The King Must Die: A Novel

1

WE SAILED FROM CRETE, at last, in a ship we found in an olive field.

Not only the earth had felt Poseidon’s trident. The ebbing sea, that had grounded the keels at Amnisos, had rushed back with the earthquake. It had broken the mole, and dashed the ships upon it, and flooded the lower town, and killed more people than a war. But a few ships had been carried inshore and stranded softly, like this among the olives. We rolled her down to the water on the trunks of the broken trees.

We mounted guard on her day and night, till the weather let us get away. All Crete was in turmoil. As soon as it was known the House of the Ax had fallen, the native Cretans rose up everywhere, to tear down the strongholds and sack the palaces. Sometimes the lords were killed with all their household; sometimes they fled to the mountains; a few whom their people loved were left in quiet. Rumors came in every hour; and men would send to me, asking me to lead this band or that. To all these I gave the same answer, that I would come back soon. It was not as a freed bull-dancer leading freed slaves to plunder that I meant to reign in Crete. I would come as a king, to Hellenes and Cretans both alike. Now there would be no lack of ships; if I could not get enough in Attica and Troizen and Eleusis, I should have Hellene kings elbowing each other to share the enterprise; more than I wanted, if I was not quick. From this day on, the mainland would rule the Isles. Never again, in any Hellene kingdom, would boys and girls take to the hills at the sight of a Cretan sail.

The bull-dancers who came from the Hellene lands took ship with us, and the Minyans from the Cyclades. Only two girls stayed behind to marry Cretans; men who had loved them from the ringside, and sent them gifts and letters, but never met with them till now. But they were from other teams; even now when our hearts looked homeward, the Cranes were one kindred still.

We had no great trouble to man our ship. Many men had killed old enemies in the rioting, and wanted to get away before the blood-feud caught them up. We built a shelter near the place, and did not let the girls go far alone, even full-armed. It was a lawless time.

When at last the wind was fair and steady, we met on the shore and killed a bull to Poseidon, and poured him libations of honey and oil and wine, thanking him for his favors and praying him to bless our journey. Also we did not forget Peleia, Lady of the Sea. Ariadne made the offering. Her dress was frayed, and her train of priestesses two poor old crones we had found huddled over a fire of sticks. But her beauty still held my breath, as it had from the gilded shrine above the bull ring.

The fires were quenched with wine; the ship ran down the rollers, and lightened as she felt the sea. I picked up the Mistress in my arms and waded through the water, to set her feet on the deck that would bear us home.

Once more I stood in a ship of Crete, looking at the wine-dark restless sea, and seeing the towering yellow cliffs stand with their feet in foam. But Ariadne was weeping for her homeland, and while I talked to her of Attica the last landmarks sank away.

Next day we saw a great smoke ahead of us. Toward evening the pilot said to me, “It is on Kalliste, where we should be tonight. A forest is on fire, or there is war.”

“Of that we have had enough,” I said. “Watch out, and if the town is burning, run for Anaphe.”

We sailed onward, and the smoke hung in the sky like a great cloud black with thunder. As we drew nearer, an ashy dust began to fall on us, darkening all the ship, and our flesh and clothes. Presently the lookout called to the pilot, and I saw them chattering on the beak. Going up there I found their faces pale. The pilot said, “The land itself has changed.”

I looked at the gray landfall; and it was true. My belly crept with awe and fear. I drew into myself, to listen for the god; some dreadful wrath seemed written on the very sky. He sent no warning; but for the black cloud, all was peace. So I said, “Go nearer.”

We came on. A fresh following wind streamed off the smoke to the northward; the late sun shone pale and clear. And then, as we stood in to westward of Kalliste, we saw the dreadful thing that the god had done.

