not a soul; the dead town of stone remnants, foundation walls, and broken columns lay upon the barren slopes in the ancient silence it had kept through the centuries, and Ogle was pleased to have it apparently all to himself.
Prowling at hazard, he found the theatre, explored it thoughtfully, then climbed to the top of it and sat looking down upon the stone stage. Had a nervous playwright ever watched a "first-night" from this same seat, he wondered. How stately the Roman audience must have looked, he thought, and how astonished they would have been if they could have known that a being like himself would ever sit there, a man from a country built mainly of flimsy wood and stucco. What would be left of an American city after fire, capture, sacking, earthquakes, sand storms, and centuries of Arab lootings. Of an American city, he asked sourly, would even its Yawp be left for a comic opera archæologist to decipher?
Then, as he thought of this singular person, wondering why it happened that one encountered so many strange people in Africa, the man himself and his pretty pupil came from behind a wall and appeared upon the ruined stage below. Dr. E. D. G.
