We returned toward the cone, and approached within dangerous proximity to it. The volcano-girl often pulled my arm to induce me to keep back; but when she saw I was determined to look down into the horrid flaming gulf of fire that yawned near the cone, she followed me, murmuring a low pensive song. On reaching the edge, which was uncertain and trembling, I halted and gazed; and while the guide and my companions shouted to me to come back, enjoyed a moment of fearful joy. I was standing on the brink of a vast chasm of fire, in which no flame was, but only a dreadful glow, that thickened by distance into substance. The wind shrieked around, the volcano roared above, the tremendous cloud of black smoke swayed and wavered as it rolled, beaten down by the wind to the outer edge of the crater, like a vast snake, or, when the blast for a moment ceased, towered aloft like an evil genius, and dispersed amid the clouds.
"Come back! come back!" cried Ghita, as the smoky pile of cinders trembled beneath us, and we both, panic-stricken, rushed to a surer footing, while the point we had occupied slided into the gulf of fire! I never shall forget that moment. The very memory of it makes my hair stand on end, and a cold perspiration burst out over my whole body. The girl clasped my hand convulsively as we ran, and when we stood again on the hot solid lava, uttered a low, "Dio grazia!" All this was unlike folly, and, together with our companionship in danger, heightened the interest I felt in my wild-looking, beautiful guide.
We all returned toward the edge of the crater, and collected in a lava-cave to light torches for our journey back. Here we met two or three men armed with guns, who professed to be guards, and might have been brigands. One of them spoke rather roughly to the volcano-girl, who took refuge by my side, and would not quit it. We started again by the light of great flaring torches, and soon began the descent down a dusty decline. It was a strange, rapid piece of work. The whole party ran, rushed, tumbled, slid, rolled down in one confused crowd, the torches glaring, flakes of burning pitch scattering here and there, the palanquin bobbing up and down, the mountain sloping up to the clouds behind, and down into darkness before. We descended this time into the old crater—a great plain of dust and pumice-stone. All was gloomy around; but the lights of Naples and Portici could be distinguished in the distance.
Our horses and donkeys were waiting for us where we had left them; and we rode rapidly back via the Hermitage, but over the plain of lava, instead of by the zig-zag road, toward Portici. Ghita ran all the way by my side, but rarely spoke, except to tell me when we approached a steep declivity. I should have felt jealous had she attended to any one else; but was quite angry at hearing her jestingly spoken of as "my conquest." A single vulgar remark sometimes throws cold water on the most delicate sentiment.
At Portici she left us. The guides were paid, and every body forgot the volcano-girl who had been of such signal service to us. I looked for her, and saw her standing in the court-yard with the back of her little hand to her mouth in a pensive attitude. "Ghita," said I, approaching, "I must give you something"—she started slightly—"that you may buy a remembrance with it of our visit to the volcano." In such a form, the present—I did not write the amount down among my disbursements—was accepted frankly and freely. The poor girl was evidently in a state of great emotion: a few kind words from me had struck upon a chord ever ready to vibrate; the truth is, she sobbed, and could not answer. But when the tongue falters, and the lip trembles in the South, there is an eloquent substitute for language. She took my hand, and kissed it fervently, and a shower of warm tear-drops fell upon it. "Ghita," I murmured, trying to be firm, but bending over her with the tenderest affection—I can not help it; I have an instinctive love for the sorrowful—"Ghita, you are unhappy? Can I do any thing for you?" "No," was her answer, as she again pressed my hand, and, gliding away, disappeared like a shadow in the street.
We were at Naples an hour after midnight; but I found it impossible to sleep. I could think of nothing save the story of the volcano-girl; for the substance of her story was evident—the material details alone were wanting. I afterward learned the whole truth. A volume might be filled with them: a line will be sufficient. She had been betrothed to a young man, a guide, who had perished during a visit to the volcano: she had gone mad in consequence—of a gentle, harmless madness in general; but as a few brutal people insulted her, she was sometimes suspicious of strangers. She gained her living by selling ornaments of polished lava, or by guiding travelers. This was all; but it was enough. I have kept a place in my memory for Ghita, whose acquaintance I cultivated on other occasions. I saw her once among the ruins of Pompeii, where she greeted me with a friendly nod, but without referring at all to our previous meetings—I mean in words; for at parting she gave me a handful of wild-flowers, and then ran away without waiting for a recompense.
PUBLIC OPINION AND THE PUBLIC PRESS.
Perhaps there is no better guarantee of peace and progress to this country than the freedom of the Press. Opinion is King of England and Victoria is Queen. Every phase of opinion speaks through some book or journal and is repeated widely in proportion to the hold it takes upon the public. Government is the representative of whatever opinions prevail; if it prove too perverse it falls—ministers change, without a revolution. Then too, when every man's tongue is free, we are accustomed to hear all manner of wild suggestions. Fresh paint does not soon dazzle us; we are like children lavishly supplied with toys, who receive new gifts tranquilly enough.
Is King Opinion an honest ruler? Yes. For the English people speak unreservedly their thoughts on public matters, and are open, though it be with honorable slowness, to all new convictions. We must add, however, as a drawback, that the uneducated class amounts to a distressing number in this country in proportion to the whole. It forms, as long as it is ignorant, a source of profit to designing speculators. Nonsense is put into the mouths of men who mean no evil, but who sincerely desire their own improvement. Truth is murdered, and her dress is worn by knaves who burlesque sympathy with working-men for selfish purposes. The poor man's sincere advocate, at last, can not speak truth without incurring the suspicion of some treasonable purpose against honesty or common sense. The very language necessary to be used in advocating just rights sometimes becomes as a pure stream befouled by those who have misused it.