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.