r
when we left the cloisters of St. Trophime, took one last look at the
porch, and turned toward the amphitheatre. We were right to have waited,
for the vast circle was golden in the sunset, like a heavy bracelet,
dropped by Atlas one day, when he stretched a weary arm; and the
beautiful fragments of coloured marbles, which the Greeks loved and
Christians destroyed, were the jewels of that great bracelet. The place
was so pathetically beautiful in the dying day that a soft sadness
pressed upon me like a hand on my forehead, and echoes of the long-dead
past, when Greek Arles was a harbour of commerce by sea and river, or
when it was Roman Arelate, rich and cruel, rang in my ears as we
wandered through the cells of prisoners, the dens of lions, and the
rooms of gladiators, where the young "men about town" used to pat their
favourites on oiled backs, or make their bets on ivory tablets.

"If we were here by moonlight, we should see ghosts," I said. "Come,
let us go before it grows any darker or sadder. The shadows seem to
move. I think there's a lion crouching in that black corner."

"He won't hurt you, sister Una," said my brother Jack. "There's one
thing you must see here before I take you home--back to the hotel, I
mean; and that is the Saracen Tower, as they call it."

So we went into the Saracen Tower, and high up on the wall I saw the
presentment of a hand.

"That is the Hand of Fatima," explained the guide, who had been
following rather than conducting us, because the chauffeur knew almost
as much about the amphitheatre as he did. "You should touch it,
mademoiselle, for luck. All the young ladies like to do that here; and
the young men also, for that matter."

Instantly my brother lifted me up, so that I might touch the hand; and
then I would not be content unless he touched it too.

I had dinner in the couriers' room that evening, with my brother, when I
had dressed Lady Turnour for hers. We were rather late, and had the room
to ourselves, for the crowd which had collected there at luncheon time
had vanished by train or motor. There was a nice old waiter, who was
frankly interested in us, recognizing perhaps that, as a maid and
chauffeur, we were out of the beaten track. He wanted to know if we had
done any sight-seeing in Arles, and seemed to take it as a personal
compliment that we had.

"Mademoiselle touched the Hand of Fatima, of course?" he asked, letting
a trickle of sauce spill out of a sauce-boat in