“Yonder is the island of Rhodes,” he answered, turning his head in its direction. “You can see it, a dim shape on the horizon—not so very far, as you say, from the city of Halicarnassus.”
“Oh! what is that?” exclaimed Diana, suddenly catching sight of something gleaming white through a grove of trees at a little distance.
“The very monument I have brought you to behold. A Wonder of the World. The place where, carved in marble, my image once stood beside the statues of a king and queen. Come, let us approach it.”
Turning a little aside from the city itself, the horse dropped gradually lower, and, after just skimming the ground for a moment, allowed his hoofs to touch it, and finally stood motionless in front of a lovely building.
A stately flight of steps, whose balustrade was guarded by marble lions, led up to a square tower, and higher still to a cluster of beautiful columns. Above this was a sort of pyramid, with steps mounting yet again to a chariot of marble in which stood two figures, a man and a woman. The chariot was drawn by magnificent horses, and as the children looked at these, they cried out together, pointing to them, eagerly:
“Why, they’re all of them—you!” exclaimed Diana. In her excitement she let herself slip easily to the ground. Rachel followed her example, and both stared up at the group of horses on the summit of the building.
“What we saw in the Museum before you turned into a real horse is just one head of you!” cried Rachel. “Then those people in the chariot must be the broken statues that are also in the Museum—I mean before they were broken?” she went on.
The steed bowed his head. “You are now beholding the statues of Queen Artemisia and King Mausolus as they appeared soon after the sculptors had finished their work. There also you see my image as it, too, appeared nearly three thousand years ago. Or, rather, my image four times repeated in each of the four horses.”
The children were at first silent, for amazement and admiration held them spellbound. The sun was rising, and bathed in its light, the building was more lovely than tongue can tell.