eight of them for doing nothing. Gratuities were dispensed to the bus-conductor who introduced us to a porter; to the porter who led us three yards to the ticket office; to an official who inspected the tickets after we had taken them; to two other officials who showed us respectively the platform from which the train for Brindisi started and the place where the luggage must be booked; to a superior person who announced that he would see the luggage properly booked, and to various other inferior persons, each of

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whom prepared to carry some small article to the platform. Then being called upon suddenly to decide, and very much afraid that the said small articles would vanish in transit, I determined upon the spur of the moment to accompany them to the carriage, leaving my nephew to attend to the registration of the heavier baggage.

Even in that crowded tumultuous moment I had, it is true, my doubts of the wisdom of this arrangement, but remembering that on the last occasion when he performed this important office, the intelligent bookingclerk had managed to relieve my companion of half a napoleon, by the simple process of giving change to the amount of twenty centimes instead of ten francs twenty centimes, I was sure that experience would have made him very, very cautious. Presently he arrived radiant, having accomplished all decently and in order at the moderate expense of another few francs of tips.

"Have you got the luggage-ticket?" I asked with sombre suspicion.

"Rather," he answered; "do you suppose that I am green enough to come without it?" and he showed me the outside of a dirty bit of paper. The outside, remember, not the inside, for thereby hangs a very painful, moving tale.

Well, we started, this time in great comfort, since, except for an Italian sportsman arrayed in quaint attire, we had the carriage to ourselves. We steamed past Pompeii and Sorrento, thence for hours climbing over huge mountain ranges covered with snow, sometimes almost to the level of the railway line. After these came vast stretches of plain. Then in the afternoon we travelled for many miles along the seashore, a very lonely strand fringed with pines blown by the prevalent winds to curious, horizontal shapes, as though a gardener had trimmed them thus for years. Ultimately once more we headed inland across the foot of Italy, and

at last, after a journey of about thirteen hours, to my great relief, for I feared lest another train off the line might make us lose our boat, ran into Brindisi.

Here to our joy the local Cook was in attendance, who put us into a cab, strictly charging us to "pay nothing to nobody." He announced further that he would follow presently to the mail steamer Isis with the heavy baggage, for which he took the ticket.

We reached the Isis, a narrow, rakish-looking boat, found our cabin, and began to arrange things. While we were getting rid of the dust of our long journey I heard a voice outside, the voice of Cook, though strangely changed and agitated.

"Mr. Haggard," said the voice, " Mr. Rider Haggard."
"Yes," I answered; "what's the matter?
I've paid

for the passages at the office."

'It isn't the passages, it's your luggage," he replied through the door; "it's gone!"

I sank upon my berth.

"gone where?"

Gone?" I said feebly,

'To Reggio," replied the mournful voice, “Reggio on the other side of Italy, where you booked it to."

"It was booked to Brindisi," I shouted.

"Oh no, it wasn't," wailed the voice, "it was booked to Reggio; here's the ticket."

"Do you hear that?" I said to my nephew, who, with his dripping head lifted from the basin, was staring at vacancy as though he had seen a ghost; "do you hear that? He says you booked the luggage to Reggio."

'I didn't," he gasped; "I gave them the tickets for Brindisi."

A horrible thought struck me. "Did you examine the voucher?" I asked.

Then almost with tears he confessed that he had overlooked this formality.

"My friend," I went on, "do you understand what you have done? Has it occurred to you that this