The Bull From the Sea: A Novel

I

HALF ATHENS SAW US off at Piraeus, when we had sacrificed to the Lady of the Winds. I thought, when I heard the cheers, how times had changed. In the great days of Minos, pirates were no better thought of than brigands on the land. But now there was no fleet strong enough to guard all the sea-roads. Kings fought for their own shores, and sometimes sailed out to take vengeance; and where there is war there’s spoil. From this it was not far to roving on adventure. Young men could set themselves up in life; kings could grow rich without hard taxes, which pleased their people; warriors could show what they were made of, and see the wonders of the earth. Only the graybeards murmured, when I put to sea with Roving Pirithoos and manned the benches of my ships with spearmen. Chiefs’ sons, whose fathers would have had blood from anyone who offered them an oar to pull, were nearly fighting in my presence chamber to get their names in first.

They had time to work their hands in. We got a steady south wind all the way north to the straits; dolphins curvetted in our bow-wave, and blew glittering spray from so blue a sea that one looked to see it dye the oars. Once or twice we saw smoke on shore, and longships beached there; men on our business, very likely; but they let us be. It could be seen from our strength and blazons that we were a royal fleet; and wolves make way for the lion.

I could have dived in and swum with the dolphins for joy to be alive. For a long time the rover in me had been a slave and captive of the king; and now he was on holiday. My eye was as fresh as a boy’s, and my heart as light.

If we had been sailing to plunder Hellene lands, I should have felt less easy. To me all Hellenes are kindred of a sort; which is why, in the Hellene lands I have conquered, I have treated all men as my own people and made no serfs. Some kings know nothing beyond the neighbor they are at feud with; for them, you are foreign if you come from ten miles off. But I have been a prisoner where strange gods were served, and what was dear to us was nothing to our masters. It draws one to one’s own kind.

We coasted north to the mouth of Peneus, where Pirithoos’ people lit a smoke-fire for him, to let him know that his lands were quiet. So we went on, and rounded Mount Athos safely, and sighted Thasos where they mine the gold of Troy. A Trojan fleet was there, loading, and must have had a king’s ransom aboard. But one does not bite the gryphon’s tail, where the head can reach so quickly. So we passed Thasos by.

Ahead was Samothrace, where great dark cliffs and wooded steeps stand straight up from the sea. It has no ship-harbor, which has kept it wild. But it is sacred; Pirithoos and I had ourselves rowed ashore in their boats of hide, taking our stern-pennants to be charmed against shipwreck and defeat by the dwarf gods of the mountain.

We climbed steep winding paths that tacked about the crags, up through mist-swathes that danked the fir woods; past rocky slopes where the hamlets of the Sai, the oldest Shore Folk, are perched like the nests of storks, and on their roofs nest the storks themselves. At the very top, above the cloud-wet woods, are high stony uplands. The dwarf gods’ rough-hewn altar is there, and the holy cave. Having come so far, Pirithoos and I asked to be charmed against defeat and shipwreck ourselves. The rites are secret, so I will only say that they are brutish and nasty, and foul one’s clothes. I left mine on the beach below and, to feel clean again, swam all the way to my ship. However, we were neither wrecked nor defeated, so one must say of the dwarf gods that they kept their word.

While we were in the cave, a hunchback priest with the legs of a bandy child asked us each apart in a vile coarse Greek if we had done any crime beyond the common run. The dwarf gods, he said, had had to be cleansed for murdering their brother; so the man in need of cleansing wins favor there. I told him how I had not changed my sail coming home from Crete, and what had come of it; and he said it would be much to the dwarf gods’ mind. They seemed pleased too with Phithoos; but he never told me why, and, wishing to keep my own counsel, I did not ask. As we clambered down the mossed craggy paths, the wooden bull-roarers, that they dance to in the cave, boomed and roared in our ears; and when we had rowed out of the long shadow of the mountain into sunlit water, it was like being born again. But it is true that I never dreamed again about my father, after that day.

Then the straits of Helle were there before us, like the mouth of a great river. We hove-to, to wait for night. In summer the northeast wind blows down head-on all day there, but drops at sunset. We put ashore for water with all hands armed; for the people there are great ship-robbers and wreckers. Pirithoos showed me a chart the captain from Iolkos had made for him, showing which shores to hug where the eddies would run our way. This man, he said, had been a king’s heir whose father had been put aside by a powerful kinsman. The sailor son had not wealth enough to raise an army and get back his heritage; but in this voyage he got enough fleeces full of gold-dust to hire all the spearmen he needed. He had given his chart to Pirithoos because they had been boys together at Old Handy’s school; and because, as he said, he would not live to make another voyage to the Euxine. He was King in Iolkos; but he suffered a good deal from a curse that a northern witch had put on him. “So give them a wide berth,” said Pirithoos, “even if they offer to do you favors. He told this one he’d marry her if she showed him how to get the gold from Kolchis. Now the curse is eating his bones, and by his looks he won’t last long.”

“Kolchis?” I said. “Did he tell her name?”

“The crafty one, he called her. Aye, and that was her name. Medea.”

I told how she had been my father’s mistress and had tried to poison me. As to his share in it, he had been frightened for the kingdom; and the least I could do was respect his memory.

