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Still some
mysterious gusts of life down there, he concluded, in the dark earth.
How curious that volcanic connection with the mainland, of which Count
Caloveglia had spoken!
Soon he found himself beside the shattered framework of a small
pavilion, built in a grotesque Chinese style and looking woefully out
of place in this classic landscape, with the blue Tyrrhenian at its
foot. And here he rested. He surveyed the traces of the old path
leading down from the higher lands in serpentine meanderings; that
path--once, doubtless, bordered by shady trees--whereby all those worldly
invalids had once descended. He pictured the lively caravan afoot, on
mule-back, in sedan chairs, seeking health and pleasure at this site,
now so void of life. Lower down, almost within a stone's throw, lay the
beach. The sailors, father and son, had drawn the boat up to the shore
and were sitting huddled up on its shady side, with some food between
them on a coloured handkerchief. That Brobdingnagian luncheon-basket
had also been disembarked.


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