en they wheeled about, darted with fury at each
other, and tore with their savage talons at each other's heads and
necks. Flapping their great wings, they then went swiftly away and
were lost in the far distance.

Said a wise old man: "It is an omen. Odysseus will return, and woe
will come upon the wooers. Let us make an end of these evil doings and
keep harm away from us."

"Go home, old man," angrily mocked the wooers. "Prophesy to thine own
children. Odysseus is dead. Would that thou hadst died with him. Then
thou couldst not have babbled nonsense, and tried to hound on
Telemachus in the hope that he may give thee a gift."

To Telemachus they said again:

"We will go on wasting thy goods until Penelope weds one of us."

Only one other beside the old man was brave enough to speak for
Telemachus. Fearlessly and nobly did his friend Mentor blame the
wooers for their shamelessness. But they jeered at him, and laughed
aloud when Telemachus told them he was going to take a ship and go to
look for his father.

"He will never come back," said one, "and even were Odysseus himself
to return, we should slay him when he came."

Then the council meeting broke up, and the wooers went again to revel
in the palace of Odysseus.

Down to the seashore went Telemachus and knelt where the gray water
broke in little white wavelets on the sand.

"Hear me," he cried, "thou who didst speak with me yesterday. I know
now that thou art a god. Tell me, I pray thee? how shall I find a ship
to sail across the misty sea and find my father? For there is none to
help me."

Swiftly, in answer to his cry, came Athene.

"Be brave. Be thy father's son," she said. "Go back to thy house and
get ready corn and wine for the voyage. I will choose the best of all
the ships in Ithaca for thee, and have her launched, and manned by a
crew, all of them willing men."

Then Telemachus returned to the palace. In the courtyard the wooers
were slaying goats and singeing swine and making ready a great feast.

"Here comes Telemachus, who is planning to destroy us," they mocked.
"Telemachus, who speaks so proudly--- angry Telemachus."

Said one youth:

"Who knows but what if he goes on a voyage he will be like Odysseus,
and never return. Then will we have all his riches to divide among
ourselves, and his house will belong to the man who weds Penelope."

Telemachus shook off the jeering crowd, and went down to the vaulted
chamber where his father's tre