With laughter and tears the colonists set forth in tiny rowboats and climb aboard. Theria as œkist, a figure of white fluttering garments, standing on the deck of her ship, lights the incense upon the little altar there. The oarmasters lift their hands as one would start a chorus, the flute player begins to play a wild, rhythmic tune. Now a shout! and the three tiers of oars either side the ship lift—grating, groaning, creaking—a mighty noise. Then all together, like huge powerful wings, they smite down upon the water which whitens into spray.
Forth springs the trireme like a hound, half lost in its own glittering spume. Up go the yellow sails of the round boats. A cry of love and longing goes up from the dear ones ashore, and the colonists are off!
All that day the little fleet coasted along the Gulf of Corinth, one of the most picturesque inland waters in the world. At night they drew up their ships upon the shore and slept under the stars. Sunrise saw them off again, the round boats using their long sweeps in that still, golden hour.
All the way, as was the Greek fashion, they hugged the shore along Ætolia, Akarnania, Epeiros, keeping within the islands for safety, arriving at Corcyra, that western outlook-isle of Greece, the fourth day.
From Corcyra they made the bold voyage across the Ionian Sea to Italy.
Theria’s mind, so cultivated yet unspoiled, so educated yet starved, viewed all things with an eagerness usual to a child of seven. Partly her cloistering had done this, partly it was a racial characteristic. The Hellene was always young, and in this the Nikander family were true Hellenes.
Day after day she stood at the prow, never tiring of the broad and changing sea, of the islands, white peaked or lying like brazen shields on the glancing deep, of the dolphins that played about the ship—symbols of her god—of the rise of the moon like a full-opened lonely flower above the waste of waters. She asked questions of Eëtíon constantly like a child, and who so glad as he to answer? Eëtíon was her Odysseus who knew all the wonders of travel, its dangers and its joys.
In the Gulf of Tarentum they met storms which drove the fleet apart. One of the ships was lost and Theria wept for it as for close kindred. They reached Italy, coasted down to the point of it, sighted Sicily the great Isle of Snowy Peaks and came at evening, as is the wondrous way of ships, into the tiny bay of their desire.