Chapter V: Part 5

She hadn’t seen him for nearly a fortnight, so she would anyhow have been very glad of his arrival, but to-day, his coming seemed specially fortunate as a kind of sign that she had been right in offering consolation to Diana. A few minutes later, indeed, she was even more certain of it.

“It’s no use suggesting a visit to your favourite place of amusement,” said Aunt Hester, in a quizzical tone when she had welcomed the old gentleman and given him some tea. “Rachel is going to St. Mary’s Bay for a week with her little friend, so she’ll be far away from such entertainments as museums.”

“So shall I,” returned Mr. Sheston, helping himself to cake. “Curiously enough _I’m_ going to St. Mary’s Bay in a day or two for a little change of air.”

Rachel really _did_ scream for joy at this news, and when, after some eager questioning she discovered that Mr. Sheston was actually going to the very hotel in which Diana’s father and mother had taken rooms, she was almost sure that whatever else happened, she and Diana would not miss an “adventure.”

It was altogether delightful at St. Mary’s Bay. The weather was perfect. Diana’s father and mother were, next to her own, Rachel thought, the nicest father and mother in the world, and it was gratifying to find that they very much liked their little daughter’s new friend, Mr. Sheston. All day long, she and Rachel were out of doors, scrambling about bare-footed on the rocks, and enjoying themselves tremendously.

At intervals, of course, they discussed their chances of an adventure, and, as the magic seventh day approached, their excitement increased.

“It makes it such fun that he never says anything about the magic between whiles, doesn’t it?” Rachel observed on the morning of the day when something might be expected to happen. “He’s just like a nice old gentleman, except at ‘seven’ times. Can’t you imagine how people would stare at him if they knew he was Sheshà, and Dinocrates, and Cleon, and ever so many more?”

“And that he can make Alexander’s beautiful horse come back again to the world, and fly with us to Halicarnassus!” put in Diana with a laugh of triumph. “They only think he’s a dear, clever old gentleman who knows all about things in the British Museum. It’s jolly to be us and to know ever so much more about him than just _that_!”

“Don’t forget he’s promised to take us up the lighthouse this afternoon,” remarked Rachel, as they went into the hotel for lunch.

They reminded him of this promise almost before he had taken his place opposite to them at the table, and an arrangement was made to meet on the terrace outside, at three o’clock. “After I’ve had my nap,” said Mr. Sheston, in his character as an old gentleman who took care of himself and could not do without his midday sleep.

Punctually at three o’clock, however, he made his appearance on the terrace, and they all set out to walk to the lighthouse.

It was built at the end of a long spur of rock which jutted out from the bay for quite half a mile, and when at last they reached the strong stone tower, both children thought how lonely was the spot on which it stood.

It was great fun to climb the twisting stone staircase within the lighthouse and to come at last into the “lantern”—a round room at the top, from which there was a wonderful view of the great expanse of sea now calm and blue as any mountain lake.

“Oh, I should like to live up here!” exclaimed Diana, enthusiastically, when the lighthouse-keeper had explained all about the working of the great shining lamp.

“Ah, it’s all very well now, missie,” returned the old sailor-man, shaking his head. “But you wouldn’t like it so much on some of the nights we gets up here in the winter. To look at that there sea now, you’d never think, p’raps, what it’s like in the winter when there’s a great storm, and the waves come on mountains high, a-dashing all around, with the wind howlin’ and shrieking like a lot ’er wild animals, and the spray tossin’ right up to them there winders, and beatin’ against ’em like mad. And the birds—them sea-gulls flying round the light as they do—gettin’ all ’mazed-like and confused, dashin’ theirselves against the glass, poor things, an’ cryin’ most uncanny.... It’s wild enough up ’ere then, I can tell you. Not altogether comfortable-like either,” he added, with a broad smile.

“And it’s even worse for the poor sailors in the ships, isn’t it?” said Rachel, nodding seawards. “How glad they must be to see your light that keeps them from getting on to the rocks. I should think they feel awfully glad then that lighthouses are invented. How _were_ they invented?” she asked, suddenly turning to Mr. Sheston. “I mean who first thought of making a lighthouse?”

Scarcely had she asked the question, when the glass-encircled room, with its huge lantern, was blotted out in darkness. Another second and Rachel felt a fresh wind blowing in her face, and, before she had time to cry out to Diana, Diana herself gave a scream of amazement and delight.

“Rachel! Look—look! What is it? Where are we?” she cried.

For a moment Rachel paid no heed to the second question. She had no idea where she stood. She only knew that she was gazing upon something very strange and wonderful. It was night and quite dark, and she heard the sound of water lapping close to her feet. But her eyes were fixed upon something that looked like a gigantic lily rising out of the sea, and made visible by _flames_, which at its summit leapt and danced and streamed upwards towards the night sky.

“We’re on a _ship_,” whispered Diana, excitedly.

And then, for the first time, Rachel realised that she was standing on the deck of a vessel, and that all around her, sailors were moving, busy with ropes and sails as they shouted to one another in a language she did not understand.

The flames darting from the top of the wonderful column lighted up a great track of water between the ship and the coast, which was plainly visible in the red glare of the fire. So also was the ship that sailed over the illuminated sea, and the figures of the sailors on board. They were like no sailors she had ever seen, for they were clothed in a strange fashion, and wore curiously shaped caps.

