For a long minute Rachel and Diana watched the little scene, scarcely daring to breathe, in case it should vanish before their eyes. Then it did vanish! Blue sea, blue sky, hills and valleys, the small town in the distance, the glade with its altar, the group of people about it with their flowers, were all swallowed up in the white mist.
The children, spellbound and silent, while the beautiful scene lasted, now found their tongues loosened.
“Oh, what a darling little boy—the one with the fur over his shoulders,” exclaimed Diana. “Oh, how lovely the sea looked, and the blue sky, and the woods!” cried Rachel, excitedly. “And didn’t the children look pretty bringing their flowers? But they were all poppies. Why did they all bring poppies?”
“Because the poppy was the flower sacred to Diana. Nearly all the gods and goddesses of Greece and the Greek colonies had flowers, as well as animals that were specially theirs. And poppies belonged to the goddess Diana. But now, if you want to see anything more, you mustn’t speak again.”
The children subsided at once into silence, and Mr. Sheston went on talking.
“You noticed the little naked boy who led the procession to the altar in the glade? Keep him in mind, for it was he who built the first real temple to Diana. Listen, and I will tell you all I know about him.
“He was called Dinocrates, and his home was in Ephesus (you saw the town in the distance, a mile or two from the glade). At the time when Dinocrates was young, the city was small, the wild country stretched up close to its walls, and the boy lived nearly all day long in the open air.
“His father taught him to hunt, and he learnt so quickly to hurl the javelin and to shoot with bow and arrows, that everyone said he was specially favoured by Diana. The belief that the goddess was watching over him made Dinocrates, even as a tiny boy, very happy, and filled him with courage so that he was always successful in the chase, and even grown-up men marvelled at his wonderful skill. It was so well-known that he was a child greatly loved by Diana that whenever there was a festival in her honour, Dinocrates was always chosen to lead the procession, and to be the first to place his offerings of poppies on her altar. And later, when he was a little older, he was allowed to sacrifice in her honour an animal he had killed in the chase. So the boy grew up with a great love and reverence for Diana, and a longing to serve her in some special way that would shew his gratitude for her protection. He soon grew dissatisfied with the altar of stones, and the rough image on the trunk of her sacred tree, and in secret dreamt of some dwelling worthy of the goddess, which should last, and not be liable to destruction like the loosely built altar and the image exposed to the air.
“As time went on, he found that skill in hunting was not his only gift. He liked to plan houses, and he soon began to plan better ones than had ever been built before. By the time he was a man, he was the most famous architect in Ephesus, and many new buildings in the city began to rise, designed by him. But the dream of his life was to build a dwelling-place for his special goddess on the very spot where as a child, with other children, he had worshipped her out of doors under the sacred tree.
“It must be a real temple, and a temple different from, and better in every way than any of the attempts yet made by other men to fashion dwelling-places for the gods. So he worked and thought and imagined, and at last a little marble building, supported by pillars different from any other pillars yet designed, actually covered the spot of the original altar.