wept and were brokenhearted.

"I will come again, father," he said.

"I will hope that you may," said the old king. "If when this ship
returns, I see a white sail spread above the black one, then I shall
know that you are alive and well; but if I see only the black one, it
will tell me that you have perished."

And now the vessel was loosed from its moorings, the north wind filled
the sail, and the seven youths and seven maidens were borne away over
the sea, towards the dreadful death which awaited them in far distant
Crete.

III. THE PRINCESS.

At last the black ship reached the end of its voyage. The young people
were set ashore, and a party of soldiers led them through the streets
towards the prison, where they were to stay until the morrow. They did
not weep nor cry out now, for they had outgrown their fears. But with
paler faces and firm-set lips, they walked between the rows of Cretan
houses, and looked neither to the right nor to the left. The windows and
doors were full of people who were eager to see them.

"What a pity that such brave young men should be food for the Minotaur,"
said some.

"Ah, that maidens so beautiful should meet a fate so sad!" said others.

And now they passed close by the palace gate, and in it stood King Minos
himself, and his daughter Ariadne, the fairest of the women of Crete.

"Indeed, those are noble young fellows!" said the king.

"Yes, too noble to feed the vile Minotaur," said Ariadne.

"The nobler, the better," said the king; "and yet none of them can
compare with your lost brother Androgeos."

Ariadne said no more; and yet she thought that she had never seen any
one who looked so much like a hero as young Theseus. How tall he was,
and how handsome! How proud his eye, and how firm his step! Surely there
had never been his like in Crete.

All through that night Ariadne lay awake and thought of the matchless
hero, and grieved that he should be doomed to perish; and then she began
to lay plans for setting him free. At the earliest peep of day she
arose, and while everybody else was asleep, she ran out of the palace
and hurried to the prison. As she was the king's daughter, the jailer
opened the door at her bidding and allowed her to go in. There sat the
seven youths and the seven maidens on the ground, but they had not lost
hope. She took Theseus aside and whispered to him. She told him of a
plan which she had made to save him; and Theseus promised her that, w