A young and beautiful man, holding a golden rod, with a slight down upon his lip, came towards him.

Ulysses knew that the God Hermes had flashed down from heaven to be his counsellor. He fell upon his knees before the divine messenger.

“The great Athene has sent me to you, king,” said the god, “for she heard your prayer upon the shore, and will deliver you from the forest danger. Here is a sprig of the magic herb moly. Take it in your hand for a safeguard against the wiles of Circe.

“When you go into the palace she will mix you her enchanted potion, and strike you with her wand. Do you draw your sword, and make as though to slay her. Then she will fear greatly and swear to do you no harm.”

Ulysses took the white flowered talisman, and Hermes vanished among the trees.

Then he came swiftly upon the gleaming palace, and going up to the marble porch struck upon it with his sword hilt, and called to the goddess.

She glimmered towards him. Her hair was like a young horse-chestnut fresh from the pod. Her eyes were like pools of violet water, her neck was a tower of ivory, and her lips were red as sunset.

The flower of evil, the goddess of strange sins!

She smiled at the hero, and led him by the hand to a table on which was a golden cup, proffering it to him in welcome.

Ulysses bowed low before her loveliness, and as he drank there was a strange smile in his eyes.

The enchantress looked at him steadily. For a single moment a ripple of doubt crossed her face, but suddenly she seized her cedarn rod and smote his side, crying, “Get you to the stye, and lie there in filth with your companions.”

Ulysses drew his great sword, and held it over her with menacing eyes. She drooped to him, a very woman! and clung round him, weeping, and he could feel her warm heart beating, beating close to his. Her lovely hair fell around her in a golden cloud, and tears streamed down her cheeks as she swore by the gods on the Holy Hill never to harm him.

And looking on her sinful loveliness the brain of Ulysses burned for her, and he took her lithe body in his strong arms and pressed the blossom of her lips to his. Her arms stole round him, and she called him lord and king.

Then with a soft smile she led him to the courtyard where the swine lay sleeping in the sun. When the foul beasts saw Ulysses they set up a horrid chorus of grunting, and he raged to see his valiant friends so degraded. But clinging to him, the goddess raised her hand, and the swine vanished, and the goodly mariners stood up among the straw, more straight and tall than before, with all the marks of hardship and travel smoothed from their faces.

That night the other mariners came up from the shore, guided by Ulysses. And the amber lamps flared in the hall, and all night till daybreak they made a great feast. They sang in praise of love and wine, and Circe sat at the right hand of the King of Ithaca.

When the rosy dawn rushed up the sky, the goddess rose.

The lamps paled in the fresh new light, and the feast was over.

The mariners lay in sleep about the board, and the purple wine was spilt about them.

Only the Goddess and the Hero were awake.

Then she said, “Lord and love, the night is over. The sun climbs the sky, the woodlands awake. But let us go into my scented chamber, my purple chamber where the day never comes. There will we lie in love and sleep and forget the day.”

She led him by the hand over the cool marble floor. The purple curtains fell behind them with a soft noise of falling. All sound was hushed in the courts of the palace, and the whole house was still.

THE THIRD EPISODE

How Ulysses walked in Hell, and of the Adventure of the Sirens and Scylla

The King of Ithaca stood all alone on a gloomy barren shore, spear in hand. The sky lowered black overhead, and from the vast yawning hole in the terrible cliff which rose up before him he seemed to hear strange wailings and faint cries coming, so it seemed, from a great distance.

Had he at last broken away from the loving arms of Circe for this horror? Stung once more by the latent manhood in his blood, he had roused his energies and left the enchanted island to set out once more upon the weary quest for home. He had bade the goddess farewell and sailed away from the island of sweet lust to seek a ghostly counsellor and to drink deep at that fountain of wisdom which was once the glory of Thebes.

When Circe had bade him, if he would indeed get back to Ithaca and leave her arms, seek the dead Tiresias in the place of the dead it had seemed an easy thing.

What were pale ghosts to a warrior of Troyland and the vanquisher of Polyphemus? If the old seer alone could tell him how to conquer the wrath of Poseidon and win to his wife’s arms once more, should he not go with a will?

And he had set out with his crew, and the magic wind which Circe gave them had brought them hither over grey sad seas, while they had touched nor oars nor helm.

And now Ulysses went slowly up to the fissure in the rock, but a long solitary cry made him reel back trembling as his brave heart had never done before.

Then he was, in an instant moment, aware of a more than mortal presence. Into that dread place came the awful majesty of the Queen of Heaven, and he fell to the ground before Athene.