Five nights we nosed along the straits, catching the inshore eddies; first through the narrows, then by Propontis where you lose the further shore. By day we lay up watch and watch; for the Hellespont is by water what the Isthmus used to be by land. We rigged up bulwarks of shields and hides to keep off arrows, as the Kolchian captain, Jason, had warned Pirithoos to do. Even so one man was pinned by the arm and died of it. And we had only the chiefs to deal with, being too strong to tempt the lesser bands; so this Jason must have been a good man, to have forced the straits with a single ship.

On the sixth night the water got so narrow, we could hear jackals barking on the far side, and see men move around their watch-fires. Just towards dawn, a new breeze struck our faces, open and salt. The two shores fell away; our prows pitched in a sea-swell. So we hove-to till light, and it showed us a wide gray ocean. It was the Euxine, the Traveller’s Joy. So they call it; for its gods are the sort one had best be civil to.

We steered to the east; and when the sun had risen the sea was blue, dark blue as lapis. First the land was low; then it rose in high mountains, cleft with gorges carved by the winter rains, and hung with deep forests or sunny woods. When we put in for water, we found it plashing down boulders gleaming like black marble, into pools of mossy stone under the shade of myrtles. Birds sang sweetly, and the woods were full of game. We longed to camp ashore, eat fresh-cooked meat and wake to the sun through green leaves. But Jason had said the forest folk were fierce hunters, who would pick you off with poisoned arrows before you had seen one move. So we posted watches and slept on board; and the night-guard got with javelins two men who were sneaking up to throw fire into the ships.

Next day, still pushing eastward, we had flat calm; but by now the rowers’ hands were hardened, and a good singer had worked them in. Towards evening, we saw cloud on the mountaintops. At once Pirithoos called out to pull for shore. Before we made it, down came a black, wicked northeast squall. We were driven out beyond sight of land; great green-black seas tossed us as we ran before the wind, and we needed more men bailing than rowing. At fall of night, the storm dropped as swiftly as it had come, and left us in calm under a sky of clearing stars. We rocked about in the swell till daybreak; while I thanked Blue-Haired Poseidon, who had never yet forsaken me on land or water.

The sun rose out of a jagged skyline. Great heaven-spearing mountains reared, tipped with snow, above the nearer hills which had hidden them while we hugged the shore. As we set course, Pirithoos conned the chart and shouted from his ship that we must be near Kolchis, and should beach soon for a war-talk.

Presently we sighted a dip in the hills, and a river-mouth. When we came nearer, there was a little plain beside a river, with a city of wooden houses thatched with brush, and a king’s house of stone. We steered away, and put in at a creek beyond the headland, to make them think we had sailed on.

Our weapons had suffered from the storm; the hide shields were wet and heavy, and all the bowstrings were spoiled. But we had our spears and swords and javelins; and we agreed together that whereas Jason with a single ship had had to get his gold by stealth and bribe a sorceress, we need not be so modest. We would lie up till dark, and sack the town.

And this we did. The Kolchians kept a good watch and saw us landing, though there was no moon; but it did not give them long to get their goods up to the Citadel, and they left a good deal behind. We fought in the streets by the light of the burning houses; and, the men of Kolchis giving way before us, we caught up on the mountain road with the mule-train that had the gold. There were rich townsmen too, who had slowed their flight with too much gear. But mothers carrying children I let go free. Some of the men, who had been some time at sea and wanted women, were displeased by this, especially Pirithoos’ Lapiths. But he took my part from friendship, and told them that if they wasted time they would miss gold enough to buy them girls for a year.

We threatened the men of the gold-train, to make them tell us where the fleeces were: promising more, indeed, than we could have performed. Neither Pirithoos nor I could stomach torture; it was one of the things on which we both agreed. However, they showed us the fleeces in the stream; they had not very much gold in them, having been lately changed. But they made good trophies, and I never washed the gold from mine, but hung it as it was in my great hall.

What with gold, the loot from the houses of the King and headmen, the goblets and brooches, worked swords and daggers and fine-woven clothes, we were well content, and ready to turn for home with what the gods had given. But first we scuttled all the Kolchian ships, which Jason had had no chance to do; and that, as he had said to Pirithoos, was the root of all his troubles after.

The day dawned calm. Though we were weary, we rowed hard to shake off the Kolchian shore, lest the King might have allies near. Soon after sunup we got a breeze, and let the rowers sleep at the thwarts. The pilot’s watch, who had caught a doze while the ships were beached, saw to the sailing. Pirithoos and I, each in his own ship, lay down on our pallets aft to rest. I looked at the blue sky up above, with the great serpent-painted sail straining at the yard; its creaking soothed me, and the thought of the good work done.

I woke up knowing that something was afoot. It was past noon; the sea was as dark as wine, the sunshine like pale honey. We were close inshore, under hills with green woodlands gilded by the westerning light. The ship was rocking and listing, as the men craned and scrambled to the landward side. I jumped up swearing, and made them trim her; then I went to see. Right up in the beak was a ledge for the pilot to stand and con a tricky passage. I clambered into it, and grasped the bronze gryphon by its comb.

I soon saw what the riot was about. Rounding a point close in, we had come right on a troop of girls bathing. Not dabbling either, like women washing their clothes, but swimming in the open sea. Now, of course, they had made for land; the steersmen without orders had put their helms hard over, and the warriors were at the oars.

This was madness, for the woods might cover anything, and came right down to the shore. I opened my mouth to curse them and order them back on course; but the words delayed. I too had been weeks at sea; I had to pause for a look.

