A Daughter of Astrea

“Behold!” cried Sabul Ahmid, with an upward sweep of his bare, brown arm, “behold the Sacred Temple of the people of Astrea!”I stood up in the boat, my portfolio under my arm. High on the mountain’s side, crowning a thick mass of laurel undergrowth, and flanked by a grove of deep, cool, byana trees, was the building to which my servant was pointing. The material whereof it was fashioned I could not at that distance determine. Only in the broad, tropical sunlight it flashed forth, a glorious and spotless white, as flawless and perfect as the purest marble or alabaster. Little minarets rose from the flat roof; and flowering shrubs, planted along the mountain terrace above, drooped about it, a brilliant scintilla of purple colouring. My fingers began to crave for my pencil. I turned to my guide with beaming face.