The full flowing river of her speech came down upon him.

“If thou wouldst hold thy wife once more, Ulysses, and see thy rocky western home, then must thou dare this peril. None can help thee now save thou thyself. So it is decreed by the gods. If so be it that thy courage fails thee now then wilt thou be a wanderer for ever.”

“Lady of Heaven,” he said, “I dare not go. Oh, anything but that.”

“Penelope!” she murmured sweetly.

“I cannot face the dead.”

“Ithaca.”

“Oh, listen to those wailings in the abyss!”

“Thy father Laertes weeps yet for the wanderer.”

“The dead! The dead are waiting there!”

“Men call thee Ulysses!” said the goddess, and at that word something moved within him and his limbs began to stiffen, and once more the hero felt the spear-shank hard and cold within his grasp.

He raised his face, and there was once more the old proud light upon it. Athene had gone, and big with his new resolve he stepped towards the blackness.

A voice came to him, thin, and far down.

“Ulysses! Ulysses! son of Laertes, I wait to guide thee. Hermes, son of Zeus, is with thee. Take courage in both hands and come.”

The king moved forward, and the dark swallowed him up. He stumbled along a descending rock-strewn pathway. In the increasing gloom it seemed to him that he was on the side of a steep hill. A moaning wind encircled him. Now and again a slight gleam was visible from the golden helmet of the god.

Far far down he saw the leaden livid river of death, and on the sullen tide floated the stately funeral barge of Charon, the ferryman of the dead.

The wind grew even more mournful and sad as they trod the meadows of asphodel and the grey lilies of the underworld towards the marge of Styx.

Then the god called out aloud to the ferryman. As his voice echoed over the water, the dusky night became full of the sound of wings, and dark shapes filled the air. The spirits of the dead flapped round them in continual movement.

The ghosts began to call and cry to the living hero. Some had little squeaky voices like bats, others made a louder and more hollow sound.

The howlings of the formless increased all round Ulysses.

The inarticulate found utterance in the indefinite.

The waves of weird and hopeless voices rose, fell, undulated, now loud and shrill, now sobbing into silence. Little eager whispers filled the hero’s ear.

And to the terror of these great murmurs were added the sight of superhuman outlines, which melted away in the gloom almost as they appeared. Alecto and Tisiphone, the Furies, circled round Ulysses, and Megeara flew through the dark to her sisters.

A cold hand seemed placed upon the hero’s soul. Cries from precipice to precipice, from air to water, went on unceasingly—the melancholy vociferations of the lost!

The loquacity of Hell!

And in deadly fear, but resolute still, Ulysses struggled on through this great twilight world, open on all sides. As he walked on, the flying outlaws of the tomb seemed to be swarming over him and pressing him to the ground. He struggled beneath the weight of lost souls, but his whirling arms struck nothing but the empty air.

Fresh clouds of spirits pricked the twilight, increased in size, amalgamated, thickened, and hurried towards him, crying.

They came to the brink of the river. Before them, as they looked out over the water, was no horizon, but an opaque lividity like a wan, moving precipice, a cliff of the night.

Then the old man Charon bowed to the commands of the gods and embarked them on his barge. He gazed on Ulysses with his keen wicked eyes, and his long white beard wagged in hideous mockery at this mortal among the dead.

The thin pole dipped in and out of the water, and the drops which fell from it were the colour of leaden bullets, for there is no life in the water of Styx.

Ulysses knelt in the bottom of the boat and shut out Hell from his eyes with his hand. He prayed to Athene for help to endure, and that he might have an answer from the old Seer Tiresias that would lead him safely home at last.

And now the other bank of the river began to loom up before them and the air began to be silent.

On the bank, as it seemed to welcome them, stood a tall old man with a golden sceptre in his hand. His face was full of an unutterable sadness, and his eyes were horny and dim with blindness. But his magic staff conducted him safely to the river brink, and in a high shivering voice he hailed Ulysses.

“Why hast thou come here, O wise one, leaving the happy daylight for this cheerless shore? Noble son of Laertes, I know thy quest, and thus make answer. Father Zeus gave me power, which still remains, and I, an old blind ghost, can see into the future even on the shores of Styx. Thou seekest to know if thou wilt ever catch thy wife in thy strong arms once more, and tread the well-beloved fields of Ithaca. The mighty god of the sea, Poseidon, is wroth with thee and a malevolent god. For even now his son Polyphemus stumbles a bruised and sightless way among his native hills. But yet you may return after long woes and heavy toil. But one thing bear well in mind, O king, else wilt thou suffer unbelievable things. When thy ship touches at the Island Thrinacia, great herds of cattle will be feeding there on the fresh sweet grass which grows in the goodly upper world. These be the beeves and steers of the divine Helios, the Sun-God, and must be inviolate to men. But if one sacred beast is slain, then thy ship and all thy company will perish.

