he
charred black bones of the dead. He drew near, and, lo! the whole heap
was of nothing else than the ashes of men and women. Death had been busy
here: here many people had perished of a pestilence. They had all been
consumed on one funeral fire, while they who laid them there must have
fled, for there was no sign of living man. The doors gaped open, and
none entered, and none came forth. The house was dead, like the people
who had dwelt in it.

Then the Wanderer paused where once the old hound Argos had welcomed him
and had died in that welcome. There, unwelcomed, he stood, leaning on
his staff. Then a sudden ray of the sun fell on something that glittered
in the heap, and he touched it with the end of the staff that he had in
his hand. It slid jingling from the heap; it was the bone of a forearm,
and that which glittered on it was a half-molten ring of gold. On the
gold lambda these characters were engraved:

IKMALIOS MEPOIESEN

(Icmalios made me.)

At the sight of the armlet the Wanderer fell on the earth, grovelling
among the ashes of the pyre, for he knew the gold ring which he had
brought from Ephyre long ago, for a gift to his wife Penelope. This
was the bracelet of the bride of his youth, and here, a mockery and a
terror, were those kind arms in which he had lain. Then his strength was
shaken with sobbing, and his hands clutched blindly before him, and he
gathered dust and cast it upon his head till the dark locks were defiled
with the ashes of his dearest, and he longed to die.

There he lay, biting his hands for sorrow, and for wrath against God and
Fate. There he lay while the sun in the heavens smote him, and he knew
it not; while the wind of the sunset stirred in his hair, and he stirred
not. He could not even shed one tear, for this was the sorest of all the
sorrows that he had known on the waves of the sea, or on land among the
wars of men.

The sun fell and the ways were darkened. Slowly the eastern sky grew
silver with the moon. A night-fowl's voice was heard from afar, it drew
nearer; then through the shadow of the pyre the black wings fluttered
into the light, and the carrion bird fixed its talons and its beak on
the Wanderer's neck. Then he moved at length, tossed up an arm, and
caught the bird of darkness by the neck, and broke it, and dashed it on
the ground. His sick heart was mad with the little sudden pain, and he
clutched for the knife in his girdle that he might slay himself, but
he w