Half of the island was clean gone, sheared off from the hilltops straight down into the sea; and in place of the smoking mountain there was nothing. The god had carried it all away, all that great height of rock and earth and forest, the goat pastures and the olive groves and the orchards and the vineyards, the sheep pens and the houses, gone, all gone; nothing was there but water, a great curved bay below huge sheer cliffs, where wreckage floated; and outside the bay, by itself on a horn of land, a little mound pouring out smoke, all that was left of Hephaistos’ lofty chimney.

The sea around us was strewn with burned branches and dead birds and lumps of half-charred thatch; a thing like a white fish swimming was a woman’s arm, drifting alone. I shuddered, and remembered how the place had made me uneasy on the voyage out. Surely some great impiety must have been done there, a thing to make the gods hide their faces in the midst of heaven. I saw it as it had been last year, all dressed with fruit blossom, as harmless to look at as a smiling child, only for that doomed brightness. We went on quickly, for the sailors would not stay. They reckoned that in such a spot even the sea and air must be charged with the god’s anger, that it would stick to a man and eat the marrow out of his bones. Some of them wanted to sacrifice the ship’s boy to keep Dark-Haired Poseidon from pursuing us. But I said it was clear the god had taken his due, and it was not us he was angry with. So we left that place, and gladly too; the rowers labored faster than the rowing-master gave the stroke, to put it behind them. Sunset came down, such as none of us had ever seen, splendid and awesome, great towering purple clouds in a sky of crimson and green and gold, dyeing all heaven and slow to fade. We took it for a sign that the gods had ceased their anger, and were still our friends. With a little breeze we made Ios by midnight, and sheltered there. Next morning the wind was fair. We steered for the tall shape of Dia, that fertile island whose city they call Naxos.

Before evening we were in the harbor, looking up at the hill-slopes rich with olives set in green corn, with orchards and with vines. So well the Mother has loved Dia, no wonder they named it with her name. It is the greatest of the Cyclades, and the richest too. From afar we saw the royal Palace standing among vineyards, a high bright house in the style of Crete. Ariadne smiled and pointed; I was glad the place was homelike for her. Kalliste had quenched her spirits.

Two or three of the bull-dancers had come from here. In the arms of rejoicing kindred they told their tale. We were the first ship straight from Crete, since the fall of the Labyrinth; till now the Naxians had had only wild talk third-hand. They cried out that they had seen dreadful portents; a noise like a thousand thunderbolts, and a shower of ashes, and the night sky lit with fire over Kalliste. It had happened, as we learned, the very day and hour when the House of the Ax was stricken.

Our news filled them with awe and wonder. Time out of mind, Minos had been High King of all the islands; they had traded by his laws and paid him his tribute. From Dia it had been very great, because the land was rich. This year it had been due again; now they would keep for themselves their olives and corn and sheep and honey, and their wine, than which there is none better; and all their boys and girls would dance at home. There was a feast tomorrow, of Dionysos, who himself planted the vine there, when he came sailing from the east as bridegroom of the Mother; and they would keep the day as it had never been kept before.

But it surpassed all the rest for them, when they heard who Ariadne was. The people are mixed in Dia, but Naxos and its royal house are Cretan, the ancient stock without Hellene blood. They have the old religion, and a reigning Queen. So when they saw the Goddess-on-Earth among them, it was a greater thing than if Minos himself had come. They set her in a litter, lest her foot should touch the ground, and bore her up to the Palace. I walked beside her, and the rest followed behind.

At the porch of the Palace they set her down, and the steward brought a greeting cup. They led us off to the bath, and then into the Hall. The Queen sat in her place before the king-column, in a chair of olive-wood inlaid with pearl and silver; her footstool was covered with a sheepskin scarlet-dyed. On a low seat beside her sat a dark young man, with strange shadowed eyes, whom I took to be the King.

She rose and came to meet us; a woman of about thirty years, handsome still, and a true Cretan, with dark crimped hair in serpent tresses, breasts heavy but round and firm, and a little waist tightly cinched in with gold. She held out to Ariadne both her hands, and gave her the kiss of welcome. The Palace women had dressed her richly from the Queen’s own store, in a deep-blue gown that twinkled with silver pendants, and her eyes, new-painted, glowed in the lamplight.