“Perchance thou thyself may win Ithaca forlorn, and to find others in thy place, but that I know not. I have spoken.”

Then with a long melancholy cry the figure vanished into the dark.

But in its place came a shadowy form which made the heart of the hero leap and beat, so it seemed all Hades was filled with the tumult.

His mother Anticlea stood before him.

Stretching out her cold, thin hands she spoke.

“My boy that I suckled, why hast thou come into Hades not yet being dead, for I see that the flesh is still warm upon thee for which I drank to Zeus?”

“Mother of mine, I sought Tiresias the Theban prophet. I have not even yet won Ithaca nor seen the dear ones there. A god is against me. So I came through the spirits of the unburied, and over the dark river to seek counsel of the seer. Knowest thou in this beyond-earth if the beloved Penelope still holds me in her heart? or is she perhaps here with thee, lost to the sunlight?”

The mother of Ulysses answered, “Penelope is as faithful and true as on thy wedding day, but she is in a peril, so haste ye home. And now farewell.” Where Ulysses had seen his mother, was but a little grey vapour which swayed and vanished.

Then the hero called roughly to Charon, and bade him take the pole and urge the barge back to the starting-place. This time, though the multitude of the dead circled over him with cries, begging his help to take them out of Hades, he felt no fear, for his mind was burning with other thoughts.

He mounted the long cliff side, and at last in the distance saw a faint gleam of light stealing down towards him. In the pale gleam the figure of Hermes was manifest for a moment flitting up to the day before him.

The cries grew fainter and more faint. The light changed from grey to primrose, from primrose to yellow. The little star which was the mouth of the cave became a sun and then a world, and the yellow turned into the white hot sunshine as Hell faded utterly away.

On the beach the little blue waves sang on the yellow sand. The black divers rose lazily on the swell, and the shields round the prow of the ship shone like white fire.

Once more the vessel of heroes swam over the seas. And now there was another quality in the wind for them, and the world was a new world.

Their leader had told them that if they obeyed his commands they would win home once more. The news he had brought back from Hades made them sturdy and strong of heart, and they vowed that in all things they would trust in the king who had dared the perils of the underworld.

Their thoughts turned with a lover’s thirst to images of their native land, tranquil skies, the old-remembered meadows, cool brooks, and eternal peace after their long wandering.

Hope beat high in the heart of Ulysses also. The grey nightmare of Hell was over and in the past, one more memory when in his own halls he would weave his saga.

He had been near to the awful thing Death.

He had found that after all it was only Death.

The ship with a fair wind ran up a lane of light into the setting sun, and when at length the moon had risen and silvered all the sea, Ulysses called the men round him.

“Comrades,” he said, “with the dawn, if I have kept the reckoning aright, we shall come to the island where the Sirens dwell. Now the Lady Circe warned me against the Sirens, the singers who charm all men with their song. He who listens to Parthenope, Ligeia and Leucosia must stay with them for ever, listening spellbound to the song until he dies. And the island is covered with the bones of dead men. To listen is to die. But I wish to hear the voices and to escape the enchantment, and so obey my commands. When we near the island do you all close your ears with wax so that no sound can reach your brains. And take a stout rope and bind me to the mast so that I can in no wise loose myself. And howsoever I may order or entreat you to let me go to the Sirens, if their magic song enchants me, take no heed, but row steadily onwards until the island is far astern. Then only may you set me free.”

As dawn came, a faint grey line upon the horizon showed itself on the starboard bow. At the sight, with some laughter, for it was difficult to believe in the perils of sweet music!—even for men who had seen the wonders that they had seen—the men began to press yellow wax from the honeycomb into each other’s ears.

Then when no one among them could hear the flapping of the sail or the voice of the sea, nor could tell the meaning of his neighbour’s voice, they went up to Ulysses, and with many light-hearted jests bound him to the mast, and because his strength was well known to them they reeved the rope with a treble hitch. No living man could have escaped from such bonds.

As sailors will, they treated the whole thing as a huge jest, making a mock mutiny of it as they bound the captain. Ulysses could not help smiling at their mirth.

After such wise precaution he had no fear, and in his heart of hearts he did not believe that the song of the Sirens would affect him much, though he followed the advice of Circe and made himself a prisoner.

