Part 7

The white mist was again dissolving when the children opened their eyes and looked eagerly to see what changes had taken place during the time that had magically flown.

Unaltered were the blue sky and the blue sea; unaltered the hills, unaltered many of the woods, though some of them had been cut down and houses and gardens had taken their place. The little white town in the distance, however, had grown into a large city, whose houses were now big and imposing. But the greatest change of all had taken place in what was once the glade and then (though they had not actually seen it) the first small temple.

A white marble building, covering a great stretch of ground, now rose in front of the children—a beautiful temple with arcades of lofty pillars wonderfully carved, and thronging upon the steps leading to the wide open doors was a multitude of people. They were gracefully clothed—the men in tunics, with long cloaks drooping from their shoulders, the women in robes falling in folds to their sandalled feet.

But the attention of Rachel and Diana was at once directed towards a group for whom everyone on the steps of the temple made way.

A little boy dressed in a short white tunic, his silky hair falling on either side of his face, walked at the head of a procession towards the temple gates. Behind him, richly dressed, followed his parents, and a train of attendants and slaves.

He was evidently the son of some great nobleman, and, as he passed, the crowd pressed forward, and men and women looked over one another’s shoulders for a glimpse of the pretty child who walked so composedly alone. And then the temple, brilliant in the sunshine, the crowd on its steps, the blue sky and the blue sea in the distance, disappeared in a flash. But even before the watching children could utter a cry of disappointment, they found themselves, to their amazement and delight, actually _inside_ the building, and quite close to an altar before which stood the little boy and his parents. The sound of chanting voices echoed through the temple, on the marble floor of which the sunshine fell. Sweet scents floated in the air from burning incense, and presently a priest, dressed in a rich robe, came from the altar, followed by attendant priests.

One of these approached the boy, and with a pair of curiously shaped shears, cut off his beautiful silky hair, letting it fall on to a silver platter, held by a priestess. Lifting the platter aloft in both hands the priestess moved slowly to the altar, upon which she placed it, and then all the great company in the temple bowed themselves to the ground and worshipped. The little boy—now with close-cropped hair, and evidently proud and satisfied—was being led back towards the entrance door, when all at once he stopped and gazed about him as though he recognized something, and could scarcely believe his eyes.

Diana and Rachel, who followed him, saw him point eagerly to a row of pillars, and then turn to his parents saying something at which they smiled.

One second they saw his dark puzzled eyes—the next they themselves were out of the temple and seated as before, one on either side of Mr. Sheston.

The white mist blotted out everything in front of the window.

“That was Dinocrates. He had come back after hundreds of years, hadn’t he?” cried Rachel.

“Oh, do explain about him,” begged Diana. “Why did he point to the columns like that? Why did he have his hair cut off? What is he going to do now?”

Mr. Sheston laughed softly. “I’ll take one question at a time,” he began.

But it was Rachel who answered the first question after all.

“I know, I know,” she exclaimed. “When he looked at the pillars he was sort of _remembering_, wasn’t he? Remembering that a long time ago he made something like them.”

“Yes, that’s a good guess. He was. He felt that somehow or other he was as you say, ‘mixed up’ with that temple.”

“And about his hair?” enquired Diana.

“Well, that was just a ceremony, meaning that he was dedicated to, or put under the special protection of the goddess. Boys at a certain age had their hair cut off and offered to Diana in the temple to show that they were her worshippers. And in the case of Dinocrates this was especially true, for he became, perhaps, the most celebrated of the worshippers of Diana.

“Now let me go on with the story.

“Again, as in the life he had lived about three hundred years before, he became, when he grew up, a most famous architect, and again, strangely enough, he built another temple to Diana. The temple you have just seen, famous throughout the world for its beauty, after standing about three hundred years, was set on fire one night by a madman, and burnt to the ground; just as the still earlier temple had been burnt.

“Two memorable things indeed happened on that night, for while the fire was raging in the temple just outside Ephesus, a baby was born, who lived to be the greatest conqueror in the world. His name was Alexander the Great—and Rachel has already heard something about him.

“But to return to the story. So great was the grief and horror of the people of Ephesus at the loss of their temple that they at once determined to set about another and still more magnificent one, greater and more splendid than any other in existence. And of this last temple—which became one of the Seven Wonders of the World—Dinocrates was appointed to be the architect.

“Now you might easily think that Dinocrates ought to have been the happiest man in the world to be allowed to build just the way he pleased, and with enormous riches at his disposal, a temple that should be worthy of the goddess he worshipped—the lovely Diana, the moonlight queen of the chase, the friend of children. And certainly, if _this_ had been the Diana for whom he worked, he would have been happy indeed. But what kind of image do you think was to stand in the midst of the magnificent temple when at last it should be built? No statue of the graceful Diana _he_ knew, with her short tunic blowing back in the breeze, and the crescent moon on her white forehead. The Diana now worshipped by the Ephesians was nothing but a monstrous black idol, scarcely like a woman at all! She was an enormous figure carved in ebony, with great towers upon her head, and a body hideously and grotesquely shaped!