The tables were laid, with food and places for all the dancers, though we were near twoscore. The Queen was gracious, and pressed us to eat and drink before we told our tale. Ariadne sat on her right hand, at the head of all the women. When I had said I was her husband (we were to marry in Athens, but I did not want her to lose standing here) I was put on her left, beside the King.

He was a handsome youth, about sixteen years old, lively and graceful; all made, you would have said, for gaiety and women’s love. He did not look strong enough to have fought for his kingdom, and I wondered how he had been chosen; but I did not care to ask him. There was something about him I could put no name to, a daimon in his eyes; not that they wandered, like men’s eyes whose wits are troubled; rather they were too still. Whatever he fixed his gaze on, it was as if he would drain it dry. When they put his golden cup into his hand, he turned it round till he had seen the whole of the pattern, and for a long time stroked it with his fingers. To me he was very civil; but like a man who from courtesy hides his straying thoughts. Once only I saw him look toward the Queen, with a grief that I could not read, for it seemed mixed with darker things. Though there was no need yet to talk, beyond the civilities of the table, something oppressed me in his silence, and I said only to break it, “You have a god’s feast here tomorrow.”

He raised his eyes to my face, not with any message, but as he had gazed at the winecup, or the women, or the flame of the new-lit lamp. Then he said, “Yes.” That was all; but something woke in my mind, and of a sudden I saw everything. I remembered Pylas saying to me in the mountains above Eleusis, “I know how a man looks who foreknows his end.”

He read it in my face. For a moment our eyes met, seeking to speak together. It was in my mind to say, “Be on my ship before cocklight, and with the dawn we will be away. I too have stood where you stand now; and look, I am free. There is more in a man than the meat and corn and wine that feeds him. How it is called I do not know; but there is some god that knows its name.” But, when I looked into his eyes, there was nothing in them that I could say it to. He was an Earthling, and the ancient snake was dancing already to his soul.

So we drank our wine; and I did not wonder he took plenty. We did not speak much, for I had nothing to say that could be said; whether he knew that I was sorry, whether it comforted or angered him, I do not know.

When we had done eating, the Queen asked for our tale. So Ariadne told how the Labyrinth had fallen, how I had had my warning, and who I was. Speaking of me before people made her blush, and me to wish for the night. But I could see that the Queen pitied her, when she heard the Mistress was going to a Hellene kingdom ruled by men. As for the King, he listened with wide dark eyes and the lamplight shining in them; and I saw that if it had been a tale of Titans or the old loves of the gods, it would have been all one to him, as he looked on night and feasting and the light of torches for the last time.

Ariadne finished her tale, and I spoke too when the Queen invited me. “Alas!” she said when she had heard. “Who can be called fortunate, till he has seen the end? Lady, you have known a change beyond the common lot.” Then she remembered the courtesies, and bowed toward me, saying, “And yet the Fates have relented to you after.” I bowed, and Ariadne smiled along the dais. But I remembered how she had said in Crete, “You are a barbarian; my nurse told me they ate bad children.” And I thought within me, “Will she always see me in her heart a mainland bull-boy, even when I am a king?”

The Queen was speaking still. “Now you must take heart, and forget your griefs. You and your husband and your people must stay for our feast tomorrow, and honor the god who makes men glad.”

When I heard this, I did not look at the youth beside me. All my wish was to be gone with the first of day. I tried to catch Ariadne’s eye with mine; but she was speaking her thanks already. Outside a little wind was getting up, which might keep us in port tomorrow; if after slighting these people we could not get away, it would be a sorry business. The times would be confused now Crete had fallen; one might have need of friends. So I put a good face on it, and looked pleased.

