surprised, at any moment, to feel the big lion's terrible

claws, or to see each of the tigers make a deadly spring,
or each wolf leap at the throat of the man whom he had fondled.

Their mildness seemed unreal, and a mere freak; but their
savage nature was as true as their teeth and claws.

Nevertheless, the men went safely across the lawn with the wild
beasts frisking about them, and doing no manner of harm;

although, as they mounted the steps of the palace, you might
possibly have heard a low growl, particularly from the wolves;

as if they thought it a pity, after all, to let the strangers
pass without so much as tasting what they were made of.

Eurylochus and his followers now passed under a lofty portal,
and looked through the open doorway into the interior of the

palace. The first thing that they saw was a spacious hall, and
a fountain in the middle of it, gushing up towards the ceiling

out of a marble basin, and falling back into it with a
continual plash. The water of this fountain, as it spouted

upward, was constantlytaking new shapes, not very distinctly,
but plainly enough for a nimble fancy to recognize what they

were. Now it was the shape of a man in a long robe, the fleecy
whiteness of which was made out of the fountain's spray; now it

was a lion, or a tiger, or a wolf, or an ass, or, as often as
anything else, a hog, wallowing in the marble basin as if it

were his sty. It was either magic or some very curious
machinery that caused the gushing waterspout to assume all

these forms. But, before the strangers had time to look closely
at this wonderful sight, their attention was drawn off by a

very sweet and agreeable sound. A woman's voice was singing
melodiously in another room of the palace, and with her voice

was mingled the noise of a loom, at which she was probably
seated, weaving a rich texture of cloth, and intertwining the

high and low sweetness of her voice into a rich tissue of
harmony.

By and by, the song came to an end; and then, all at once,
there were several feminine voices, talking airily and

cheerfully, with now and then a merry burst of laughter, such
as you may always hear when three or four young women sit at

work together.
"What a sweet song that was!" exclaimed one of the voyagers.

"Too sweet, indeed," answered Eurylochus, shaking his head.
"Yet it was not so sweet as the song of the Sirens, those

bird-like damsels who wanted to tempt us on the rocks, so that
our vessel might be wrecked, and our bones left whitening along

the shore."
"But just listen to the pleasant voices of those maidens, and

that buzz of the loom, as the shuttle passes to and fro," said
another comrade. "What a domestic, household, home-like sound

it is! Ah, before that weary siege of Troy, I used to hear the
buzzing loom and the women's voices under my own roof. Shall I

never hear them again? nor taste those nice little savory
dishes which my dearest wife knew how to serve up?"

"Tush! we shall fare better here," said another. "But how
innocently those women are babbling together, without guessing

that we overhear them! And mark that richest voice of all, so
pleasant and so familiar, but which yet seems to have the

authority of a mistress among them. Let us show ourselves at
once. What harm can the lady of the palace and her maidens do

to mariners and warriors like us?"
"Remember," said Eurylochus, "that it was a young maiden who

beguiled three of our friends into the palace of the king of
the Laestrygons, who ate up one of them in the twinkling of an

eye."
No warning or persuasion, however, had any effect on his

companions. They went up to a pair of folding doors at the
farther end of the hall, and throwing them wide open, passed

into the next room. Eurylochus, meanwhile, had stepped behind a
pillar. In the short moment while the folding doors opened and

closed again, he caught a glimpse of a very beautiful woman
rising from the loom, and coming to meet the poor

weather-beaten wanderers, with a hospitable smile, and her hand
stretched out in welcome. There were four other young women,

who joined their hands and danced merrily forward, making
gestures of obeisance to the strangers. They were only less

beautiful than the lady who seemed to be their mistress. Yet
Eurylochus fancied that one of them had sea-green hair, and

that the close-fitting bodice of a second looked like the bark
of a tree, and that both the others had something odd in their

aspect, although he could not quite determine what it was, in
the little while that he had to examine them.

The folding doors swung quickly back, and left him standing
behind the pillar, in the solitude of the outer hall. There

Eurylochus waited 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 work had yet proceeded; but when the beautiful

woman should again sit down at her loom, she would probably
make a picture of what had since happened to the strangers, and

of what was now going to happen.
"You see," she said, "that I know all about your troubles; and

you cannot doubt that I desire to make you happy for as long a