“Though Pythios had taken me as a model for those famous horses of his, I never thought to behold them, and when I have completed the story of Queen Artemisia, I will relate how it chanced that I _did_ at last look upon them with my own eyes. “The great tomb, so marvellous, so beautiful that it became one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was at length finished—as you see it. A miracle in marble, with the queen herself and her dearly loved husband standing together to endure as she thought for ever. Her task completed, and with nothing else to live for, the queen pined away, and a year later died. The monument she raised, as you know, is shattered to fragments, but, after all, Artemisia’s wish was fulfilled, for the name of her husband, at least in a fashion, yet lives. Ever since her day, every splendid tomb, such as that in which kings or great heroes are buried, has been called a _Mausoleum_. And when people of the present age speak that word, though they may not be aware of it, they are uttering the name of Mausolus, so dear to Artemisia. “And now to return to my own history. “Fourteen years after the death of this unhappy queen, I bore my master, Alexander, into yonder city of Halicarnassus, as a conqueror. He had fought and defeated the sovereign then reigning in Caria, and all the inhabitants of this country did him homage. How well I remember the morning he rode out to see with his own eyes this very tomb of which he had heard so much. “It was a morning such as this. The sun, just as you see it now, had newly risen, and then, as now, the marble pillars, the chariot group, the statues stood out white as sea-foam against a sky, every whit as deep and blue as you behold. “Alexander stood transfixed with admiration, and I could not refrain from a glance of pride at my own image, four times repeated on the summit of the building. “‘Ah!’ thought I, ‘when she ordered those marble horses to be carved by the greatest sculptor of her time, little did Queen Artemisia guess that the model from which they were designed would one day gallop proudly into her city, bearing upon his back the conqueror of her kingdom.’ It was a sad and overwhelming reflection, and, as I gazed upwards at the statue of Artemisia herself, I half expected her to descend in wrath from her chariot to punish my insolence. But, after all, it was Alexander, not I, who had taken Halicarnassus, as I made haste to assure myself, and I turned my head to look in the face of my beloved master. He was gazing sadly at the tomb, and I fancied that, conqueror though he was, he thought with sorrow and pity of the unhappy queen. For as generous as brave was my dear master, Alexander the Great.” * * * * * Quite a long silence followed the last words, and it was a silence which somehow the children had no wish to break, for they both felt a little dreamy and disinclined to speak.