Thoas. 
These women?  How?  What sought they by such guile?

Messenger. 
Of them hereafter!—­Give me first thine ear
For greater things.  The virgin minister
That served our altar, she hath fled from this
And stolen the dread Shape of Artemis,
With those two Greeks.  The cleansing was a lie.

Thoas. 
She fled?—­What wild hope whispered her to fly?

Messenger. 
The hope to save Orestes.  Wonder on!

Thoas. 
Orestes—­how?  Not Clytemnestra’s son?

Messenger. 
And our pledged altar-offering.  ’Tis the same.

Thoas. 
O marvel beyond marvel!  By what name
More rich in wonder can I name thee right?

Messenger. 
Give not thy mind to that.  Let ear and sight
Be mine awhile; and when thou hast heard the whole
Devise how best to trap them ere the goal.

Thoas. 
Aye, tell thy tale.  Our Tauric seas stretch far,
Where no man may escape my wand of war.

Messenger. 
Soon as we reached that headland of the sea,
Whereby Orestes’ barque lay secretly,
We soldiers holding, by thine own commands,
The chain that bound the strangers, in our hands,
There Agamemnon’s daughter made a sign,
Bidding us wait far off, for some divine
And secret fire of cleansing she must make. 
We could but do her will.  We saw her take
The chain in her own hands and walk behind. 
Indeed thy servants bore a troubled mind,
O King, but how do else?  So time went by. 
Meanwhile to make it seem she wrought some high
Magic, she cried aloud:  then came the long
Drone of some strange and necromantic song,
As though she toiled to cleanse that blood; and there
Sat we, that long time, waiting.  Till a fear
O’ertook us, that the men might slip their chain
And strike the priestess down and plunge amain
For safety:  yet the dread our eyes to fill
With sights unbidden held us, and we still
Sat silent.  But at last all spoke as one,
Forbid or not forbid, to hasten on
And find them.  On we went, and suddenly,
With oarage poised, like wings upon the sea,
An Argive ship we saw, her fifty men
All benched, and on the shore, with every chain
Cast off, our strangers, standing by the stern! 
The prow was held by stay-poles:  turn by turn
The anchor-cable rose; some men had strung
Long ropes into a ladder, which they swung
Over the side for those two Greeks to climb.

The plot was open, and we lost no time
But flew to seize the cables and the maid,
And through the stern dragged out the steering-blade,
To spoil her course, and shouted:  “Ho, what way
Is this, to sail the seas and steal away
An holy image and its minister? 
What man art them, and what man’s son, to bear
Our priestess from the land?” And clear thereon
He spoke:  “Orestes, Agamemnon’s son,
And brother to this maid, whom here in peace
I bear, my long lost sister, back to Greece.”