the people of Ephesus at the loss of their temple that they at once
determined to set about another and still more magnificent one, greater
and more splendid than any other in existence. And of this last
temple—which became one of the Seven Wonders of the World—Dinocrates
was appointed to be the architect.
“Now you might easily think that Dinocrates ought to have been the
happiest man in the world to be allowed to build just the way he
pleased, and with enormous riches at his disposal, a temple that
should be worthy of the goddess he worshipped—the lovely Diana, the
moonlight queen of the chase, the friend of children. And certainly,
if _this_ had been the Diana for whom he worked, he would have been
happy indeed. But what kind of image do you think was to stand in the
midst of the magnificent temple when at last it should be built? No
statue of the graceful Diana _he_ knew, with her short tunic blowing
back in the breeze, and the crescent moon on her white forehead. The
Diana now worshipped by the Ephesians was nothing but a monstrous black
idol, scarcely like a woman at all! She was an enormous figure carved
in ebony, with great towers upon her head, and a body hideously and
grotesquely shaped!
“Hundreds and hundreds of years, you see, had passed since the true,
lovely Diana had been worshipped under the trees or in early temples,
and people had forgotten her—or rather they had perhaps confused
the idea of her in their minds with other quite different goddesses
belonging to Egypt. In any case, though they still kept her name,
_this_ was the Diana now adored by the Ephesians; this gigantic hideous
idol which the people believed had fallen from heaven, sent down to
them by Jupiter, the chief of all the gods! This ugly idol was the
precious figure saved from the fire, for which Dinocrates was asked to
build the most splendid temple in the world!
“Well, he built it. But all the time he was planning its long aisles
of columns, its splendid entrance gates, its pavements, and lovely
walls, it was of the long-ago, lovely Diana he was thinking, not of the
hideous idol which had taken her place. And in his heart he built that
temple to the Diana he had once known and loved, and could not imagine
how he came to remember. Never, of course, did he speak of this strange
memory, nor of his hatred for the hideous idol. He would never have
dared to do so, for fear of what might happen to him if anyone knew how
he hated and despised the image held sacred by the Ephesians.
“So he worked and planned, not for the honour of ‘Diana of the
Ephesians’ but for the sake of a lovely memory, or dream perhaps, of
something worth all his toil. And at last this Wonder of the World was
finished. Kings with gifts of gold had helped to build it. The greatest
king of all, Alexander the Great, had offered to spend his wealth upon
it if only his name might be written on the building to last for ever.
The greatest sculptors in Greece, and the greatest painters, had made
statues and painted pictures to adorn the temple which covered the very
same spot where once had stood the rough altar under the tree. But
now the great building and numberless smaller ones connected with it,
stretched over acres and acres of land beyond the little glade, and
thousands of people belonging to the temple lived close to its walls.
Priests, priestesses, men who composed hymns and chants to be sung
in honour of the great idol, people who made copies of her shrine in
silver (like the Demetrius in the Bible) all dwelt in the shadow of the
huge temple of which in a moment you shall have a glimpse.
“But I will first finish the story of Dinocrates.
“After the temple was finished, he went on to fresh work, and became
more and more famous as an architect.
“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.
“‘_This_ is Diana of the Ephesians!’ he cried aloud, and his voice
echoed and re-echoed through the aisles and colonnades of the temple.
Before the last sound of it died away, a terrific clap of thunder shook
the temple. Frightened voices were heard on every side, and suddenly,
from every direction, priests in gorgeous robes came rushing towards
the idol. Dinocrates caught one glimpse of them as they snatched the
burning lamps from the feet of the figure, and then everything went
dark.
[Illustration: ‘THIS IS DIANA OF THE EPHESIANS’]
“In another moment, how he could not tell, he found himself in the
open air, listening to a murmur which sounded like the soft rustling
of leaves overhead. Slowly he opened his eyes, and looked round him in
amazement. The great temple had vanished. He was lying under trees in
a little glade, and there before him stood a simple altar of stones
piled together, and behind it, in the hollow of a tree, he saw a little
figure roughly carved. And then, with a cry of wonder, he _remembered_.
