yx and sought the room where Halcyone slept. She had watched
the far horizon many hours that day. For many an hour had she vainly
burned incense to the gods. Tired in heart and soul, in body and in
mind, she laid herself down on her couch at last, hoping for the gift
of sleep. Not long had she slept, in the dead-still sleep that
weariness and a stricken heart bring with them, when Morpheus came and
stood by her side. He was only a dream, yet his face was the face of
Ceyx. Not the radiant, beautiful son of the Day Star was the Ceyx who
stood by her now and gazed on her with piteous, pitying dead eyes.
His clothing dripped sea-water; in his hair was tangled the weed of
the sea, uprooted by the storm. Pale, pale was his face, and his white
hands gripped the stones and sand that had failed him in his dying
agony.

Halcyone whimpered in her sleep as she looked on him, and Morpheus
stooped over her and spoke the words that he had been told to say.

"I am thy husband, Ceyx, Halcyone. No more do prayers and the
blue-curling smoke of incense avail me. Dead am I, slain by the storm
and the waves. On my dead, white face the skies look down and the
restless sea tosses my chill body that still seeks thee, seeking a
haven in thy dear arms, seeking rest on thy warm, loving heart."

With a cry Halcyone started up, but Morpheus had fled, and there were
no wet footprints nor drops of sea-water on the floor, marking, as she
had hoped, the way that her lord had taken. Not again did Sleep visit
her that night.

A grey, cold morning dawned and found her on the seashore. As ever,
her eyes sought the far horizon, but no white sail, a messenger of
hope, was there to greet her. Yet surely she saw something--a black
speck, like a ship driven on by the long oars of mariners who knew
well the path to home through the watery ways. From far away in the
grey it hasted towards her, and then there came to Halcyone the
knowledge that no ship was this thing, but a lifeless body, swept
onwards by the hurrying waves. Nearer and nearer it came, until at
length she could recognise the form of this flotsam and jetsam of the
sea. With heart that broke as she uttered the words, she stretched
out her arms and cried aloud: "O Ceyx! my Beloved! is it thus that
thou returnest to me?"

To break the fierce assaults of sea and of storm there had been built
out from the shore a mole, and on to this barrier leapt the distraught
Halcyone. She ran along it, and when