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Page 51
"Tell me," I said; "tell me but one thing of a thousand. Whom would
_you_ seek, did a traveller direct you, and a boat were at your need?"
She looked at me, pondering, weaving her webs about me, lulling doubt,
and banishing fear.
"One could not miss--a hero!" she said, flaming.
"That, then, shall be our bargain," I replied with wrath at my own
folly. "Tell me this precious hero's name, and though all the dogs of
the underworld come to course me, you shall take my boat, and leave me
here--only this hero's name, a pedlar's bargain!"
She lowered her lids. "It must be Diomed," she said with the least
sigh.
"It must be," I said.
"Nay, then, Antenor, or truly Thersites," she said happily, "the
silver-tongued!"
"Good-bye, then," I said.
"Good-bye," she replied very gently. "Why, how could there be a vow
between us? I go, and return. You await me--me, Criseyde, Traveller,
the lonely-hearted. That is the little all, O much-surrendering
Stranger! Would that long-ago were now--before all chaffering!"
Again a thousand questions rose to my tongue. She looked sidelong at
the dry fountain, and one and all fell silent.
"It is harsh, endless labour beneath the burning sun; storms and
whirlwinds go about the sea, and the deep heaves with monsters."
"Oh, sweet danger!" she said, mocking me.
I turned from her without a word, like an angry child, and made my way
to the steps into the sea, pulled round my boat into a little haven
beside them, and shewed her oars and tackle and tiller; all the toil,
and peril, the wild chances."
"Why," she cried, while I was yet full of the theme, "I will go then
at once, and to-morrow Troy will come."
I looked long at her in silence; her slim beauty, the answerless
riddle of her eyes, the age-long subtilty of her mouth, and gave no
more thought to all life else.
Day was already waning. I filled the water-keg with fresh water, put
fruit and honeycomb and a pillow of leaves into the boat, proffered a
trembling hand, and led her down.
The sun's beams slanted on the foamless sea, glowed in a flame of
crimson on marble and rock and cypress. The birds sang endlessly on of
evening, endlessly, too, it seemed to me, of dangers my heart had no
surmise of.
Criseyde turned from the dark green waves. "Truly, it is a solitary
country; pathless," she said, "to one unpiloted;" and stood listening
to the hollow voices of the water. And suddenly, as if at the
consummation of her thoughts, she lifted her eyes on me, darkly, with
unimaginable entreaty.
"What do you seek else?" I cried in a voice I scarcely recognised.
"Oh, you speak in riddles!"
I sprang into the boat and seized the heavy oars. Something like
laughter, or, as it were, the clapper of a scarer of birds, echoed
among the rocks at the rattling of the rowlocks. As if invisible hands
withdrew it from me, the island floated back.
I turned my prow towards the last splendour of the sun. A chill breeze
played over the sea: a shadow crossed my eyes.
Buoyant was my boat; how light her cargo!--an oozing honeycomb, ashy
fruits, a few branches of drooping leaves, closing flowers; and
solitary on the thwart the wraith of life's unquiet dream.
So fell night once more, and made all dim. And only the cold light of
the firmament lit thoughts in me restless as the sea on which I
tossed, whose moon was dark, yet walked in heaven beneath the distant
stars.
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