Their grandeur, their solidity, their elegance made the edifices of Rome sink into insignificance.  Athens alone could compare the monuments of her Acropolis with these temples of the most severe Doric style.  That of Neptune had well preserved its lofty and massive columns,—­as close together as the trees of a nursery,—­enormous trunks of stone that still sustained the high entablature, the jutting cornice and the two triangular walls of its facades.  The stone had taken on the mellow color of the cloudless countries where the sun toasts readily and the rain does not deposit a grimy coating.

The doctor recalled the departed beauties and the old covering of these colossal skeletons,—­the fine and compact coating of stucco which had closed the pores of the stone, giving it a superficial smoothness like marble,—­the vivid colors of its flutings and walls making the antique city a mass of polychrome monuments.  This gay decoration had become volatilized through the centuries and its colors, borne away by the wind, had fallen like a rain of dust upon a land in ruins.

Following an old guard, they climbed the blue, tiled steps of the temple of Neptune.  Above, within four rows of columns, was the real sanctuary, the cella.  Their footsteps on the tiled flags, separated by deep cracks filled with grass, awoke all the animal world that was drowsing there in the sun.

These actual inhabitants of the city,—­enormous lizards with green backs covered with black warts,—­ran in all directions.  In their flight they scurried blindly over the feet of the visitors.  The doctor raised her skirts in order to avoid them, at the same time breaking into nervous laughter to hide her terror.

Suddenly Freya gave a cry, pointing to the base of the ancient altar.  An ebony-hued snake, his sides dotted with red spots, was slowly and solemnly uncoiling his circles upon the stones.  The sailor raised his cane, but before he could strike he felt his arm grasped by two nervous hands.  Freya was throwing herself upon him with a pallid face and eyes dilated with fear and entreaty.

“No, Captain!...  Leave it alone!”

Ulysses thrilled upon feeling the contact of her firm, curving bosom and noting her respiration, her warm breath charged with distant perfume.  It would have suited him if she had remained in this position a long time, but Freya freed herself in order to advance toward the reptile, coaxing it and holding out her hands to it as though she were trying to caress a domestic animal.  The black tail of the serpent was just slipping away and disappearing between two square tiles.  The doctor who had fled down the steps at this apparition, by her repeated calls, obliged Freya also to descend.

The captain’s aggressive attitude awoke in his companion a nervous animosity.  She believed she knew this reptile.  It was undoubtedly the divinity of the dead temple that had changed its form in order to live among the ruins.  This serpent must be twenty centuries old.  If it had not been for Ferragut she would have been able to have taken it up in her hands....  She would have spoken to it....  She was accustomed to converse with others....