But a fierce curiosity possessed him. He cursed the slowness of the wind, for, as they bound him, the island was still a low line without colour on the water, and called out to the men to row faster, forgetting that they could not hear him.

Slowly the grey island became purple, then brown, and at last showed itself a green, low, pleasant land, a place of meadows.

The wind was behind them, and until they came quite close under the lee of the island Ulysses could hear no voices but those of the wind and waves. Then faintly at first, but rapidly becoming more sonorous and sweet, he heard the magic voices which were to ring in his ears in all his after life.

No words of his at any time could express the loveliness of those voices, of the unutterable sweetness of it, nothing.

The strains floated over the still sea like harps of heaven.

All that man had known or desired in life, all the emotions which had stirred the human heart, were blended in those magic voices. The world had nothing more to give; here, here at last, was the absolute fulfilment of beauty.

Louder and more piercingly sweet, as the unconscious sailors bent to the oars in earnest, and the sweat ran down their bare brown backs.

The face of Ulysses grew wan and grey as the ship passed a projecting point of rock. On the smooth green turf the three singers were standing. In face and form they were sweet and lovely girls.

Naked to the waist, they wore long flowing draperies below, and as they sung the rosy bosoms rose and fell with the music, and the lucid throats rippled with song.

And still the ship went on, but more slowly, as it were some force were at work deadening the arms of the rowers.

Then the shrill loveliness fired the hero’s blood, and he knew that he must go to the three lovely singers on the strand. Earth held nothing better than this—to lie for ever with that music in his ears.

Then, as if drawn by the long cadenced notes as by cords, Ulysses gathered up his mighty strength and strove with his bonds.

But the sailors had done their work too well, and the rope only cut deeply into the flesh.

The white arms were stretched out to him in supplication, the song grew more full of unearthly beauty than before—and the ship was slowly passing by.

Ulysses called out to the crew in an agony of command and entreaty.

One of the men happened to look up and saw his face. He grinned, nudged his companion, and turned away.

The song grew fainter, the three tall figures dwindled. The face of Ulysses grew ashen, and when at length they came to him and cut the ropes he said no word.

He went alone to the prow of the vessel and looked out over the fair sun-bathed sea, and there were tears in his eyes, and his mouth was softer and more tremulous than it was wont to be.

So they came away from Parthenope, Ligeia and Leucosia, the Sirens.

The next day Ulysses called the crew together as before and told them of the new peril that awaited them. For the wise Circe had warned him that after the island of the Sirens he must needs encounter the terrible Scylla, for the ship must pass by her lair on its passage towards Home.

But Ulysses knew that it was impossible to fight the monster, and that some of the crew were fated to die, but in his wisdom he did not tell them that.

He finished his speech as follows:—“And so, my friends, the gods ordain that we must face Scylla, and the whirlpool Charybdis. There is no other way. But courage! always have courage. I who brought you safe from out of the cave of the Cyclops will bring you safe from this also. And so onward and have stout hearts.”

It was a misty day, and everything was shadowy and faint, but the ship moved slowly along a sheer wall of black cliff which towered up above them for a thousand feet or more. The top was lost in the mist. It was a lowering, frightful place.

One of the sailors gave a shout which echoed back to them in mournful mockery through the mist.

They rowed on steadily, hugging the cliff. Ulysses stood in the prow of the boat. He had put on armour and took two spears in his hand.

His eyes searched the face of the cliff till they ached from the minute scrutiny.

This waiting for the inevitable was terribly unnerving. Ulysses himself, knowing that some must die, was heavy and sad at heart as they glided along the side of the cliff.

To the left the great whirlpool seethed and boiled, its outermost convolution scarce a bow-shot away. When it threw up the water the spray dashed up a hundred feet and fell in showers over the sailors, and as the water ran back in the ebb Ulysses could see, far down the black and spinning sides, to where the old witch Charybdis dwelt on the dark sand of the sea bottom.

Suddenly the end came. A loud barking and howling startled them all so that each man paused on his oar. A pack of hounds were unkenneled, so it seemed, somewhere on the cliff face in the mist.

Then a sickly musky smell enveloped them, so foul and stale that they coughed and spat even as their blood ran cold with fear.

Through the curtain of mist, which had suddenly grown very thick, six objects loomed right over the boat.

Six long tentacles swayed and quivered over the sailors, and at the end of each was a grinning head set with cruel fangs and a little red eager tongue that flickered in and out.

For a moment the heads hung poised, and then each sought and found its victim.

Six sailors were slowly drawn out of the boat, shrieking the name of Ulysses for the last time in their death agony. And all the time the barking of the hounds in the obscene womb of the monster went on unceasingly.