The ones in the water were going so fast, with clean flashing arm-strokes, that I might have taken them for boys if some had not got ashore. They were running for the covert, going over the pebbles lightly, as if their feet were hardened; yet they had not the look of peasants. They moved too proudly. Their thighs were taut and sleek, the legs long and slender; their shallow breasts were as perfect as wine-cups turned on the wheel. All over they were gold with sun, not skewbald from wearing clothes; and on the brown their pale fair hair shone like silver. They all wore it alike, not very long, and drawn into one thick plait behind, which bounced between their shoulders as they ran.

The quickest had reached the woods; where the groves were thin I could see the sun-dappled gold limbs moving. And I thought, “If these are the women, what are the men like? Surely, a race of heroes. If they come it will be a battle for bards to sing about, and some of us will feed the kites. Well, if they come, they come.”

I waved to the boatswain, and shouted, “Faster!”

The warriors leaned laughing on the oars. We were coming in so fast, the girls who had been furthest out were still in the water. One was a short javelin-cast ahead. There was a splash alongside. Young Pylenor, a famous swimmer who had won many prizes, was out to get another. He shook the water from his eyes and shot off like a spear. The men cheered him; it brought back Crete to me, and the roar of the ring.

All the rest of the girls had got ashore and into cover. “No matter,” I thought. The slope will slow them; trust a hungry dog to find the hare.” Young Pylenor was gaining fast. I made someone stand ready with an oar to throw him. There would be a struggle for sure, and both might drown.

The beach was all empty sand and kicked-up footprints, when the thicket parted. Out came a girl again, running like a deer straight down to the sea. The men yelled with joy, and called out the greetings of their choice. I did not add mine. For one thing, I saw why she had wasted no time on dressing. She had slung on her quiver, and got her bow.

It was the Scythian kind, short and strong. She waded in nearly to the knee, before she tossed the rope of silver back from her shoulder, and nocked the arrow to her string. By then, I was hit already. The lift of her breast to her back-bent arm, the curve of her neck with its strong and tender cord drawn like the bowstring, shot me clean through with a shaft of flame. She stood to aim, all gold and silver touched with rose; her brows pulled together, her eyes level and clear, and the bawdy clamor passing her by as rain runs off crystal. Her glance raked us over like a hunter’s who from some bellowing herd chooses a beast for the pot. I never saw a face of such flawless pride.

She was ready; but instead of shooting she called, “Molpadia!” Her voice was cold, wild and pure like a boy’s or a bird’s. She signed with her head; I saw what she was up to. The swimming girl, coming head-on, was between her and the man.

I shouted, “Pylenor!” loud as a war-cry. The girl had swerved in the sea. But, deaf with water and the fury of the chase, he neither saw nor heard. He turned in her wake, giving his side to the shore. The “Paff!” of the arrow was like the sound of a rising dolphin; it was the end of his dolphin days. It took him under his forward arm; like a speared fish he jerked up gaping, thrashed about, and sank.

My men were shouting with anger. I felt the ship rock as the archers sprang on the benches, heard the dull pluck of the sea-spoiled strings, the arrows puttering and splashing. The ship drove on. I felt as if my eyes were pulling it.

She stood laughing in the water. Her laughter made my backbone ripple. It had neither shame nor shamelessness; she laughed alone, pleased with her victory over strange monstrous things. She was like the Moon Goddess, deadly and innocent; gentle and fierce like the lion. She waited to cover the swimmer coming to land.

The light offshore breeze bucked the bronze beak; I seemed to ride it like a stallion. My blood was all wine and fire. I watched her hand dip to her quiver, and heard with half an ear voices behind me: “My lord, get down; my lord, take care; sir, sir, you are right in bowshot.” The bow rose and her eyes followed the arrow—nearer, nearer to mine.

To meet them I swung out from the gryphon, holding by one hand. That opened them wide. They were gray; gray as spring rain. Next moment they narrowed, and her arrow vanished behind its point.

Men were telling each other to pull me down off the prow. I knew none of them would dare. I had to speak. But what would reach her? Only the speech of mating lions; he sheathes his claws when she growls. Let her know me by it, now or never. I leaned out from the beak, and raised my arm in greeting.

For the moment all three were still: her steady eyes and the arrowhead. Then all three shifted just a trace; she loosed the bow, and skewered the leather of some man’s war-helm. She waded further to grasp the wrist of the swimming girl, and ran into the thicket with her, never looking back.

The rowers backed water, the ship hove-to. I stared at the check, no thought in my mind but to follow and find her. The pilot said, “It was about here he went down, my lord.”

He was a man I had valued; I had forgotten him as if he had never been. There was the dark blur of his body. I stripped and dived in myself to raise it. It was partly to do him honor; but I thought, too, I should be quicker than the others.

Even while I was about it, I was thinking, “Does she watch us among the leaves? What will she say to her mother? ‘Some men saw me bathing? Or, ‘I saw a man’?”

Someone was hailing me. It was Pirithoos, leaning from his poop. “Ahoy, Theseus! How’s that for an Amazon?”

I had not thought of it. I, who had been in Crete; who had seen tossing in the bull-dance such silver hair. She had seemed only herself, without kind or peer. Slowly the truth came home. There would be no men of her tribe to fight for her. No; I had met the warrior I must win her from. She with her weapons and her lion’s pride, and I disarmed.

