icing over each other and telling the things that had
befallen them, Pylades said, "Greetings of friends after long parting
are well; but we must needs consider how best we shall escape from
this land of the barbarians."

But Iphigenia answered, "Yet nothing shall hinder me from knowing how
fareth my sister Electra."

"She is married," said Orestes, "to this Pylades, whom thou seest."

"And of what country is he and who is his father?"

"His father is Strophius the Phocian; and he is a kinsman, for his
mother was the daughter of Atreus and a friend also such as none other
is to me."

Then Orestes set forth to his sister the cause of his coming to the
land of the Taurians. And he said, "Now help me in this, my sister,
that we may bear away the image of the goddess; for so doing I shall
be quit of my madness, and thou wilt be brought to thy native country
and the house of thy father shall prosper. But if we do it not, then
shall we perish altogether."

And Iphigenia doubted much how this thing might be done. But at the
last she said, "I have a device whereby I shall compass the matter. I
will say that thou art come hither, having murdered thy mother, and
that thou canst not be offered for a sacrifice till thou art purified
with the water of the sea. Also that thou hast touched the image, and
that this also must be purified in like manner. And the image I myself
will bear to the sea; for, indeed, I only may touch it with my hands.
And of this Pylades also I will say that he is polluted in like manner
with thee. So shall we three win our way to the ship. And that this be
ready it will be thy care to provide."

And when she had so said, she prayed to Artemis: "Great goddess, that
didst bring me safe in days past from Aulis, bring me now also, and
these that are with me, safe to the land of Greece, so that men may
count thy brother Apollo to be a true prophet. Nor shouldst thou be
unwilling to depart from this barbarous land and to dwell in the fair
city of Athens."

After this came King Thoas, inquiring whether they had offered the
strangers for sacrifice and had duly burnt their bodies with fire. To
him Iphigenia made answer, "These were unclean sacrifices that thou
broughtest to me, O King."

"How didst thou learn this?"

"The image of the goddess turned upon her place of her own accord and
covered also her face with her hands."

"What wickedness, then, had these strangers wrought?"

"They slew their mother