roses, and numberless other blossoms, mingled with tropical plants and curious growths of cacti; behind was a lemon grove rising a little higher; then the background of gray rocks from which all this beauty had been won inch by inch; then the great peaks of the mountain amphitheatre against the sky – in all, beauty enough for a thousand gardens here concentrated in one enchanting spot.
"That picturesque village on the height is Grimaldi," said Verney.
"The original home of the clowns, I suppose," said Baker.
"English and Americans always say that; they can never think of anything but the great circus Hamlet," replied Verney. "In reality, however, Grimaldi is one of the oldest of the noble names on this coast – the family name of the Princes of Monaco."
"Who are worse than clowns," said the Professor, sternly. "The Grimaldi who was a clown at least honestly earned his bread, but the Grimaldis of the present day live by the worst dishonesty. Monaco, formerly called the Port of Hercules, may now well be called the Port of Hell."
"Well," said Inness, "if Monaco, on one side of us, represents l'Inferno, Bordighera, on the other, represents Paradiso, and so we are saved."
"It depends upon which way you go, young man," said the Professor, still sternly.
After a while we came back to the bench among the hyacinths where we had left Margaret, and found Lloyd with her, looking at the sea; the lovely garden overhangs the sea, whose beautiful near blue closes every blossoming vista. It had been decided that we were to go homeward by way of the Bone Caverns, and as Mrs. Trescott was fond of bones, and wished to see their abode, I offered to remain and drive home with Margaret.
"Let me accompany Miss Severin," said Lloyd. "I have seen the caverns, and do not care to see them again."
I looked at Margaret, thinking she would object; she seldom cared for the society of strangers. But in some way Mr. Lloyd no longer seemed a stranger; he had crossed the numerous little barriers which she kept erected between herself and the outside world, crossed them probably without even seeing them. But none the less were they crossed.
So we left them in the sunny garden to return homeward at their leisure, and, descending to the road, went eastward a short distance, and turned down a narrow path leading to the beach. It brought us under the enormous mass of the Red Rocks, rising perpendicularly three hundred feet from the water. Inness, who was in advance, had paused on a little bridge of one arch over a hollow, and was holding it, as it were, when we came up. "Behold a fragment of the ancient Roman way, Via Julia Augusta," he began, introducing the bridge with a wave of his cane. "When we think of this road in the past, what visions rise in the mind – visions like – like mists on the mountain-tops floating away, which – which merge in each other at dawning of day! In comparison with the ancient Romans, the builders of this bridge, Hercules, the Lascaris, even the Sarrasins (always with two r's), are nowhere. Roman feet touched this very archway upon which my own unworthy shoes now stand."
We looked at his shoes with respect, the Professor (who had gone onward to the Bone Caverns) not being there to contradict.
"The Romans," continued Inness, "never stayed long. They dropped here a tomb, there an aqueduct, and then moved on. They were the first great pedestrians. We cannot see them, but we can imagine them. As Pope well says,
"'While fancy brings the vanished piles to view,
And builds imaginary Rome anew.'"
"Ah, yes," said Mrs. Trescott, "the Romans, the Romans, how dreamy they were! They always remind me of those lines:
"'Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound,
The primal sympathy,
Which, having been, must ever be!'"
This finished the bridge. As we had no idea what she meant, even Inness deserted it, and we all went onward to the Bone Caverns. The caverns were dark hollows in the cliff some distance above the road. From the entrance of one of them issued a cloud of dust; the Professor was in there digging.
"Let us ascend at once," said Mrs. Trescott, enthusiastically. "I wish to stand in the very abode of the primitive man."
But it was something of a task to get her up; there was always a great deal of loose drapery about Mrs. Trescott, which had a way of catching on everything far and near. With her veil, her plumes, her lace shawl, her long watch-chain, her dangling fan, her belt bag and scent bottle, her parasol and basket, it was difficult to get her safely through any narrow or bushy place. But to-day Verney gallantly undertook the feat: he knew the advantages of propitiating the higher powers.
Men were quarrying the face of the Red Rocks at a dizzy height, hanging suspended in mid-air by ropes in order to direct the blasting; below, the patient horses were waiting to convey the great blocks of stone to the town, and destroy, by their daily procession, the last traces of the Julia Augusta.
"I hope these rocks are porphyry," said Janet, gazing upward; "it is such a lovely name."
"Yes, they are," said the unblushing Inness. "The Troglodytes, whose homes are beneath, were fond of porphyry. They were very æsthetic, you know."
We now reached the entrance of one of the caverns and looked in.
"The Troglodytes," continued Inness, "were the original, really original, proprietors of Mentone. They lived here, clad in bear-skins, and their voices are said to have been not sweet. See Pliny and Strabo. The bones of their dinners left here, and a few of their own (untimely deaths from fighting with each other for more), have now become the most precious treasures of the scientific world, equalling in richness the never-to-be-sufficiently-prized-and-investigated kitchen refuse of the Swiss lakes."
But the Professor, overhearing something of this frivolity at the sacred door, emerged from the hole in which he had been digging, and, covered with dust, but rich in the possession of a ball and socket joint of some primeval animal, came to the entrance, and forcibly, if not by force, addressed us:
"At a recent period it has been discovered that these five caverns in this limestone rock – "
"Alas, my porphyry!" murmured Janet.
" – contain bones of animals mixed with flint instruments imbedded in sand. The animals were the food and the flint instruments the weapons of a race of men who must have existed far back in prehistoric times. This was a rich discovery; but a richer was to come. In 1872 a human skeleton, all but perfect, a skeleton of a tall man, was discovered in the fourth cavern, surrounded by bones which prove its great antiquity – which prove, in fact, almost beyond a doubt, that it belonged to – the —Paleolithic epoch!" And the Professor paused, really overcome by the tremendous power of his own words.
But I am afraid we all gazed stupidly enough, first at him, then into the cave, then at him again, with only the vaguest idea of "Paleolithic's" importance. I must except Verney; he knew more. But he had gone inside, and was now digging in the hole in his turn to find flints for Janet.
Mrs. Trescott, who was our bone-master (she had studied anatomy, and highly admired "form"), asked if the skeleton had been "painted in oils."
Miss Elaine hoped that they buried it again "reverently," and "in consecrated ground."
The Professor gazed at them in turn; he literally could not find a word for reply.
Then I, coming to the rescue, said: "I am very dull, I know, but pity my dulness, and tell me why