Then the fury of flight came upon them. With bursting brains and red fire before their eyes they laboured at the great oars until the wood bent and shook and the ship leaped forward like a driven horse.

And they left the strait of death and came out of the mist into a wide sunlit sea. But still a sound of distant barking came down the wind.

So Scylla took her horrid toll of heroes.

But Ulysses called them to prayer and lamentation for the dead.

THE FOURTH EPISODE

How Ulysses lost his Merry Men and came A Waif to Calypso with the Shining Hair

The crew sat round a fire of driftwood.

There was shelter where they sat, in a natural alcove of rock, but outside the great winds thundered and the wrack flew before the storm and a mighty unceasing roar filled the air.

The faces of all the sailors wore a sullen look. Hunger had begun to suck the colour from their cheeks, their eyes were prominent and strained, their movements without energy or vigour.

A rude shelter of sailcloth and various débris that was scattered about seemed to show that for some time, at least, they had made their home in this place where the winds did not come.

Ulysses was not among them. They were talking in low, discontented tones among themselves.

“A whole month,” said Eurylochus, “a whole month have we been sea bound in this accursed island. I am sick of islands!”

“Never have we put to shore without some evil thing befalling,” said another. “Oh, for Ithaca!”

“I doubt we shall ever see Ithaca again,” said a third. “We will be wanderers till we die; that is what I think. And this place is like to be the grave of all of us. I never knew a wind so furious to blow so long. We should sink in an hour did we but put out.”

“There is only food for one day more, and that sparse,” said Eurylochus. “For my part, my limbs are heavy as brass and the strength is all gone from me. I could not move an oar now. Man needs meat and wine or the fires of hunger burn the sinews and dry the blood. Brown meat and red wine! I could fill my belly till the skin cracked!”

“The rich brown meat, mate! Dost mind the soft kids on Circe’s island? By Zeus, I can taste them now!”

“Ay and the fat cows, roast till the blood ran out of them like liquid life.”

“I can even smell the smell of the roasting meat now. A welcome smell to a hungry man.”

“Would that we had never left Circe. ’Twas a kind queen, meet for our master! but her girls were kindly in love also.”

“To Hades with the girls!” said Eurylochus. “Thy talk of meat makes me heave with desire.”

He looked round cautiously before he continued.

“Friends,” he said in a low, rapid whisper, “tell me, are ye purposing to starve in the midst of plenty? Saw ye ever such fat oxen and cows as graze in the pastures above?”

“Never did I see such cattle,” answered another hungry wight. “Gods! they would make a feast for kings.”

“And yet pain and sickness is all over us, and we lust for food till we know not what we do!”

“Captain’s orders!”

“Ulysses has lost his cunning for sure, and hunger has turned his brain. He is no more the brave leader of old. He goes wandering alone among the rocks and sleeps all day. And his eye is clouded and courage has left his voice. Friends, shall we die thus? No man of ye loveth Ulysses better than I love him. Is he not my kinsman indeed? He brought us from the Cyclops’ cave and dared the perils of Hell. All this I know and say before you now. But the king is distraught and moody. He does not know what he is doing. He would be the first to join us with the merry and grateful word were he to come back and find the good red beef roasting on the fire and smell the savoury smoke.”

“Ay, captain was never one set against a feast! He loves good cheer, as becomes a proper fighting man.”

“My mind doubts me, comrades,” said another. “Should we not rather trust the king even unto this last thing? Have we ever found him wanting yet? Did he not make us promise? Zeus knows if the thought of hot meat does not tickle my belly as well as thine—more, friend, for thou hast a paunch yet and none have I—but I for one trust in the captain. He knows.”

Then Eurylochus took up his spear as if he had decided and the discussion was over.

“Listen, men,” he said. “In all shapes death is a terrible thing. But I would rather die quickly at Scylla’s hands than fade into Hades through famine. Hunger is the worst death of all. Come with me and bring your spears. We will choose the best of the herd and sacrifice to the gods. When we reach home again, can we not build a great temple to Helios, and fill it with rich gifts? The Sun-God, who gives light to all the world, will not grudge us a cow or two. Not he. ’Tis a more genial god than that. Ay, and though we indeed anger the god and he wreck us in the deep! I put ye this question—Would ye not rather swallow the cold salt water for a moment and so die, than die for days among the rocks?”

His pale face worked with the force of his words. His eyes glistened with a terrible eagerness. As he spoke in a high, quivering nervous tenor, shaking his spear at them, the eagerness crept into their eyes also.