“There is the first lighthouse,” said a well-known voice, and turning together, the children saw standing behind them—Mr. Sheston. Rachel, at any rate, knew it was Mr. Sheston, even though he looked quite different, and wore a tunic with a cloak thrown over his shoulders, for she was accustomed by this time to seeing him in various guises.

“Oh, _do_ tell us where we are,” she begged. “We’re on the sea, of course—but what sea is it? And how far are we back into the Past? And what is your name _this_ time?”

The tall dark man laughed.

“Let me take the questions singly. This is the Mediterranean Sea. We are about two thousand five hundred years back into the Past. The land there is the coast of Egypt. And my name you already know, for I am Dinocrates.”

“Oh, then it was you who built the Temple of Diana?” asked Rachel.

“And you were the little boy with the leopard skin? And afterwards—hundreds of years afterwards—you built the _first_ temple—and the second and third ones too,” cried Diana. “Mr. Sheston told us all about you, and——”

But here Diana paused, for she suddenly realised that Dinocrates and Mr. Sheston were one and the same.

Rachel had evidently come to a like conclusion, for all at once she said in a whisper, “I thought so.”

There was silence for a moment while both children, rather confused, were considering the strangeness of this. Then Rachel, who was never very long quiet, began again:

“There’s a great town behind the tower, isn’t there? When the flames blow backwards I can see the houses.”

“You behold the city of Alexandria.”

“Alexandria?” repeated Diana quickly. “That reminds me of—_last_ time. Bucephalus, you know, and Alexander the Great.... Has the town anything to do with him?”

“Everything,” answered Dinocrates. “He founded it, and gave to it his own name, the name by which men who live in your world of to-day, still call it. But it was I who built it,” he added. “That is, you understand, it was I who made the plans for the building of the city.”

“And did you build the lighthouse too?” asked Diana.

Dinocrates shook his head.

“Nay, not to me, but to another, do the sailors owe that tower of warning—the tower that has saved many lives.”

“Do tell us about it,” urged Rachel. “Who first thought of it? I suppose the sort of lights we have now with reflectors and all that, weren’t invented when _this_ lighthouse was made? But what a good idea to make flames come out at the top instead.”

“You shall hear the story of the lighthouse,” said Dinocrates, “but let us sit at our ease while I relate it.”

He pointed to a coil of ropes, and the children, settling themselves close together upon it, found that it made a most comfortable seat.

Dinocrates meanwhile wrapping his cloak about him lay full length upon the deck near them, and turned his face in the direction of the lily-white tower with its crown of leaping flames. For a moment he did not speak, and the children were so impressed by the wild beauty of the scene that they too were silent.

The vessel, as strange to their eyes as were the sailors who formed its crew, glided slowly and softly over the dark water on which lay a pathway of crimson light. To and fro moved the sailors, sometimes singing, sometimes laughing, sometimes shouting to one another as they went about their work, but paying no heed to their visitors.

The flames from the lighthouse rising and falling revealed a coastline with a fringe of white houses, and on the sea other ships moving in various directions, their sails sometimes lighted up brightly in the red glow of the fire.

Rachel, who had sunk into a sort of happy dream, started when at last their companion spoke.

“Do you remember,” he began, “what Bucephalus, that famous horse, has already told you concerning his master, Alexander the Great? How that he set out to conquer the world? Bucephalus has, I know, related to you how his master took the city of Halicarnassus in Asia Minor and visited the tomb of Mausolus, built by the sorrowing Queen Artemisia. That, however, was only the beginning of his victories.

“A little later, when all Asia Minor owned his sway, he turned his thoughts to Egypt and conquered _that_ country also. Sailing in his barge up the great river Nile which waters the land, he came at last to where it flows out into the sea—this very sea upon which you are now sailing. But he found no city there, such as by the light of that beacon fire you now behold. Only a few poor huts stood then at the mouth of the great river. ‘Here,’ thought Alexander, ‘is the place for a mighty port, and here a mighty town shall arise. But whom shall I employ to build such a city for me? Who is the greatest architect now living?’ Instantly my name was upon his lips. For, only a year before, he had seen the great new temple I had completed at Ephesus, in honour of Diana.

“At once he sent for me, and straight from the building of that temple in Ephesus I came hither. Let me now show you, little maids, what I found where now that lighthouse and that city stand. Rise, and bow with closed eyes seven times in the direction of the shore.”

Rachel and Diana needed no second invitation. They leapt to their feet and obeyed.

“Open now your eyes and behold,” said Dinocrates.

Again the children did as they were told, and found, scarcely to their surprise now, so accustomed to marvels had they grown, that the night had vanished. It was broad daylight, and the sun streamed down upon a bare rocky island separated by a narrow belt of sea from the mainland. There was no city, no lighthouse, only a few rough huts upon the rocky island round which the sea-gulls circled, uttering sad cries. A mighty river, flowing through miles of flat land, poured its waters into the sea close to the island.

“This,” said Dinocrates, when the children had gazed a moment at the scene, “was what I found, when, at the command of Alexander, I came hither to build the city. That bare island in front of the mainland was then, and is still called, the Isle of Pharos.”

He waited a moment.

“Close once again your eyes, and wait till I pronounce the magic number,” he presently directed.

