terrible strain upon my nerves since leaving the Cape, caused by the half mutiny of the crew, the insanity of the ship’s master, and the long watches through which I had lain and listened for the cry of land, had at last told upon me.
The sun was several hours high when I sprang out of my hammock and rushed upon deck.
Could it all have been a dream? Should I find the noble temple, staircase of marble, and all the towering statues melted away into thin air?
Ah no!
That beautiful shore was still there, unrolled before my wondering eyes like some fair picture full of light and grace and delicious coloring.
“Man the launch!” I called out and in quicker time than it takes to tell it, I was on my way to the shore of the Sculptors’ Isle.
Faithful Bulger sat beside me, his eyes bright and expressive as he gazed into my face.
Landing at the foot of the marble stairway, I sprang lightly out of the launch, followed by Bulger, and bounded up the marble steps.
There were three landings before I reached the level of the temple, from each of which the outlook grew more and more delightful. In truth, it was a glorious approach to produce which art and nature had fairly outdone themselves. At length I cleared the last flight of steps, and with a throbbing heart crossed the tessellated court and paused in front of the entrance to the temple.
The embers were still smouldering on the altar, around which stood several white-robed priests with low-bowed heads and averted faces. Unwilling to break in upon their solemn office, I turned and followed a broad way, paved with marble and shaded by most graceful trees and trailing vines.
At every step my eyes fell upon some statue of ravishing beauty—now nymphs; now goddess; now Jove himself; now the great Cæsar; now the fair Graces; now terrible Pluto; now smiling Ceres; now the crescent-crowned Diana, accoutered for the chase; now dancing satyrs; now goat-footed Pan; now some Roman hero or statesman; and ever and anon, came the figure of a maiden, wondrously fair, but with an unutterable look of sadness upon her beautiful face. So often did the same figure meet my gaze that I was led at last to approach its pedestal in hopes of finding some explanation. I gave a cry of pleasure as my eyes fell upon the name sculptured there.
It was Paula.
Now every doubt was dissipated.
I had indeed found the Sculptors’ Isle
Broad winding paths, leading right and left, now lured my footsteps. No fairy land could be more beautiful.
Golden fruit glistened ’mid the dark green leaves.
Flowers of countless hues bloomed on every side, sending forth the most delicate perfumes. Trailing vines hung in graceful festoons or twined around the pedestals of the statues, carrying their white blossoms to the whiter hands of these silent and motionless inhabitants of this region of loneliness. I say inhabitants, for as yet my eye had seen no living creature, save the priests grouped about the altar.
Have I landed upon the shores of an island, upon which nature, with a lavish hand, has bestowed stately forests, placid lakes, purling brooks, trees laden with delicious fruits, plants waving their flowery tassels and plumes in the perfumed air, vines trailing their richly variegated foliage from tree to tree, a radiant sky above, a soil clad with velvety verdure beneath, only to find it abandoned, deserted of man; a thing of beauty and yet loneliness, a mere polished and painted shell, out of which all life has gone forever?
Such was the train of thought which busied my mind as I strolled along through these winding paths paved with marble shut in by a leafy roof, through which ever and anon the sunlight burst to light up the masterpieces of the sculptor’s art, around whose pedestals climbed and clambered scores of flowering vines, some carrying in their curved laps clusters of berries, brighter in hue than burnished gold, others holding out to the passer-by bunches of grapes deeper in purple than the Lydian dye.
As I pursued my way through this enchanted garden, in which the swaying lily stalks bent their perfumed-filled cups down to my cheeks and the trees dropped their gold and purple fruit at my feet, while deep in the bosky thicket of red-leaved shrubs and silken-tufted pine, the melancholy nightingale warbled his liquid melody in slow and plaintive measure, my heart yearned for the sound of a human voice.
“Would that some living being,” I cried, “no matter how bent and twisted in figure, or how discordant in voice, might come forth to meet me in this beautiful solitude.”
I noticed now that my path was ascending a gently sloping hillock. I quickened my pace, for I was anxious to stand upon some elevation, so that I could command a more extensive view of the outlying country.
As I gained the summit of the hillock, a scene of indescribable beauty met my gaze.
As far as the eye could reach I saw unrolled beneath me a landscape of such surpassing loveliness that I paused spell-bound. Imagine a valley shut in by wooded heights, through which a silvery stream courses tranquilly; here a forest giant spreads its far-reaching limbs, and there a clump of fruit trees display their load of golden treasures in the sunlight; on this side flowering shrubs shine white as ivory against the dark greensward, on that with trailing vines and trimmed copses, man’s hand has built many a shady bower of fantastic outline; to this add scores of statues posed in every conceivable attitude of grace and beauty—here a group, there a single figure, and farther on by twos and threes, standing, reclining, sitting, at play, in meditation, listening, reading, thrumming stringed instruments, in attitudes of the chase, casting the quoit, or reaching up to pluck fruit or flowers.
“Is this a dream?” I murmured. “Am I not the sport of some mischievous spirit of the place?”
From this deep reverie the loud barking of Bulger aroused me with shock-like violence.
I looked in the direction of the sound.
Poor, foolish dog, he was gamboling about one of the statues and amusing himself in waking the echoes with his voice.
I was a little nettled by the interruption, and called to him to cease his barking.
It seemed to me almost a sacrilege to disturb the deep repose of this fair valley.
Again the barking broke forth. This time Bulger’s strange antics were wilder than before.
He seemed fairly beside himself bounding around and around the statue which was that of a young man in the act of reaching aloft for fruit or flowers—and giving vent to a sort of half anger, half mischief, in a series of barks, growls and whinings. Rare indeed was it that Bulger did not give heed to my wishes, no matter how faintly expressed, but now, not even a threatening tone of voice seemed to have the slightest effect upon him.
He continued his mad gamboling and sharp, angry barking. Determined to reproach him most severely for his disobedience, I strode angrily toward him.
I drew near.
I looked! I saw!
Ashes of my forefathers, what? The statue had wide-opened eyes. The statue had the blush of life on its cheeks.
Motion, movement, even to a hair’s breadth, there was none! And yet these fair blue eyes were bent upon Bulger in half-inquisitive, half-wondering gaze.
I rubbed my eyes and looked again.
I
