“Shut your eyes again. Bow seven times—and many years will have gone by.”
The white mist was again dissolving when the children opened their eyes and looked eagerly to see what changes had taken place during the time that had magically flown.
Unaltered were the blue sky and the blue sea; unaltered the hills, unaltered many of the woods, though some of them had been cut down and houses and gardens had taken their place. The little white town in the distance, however, had grown into a large city, whose houses were now big and imposing. But the greatest change of all had taken place in what was once the glade and then (though they had not actually seen it) the first small temple.
A white marble building, covering a great stretch of ground, now rose in front of the children—a beautiful temple with arcades of lofty pillars wonderfully carved, and thronging upon the steps leading to the wide open doors was a multitude of people. They were gracefully clothed—the men in tunics, with long cloaks drooping from their shoulders, the women in robes falling in folds to their sandalled feet.
But the attention of Rachel and Diana was at once directed towards a group for whom everyone on the steps of the temple made way.
A little boy dressed in a short white tunic, his silky hair falling on either side of his face, walked at the head of a procession towards the temple gates. Behind him, richly dressed, followed his parents, and a train of attendants and slaves.
He was evidently the son of some great nobleman, and, as he passed, the crowd pressed forward, and men and women looked over one another’s shoulders for a glimpse of the pretty child who walked so composedly alone. And then the temple, brilliant in the sunshine, the crowd on its steps, the blue sky and the blue sea in the distance, disappeared in a flash. But even before the watching children could utter a cry of disappointment, they found themselves, to their amazement and delight, actually inside the building, and quite close to an altar before which stood the little boy and his parents. The sound of chanting voices echoed through the temple, on the marble floor of which the sunshine fell. Sweet scents floated in the air from burning incense, and presently a priest, dressed in a rich robe, came from the altar, followed by attendant priests.
One of these approached the boy, and with a pair of curiously shaped shears, cut off his beautiful silky hair, letting it fall on to a silver platter, held by a priestess. Lifting the platter aloft in both hands the priestess moved slowly to the altar, upon which she placed it, and then all the great company in the temple bowed themselves to the ground and worshipped. The little boy—now with close-cropped hair, and evidently proud and satisfied—was being led back towards the entrance door, when all at once he stopped and gazed about him as though he recognized something, and could scarcely believe his eyes.
Diana and Rachel, who followed him, saw him point eagerly to a row of pillars, and then turn to his parents saying something at which they smiled.