not wholly the Galilean God's; He shares its dominion with the devils.
As the shades of night descended from the hills, Fauns and Faun-women,
Nymphs and Pans, came huddling beneath the shelter of the tombs along
the roadside, and there under the kindly empire of the infernal powers
would enjoy a brief repose. Of all the tombs they liked mine the best,
as that of a reverend ancestor of their own. Soon all assembled under
that part of the cornice which, giving South, was quite free of moss
and always dry. Thither the airy folk came flying every evening as
surely as doves to the dovecote. They easily found room, grown tiny now
and light as the chaff that scuds before the winnowing-fan. For my own
part, sallying out from my quiet death-chamber, I would sit down
sometimes in the midst of them under shelter of the marble edge-tiles,
and in a feeble, whistling voice sing them songs of the days of Saturn
and Jupiter; then they would remember the happy times gone by for ever.
Under the eyes of Diana, they would join to make a show of their ancient
pastimes, and the belated traveller would seem to see the night mists of
the meadows in the moonlight mimic the intertwining limbs of lovers. And
in very deed they were little more than a fleeting fog themselves. The
cold tried them sorely. One night, when the snow shrouded the fields,
the Nymphs Ægle, Neæra, Mnaïs and Melibœa glided through the cracks
in the marble into the narrow, gloomy chamber where I dwell. Their
comrades crowded after in their train, and the Fauns, dashing in pursuit
of them, quickly joined them too. My house became their house. We
scarcely ever left it, except to visit the woods, when the night was
fine and clear. Even then they would make haste to return at the first
cock-crow. For you must know, my son, that alone of the horned race I
have leave to appear on this earth by the light of day. It is a
privilege attached to my Saintship.

"My tomb now inspired more veneration than ever among the country