But Jane and Peripatetica loved more the story of the ending of her vigil, when Hermes descended into Hell in his chariot.
“And Persephone ascended into it, and Hermes took the reins in his hands and drove out through the infernal halls; and they two passed quickly over the ways of that long journey, neither the waters of the sea, nor of the rivers, and the deep ravines of the hills, nor the cliffs of the shore resisting them; till at last Hermes placed Persephone before the door of the temple where her mother was, who, seeing her, ran out quickly to meet her, like a Mænad coming down a mountain side dusky with woods.”
So these two saw Persephone come home; saw the spring return to the earth in the high places of the gods. Saw the land, even though no longer a paradise, yet—despite Erysicthon’s foolish waste of the sacred trees—saw it “laden with leaves and flowers and the waving corn,” and, having seen it, they passed on through Sicily satisfied.
CHAPTER V
A City of Temples
“’Tis right for him
To touch the threshold of the gods.”
They were running swiftly through the dark. On either hand was a dim and gloomy land of bare, shrivelled peaks, grey cinder heaps, and sulphurous smells. Intermittently visible by the strange subterranean glowings rose black, glowering mountains in the background, and nearer at hand were shadowy shapes of men and asses bringing sulphur from the mines. Within, the garlic-reeking tongue of a flickering gas-lamp vaguely illumined the dusk of the railway carriage.
“This is Pluto’s own realm,” declared Jane, removing her nose from the window-pane, through which she had been endeavouring to peer into the outer gloom. “If it’s not the very threshold of the infernal regions it ought to be. Peripatetica, you might spare me a glimmer or two from your Baedeker. Were there no temples to Pluto here? These are surely the very surroundings in which he should have been worshipped.”