nd Calchas said, "See ye this, men of Greece, how the goddess hath
provided this offering in the place of the maiden, for she would not
that her altar should be defiled with innocent blood. Be of good
courage, therefore, and depart every man to his ship, for this day ye
shall sail across the sea to the land of Troy."

Then the goddess carried away the maiden to the land of the Taurians,
where she had a temple and an altar. Now on this altar the king of the
land was wont to sacrifice any stranger, being Greek by nation, who
was driven by stress of weather to the place, for none went thither
willingly. And the name of the king was Thoas, which signifieth in
the Greek tongue, "swift of foot."

[Illustration: IPHIGENIA ABOUT TO BE SACRIFICED]

Now when the maiden had been there many years she dreamed a dream. And
in the dream she seemed to have departed from the land of the Taurians
and to dwell in the city of Argos, wherein she had been born. And as
she slept in the women's chamber there befell a great earthquake, and
cast to the ground the palace of her fathers, so that there was left
one pillar only which stood upright. And as she looked on this pillar,
yellow hair seemed to grow upon it as the hair of a man, and it spake
with a man's voice. And she did to it as she was wont to do to the
strangers that were sacrificed upon the altar, purifying it with water
and weeping the while. And the interpretation of the dream she judged
to be that her brother Orestes was dead, for that male children are
the pillars of a house, and that she only was left to the house of her
father.

Now it chanced that at this same time Orestes, with Pylades that was
his friend, came in a ship to the land of the Taurians. And the cause
of his coming was this. After that he had slain his mother, taking
vengeance for the death of King Agamemnon his father, the Furies
pursued him. Then Apollo, who had commanded him to do this deed, bade
him go to the land of Athens that he might be judged. And when he had
been judged and loosed, yet the Furies left him not. Wherefore Apollo
commanded that he should sail for the land of the Taurians and carry
thence the image of Artemis and bring it to the land of the Athenians,
and that after this he should have rest. Now when the two were come to
the place, they saw the altar that it was red with the blood of them
that had been slain thereon. And Orestes doubted how they might
accomplish the things for the which h