Now there lived on the little island of Seriphus, more than two hundred miles away, an honest fisherman named Dictys. It is often rough weather about there, and bad for fishing; but he was a brave and skilful sailor, and the weather, in order to keep him ashore, had to be very rough indeed. You may think, therefore, how bad the weather was when, for the first time in his life, he was unable to cast his nets for many days and nights together,--so many that he began to wonder what in the world he should do to get food for his wife and children. He used to lie awake listening to the howling wind and roaring sea, and then, going down to the beach, sought for food among the rocks and pools, thinking himself lucky if he could find a damaged crab or a bunch of eatable sea-weed. One morning while he was searching about with a heavy heart, he, passing a jutting rock, came suddenly upon a young and handsome woman, in clothes all torn and drenched by the waves, sitting with a baby in her lap, and forlornly rocking herself to and fro. Hard by were the broken timbers of a boat, which had doubtless been blown ashore by the wind. Dictys questioned her kindly, but she could not or would not answer; so, taking her by the hand, he led her to his cottage, where his wife, who was as good-hearted as he, made a big fire of wreck-wood, and gave the mother and child a share of what food they had left, though it could ill be spared. From their famished looks he judged that they must have been tossing about on the waves for many days. But though the woman thanked him gratefully, with tears in her eyes, she did not tell him anything of her story except what he could see for himself--that she had been lost at sea. "Perhaps she has lost her memory," he said to his wife, when their guests were sleeping, worn out with all they had gone through. "What is to be done? We do not even know who they are." "And look at their clothes!" said his wife. "For all their being in rags, they might have been made for a queen and a queen's son. But whoever they are," she said with a sigh, "we can't let them perish of hunger and cold. I never saw such a beautiful child--not even among our own." Dictys sighed still more deeply, for to be burdened with two more mouths to feed in those bad times was a serious thing, even though his heart also bled for the misery of the mother and the beauty of the boy.... "I have it, wife!" he exclaimed at last. "As soon as they are rested, and as I've nothing else to do, worse luck, I'll take them to the king. He'll do something for them, I'm sure. And if he doesn't, why, we must do what we can, that's all, and hope for better times."