“Hundreds and hundreds of years, you see, had passed since the true, lovely Diana had been worshipped under the trees or in early temples, and people had forgotten her—or rather they had perhaps confused the idea of her in their minds with other quite different goddesses belonging to Egypt. In any case, though they still kept her name, _this_ was the Diana now adored by the Ephesians; this gigantic hideous idol which the people believed had fallen from heaven, sent down to them by Jupiter, the chief of all the gods! This ugly idol was the precious figure saved from the fire, for which Dinocrates was asked to build the most splendid temple in the world!

“Well, he built it. But all the time he was planning its long aisles of columns, its splendid entrance gates, its pavements, and lovely walls, it was of the long-ago, lovely Diana he was thinking, not of the hideous idol which had taken her place. And in his heart he built that temple to the Diana he had once known and loved, and could not imagine how he came to remember. Never, of course, did he speak of this strange memory, nor of his hatred for the hideous idol. He would never have dared to do so, for fear of what might happen to him if anyone knew how he hated and despised the image held sacred by the Ephesians.

“So he worked and planned, not for the honour of ‘Diana of the Ephesians’ but for the sake of a lovely memory, or dream perhaps, of something worth all his toil. And at last this Wonder of the World was finished. Kings with gifts of gold had helped to build it. The greatest king of all, Alexander the Great, had offered to spend his wealth upon it if only his name might be written on the building to last for ever. The greatest sculptors in Greece, and the greatest painters, had made statues and painted pictures to adorn the temple which covered the very same spot where once had stood the rough altar under the tree. But now the great building and numberless smaller ones connected with it, stretched over acres and acres of land beyond the little glade, and thousands of people belonging to the temple lived close to its walls. Priests, priestesses, men who composed hymns and chants to be sung in honour of the great idol, people who made copies of her shrine in silver (like the Demetrius in the Bible) all dwelt in the shadow of the huge temple of which in a moment you shall have a glimpse.

“But I will first finish the story of Dinocrates.

“After the temple was finished, he went on to fresh work, and became more and more famous as an architect.

“But better than all the other buildings he planned, he loved the temple which in his heart he had dedicated to a lovely rather than to an ugly, cruel goddess. More and more he grudged her image its proud place in the midst of so much beauty, and longed for the rightful goddess who should have been there.

“At last, when he was quite an old man, he returned to Ephesus, which for many years he had not seen, and took a house in the city. There for some months he lived, often visiting the temple and thinking of days long past.

“One night Dinocrates could not sleep. His house was in the city itself, close to the sea, and from his bed he could look out upon the long pathway of moonlight that stretched across the quiet water far away to the horizon. As he lay thinking and dreaming, it seemed to him that a shining figure was floating close above the moon-path on the sea, and coming swiftly towards him. He just caught a glimpse of the waving robe, of white feet, of cloudy hair, when such a sudden drowsiness came over his senses, that he was compelled to close his eyes. When he opened them again—how long afterwards he could not tell—the moonlight was still flooding his room. He glanced eagerly at the path on the sea, but to his disappointment it was empty of everything but silvery sheen.

“What was it he had seen? Or was it nothing but an idle fancy before sleep? Dinocrates was coming to believe this true, when all at once his eyes lighted upon something on the coping of the terrace which lay before his window. In a moment he was out upon the terrace, bending over such a lovely little statue as he—who had seen the most famous sculpture in the world—had never before beheld.

“And there—there at last was the goddess of his dreams—the true Diana with her wind-blown kirtle, her bow, and the crescent moon above her forehead!

“Dinocrates did not ask himself how the statue came there. His first and only thought was to take it straight to the temple where by every feeling in his heart it belonged.

“Wrapping his cloak round him, and hiding tenderly within its folds the statue, which was small enough to lift in his arms, he stole out of the house, and began to walk from the city towards the temple. Just so—(though he had no memory of it)—three hundred years and more ago, he had walked in the night to another temple, also his work, dedicated then to the _true_ Diana. As though moving in a dream, he reached the outermost courtyard of the new temple, and saw in the moonlight the gigantic building and the acres of colonnades and avenues of statues around it.

“Entering by a little door known only to himself, he stood at last in the still more wonderful interior of the temple, shining and glowing with marbles white and pink and green-veined, gorgeous with jewel-covered altars, above which sculptured columns soared towards ceilings painted in scarlet, gold and blue. A glorious place! A fit shrine indeed for the goddess whose image he hid so carefully—yet there in the midst, black and loathsome behind the pyramid of lamps, burning before her, towered the monstrous statue called Diana!

