"Out yonder, where the white highway leads to Larissa, in the plain. There, on the outskirts of the city, thou wilt find the tomb of the kings of Pheræ, where they are laying her."
"Is there no shorter way I can go and reach her quickly?"
"There is a footpath by the fields that I will show thee."
"Come, then, straightway. I must go and lie in wait for the black Lord of Death. He will come up to drink of the blood that is poured out for him beside the tomb. Then I will fall upon him from my ambush and wrestle with him and prevail, and he shall give me back Alcestis. Even if I must go down to Hades and fetch her, she shall come back. She is too fair and too noble to pass her young life in the dark underworld."
The old man marvelled at his words; but he went out with him, and showed him the footpath across the fields, and stood watching him till he passed out of sight.
"Verily, we talk and weep," he muttered to himself, "and he laughs and acts. He is worth ten of us."
XI
Meanwhile the funeral procession was coming back along the highway. As they came into the city each man departed to his own house; only Admetus with his near friends and kinsmen returned to the palace to celebrate the funeral feast. Whilst they were waiting for the feast to be prepared, Admetus stayed outside alone in the court. He sat down on one of the stone seats beneath the colonnade, and buried his face in his hands. He could not bring himself to go into the house, where everything would remind him of the wife he had lost—the chair in which she used to sit, empty now; the fire on the altar burning low, and the ashes scattered about, because she was there no more to feed the dying flames. The full force of the sacrifice came home to him now, and he shuddered as he thought of the deed he had done.
"I have slain her—I have slain her whom I loved, to save myself from death, because I loved my life, and hated to go to the dark world below. Woe is me!" he cried. "The sun is turned to darkness and the earth to Hades since she went away. I grasped at the substance, and all the while I followed after a shade. Fool that I was to upbraid them who refused to die for me and cast her death in their teeth! She is dead, dead—slain by my hand alone. Nevermore can I look my people in the face, nor glory in the deeds I have done. The shame of my cowardice will blot them all out, and I shall slink like a cur among my fellows. Would that I had died with her!"
Thus he sat making fruitless moan. His friends came out and tried to comfort him and bring him into the house, but he sent them away, and would not go in. All the evening he sat there alone till darkness began to fall. At length he felt a heavy hand laid upon his shoulder, and, looking up, he saw Heracles standing beside him.