“And you will embark again,” she said softly; “and in how small a ship on seas so mighty!  And whither next will fate entice you, to what new sorrows?”

“Who knows?” I said.  “And to what further peace?”

She laughed lightly.  “Speak not of mockeries,” she said, and fell silent.

She seemed to be thinking quickly and deeply; for even though I did not turn to her, I could see in imagination the restless sparkling of her eyes, the stillness of her ringless hands.  Then suddenly she turned.

“Stranger,” she said, drawing her finger softly along the cold stone of the bench, “there yet remain a few bright hours to morning.  Who knows, seeing that felicity is with the bold, did I cast off into the sea—­who knows whereto I’d come!  ’Tis but a little way to being happy—­a touch of the hand, a lifting of the brows, a shuddering silence.  Had I but man’s courage!  Yet this is a solitary place, and the gods are revengeful.”

I cannot say how artlessly ran that voice in this still garden, by some strange power persuading me on, turning all doubt aside, calming all suspicion.

“There is honeycomb here, and the fruit is plenteous.  Yes,” she said, “and all travellers are violent men—­catch and kill meat—­that I know, however doleful.  ’Tis but a little sigh from day to day in these cool gardens; and rest is welcome when the heart pines not.  Listen, now; I will go down and you shall show me—­did one have the wit to learn, and courage to remember—­show me how sails your wonderful little ship; tell me, too, where on the sea’s horizon to one in exile earth lies, with all its pleasant things—­yet thinks so bitterly of a woman!”

“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.”