"Evening was coming on as we reached the shore, and the crew were sitting ready at their oars, only waiting for our arrival. They took us on board, rowed their galley into open water, and, a strong breeze springing up from the land, they hoisted sail, and were soon beyond the reach of pursuit. On the seventh day of the voyage the hand of vengeance fell upon the woman, and she was struck dead by an invisible blow. They flung her body to the fishes, and soon after we landed in Ithaca, where they sold me as a slave to Laertes." "Twas a sad fate for one of thy tender years," remarked Odysseus, when Eumæus had finished his story. "Nevertheless thou wast happy to find such a master--happier far than I, who am still a vagabond and a wanderer in my old age." The Meeting of Telemachus and Odysseus I Early next day Eumæus and Odysseus were preparing their morning meal, when they heard the sound of footsteps approaching the hut. The hounds pricked up their ears at the sound, and ran fawning round the new-comer, who was evidently well known to them. Odysseus called to Eumæus, who was busy drawing wine, and said: "Some friend of thine is coming; for the dogs fawn upon him, and bark not." Even as he spoke, a tall figure appeared in the open doorway, and his own dear son stood before him. Eumæus sprang up amazed, and let fall the pitcher into which he had been drawing the wine. Then with a cry of joy he ran to greet his young lord, kissed his hands and his face, and wept over him. Even as a father yearns over his only son, just returned from abroad after a ten years' absence, so Eumæus yearned over Telemachus, and hailed him as one returned from the dead. "Thou art come, Telemachus," he faltered at last, when his emotion suffered him to speak, "thou art come back again, dear as mine own life! Ne'er thought I to see thee again, after thou wast gone to Pylos. Sit thee down, that I may feast mine eyes upon thee; seldom dost thou come this way, but abidest in the house, to watch the wasteful deeds of the wooers." Odysseus, in his character of beggar, rose respectfully from his seat, to make room for the young prince, but Telemachus motioned him to resume his place, and sat down himself on a heap of brushwood, on which the swineherd had spread a fleece. While Eumæus was bringing bread and meat, and filling the cups with wine, Telemachus questioned him as to his mother, and learnt that no change had occurred in her relation to the wooers since he left Ithaca. Breakfast being over, Eumæus, in answer to his inquiry, told him the story of the supposed stranger. "I have done what I could for him," he added, when he had repeated what he had heard from Odysseus. "Now I deliver him unto thee, to do with him as thou wilt; all his hopes are in thy grace."