But he stopped, as if ashamed at these last words, and added sadly:
"How you must be laughing at me, stranger! You come from _there_, from that marvelous country of which my father so often talks. You must have seen the Parthenon and Athene Promachos which navigators distinguish far out at sea long before they can descry Athens; the wonderful procession of horses in the metopes; the prodigious works of Phidias. How I long to see all that! When a ship comes into port from Greece I run away from the pottery and spend whole days in the taverns with the mariners. I drink with them, I give them presents of figurines in lewd attitudes, which make them laugh, just for the sake of getting them to tell me what they have seen--the temples, the statues, the paintings; and their stories, instead of calming me, excite my longing.... Ah, if Sónnica would allow it!... If only she would let me go in one of her ships when they set sail for Greece!"
"This girl you see here, my sweet Rhanto, is all that sustains me. If she did not exist I should long ago have sought the _gubernator_ of a ship, should have sold myself to him as a slave, if necessary, to travel over the world, to see Greece, and to become an artist like those to whom you render there the same honors as to the gods."
The three walked on in silence for some time behind the cloud of dust raised by the goats. The boy gradually recovered his serenity at the side of Rhanto, who had taken one of his hands in hers.
"And you--why do you come here?" he asked Actæon.
"I came as did your father. I am a Greek without fortune, and I wish to offer my arms to the Saguntine Republic in its wars with the Turdetani."
"Speak to Mopsus. You will find him in the Forum, or above on the Acropolis near the temple of Hercules, where the magistrates gather. He will be glad to see you; he adores those of your race, and he will stand sponsor for you before the city."
Again silence fell. The Greek noticed the loving glances exchanged between the two young people, the fervid pressure of their clasped hands, the tender inclination of their healthy young bodies, which seeking each other, clung together. Erotion, as if obeying an unspoken request from his beloved, drew from his bosom a flute made of a hollow reed, and began to blow upon it softly, producing tender, pastoral music, to which the goats responded with bleating.