When she looked, the declining sun, gliding between two of the outer
pillars which surrounded the temple, covered with a bright glow the
smooth pavement before the entrance. A swarm of insects flew drowsily
round and round in the warm mellow light; their faint monotonous humming
deepened, rather than interrupted, the perfect silence prevailing over
all things without.
But a change was soon destined to appear in the repose of the quiet,
vacant scene; hardly a minute had elapsed while Antonina still looked on
it before she saw stealing over the sunny pavement a dark shadow, the
same shadow that she had last beheld when she stopped in her flight to
look behind her in the empty street. At first it slowly grew and
lengthened, then it remained stationary, then it receded and vanished as
gradually as it had advanced, and then the girl heard, or fancied that
she heard, a faint sound of footsteps, retiring along the lateral
colonnades towards the river side of the building.
A low cry of horror burst from her lips as she sank back towards her
father; but it was unheeded.
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