Then I thought, “She came down alone to the water; but the rest were never held back by fear. So they had her orders. She is one who is obeyed.”

Aloud I said, “They owe us something. Let us see what they will give us, to clear the debt.”

The men gave a cheer; but their voices had less heat in them than before. They looked at the shore, a gift to hidden archers, and thought of their spoiled bowstrings. Their zest was for something softer. If I did not take care they would be for going.

I called to Pirithoos, “One of my men is dead, and we must make him a decent funeral. Let us coast to the first clear place. Then we can share the loot as well.”

This carried everyone. I advise any chief who leads warriors on adventure never to put off sharing the spoil. If it lies about too long, men take a fancy to this or that and set their hearts on it. Then you will have trouble.

A little way on there was a rocky point with a beach beside it. I gave orders for Pylenor’s grave and cairn. Then I took Pirithoos aside, and told him what I meant to do. He did not answer, but looked at me. At last I said, “Well?”

“Shall I tell you, then?” He stood with hands on hips and head cocked sideways, and his glinting look. “No, I’ve had time to swallow what I had to say. We should quarrel, and all the same you would go; then when you were dead I should be sorry. Get gone, fool, and I’ll pray for you. If I can I’ll bring home your body. And if you get her, be easy; she’s safe from me.”

After this we shared the spoils. I took care that the men were satisfied. Then I said, “This sword, bowl and bracelet I am giving from my own portion, as prizes in the Funeral Games. Let the dead be honored; as well as grave-gifts we owe him vengeance. This is the only chance we have, while their lookouts think we are busy over the rites. Who will come with me?”

About a score stepped out, who were ready to miss the Games for love of Pylenor, or of me, or of adventure. The day stood midway between noon and the summer sunset. Up there it comes later than at home.

While they cleared the track for the foot-race, we slipped up into the woods; then skirted the hillside till we struck the footpath the girls had used to the beach. It led us up through the open glades, by the winds and falls of a stream. There were hoofprints, and once a ribbon wet from the sea. Before long we sighted a village clearing. But when we crept up, we heard men’s voices and the cry of children; it was a peasant hamlet like any other.

There was no doubt about the path or the bay below. “So,” I thought, “this is not a land of women, such as the tales tell of. They are something else, a people within a people.”

The path passed the stream’s source—and here they had paused to drink—through the woods of myrtle and oak and walnut; the trees thinned, there were brambles ripening. The sky showed oftener, then opened wide; arbutus grew and birch and the little flowers of the mountain. I heard the singing of a lark, and something mixed with it. When the lark broke off, it was the laughter of a girl.

My heart stopped, then leaped till it nearly choked me. I signed for silence; but the lark would not hush, and I must wait his careless pleasure. At last he sank to earth, and I caught, far off, the sound again.

In the open ground before us there were slender aspens growing from short fine grass. The path threaded the trees; and a tuft of blue wool was tied to one of them. I thought, “This place is holy and forbidden,” and my neck shuddered. But I could no more have turned back than one can from birth.

Ahead, jutting from the mountain, was a buttress of huge piled boulders as great as barns. The path led round them. Beyond were voices; there would be a guard for sure. I signalled the men to wait, and climbed a little way down the slope where some whins were growing. Through these I crept till I reached the ridge. Then I looked down.

Below and beyond was a broad shelf with a shallow dip to it. It was like the lap of the seated mountain, whose arms of rock rested either side upon her knees. Above was her tall head; her stony breast leaned over; and below, down from her knees, fell a great sheer crag. Nothing showed past its edge but wide air and distant sea, with eagles sailing. At the very rim was an altar of rough-hewn rock, with a thick pillar by it, and on the pillar a thing shaped like the boat of the waxing moon. Its crust was strange: glassy and rough, like pitted clinker. I had seen such a thing, once, at another shrine; but that was smaller than a fist, and this was as thick as a man. It was a mighty thunderstone. You could see it smelted and fired by the heat of the lightning; its strange ores glittered moltenly in the slanted sun. Smoke rose from the altar by it, and there was a smell of sweet resin in the air. Then I knew it was a sanctuary of Her whom men must not look on. And sitting on the grass in the hollow’s shelter were the guardians of the shrine.

They were dressed now. Their clothes were of soft worked leather; tunics bordered or fringed, and Scythian trousers shaped to the leg. The dyes were bright and deep, as of berries and jewels; buckles of gold and silver twinkled. They looked like slender princes in the flower of youth, who meet after the hunt to drink wine and hear the bard.

They were talking, or lying at ease in the late sun, or mending their gear. One was feathering arrows, with bundles of reeds and plumes beside her; some oiled their bows and javelins; another, bare to the waist, stitched at her tunic, while the girl beside her, as one could see from her speaking hands, was telling a tale. Behind them, backed to the mountain, were low stone houses roofed with thatch, and a wooden stable. There was a stone cooking-hearth with a fire in it, and some peasant girls in the dress of women fixing a spit. All this my eye passed over, as it sought in vain.

Nothing stirred in the open doorways. She was not there. Yet I did not think, “What now?” My fate had grasped me with death-strong fingers. It had not brought me so far to let me go.

I waved back to my men, that they must be ready to wait awhile. Then I lay down behind the ridge, looking through the whin bush, with my breast to the breast of the mountain, breathing the air of her home, hearing its murmurs and its breeze. One of the girls played a lyre, and sang. It was an ancient lay I had heard at home, sung by the harpers of the Shore Folk. It is a tongue I know well; some of my people have it. “If she knows it too,” I thought, “we can speak.”

