“But better than all the other buildings he planned, he loved the temple which in his heart he had dedicated to a lovely rather than to an ugly, cruel goddess. More and more he grudged her image its proud place in the midst of so much beauty, and longed for the rightful goddess who should have been there.
“At last, when he was quite an old man, he returned to Ephesus, which for many years he had not seen, and took a house in the city. There for some months he lived, often visiting the temple and thinking of days long past.
“One night Dinocrates could not sleep. His house was in the city itself, close to the sea, and from his bed he could look out upon the long pathway of moonlight that stretched across the quiet water far away to the horizon. As he lay thinking and dreaming, it seemed to him that a shining figure was floating close above the moon-path on the sea, and coming swiftly towards him. He just caught a glimpse of the waving robe, of white feet, of cloudy hair, when such a sudden drowsiness came over his senses, that he was compelled to close his eyes. When he opened them again—how long afterwards he could not tell—the moonlight was still flooding his room. He glanced eagerly at the path on the sea, but to his disappointment it was empty of everything but silvery sheen.
“What was it he had seen? Or was it nothing but an idle fancy before sleep? Dinocrates was coming to believe this true, when all at once his eyes lighted upon something on the coping of the terrace which lay before his window. In a moment he was out upon the terrace, bending over such a lovely little statue as he—who had seen the most famous sculpture in the world—had never before beheld.
“And there—there at last was the goddess of his dreams—the true Diana with her wind-blown kirtle, her bow, and the crescent moon above her forehead!
“Dinocrates did not ask himself how the statue came there. His first and only thought was to take it straight to the temple where by every feeling in his heart it belonged.
“Wrapping his cloak round him, and hiding tenderly within its folds the statue, which was small enough to lift in his arms, he stole out of the house, and began to walk from the city towards the temple. Just so—(though he had no memory of it)—three hundred years and more ago, he had walked in the night to another temple, also his work, dedicated then to the true Diana. As though moving in a dream, he reached the outermost courtyard of the new temple, and saw in the moonlight the gigantic building and the acres of colonnades and avenues of statues around it.
“Entering by a little door known only to himself, he stood at last in the still more wonderful interior of the temple, shining and glowing with marbles white and pink and green-veined, gorgeous with jewel-covered altars, above which sculptured columns soared towards ceilings painted in scarlet, gold and blue. A glorious place! A fit shrine indeed for the goddess whose image he hid so carefully—yet there in the midst, black and loathsome behind the pyramid of lamps, burning before her, towered the monstrous statue called Diana!
“All at once Dinocrates was filled with rage. Was it for this terrible creature he had built a temple that was one of the Wonders of the World? No, a thousand times no! The likeness of the goddess he worshipped was the lovely little statue hidden in the folds of his cloak.
“He longed to overthrow the hideous black figure which stood in her rightful place. Yet he knew that to be impossible. It would take the strength of many men to throw down an idol so huge and massive. Suddenly an idea came. He could not shatter, but he might burn the image! With this thought, he ran towards the mass of lights in front of it, scattering and upsetting them right and left at the feet of the wooden figure. Behind it, supported on golden pillars, there was a gallery, and, without a second’s pause, Dinocrates rushed like a boy up the marble stairs that led to it, and, standing now high above the head of the figure, he snatched the little white statue from his cloak, and held it aloft.