Explore "The Last Days of Pompeii" by Edward Bulwer-lytton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
WE must go back a few hours in the progress of our story. At the first / grey dawn of the day, which Glaucus had already marked with white, the / Egyptian was seated, sleepless and alone, on the summit of the lofty and / pyramidal tower which flanked his house. A tall parapet around it / served as a wall, and conspired, with the height of the edifice and the / gloomy trees that girded the mansion, to defy the prying eyes of / curiosity or observation. A table, on which lay a scroll, filled with / mystic figures, was before him. On high, the stars waxed dim and faint, / and the shades of night melted from the sterile mountain-tops; only / above Vesuvius there rested a deep and massy cloud, which for several / days past had gathered darker and more solid over its summit. The / struggle of night and day was more visible over the broad ocean, which / stretched calm, like a gigantic lake, bounded by the circling shores / that, covered with vines and foliage, and gleaming here and there with / the white walls of sleeping cities, sloped to the scarce rippling waves.
It was the hour above all others most sacred to the daring science of / the Egyptian -- the science which would read our changeful destinies in / the stars.