he doomed city, an omen of the end of Troy.

"Look again," said the voice of Meriamun from far away.

So once more he looked into the darkness, and there he saw the mouth of
a cave, and beneath two palms in front of it sat a man and a woman.
The yellow moon rose and its light fell upon a sleeping sea, upon tall
trees, upon the cave, and the two who sat there. The woman was lovely,
with braided hair, and clad in a shining robe, and her eyes were dim
with tears that she might never shed: for she was a Goddess, Calypso,
the daughter of Atlas. Then in the vision the man looked up, and his
face was weary, and worn and sick for home, but it was his own face.

Then he remembered how he had sat thus at the side of Calypso of the
braided tresses, on that last night of all his nights in her wave-girt
isle, the centre of the seas.

"Look once more," said the voice of Meriamun the Queen.

Again he looked into the darkness. There before him grew the ruins of
his own hall in Ithaca, and in the courtyard before the hall was a heap
of ashes, and the charred bones of men. Before the heap lay the figure
of one lost in sorrow, for his limbs writhed upon the ground. Anon the
man lifted his face, and behold! the Wanderer knew that it was his own
face.

Then of a sudden the gloom passed away from the chamber, and once more
his blood surged through his veins, and there before him sat Meriamun
the Queen, smiling darkly.

"Strange sights hast thou seen, is it not so, Wanderer?" she said.

"Yea, Queen, the most strange of sights. Tell me of thy courtesy how
thou didst conjure them before my eyes."

"By the magic that I have, Eperitus, I above all wizards who dwell in
Khem, the magic whereby I can read all the past of those--I love," and
again she looked upon him; "ay, and call it forth from the storehouse of
dead time and make it live again. Say, whose face was it that thou didst
look upon--was it not the face of Odysseus of Ithaca, Laertes' son, and
was not that face thine?"

Now the Wanderer saw that there was no escape. Therefore he spoke the
truth, not because he loved it, but because he must.

"The face of Odysseus of Ithaca it was that I saw before me, Lady, and
that face is mine. I avow myself to be Odysseus, Laertes' son, and no
other man."

The Queen laughed aloud. "Great must be my strength of magic," she
said, "for it can strip the guile from the subtlest of men. Henceforth,
Odysseus, thou wilt know that the eyes of Meri