These words weighed heavily on the mind of King Ceyx, and it was no less his own wish than hers to take her with him, but he could not bear to expose her to the dangers of the sea.  He answered, therefore, consoling her as well as he could, and finished with these words:  “I promise, by the rays of my father the Day-star, that if fate permits I will return before the moon shall have twice rounded her orb.”  When he had thus spoken, he ordered the vessel to be drawn out of the shiphouse, and the oars and sails to be put aboard.  When Halcyone saw these preparations she shuddered, as if with a presentiment of evil.  With tears and sobs she said farewell, and then fell senseless to the ground.

Ceyx would still have lingered, but now the young men grasped their oars and pulled vigorously through the waves, with long and measured strokes.  Halcyone raised her streaming eyes, and saw her husband standing on the deck, waving his hand to her.  She answered his signal till the vessel had receded so far that she could no longer distinguish his form from the rest.  When the vessel itself could no more be seen, she strained her eyes to catch the last glimmer of the sail, till that too disappeared.  Then, retiring to her chamber, she threw herself on her solitary couch.

Meanwhile they glide out of the harbor, and the breeze plays among the ropes.  The seamen draw in their oars, and hoist their sails.  When half or less of their course was passed, as night drew on, the sea began to whiten with swelling waves, and the east wind to blow a gale.  The master gave the word to take in sail, but the storm forbade obedience, for such is the roar of the winds and waves his orders are unheard.  The men, of their own accord, busy themselves to secure the oars, to strengthen the ship, to reef the sail.  While they thus do what to each one seems best, the storm increases.  The shouting of the men, the rattling of the shrouds, and the dashing of the waves, mingle with the roar of the thunder.  The swelling sea seems lifted up to the heavens, to scatter its foam among the clouds; then sinking away to the bottom assumes the color of the shoal—­a Stygian blackness.

The vessel shares all these changes.  It seems like a wild beast that rushes on the spears of the hunters.  Rain falls in torrents, as if the skies were coming down to unite with the sea.  When the lightning ceases for a moment, the night seems to add its own darkness to that of the storm; then comes the flash, rending the darkness asunder, and lighting up all with a glare.  Skill fails, courage sinks, and death seems to come on every wave.  The men are stupefied with terror.  The thought of parents, and kindred, and pledges left at home, comes over their minds.  Ceyx thinks of Halcyone.  No name but hers is on his lips, and while he yearns for her, he yet rejoices in her absence.  Presently the mast is shattered by a stroke of lightning, the rudder broken, and the triumphant surge curling over