Fever, the miasma of the fens, had been the deadly lava for this Pompeii.  The poisonous air had caused the inhabitants to flee, and the few who insisted upon living within the shadow of the ancient temples had had to escape from the Saracen invasions, founding in the neighboring mountains a new country—­the humble town of Capaccio Vecchio.  Then the Norman kings, forerunners of Frederick II (the father of Dona Constanza, the empress beloved by Ferragut), had plundered the entire deserted city, carrying off with them its columns and sculpture.

All the medieval constructions of the kingdom of Naples were the spoils of Paestum.  The doctor recalled the cathedral of Salerno, seen the afternoon before, where Hildebrand, the most tenacious and ambitious of the popes, was buried.  Its columns, its sarcophagi, its bas-reliefs had come from this Grecian city, forgotten for centuries and centuries and only in modern times—­thanks to the antiquarians and artists—­recovering its fame.

In the station of Paestum, the wife of the only employee looked curiously at this group arriving after the war had blocked off the trail of tourists.

Freya spoke to her, interested in her malarial and resigned aspect.  They were yet in good time.  The spring sun was warming up these lowlands just as in midsummer, but she was still able to resist it.  Later, during the summer, the guards of the ruins and the workmen in the excavations would have to flee to their homes in the mountains, handing the country over to the reptiles and insects of the marshy fields.

The lodging keeper and his wife in the little station were the only evidences of humankind still able to exist in this solitude, trembling with fever, trying to endure the corrupt air, the poisonous sting of the mosquito, and the solar fire that was sucking from the mud the vapors of death.  Every two years this humble stopping place through which passed the lucky ones of the earth,—­the millionaires of two hemispheres, beautiful and curious dames, rulers of nations, and great artists,—­was obliged to change its station-master.

The three tourists passed near the remains of an aqueduct and an antique pavement.  Then they went through the Porta della Sirena, an entrance arch into a forgotten quarter of the city, and continued along a road bordered on one side by marshy lands of exuberant vegetation and on the other by the long mud wall of a grange, through whose mortar were sticking out fragments of stones or columns.  On turning the last corner, the imposing spectacle of the dead city, still surviving in the magnificent proportions of its temples, presented itself to view.

There were three of these temples, and their colonnades stood forth like mast heads of ships becalmed in a sea of verdure.  The doctor, guide-book in hand, was pointing them out with masterly authority—­that was Neptune’s, that Ceres’, and that was called the Basilica without any special reason.