There was a sentry up on a rock, black against a white cloud, with two javelins in her hand and a crescent shield. She raised it, saluting someone beyond; and I heard a hunting horn. I waited. The cry of every bird, the edges of leaves, cut into me like bronze. I heard horsehoofs strike stone, then drum on grass. I was praying, though to what god I do not know.

Over the far ridge came streaming a pack of deer-hounds, plumy and as white as curd. They flung themselves on the girls, who made much of them or laughed and cuffed them down, then jumped to their feet among the leaping dogs, like a household that expects the master.

Down the gap of the far ridge came hunters riding, and she was first.

I knew her by everything, though her face was too far to see: by her seat on her mountain pony, the set of her shoulders, the tilt of her light spear. Under her little cap, the light hair on her temples had come loose, and flicked in the evening breeze. There was a dead buck across her horse’s shoulders; the bridle and headstall were hung with disks of silver that rang and glanced as she rode. On the easy ground the horse seeing its stable came at a hand-gallop; she was borne to me like a bird in flight. The girls ran to take the quarry; I saw her clear flashing face, while the riders came up after her and called the tale of the hunt.

She swung down from the bare-backed horse and stroked him before they led him away. The girls began to break and skin the deer, setting the sacred haunch aside. They worked briskly, like strong young men, not flinching at the bloody entrails; and the fighting sense in me warned me that they were warriors. But I could have looked forever, careless of life or death.

They flung the offal to the dogs, and washed their arms at a spring; then, while the cook-girls spitted the meat to roast, they took the haunch to the altar. It was she who offered it. She was their leader, as I had known.

The smoke rose thickly. She went to the very edge of the great cliff and prayed, lifting her arms to the sky. As I looked at her, the strength of my limbs was turned to water, and my throat swelled as if with tears. She was so young; yet some god had touched her. I saw her alone with the holy one that she must answer to, and not to man or woman walking under the sun. And I thought, “She is more than queen. She understands the sacrifice that goes consenting. There is a king’s fate in her eyes.”

Like the shadow of a dream was all my life gone by to me; like the womb’s dark threshold which the child forgets as he breathes and sees the day. I said to my heart, “Why did I come here? To kill her people and seize her with their blood upon me, like a common prize of war? Peleia of the Doves must have sent me mad; but this face has brought back my soul again. I will send my men home; I shall never avenge their comrade. If two or three will follow me for love, so be it; if not, so. Here in these hills I will live by my spear and by the chase; and some day I shall meet her as she rides alone. Then she must come to me, since a god wills it. For I am consumed as the fire from heaven consumes a forest; how can I suffer this but from a god?”

She had left her prayer, and turned her face from the light of the low sun that sank towards the sea. One of the huntresses came up and walked with her. They talked like friends; it seemed to me this was the girl she had saved from Pylenor. I had heard in Crete that the Amazons are bound in love to one another; some said they took vows, and chose for life. Yet I felt no trouble at it; I thought only, “Our fate is joined; as I am born again for her, so will she be for me.”

The light grew red as burnished copper; down in the valley it was already dusk. The fire looked brighter, and its glow leaped on the rocks. Someone brought to the altar touchwood soaked in resin, and it burned with a clear flame.

I heard the soft tinkle of a sistrum. Five or six girls had come with instruments, and sat upon the ground. They had little drums, and flutes and cymbals. Softly at first, feeling their way into the time together, they began to sing and play. The rest stood round in a wide ring.

The beat and the song grew stronger. It was music for a dance; a fierce pulsing tune that turned itself in an endless round, each time gathering fire. It pounded in my head; I felt that sacred, forbidden things were coming. But I lay on the rocks and looked, clasped by my fate.

One of the girls leaped up. She pulled off her tunic of yellow kidskin, and stood half bare in the red light of the sunset and the fire. She was young; the tender curve of her half-ripe breasts was like polished gold. Her face was intent, almost to sternness, and yet serene. She held out her hands, and they put in them two sharp daggers, whose new-honed edges rippled with brightness. She lifted her armed hands towards the thunderstone, and began to dance.

She moved slowly at first, weaving her arms across each other in subtle curves and signs. Then she spun faster; suddenly she flung out her hands, and bringing them inward sank the dagger-points in her breast.

My breath hissed in my throat. But the maiden’s face had hardly changed. She had frowned a little as the points went in, then her stern calm returned. She drew out the daggers; I waited for the gush of blood. But her flesh was clear and smooth. In time to the beat she raised her hands again and again, pricking her waist, her throat and shoulders. Shudders of awe ran through me; my knuckles were pressed upon my mouth. Her skin was as whole as polished ivory before the carver scratches it. The drums throbbed, and the song soared higher.

Another girl stripped and leaped in beside her, tossing a hunting spear. She danced forward lightly, and leaned herself upon it, over the heart, again and again. But when she bent away the skin closed bloodless and white.

“Theseus son of Aigeus,” I was thinking, “what have you done? You have seen the mystery which is death for men to look at. Run, hide in the woods, sacrifice to Apollo who frees men from curses. Why are you waiting?” But I answered, “For my life.”

The sun was down; the bellies of the clouds were like glowing embers floating in a cool clear green. Two more girls were dancing, one with hunting knives, another with a sword. I looked into the ring of watchers. She stood silent, her hands at rest while the others beat the time. Her eyes were still. I thought I saw trouble there. Would she dance too? I was shaking, and could not tell if it was horror or desire.