At the word _seven_, the children looked again, and together uttered a long _Oh!_ of astonishment at the change which had taken place. There was the island indeed, but no longer bare and uninhabited. A gleaming bridge joined it on the land side to a city whose temples, open-air theatres, statues and monuments shone white and splendid in the sunshine. The whole, including three sides of the island, was enclosed by a mighty wall with turrets at intervals upon it, and the water space between the island and the city was now a harbour in which ships rode at anchor.

“There stands Alexandria as I built it over two thousand years ago,” said Dinocrates, quietly. “And there, bearing the same name, the name of Alexander the Great, it stands to-day. English sailors anchor their ships in its port, many English people live there, and it has heard the guns of the Great War that is just over.”

“Not like Babylon, or Ephesus—all in ruins,” murmured Rachel. “Alexandria has _lasted_.”

“It has lasted—but it no longer looks as you see it here. Time and change! Time and change!” murmured Dinocrates, softly. “It is a modern city now, and most of what _I_ built is ruins beneath its present squares and houses.”

“But there’s no lighthouse—even as we see the place now,” exclaimed Diana.

“There was no lighthouse even in my time, little child. It was not till I had been dead twenty years and more that the beacon tower was built.”

Rachel glanced at him. “After you had—gone on? Gone into another life, you mean?” she said.

Dinocrates smiled kindly at her.

“That is a better way of saying the same thing, little maid,” he agreed.

“But you promised you would tell us about the lighthouse,” began Diana, after a moment. “_Do_ tell us, please,” she urged.

Again Dinocrates smiled.

“I am coming to it, impatient one,” he began, when Rachel interrupted.

“I want to know all sorts of other things first,” she declared. “Did Alexander live here after the town was built?”

“Nay, and he never saw more of the city than its beginning. He was marching always from country to country, conquering the world, and had no time to return to the place which bears his name. Though, after all, I am wrong. He _did_ come back. But when he came, Death, not he, was the conqueror. He died in Babylon, but they brought him hither, to the city built at his command, and here he was buried.”

“Was his lovely horse dead by that time?” asked Diana. “I hope so. Because he would have missed his master.”

“Why, yes,” put in Rachel. “Don’t you remember that Alexander buried him and named a town after him?”

“Of course! How silly of me....” Diana turned expectantly to Dinocrates.

“And about the lighthouse?” she persisted.

“Our ship is about to enter the harbour,” said their companion. “We will land, and go to the spot where the lighthouse finally arose. There I may best tell you its story.”

In a few moments the little vessel on the deck of which they stood, had been safely steered into the harbour between the island of Pharos and the city. At a quay running alongside of the island, they stepped off the ship, and “Dinocrates” led the way to a rock jutting out into the sea. It was a position from which there was a view of the busy harbour, and of the long bridge joining the island to the city, over which passed continually a gaily coloured crowd. Mules with gaudy trappings were driven by shouting boys. Ladies in silken litters were borne along by dark-skinned slaves. Men dressed in tunics like the one worn by “Dinocrates” sauntered by, and from the city itself came a confused hum of voices.

By turning their backs to the bridge the children found the blue sea almost at their feet, stretching away to the distant horizon.

Dinocrates began to speak again, and the water lapping against the rocks close at hand murmured between the pauses of his story.

“There lies the city I began to build while Alexander was yet alive,” he said, pointing backwards over his shoulder. “I was a famous architect in those days, and rich men sent me their sons to learn from me. But among all my pupils the best, the most brilliant, was Sostratus. He came to me when he was but a lad, and I early foretold for him a great career. I loved him dearly, and he was to me like a son. His native land was Greece, and, though he spent some years with me during the building of Alexandria, he returned more than once to his home, and on one of these visits fell deeply in love with a beautiful Grecian maiden.

“Never shall I forget the happiness of Sostratus, when he told me that the maiden, with her parents, was coming to Alexandria, where the marriage was to be celebrated. All was prepared for the bride, and on the appointed day, she set sail to cross the stretch of sea between Greece and Alexandria. But, alas, the weather, till then calm and peaceful, suddenly changed. A great storm arose, and the ship, when it came into sight, though it held bravely on, was tossed like a cockle-shell upon the waters.

“Now this bay of Alexandria is difficult of navigation, and in the darkness, full of danger. Night came on; there was no friendly beacon fire to show the way, and presently we, who were gathered here on this very spot, heard the shouts and cries of drowning men. Powerless to help, we waited in despair for daybreak, only to see the waters strewn with wreckage. Close to land, the good ship, with all on board, had gone down for lack of a light to show the captain where lay the treacherous rocks.

“Sostratus was wild with grief, from which, as time went on, I strove in vain to rouse him. Nothing I could say or do would comfort him, till at last, when I was ill and near to death, I called him to my bedside and urged him not to waste his life in useless idle despair.

“‘Build something,’ said I, ‘which shall be at once a monument to the memory of your bride, and of use to the living. So shall you not have passed through this your present life in vain.’

“‘What if I should build a light-tower?’ he asked presently. ‘Something that shall serve as a beacon and a warning to sailors? Already has the thought of such a tower begun to take shape in my mind, and now, O master, I swear to thee that I will not rest till such a building arises, for by such means, grief such as I have endured may be spared to others.’

“With that he began to discuss with me how such a tower, the first of its kind, could be constructed so that a light should stream constantly from its summit during the darkness of the night. And I, seeing him roused from his grief and ready for a new interest, passed some days later, happily from that life. All that follows, I learnt long afterwards when once more I returned to this earth.

