nd after many deaths.

Now the Wanderer is in his chamber, waiting for the hour to set forth
to find the Golden Helen. His heart is alight, and strange dreams of
the past go before his eyes, and strange visions of long love to be. His
heart burns like a lamp in the blackness, and by that light he sees all
the days of his life that have been, and all the wars that he has won,
and all the seas that he has sailed. And now he knows that these things
are dreams indeed, illusions of the sense, for there is but one thing
true in the life of men, and that is Love; there is but one thing
perfect, the beauty which is Love's robe; there is but one thing which
all men seek and are born to find at last, the heart of the Golden
Helen, the World's Desire, that is peace and joy and rest.

He binds his armour on him, for foes may lurk in darkness, and takes the
Bow of Eurytus, and the grey bolts of death; for perchance the fight is
not yet done, he must cleave his way to joy. Then he combs his locks and
sets the golden helm upon them, and, praying to the Gods who hear not,
he passes from his chamber.

Now the chamber opened into a great hall of pillars. As was his custom
when he went alone by night, the Wanderer glanced warily down the dusky
hall, but he might see little because of the shadows. Nevertheless, the
moonlight poured into the centre of the hall from the clerestories in
the roof, and lay there shining white as water beneath black banks of
reeds. Again the Wanderer glanced with keen, quick eyes, for there was a
sense in his heart that he was no more alone in the hall, though whether
it were man or ghost, or, perchance, one of the immortal Gods who looked
on him, he might not tell. Now it seemed to him that he saw a shape of
white moving far away in the shadow. Then he grasped the black bow and
laid hand upon his quiver so that the shafts rattled.

Now it would seem that the shape in the shadow heard the rattling of the
shafts, or perchance saw the moonlight gleam upon the Wanderer's golden
harness--at the least, it drew near till it came to the edge of the
pool of light. There it paused as a bather pauses ere she steps into the
fountain. The Wanderer paused also, wondering what the shape might be.
Half was he minded to try it with an arrow from the bow, but he held his
hand and watched.

And as he watched, the white shape glided into the space of moonlight,
and he saw that it was the form of a woman draped in white, an