All the time he sings a tune to himself, caught up in the streets of the tuneful city; an air lilting to the refrain-- "Io ti voglio bene assaje E tu non pienz' a me!" Just after nightfall he alighted from the train at Pompeii.

Having stowed away certain impedimenta at the station, he took his travelling-bag in his hand, broke with small ceremony through porters and hotel-touts, came forth upon the high-road, and stepped forward like one to whom the locality is familiar.

In a minute or two he was overtaken by a little lad, who looked up at him and said in an insinuating voice, "Albergo del Sole, signore ?" "Prendi, bambino," was Mallard's reply, as he handed the bag to him.
"Avanti!" A divine evening, softly warm, dim-glimmering.

The dusty road ran on between white trunks of plane-trees; when the station and the houses near it were left behind, no other building came in view.

To the left of the road, hidden behind its long earth-rampart, lay the dead city; far beyond rose the dark shape of Vesuvius, crested with beacon-glow, a small red fire, now angry, now murky, now for a time extinguished.