“His friends, finding him next morning in his bed by the open window, thought he was asleep, and it was a long time before they knew he would not wake again.
“‘His last dreams were happy ones,’ they said as they gathered round him, ‘for, see, he smiles as though in great content.’”
Rachel and Diana both together gave a little sigh.
“Then he didn’t really try to burn the black image?” asked Rachel. “He was really in his own room all the time?”
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Sheston, slowly. “It was such a magic night that I scarcely know what was ‘real,’ as you say, and what was dream.”
“Oh, can’t we see the temple just once more,” begged Diana. “It will be even more lovely to see it, now we know all about Dinocrates!”
“You shall see it again. And, when you see it, remember what the voice said to Dinocrates about the new merciful God. Your Bible tells you the story of St. Paul, who, three hundred years after the death of Dinocrates, went to Ephesus, and, by preaching the new religion of Christianity, caused that great tumult when all the people shouted: ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians.’ Well, not long afterwards, in the temple which St. Paul had first seen as a heathen place of worship—but you shall see.”
The children eagerly turned to the place where the window had once been. There, in the glaring eastern sunshine, stood the temple once more, and through its wide open doors they caught a glimpse of the high altar. But now a great crucifix stood above it, and low at its feet, overturned, lay the ebony image of Diana of the Ephesians!
In a flash the vision was gone, blotted out by the white mist, and Mr. Sheston spoke again: