The road was difficult; from the rocky Berean hills a gusty burning wind came down. The atmosphere was laden with the bitter smell of burnt wood, and thick with a bluish fog which spread itself over the deep gorge of Mount Kazia. Harassing dust filled eyes and throat, and crackled between the teeth of the traveller. The very sun through the smoky vapour seemed red and sickly. But hardly had the Emperor penetrated into the wood of Daphne than fragrant coolness surrounded him. It was difficult to believe that such a corner of Paradise could be found at a few paces from the scorching road. The wood was twenty-four stadia in circumference, and perpetual twilight reigned in its almost impenetrable alleys of gigantic laurels, planted centuries before. The Emperor was surprised at the solitariness of the wood—no worshippers, no victims, no incense, nor any preparation for the solemn feast-day. Thinking that the people must be assembled near the temple, he pushed on farther. At every step the wood became more lonely. It was as untroubled by any sound as an abandoned cemetery. Birds were few, the shadow of the laurel-grove being too thick, and no song of theirs was heard. A grasshopper began his shrill cry in the grass, and quickly ceased, as if startled at his own voice. Insects alone were humming faintly in a slender ray of sunlight, but ventured not to quit its beam for the neighbouring gloom. Sometimes Julian pushed his path along wider alleys, bordered with titanic walls of weird cypress, casting shade dark as a moonless night. Here and there subterranean waters made the moss spongy. Streams ran everywhere, chill as melted snow, but silently, with no tinkling ripples, as if muted by the melancholy of that enchanted wood. In one nook, a rift in the rock, clear drops were falling slowly, glittering, one by one. But moss stifled the sound of their fall, and they sank away like the tears of an unspoken love.
There were broad glens of wild narcissus, many lilies, and even butterflies. But these were dark-winged and not gay-coloured, for the sun-rays filtered through the thick laurel became almost lunar-pale, and pensive as if fallen through the smoke of a funeral torch. It was as though Phœbus had grown faint and inconsolable after the final loss of Daphne. And she, remaining, overcast and shadowy under the most burning kisses of the god, here kept impenetrable coolness and bloom under her branches for ever.
Everywhere in that wood reigned the abandonment, the tender melancholy of the god who loved in vain.
Already in sight, and dazzling through the cypresses, shone the columns and pediments of the temple raised in the time of Seleucus Nicator. But not a worshipper yet had Julian encountered. At last he saw a child of twelve years old, on a path overgrown with wild hyacinth. His dark eyes shone strangely brilliant in his finely cut pale face. Golden hair fell in curls on his slender neck, and his blue-veined temples were transparent as the petals of a flower grown in the shade.
"Do you know, child, where are the sacrificers and the people?" Julian asked.
The child made no answer, as if he had not understood the question.
"Listen, little one, can you not lead me to the priest of Apollo?"
He shook his head, smiling.
"Why will you not answer me?"
Then the boy put a finger to his lips and then to both his ears, and shook his head gravely this time.