The ruins (the fragments of one or two prostrate pillars) lie upon
a promontory, bare and unmystified by the gloom of surrounding
groves. My Greek friend in his consular cap stood by, respectfully
waiting to see what turn my madness would take, now that I had come
at last into the presence of the old stones. If you have no taste
for research, and can't affect to look for inscriptions, there is
some awkwardness in coming to the end of a merely sentimental
pilgrimage; when the feeling which impelled you has gone, you have
nothing to do but to laugh the thing off as well as you can, and,
by-the-bye, it is not a bad plan to turn the conversation (or
rather, allow the natives to turn it) towards the subject of hidden
treasures. This is a topic on which they will always speak with
eagerness, and if they can fancy that you, too, take an interest in
such matters, they will not only think you perfectly sane, but will
begin to give you credit for some more than human powers of forcing
the obscure earth to show you its hoards of gold.
When we returned to Baffa, the vice-consul seized a club with the
quietly determined air of a brave man resolved to do some deed of
note.
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