When they came to the abode of Cyane, the nymph rose up from her crystal pool and perceived Pluto. "No farther shalt thou go!" she cried. "A maiden must be asked of her parents, not stolen away against her mother's will!" For answer the wrathful son of Saturn lashed his foam-flecked steeds. He hurled his royal scepter into the very bed of the stream. Forthwith the earth opened, making a way down into Tartarus; and the chariot vanished through the yawning cave, leaving Cyane dissolved in tears of grief for the ravished maiden and her own slighted domain. Meanwhile Ceres, anxious mother, had heard her daughter's cry for help. Through every clime and every sea she sought and sought in vain. From dawn to dewy eve she sought, and by night she pursued the quest with torches kindled by the flames of Ætna. Then, by Enna's lake, she found the scattered flowers and shreds of the torn robe, but further traces there were none. Weary and overcome with thirst, she chanced on a humble cottage and begged at the door for a cup of water. The goodwife brought out a pitcher of home-made barley wine, which she drained at a draught. An impudent boy jeered at the goddess, and called her "toss-pot." Dire and swift was the punishment that overtook him. Ceres sprinkled over him the few drops that remained; and, changed into a speckled newt, he crept away into a cranny. Too long would be the tale of all the lands and seas where the goddess sought for her child. When she had visited every quarter of the world she returned once more to Sicily. Cyane, had she not melted away in her grief, might have told all. Still, however, on Cyane's pool the girdle of Proserpine was found floating, and thus the mother knew that her daughter had been carried off by force. When this was brought home to her, she tore her hair and beat her breast. Not as yet did she know the whole truth, but she vowed vengeance against all the earth, and on Sicily most of all, the land of her bereavement. No longer, she complained, was ungrateful man worthy of her gifts of golden grain. A famine spread through all the land. Plowshares broke while they were turning the clods, the oxen died of pestilence, and blight befell the green corn. An army of birds picked up the seed as fast as it was sown; thistles, charlock, and tares sprang up in myriads and choked the fields before the ear could show itself. Then Arethusa, the river nymph, who had traveled far beneath the ocean to meet in Sicily her lover Alpheus, raised her head in pity for the starving land, and cried to Ceres: "O mourning mother, cease thy useless quest, and be not angered with a land which is faithful to thee. While I was wandering by the river Styx I beheld thy Proserpine. Her looks were grave, yet not as of one forlorn. Take comfort! She is a queen, and chiefest of those who dwell in the world of darkness. She is the bride of the infernal king."