As the King said so was it done, and Alcinous himself saw all the precious gifts safely stowed in the ship he had provided. Then they pledged one another in a parting cup, and Ulysses bade farewell to his generous and great-hearted hosts. Worn out with the emotions of those crowded hours he wrapped himself in his mantle and lay down to sleep in the stern, while the spread sails caught the freshening breeze and the galley flew over the waters. When the morning star shone bright in the heavens, the hills of Ithaca appeared like a cloud upon the horizon, and as day broke the ship drew into a little bay and grounded on the sands. Seeing that Ulysses was still wrapped in unbroken slumber, the sailors took him gently upon his couch and placed him on the rocky shore of his own Ithaca. Alcinous' royal gifts they placed beside him in the shade of a wild olive tree. Then they relaunched their bark and sped back across the main. Thus Ulysses reached once more his native land, but the end of his perils was not yet. THE HOMECOMING OF ULYSSES BY M. M. BIRD After ten long years of fighting Troy had fallen and the kings and captains had sailed away bearing home to Greece the spoils of the sacked city. Among these chieftains was Ulysses, lord of the small and rocky island of Ithaca, and none more famous than he for prowess in arms and yet more for the spirit of wisdom that the wise goddess Minerva put into the heart of her favored warrior. But while the other leaders straightway sought their homes, Ulysses roamed the seas for another ten years. The goddess Juno loved him not, and often drove him from his course; and he, ever yearning to gain knowledge of lands and men, encountered the strangest adventures in his wanderings, some of which you have already heard. But it is of his homecoming that I have now to tell. His perils and adventures were not ended yet, and without Minerva's aid he must surely have perished.