Famine strangely transforms the human face. They became men with brute’s eyes.

Eurylochus marched away out of the shelter towards the pasture lands, and the others followed him. New strength seemed to come to them as they walked towards the herd, which could be seen, a red brown mass, grazing on a plain some half-mile away.

The full force of the wind struck and retarded them as they emerged into the open, but it brought the lowing of the cattle to their ears and they pressed on.

Ulysses lay sleeping about a quarter of a mile from the cove.

He had wandered away from his companions in great despondency. For four long weeks the gale had roared past the island away to the north. The rain had fallen like spears, the thunder stammered its awful message, the green and white lightning snapped like whips of light. In all this the king saw the finger of evil. He knew that the mighty Poseidon still watched his fortunes with cruel, angry eyes. For this storm was no chance warring of the elements, but came, he knew, directed against him and his fated crew.

Food had got lower and lower, the men began to grumble, and black looks of reproach met his eyes on every side.

And all the time the fat cattle of Apollo cropped the tender shoots of the grass, the full udder dropped with creamy milk, and the shining flanks of the great beasts sent an alluring message to the starving men.

Often Ulysses withdrew into some lonely place and prayed to Athene, but she seemed asleep or weary of his woes, for there came no answering sign.

On this day hope seemed to have utterly departed from him. There was no break in the leaden clouds of the future.

He had wandered away along the seashore, and fallen asleep from languor and grief, lulled by the great singing of the gale overhead.

In his sleep he dreamed vividly. He saw the interior of the island. Suddenly, from among a clump of trees, a bright beam of golden light shot up heavenwards. He knew that one of the shepherd nymphs of Apollo went with some message for the god, and he shivered and moaned in his slumber.

Then it seemed that he was in a great place of cloud, an immense formless world of mist. And through the mist came a terrible voice which turned him to stone. It was the voice of Apollo crying in anger.

“Oh, Father Zeus, and all ye gods who dwell upon the hill above the thunder! punish the comrades of Ulysses for their crime. They have speared my beautiful cows that were my joy and of which I had great pleasure. Whenever I turned my face and shone upon the world I watched them feeding in my island. And now these whelps have slain the finest of all my herd. Vengeance! Bitter vengeance, or will I go far down into Hell and leave the world in gloom and shine no more upon it. I will make Hades a place of warmth and laughter, and the world all grey and full of death.”

In the midst Ulysses awoke with that angry cry still ringing in his ears. With a sick apprehension he hurried along the slippery boulders to the shelter place where he had left the crew.

Within a hundred yards of the place he knew the worst. The wind blew a savoury smoke towards him, and his stomach yearned while his brain trembled in fear.

The men were in high glee when he came round the corner of rock among them, great joints turned upon rough spits, skins and horns encumbered the ground, and the rich fat dropped hissing into the fire.

A sudden silence fell upon their merriment as the captain came. He spread out his hands with a gesture of despair.

“Comrades,” he said sorrowfully, “ye have chosen to do this thing against my advice, and now it is done we must abide by the deed. I cannot reproach you. Still, I know that we must pay heavily for this sin against the Sun-God. Farewell, Ithaca! And now it is over let us eat of our unhallowed spoil. It may be that this is our last meal together, comrades.”

As he had finished speaking a strange and ominous thing happened. The blood-stained skins began to creep about like live things upon the ground.

The red meat over the fire withered and moaned as if in pain. The air was filled with a lowing as of cows.

Then in mad fear and riotous despair they fell upon the horrid meal with eager, tremulous hands. Ulysses was taken with the madness like the rest, and until sundown they gorged the dripping meat till they could eat no more, and their faces were bloated and their eyes were strained.

As the sun sank into the sea with a red and angry face the wind dropped and ceased. A great calm spread over the waters. When the moon rose the ocean was like a sheet of still silver.

Very hurriedly, whispering among themselves, as though they were afraid of their own voices, they launched the ship and rowed out into the moonlight, racing away from the accursed isle.

And now the last scene of all came very quickly.

Ulysses was wont to say that of all the things he had witnessed in his life this was the saddest and most terrible.

A sudden crackle of thunder pealed over the sky. A fantastic network of lightning played round the ship like lace.

A dark cloud formed itself directly over the boat, not two mast’s lengths above, and all the waves below became like ink in the shadow. For a time it hung there motionless, and then suddenly a mighty wind swooped down on them like a hawk drops out of the sky. The mast snapped like a pipe-stem and crashed upon the deck, braining the helmsman in its fall. A smooth green wave, just slightly bubbling with froth on the crest, but like a hill of oil, rose and swept over the ship.