The girl Molpadia was dancing already; it was she who had the sword. She whirled it round her and pricked her bloodless throat; then she stretched out her hand, and called, and pointed upward. In the fading depths of the sky, like a ghostly sickle, the new moon had appeared. The cymbals crashed and a great cry rose from the singers. The music spun like a fiery wheel, the blades glittered and stabbed, the watchers were leaping into the dance, calling their leader. Her eyes as she lifted them to the crescent grew wide and dreaming. Suddenly she threw her cap away, and shook out her loosened hair, like a thick sheet of moonlight. The song shrilled like eagles’ screams.

And then mixed with it came a sound that dashed me awake like icy water. It was the bay of a watchdog that cries out, “Thieves!”

I had not thought of the dogs since they were fed. They had been tied or shut up, as we do our dogs when there is dancing. One must have slipped out and come our way. At his cry, someone loosed the pack.

In the gloaming I saw the rush of whiteness. I leaped to my feet, fighting them off with shield and spear. Then I understood; for my men were fighting all round me. They had grown tired of waiting in ignorance, and guessed I had forgotten them; they wanted to see the dancing. But the dog had smelled them first.

I cursed both men and dogs; we beat off the pack before they could tear us piecemeal, and wounded some, so that they bayed us from a distance, jumping to and fro. Over their noise I heard the music stop in a broken jangle; and then the war-horn.

That sound made me myself again. I shouted to the men, “Take care! They are Moon Maids of Artemis. I saw the shrine. Let no one fight who can hide or run. Don’t force them; it is death-cursed. The Queen …” But there was no more time. The dancers came skimming over the edge, as swift as stooping falcons, bare to the waist, with their weapons of the dance. They seemed to be dancing still; their eyes fixed in the sacred ecstasy.

I cried out to them I don’t know what, as one might to the sea when it bursts the sea-wall. Then the girl with the two daggers was upon me. I tried to hurl her off with my shield; but she squirmed under it like a mountain cat, her fists reaching their blades at me like claws. The love of life we are born with did its work for me; I shortened my spear and thrust. She died pinned through the heart; but there was scarcely a trickle from her death-wound, and her face set in a smile.

The fight was scattered on the hillside, lost in the twilight among the rocks. The dogs fought too. It was like a fever-dream one cannot wake from. Then I heard horse-hoofs clatter, and saw her come.

These were the Amazons who had heard the call with waking ears. They rode, or ran with the mounts of the riders. On their arms were their crescent shields, in their hands their war-spears.

In the dimming west a last cloud burned; a deep russet tinged the mountain. Through this glimmer she rode, her red clothes deepened to crimson, her pale hood of hair loosened and free, her throat bare, as she had made ready for the dance. In her hands was the sacred ax, with the crescent blade of the Moon Maids. Its silver inlay glittered as she swung its slender shaft above her head. Her cold pure young voice sang out the war-call.

I thought, “If this is my death a god has sent it.” But even then, I could not forget that my fate was my people’s and their gods’. “Very well, then,” I thought, “I will live. But I will have her. With my whole life I will it. This I will do.”

As I offered myself to the daimon of my fate, my soul grew steady; my mind was a clear stream, full of quick-darting fish. I stepped forth, and in the speech of the Shore Folk gave the herald’s cry. It is sacred all the known world over; and even at the ends of the earth it was worth trying.

She reined her horse. Her head tilted back against the sky was a thing to stop your heart. With a motion of her shield-arm she halted the troop behind her. In the pause, I heard the yammer of a furious dog choked with a spear-thrust, and the sound of a man’s death-grunt. Then there was quiet on the mountain.

I came towards her. She was delicate and strong as the creatures of the wilderness, the panther, the hawk, the roe. She looked at the fallen dancer gravely and proudly; she had seen such sights before. My heart said to me, “No sighs, no pleading. She is not for cowards.”

She spoke, slowly, in the tongue of the Shore Folk. “We have no herald.”

“Nor we,” I said. “Let Herald Hermes stand between us. I am Theseus the Athenian, son of Aigeus son of Pandion. I am the King.”

She looked again then. It seemed my name had come even here. Harpers will hear of harpers, and so do warriors of their peers. She spoke over her shoulder to the troop, telling them the news it seemed; for they craned to see, and chattered together. But she turned back to me, knitting her clear brows as she felt for words. She knew the language less well than I, and pieced it together slowly. “No men here, no man-gods.” She swept her arm, and spoke a strange-sounding name, as if that told everything. Then she thought, and said, “This is Maiden Crag.”

I said, “And you?”

She touched her own breast and answered, “Hippolyta of the Maidens.” Her head went up. “The King.”

My heart leaped out to her. But I said only, “Good. Then we can speak, we two. I come in peace here.”

She shook her head with an angry jerk. What she meant was “Liar!” I saw her fingers snap impatiently, because she had not the word. She pointed to us and said, “Pirates!” and the troop behind her shouted it in their own tongue. Yes, I thought, and she remembers me.

“In peace,” I said. “While I live I shall never lie to you.” I tried to speak to her eyes. “We are pirates, yes; but it is my pleasure, not my trade. I am King of Athens, and of Eleusis, and of Megara to the Isthmus’ end; and Crete pays me tribute. I am sorry we were insolent by the shore; we are strangers, and the men have been long at sea. But you have taken blood-price enough. Make it peace now, and friendship.”

