Page 69

" 'Oh, thank God you thought of it!' I said.

" 'You can say that prayer again, Little Boss. Don't forget to press the button for the flash. ¡¯

"I wanted to kiss her again, but I was already drifting away.

"As for Goblin, he came after me, vivid and yet transparent, pleading with me not to go, saying, 'Bad, Quinn, bad,' over and over, and once again I told him in polite terms to leave me alone. He vanished then, but I suspect he was with me as I went on.

"In fact, I figured that he had to be; because where else could Goblin go? I was thinking a lot of late as to where Goblin was and where Goblin wasn't, and I was more than impatient with him, as I've said.

"Back to the swamp:

"There was a mist crawling over the water, and at first the swamp looked inviting and beautiful, harmonious and embracing -- the stuff of poetry and photograph captions -- but within a very short time it was the evil bog of mosquitoes and chain-girded cypress trees with arrows carved into their bark. The rustling of creatures in the dark waters and the sight of more than one alligator gave me the creeps.

"The dizziness returned, which alarmed me considerably, and the voices came once more, too low for me to really understand what they said. What was I overhearing? Did these ghosts quarrel with each other forever? Is that what Rebecca had meant when she said things don't move in a straight line?

"You can't do it, you have to let me go. . .

"Why wasn't this ghostly discourse loud enough for me to be sure of every word?

" 'I'm coming, Rebecca,' I said aloud. 'You be straight with me, now, Rebecca. I know your tricks, and yet I'm coming. You be straight. ¡¯

"On and on I went through this dense green hell of tormented gray trees and anguished vines, of rattling leaf and fetid water, feeling ever fainter and probing deeply with the pole and propelling myself forward as fast as I could.

"I'm begging you, God help me. . . .

"I knew it was Rebecca crying, Rebecca pleading, but with whom? Then came the inevitable sinister laughter and a man's voice speaking rapidly and angrily. Was it Manfred?

"A gator shot past me, his big slimy back visible for only a moment, and the pirogue rocked dangerously and then righted itself clumsily and on I went. I trembled, thinking about the gator, and I hated myself for it. I went on.

"Each time the dizziness came over me really heavily I slowed my pace, for fear of falling, and the high green thick of the swamp swallowed me treacherously, as I tried to make out what was being said: . . . Loved you, always loved you, you promised, in Naples, forever, in the ruins . . . And there came the deep voice, and the laughter rippling through it all.

"Were there three of them? Were there more?

"At last the weathered hulk of the Hermitage loomed in front of me, and the pirogue struck the bank amid the wild blackberries, and I was nearly knocked out of the boat. I quickly secured it to the nearest tree -- a thing I had not done last time -- laid the pole in it in intelligent fashion and then proceeded to explore the island once more.

"There had been gators on the island. I heard the plash as they went back into the swamp. What was I going to do if I encountered a mean gator? Well, it had never happened, and maybe it never would. I had no real fear of them, because they aren't generally vicious and they don't want trouble; nevertheless, this was the first time I had been in their august company without Pops or another man to take command.

"I stood listening. I could hear nothing but the mournful, broken cry of the birds. And that humming, that humming of bees and mosquitoes which I connected to the slime of sweat that now covered my skin.

"The house looked as empty as it had before. But that didn't mean a whole lot.

"Nevertheless, the mausoleum -- or whatever it was -- drew me, and I went back to it, studying it more carefully than I had the first time.

"No door of any kind, of that I was certain. So what in the name of God did it contain?

"As for the procession of figures graven in the gold, I was certain now they were Roman and that they were grieving; that the women were weeping and the men hammering on their foreheads with clenched fists.

"On an end panel which contained only a trio of weeping children there appeared some background engraving on a different plane from the figures -- details that I hadn't noticed before at all.

"With my fingers I traced in one corner the image of a mountain, and the mountain had a high cone and was erupting, and above it streamed right and left a great heavy cloud. Far to the right, and somewhat below the position of the mountain, was the image of a small walled city, drawn in tiny detail, and it seemed more than obvious that the evil cloud from the erupting mountain was a threat to the little town.

" 'Volcano. Ancient Rome. A city. People in mourning. ' It had to be Mount Vesuvius, this mountain, and the city had to be the fabled city of Pompeii.

"Even I who had traveled almost nowhere in my life knew the full story of the eruption of Vesuvius in A. D. 79 and how it had buried Herculaneum and Pompeii. Only in the eighteenth century had they been officially rediscovered, and if there was anywhere I wanted to travel -- outside of Ruby River Parish -- it was to the ruins of Pompeii.

"The tragedy of those buried cities had always enthralled me and sometimes in a painful way.

Years ago I'd seen photographs of plaster casts made of those poor Romans struggling to escape the cinder rain falling on Pompeii and they had made me cry.