man's face fell. The gladness went out of his eyes, his features grew
older with anxiety and doubt, and with longing for tidings of his home.

No man ever loved his home more than he, for this was Odysseus, the
son of Laertes--whom some call Ulysses--returned from his unsung second
wandering. The whole world has heard the tale of his first voyage, how
he was tossed for ten years on the sea after the taking of Troy, how
he reached home at last, alone and disguised as a beggar; how he found
violence in his house, how he slew his foes in his own hall, and won his
wife again. But even in his own country he was not permitted to rest,
for there was a curse upon him and a labour to be accomplished. He must
wander again till he reached the land of men who had never tasted salt,
nor ever heard of the salt sea. There he must sacrifice to the Sea-God,
and then, at last, set his face homewards. Now he had endured that
curse, he had fulfilled the prophecy, he had angered, by misadventure,
the Goddess who was his friend, and after adventures that have never yet
been told, he had arrived within a bowshot of Ithaca.

He came from strange countries, from the Gates of the Sun and from White
Rock, from the Passing Place of Souls and the people of Dreams.

But he found his own isle more still and strange by far. The realm of
Dreams was not so dumb, the Gates of the Sun were not so still, as the
shores of the familiar island beneath the rising dawn.

This story, whereof the substance was set out long ago by Rei, the
instructed Egyptian priest, tells what he found there, and the tale of
the last adventures of Odysseus, Laertes' son.

The ship ran on and won the well-known haven, sheltered from wind by two