“Friend—ship?” she said, drawing it out, as if asking was I a madman. One of the girls laughed wildly in the troop behind. She rested her ax on her horse’s shoulder while she got the foreign speech together, and pushed at her shining hair, which fell down over her fingers. “This place,” she said, putting down word on word, “is holy.” Her hand made the word greater. “No man must come. And you—you have seen the Mystery. For that—death, always. We kill you, the Maidens of the Maiden. That is our law.” Her eyes met mine; gray water, gray clouds; yet there was speech in them, beyond the words. “We must die too, maybe.” She turned on her horse, pointing to the shrine. “We are all in Her hand.”

She drew her breath for the war-call. I cried out, “Stay!”

“No! She is angry.” But she stilled her horse with her hand, and paused.

“Hippolyta.” It tasted of wine and honey. “My men, there, have not angered Her. It was I who saw; I, alone, up there. They were beyond. They did nothing.” I spoke slowly, watching that she took my meaning. “So, I will answer for myself. Do you understand me? It is you and I; hand to hand, king to king. I call you to single combat, King of the Maidens. That is our debt to the folk who honor us.”

She had understood. It was king to king, indeed. It had touched her soul, even though, as I guessed, they had no such custom. There was no fear in her face, only strangeness and doubt. Her mount tossed its head, and the silver disks clinked softly. I thought, “She hears the voice of her fate.”

A girl came up the hillside holding a sword. It was the one she had saved, the swimmer Molpadia; tall and strong, with blue sullen eyes still clouded from the trance which must have lifted now, for a wound in her arm was bleeding. Hippolyta leaned down and looked at it, and they spoke together. The tall girl frowned.

“Meet me, Hippolyta,” I said, “and let the gods decide. A king cannot refuse a king.”

The dusk was deepening; but I saw her face by its own light. She was young, with a young warrior’s pride and honor. Honor called to her, and pride, and she knew not what. “If I die,” she said, “you will spare the holy place, the Maidens? You will go away?”

My heart raced in my breast. “I swear it. So will my warriors.” They had come up to listen, the wounded leaning on the whole; but some were missing. They growled the assent; they had had enough. “No vengeance,” I said, “whichever falls. Our peoples shall part in peace. If I die, bury me on this mountain, by the path you take to the sea. And if I win—you are mine.”

She stared, and said slowly, “What is that? Yours?”

I nodded; and, to be sure she understood me, chose out the simplest words. “If I win, and you live, you shall take me for king, and follow me. Your word for mine. By my life I swear it, by the Sacred River, the vow the gods dare not break, I will never shame you, nor force you against your will. You shall be my friend, my guest. May your Goddess eat my heart, if I am false to this. Do you accept my terms?”

She frowned in a kind of wonder. Then she made a wide sweep with her hand, which meant, “All this is nothing.” She touched the blade of her ax, with the silver signs inlaid on it. “I fight to the death,” she said.

“Life and death are with the gods. Do you agree, then?”

The girl beside her broke in, in their own tongue. I saw she was against it, and said quickly, “The choice of weapon is yours.”

The girl grasped at her arm. She turned and seemed to tell her something; then dismounting put into her hands the sacred ax, and kissed her, and spoke her name to the troop behind. They assented grievingly; I guessed she had named her heir. Then she stepped forward; her eyes looked wide, as they had when the new moon rose. A fear came to me, that she could fall into the sacred trance at will, and turn into a fighting maenad, wild as a leopard, who knows no law but to kill or die. But the Mystery had been broken; her face was only grave. I thought, “She is offering herself in sacrifice. She looks for a royal death.”

“Theseus, I will fight,” she said. “With javelins, and then the sword.”

The name was hard to her tongue, and she stumbled on it. But the sound was sweet to me. “Agreed,” I said. “Let us stretch out our hands to the gods, to witness our given word.”

She paused a moment; then slowly her hand came out. It seemed it would have been a little thing, as we stood so, for me to reach out and take it. So may the other shore look near, before you swim the strait.

I armed myself with two sharp throwers from the men behind me. She did the same, then looked about her. “It gets dark,” she said. “I know this ground. We need torches. I will fight you equal.”

I said in my heart, “This love may be death but it is not folly. I have seldom met a man with such pride as that.”

“There is light enough,” I said. I walked to a level place, and motioned my men to clear the field. They fell back and I said, “It will do as it is. I could see you without my eyes.”

We were alone now, no one within two spear-casts of us. It is the time when warriors whip up their blood by hurling insults to and fro. I saw her frown, as if she were angry with herself, and blamed the lack of language. “Say nothing,” I said. “That is not for you and me.”

She raised her brows. She had put on her cap of Phrygian leather lined with bronze. The scarlet flaps fell on her neck and cheeks, bright as a pheasant, but left her face clear to see. I said to her, “This is all—I love you. You are my life’s love. I came here for you, to win you or to die. Do as you must, as your law commands you; I will not have you disgraced for me. If I die it was my fate, and I ran to meet it. Be free of my blood. May sorrow never come near you. My shade will love you, even in the house of Hades under the earth.”

She stood with gleaming arms under the fading sky and the little moon, straight, slight and strong; and I saw in the eyes of the king and warrior a startled maiden, who since childhood had not spoken with a man. She looked at me dumbly. Then grasping at the thing she knew, she cried, “I must kill you! You saw the Mystery!”

