Denny dropped from the wall in a twinkling, and we retreated in disorder to the gate.

Xerxes took that mighty citadel four hundred and eighty years before Christ, when his five millions of soldiers and camp-followers followed him to Greece, and if we four Americans could have remained unmolested five minutes longer, we would have taken it too.
The garrison had turned out--four Greeks.

We clamored at the gate, and they admitted us.

[Bribery and corruption.] We crossed a large court, entered a great door, and stood upon a pavement of purest white marble, deeply worn by footprints.

Before us, in the flooding moonlight, rose the noblest ruins we had ever looked upon--the Propylae; a small Temple of Minerva; the Temple of Hercules, and the grand Parthenon.