Part 32 (2/2)
And a great fear caught at the heart of Scylla, and she clasped her hands to her bosom as though she were at her last gasp. Yet with a supreme effort she made her last appeal: ”My home is desolate, my father slain. 'Tis I, his daughter, who gave the battle to thy hands.
I come, King Minos, to claim my promised guerdon.”
And King Minos made answer: ”There is no gift in the world precious enough to make requital to a maiden who by her own deed has slain her father and laid her home in ruins and the pride of her people in the dust. I will not mock thee, princess, by striving to equal thy gift.”
And King Minos pa.s.sed on his way to his s.h.i.+p; and as they followed him his warriors gazed with horror upon the maiden who had given the life of her father into the hand of his enemy; for all men knew by now that the safety of Nisus and his city had depended upon the magic lock, and that his daughter had shorn it from him and given it to King Minos.
But Scylla stood on the rocky pathway where she had hearkened to the mocking words of King Minos, and the blue heavens seemed black above her head, and the silver sea black beneath her feet, and nowhere in the world was there for her any help or comfort.
The troops of warriors pa.s.sed her by and embarked in the s.h.i.+ps that waited for them there below the cliff. The sunlight faded and the moon came out, and still the stricken maiden leant against the rock where Minos had dashed all her hopes to ruin.
At length the song of the mariners came up from the sea, telling that the men were on board and the s.h.i.+ps ready to sail, and with a cry of bitter anguish Scylla crept to the top of the rock that overlooked the sea. She saw the s.h.i.+p of King Minos moving slowly from the sh.o.r.e, and clasping her hands above her head, she leapt from the tall cliff.
And men say that the G.o.ds had pity on her, and changed her into a sea-lark. But her father was wrath with her even in death, and he craved of the infernal powers the boon of vengeance. Therefore he was turned into a sea-eagle, and still the father, with hooked hands and ravenous beak, watches from his mountain walls to swoop upon his feathered daughter, who flits along the sh.o.r.e and cowers in the crannies of the rocks.
THE STORY OF PYRAMUS AND THISBE
BY M. M. BIRD
”The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.”--SHAKESPEARE.
In Babylon of old, where walls were first built of bricks, two houses had been set so close together that they shared one roof. Two families came to dwell in them, and young Pyramus of the one house soon made acquaintance with fair Thisbe of the other. Their friends.h.i.+p grew and ripened into love. But alas! a deathless feud had arisen to separate the two families, and the unhappy lovers were inexorably divided.
Still, though angry parents could forbid their love and could prevent them meeting, all this could not avail to kill their love. The thwarted pair could but gaze upon each other, could only look and sigh: yet that was enough to feed the flame of love. And at last they found a way to reach each other's ears, as lovers will: a c.h.i.n.k between two bricks in the wall that divided the two houses--a little c.h.i.n.k where the cement had crumbled away, so small it had never been noticed and filled in. Through this friendly c.h.i.n.k young Pyramus breathed his vows, and fair Thisbe answered him with tender words.
Their eager lips pressed the unresponsive brick, their hands that longed to clasp each other were kept apart by the hard, unfeeling wall. Their sighs and softly spoken words of love alone could pierce the barrier that divided them.
At last they resolved to defy the cruel parents who thus wronged their love; to steal out one night in the concealing darkness, and fly together despite all opposition.
Outside the town, beside a little brook and shaded by a widespread mulberry tree, stood the tomb of Ninus. Here they agreed to meet at nightfall.
Impatiently they watched the sun sink slowly down the western sky and bathe in the western sea. Thisbe, with caution, unbarred her father's door and stole softly forth, veiling her face and hasting through the town to the spot where the tomb stood on the open plain.
But in the darkness other creatures had come forth. A lioness, scouring the plain in search of prey, had slain an ox. Surfeited with flesh and all besmeared with blood, it came swiftly to the brook to slake its thirst. By the light of the moon Thisbe, approaching the trysting-place, saw the fearful beast. She flew trembling across the plain to the neighboring rocks and hid within a cave. And as she fled her floating veil dropped from her shoulders and was left upon the ground.
When the queen of beasts had drunk her fill, she came bounding back across the plain. She found the veil, and this she tore and mouthed with jaws still wet with the blood of the slaughtered ox. And then went on her way.
Young Pyramus, who could not elude his parents so soon, came hastening to the tryst. By the moonlight he noted the footprints of the savage beast beside the brook, and farther on his anguished eyes beheld his loved Thisbe's torn and blood-stained veil. Convinced that the beast had slain his love, he cried in his agony of grief that the fault was his in that he had not been first at the tryst to protect her, and cursed the malevolence of fate that had caused him to fix the spot where she should meet her death. He kissed the veil so torn, so dear to him. And then, crying that Death should not divide two hearts so fond, he drew his sword and plunged it into his breast. The life-blood spurted from the grievous wound and besprinkled all the white cl.u.s.ters of the mulberry.
Cautiously the trembling Thisbe left her hiding-place among the rocks, fearing lest delay should make her lover think her untrue, and neared the appointed spot. But though the tomb and the brook were there as of old, the tree she could not recognize with its new burden of crimson cl.u.s.ters.
As she gazed in doubt, her eyes fell on a form that lay stretched upon the ground. She saw her lover bathed in his blood.
She shrieked and tore her hair; she raised him, clasped him, bathed with her tears his gaping wound. She cried to him to wake and answer his poor Thisbe. His dying eyes unclosed in one long look of love, and then he died in her arms.
She gazed around, saw her torn veil, and saw his own sword lying, blood-stained and sheathless, by his side. She saw that by his own hand he had inflicted the fatal wound; that, believing her dead, he had not chosen to survive.
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