"Help, help! I drown in this foul stream!"
Onward she went till she came to the banks of the Styx, the mighty river of Hell, by which the great gods swear. Nine times it winds its snaky coils about the shores of Hades, and across its leaden waters Charon, the boatman of the dead, ferries backward and forward for ever. When he saw Psyche, he hailed her, and asked her for the coin. Answering him never a word, she held out one coin with her lips, and as he took it she shuddered. For his breath was as the north wind blowing across the snow, and his eyes were like a fish's, cold and dull.
"Welcome, sweet maiden. 'Tis not often we get a fare like thee, my boat and I;" and he laughed a hard, thin laugh, like the cracking of ice in a thaw, and beneath her weight the boat creaked in chorus.
Out into the stream he pushed with his pole, and then set to with his oar, and the rise and fall of the blade made never a sound in those dull leaden waters. As they neared the middle of the stream, Psyche saw two pale arms rise up above the waves, and the head of an old man, who cried out to her piteously,
"Help, help! I drown in this foul stream! Ah, for pity's sake put out one finger to save me!"
And Psyche turned aside to hide her tears; for the face was the face of her father, and his cries pierced through to her heart. As the boat passed by he sank with a moan beneath the waves, and she saw him no more.
At length they reached the shore of Hades, and she saw three paths before her leading upwards from the landing-stage. As she stood, not knowing which to take, the old man beckoned to her.
"I know not whither thou art bound, lady, for thou bearest not on thee the mark of the dead. The souls of the wicked I know, for about them fly the Furies, the avengers of sin, and hound them down the left-hand path, through Periphlegethon, the river of fire—down, down to the utmost depths of Tartarus. And the souls of the brave shine forth like stars in the darkness, and they take the right-hand path to the Elysian fields of light, where the breeze blows bright and fresh and the golden flowers are glowing. The middle path leadeth to the palace of pale Persephone, but that way only the gods and the children of the gods may go, or those who bear with them some token from the Immortals."