bestowed all safely they launched their ship, and started on their
voyage home.

But they were destined to pay dear for their good service to the
stranger. Poseidon marked their course with a jealous eye, and he went
to his brother, Zeus, and thus preferred his complaint: "Behold now
this man hath reached home in safety and honour, and brought the oath
to naught which I sware against him, when I vowed that he should
return to Ithaca in evil plight! Is my power to be defied, and my
worship slighted, by these Phæacians, who are of mine own race?"

"Thine honour is in thine own hands," answered Zeus. "Assert thy
power, lift up thy hand and strike, that all men may fear to infringe
thy privilege as lord of the sea."

Having thus obtained his brother's consent, Poseidon went and took his
stand by the harbour mouth at Phæacia, and as soon as the vessel drew
near he smote her with his hand, and turned her with all her crew into
a rock, which remains there, rooted in the sea, unto this day.

II

Twilight had not yielded to day when Odysseus awoke from his
trancelike sleep, and gazed in bewilderment around him. His senses had
not yet fully come back to him, and after his twenty years' absence he
knew not where he was. All seemed strange--the winding paths, the
harbour, the cliffs, and the very trees. With a cry of dismay he
sprang to his feet, and cried aloud: "Good lack, what land have I come
to now, and who be they that dwell there? Are they savage and rude, or
gentle and hospitable to strangers?" Then his eye fell on the gifts