He then stood silent a brief space, struggling, perhaps, to make himself conscious of the historic associations of the scene.
"What are you thinking of, Donatello ?" asked Miriam.
"Who are they," said he, looking earnestly in her face, "who have been flung over here in days gone by ?" "Men that cumbered the world," she replied.

"Men whose lives were the bane of their fellow creatures.

Men who poisoned the air, which is the common breath of all, for their own selfish purposes.

There was short work with such men in old Roman times.

Just in the moment of their triumph, a hand, as of an avenging giant, clutched them, and dashed the wretches down this precipice." "Was it well done ?" asked the young man.
"It was well done," answered Miriam; "innocent persons were saved by the destruction of a guilty one, who deserved his doom." While this brief conversation passed, Donatello had once or twice glanced aside with a watchful air, just as a hound may often be seen to take sidelong note of some suspicious object, while he gives his more direct attention to something nearer at, hand.