“This was the first altar to Diana, and here, as a tiny boy, he had
laid poppies upon it! Scarcely had he seized that memory, when the
altar melted away before his eyes, and out of the mist round the place
where it had stood emerged a small temple. He remembered that, too.
In another life he had planned it, and seen it built. He remembered
the columns he had invented—those pillars of a new shape called later
the _Ionic_ columns. For a moment the temple stood there in the glade,
gleaming in moonlight, and then _it_ too disappeared.... In its place,
rising out of the earthlike smoke which gradually took shape, was
formed at last another, this time a mighty temple, covering the whole
of what had once been the glade. He had built this one, also—in yet
another life—hundreds of years later! And, as he gazed at its rows of
shining columns, he saw that they were like the columns of the first
small temple. To the building now before him—again hundreds of years
later—he had come back as a little boy on the day when his hair was
cut off by the priest. How well he recalled it! How well he remembered
looking at the pillars with some faint memory stirring in his mind, yet
with no idea that long, long before he had built them....
“He had come now to his present lifetime. This was the temple that was
burnt down while he was quite a young man. In another moment what he
expected happened. The building before him vanished, and magically, in
its place, stood the new one, the last work of his hands.... Now at
last he understood how, for hundreds of years, in many different lives
and with long intervals between them, he had been making temples for
Diana—for the true, beautiful Diana. And her worship and honour had
been stolen from her by the hideous black monster now enthroned in
this last and most magnificent temple!... Dinocrates was full of misery
at the thought, and full also of confusion about what had recently
happened. Had he really tried to set fire to the false goddess? Had he
really held up the statue of the true one? What was real in all that
was happening to him, and what was not? He felt wretched and afraid.
Was he mad, or dreaming?
“Such a heavy drowsiness came over him that he was obliged to close
his eyes, and sink down upon one of the marble benches in the outer
courtyard of the temple where now he found himself standing.
“And then, though he could not lift his tired eyelids, he knew that
some wonderful presence was near him. Sweet scents were in the air;
faintly from far away he heard the music of a horn, and then a
beautiful voice spoke close to his ear:
“‘Fear not, Dinocrates,’ he heard, ‘for thou hast ever been a
worshipper of all the truth and beauty thou hast known. Thou hast
striven to place me in a seat of honour, and thy work has not been
in vain. The day will come when another god shall reign in that last
temple, the work of thy hands—a merciful god who shall triumph over
the false Diana worshipped by the Ephesians. And I, too, the Diana thou
hast adored, shall be no more a goddess worshipped by men. But the
thoughts I have given to men shall remain, and the beauty thou hast
seen in me shall remain also. And because thou hast been my faithful
worshipper I will give thee, as I have given thee once before, a happy
passing from this to another life.’
“The voice ceased, and, smiling with perfect happiness, Dinocrates gave
a long sigh, and then lay still.
“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?”
[Illustration]
“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:
“Three hundred years after Dinocrates passed away, Ephesus had become a
Christian city, you see.... Again many years pass. Ephesus now belongs
to Rome, the mistress of the world. And the temple still stands.
Then Rome grows weak, and a barbarous nation, the Goths, attack her
possessions. You shall see how they treated one of the Seven Wonders
of the World nearly three hundred years after St. Paul was in Ephesus.
Look once more.”
Under the blue sky, in ruins, scattered far and wide, with here and
there a column or a fragment of wall standing, lay the mighty temple.
All about and around it swarmed wild-looking men, clothed in uncouth
garments, with long hair and many of them with red beards. They were
seeking for gold and silver among the ruins, fighting among themselves
like wild beasts for the treasures of the once beautiful temple they
had destroyed. Just for a second the children saw them. Then they, too,
were gone.
“One more glimpse, and the story is told,” said Mr. Sheston’s quiet
voice.
The mist that had gathered dissolved once again. There was the blue
sky, there the sea—though it looked further away than in the days when
Ephesus was great. But where was Ephesus now? Not a trace of the city
remained. Where once it had stood, the children saw in the distance the
few low scattered houses of a small village. Not a trace, not even the
_ruins_ of the great temple of Diana could they see. Instead, mounds
of earth, great pits and long cuttings in the soil, where workmen were
digging, was all that stretched in front of them.
