active life in the open. His
face was ruddy and noble, with a short, crisp beard covering a strong,
square jaw. In his clear blue eyes as he looked at the evening sky and
the busy waters beneath him there was something of the exaltation of the
poet, while a youth walking beside him and carrying a harp hinted at the
graces of music. On the other side of him, however, a second squire bore
a brazen shield and a heavy spear, so that his master might never be
caught unawares by his enemies. In his train there came a tumultuous
rabble of dark hawk-like men, armed to the teeth, and peering about with
covetous eyes at the signs of wealth which lay in profusion around them.
They were swarthy as Arabs, and yet they were better clad and better
armed than the wild children of the desert.

"They are but barbarians," said the priest. "He is a small king from the
mountain parts opposite Philistia, and he comes here because he is
building up the town of Jebus, which he means to be his chief city. It
is only here that he can find the wood, and stone, and craftsmanship
that he desires. The youth with the harp is his son. But I pray you,
chief, if you would know what is before you at Troy, to come now into
the outer hall of the Temple with me, for we have there a famous seer,
the prophetess Alaga who is also the priestess of Ashtaroth. It may be
that she can do for you what she has done for many others, and send you
forth from Tyre in your hollow ships with a better heart than you came."

To the Greeks, who by oracles, omens, and auguries were for ever prying
into the future, such a suggestion was always welcome. The Greek
followed the priest to the inner sanctuary, where sat the famous
Pythoness--a tall, fair woman of middle age, who sat at a stone table
upon which was an abacus or tray filled with sand. She held a style of
chalcedony, and with this she traced strange lines and curves upon the
smooth surface, her chin leaning upon her other hand and her eyes cast
down. As the chief and the priest approached her she did not look up,
but she quickened the movements of her pencil, so that curve followed
curve in quick succession. Then, still with downcast eyes, she spoke in
a strange, high, sighing voice like wind amid the trees.

"Who, then, is this who comes to Alaga of Tyre, the handmaiden of great
Ashtaroth? Behold I see an island to the west, and an old man who is the
father, and the great chief, and his wife, and his son who now wait