The yachting-party witnessed, indeed, a grand spectacle. It was the country itself, with the forests in its valleys and its uplands ragged with wild rocks. You could imagine paths winding around precipices, and rivulets falling down the crags like shining swords. High up and far away, with its base lost in the mist and its summit lighted by the rays of the sun, the Kutsch-kom Mountain closed in the horizon.
The port was at the end of a gulf, with two gigantic cliffs reaching out at the sides. The yachting-party was still fresh from their view of the white terraces of the Achilleion of Corfu, with its marble statues and its orange-trees; and they looked with astonishment at this corner full of shadows, with the thousand-year-old castle perched upon its rock. It was seated on lofty and solid buttresses. A rampart flanked by thick bastions defended it; and stunted box-trees stretched over it their dark branches. Behind, wide, deep passages led up to battlemented towers.
At its feet the little city interlaced its narrow streets. You felt that it was builded in feudal times, and had been constructed under the master’s eye, and by his orders. Later, it had pushed back its walls and extended into the plain. A dike by the beach, strewn with fallen boulders, sheltered it against the sea. A road up an embankment, broken by intervals of steps, led up from the city to the castle. Everything seemed weighted down with the years,—the Byzantine domes of churches, Oriental minarets, Frankish towers; everywhere you felt the succession of the ages.
“It is a romantic country,” said Ethel. “There is no need of a mirage to believe one’s self in the heart of the Middle Ages. We have only to look at the setting of the scene to be transported centuries back. All these old things must reek with superstition. If you stayed here long, Will, you, too, would end by believing in Morgana. See,” added Ethel, as amused as a child, “see, she is smiling at us! That shining point up there, above the Gothic portal—it is Morgana’s window,—the window the duke was telling us about,—do you remember, grandma? Up there, in the tower front!”
Everybody looked where she was pointing, but just then the reflection of the sun’s rays disappeared, and the window was quenched in shadow.
The bells of the city, ringing the Angelus in the evening calm, sounded like a salutation to Morgana. They had seen Loreto and its Casa Santa, brought thither by angels; the cathedral church of San Ciriaco, in Ancona, once a temple of Venus; Ravenna, where the heroine Amalberga was deified; Venice, protected by its winged lions. So, after their long cruise in this sea of legend, they came well prepared to study the people’s superstitions and the folk-lore of Morgania. They tasted, in anticipation, the pleasure of seeing the daily life of the castle, wherein there had been no change for centuries.
Every one seemed to have important things to do. On the morrow Phil was to put his Morgana picture in place, and retouch it on the spot. Ethel and Will were to go on an excursion. Caracal would delve into ducal archives. Grandma was already blasé on these cities of pigmies, wherein music takes the place of the noise of foundries, and where men sleep with their heads in the shade and their feet in the sun while they digest their garlic. Grandma would remain on deck and look at Morgania over her glasses.
“I hope, M. Caracal, you will write a book on Morgania and its folk-lore,” said Ethel. “You would find pathetic things into which this people must have put their love and faith. It would be a rest after the cruel studies which you devote, it seems, to modern society.”
In her manner of speaking to Caracal, it was perceptible that Ethel wished to be merciful. That evening when she had discovered everything, Phil hardly dared come up on deck; but the next day he was greatly surprised to find Ethel as smiling as ever, and Caracal amiable as usual. Ethel was even talking with interest to Caracal, asking questions and seeming to study the man.
From the dining-room, through the port-holes, they could see the gray mass of towers. A few lights were shining along the hills; and beyond stretched away a great wall of rocks and the somber woods. The yachting-party admired the grandeur of the landscape as they ate their peach ice-cream.