“We would like to know about you first. Why were you on that pedestal? And all broken? Where do you come from?”
“Something of my history, little maidens, you shall hear later. For the present, be content to know that you behold in me a horse as famous as he is beautiful.”
This was said very simply, and the children could well believe its truth, for never had they seen such a lovely creature as that now standing before them.
His coat, smooth and soft as ivory satin, gleamed in the moonlight. His limbs were strong, yet formed with perfect grace, and his dark, lovely eyes shone in a face that was at the same time gentle and full of intelligence.
“I don’t wonder that someone made a statue of you,” exclaimed Diana. “But what a pity it’s so broken. How did it get broken?”
“Many things get broken in the course of two thousand years and more, little one. Since I was first carved in marble, much that was beautiful has been destroyed, either by man, by earthquake, by fire, or other calamities.”
He sighed and turned his head restlessly as he glanced right and left about the great hall. Rachel and Diana, who till now had been too engrossed by his marvellous and sudden appearance to pay attention to anything else, now followed his gaze, and saw that the hall in which they stood was filled with fragments of buildings, with broken statues, broken columns, stone or marble lions and other wild animals, all more or less damaged.
“Behold!” exclaimed their strange companion, after a moment. With a movement of his head, he indicated something which stood on a massive block near him, and the moonlight was so bright that the children saw the object plainly.
“It’s a big wheel!” cried Diana. “What is it?”
“One wheel of the chariot to which my statue was harnessed ages and ages ago!”