In the leafy wood the wild goats leapt under the wild vine trees like Pan at play, as fearless of the intruders as if they had never seen men before. All the bright morning the sailors made the wood ring with happy laughter as they speared the goats for a feast. All trouble pa.s.sed from their minds, and as the spears flashed swiftly through the green wood the shrill, jocund voices of the hunters made all the island musical. Ulysses plunged into a translucent pool at the foot of the spring, and the cool water flashed like diamonds over his strong brown arms, and he looked indeed as if he were some river-G.o.d and this his fairy home.

All day long they feasted and drank wine which they had brought in skins from Lotus Land. When night was falling, very still and gentle, they saw the blue smoke of fires over the bay, on the mainland, about a mile away, and the bleating of many sheep and the lowing of herds came to them over the wine-coloured sea.

Ever and again voices could be heard--strange resonant voices. "That must be the country of some strange G.o.ds," the sailors said to each other. "Those are no mortal voices. We are come into some great peril." Before they slept they sacrificed a goat on the seash.o.r.e to Zeus, that he might guard them from any coming harm.

In the morning the king prepared for action. It was necessary to find upon what sh.o.r.es they had arrived, to get direction of Ithaca, and if treasure was to be won by force or guile, to take the opportunity which chance or the G.o.ds had sent.

Ulysses chose twelve of his men, tried veterans with nerves of steel, old comrades who had fought with him for Helen on the windy plains of Troy. With these old never-strikes he embarked on the ship. He left Phocion as leader of the remainder of the crew, and taking Elpenor with him as second in command, they got out six sweeps, three on each side of the ship, and rowed slowly over the gla.s.sy bay.

The mainland, on the sh.o.r.e where they landed, was a wild rocky place, and there was a broad road winding away up to the higher pasture lands. The road was made of great rocks beaten into smoothness, and fresh spoor of cattle showed that not long since a great herd had pa.s.sed to the upland feeding grounds.

Directly in front of them as they landed was a high cave. It was fringed with laurel bushes, which grew on ledges in the cliff side.

Before the cave a great wall had been built in a square, forming a courtyard. The wall was built with enormous ma.s.ses of rock, and fenced with a palisade of pine trunks and ma.s.sive boles of oak. There was no sign of any living thing. Slowly and cautiously the party crept up to the wall. Their weapons were in readiness as they stole through the gateway. Within the square formed by the wall they could see that it was a vast cattle pen. "This must be the dwelling of some giant," said Elpenor; "men do not build like this. On what strange place have we chanced?" He looked inquiringly at Ulysses when he had spoken, and a ring of eager faces turned towards him whose wisdom was never at fault, the favourite of Athene.

"I think, comrades," said Ulysses, "that we have been driven to the sh.o.r.es of the Cyclopes. They are mighty giants, who work in the forge of Vulcan making armour for the G.o.ds. Now this cave must be the dwelling of one of them, and I like not where we are. Let us but go within for a short time and take what we can find, and then hasten back to the island. The Cyclopes have no boats and cannot follow us.

But it would go hard with us were we found, for they are crafty and cruel monsters."

With hasty, curious footsteps they crossed the echoing flags of the courtyard and entered the cave. As the shadow of the entrance fell upon them and the chill of the air inside struck on their faces, more than one would have gladly stayed in the warm outside sunshine. It was an ill-omened, sinister place this lair of giants.

A pungent ammoniacal smell made them cough and shudder as they crossed the threshold. Ulysses turned with a grim smile to his followers.

"Thank the G.o.ds we are seamen and sons of the fresh wind. This Cyclops lives like a swine in a stye." The large entrance to the cave gave a fair light within, and their eyes soon became accustomed to it. Along one side of the cave were folds of fat lambs and kids who bleated l.u.s.tily at them. At the end of the cave was a great couch of skins by the ashes of a pine fire. Bones and sc.r.a.ps of flesh were piled round, relics of some great orgy, and a sickly stench of decay came from the _debris_.

Piles of wicker baskets were loaded with huge yellow cheeses, and there were many copper milk pails and bowls brimful of whey.

The sailors rejoiced at such an abundance of good cheer, and they killed one of the fattest of the lambs and lit a fire to roast it.

"The giant will not return till even," said Elpenor, "and by then we shall be far away. We will make a good meal now, and then load the ship with cheeses and drive off the best of the lambs. Our comrades will welcome us home this night, for we shall be full-handed!"

So, careless of danger, they sat them down in that perilous place and made merry on the giant"s cheer. They had brought skins of wine with them, and they drank in mockery to their absent host.

In the middle of the feast one of the men suddenly laid down his cup.

"Hearken," he said uneasily, "do you hear anything, friends?"

"I hear nothing," said Ulysses. "What sound did you hear?"

"A distant sound, I thought," answered the man, "as if the earth shook."

"There is nothing," said a third at length; but a certain constraint fell upon them all, and anxiety clouded their faces.

"Let us begone," said Ulysses at length. "There is what I do not like in the air. I fear evil."

