is head, for he was encumbered by the weight of his clothes. At last
he rose to the surface, gasping, and spitting out the brine, and
though sore spent, he swam towards the raft, and hauled himself on
board. There he sat clinging to the dismasted and rudderless vessel,
which was tossed to and fro from wave to wave, as the winds of autumn
sport with the light thistledown and drive it hither and thither.

But help was at hand. There was a certain ocean nymph, named Ino,
daughter of Cadmus, who had once been a mortal woman, but now was
numbered among the immortal powers. She saw and pitied Odysseus, and
boarding the raft addressed him in this wise: "Poor man, why is
Poseidon so wroth with thee that he maltreats thee thus? Yet shall he
not destroy thee, for all his malice. Only do as I bid thee, and thou
shalt get safely to land: take this veil, and when thou hast stripped
off thy garments, bind it across thy breast. Then leave the raft to
its fate, and swim manfully to land; and when thou art safe fling the
veil back into the sea, and go thy way."

So saying the goddess sank beneath the waves, leaving Odysseus with
her veil in his hand. But that cautious veteran did not at once act on
her advice, for he feared that some treachery was intended against
him. He resolved therefore to remain on the raft as long as her
timbers held together, and only to have recourse to the veil in the
last extremity.

He had just taken this prudent resolution, when another wave, more
huge than the last, thundered down on the raft, scattering her
timbers, as the wind scatters a heap of chaff. Odysseus clung fast to
one beam and, mounting it, sat astride as on a horse, until he had
stripped off his clothes. Then he bound the veil round him, flung
himself head foremost into the billows, and swam lustily towards land.

The storm was now subsiding, and a steady breeze succeeded, blowing
from the north, which helped that much-tried hero in his struggle for
life. Yet for two days and two nights he battled with the waves, and
when day broke on the third day he found himself close under a
frowning wall of cliffs, at whose foot the sea was breaking with a
noise like thunder. Odysseus ceased swimming, and trod the water,
looking anxiously round for an opening in the cliffs where he might
land. While he hesitated, a great foaming wave came rushing landward,
threatening to sweep him against that rugged shore; but Odysseus saw
his danger in time, and suc