“After this had gone on for several minutes the unfortunate Zante-man uttered one last piercing shriek, ran to the side of the ship and dived into the sea. So strong was the wretch’s conviction that for a neck he had nothing but a gaping bloody hole with three bloated worms hanging out of it that it infected most of us who watched his dive; so that what we saw when he disappeared — and nothing of him ever reappeared — was a pool of blood on the water, with what looked like a blur of red worms squirming about within it.”
“And you really and truly saw all that?”
“I really and truly saw all that,” replied Akron.
Then it was that they both saw Odysseus beckoning to them and when they reached him they were, for the twentieth time that eventful evening, impressed to the depths of their souls by the old wanderer’s self-control.
The excited priest of Orpheus, now entirely naked, was waving his long thin white arms, on which there was not a single black hair and which the moon seemed determined to turn to ivory. The madman was calling upon the whole universe to join him in his desperate incantation to Nothingness!
Not all the words of the priest’s incantation reached Nisos; but those that did so sounded to him somewhat like this:
“Nothing! O Nothing! Thou god of all gods, thou creator of Silence!
God of all gods, and creator of Silence, thy daughter!
Nothing! O holy Nothing! O sacred Nothing, and Silence!
Swallow, great Nothing, all else but thyself and thy daughter!
Swallow air, swallow water, swallow fire, swallow earth and her children!
Swallow land, swallow sea, swallow all that in land and sea dwelleth!
Let the whole world be empty of all but thyself and thy daughter
Empty of all but thyself and thy daughter and darling!
Let nothing move in the height or the depth or the length or the breadth,
Save only thyself, great Nothing, thyself and thy daughter,
Only thyself and Silence, thy daughter and darling.
Let nothing sound in the earth or the air or the water or fire;
Let the whole world be empty of all but thyself and thy daughter,
All but thyself and Silence thy daughter and darling.”
Nisos expected that Odysseus would react in some definite way to this nihilistic incantation; but he behaved as if he had not heard a word of what the Priest had been chanting, and as soon as Enorches realized that he was totally alone in his worship of Non-Existence he clung to the mast and became absolutely silent and still.
Meanwhile Odysseus had begun a long geological rigmarole on the chemical constituents of various kinds of scoriae substance; and he did this, Nisos decided, so as to reduce Enorches to the Nothingness he worshipped.
“It is an up-thrusting, up-pointing rock‚” Odysseus concluded, “a rock of black basalt, or of some blue-black adamantine stone, Master Akron. Have you heard what I’ve been saying in all this breaking of waves and splashing of water?”
Akron, followed closely by Nisos, who gave a grave little bow when he met the king’s glance, declared that he’d heard perfectly every word.
“How well he lies!” thought Nisos. “I couldn’t have done better myself. But no! He must have heard. What an ear he’s got!”
“Yes, O great King,” said Akron firmly. “You’ve said that we shall soon reach an up-pointing black rock, about a dozen feet inland from the island’s edge, and that it is to this rock that you wish me to make fast the ship with our newest and strongest length of rope; for it is from there when this curst moonlight — have mercy on me, Selene! — is driven from the heaven by the sun, that you wish, my king, to make your first experimental dive with the Helmet of Proteus. Have I got your command clear, my lord Odysseus?” And the king murmured that he had. It struck Nisos however that the royal voice had grown perceptibly weaker since Pegasos had come and gone; but as the old man, after haying risen to his feet for some minutes, had now re-seated himself on his pile of ropes, this change of tone may have been without any special significance.
“But how,” thought Nisos, “how can the old man endure all this?” And then, as in obedience to a whisper from Akron he picked up the blanket that the Priest of Orpheus had dropped and wrapt it round the fellow’s shoulders, he noticed that Enorches gave him a very queer look. All the same the priest wrapped the thing round himself with obvious relief and crouched down again, this time with his back to the mast.
“Stay and watch him for a while, will you, son?” whispered Akron. “I’ve got to go down now to the oarsmen to talk to them about this rock to which we have to tie up the ship for the night. And keep an eye, sonny, will you”—here Akron moved close enough to add this in an extremely low whisper—“on Zeuks, while I’m down below? He seems to think that as long as he’s embracing that girl he’s keeping her from some mischief she naturally will be up to the moment he lets her go! But it’s much more about himself than about that poor worried-looking waif from Troy that I’m concerned.
“You know the man a lot better than I do; in fact, as far as I can see, you’re the only one aboard our old ‘Teras’ who knows anything about him at all. He’s a funny-looking fellow right enough; and he’s got a look as if at any moment he might break out into a roar of laughter that would burst his skin! I don’t like the look of him and I don’t trust him. So keep an eye on him, son, will you? They’ll be calling us down before very long to the old man’s cabin for supper. I pray we’ll be reaching this confounded rock he talks about before that’s ready. But maybe not! Anyway I’m off now. I’ll be seeing you later. At supper, if not before! I won’t ask you now how you suppose the old man knew about this same ‘pointed rock’ to which we’re to moor the ‘Teras’? He can’t have been here before, can he? Well! See you soon again, son! But keep your wits about you. I leave the old man, so to say, in your care. See you soon!”
Both pairs of ladies, Pontopereia and Eione in their cabin, and Nausikaa and Okyrhöe in theirs, were, in a leisurely, negligent, nonchalant way, preparing for the passengers’ supper in the much larger cabin dedicated to the comfort of Odysseus.
“What do you really feel, Eione darling, when you see that queer-looking individual Zeuks, holding that grave, sweet Trojan woman on his knee?”
Pontopereia held her own not very shapely left leg balanced across the knee of her other while she carefully adjusted her left sandal so that a particular wrinkle in its leather shouldn’t hurt a bunion from which she was suffering.
Eione screwed up her forehead, but gave her friend a very straight look.
“It wouldn’t suit you, my beautiful one, to feel as I feel,” Eione replied, “for you’re a clever girl from a big city and are born with an intellect of your own; and if a man began fooling about with you you’d either want him to come to the point, take your maidenhead, as they call it, and have done with it, or to let you alone and come back to listening while you explained your philosophy to him.