“Even before my own death, Alexander the Great had passed away, and the world he had conquered was being divided amongst the generals who had fought under his command. This land of Egypt, with Alexandria as its port, fell to one of them—a man whose name was Ptolemy. (He it was who helped the Rhodians against Demetrius in the famous siege),” he added, turning with a smile to Rachel.

“And you were _Cleon_ then—not Dinocrates,” she exclaimed quickly. “You remember I told you about that siege, Diana?”

Diana nodded. “But do go on about Sostratus,” she begged, turning to Dinocrates. “Ptolemy let him build the lighthouse, I suppose?”

“After my death,” continued their friend, “my pupil went to King Ptolemy with his plans, and he was ordered not only to set about the building of the tower, but to spare no expense and to make it the most beautiful monument he could possibly accomplish. So Sostratus worked and thought and invented, and in time, on the very spot where now we are seated, there rose the tower you beheld a short while ago. Four hundred feet high it towered above this rock, built of white marble, slender as a lily, yet strong as steel. And in the cup-like hollow at the top, was sunk a brazier, that is, a huge basket of iron in which a fire was kept always burning. The men who from the gallery around this hollow tended the fire and fed the flames, were the first lighthouse-keepers, and the tower itself, being the first lighthouse, was the model for others all over the world. The lighthouse on the spur of land at St. Mary’s Bay, little maids, owes its existence to the marble tower of Sostratus, as in like fashion do all the other famous lighthouses of modern days, such as Eddystone, the North Foreland, and the rest. No longer, it is true, do naked flames stream upwards into the darkness from these modern towers—for, in two thousand years other light has been invented, as well as shielding panes of glass. Nowadays, strong electric globes shoot forth their gleams over the sea at night. But the tower of Sostratus was not only the first of these friendly beacons but also the most beautiful as a monument. So beautiful, indeed, and in those early days so strange to the sight, that it was named amongst the Seven Wonders of the World.”

“Was it called the Tower of Sostratus?” asked Rachel.

Dinocrates smiled and shook his head.

“Nay,” he returned, “though that was the wish of Sostratus himself. It was called the _Pharos_ Tower—after the name of this island upon which it stood.”

“Why,” exclaimed Diana suddenly, “_phare_ is the French word for lighthouse. Is that because of the Pharos tower?”

Diana had a French governess, and to Rachel’s wonder and admiration, spoke French, if not as well, at least as quickly as she talked in English.

“Yes,” answered Dinocrates. “Every time French sailors use that word, even though they have no knowledge of its meaning, the work of Sostratus is mentioned by men who live to-day. His work is remembered, his _name_ forgotten, even though he strove hard that this should not be the case.

“Listen, and I will tell you what chanced. When the tower was at length finished and stood gleaming white on this headland, the time had come for an inscription to be placed upon it, and Ptolemy, King of Egypt, ordered Sostratus to engrave these words upon the marble: _King Ptolemy to the gods, the saviours, for the benefit of sailors_.

“Now Sostratus, to whom the lighthouse represented all that he now cared for in life, was determined that his own name should be read, if not at the moment, at least in time to come. Yet he dared not disobey the King’s command. This, then, was the device by which he tried to ensure remembrance.

“Deep in the marble he first engraved:

“‘_Sostratus, son of Dexiphanes_, to the gods, the saviours, for the benefit of sailors.’

“Having thus placed his own, instead of the King’s name upon the tower, he then covered up the whole inscription with mortar, and on the top of it engraved the inscription commanded by Ptolemy. Well he knew, that in the course of years, the mortar would decay and his own name become visible.... Rise, make seven obeisances towards the sea, and you shall behold, if it please you, the lighthouse as it appeared a hundred years after Sostratus and King Ptolemy alike had left this world.”

The children lost no time in obeying, and when they opened their eyes they found themselves, to their delight, standing at the foot of the beautiful white tower. Dinocrates, smiling, stood beside them, and pointed to some lettering upon the tower at a little height above his own head. The inscription was cracked and defaced, and as the words were in Greek, they could not read them, but in a hollow, where the mortar had broken away at the beginning of the sentence, they saw a name which Dinocrates pronounced aloud—the name of Sostratus, now at last plainly to be seen.

The children gazed with interest upon the splendid graceful tower springing high above their heads, and then looked from it across the bridge to the city.

“Why, the town is ever so much bigger. Twice, three times as big,” cried Rachel, as she saw the clustering houses and let her eyes wander over the new domes and colonnades, courtyards and gardens visible on the other side of the harbour.

“A hundred years have passed between the opening and shutting of your eyes,” said the voice of Dinocrates. “The city founded by Alexander and built by me has had time to grow and to become one of the most famous homes of learning in the world. There great men have lived and died, and been forgotten, even as Sostratus, despite this inscription made in vanity, is forgotten. But Alexandria still lives, though the Pharos Tower, the Wonder of the World, is no more. And there, to-day, men who have fought in this last great war are planning to dig for buried treasures under modern houses and squares. Time goes on and men are forgotten, but the work of their brains lasts longer, and sometimes bears fruit centuries after they themselves have departed.... Here, for instance, we stand in this modern lighthouse....”

* * * * *

It was Mr. Sheston (no longer in the guise of Dinocrates) who uttered the last words. Dinocrates, the Pharos Tower, the City of Alexandria had vanished, and a moment later Rachel and Diana were listening to the sailor-man.

