FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151  
152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   >>   >|  
tever makes him the most useful." "Little Cawthorne and Bennietod," went on St. George, "ten to one will take to the trail to-night, if they haven't already. They'll be coming to Med and reorganizing the police force, or raising a standing army or starting a subway. You'd do well to drop down and give them some idea of what's happened, and I fancy you'd better all be somewhere about on the day after to-morrow, at noon. Not that there will be any wedding at that time," explained St. George carefully, "although there may be something to see, all the same. But you might tell them, you know, that Miss Holland is due to marry the prince then. Can you get back to the yacht alone?" Rollo hadn't thought of that, and his mask fell once more into its lines of misery. "I don't know, sir," he said doubtfully, "most men can go up a steep place all right. It's comin' down that's hard on the knees. And if I was to try it alone, sir--" Jarvo made a sign of reassurance. "That is not well," he said, "you would be dashed to pieces. Ulfin, one of the six, will wait for us to-night on the edge of the grove. He can conduct the way to the vessel." "Ah, sir," said Rollo, not without a certain self-satisfaction, "something is always sure to turn up, sir." From a tour of the temple Amory came listlessly back to the king's chapel. There, where the descendants of Abibaal had worshiped until their idols had been refined by Time to a kind of decoration, the Americans and Jarvo had spent the night. They had slept stretched on benches of beveled stone. They had waked to trace the figures in a length of tapestry representing the capture of Io on the coast of Argolis, doubtless woven by an eye-witness. They had bathed in a brook near the entrance where stood the altar for the sacrifice round which the priests and _hierodouloi_ had been wont to dance, and where huge architraves, metopes and tryglyphs, massive as those at Gebeil and Tortosa and hewn from living rock, rose from the fragile green of the wood like a huge arm signaling its eternal "Alas!" They had partaken of Jarvo's fruit and sweet herbs, and Rollo had served them, standing with his back to the niche where once had looked augustly down the image of the god. And now Amory, with a smile, leaned against a wall where old vines, grown miraculously in crannies, spread their tendrils upon the friendly hieroglyphic scoring of the crenelated stone, and summed up his reflections of th
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151  
152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
George
 

standing

 

figures

 

tendrils

 

benches

 
length
 
beveled
 

capture

 
miraculously
 

crannies


doubtless

 

Argolis

 
representing
 

stretched

 
spread
 

tapestry

 
friendly
 
reflections
 

descendants

 

Abibaal


summed

 

chapel

 

temple

 

listlessly

 

worshiped

 

decoration

 

Americans

 

hieroglyphic

 

crenelated

 

scoring


refined

 
bathed
 

augustly

 

fragile

 

living

 
Gebeil
 

Tortosa

 
partaken
 

served

 
eternal

looked
 

signaling

 
massive
 
entrance
 

leaned

 

witness

 
sacrifice
 

architraves

 
metopes
 

tryglyphs