d until
he was quite weary, and listened eagerly to every sound, but without
hearing anything that could help him to guess what had become of his
friends. Footsteps, it is true, seemed to be passing and repassing, in
other parts of the palace. Then there was a clatter of silver dishes,
or golden ones, which made him imagine a rich feast in a splendid
banqueting hall. But by and by he heard a tremendous grunting and
squealing, and then a sudden scampering, like that of small, hard hoofs
over a marble floor, while the voices of the mistress and her four
handmaidens were screaming all together, in tones of anger and derision.
Eurylochus could not conceive what had happened, unless a drove of
swine had broken into the palace, attracted by the smell of the feast.
Chancing to cast his eyes at the fountain, he saw that it did not shift
its shape, as formerly, nor looked either like a long-robed man, or
a lion, a tiger, a wolf, or an ass. It looked like nothing but a hog,
which lay wallowing in the marble basin, and filled it from brim to
brim.

But we must leave the prudent Eurylochus waiting in the outer hall, and
follow his friends into the inner secrecy of the palace. As soon as the
beautiful woman saw them, she arose from the loom, as I have told you,
and came forward, smiling, and stretching out her hand. She took the
hand of the foremost among them, and bade him and the whole party
welcome.

"You have been long expected, my good friends," said she. "I and my
maidens are well acquainted with you, although you do not appear to
recognize us. Look at this piece of tapestry, and judge if your faces
must not have been familiar to us."

So the voyagers examined the web of cloth which the beautiful woman
had been weaving in her loom; and, to their vast astonishment, they saw
their own figures perfectly represented in different colored threads. It
was a life-like picture of their recent adventures, showing them in the
cave of Polyphemus, and how they had put out his one great moony eye;
while in another part of the tapestry they were untying the leathern
bags, puffed out with contrary winds; and farther on, they beheld
themselves scampering away from the gigantic king of the Laestrygons,
who had caught one of them by the leg. Lastly, there they were, sitting
on the desolate shore of this very island, hungry and downcast, and
looking ruefully at the bare bones of the stag which they devoured
yesterday. This was as far as the w