Part 14 (1/2)

Nay, name them not, child, name not those Holy Ones.

ALCIMEDON.

We love not his name in this house, stranger. Have you no other tale?

HERMIONE.

[_Controlling her excitement._] Nay, what hurt is his name? It is only some boy's tale.

ORESTES.

He took on him a great feud, greater than he knew. For his father called from the dead for vengeance on the woman who had murdered him. And the G.o.ds called, too, and put voices always about him calling for blood. And then they betrayed him!

MOLOSSUS.

Did his father betray him, too?

ORESTES.

Nay, it may be that the voice was not his father's, after all. But the G.o.ds----

PRIEST.

See that your tongue offend not, stranger!

ORESTES.

So be it. Well, in the end he recked not of the G.o.ds. He cared not how sore they hated him, and cared not if he lived or died.

MOLOSSUS.

And what did he do?

ORESTES.

This is the last story I heard of him, from a Chalcidian man who had been in Sicily.

HERMIONE.

Had he gone so far away?

ORESTES.

Beyond the end of Sicily to a kingdom of the Iberians. For he vowed that he would be like Paris, and win the most beautiful of all women for his wife; for, you must know, the G.o.ds had marred all the world for him, and made it all as ashes in his mouth, except beauty. For beauty is immortal, like themselves; and they cannot hurt it. So he sought and questioned where that woman might be; and men said she was queen of a land among the Iberians.

HERMIONE.

[_Half divining his meaning._] Had he seen her himself?

ORESTES.