He turned from the road and walked through a wood higher up the side of
the mountain, having caught a gleam of white through the trees and being
anxious to ascertain its nature. He found the remains of a small and
ancient marble temple--temple he took it to be--and he was sure that it
had been erected there perhaps fifteen centuries ago by the Romans. He
knew from his reading that they had marched and fought and settled
throughout all this region and in almost all of Austria. Marcus Aurelius
might have been here, he might even have built the temple itself, and
other Roman emperors might have stood in the shadow of its shattered
columns.
It was a round temple, like those to Ceres that he had seen in Italy,
and while some of the columns had fallen others stood, and a portion of
the roof was there. He saw for himself a place under this fragment of a
roof and against a pillar.
But he devoted his attention first to supper. A small cold stream flowed
from under a rock fifty feet away, and drinking from it now and then he
ate his bread and sausage in comfort, and even with a sense of luxury.
He was a crusader and he was upborne more strongly than ever by his
faith. Alone on the mountain in the darkness everything else had melted
away. America was an immeasurable distance from him and the figures of
his uncle, Mr.
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