amun the Queen see far.
Now tell me truly: what camest thou hither to seek?"

The Wanderer took swift counsel with himself. Remembering that dream of
Meriamun of which Rei the Priest had told him, and which she knew not
that he had learned, the dream that showed her the vision of one whom
she must love, and remembering the word of the dead Hataska, he grew
afraid. For he saw well by the token of the spear point that he was
the man of her dream, and that she knew it. But he could not accept
her love, both because of his oath to Pharaoh and because of her whom
Aphrodite had shown to him in Ithaca, her whom alone he must seek, the
Heart's Desire, the Golden Helen.

The strait was desperate, between a broken oath and a woman scorned. But
he feared his oath, and the anger of Zeus, the God of hosts and guests.
So he sought safety beneath the wings of truth.

"Lady," he said, "I will tell thee all! I came to Ithaca from the white
north, where a curse had driven me; I came and found my halls desolate,
and my people dead, and the very ashes of my wife. But in a dream of
the night I saw the Goddess whom I have worshipped little, Aphrodite of
Idalia, whom in this land ye name Hathor, and she bade me go forth and
do her will. And for reward she promised me that I should find one who
waited me to be my deathless love."

Meriamun heard him so far, but no further, for of this she made sure,
that _she_ was the woman whom Aphrodite had promised to the Wanderer.
Ere he might speak another word she glided to him like a snake, and like
a snake curled herself about him. Then she spoke so low that he rather
knew her thought than heard her words:

"Was it indeed so, Odysseus? Did the Goddess indeed send thee to seek me
out? Know, then, that not to thee alone did she speak. I also looked for
thee. I also waited the coming of one whom I should love. Oh, heavy have
been the days, and empty was my heart, and sorely through the years have
I longed for him who should be brought to me. And now at length it is
done, now at length I see him whom in my dream I saw," and she lifted
her lips to the lips of the Wanderer, and her heart, and her eyes, and
her lips said "Love."

But it was not for nothing that he bore a stout and patient heart, and a
brain unclouded by danger or by love. He had never been in a strait like
this; caught with bonds that no sword could cut, and in toils that no
skill could undo. On one side were love and pleasure--on the o