“I don’t know who invented them,” he was saying, as though in answer to a question, “but, whoever it was, he did a good piece of work. There’s too many wrecks as it is, but there’d be a considerable number more if it wasn’t for these ’ere light-’ouses.”

“_We_ know who invented them,” whispered Diana to Rachel, as they clattered down the winding stairs of the tower.

“Didn’t I tell you that being away from London wouldn’t make any difference?” demanded Rachel, triumphantly. “Sheshà can do _anything_!”

“Hush! Here comes Mr. Sheston,” Diana warned her in a low voice. “And I suppose we mustn’t say anything. But _he_ knows that _we_ know he’s Sheshà and Dinocrates—”

“And Cleon—and all the rest,” put in Rachel. “Isn’t it wonderful and—and _fun_, you know?”

Mr. Sheston, who had lingered in talk with the old sailor upstairs, now joined them, and all the way home the children chattered demurely about the St. Mary’s Bay lighthouse. There was no mention of the Pharos at Alexandria.

SEVENTH WONDER

Both the children were back again in London a few days later, sadly missing the sea and the freedom of St. Mary’s Bay, of course, but consoled by the knowledge that Mr. Sheston had also come back to town.

One afternoon, soon after their return, Rachel met Diana with a radiant face.

“Dad and Mother are coming back,” she exclaimed joyfully. “They’re on their way now. And Mother is ever so much better, Dad says. And this day week I shall see them, and go home with them. Isn’t it perfectly lovely?” But there were sudden tears in Diana’s eyes, and, in the midst of her excited talk, Rachel paused. “You’re to come and stay with me, of course,” she declared hastily. “Do you think I should be so glad if I had to say good-bye to you? Mother says she’s writing to _your_ mother to ask her to let you stay for a month. And she will, won’t she?”

This announcement had the effect of making Diana’s face almost as joyful as Rachel’s, and during their walk that afternoon their chattering tongues never ceased. There was so much to talk about.

When Rachel had described all the delights of her country home, the farm, the garden, the river with its punt, the woods in which they could build huts of branches—the conversation turned, as usual, upon the “adventures” in which Mr. Sheston was concerned.

“There’s still another one to come, you know,” Rachel presently declared. “At least I expect so. I’ve been here six weeks now, and every seventh day it’s—_happened_. And there’ll be another seventh day on Wednesday.”

“I do wonder what it will be this time, don’t you?” said Diana. “It’s so exciting not knowing where it will begin. Perhaps in the British Museum again. I rather hope it will be there. It’s so jolly to go with ‘him’ just as other children go with grown-up people to the Museum, and yet to know all the time that something frightfully interesting is coming.”

“Yes, that’s just what _I_ feel is so jolly about it,” Rachel agreed. “You go through all those rooms and you see statues and tombs and stones and things, and they all look _dead_, and you can’t believe the people who saw them thousands of years ago were just as much alive as we are now. Every time I go to the Museum I feel like that at first. Don’t you? And then it _happens_, you know. Quite suddenly. And everything that looked all dull and dead comes to be _real_. I hope it will begin in the Museum this time.”

It did. But before it happened, and as a last treat for her niece, Aunt Hester took both children to the circus at Olympia.

“What is _Olympia_?” asked Diana, suddenly, when she and Rachel, full of anticipation, were walking with Aunt Hester to the omnibus.

“It’s where the circus is held,” said Aunt Hester. “It’s a good long ride, so we must make haste.”

“But I mean what _is_ it?” persisted Diana.

“Oh, it’s a great building. Big enough for all sorts of entertainments, as well as the circus, to go on inside it.”

“Why is it called Olympia?” asked Rachel. “It’s such a funny name for a place where there’s a circus.”

“You must ask Mr. Sheston,” returned Aunt Hester, vaguely. “He’ll tell you why, better than I can. By the way, he’s going to take you both to the Museum to-morrow. I had a note from him this morning. Come along,” she exclaimed, hurriedly, as they turned a corner, “there’s the omnibus just starting. We must run for it.”

Seated opposite to one another in the omnibus when rather breathlessly they had settled down, Rachel and Diana exchanged meaning glances.

“It _is_ going to begin there, you see,” whispered Rachel at the earliest opportunity, and Diana agreed with a nod and smile of secret delight.

They enjoyed the circus immensely, but beautiful as the horses were, and much as they admired them, both children thought of another and still more wonderful horse than any that appeared in the ring.

“But, then, Bucephalus was the loveliest and cleverest thing in the world,” observed Diana, in a low voice, after Rachel had murmured his name. “And I’m sure he would hate to do tricks in a circus. He was a _war_ horse.”

“And used to real battles,” agreed Rachel, in an answering whisper.

* * * * *

“Well,” said Mr. Sheston next day, when Miss Moore had left both the children with him at the entrance to the Museum. “Well, how did you like the circus at Olympia yesterday?”

“Oh, it was lovely!” they exclaimed together.

“Aunt Hester said we were to ask you why it’s called _Olympia_,” put in Rachel, as they began to walk slowly through a statue-lined room that had become familiar.

“We may find the answer this afternoon,” answered the old gentleman, turning into a room that Rachel knew already. It was the room containing the statues of the headless women clothed in beautiful drapery.

“These are Greek statues, aren’t they?” she began, pointing to the group in the middle of the room. “They were on the outside of a temple once, weren’t they? I forget what it was called.”

