‘THIS IS DIANA OF THE EPHESIANS’
‘THIS IS DIANA OF THE EPHESIANS’
‘THIS IS DIANA OF THE EPHESIANS’
“In another moment, how he could not tell, he found himselfin 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, heremembered.
“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 theIoniccolumns. For a moment the temple stood there in the glade, gleaming in moonlight, and thenittoo 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 enthronedin 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’treallytry 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 theruinsof 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 shoutedGreat 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 eyesof 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 writtenEphesus 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 theydidknow, 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 havetouchedthis, 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 hehadn’tbeen—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’sMr. 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.
“It’s jolly to be alone. Now we can talk about it,” exclaimed Diana, jumping up and down upon the comfortable springy cushions. “Wasn’t it exciting andlovely? And, somehow, it was all the more exciting in the Museum when he told us all sorts of things that we shouldn’t have understood if we hadn’tseenit all, out of your schoolroom window. It made me quite sure Ihadseen everything from the beginning. Not just dreamt it, you know. But, anyhow, we couldn’t have had thesamedream, could we?”
“It’s heavenly that you’re asevenchild too,” declared Rachel. “I was getting so tired of having to keep all my adventures a secret because no one would believe me if I told them. And now there’s you—and you understand. Oh, Diana, just think how we should have hated going to the British Museum on a holiday if we didn’t have these adventures! Aren’t you glad we belong to the ‘seven’ children?”