“Yes, you must try. Come to me with your honor, for in yours is mine now. Come, begin.”

We drew apart, and began to circle each other, crouching behind our shields. I wished she had not chosen javelins; I had hoped it would be hand to hand at once, with the ax or spear. Now I had two sharp throwers to get rid of without hurting anyone; also two to avoid. The sooner done the better.

I twisted the throwing-thong, watching her do the same. She was so quick and light-footed, any throw was chancy. I aimed slowly, to show her where it was coming; but as I would have done myself, she took it for a feint, and jumped towards it, away from where she thought the real throw would be. I was only just in time to miss her. I have never been so frightened in any battle; and it spoilt my eye. Next moment there was a smart on my thigh that set my teeth on edge. Her javelin-side had glanced it; the gash was not deep, but wide open, and I felt warm blood on me in the evening cool. The leg was sound, and would not hurt much till it stiffened; but I made a limping step as I cast my second javelin, to fool her and bungle the throw. It fell flat halfway between us. She still had one more. I turned my shield side to her, and drew my sword.

The Amazons had cheered the hit, and called her to throw again. She stood balanced like a dancer. It was too dark to see the weapon’s path. I could only watch her aim. I caught the javelin on my shield, and it was no mean cast, for it pierced the hide, just missing my arm and jarring it to the shoulder. I sprang back, watching her while I trod on the haft and wrenched free my shield. Then I stepped forward sword in hand, and she came to meet me.

It was deep dusk now, but one could just see one’s foothold. So far so good. I had risked the javelin-duel in the bad light, to have its advantage later. I did not want her to see what I was about. Wrestling was born in Egypt and taught in Crete. I had brought it myself to the Isle of Pelops, and then to Attica. It was still hearsay in Thessaly, barely rumored in Thrace. And this was Pontos. When she had thought I could not take her alive, it had told me all I needed.

She prowled around me, as little and quiet as a leopard. Through the inner curve of the crescent shield came her curving sword-blade, slicing the air like silk as she watched my point. It was a weapon I had not dealt with much, and I did not like it. Once under a Hellene long-sword, and you are in; but this looked fit anywhere to take your hand off. Both my arm and blade were longer; it would have been simple, if I had been out to kill my man. I thought, “I am glad I have not this to do every day,” and it made me laugh. She laughed back at me, her white teeth flashing in the twilight. She was a warrior, and the battle-light was coming into her eyes. She took my laughter for defiance, and it freed her from the trouble my love had laid on her. She would fight better now. And yet, as we thrust and foined, we felt one another’s mind as dancers do who dance often together, or lovers who can speak with a touch of their fingertips. “Surely,” I thought, “she must know it now as I do.” But she had been given in childhood to the Goddess, and kept from men. How should she know? If she felt a strangeness in the blood, a wildness she could not name, she took it for the call of glory. She could kill me in this innocence, and wither after, not understanding her grief.

Most of this time I was simply parrying, or taking her cuts on my shield; but now and again I would thrust or feint, to deceive her while I watched my chance. For she had felt I was up to some trick or other; that I could tell. I wanted to get the sword off her, before I went in. She knew that much, and was too good for me.

“Well, then!” I said to myself. “Did I think she would be got for nothing?” With a quick jump backwards, I threw my shield away; I had made it look as if the sling had broken, helped by the darkness. She had never thought of that, and it took her in. So then I did what is natural in a man who has lost his shield: made a reckless lunge at her. When I missed, she was inside my guard. I had to be quick then. As she lifted her sword for a down-cut, I let mine go and grabbed her arm, spinning her round as I pulled it over my shoulder. She was so astonished that as she flew up, I got her fingers off the sword. It was too late to check the throw; so over she went, in a perfect flying mare, and fell clean but hard with all the breath knocked out of her. I threw myself down by her on the mountain grass.

Her arm was still in her shield. I lay upon it, and reached over to pin the other. She lay half stunned, face upwards to the sky, all stilled. I was still too, dizzy with the fight and with being all at once so near to her, her mountain-scented pale hair beside my mouth, feeling under my arm the embroidered leather and the tender breasts.

The warrior in my head, still wakeful, warned me she was quick as a whip, and had not yielded yet. I turned my mouth to her ear, and said, “Hippolyta.”

Her head turned, and her eyes met mine, as wild as a netted deer’s. I did not dare let go of her. So I talked awhile. What I said I don’t remember; it is no matter, for I spoke in Greek. I only wanted to let her know, as she came to herself, that she was not with an enemy. She began to look around her; then I said in the tongue she knew, “The fight is over, Hippolyta, and you are not dead. Will you keep your vow?”

It was much darker. But I saw her eyes seeking the sky, as if for counsel. None came; a cloud had come down from the mountain crest, and the new moon’s sickle was gone behind it. The warriors muttered together; quick whispers came from the Amazons, and long silences. Suddenly she started up; not in anger, but as if she might find it was all a dream. I pressed her back and said, “Well?”

She said, under her breath, “So be it.” Then I let her go, and stood up and leaned to raise her, slipping the shield from her arm. When she was on her feet, she swayed from dizziness; so I gathered her up, my arm under her knees and her head upon my shoulder. She lay quiet, as I carried her off the field, fitting my arms as if they had been made for her, feeling her fate and her home.