Ulysses clung to a stanchion with all his mighty strength, and was just able to battle against the flood. When it passed over him he saw that every man of the crew was in the water. For a few moments they floated round him with sad cries of farewell, and then one by one they were swept into the Ultimate.

The timbers of the ship broke away and she fell to pieces. With a loud cry to Athene, Ulysses launched himself on the waves clinging to a great log which had formed part of the keel. A swift current urged him along far away from the scene of the wreck.

The purpose of the god was accomplished, and the waves fell, and the moonlight shone out clear and still once more.

On all the waste of waters no sail, no cape nor headland broke the silver monotone.

Loneliness descended upon the hero like a cloak; an utter abandonment such as he had never known before in life.

The water began to grow very cold.

An awful silence lay over the sea. The terrible jubilant silence of a god revenged!

“And so all those well-known, long-tried voices were still! Never again would Eurylochus drain the full tankard in a kindly health.”

Ulysses bowed his head, and bitter tears welled up into his eyes.

“Never again would grey old Diphilos stand at the helm of the good ship, sending his keen eyes out over the sounding wastes. How the last mournful cry of Jamenos had echoed through the storm. Young, straight Jamenos who had approached the Cyclops with him, beautiful young Jamenos, with the bold eyes and curling hair! And there was old Perdix too, old Perdix with his grin and chuckle and his tales. Never would Perdix sit by the fire and make merry yarns any more. The little twinkling rat-like eyes were stark and glazed now. Perdix stood beside the livid river among the rushing spirits. He would have no jests now.”

He saw them all together, in peril, storm, and quiet weather. His trusty men! His dear comrades!

And now he alone was left, alone, alone, alone.

Perhaps Athene herself was still with him and had not even yet forgotten her wanderer. As the thought struck along his brain a faint blush of hope began to flush his pallid cheek.

He floated on and on. Dawn came, waxed strong, waned. Tremulous evening came like a shy novice about to take the veil of night. Night blazed in moonlit splendour once more.

And at the hour when night stands still and dawn is not yet, the waves, kindlier than before, carried him to the island of Ogygia, where he heard the sea nymphs on the shore singing him a fairy welcome.

Soft hands drew him from the deep, soft voices welcomed him; it seemed as if one queenly presence, a tall woman with golden hair which shone, towered among the rest, and he fell into a gentle swoon, a soft surrender to sleep.

Soft and low the sea-maidens sang while Ulysses lay sleeping—even as they had sung nine long years ago when the sea cast him up on the shores of Calypso’s kingdom.

It was bright sunlight, a great fire of cedar wood burnt on an altar before the cave of the goddess who loved the hero, and the smoke scented all the island.

Among the grove of stately trees which bordered the smooth pneumatic lawn in front of the cave Ulysses lay sleeping on a bed of fresh-born violets. A purple mantle shot with gold, woven by Calypso, was spread over him.

The poplars and fragrant cypresses were full of sweet-voiced birds.

Over the mouth of the cave grew a great vine, and the black grapes drooped and fell from it in their abundance.

From the centre of the short emerald grass four springs of clear water came up in thin whips and flowed away in flashing rivulets.

This was the home and kingdom of the Goddess Calypso, and was so beautiful a place that the fame of it had even reached Olympus, and the gods knew of the island.

And nine long years had passed! It was nine years ago that the pale gaunt waif of the sea—a sad jetsam!—had swooned upon the yellow sand, while the bright-haired lady of Ogygia had gazed in wonder upon him.

Circe had enthralled Ulysses for a year in her palace of wine and sorcery and lust. That was a time of fierce sinful pleasures, of wild deliriums.

The fire had blazed, burnt, and died away in that still marble house in the wood.

But how different these nine dreamy years! The mild-eyed, loving goddess lay in the hero’s arms each night in tender love and sleep. She was no Circe, but a lady of quieter delights. Her spell was upon him, he was chained to her kind side by a magic influence, but she loved him, and was no Circe.

Nine long years!

Those old valiant mariners from the plains of Troyland were only white bones now, part of the sea-bed. They were far-off, remote, sweet sad memories.

Calypso was the slow and gracious music to which his life moved now. Often he doubted all the past. They were phantoms all those old half-forgotten people.

So he lay sleeping among the violets. The scented wind gave a myriad whispers to the poplars. The four springs sang a thin jocund song as they burst from the dark rich earth into the sunshine, and within her cave the goddess threw the golden shuttle and made a low crooning music as she thought of her stately warrior hard by, and sent him dreams of her white neck and wealth of golden hair.

