"The palaces of the sea ladies," Violetta exclaimed gleefully. "I thought I saw one, but she turned out to be a fish!" "The home of strange beings, at any rate," mused Ilaria,--"of flowers that are alive! Did you see that long blue ribbon sway and beckon to us?" Ilaria's gravity and pallor seemed to have vanished with the mists of morning. She was flushed and gay,--almost too gay, Francesco thought. A startled quietude, as of one expectant, was upon her. "I have bidden you to a land of enchantment," laughed Stefano Maconi as they climbed upwards. "We are still within the power of the sea, as you perceive," he added, when the company paused by the half-buried columns below the amphitheatre. "It is true," said Francesco, pausing by a half-buried shaft. "The stone is fretted by the waves. See the clustered barnacles and tiny shells clinging half-way up!" A party of cavaliers and their ladies met them on this spot. As they exchanged greetings, all studied the strange sight. "Probably," reflected a young page of the court, "it was the doing of Messer Vergilio." "He had great power hereabout," asserted Andrea Ravignano, "and was a mighty clerk of necromancy. Perhaps it was he who built all these marvels!" "It was the old Roman folk that built them, ages ago," said another. "A city rose here once, a marvel indeed, as these ruins tell. For their pleasure men built it, and here they lived and throve. And evil livers were they all, and slaves to the foul fiends, their gods!" "But how did the city sink into the sea?" asked Violetta. "That was the work of Messer Saint Paul," replied the other. "He landed here and preached the Cross of our Saviour, and when men would not heed but spat upon the cross and defied it, he laid the land under a curse, and it sank to the depths of the sea!" "And when the waves had done their work,"--it was Ilaria, speaking dreamily, "they flowed back, and the ruins rested on a gentle hill. But forever and ever do they remember the sea!" She sighed a little. "The slope on which we sit is hollow within," ventured the youthful page. "Behind us is many a love-grotto, tunnelled deep and far. The country folk, when they run the harrow, find great walls. And so none dare come here of nights: strange things are seen!" "Perhaps the waters will rise again some day and swallow Naples and the court, and we shall turn into sea-folk all," Ilaria said, laughing a little wildly. "Subjects of Lady Venus we should be. She was Queen of the Sea, I've heard!" "Though Terce is hardly passed, such talk is not wise," said some one. And two or three crossed themselves. But as the light words drifted on, dim vistas of thought, at the end of which immemorial things were gleaming, had opened to Francesco. Violetta had been deftly weaving a green garland of ivy.