All gone--now! Yes, suh!"

A fine--yea, even a splendid room, of great height, and carved grandeur,
with hand-wrought bronze sconces and a band of metal bordering, all
blackened with oblivion. And the faces of those old heroes encircling
that domed ceiling were blackened too, and scarred with damp, beyond
recognition. Here, beneath their gaze, men had banqueted and danced and
ruled. The pride and might and vivid strength of things still fluttered
their uneasy flags of spirit, moved disherited wings! Those old-time
feasts and grave discussions--we seemed to see them printed on the thick
air, imprisoned in this great chamber built above their dark foundations.
The pride and the might and the vivid strength of things--gone, all gone!

We became conscious again of that soft, weak voice.

"Not hearing very well, suh, I have it all printed, lady--beautifully
told here--yes, indeed!"

She was putting cards into our hands; then, impassive, maintaining ever
her impersonal chant, the guardian of past glory led us on.

"Now we shall see the slave-market--downstairs, underneath! It's wet for
the lady the water comes in now yes, suh!"

On the crumbling black and white marble floorings the water indeed was
trickling into pools. And down in the halls there came to us
wandering--strangest thing that ever strayed through deserted grandeur--a
brown, broken horse, lean, with a sore flank and a head of tremendous
age. It stopped and gazed at us, as though we might be going to give it
things to eat, then passed on, stumbling over the ruined marbles. For a
moment we had thought him ghost--one of the many. But he was not, since
his hoofs sounded. The scrambling clatter of them had died out into
silence before we came to that dark, crypt-like chamber whose marble
columns were ringed in iron, veritable pillars of foundation. And then
we saw that our old guide's hands were full of newspapers. She struck a
match; they caught fire and blazed. Holding high that torch, she said:
"See! Up there's his name, above where he stood. The auctioneer. Oh
yes, indeed! Here's where they sold them!"

Below that name, decaying on the wall, we had the slow, uncanny feeling
of some one standing there in the gleam and flicker from that paper
torch. For a moment the whole shadowy room seemed full of forms and
faces. Then the torch lied out, and our old guide, pointing through an
archway with the blackened stump of it, said:

"'Twas here