that I shall arise with the skill in my hands
to execute my dream?"

Frankly hurling himself down from the pinnacle of his imagination he
told the Athenian his ambition.

"If I manage to finish this statue the future will be all my own, and
some day my name will be engraved in the Forum, and the people of the
city will read it with admiration. I will free myself from the pottery
forever. I will present my statue to Sonnica, after it has been admired
by all Saguntum in the Panathenaea, and your lover, who is so generous,
will give me passage in one of her ships. I shall see Athens. I will
admire what you have seen, and then--then! Look, Actaeon, through these
leaves. What do you see on the hill of the Acropolis? Nothing. Walls of
great stones, columns, roofs of temples, but not a single statue to
proclaim from afar the glory of the city. They say that upon the
Acropolis of Athens rises the gigantic figure of Pallas, all of bronze
and gold, with a lance that seems to burn in the sunlight, and that it
guides the mariners like a flame from many stadia out at sea. Is that
true? Many, many nights have I dreamt of something like that, and I see
Erotion returned from Athens a great artist, and raising a colossal work
upon our Acropolis. The bulls of Geryon, enormous, gigantic, with gilded
horns shining like flames, and behind them Hercules, covered with the
skin of the Nemean lion, like Theron, his priest, in the great festivals
of Saguntum, and his club, menacing on the height, shall be a signal to
all the navigators of the Sucronian gulf. Ah! If only some day I realize
this achievement!"

Rhanto had come out of her hiding-place covered by a tunic, and she
timidly approached Actaeon, looking at him respectfully, and blushing at
the same time at the recollection of the condition in which he had
surprised her. Erotion, excited by the telling of his hopes, showed
eagerness to resume his task. He glanced at his work, and seemed to
disrobe the shepherdess with his eyes.

The Athenian understood that his presence disturbed the young people.

"Work, Erotion!" he said. "Be a great artist if you can. The sculptors
of Athens would envy you your model. Now that I know that you hide here
I will not again annoy you with my presence."

And so it was. He left the grove of fig trees permitting the two to work
undisturbed in their mysterious retreat, Erotion spurred on by ambition,
Rhanto submissive from love.

The day of the Panathena