After we had heard the harper, the Queen wished us good rest, and got up from her chair. The King also bade me good night and rose. Once again my eyes met his, and my heart felt bursting with what I wished to say; but it fell away from me, leaving me silent. As they reached the stair I saw her take his hand.

The tables were taken out, and the men’s beds made in the hall; the women were led away, to the grief of those who had become lovers since we left the Bull Court. Of these were Telamon and Nephele. But from what I had heard of the rite tomorrow, it was only a fast before a feast.

Ariadne and I were given a fine room on the royal floor. This was our first night in a great bed. So although the wind had eased, I did not say much of the delay, except that to be at home would be still better. She answered, “Yes, but it would be a pity to miss the festival. I have never seen it as they do it here.” As no one had told her what I knew, I said no more, and soon we slept.

Early next morning, the singing woke us. We dressed and joined the others, and went with the people down to the shore. Already they were dancing, and the jars of unmixed wine, dark and strong, sweet as ripe grapes, were going from hand to hand. People greeted us; we caught fire from the wine and laughter, and began to feel that oneness with the feast which is Iakchos’ magic gift.

Everyone looked seawards; soon shouts of rapture greeted a sail. The ship came round the point toward the holy islet just off-shore; and all the women began to slip away. The Naxians took our girls along; and Ariadne too was drawn from my side. I saw no harm in it, knowing the honor they held her in.

The ship approached, all bound with green boughs and wreaths; the mast and oar blades and the beak were gilded, the sail was scarlet. Young girls were singing on the deck, playing the tabor and the pipes, and clashing cymbals. Standing in the prow, girt with a fawnskin, crowned with green ivy and young vine-shoots, stood the King. He was very drunk, with wine and with the god; as he waved to the people, I saw a mad gaiety in his shadowed eyes.

On the sacred isle his train and his car were waiting. They waded to the ship and pulled her in, and lifted the King ashore to a crash of music.

Soon the car was coming through the knee-deep ford. Men drew it wearing leopardskins and the horns of bulls. They pulled on the ropes and yokes; those dancing round them wore strapped to their loins great leather phalluses that bounced as they sprang along. They sang and clowned and called out broad jests to the people. Then came the gilded car, and round it the women.

They came beating the cymbals, or bearing long garlands twined among them, or waving the sacred thyrsos on long poles. As they danced they sang, but the song was wild and blurred, for the maenads had on their masks already. Above smooth shoulders and wreathing arms and dancing breasts, were the heads of lions and leopards, of lynxes and of wolves. Their dark Cretan hair flowed free behind them. I thought that one could not have picked out among them even one’s own sister or one’s wife. The King stood up in the gilded chariot, laughing wild-eyed, and swaying tipsily as it bounded on. Sometimes he would take a handful of corn from a bin beside him, and scatter it on the people, or jerk his gold cup to sprinkle them with wine. Then they would leap for the blessing to fall on them, and the women would scream, “Euoi! Euoi!” The men who drew the car began to leap and run, pulling toward the hill road. As they went the King’s arm waved the cup, and I heard that he was singing.

The people began to stream up from the shore toward the bills; and I felt one with the feast, for that is the magic of the god. But I waited for Ariadne to come back from the island, now the rite was done, so that we could go up together, and share the madness and the love. The car and the music were far ahead, and I grew impatient, but I waited still. I did not want her running about without me. One must not be angry at what women do in Iakchos’ frenzy; the way to keep your girl is to have her yourself.

Some lads were dancing to the double flute; I danced with them till they cried, “To the hills!” and ran after the rest. Still she did not come. A few women waded the ford to shore, but they were old, or great-bellied with child. I asked one such if she had seen her. She stared, and said, “Why, she is with the Queen and the maenads, following the god.”