He had but hardly made an end of speaking when all of them there were struck rigid with apprehension. A distant but rapidly-nearing sound a.s.sailed their ears, a heavy crunching sound like the blows of a great hammer upon the earth, save that each succeeding blow was louder than the last. They stood irresolute for one fatal moment, and then started to run towards the mouth of the cave.

The noise filled all the air, which hummed and trembled with it. They reached the entrance, but too late. Even as the first man came out into the afternoon sunlight, a great herd of cattle came pouring into the courtyard. Behind them, towering over the wall, as tall as the tallest pine on the slopes of Hymettus, strode Polyphemus, the giant king of the Cyclopes, son of the G.o.d Poseidon.

The giant was naked to the waist, where he wore a girdle of skins. One great eye burned in the centre of his forehead, and a row of sharp, white teeth were framed by thick dribbling lips, like the lips of a cow.

Under his arm Polyphemus carried a bundle of young sapling trees, which he had brought for f.a.ggots for his fire. He threw them on the floor of the courtyard by the mouth of the cave with a great crash.

The adventurers crouched away at the back of the cave in the darkness as the giant entered.

He drove all the ewes of his flock before him, leaving the rams outside in the court. Then he took a great hole of rock, which scarce twenty teams of horses could have moved, and closed the mouth of the cave.

With a great sigh of weariness, which echoed like a hissing wind and blew the silent bats which hung to the roof this way and that in a frightened eddy of wings, he sank down upon his couch of skins. The giant had brought some of the firewood into the cave with him and he threw it into the embers.

A resinous piece of wood suddenly caught the flame and flared up, filling the cavern with red light. One of the sailors dropped his spear with a loud clatter as the flames made plain the figure of the monster.

Polyphemus turned his head and saw them.

He stared steadily at them with his single eye for full a minute. A cruel smile played on his face.

"Who are you, strangers?" he said at length, in a thick, low voice like the swell of a great organ. "Merchants, are you? Pirates? And whence come you along the paths of the sea?"

Then Ulysses spoke in a smooth voice of conciliation. "We are Greeks, oh lord, soldiers of Agamemnon"s army, bound for home over the seas from Troy. Bad weather has driven us out of our course, and so we have come to you and beg you to be our honoured host. Oh, great lord, have reverence for the G.o.ds, for Zeus himself is the G.o.d of hospitality."

Then the giant smiled cunningly. "You are a man of little wit, stranger," he said, "or else you have indeed come from the very end of the world. I pay no heed to Zeus, for I am stronger than he. But now, tell me, where is your ship?"

But Ulysses, the wary one, saw the snare and answered humbly, "The great Poseidon, G.o.d of the deep, wrecked our ship upon the rocks, and we alone survive of all our company."

The giant looked fixedly at the trembling band for a moment. Then, with a sudden movement, he s.n.a.t.c.hed among the mariners and grasped two of them in his mighty hand.

The swift horror remained with them in all their after life. He stripped the clothes from each like a man strips the scales from a prawn with one quick twirl of his fingers.

Then he dashed the quivering bodies upon the ground so that the yellow paste of the brains smeared the stone--save for the horrid crunching of bone and flesh, and the liquid gurgle of the monster"s throat as he made his frightful meal, there was no sound in the cave.

Then he fell into a foul sleep.

Three times during the long night did Ulysses draw his sword to plunge it into the monster"s heart, three times did he sheathe it again. For in his wisdom he knew that if he killed Polyphemus no one could ever move away the great stone which shut them from the outside world.

In the morning Elpenor and one other died, and the giant drove his flocks to pasture and closed up the heroes in the cave.

Then Ulysses comforted the dying hearts of his men, and as Polyphemus strode away over the hills whistling to his cattle, he made a plan for one last bid for freedom.

Leaning against the wall of the cave was a great club of hard wood which the monster had put there to dry. It was an olive-tree trunk as big as the great spar of a ship.

This they took and sharpened with their swords, and hardened it in the flame of the fire and hid it carefully away. Then very sadly the sailors cast lots as to who should be the four to help the captain.

All day long they sat in the foetid cave and prayed to the G.o.ds for an alms of aid. And their hearts were leaden for love of their valiant comrades.

At eventime two more heroes died.

Then Ulysses rose, and though his knees were weak and his face blanched with agony, he spoke in a smooth voice. "My Lord Cyclops," he said, "I have filled this bowl with wine which we brought with us. I pray you drink, and perchance your heart may be touched and you will let us go."

So the giant took the bowl from the king, and as Ulysses went near him his breath reeked of carrion and blood. He drank the wine, which was a sweet and drowsy vintage from the Lotus Island. "Give me more,"

he cried thickly, "and say how you are named, for I will grant you a favour."

Ulysses filled the bowl for him three times. "Oh, my lord," he said, "my friends and parents call me Noman, for that is my name. Now, great lord, your boon."

The giant leered at the hero with drunken cunning. "Noman, since that is your name Noman, you shall die last of all, and the others first.

That is your boon!"