Then the Wanderer shuddered, for out of the grey mound peeped the
charred black bones of the dead. He drew near, and, lo! the whole heap
was of nothing else than the ashes of men and women. Death had been busy
here: here many people had perished of a pestilence. They had all been
consumed on one funeral fire, while they who laid them there must have
fled, for there was no sign of living man. The doors gaped open, and
none entered, and none came forth. The house was dead, like the people
who had dwelt in it.

Then the Wanderer paused where once the old hound Argos had welcomed him
and had died in that welcome. There, unwelcomed, he stood, leaning on
his staff. Then a sudden ray of the sun fell on something that glittered
in the heap, and he touched it with the end of the staff that he had in
his hand. It slid jingling from the heap; it was the bone of a forearm,
and that which glittered on it was a half-molten ring of gold. On the
gold lambda these characters were engraved:

IKMALIOS MEPOIESEN

(Icmalios made me.)

At the sight of the armlet the Wanderer fell on the earth, grovelling
among the ashes of the pyre, for he knew the gold ring which he had
brought from Ephyre long ago, for a gift to his wife Penelope. This
was the bracelet of the bride of his youth, and here, a mockery and a
terror, were those kind arms in which he had lain. Then his strength was
shaken with sobbing, and his hands clutched blindly before him, and he
gathered dust and cast it upon his head till the dark locks were defiled
with the ashes of his dearest, and he longed to die.