You do not last long with the bulls unless your wind is sound, and I soon caught up with the crowd. Alone upon the road I felt angry and anxious; but some of the Cranes were drinking and dancing in an orchard all in flower; they held out their hands to me, and I was one with the feast again. The farm people brought out their best wine in honor of the god, and it would have been boorish to rush away. But presently we went on, up to the goat pastures where the hills are high. I had seen already that on the tops there was snow.

We came out far above tilled land, among thyme and heath and smoothed gray boulders, rain-scoured and hot with sun, where lizards basked and darted. From these tall mountains one sees sea and sky all one, a great round ether of shimmering blue, and the gray isles floating weightless in it. With the young men I threw myself on the springing turf, panting and laughing and drinking. We had picked up somewhere a big wine jug painted with wreathing squids and seaweed. Amyntor and I and some youth from Naxos aimed the wine stream into each other’s open mouths, shouting and spluttering. Then the Naxian looked past us and jumped up and ran off. I saw him chasing a girl among the boulders.

It is on the lower ridges that the women begin to fall away from the god’s maenad train, those whom the madness does not wholly possess. They throw off their beast-masks, leaving the mystery to those it calls, and wander dreaming or half wild about the hillside, and give themselves to love.

“Now,” I thought, “for certain I shall find her.” She was only a guest, and had done all that was due. The rest she would be glad to miss. So I went upward with the others. I was full of wine now, and one with the feast, and last night’s grief had left me. It was Earthling business, and nothing was asked of us strangers except rejoicing. A long way off, somewhere beyond the ridge, I heard a thin shrilling, like the cry of birds, from the maenads still about the King. But it was far away. Soon I should find my girl; “or,” I thought as we reeled up singing toward the snowline, “a girl at any rate.”

We linked arms in a line, and sang and shouted and passed the wine along; I and the Minyan next me leaned our heads together and bawled our life stories in each other’s ears and swore eternal friendship. Soon we came to the first snow, lying in pools and lakes among the green-brown mountain grasses lush with its moisture. We knelt and flung it on our faces to cool them from the climbing and the wine.

I stood up, and saw above us the snow pools broken. There was the track of many feet, a crushed vine-shoot, and a broken flute. They must have left the car when the ground got stony. Not far off was a streak of scarlet; a scarf, I thought, dropped by a girl. But when I got nearer, it was, or had been, a fawn. There was not much left to know it by, but further on I saw the head. I stood silent, staring; for a moment the dance of my blood was stilled and chilled.

As I stood there, something cold struck my neck, and I turned round. There was a little pine wood just above, in a fold of the mountain; laughter came from it, and a girl ducked behind a tree. Putting up my hand I found a snowball in my hair. So I gave a shout, and ran.

The pines were thick, the mats of the needles soft and dry. She squealed and dodged among the pine boles, half frightened and half not. I caught her at the edge of a little hollow, and we rolled in a tangle to the bottom. She was a Naxian girl, with long sloe eyes and a nose tip-tilted. I don’t know how long we stayed there; the time of Dionysos is not like the time of men. After a while I heard a giggle, and saw another girl watching us from up above, and climbed up to make her pay for it. In the end we stayed all three together, and time was lost again. All the strain and stretch of danger was loosened out of me, the fierceness of war and the care of kingship. This seemed the only good, to be one with the living mountain, with her birds and goats and wolves and her sunning snakes and flower-bells, drinking the strong honey from her thriftless breast, living each breath just as it came.

Once, while we were lying half asleep, watching the pine tufts weaving against blue sky, and hearing them sough softly, the breeze brought from far off a high, wild, birdlike scream; a long shrilling upward and upward, falling away to silence. But by now the wood was all murmurs and kisses and little scuffles and shrieks, and they filled the stillness quickly. I too reached out for the girl beside me. It was no use to think. There had been nothing in his eyes a Hellene could speak to.

The magic time of Dionysos slipped by unreckoned; and the sun riding homeward clothed the hills with gold. Those who were soberest called out that dark would overtake us on the mountain if we did not go. So we went down under the great sky arched clear and yellow over the purple islands; singing old songs, tipping the bottoms of the wine-jars, and holding our girls’ hands till the farms began and they slipped away.