“This is Ephesus as it looks to-day,” Mr. Sheston was saying.
He pointed to the group of small flat-roofed houses in the distance.
“That Turkish village covers the proud city where St. Paul walked, and
where, in the open-air theatre, the people shouted _Great is Diana of
the Ephesians!_ The mouth of the river now choked with mud has pushed
back the sea. Here in front of you, where the temple stood, men of
to-day are digging to find fragments of its pillars and pavements to
send to the British Museum.”
As he spoke the last word, the scene wavered before the eyes of the
children, and through it came the glimmering shape of the schoolroom
window. In another second they sat closed in by four walls, and the
clock on the mantelpiece pointed to half-past three.
“Why—why—it was half-past three when you came in,” stammered Rachel.
“The clock must have stopped.”
“I think not,” said Mr. Sheston, smiling quietly. “We shall have plenty
of time for the Museum—if you still want to go.”
Rachel and Diana exchanged glances which contained all the wonder they
felt it was better not to express.
In five minutes, having spoken to Aunt Hester on the way, they were
driving through the streets in Mr. Sheston’s car, and a very little
while afterwards, they entered a hall in the Museum, over the door of
which was written _Ephesus Room_.
“Here,” said Mr. Sheston in a voice which gave no hint of all the
marvellous scenes they had just beheld, “are fragments from two temples
built in honour of Diana of the Ephesians. These broken pillars and
pieces of carving on the right are from the temple that was burnt down
on the night Alexander the Great was born. On the left, are fragments
of the latest temple which was still standing when St. Paul was at
Ephesus.”
Having said this—and, if they hadn’t known what they _did_ know, it
would not have interested the children in the least—he walked on
to look at something on one of the walls, leaving Rachel and Diana
standing in front of a piece of broken pillar.
“St. Paul may have _touched_ this, and seen that boy with wings,”
whispered Diana, gazing up at the beautiful carving upon it. “Oh,
Rachel, hasn’t it been perfectly splendid?”
“Do you know,” returned Rachel, in an answering whisper, “I’m sure he
was once Dinocrates—Mr. Sheston, I mean. He couldn’t know so much
about him if he _hadn’t_ been—could he? And he’s lived ever and ever
so many times. He said so. And he’s been heaps of different people.
Only, when he’s _Mr. Sheston_, you know, we mustn’t talk much about
him.”
Diana nodded gravely. “I thought not. That’s why I didn’t say
anything.... We must only talk about just what’s here,” she added
quickly, as she saw their guide coming back to them.
The rest of the time at the Museum passed delightfully. And then, to
Rachel’s joy, Mr. Sheston took them back to tea at his quaint old
house, and afterwards sent them home together in his car.
“It’s jolly to be alone. Now we can talk about it,” exclaimed Diana,
jumping up and down upon the comfortable springy cushions. “Wasn’t it
exciting and _lovely_? And, somehow, it was all the more exciting in
the Museum when he told us all sorts of things that we shouldn’t have
understood if we hadn’t _seen_ it all, out of your schoolroom window.
It made me quite sure I _had_ seen everything from the beginning. Not
just dreamt it, you know. But, anyhow, we couldn’t have had the _same_
dream, could we?”
“It’s heavenly that you’re a _seven_ child too,” declared Rachel. “I
was getting so tired of having to keep all my adventures a secret
because no one would believe me if I told them. And now there’s
you—and you understand. Oh, Diana, just think how we should have
hated going to the British Museum on a holiday if we didn’t have these
adventures! Aren’t you glad we belong to the ‘seven’ children?”
[Illustration]
FIFTH WONDER
[Illustration: THE MAUSOLEUM OF ARTEMISIA]
It was fortunate that Diana lived so near. Her father’s house was in
fact scarcely five minutes’ walk from Aunt Hester, and the two little
girls whose acquaintance had begun so wonderfully began to see a great
deal of one another.
They had, as you may imagine, much to talk about, and, when they met,
the conversation always turned upon the amazing adventure they had
lately shared.
“Oh, Rachel, did you notice the tiny little girl with the red hair who
walked next to Dinocrates in the glade—when they put the poppies on
the altar?” or, “Do you remember the lovely dress the priestess had?
