"
"Why," she cried, while I was yet full of the theme, "I will go then
at once, and to-morrow Troy will come."
I looked long at her in silence; her slim beauty, the answerless
riddle of her eyes, the age-long subtilty of her mouth, and gave no
more thought to all life else.
Day was already waning. I filled the water-keg with fresh water, put
fruit and honeycomb and a pillow of leaves into the boat, proffered a
trembling hand, and led her down.
The sun's beams slanted on the foamless sea, glowed in a flame of
crimson on marble and rock and cypress. The birds sang endlessly on of
evening, endlessly, too, it seemed to me, of dangers my heart had no
surmise of.
Criseyde turned from the dark green waves. "Truly, it is a solitary
country; pathless," she said, "to one unpiloted;" and stood listening
to the hollow voices of the water. And suddenly, as if at the
consummation of her thoughts, she lifted her eyes on me, darkly, with
unimaginable entreaty.
"What do you seek else?" I cried in a voice I scarcely recognised.
"Oh, you speak in riddles!"
I sprang into the boat and seized the heavy oars.
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