Already down in Naxos the lamps were burning. The long walk had sweated out my drunkenness; my limbs were full of youth’s kindly weariness, my eyes heavy for sleep. I looked down at the Palace bright with torches, thinking that when I met Ariadne there, I would ask no questions and answer none, and then we should keep friends. She would be in her bath by now; I thought pleasantly myself of warm water and sweet oils.

When dusk was falling, and the evening clouds were touched with fire below, we were on a farm road which twisted through the olive groves. The girls had all gone home, and the songs were dying away. As we walked in twos and threes, the youth beside me pulled my arm, and went off the road into the field. Everywhere the men withdrew into the shadows; and, looking back, I saw a white flitting, as of ghosts, come slowly down the hillside, winding half hidden through the groves. The men sat down, in places under the trees that were not sown with barley. I looked at the youth who had signed to me; but he only said under his breath, “It is better not to meet them.”

I sat, and waited, watching the road through the twilight; no one had said it was forbidden to look. Presently they came in sight, wavering here and there, stumbling and wandering as if in sleep. Some had their masks still on; from lolling necks and shoulders, fierce faces of lynx and leopardess stared wide-eyed; but sometimes they hung by a loose string, and one saw the parted lips drooping with weariness, the half-closed eyelids. The pipes and cymbals trailed from their limp hands; their long hair hung forward, tangled with heather and matted thick with blood.

They were stippled with blood like the spotted panther; their bare arms, their breasts, their clothes. Over their feet it was powdered with pale dust; their hands were dark with it, clotting the fingers and streaked above the wrists. The poles of the thyrses, which dragged behind them like the spears of wounded men, were dabbled all over with bloodstained hand-prints. I covered my mouth with my hand, and turned my eyes away. The Naxian had been right; there could be no luck in looking nearer.

They seemed a long time passing. I heard the dragging feet, the stones kicked blindly, the little gasps as those who tripped caught hold of others. Then the sound drew away, and looking again I saw them melt into the shadows at the bend of the road. I was getting up when I heard wheels coming, and waited to see.

It was the gilded chariot, going home empty. It was lightly made, and two men pulled it easily, one each side the pole. They had taken the heavy bull-horns from their heads, but still wore their leopardskins, having no other garment. They plodded along, muttering shortly sometimes to each other, like men after a long day’s plowing; two dark-haired Naxians, a youth and a bearded man.

The chariot passed, and no one followed; that was the end, and I rose to go. Then, when I was on my feet, I saw into the back of it. It was not empty after all. A body lay on its floor, jogging limply with the jolts of the rough road. I saw a torn blue skirt, and a little arched foot rouged at the toes and heel.

I ran out from the trees, and seized the rail of the car; the men feeling my weight on it stopped and turned. The younger said, “It is not lucky, stranger, what you are doing.” The elder said, “Let her alone till morning. In the sanctuary she will not come to harm.”

“Wait!” I said. “I will see her, lucky or not. What has been done to her? Is she dead?”

They stared at each other. “Dead?” said the young one. “No. Why dead?” And the elder, “She will take no hurt, man, from our Naxos wine. It is all good, and we keep the best for today. Leave her be; her dream ought not to be troubled. While her sleep holds, she is still the bride of the god.”

From his way of speaking, I guessed he was a priest. I guessed too, I don’t know how, that he had had her on the mountain. I turned away from him, and leaned into the car.

She lay curled on her side, against the bull-horn headdresses which the men had taken off to ease their brows. Her tumbled hair was like a sleeping child’s, but for the sticky points it ended in. Her eyelids lay smooth and full and glossy over her eyes, and against the dark lashes her cheek bloomed softly. By those I knew her, and by the tender breast cradled upon her arm. I could not see her mouth, for the blood all over it. It was open, for she was breathing heavily; I saw her teeth, even, crusted with dried blood. As I bent over her, its stale reek met me mixed with the smell of wine.