“All at once Dinocrates was filled with rage. Was it for this terrible creature he had built a temple that was one of the Wonders of the World? No, a thousand times no! The likeness of the goddess _he_ worshipped was the lovely little statue hidden in the folds of his cloak.

“He longed to overthrow the hideous black figure which stood in her rightful place. Yet he knew that to be impossible. It would take the strength of many men to throw down an idol so huge and massive. Suddenly an idea came. He could not shatter, but he might _burn_ the image! With this thought, he ran towards the mass of lights in front of it, scattering and upsetting them right and left at the feet of the wooden figure. Behind it, supported on golden pillars, there was a gallery, and, without a second’s pause, Dinocrates rushed like a boy up the marble stairs that led to it, and, standing now high above the head of the figure, he snatched the little white statue from his cloak, and held it aloft.

“‘_This_ is Diana of the Ephesians!’ he cried aloud, and his voice echoed and re-echoed through the aisles and colonnades of the temple. Before the last sound of it died away, a terrific clap of thunder shook the temple. Frightened voices were heard on every side, and suddenly, from every direction, priests in gorgeous robes came rushing towards the idol. Dinocrates caught one glimpse of them as they snatched the burning lamps from the feet of the figure, and then everything went dark.

“In another moment, how he could not tell, he found himself in the open air, listening to a murmur which sounded like the soft rustling of leaves overhead. Slowly he opened his eyes, and looked round him in amazement. The great temple had vanished. He was lying under trees in a little glade, and there before him stood a simple altar of stones piled together, and behind it, in the hollow of a tree, he saw a little figure roughly carved. And then, with a cry of wonder, he _remembered_.

“This was the first altar to Diana, and here, as a tiny boy, he had laid poppies upon it! Scarcely had he seized that memory, when the altar melted away before his eyes, and out of the mist round the place where it had stood emerged a small temple. He remembered that, too. In another life he had planned it, and seen it built. He remembered the columns he had invented—those pillars of a new shape called later the _Ionic_ columns. For a moment the temple stood there in the glade, gleaming in moonlight, and then _it_ too disappeared.... In its place, rising out of the earthlike smoke which gradually took shape, was formed at last another, this time a mighty temple, covering the whole of what had once been the glade. He had built this one, also—in yet another life—hundreds of years later! And, as he gazed at its rows of shining columns, he saw that they were like the columns of the first small temple. To the building now before him—again hundreds of years later—he had come back as a little boy on the day when his hair was cut off by the priest. How well he recalled it! How well he remembered looking at the pillars with some faint memory stirring in his mind, yet with no idea that long, long before he had built them....

“He had come now to his present lifetime. This was the temple that was burnt down while he was quite a young man. In another moment what he expected happened. The building before him vanished, and magically, in its place, stood the new one, the last work of his hands.... Now at last he understood how, for hundreds of years, in many different lives and with long intervals between them, he had been making temples for Diana—for the true, beautiful Diana. And her worship and honour had been stolen from her by the hideous black monster now enthroned in this last and most magnificent temple!... Dinocrates was full of misery at the thought, and full also of confusion about what had recently happened. Had he really tried to set fire to the false goddess? Had he really held up the statue of the true one? What was real in all that was happening to him, and what was not? He felt wretched and afraid. Was he mad, or dreaming?

“Such a heavy drowsiness came over him that he was obliged to close his eyes, and sink down upon one of the marble benches in the outer courtyard of the temple where now he found himself standing.

“And then, though he could not lift his tired eyelids, he knew that some wonderful presence was near him. Sweet scents were in the air; faintly from far away he heard the music of a horn, and then a beautiful voice spoke close to his ear:

“‘Fear not, Dinocrates,’ he heard, ‘for thou hast ever been a worshipper of all the truth and beauty thou hast known. Thou hast striven to place me in a seat of honour, and thy work has not been in vain. The day will come when another god shall reign in that last temple, the work of thy hands—a merciful god who shall triumph over the false Diana worshipped by the Ephesians. And I, too, the Diana thou hast adored, shall be no more a goddess worshipped by men. But the thoughts I have given to men shall remain, and the beauty thou hast seen in me shall remain also. And because thou hast been my faithful worshipper I will give thee, as I have given thee once before, a happy passing from this to another life.’

“The voice ceased, and, smiling with perfect happiness, Dinocrates gave a long sigh, and then lay still.

“His friends, finding him next morning in his bed by the open window, thought he was asleep, and it was a long time before they knew he would not wake again.

“‘His last dreams were happy ones,’ they said as they gathered round him, ‘for, see, he smiles as though in great content.’”

Rachel and Diana both together gave a little sigh.

“Then he didn’t _really_ try to burn the black image?” asked Rachel. “He was really in his own room all the time?”

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Sheston, slowly. “It was such a magic night that I scarcely know what was ‘_real_,’ as you say, and what was dream.”

