“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.