XV.
The day was far advanced when Lyrcus and his wife reached Kranaai. Weighed down by the sin of murder, Byssa could not enter the places of general assembly and it was only with difficulty and by circuitous paths that she approached the house of her father, the priest Ariston.
The outer room was empty—Byssa entered and silently seated herself beside the hearth. Lyrcus thrust the bloody knife he had brought from the cave into the earth at her feet.
Then he turned to go; but ere he did so fixed his eyes on Byssa with a half-anxious, half-pitying look. He would gladly have extended his hand to her, uttered a word of encouragement. But he dared not. A fugitive murderer, until the rite of purification had been performed, was like a person plague-stricken.
Lyrcus silently departed. Byssa hid her face in her hands, tears trickled through her fingers.
As she sat there quietly she heard the business of the household pursuing its usual course. Her father was whetting his sacrificial knife, her mother was busying herself with the hand-mill, and the female slave was chopping wood outside. Then her mother began to hum a hymn:
Zeus Ombrius, we pray thee
Gentle, fruitful rain to send,
Bless, refresh our native country,
Bid the torturing drought to end.
How well Byssa knew those notes! Her whole soul yearned for her parents—and now she must cause them so great a sorrow.
She dreaded the moment when her father would enter and see her sitting by the hearth, crime-stained and unclean. How gladly she would have warned him, that the surprise and shame might not kill the old man! But a single word from her lips might bring misfortune.
So she remained sitting silently, hiding her face with both hands. Then she heard a rustling, and a peculiar dry cough told her that her father had entered.
A convulsive shudder ran through her limbs. She dared not raise her eyes.
Ariston had come to put a vessel used to hold offerings in its place in a recess in the wall. He was clad in a grey garment, worn when he was occupied in the house. As he held the dish up to the light to see if it was bright his glance rested upon Byssa.
At the sight of his daughter, sitting humbly beside the hearth, he stared at her as though she were some terrible vision in a dream or a spectre risen from Hades. He could not believe what he beheld—then he perceived the knife thrust into the earth at her feet.
His face blanched almost as white as his snowy beard, the vessel fell from his hand, and he stood for a moment as though turned to stone. Then he pressed both hands on his breast.
“Horrible!” he faltered. “Byssa ... my gentle Byssa ... has shed blood!”
Byssa’s mother, Strybele, appeared in the doorway. Uttering a loud cry, she rushed with outstretched arms toward her daughter.
Ariston hastily stepped between them.
“Come!” he said, and with resolute authority led his wife out of the room.
“Ariston,” whispered the poor mother, “utter no curses, no evil words. Remember, she is your daughter.”
When Ariston returned he was clad in his priestly robes. A long white garment fell to his feet, and he wore around his brow a chaplet.
He approached Byssa. In the deep stillness of the house the mother was heard sobbing and praying within.
Ariston, raising his voice, said with great solemnity:
“Zeus was, Zeus is, and Zeus will be; oh, supreme god Zeus! In thy name, Catharsius, cleanser from all guilt, in thy name Meilichius, all-merciful one, I say to ... this woman....”
At the last word his voice trembled.
“This is thy command, oh Zeus. Purification shall be given to him who comes humbly to ask for purification. No one must ask his name, no one must inquire the name of him who is slain; for it is seemly to keep silence in the presence of the unclean. But no one, neither man nor woman, shall refuse to yield him the blessing of purification.”
Ariston then brought the animal to be sacrificed, a tiny sucking-pig. The blood flowed from a wound in the neck.
At the sight of the red stream he fixed an accusing glance on his daughter’s head and then raised his eyes to Heaven, as though seeking refuge from inexpressible agony.
“Woman,” he murmured, “prepare!”
Byssa stretched out her arms.
Ariston held the animal before her and let the blood stream down over her hands, repeating in a low voice:
“Blood expiates blood.”
Then he brought a basin of consecrated water in which Byssa’s mother, to strengthen its effect, had placed a brand from the altar before the house.
Invoking Zeus as the god of purification and the guardian of those who prayed, he washed Byssa’s hands and arms. When this was accomplished he burned the cakes and other offerings, first pouring on them as a libation water mixed with honey—meantime praying that Zeus would restrain the wrath of the goddess of vengeance and show himself merciful and gracious.
Then, taking Byssa’s hand, he drew her up from the hearth.
“My daughter,” he said, “the blood is expiated and the uncleanness washed away with consecrated water. Thou art no longer an outcast, odious to the gods. Thou canst again enter the places of assemblage and the temples consecrated to the deities; thou canst once more mingle among thy companions, amid bond and free. But this is not all. Now that thou hast obtained the forgiveness of the gods, thou must be answerable to men....”
Strybele anxiously entered, approached Ariston, and seized his arm.
“What will be done to her?” she asked.
“Justice.”
“Will she be punished?”
“Yes, if she has sinned.”
With these words Ariston led his daughter into the inner room. A cold perspiration stood on his brow, and the muscles around his lips quivered. He who had cleansed Byssa from blood did not yet know whose blood she had shed.
“Speak!” he said, “and conceal nothing from us.”
Strybele silently pressed her daughter’s hand.
Byssa raised her calm black eyes to her father’s face and answered:
“I have nothing to conceal.”
Then she related the expedition to the fountain, the abduction, and the stay in the cave on Mt. Hymettus. But when she spoke of her appeal to Zeus and the sacred tremor with which, as swiftly as the lightning, she had obeyed the god’s sign, Ariston’s eyes sparkled and, bending low with his arms folded on his breast, he said:
“Zeus deserts no one. But praised be thou, my daughter, for having heard the god’s voice. In saving yourself, you slew the Cychreans’ foe. The nation to which thy husband belongs owes thee thanks and honor.”
Strybele pressed Byssa to her bosom and mother and daughter, clasped in each other’s embrace, wept long together.