Once, while we were lying half asleep, watching the pine tufts weaving against blue sky, and hearing them sough softly, the breeze brought from far off a high, wild, birdlike scream; a long shrilling upward and upward, falling away to silence. But by now the wood was all murmurs and kisses and little scuffles and shrieks, and they filled the stillness quickly. I too reached out for the girl beside me. It was no use to think. There had been nothing in his eyes a Hellene could speak to.
The magic time of Dionysos slipped by unreckoned; and the sun riding homeward clothed the hills with gold. Those who were soberest called out that dark would overtake us on the mountain if we did not go. So we went down under the great sky arched clear and yellow over the purple islands; singing old songs, tipping the bottoms of the wine-jars, and holding our girls’ hands till the farms began and they slipped away.
Already down in Naxos the lamps were burning. The long walk had sweated out my drunkenness; my limbs were full of youth’s kindly weariness, my eyes heavy for sleep. I looked down at the Palace bright with torches, thinking that when I met Ariadne there, I would ask no questions and answer none, and then we should keep friends. She would be in her bath by now; I thought pleasantly myself of warm water and sweet oils.
When dusk was falling, and the evening clouds were touched with fire below, we were on a farm road which twisted through the olive groves. The girls had all gone home, and the songs were dying away. As we walked in twos and threes, the youth beside me pulled my arm, and went off the road into the field. Everywhere the men withdrew into the shadows; and, looking back, I saw a white flitting, as of ghosts, come slowly down the hillside, winding half hidden through the groves. The men sat down, in places under the trees that were not sown with barley. I looked at the youth who had signed to me; but he only said under his breath, “It is better not to meet them.”
I sat, and waited, watching the road through the twilight; no one had said it was forbidden to look. Presently they came in sight, wavering here and there, stumbling and wandering as if in sleep. Some had their masks still on; from lolling necks and shoulders, fierce faces of lynx and leopardess stared wide-eyed; but sometimes they hung by a loose string, and one saw the parted lips drooping with weariness, the half-closed eyelids. The pipes and cymbals trailed from their limp hands; their long hair hung forward, tangled with heather and matted thick with blood.
They were stippled with blood like the spotted panther; their bare arms, their breasts, their clothes. Over their feet it was powdered with pale dust; their hands were dark with it, clotting the fingers and streaked above the wrists. The poles of the thyrses, which dragged behind them like the spears of wounded men, were dabbled all over with bloodstained hand-prints. I covered my mouth with my hand, and turned my eyes away. The Naxian had been right; there could be no luck in looking nearer.
They seemed a long time passing. I heard the dragging feet, the stones kicked blindly, the little gasps as those who tripped caught hold of others. Then the sound drew away, and looking again I saw them melt into the shadows at the bend of the road. I was getting up when I heard wheels coming, and waited to see.
It was the gilded chariot, going home empty. It was lightly made, and two men pulled it easily, one each side the pole. They had taken the heavy bull-horns from their heads, but still wore their leopardskins, having no other garment. They plodded along, muttering shortly sometimes to each other, like men after a long day’s plowing; two dark-haired Naxians, a youth and a bearded man.
The chariot passed, and no one followed; that was the end, and I rose to go. Then, when I was on my feet, I saw into the back of it. It was not empty after all. A body lay on its floor, jogging limply with the jolts of the rough road. I saw a torn blue skirt, and a little arched foot rouged at the toes and heel.
I ran out from the trees, and seized the rail of the car; the men feeling my weight on it stopped and turned. The younger said, “It is not lucky, stranger, what you are doing.” The elder said, “Let her alone till morning. In the sanctuary she will not come to harm.”
“Wait!” I said. “I will see her, lucky or not. What has been done to her? Is she dead?”
They stared at each other. “Dead?” said the young one. “No. Why dead?” And the elder, “She will take no hurt, man, from our Naxos wine. It is all good, and we keep the best for today. Leave her be; her dream ought not to be troubled. While her sleep holds, she is still the bride of the god.”
From his way of speaking, I guessed he was a priest. I guessed too, I don’t know how, that he had had her on the mountain. I turned away from him, and leaned into the car.
She lay curled on her side, against the bull-horn headdresses which the men had taken off to ease their brows. Her tumbled hair was like a sleeping child’s, but for the sticky points it ended in. Her eyelids lay smooth and full and glossy over her eyes, and against the dark lashes her cheek bloomed softly. By those I knew her, and by the tender breast cradled upon her arm. I could not see her mouth, for the blood all over it. It was open, for she was breathing heavily; I saw her teeth, even, crusted with dried blood. As I bent over her, its stale reek met me mixed with the smell of wine.
After a while I reached out, and touched her shoulder where her torn bodice bared it. She sighed, and murmured something I could not hear, and her eyelids fluttered. She stretched out her hand.
It had lain closed on her breast, like a child’s who has taken her toy to bed with her. Now when she tried to spread it out, the blood on it had stuck between the fingers, and she could not part them. But she opened her palm, and then I saw what she was holding.
For almost a year I had sat by the Cretan ring, and watched the bull-dance when I was not dancing myself. I had watched the death of Sinis Pinebender, and kept the face of a warrior. But now I turned away and leaned upon an olive tree, and almost threw the heart up from my body. I heaved and shivered in the chill of evening; my teeth chattered, and water poured from my eyes.
At last I felt a hand upon my shoulder. It was the bearded priest. He was a well-made man, brown-bodied and dark-eyed; his limbs were scratched and bruised from running about the hills, and stained with wine. He looked at me sadly, as I had looked at the King last night, not knowing what to say to me. Our eyes met, like the eyes of men at sea who would hail each other, but the wind carries the sound away. I turned my face, ashamed he should see me moved.
Presently I heard something, and looked round. The youth with the pole upon his shoulder was walking off with the chariot. I took a few steps after it on the road. My belly felt cold, and my legs were made of lead. The priest walked with me, and did not hinder me. Then when I paused he stopped, and stretched out his hand.
“Go in peace, Hellene guest. It is grief to a man to look on mysteries he does not understand. To yield unquestioning, not to know too much; that is the wisdom of the god. She is of our blood; she understands it.”
I remembered many things: the bloodied horns of bulls, the voice in the burning Labyrinth. She had told me in our first night she was all Cretan. Yet not all; she was Pasiphae’s daughter too.