SOME by land, and some by sea, the revellers took their morning way along the coast towards the ruins of ancient Baiae. Francesco was on horseback, a friend having furnished him with an excellent mount. As he cantered on, the road continually revealed the far-sparkling sea. A flock of brilliant butterflies dipped and poised on the waters,—pleasure boats bound for the tryst. Ilaria! Ilaria! She and he were moving by different ways to the same goal.
Steeds proved swifter than sails that morning; the horsemen arrived half an hour before the boats. The place was a lonely wonder. The sloping hillsides, broken by the green hollows of an ancient amphitheatre, rose gently from the beach. From the turf, strewn with wild hyacinth, cyclamen, Star of Bethlehem and tiny fleurs-de-lys, great columns, half embedded in the ground, raised ivy-mantled shafts, now broken, now crowned with Corinthian capitals, which peered through trailing vines. Choice marbles, their rose or white mellowed to gold, lay scattered here and there, the surfaces, fluted or bevelled, still gleaming with the polish of by-gone centuries. Below and above the amphitheatre mysterious masonry broke the climbing slope. The ruins extended to the very verge of the sea.
Francesco ran down the bank as the first boat drew near. Under an awning of silk, shot with green and blue and gold, sat Ilaria, the Countess Violetta and Stefano Maconi. Violetta was rippling with joyous laughter. Ilaria smiled and the beauty of the day found its meaning. She had thrown aside the misty veil, with which she was wont to envelop herself. Her gown, or so Francesco thought, was the same which Proserpina had worn, in the "Triumph of Amor." At least, the same strange broideries shone among its folds.
She stepped lightly ashore. Her fingers rested on Francesco's hand and her eyes accepted his adoring look with a strange inscrutable expression.
"We have been sailing over marvels," cried Violetta wide-eyed. "Below the clear green waves rise palaces! We saw great white columns and a pavement of mosaics. Did we not, Madonna Ilaria?"
"Yes," said Ilaria, dreamily. "Had they not quivered in the light, we could have traced the pattern!"
"The palaces of the sea ladies," Violetta exclaimed gleefully. "I thought I saw one, but she turned out to be a fish!"
"The home of strange beings, at any rate," mused Ilaria,—"of flowers that are alive! Did you see that long blue ribbon sway and beckon to us?"
Ilaria's gravity and pallor seemed to have vanished with the mists of morning. She was flushed and gay,—almost too gay, Francesco thought. A startled quietude, as of one expectant, was upon her.
"I have bidden you to a land of enchantment," laughed Stefano Maconi as they climbed upwards. "We are still within the power of the sea, as you perceive," he added, when the company paused by the half-buried columns below the amphitheatre.