She knew he would never leave her now. Her spells were too strong. Her love too great.

During the first years he had been wont to wander away to a lonely part of the shore. He would sit gazing with haunted eyes out over the sea, and his thoughts went to Penelope, and he shed a tear for old King Laertes and whispered to little Telemachus.

But that also was over for him now. Ithaca was but a misty cloud, and the dear ones there but dreams in this island of dreams.

The face of Ulysses was changed. The hard lines of endeavour, the brown painting of the wind, had gone from it. Noble and beautiful still, but even in sleep it could be seen to have lost its force.

Suddenly, in the dim recesses of the grove, there was a silence. The birds stopped singing, and the murmur of the insects droned, swelled louder, and died away.

Nothing was heard for a moment but the trickle of the streams, and then this also faded from sound.

By the side of the sleeping hero stood the tall white figure of Athene. At her feet yellow flowers broke out like little flames, and her deep, grave eyes were bent full upon Ulysses.

Perhaps he felt that unearthly majesty above him, for he turned and moaned in his sleep.

The goddess, like a statue of white marble, stood looking down at him for several moments. Then with a little sigh she stooped and touched his forehead with her long slender fingers.

The birds began a full-throated ecstasy of song, which filled the wood with a sound as of a myriad tiny flutes. The furry bees went swinging through the sunlit grove with deep organ music, the shrill tinkle of the streams sent its cool message once more into the hot swooning air.

Where the goddess had stood there was nothing but a clump of yellow crocus and some violets more vivid than the rest.

Ulysses awoke with sudden stammerings like a frightened child. He looked round him with strange troubled eyes.

Then slowly he rose up and walked through the wood towards the cave of Calypso.

Forgotten fingers were upon the latch of his brain, old scenes began to move through it in swift familiar panorama, he was as a man who wakened from a sleep of years.

One word burst from his lips—“Penelope!” His face cleared as though a mist had suddenly dispersed before it, and his walk quickened into a firm, long stride as he came out on to the lawn.

He stopped short as he saw the mouth of the cave. Calypso was pacing up and down with her sinuous graceful step, and at her side walked a tall young man with a golden wand in his hand and winged sandals upon his feet.

And Ulysses knew him for the God Hermes who had given him the sacred herb in Circe’s island and who had led him down the gloomy ways of Hades.

They turned and came towards him.

“He will never wish to go, Hermes,” he heard Calypso say as they drew near.

“King,” said the god, “I am come to you with a message from Father Zeus. He hath seen you lying in this island with the goddess, and bids me tell you of Ithaca and home once more, that your heart may beat strong within you and you may adventure forth and find your wife Penelope in your ancestral house. And the father promises you divine protection. Your long wanderings shall be at an end, and you shall come safely to the land of your heart’s desire. Is it your will to go and leave the lady?”

The goddess laughed a little musical laugh of certain triumph.

“Go!” she cried. “Ah, he will not go, Hermes. Could he not have left me any time these nine long years of love? Go! No, my mariner loves too well the soft couches of Ogygia, and these weak arms can yet hold his wisdom captive. How will you answer, my heart’s love?”

“To Ithaca?” said Ulysses.

“Yes, to Penelope thy wife, who sorroweth for thee and is in peril,” answered the god.

A bright light flashed into Ulysses’ eyes and his cheek was flushed with hope.

“Now have I tarried too long in this place,” he cried. “I know not why, but never before has my heart burned within me as now. Yes, to Ithaca! back to my father and my wife and the old hills of home! Zeus be praised, for I who was asleep waken this day, and manhood is mine once more.”

Then Calypso drooped her lovely head like a tired flower as the God Hermes flashed up into the sky like a beam of light.

“I see something of which I know not has come over you, lord of my heart,” she said sadly. “I have no more power, save only the power of my deep love for you which you have forgotten. Who am I that I can combat the will of Zeus or the hardness of your heart? I have loved you well and cherished you, and shall I love you less now? No, I am no cruel goddess. Go, and my heart be with you; and what power is mine to aid you that shall you have. I doubt,” she said, with a sudden burst of anger, “I doubt you have some greater goddess than I at your side, some lovelier lady, else how could my spell be broken? But now come within and make a farewell feast with me. My heart is sick and I would die. But one thing I can give you if you will not go. Would you be immortal? Stay with your lover and that gift is yours. Never shall death touch you or age. I am a goddess and can never die. Am I less beautiful than Penelope, or less kind?”

Ulysses answered her pleadings slowly and painfully.