et wide,
and a little longer, being nearly square in shape, and was evidently
a temple of some kind.

"What is this?" asked David.

"This is the Temple of Isis," said Michael Angelo.

"The Temple of Isis!" exclaimed David, in eager excitement. "Is
it, indeed!" and he looked around with a face full of intense
interest. Hitherto, though all the boys had shown much interest,
yet, David had surpassed them all in his enthusiasm. This was
partly on account of his taste for classical studies, and his love
for all connected with classical antiquity, but more especially
from the fact that he had very recently read Bulwer's _Last
Days of Pompeii_; and on this occasion that whole story, with all
its descriptions and all its incidents, was brought vividly before
him by the surrounding scene. Most of all was the Temple of Isis
associated with that story, and it seemed more familiar to him than
anything else that he had found in the city. Glaucus and Ione, the
Christian Olynthus, and the dark Arbaces seemed to haunt the place.
In one of the chambers of this very temple, as Michael Angelo was
now telling,--even while leading the way to that chamber,--had
been found a huge skeleton, with an axe beside it; two walls had
been beaten through by that axe, but the desperate fugitive could
go no farther. In another part of the city had been found, another
skeleton, carrying a bag of Coins and some ornaments of this Temple
of Isis. David listened to Michael Angelo's account with strange
interest, for it seemed to him as though the fabled characters of
Bulwer's story were endowed with actual reality by Michael Angelo's
prosaic statements.

After inspecting the chamber just mentioned, they were taken to a
place where they saw what had once been the pedestal of a statue.
Here Michael Angelo showed them a hollow niche, which was so
contrived that one might conceal himself there, and speak words
which the ignorant and superstitious populace might believe to come
from the idol's own stony lips. This one thing showed the full
depth of ancient ignorance and superstition; and over this Michael
Angelo waxed quite eloquent, and proceeded to deliver himself of
a number of impressive sentences of a highly important character,
which he uttered with that fluent volubility peculiar to the whole
race of guides, ciceroni, and showmen, in all parts of the world.
These moral maxims were part of Michael Angelo's regular routine,
and the moment that he foun