Gotthold had already been working for half an hour with the zeal of an artist who has enthusiastically seized upon his subject, and must take advantage of the present hour, which will not return. Though sky, earth, and sea should adorn themselves at to-morrow's sunset with the same brilliant hues, though the hill should cast the same deep shadows upon the valley and ravines--he would not stand upon the same spot again to replace what had been forgotten, and complete what had been begun. So he sat upon one of the lower stones of the giant's grave, drinking in, with an artist's glowing eyes, the beauty of the scene and hour, and with an artist's busy hand creating an image of this beauty. The colors on the palette seemed to mingle of their own accord, and every stroke of the brush upon the little square of canvas brought the image nearer its original with a speed and certainty which astonished the artist himself. Never before had any work progressed so rapidly, never had design and execution met so lovingly, never had the enthusiastic feeling of power made him so happy. "Is it possible the dream that here alone I can reach the standard I am destined to attain may be something more than a dream?" he said to himself, "and is the hidden wisdom of the ancient myth of Antaeus to be proved again in me? But to be sure we are all sons of earth; it is not our mother's fault if we struggle toward the distant suns, in whose strange glow our waxen wings quickly melt. I was such an Icarus yonder." "Yes, yes," he exclaimed aloud, "Rome, Naples, Syracuse, you Paradises of artists, what is this poor slip of earth in comparison with you! And yet to me it is more, so much more, it is my home." "To which an old friend bids you heartily welcome," said a clear voice behind him. Gotthold started and turned. "Carl Brandow!" There he stood, his slight, elastic figure resting against the very block upon which the serpent had lain that morning; and his round, hard eyes, whose piercing gaze was fixed upon him, reminded Gotthold of the staring eyes of the reptile. "To be sure it is I," said Carl Brandow, as he came forward with a smile intended to be friendly, but which was as cold as the hand he held out to Gotthold, and in which the latter hesitatingly placed the tips of his fingers. "How did you find me here?" asked Gotthold.