“In a gorgeously painted barge, all my household, with Chares and my sister in the places of honour, floated out of the harbour, and we turned to gaze at the wonderful figure. It flashed and glittered in the light of the setting sun, as though the god thus by a gracious sign accepted the gift. A mighty and beautiful figure it was, towering against the sky; a giant in bronze, proud, stately and awe-inspiring—a fit memorial of the famous siege of Rhodes. Well might it become, as it did, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. “‘It will last for ever—like the Pyramids!’ I whispered to Chares as I took his hand. “Little did any of us know that it would last little longer than one lifetime. In eighty years that marvellous statue was a heap of ruins. A great earthquake, which shook Rhodes to its foundations, shattered it also to fragments, and only a memory of one of the most famous statues in the world remained. And even that memory faded and grew false, for legends gathered about the celebrated ‘Colossus of Rhodes,’ and men actually believed that it had stood astride the harbour and that ships in full sail passed under its huge body as under an arch. “This could only have been thought possible by men who had forgotten, or never knew, the beautiful Greek sculpture. Never could a Greek artist have made a figure ugly and grotesque as this would have been, if later descriptions had been true. And I who saw the statue daily, smile when, sometimes even in these days, I read such a description of it in books of history. Chares was a true artist, and his simple, noble statue was worthy of him, and worthy of its fame as one of the World’s Seven Wonders.” * * * * * Mr. Sheston’s voice died away, and at this moment Martha came in with a lamp; the room was all at once lighted up, and the old man glanced at the clock. “I must take you back at once,” he said. “Aunt Hester will be getting anxious.” He rose quickly, and Rachel knew without being told that she mustn’t ask him any questions. He had become the kind, ordinary old gentleman he seemed to most people—not at all the same person who in the firelight had looked so mysterious and had told her the whole long story to which she had just listened, as though he were reading it from a book! As she lay in bed that night, Rachel’s mind was full of the great statue and the great siege, and in imagination she saw the sun-god proudly guarding the harbour of “Cleon’s” brave island. “I _do_ wish there hadn’t been an earthquake,” was her waking reflection. [Illustration] FOURTH WONDER [Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF DIANA]