“The Parthenon in Athens,” Mr. Sheston told her. “There’s a model showing the temple as it stood in ancient days, over there in that glass case. We’ll go and examine it in a minute. But first look up and see those young men riding on horseback.”

He pointed to a frieze in marble which ran the length of the walls and represented a procession of youths mounted upon beautiful horses.

“Now let us have a look at this model which shows part of Athens as it appeared two thousand years or so ago,” he went on, after a moment. The children followed him to a stand upon which, modelled in plaster, was a rocky hill with various buildings like fair-sized toys scattered over its slope. The names of these buildings were written below them, on the white plaster hill, and Diana had just exclaimed, “_Here’s_ the Parthenon!” when a young voice, which neither of the children recognised, but which sounded close at hand, said:

“_Seven times with closed eyes shall you bow._”

“Diana!” cried Rachel, a few seconds later, “It’s Athens. _Real_ Athens, you know!”

There was no doubt about its reality, for they felt the warmth of the sun, saw the overarching blue sky, and gazed with wonder and delight upon a beautiful scene.

A hill-side stretched before them, no longer of plaster, but a _real_ hill-side, scattered over with marvellous buildings in white marble, with groves of trees, and stretches of gardens between them.

“Look! Look!” exclaimed Diana, recognising at least one of the buildings. “That’s the Parthenon. There are the great beautiful women up in that pointed place above the columns.”

“And they’re not broken!” cried Rachel, excitedly. “They’re quite perfect. Look at their faces, and their arms. They had no faces and no arms the last time we saw them.”

“And there’s the procession of boys on horseback!” cried Diana, pointing to the frieze....

* * * * *

“Will it please you to come with me, O maidens?” enquired a voice, so near that both the children started before they turned round.

Behind them stood a boy of perhaps eleven or twelve years old. He was dressed in a shirt or tunic of white wool, without sleeves, and over it a white purple-bordered cloak wrapped about him in such a way as to leave his right arm and shoulder free. His legs were bare, but on his feet were sandals fastened with slender cords of leather strapped about his ankles.

His head was covered only by its thick crop of red-gold hair which curled closely about his head, and was one of his many beauties. For he was an exceedingly handsome boy—slim, yet strongly built. He held his head and body well, and all his movements were quick and graceful.

“Who are you?” stammered Rachel, the first to recover from surprise.

“My name is Agis,” said the boy. “I am commanded by Sheshà, greatest of magicians, to be your guide through our city of Athens. Later, I understand, he himself will conduct you to the Olympian games.”

Again, as it had so often happened before, though the language spoken by the boy was not her own, Rachel understood him perfectly.

“I suppose it’s Greek he’s talking,” she thought hurriedly before she began to ask questions.

“That’s the Parthenon, isn’t it?” she asked, pointing to the gleaming temple. “We’ve seen those statues up there before. At least, we’ve seen——” She was going to say “bits of them,” but Diana pulled her sleeve, and she stopped just in time to remember that it was no use trying to explain to a boy who lived thousands of years ago, all about the British Museum!

“Will you tell us what god is worshipped here?” put in Diana, politely.

“No god, but a goddess, the great Pallas Athene,” returned the boy, glancing at her with his bright eyes.

“She’s the same as _Minerva_, you know,” whispered Diana quickly, having learnt this from her father.

“Within,” the boy went on, “stands the statue of the goddess made by Phidias, the wondrous sculptor.”

“Is he alive now?” enquired Rachel.

Agis laughed. “Nay. He has been dead two hundred years and more. You must have come from a very far country, O maidens, to be so ignorant!”

“We have,” said Rachel, smiling in her turn. If only the boy could have known. It was only two hundred years for _him_ since the sculptor Phidias died, while for her and for Diana it was considerably more than two _thousand_ years. “We don’t know anything about your country,” she continued, “so will you please explain everything.”

“That would take me far too long, because I must soon return to the gymnasium, whither you may accompany me. I have only brought you here for a moment that you may glance at the most famous of our temples and public buildings. The city itself lies down yonder.” He pointed to a sea of white flat-roofed houses below.

“What is that place, high up on the hill?” asked Diana.

“The citadel—our fort of defence which we call the Acropolis. Beneath it, as you see, and under its protection, as it were, are the other buildings, of which the most precious is the Parthenon.”

“Can’t we go in, and look at the statue of the goddess?” begged Rachel.

Agis shook his curly head.

“Time is lacking. But it may be that, some days hence, you will see another, and perhaps even more famous statue, carved also by Phidias. It stands in the temple of Zeus at Olympia.”

The children exchanged quick glances at the mention of the word.

“What _is_ Olympia?” asked Diana, and as she put the question she suddenly remembered asking it before. Yesterday, was it?... It seemed ages and ages ago, or like something in a dream. She and Rachel had been then on their way to the circus at _Olympia_, and she had asked Aunt Hester——

Her bewildering thoughts were interrupted by a long shrill whistle from Agis. It was so like the sort of whistle her brother Jack gave when he was teasing her, that Rachel laughed. After all, Agis was very much like an ordinary schoolboy, even though he did talk in what she called “an old-fashioned long-ago” style.

“You know not _Olympia_, maidens? What then have you to live for, if you know not the Olympic games?”

“We really _don’t_ know anything about them,” said Rachel, apologetically. “You see we live in a different country, and—well, in a different time.”

