Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/342

 but I took my lady and her aunt for a glimpse of Arethusa's fountain in the town before driving them into perhaps the most wonderful garden in the world—the double garden of the Villa Politi. It is double because the heights, on a level with the white balconied hotel, bloom with flowers and billow with waving olive trees; while down below, far below, lie the haunted quarries, starry now in their tragic shadows with the golden spheres of oranges. The latomia forms a subterranean garden; when the brilliant flower-beds above are scintillating with noonday heat, down there, under the orange trees with their white blossoms, it is always cool and dim, with a green light like a garden under the sea.

The quarry is deep, with sheer white walls overgrown with ivy and purple bouganvillia. It is of enormous extent, winding irregularly, crossed here and there with a slight bridge, and the hotel stands on the very edge. Far away lies Siracusa, a streak of pearl against the deep indigo of the sea. We went down into the latomia and wandered into its most secret places. But when we came upon a pile of skulls Aunt Mary beat a retreat. The ghosts of the tortured Greeks haunted the place, she vowed, and lest she should be lost in the labyrinth of the quarry, she had to be escorted up to the world of mortals.

Next day we did most of the things that Miss Randolph had set her heart on, but not all. My alluring picture of Taormina consoled her for what she had to miss, and she consented to be torn away on the following morning.

Our drive to-day has been a scamper through