probably got my face dirty, and though I had a linen handkerchief in my pocket, along with lots of paper tissue, it was no time for that.
"I walked on, making sure the land was solid, and realized I was climbing upwards onto a mound. At last a clearing broke in front of me, a very large clearing surrounded by immense cypress -- in fact, it seemed then that the cypress had anchored the clearing and made an island out of it by their knees and their hateful sprawling roots.
"And in the midst of this clearing rose the house, some six to eight feet above ground atop its log foundations, a seemingly circular structure of two stories, each of connecting arches and in a rising succession of smaller sizes, like the two layers of a wedding cake. Adding to this impression was a cupola on the very top.
"A solid wooden stairs rose from the earth to the front doorway, and affixed above this front door was a rectangular sign with deeply etched and plainly readable letters:
PROPERTY OF
MANFRED BLACKWOOD
KEEP OUT
"If I'd ever felt as much triumph before, I didn't remember it. This was my house, this was my island; I had discovered what was only legend to other people, and it was all mine. I'd reclaimed Manfred's tale. I'd seen what William never saw, what Gravier never saw, what Pops never saw. I was here.
"In a heated delirium I surveyed the building, almost incapable of any true reasoning and not even remembering Rebecca's plea to me, or the deep simmering pain which I had just heard inside my head.
"The droning of the bees, the rattle and flapping of the giant palmetto leaves, the soft crush of gravel under my feet -- all these things sort of embraced me and upheld me and seemed to wrap me in an incalculable fascination, as though I'd come into the paradise of another man's faith.
"I was also dimly aware, unwillingly aware, that though the ancient trees might have created this clearing, the clearing itself could not have remained free in any natural way. The swamp should have swallowed it up a long time ago. As it was the blackberries were eating at it, and the wicked, high-toned wisteria had a claim on it, sprawling out to shroud the undergrowth to the right of the house and to the back of it, coming up over the high two-story roof.
"But somebody was living here. Probably. But then maybe not. At the idea of squatters or trespassers I was incensed. I regretted that I hadn't brought a handgun. Should have. And might whenever I came back. It all depended upon what I discovered in the house.
"Meantime I had spied another structure, something seemingly solid and massive, well behind the house. The wisteria covered half of it. The sun was striking off the surface of the rest of it, positively sparkling on it and making a dazzle through the spindly trunks of the newborn trees.
"It was to this structure that I went first, very reluctantly passing by the inviting front steps of the house but determined to discover what this massive shape was.
"I could only explain it to myself as some sort of tomb. It stood as tall as me, was rectangular in shape and appeared to be made of granite, except for panels set into it front and rear and each side, which were made out of a metal which appeared to be gold.
"I yanked off the nest of wisteria as best I could.
"There were figures carved into this metal, Grecian figures who seemed to be engaged in a funeral procession, and the procession appeared continuous from panel to panel, enclosing the structure to which there was no back or front or door.
"I must have circled it some ten times, running my hands over the figures, touching the finely carved profiles and folds of garments, and realizing very slowly that the figures were more Roman than Greek. I made this judgment because the human beings were not idealized as the Greeks would have made them but were in fact slender and particular people of several groups. At one point it occurred to me that this was of pre-Raphaelite design, but I wasn't sure of myself on that score.
"Let me say simply, the figures were classical, and the procession was unending, and though some of the figures appeared to be weeping and others tearing their hair, there was no corpse or bier.