After a while I reached out, and touched her shoulder where her torn bodice bared it. She sighed, and murmured something I could not hear, and her eyelids fluttered. She stretched out her hand.

It had lain closed on her breast, like a child’s who has taken her toy to bed with her. Now when she tried to spread it out, the blood on it had stuck between the fingers, and she could not part them. But she opened her palm, and then I saw what she was holding.

For almost a year I had sat by the Cretan ring, and watched the bull-dance when I was not dancing myself. I had watched the death of Sinis Pinebender, and kept the face of a warrior. But now I turned away and leaned upon an olive tree, and almost threw the heart up from my body. I heaved and shivered in the chill of evening; my teeth chattered, and water poured from my eyes.

At last I felt a hand upon my shoulder. It was the bearded priest. He was a well-made man, brown-bodied and dark-eyed; his limbs were scratched and bruised from running about the hills, and stained with wine. He looked at me sadly, as I had looked at the King last night, not knowing what to say to me. Our eyes met, like the eyes of men at sea who would hail each other, but the wind carries the sound away. I turned my face, ashamed he should see me moved.

Presently I heard something, and looked round. The youth with the pole upon his shoulder was walking off with the chariot. I took a few steps after it on the road. My belly felt cold, and my legs were made of lead. The priest walked with me, and did not hinder me. Then when I paused he stopped, and stretched out his hand.

“Go in peace, Hellene guest. It is grief to a man to look on mysteries he does not understand. To yield unquestioning, not to know too much; that is the wisdom of the god. She is of our blood; she understands it.”

I remembered many things: the bloodied horns of bulls, the voice in the burning Labyrinth. She had told me in our first night she was all Cretan. Yet not all; she was Pasiphae’s daughter too.

The car with the young man pulling it passed the turn of the road, and glimmered through the olive trees. A bright spring moon was rising, making everything pale and clear, casting dark shadows of leaves. The priest’s spotted pelt and dappled limbs seemed one with the tree trunk where he leaned watching me. He thought his thoughts, whatever they were, and I thought mine.

The sunset was fading, and the moon’s face lifted above the sea, making a white path which shone between the moving boughs. I saw the moon and her brightness; but the place had changed for me. My life which was I stood upon a lofty platform, gazing on a great rock’s shadow flung across a plain. Clear and brilliant was the starry sky, spanning the amber mountains; and the high Citadel too shone of herself, as if her stones breathed light.

“Indeed and truly,” I thought, “it was not lucky when I looked too near too soon. A cold bed, and a cold shadow on my fate, this looking will bring me. For what I must do now, dead Minos will not forgive me in the house of Hades. So much the worse for me. But better for the strong house of Erechdieus, which stood long before me and will stand long after. I will not go back to that light with my hand full of darkness; not even the darkness of a god.”

I looked at the priest. He had turned his face to the moon, which glittered on his open eyes; his body was quiet as the olive tree, or as a snake upon a stone. He seemed like a man who knew earth magic, and would prophesy in the madness of the dance. And then I thought of the great Labyrinth, which had stood a thousand years; and how Minos had said the god’s voice called them no longer.

“All things change,” I thought, “except the gods who live for ever. And who can tell; after a thousand ages, they themselves in their house above the clouds may hear the voice that calls home the King, and make the offering of their immortality—for do not the gods’ gifts excel the gifts of men?—and all their power and glory will rise like smoke to a higher heaven, and pass into a greater god. That would be death into life, if such a thing could be. But this is life into death, the madness without the oracle, the blood without the listening ear and the consent that frees the soul. Yes, that is death indeed.”