“Oh, can’t we see the temple just once more,” begged Diana. “It will be even more lovely to see it, now we know all about Dinocrates!”

“You shall see it again. And, when you see it, remember what the voice said to Dinocrates about the new merciful God. Your Bible tells you the story of St. Paul, who, three hundred years after the death of Dinocrates, went to Ephesus, and, by preaching the new religion of Christianity, caused that great tumult when all the people shouted: ‘_Great is Diana of the Ephesians_.’ Well, not long afterwards, in the temple which St. Paul had first seen as a heathen place of worship—but you shall see.”

The children eagerly turned to the place where the window had once been. There, in the glaring eastern sunshine, stood the temple once more, and through its wide open doors they caught a glimpse of the high altar. But now a great crucifix stood above it, and low at its feet, overturned, lay the ebony image of Diana of the Ephesians!

In a flash the vision was gone, blotted out by the white mist, and Mr. Sheston spoke again:

“Three hundred years after Dinocrates passed away, Ephesus had become a Christian city, you see.... Again many years pass. Ephesus now belongs to Rome, the mistress of the world. And the temple still stands. Then Rome grows weak, and a barbarous nation, the Goths, attack her possessions. You shall see how they treated one of the Seven Wonders of the World nearly three hundred years after St. Paul was in Ephesus. Look once more.”

Under the blue sky, in ruins, scattered far and wide, with here and there a column or a fragment of wall standing, lay the mighty temple. All about and around it swarmed wild-looking men, clothed in uncouth garments, with long hair and many of them with red beards. They were seeking for gold and silver among the ruins, fighting among themselves like wild beasts for the treasures of the once beautiful temple they had destroyed. Just for a second the children saw them. Then they, too, were gone.

“One more glimpse, and the story is told,” said Mr. Sheston’s quiet voice.

The mist that had gathered dissolved once again. There was the blue sky, there the sea—though it looked further away than in the days when Ephesus was great. But where was Ephesus now? Not a trace of the city remained. Where once it had stood, the children saw in the distance the few low scattered houses of a small village. Not a trace, not even the _ruins_ of the great temple of Diana could they see. Instead, mounds of earth, great pits and long cuttings in the soil, where workmen were digging, was all that stretched in front of them.

“This is Ephesus as it looks to-day,” Mr. Sheston was saying.

He pointed to the group of small flat-roofed houses in the distance.

“That Turkish village covers the proud city where St. Paul walked, and where, in the open-air theatre, the people shouted _Great is Diana of the Ephesians!_ The mouth of the river now choked with mud has pushed back the sea. Here in front of you, where the temple stood, men of to-day are digging to find fragments of its pillars and pavements to send to the British Museum.”

As he spoke the last word, the scene wavered before the eyes of the children, and through it came the glimmering shape of the schoolroom window. In another second they sat closed in by four walls, and the clock on the mantelpiece pointed to half-past three.

“Why—why—it was half-past three when you came in,” stammered Rachel. “The clock must have stopped.”

“I think not,” said Mr. Sheston, smiling quietly. “We shall have plenty of time for the Museum—if you still want to go.”

Rachel and Diana exchanged glances which contained all the wonder they felt it was better not to express.

In five minutes, having spoken to Aunt Hester on the way, they were driving through the streets in Mr. Sheston’s car, and a very little while afterwards, they entered a hall in the Museum, over the door of which was written _Ephesus Room_.

“Here,” said Mr. Sheston in a voice which gave no hint of all the marvellous scenes they had just beheld, “are fragments from two temples built in honour of Diana of the Ephesians. These broken pillars and pieces of carving on the right are from the temple that was burnt down on the night Alexander the Great was born. On the left, are fragments of the latest temple which was still standing when St. Paul was at Ephesus.”

Having said this—and, if they hadn’t known what they _did_ know, it would not have interested the children in the least—he walked on to look at something on one of the walls, leaving Rachel and Diana standing in front of a piece of broken pillar.

“St. Paul may have _touched_ this, and seen that boy with wings,” whispered Diana, gazing up at the beautiful carving upon it. “Oh, Rachel, hasn’t it been perfectly splendid?”

“Do you know,” returned Rachel, in an answering whisper, “I’m sure he was once Dinocrates—Mr. Sheston, I mean. He couldn’t know so much about him if he _hadn’t_ been—could he? And he’s lived ever and ever so many times. He said so. And he’s been heaps of different people. Only, when he’s _Mr. Sheston_, you know, we mustn’t talk much about him.”

Diana nodded gravely. “I thought not. That’s why I didn’t say anything.... We must only talk about just what’s here,” she added quickly, as she saw their guide coming back to them.

The rest of the time at the Museum passed delightfully. And then, to Rachel’s joy, Mr. Sheston took them back to tea at his quaint old house, and afterwards sent them home together in his car.