LITMIR.BIZ

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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 took a step forward.

      Suddenly a wave of fear crept over me like the flow of icy water. Would the living marble, as it warmed to life, moved by some long pent-up passions, raise its hand and strike me dead?

      Gathering myself together, I glanced toward a group of maidens at play beneath the shade of a leafy roof of arched branches and interlacing vines.

      Quicker than it takes to tell it, I sprang forward and fixed my gaze upon their faces.

      Death could not hold the human form in attitude more motionless than theirs.

      And yet their eyes were filled with strange light.

      Upon their fair faces the red tint of life glowed, bright and warm!

      Where was I?

      A strange feeling of half dread, half delight, now swept over me.

      And still I dared not speak. My voice will break the spell by which all these breathing children of earth’s flinty breast keep their hold on life, and they will fade away to nothingness.

      And now the eyes of her nearest me—of deeper black than polished coal, appeared bent full upon me. I could see, I thought, the glisten of those ebon orbs, as if a tear had broken over them.

      Her hand was outstretched.

      What if I touch it, thought I, to see if it have the warmth of life within it, or whether it be not in truth a thing of stone, and I the sport of some mischievous spirit of the island?

      I’ll do it, if I’m slain like a poor worm, which, warmed by an approaching flame crawls to meet it.

      I touched its finger-tips!

      O, wondrous thing!

      They were not of stone, but of softest, warmest flesh!

      I staggered back, expecting to see the group vanish in thin air.

      But no; it moved not.

      It stood as motionless as before!

      And now I felt my limbs grow strong beneath me.

      I determined to speak, come evil or come good!

      Fixing my gaze upon their fair young faces, I uncovered and addressed them thus:

      “O, strange and mysterious beings, resent not this bold intrusion of a puny mortal upon your sacred repose! Speak to me! If ye so will, let me take my feet off the soil of your fair island. But ere I go, speak to me, let me know whether ye be not the creations of some spirit of this isle, or whether ye are really living, breathing beings!”

      No sound issued from those rosy lips, parted as if in the very act of speaking.

      No movement, no tremor, came to break the marble-like pose of these fair figures.

      A whole minute elapsed.

      To me it seemed an eternity.

      I stood riveted to the ground in most anxious suspense.

      The minutes dragged their heavy bodies along one after another.

      But joy unutterable!

      Their lips begin to move.

      A smile, almost imperceptible at first, spreads slowly, slowly, over their faces.

      The crimson of their cheeks takes on a deeper hue.

      Their

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