She couldn’t help adding this, in her desire to defend herself from the charge of ignorance, but the boy took no notice of the last remark.

“Come with me, and by degrees it may be I shall enlighten you,” he said, still in a mocking voice.

He turned quickly, and Rachel and Diana, after one backward glance at the snow-white temple adorned with its perfect sculpture, followed him meekly down the hill. In a few moments they found themselves threading their way through the narrow streets of the city of Athens. These streets were bounded on either side by blank walls, broken here and there by a door.

“But where are the houses?” enquired Diana presently.

“These doors lead to our houses,” returned the boy, tapping one of them as he passed.

“There aren’t any windows!” objected Rachel.

“Would you have windows upon the street?” said Agis. “An idea comic indeed, O maidens!”

The children were too occupied with the strangeness of everything around them to reply to this. Every now and then they emerged from narrow roads between walls into a great square, and here the surrounding buildings were magnificent. There were long colonnades where people, dressed more or less in the same fashion as Agis, lounged or walked, and often in the midst of the square they saw beautiful statues.

“Look!” said Diana presently, pointing to a garland of leaves hung upon the knocker of a door. “Why is that wreath put there?” They had turned into another narrow street by this time.

“A new-born child is in the house without doubt,” returned Agis carelessly. “A boy.”

“How do you know?” asked Rachel.

“If it had been a girl, there would be a wreath of wool, instead of olive leaves. You may see such a one over there,” replied Agis, nodding in the direction of another door further on, where a twisted loop of violet wool hung from a knocker.

The children were much interested.

“It’s awfully nice to know like that about the babies,” declared Diana.... “Where are we going, Agis? What is this place?” she added curiously, as the boy ran on in front of them up a broad flight of steps leading to an imposing building.

“This is the gymnasium, and unless we hasten, I shall be late, and my instructor will be angered.” Agis looked over his shoulder to say this. “Follow me, and pay no heed to anyone, for no one will pay heed to you. Sheshà has put you under my guidance—I know not why. But I know that, except to me, you are invisible. Go boldly into yonder courtyard and watch. I must first leave my garments in the corridor.” He ran quickly down a passage to the right, and the children, full of wonder, walked on into a sunny square, enclosed by high walls, where little boys were going through all sorts of exercises.

“Oh, don’t they look pretty without their clothes!” was Diana’s first exclamation. For all the boys were naked, and as they ran and leapt, and the sunshine fell upon their little white bodies, they did indeed look beautiful.

“He said it was a _gymnasium_,” said Rachel. “But there aren’t any rings and poles and things, like there are in our gymnasiums. I suppose this was the _first_ sort of gymnasium, and ours are named after it?” she went on suddenly, as the idea struck her.

“There’s Agis!” cried Diana, as the now naked boy appeared. “Doesn’t he look like a statue come to life? Oh, look, Rachel! What is he going to do? That man—I suppose he’s the master?—is rubbing him all over with something. It’s oil, isn’t it? and those other boys are being rubbed with it too.”

“It’s to make them move their bodies easily, I expect,” said Rachel. “You know how oil makes stiff things like rusty locks quite smooth and easy. I suppose it’s the same with people’s joints.”

“Now they’re throwing sand over one another!” Diana exclaimed. “What’s that for, I wonder? Oh! they’re going to wrestle. Agis and that dark boy together. Do you see?”

“That’s why they put sand on themselves then,” suggested Rachel. “They’d be too slippery to hold one another without. Oh, _do_ look! Isn’t it jolly to see them? Agis is winning! I’m sure he’s winning.”

With breathless interest the children watched the boys as they turned and twisted—all their movements swift and graceful as the movements of beautiful wild forest animals. After the wrestling they saw several races between companies of boys, and then looked on at exercises in throwing a round object something like a quoit made in lead.

It was all wonderful to see. To sit in the sunshine, to hear the voices and laughter of the boys, to watch their graceful movements, and yet to know that the scene before them was really far away—back two thousand years and more into the Past, indeed, was a strange-enough experience. Every now and then, when they realised this, it made both of the children very quiet, and even a little sad.

They forgot this impression however when, at last, the training over, Agis beckoned to them to follow him out of the gymnasium.

In a few moments he was dressed again, and as the children walked on either side of him, through squares and streets, they kept up a fire of eager questions.

“This is the last day of our training,” explained Agis. “To-morrow we start on our journey, and in three days begin the great games in Olympia. May the gods grant me patience to live till then!” he went on excitedly.

“But you haven’t yet told us what Olympia _is_,” urged Diana.

“Strange that you are ignorant of the Olympic Games which are renowned throughout the world,” sighed Agis. “Yet do I remember that Sheshà bade me have patience to tell you everything.

“Know then, as all the world but you, O maidens, are aware, that every five years, at Olympia, which is in a part of Greece called Elis, games are held at which it is the highest honour in the world to compete. For the four years between the great year of the games, all youths who are Grecian by birth are trained at schools called gymnasia—one of which you have lately beheld.

“Towards the end of the fourth year, in every part of our country, those who have best acquitted themselves in the training are chosen to go to Olympia and contend for the prizes.”

“Then _you_ are chosen,” said Rachel joyfully.

“I to my great content am to run in the first race, and my elder brother, Phidolas, is also among the athletes. _He_ is to compete in the horse race, for he is a skilled rider, and has the most perfect mare that was ever bred,” he added enthusiastically. “Her name is Aura, and presently, if it please you, we will see her.”

