lead. In torture his gallant spirit passed away,
uncomplaining, loving through his pain the maid for whose dear sake he
had brought woe upon himself. As the last white ashes in the fire
crumbled and fell away into nothingness, the soul of Meleager
departed. Swiftly through the dark valley his mother's shade followed
him, for she fell upon a sword and so perished. And Diana, looking
down on the grief-stricken sisters of Meleager and on the bitter
sorrow of his father, had compassion on them and turned them into
birds.

So ended the Calydonian Hunt, and Atalanta returned to Arcadia, heavy
at heart for the evil she had wrought unwittingly. And still the Three
Fates span on, and the winds caught up the cold wood ashes and blew
them across the ravaged land that Meleager had saved and that quickly
grew fertile again.

ATALANTA

Atalanta, daughter of the king of Arcadia, returned sad at heart to
her own land. Only as comrades, as those against whose skill in the
chase she was wont to pit her own skill, had she looked upon men. But
Meleager, the hero who loved her and her fair honour more than life
itself, and whose love had made him haste in all his gallant strength
and youthful beauty to the land of the Shades, was one to touch her as
never before had she been touched. Her father, proud of her triumph in
Calydon, again besought her to marry one of her many noble suitors.

"If indeed they love me as thou sayest," said Atalanta to her father,
"then must they be ready to face for my sake even the loss of dear
life itself. I shall be the prize of him who outruns me in a
foot-race. But he who tries and fails, must pay to Death his penalty."

Thereafter, for many days, a strange sight was to be seen in Arcadia.
For one after another the suitors came to race with the maiden whose
face had bewitched them, though truly the race was no more fair to him
who ran than would be a race with Death. No mortal man was as fleet as
Atalanta, who had first raced with the wild things of the mountains
and the forests, and who had dared at last to race with the winds and
leave even them behind. To her it was all a glorious game. Her
conquest was always sure, and if the youths who entered in the contest
cared to risk their lives, why should they blame her? So each day they
started, throbbing hope and fierce determination to win her in the
heart of him who ran--fading hope and despairing anger as he saw her
skimming ahead of him like a