The one who carried the silver dish in the temple?”
Questions and exclamations such as these flew between Rachel and Diana,
each one reminding the other of something she had noticed particularly,
in the magic scenes beheld from the schoolroom window.
They were, of course, very careful to keep their talks strictly private
ones, and Aunt Hester sometimes wondered why such quiet reigned when
they were alone together. She was however, very glad that Rachel had
found a companion, for she had been rather anxious about having her
little niece to stay with her for so long a time as seven weeks. “You
see, I haven’t had anything to do with children for years, and I was
afraid she would be very dull here,” she told her friends, “but old
Mr. Sheston, who seems to have taken a great fancy to the child, has
been a godsend, and now that there’s this little Diana as well, I feel
I need not trouble about Rachel any longer. I can’t imagine how the
old man manages to interest children so much in the British Museum,”
she often added. “When I was her age, though, of course, I don’t tell
Rachel so, there was nothing I hated more than to be taken to a dull
place like a museum. But these two, Rachel and Diana, are always
clamouring to go. It’s very strange.”
It _was_. And even stranger than Aunt Hester thought, as Rachel and
Diana could have told her. But of all that made the Museum literally a
place of enchantment to the children, she naturally had no idea, nor
did she know that _without_ “Sheshà” and his magic, they would probably
have been as little pleased with museums as she herself at their age.
It was a wet afternoon, and Diana, who had come round to tea with
Rachel, sat perched on the corner of the table, her usual seat, while
every now and then she cast a quick glance at the door.
“Do you think he’ll come?” she asked for the twentieth time. “It’s
raining so horribly that perhaps he won’t.” (_He_ always meant Mr.
Sheston nowadays).
“Oh, I expect he’ll drive up in his car soon,” said Rachel. “It’s seven
days since last time, and I’ve never yet missed seeing him on the
seventh day. Somehow or other I’m _sure_ we shall have an adventure.
Only you never know beforehand how it’s going to happen. And it
generally happens quite suddenly, and just when you don’t expect it.”
The afternoon wore on, tea-time came. Still no Mr. Sheston, and at
last, when it was almost dark, Diana was obliged to go.
She was almost tearful as she said good-bye.
“It’s so awfully disappointing,” she wailed. “Perhaps it’s all
over—all the _magic_, you know, and we shall never see any lovely
things again.”
Rachel was just as puzzled, but not quite so hopeless as Diana.
“Anyhow, even if the magic part is over, he can go on telling us
stories,” she observed. “And his stories are splendid. That one about
the Siege of Rhodes, you know. I tried to tell you, but I can’t do
it properly. Perhaps he’ll tell you himself some time or other. I
_did_ think we should have had at least a _story_ to-day,” she added,
mournfully.
Rachel repeated this remark to herself as she lay in bed several hours
later. The rain had ceased, and a full moon shone in a clear sky. She
had pulled up her window blind, and the beautiful silvery light came
pouring into the room and made her long more than ever for the magic
which Diana feared was “all over.”
For a long time she lay with wide-open eyes staring out of the window
at the radiant sky. And then, all at once—how was it? How could it
be?—she found herself looking at something quite different.
What was that strange shape high up above her head?... Where was she?
What had become of the bed in which a second ago she had been lying?
How did it happen that she was standing upright, gazing about her, in
what seemed a vast hall filled with moonlight and shadows and dim forms?
She heard a voice—Diana’s voice, surely!
“Where are we? I can’t understand _anything_. Can you?”
Rubbing her eyes, Rachel looked again. Yes! Diana was beside her. She
too was in her nightgown, and they were both standing on the pavement
of some huge room which stretched away right and left into darkness. It
certainly ought to have been frightening to find oneself all at once in
an unknown place surrounded by mysterious shapes, in the middle of the
night. But curiously enough, Rachel was not in the least frightened,
nor, judging from her voice, was Diana. Both children were deliciously
excited, indeed. But of fear there was not in either of them a trace.
“Do you know I believe it’s the _Museum_,” Rachel whispered. “Only it’s
a part of it I’ve never been to before.”
“What’s that big thing up there?” returned Diana in an answering
whisper. “Let’s come back a little—we shall see better.”