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of the Pharaohs. But where shall I find it
all!”
“You stand upon the site of one of Tiberio’s
villas. Priceless treasures of bygone ages lie
buried under the vines, under the chapel, under
the house. The old emperor’s foot has trod upon
the slabs of coloured marble you saw the old
peasant throw over the wall of his garden, the
ruined fresco with its dancing fawns and the
flower-crowned bacchantes once adorned the
walls of his palace. Look,” said he, pointing
down to the clear depths of the sea a thousand
feet below. “Didn’t your Tacitus tell you at
school that when the news of the Emperor’s
death had reached the island, his palaces were
hurled into the sea?”
I wanted to leap down the precipitous cliffs at
once and plunge into the sea in search of my
columns. “No need for such a hurry,” he
laughed, “for two thousand years the corals
have been spinning their cobwebs round them and
the waves have buried them deeper and deeper in
the sand, they will wait for you till your time
comes.”
“And the sphinx? Where shall I find the
sphinx?”
“On a lonely plain, far away from the life of
to-day, stood once the sumptuous villa of another
Emperor, who had brought the sphinx from the
banks of the Nile to adorn his garden. Of the
palace nothing remains but a heap of stones, but
deep in the bowels of the earth still lies the sphinx.
Search and you will find her. It will nearly cost
you your life to bring it here, but you will do it.”
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