My mind went back to the room behind the sanctuary, where she had called me a barbarian. I felt her fingers touching my breast, and her voice whispering, “I love you more than I can bear.” And I saw her waking tomorrow in such another room, washed from the blood, perhaps with the madness all forgotten, with wondering eyes looking about her, and seeking me. The chariot had passed out of sight down the hill road. I could hear no longer even the sound of wheels.

I turned to the priest, and found his eyes already on me. “I have done an unlucky thing,” I said. “Perhaps it has displeased the god. This is his feast day. It will be better for me to go.”

He answered, “You have done him worship; he will forgive a stranger’s ignorance. But it will be better not to stay too long.”

I looked toward the road, empty and pale in the moonlight. “A royal priestess, called to this mystery; she would have honor here in Dia?”

“Do not be afraid,” he said. “She will be honored.”

“You will tell your Queen, then,” I said, “why we go like this by night, without thanks or farewell?”

“Yes,” he said. “She will understand it. I will tell her in the morning; tonight she will be weary.” There was silence, and I searched my heart for another message, where there was more need of it. But there was nothing to say.

At last he said to me, “Grieve no longer. Many-formed are the gods; and the end men look for is not the end they bring. So it is here.” He stepped out from the tree, and walked away through the grove. Soon he melted into the fleckered shadows, and I saw him no more.

The olive field was empty; my companions were long gone. I went alone down the road, and came to the sleeping harbor. The watch was still by the ship, not all blind drunk; and some of the crew had come to sleep on the shore. There was a night breeze, blowing from the south, enough to fill the sail; if they were sluggish at the oar, it was no great matter. I told them it was dangerous to stay, that they must find the others and bring them quickly. They hurried off; it is easy to wake men’s fears in a strange land.

When they were gone, I told the pilot’s mate to fetch in the dancers. Then for a while I stood by the sea alone. I pictured her next day on the holy islet, looking out to sea, seeking our sail; thinking perhaps that some girl at the feast had made me forsake her; or that I had never loved her, but only used her to help me out of Crete. So she might think. But the truth would be no better.

As I paced to and fro, hearing the ripples suck the shore, the crunch of my feet on shells, and the night guard’s drowsy song, I saw a pale form wandering by the water, and heard a sound of weeping. It was Chryse, her gold hair, loosened on her shoulders, pale in the moonlight, crying into her hands. I took them from her face. There was no stain on them, but of dust and tears.

I told her to be comforted, and weep no more, whatever she had seen; that what was done in the god’s frenzy was best not thought of after, being a mystery hard for Hellenes to understand. “We are sailing tonight,” I said. “We shall make Delos by morning.”

She looked at me dimly. I remembered her courage in the bull ring, and how she had brought me to myself when I was mad. She swallowed, and put back her hair, and wiped her eyes. “I know, Theseus. I know. It was all the frenzy of the god, and he will forget tomorrow. He will forget, and only I will remember.”

It was a thing I had no help for. I might have said that everything passes, if I had had time to learn it myself. As I shook my head, I began to see some of the dancers running down to the ship. The watchman’s cresset showed their faces; among the first was Amyntor. His mouth was open to question me, but then he looked again. He turned to Chryse, shyly, and hanging back; I saw he was in fear of her anger. Their eyes met, peering in the uncertain torchlight; suddenly he ran across, and took her hand. Their fingers folded together, in a knot as close as a goldsmith makes upon a ring.

I did not trouble them with reasons, for they would have heeded none, but said they must help to get in the rest of the bull-dancers; we should set sail at midnight. They ran off, still handfast, toward Naxos, where the lamps were being quenched for the night.

The moon made its twinkling pathway on the sea. A dark shade broke it, the little island of Dionysos; I saw the sanctuary roof with its Cretan horns, and one small lighted window. They had left her with a lamp, I thought, lest waking in a strange place she should be afraid. When midnight had passed, and we put out into the strait under the sinking Pleiads, I saw it was still burning. It shone steadfastly until the sea-line hid it, keeping faith with her sleep while I fled away.