CHAPTER IV

A Tour of Exploration

Rawson and I had been gone not half an hour when the aspect of the country began suddenly to change. It was as though we had passed some indistinguishable boundary, for the boulders were rapidly becoming less numerous, and at length disappeared entirely, while at the same time the odd, mossy vegetation became astonishingly rich and profuse. Or, to be precise, it gave place to a different vegetation entirely, an unearthly vegetation, almost too strange for belief. At the risk of being accused of fabrication, I must describe those incredible plants: the creepers with long leaves of lace-like brown, which twined in dainty wreaths and veils about the olive-green boles of limbless trees, the bushes, shaped like starfishes, and of the hue of dried grass, with diaphanous flowers that a breath might have blown away; the cinnamon-brown reeds that rose to double a man’s height, ending in a profusion of cucumber-shaped fruits; the peculiar, abundant growth that looked at a distance like a great earthen jar, but proved upon closer examination to be the hollow container of a species of milk-white down that grew in long and silken strands like untended hair.

So dense was the foliage that we would not have been able to force our way through it, and would not have dared to make the attempt, had it not been for a sharply cut path which wound in leisurely curves and undulations close to the river’s brink. It was not like one of those paths which nature occasionally plans, or which are due to the tracks of wild beasts, for it had a regularity of design and an evenness of width that proved it to be unmistakably the work of man. Yet what man could have penetrated before us into these uncanny sunless depths? At the mere thought that others might have preceded us we involuntarily shuddered; we were half convinced that we were intruders into a tomb closed ages ago. But despite this conviction, we kept a constant, half-terrified outlook for sign of human presence.

It was not long before our vigilance was rewarded. Abruptly the path before us widened, until it was of the size of a broad highway; and above the dense masses of vegetation, we beheld in astonishment the looming marble pillars of a Grecian colonnade. Toward this the road led in long and graceful curves; and it was but a few minutes before we found ourselves at the entrance of a covered walk or “stoa” that brought back to me vivid memories of “the glory that was Greece.” On both sides of us the palely-tinted Ionic columns rose to a majestic height, daintily ornamented at the base with the acanthus design, and curving in symmetrical proportions that brought to mind the perfection of the Parthenon; while the marble floor on which we walked and the marble ceiling above us were frescoed with figures that seemed drawn bodily from the romance of the ancient world. They were not wholly Greek. I knew these pictures of sportive mermaids and lightning-hurling gods and dragon-slaying heroes and misty caves of twilight and the throbbing lyre; but there was something suggestively Greek about them all; and steeped as I was in the lore of ancient Hellas, I had the singular feeling that the hand of time had been turned backward two thousand years or more.

This feeling was accentuated when, having followed the covered walk for a distance of several hundred yards, I observed that it led to a magnificent, many-columned edifice which could pass for nothing if not for a temple of the ancient gods. It was a structure of solid marble, white marble artistically varied with veilings of black; its pillars were massive as the trunks of the giant redwoods I had seen in the California forests years before, and like those redwoods, produced an effect of solemnity and awe; but all was so perfectly designed and proportioned that, while the building occupied an area perhaps as large as the average city block, it gave an effect less of magnitude than of artistic completeness and beauty. No living thing was visible about the precincts of this amazing temple, nor would I have expected any living thing in what I had come subconsciously to regard as a realm of the dead; but I was overawed at thought of this abandoned loveliness, and paused at some distance to regard it reflectively, mentally asking whether it was some still undiscovered survival from classical times or whether I was but seeing a vision.

A suppressed exclamation from young Rawson brought me back to reality--or, at least, to the unbelievable thing that passed for reality. In the very center of the swift-rolling river, the banks of which paralleled the colonnade at a distance of a dozen paces, I observed a low-lying, gliding form, gracefully elevated at both extremes, which at the first terrified glimpse I took to be some fabulous monster, but which I soon recognized as some sort of boat or canoe. Before I had had time for a half-composed glance at it, it had gone speeding out of view; but in its fast-moving frame, I thought I could distinguish half a dozen dusky bobbing shapes, and half a dozen pairs of oars that reached out rhythmically, and noiselessly clove the dark waters. Later, when I had had time for reflection, I was to recognize this strange craft as akin to the shadowy apparition, the unknown sea monster which had so terrified us in the submarine; but at present I was overwhelmed by the knowledge that this weird place was actually peopled, peopled by living men whom at any moment we might meet face to face!

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We had scarcely recovered from this surprise when an even greater surprise flashed upon us. Out of the windows of the temple, which we had believed long closed to human sound, a strange, thin music began to float, serenely beautiful and of elfin remoteness and charm.... And while, entranced, we listened to those magical strains, there came the fluttering of a butterfly gown, and from the temple doors issued a shimmering, dancing form, followed by a score of other dancing, shimmering forms--scarcely human, we believed, so ethereal did they seem in the flashing and waving of arms, the swift rhythm of feet, and the play and interplay of pale blue and gold and pink and lavender and white from their flowing and multi-colored robes. A singular iridescence seemed to overspread them, almost a halo such as may envisage a goddess; and, gaping and enthralled, we gazed on them as men might gaze on Venus were she to return to earth. Now down the long colonnade they started, tripping toward us with birdlike gestures and the airy unreality of perfect time and movement; and, fearful to disturb the vision by our gross presence, we hid ourselves behind the great stone columns, peeping out furtively as though they might vanish bubble-like at our gaze. But, apparently absorbed in their dance, they continued gracefully toward us, not glancing to right or to left, and catching no hint of our intrusion--until, as the procession drew more near and the charm of the music more compelling, I peered out too incautiously from behind my marble bulwark, and found myself staring full into the face of the most ravishingly beautiful woman I had ever beheld. There was a quality about her face that seemed to mark it as not of the earth, the Madonnas of old paintings have something of that look; and the most perfect womanly bust that sculptor has ever conceived; but there was also a vividness and an animation that no mere painting or statue has ever shared, together with an air of such innocence, such candor and kindliness of soul that, had I been a believer in angels, I might have gone down straightway upon my knees.

But all this I beheld in the space between two heartbeats. Even as the vision greeted me it vanished; the beautiful clear eyes were distended with terror upon their first contact with mine; there came a scream of fright, followed by a chorus of screams; then a scurrying of fast-retreating feet, and the bright, fairy-like shapes had vanished; and the empty river flowed silently past the empty colonnade and temple.

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