“I?” The maiden blushed, and springing from the bough, answered carelessly, “I suppose I lied like the rest.” And she drew him hastily away to join a group of dancing maidens. Yet, with a look round at him, she laid her finger on her lip.
It was high time, for an ancient dame approached Ovid with a friendly grimace and began—“Why, see! our great poet! Is he too, like us, banished from the earth and the under-world alike? Poor Ovid, art thou thyself metamorphosed? What a trick they have played us clever people, have they not? Were we to blame for being wiser than the rest? And thy sweet companion! I have known and loved her this long, long while.”
“Thou liest!” cried Colubra, beside herself.
In the twinkling of an eye the old dame was changed into a huge snake, which darted hissing upon the young girl, coiled round her, and would surely have throttled her, had not Ovid used all his strength to wrestle with the noxious creature, and tearing it off, cast it far away from them. The maiden kissed his hands in a passion of gratitude, and the dancers crowned him with roses and myrtle. Presently a little boy ran up to him and cried in pleading tones—
“Take me away with thee; oh! take me away, and I will be as truthful as the sunbeams and as transparent as the clearest brook. Only take me with thee. I have seen that thou art a hero, and I—I was once a hero too; I was so strong that all my playmates feared to feel my fists!” While he yet spoke a little sharp, forked tongue shot out between his rosy lips, and before the poet’s very eyes he was changed into a tiny slow-worm, that wound itself about his feet.
Presently a little boy ran up to him and cried in pleading tones, “Take me away with thee.”
“And canst thou not speak truth for one hour, thou miserable little worm?” cried Colubra angrily. Yet Ovid looked compassionately upon the tiny snake, and did not move for a long time, for fear of hurting it.
But his friend was in haste to draw him from the spot: “Dost thou not see the sun is setting? Methinks I already hear the keel of Charon’s boat rushing through the smooth water. Thou must away from here. The reality here is ugly, terribly ugly. Thou shalt only keep the memory of the beautiful dream.”
Still Ovid lingered. He plucked blossoms and threw them to the laughing girls; he stood gazing out over the sea, that was now bathed in a flood of purple and golden light. But presently, like the very night itself, a ship with dusky sails moved silently towards the shore, spreading darkness around it as it came. The ship was large, but only one boatman stood therein, an old man with snowy beard and sunken eyes. His bony hands held a huge pole, with which he steered the ship, till he brought its keel grating upon the shore. Now he raised his pole aloft, so that the trickling water-drops shone like pure gold in the last rays of sunshine.