“Oh, we _love_ horses!” exclaimed Diana. “Do tell us some more about the games. Who began them? How long have they been going on?”

“For a thousand years and more. Zeus, father of all the gods, first commanded them to take place, to celebrate his victory over the giants who, before him, ruled the world. Since then, they have been held, as I have already said, every four years, for the honour and glory of heroes.”

“_Zeus_ is the same as Jupiter, I think,” whispered Diana to Rachel. “Yes. I remember. Father told me so.”

By this time Agis had stopped at one of the doors set in the blank wall of a narrow street, and he lifted and let fall the knocker with a resounding clang.

“This is my home. I must set some repast before you, for indeed you must need it, O strange and ignorant maidens,” he added, with his teasing schoolboy smile.

The door was opened at the moment by an old man whom the children at once guessed to be a servant.

“Or a _slave_, I expect,” said Rachel, as Agis hurried on in front. “They had slaves in Greece, didn’t they?”

“Now we shall see the inside of a Greek house as it was thousands of years ago,” returned Diana eagerly.... “Isn’t this a _splendid_ adventure?”

They found themselves in a passage which led into a square courtyard roofed by the blue sky. A colonnade ran the length of the four sides of this courtyard, and from it on the side away from the open space, they saw various rooms. Agis pushed back a door, and called to the children to follow him.

“It is past noon,” he said, “and our meal is already served. Enter and eat with us.”

Full of curiosity, Rachel and Diana followed the boy into a room whose walls were covered with large black panels upon which were painted figures in brilliant colours. Surrounding each panel there was a rich border of painted flowers. In the midst of the room, placed on trestles, was a table, at which the men of the family were already seated. The father, a middle-aged man, dressed very much in the same fashion as Agis, except that he wore a saffron-coloured instead of a white cloak, looked up and smiled as the boy entered. But he took no notice of the two little girls, and they felt quite sure he neither saw nor heard them.

Seated near to him was a very handsome young man who looked about nineteen or twenty. Except that his curly hair was dark and his eyes brown, instead of grey, he was so like Agis that the children knew he must be the brother Phidolas, of whom he had spoken.

Agis swung himself into his place at the table, which was spread with dishes containing olives, figs, a sort of cream cheese, and flasks of wine, and passed some of these things to his invisible guests.

“Phidolas and I are, as a matter of course, in training for the games,” he said. “Therefore we must eat only of such diet as this. But it may be that simple food pleases you? Eat and drink, and fear no questions from my father and brother. The magic of Sheshà protects you, and they are ignorant of your presence.”

Rachel and Diana were too interested to care much for food, though the ripe figs they tasted were delicious. They cast quick glances about a room so strange to them, and noticed that it contained scarcely any furniture. Except for the simple trestle table, and the chairs round it which were of a beautiful shape and had curved arms, there were only two tripods, each holding an elegant vase, placed in corners against the walls. The door opened upon the colonnade, and beyond it they saw the courtyard with its roof of wonderful blue sky.

“To-morrow at this hour we shall be upon the journey!” exclaimed Agis, addressing his brother. “And at this hour three days hence thou wilt without doubt be in the midst of the race, Phidolas!”

“The gods grant thee victory, my sons,” said the father gravely. “I pray to them for their favour and protection.”

Before long the three were in animated talk about the games, and the children listened eagerly to discussions as to which of the candidates from Athens had the best chances of victory.

“All goes well with thy mare, I trust?” asked Agis, presently, turning to his brother.

“With Aura all is well,” returned Phidolas cheerfully. “Let us now go to her stable and see that she is fed.”

The boys rose, and at the moment two slaves entered, who, taking the dishes from the table, removed the board and the trestles, thus in less than two minutes leaving the room practically empty.

“_Our_ dinners take much longer to clear,” murmured Rachel. She looked at Agis. “Haven’t you any mother? Or any sisters?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” said the boy. “My mother lives, and I have two sisters. But they are not with us, of course.”

“Why not?” demanded Diana.

Agis stared. “Always I forget you are strangers!” he declared, laughing. “They are in the women’s part of the house, where they live. They do not pass their time with us. In our country such is not the custom. Look yonder!” He took them out into the courtyard and pointed to where, through a passage, they saw another open space surrounded by a colonnade.

“That is the women’s quarter,” he explained, carelessly. “There my mother and sisters live and do their work.”

“What sort of work?” asked Rachel.

Agis shrugged his shoulders. “The usual work of women. They and the female slaves spin wool for our garments and cook our meals and prepare medicines and cordials in case of illness.... But come, follow me, and you shall behold Aura, who is well worthy of your regard.”

“I shouldn’t like to have been a Greek girl in Athens long ago, would you?” whispered Rachel to Diana. “It must have been horribly dull!”

“I wonder what Agis thinks of _us_,” chuckled Diana. “He’s never met girls like us before. You can see that. Sheshà seems to be able to do anything he likes in any country. No wonder everyone calls him ‘greatest of magicians.’”

They were following Agis and Phidolas all this time, and presently through a door that led from the covered colonnade came to a yard, in which stood a stable built of rough stones. Aura, the mare of which they had heard so much, was looking over its low door, and, at the sight of her, both children cried out in delight.

“She’s almost prettier than Bucephalus,” Rachel declared. “Look at her lovely brown satin coat, and her sweet beautiful eyes!”