But there seemed to be a sound of voices in the air, a distant singing and a splash of oars. “Delirium,” he said calmly. “But how beautifully they sing! What is it? It is Greek! Why, it is the old Greek: ‘To thee, Zeus, blessings upon our timid flocks.’” His wondering lips formed the words which he had learned in school.
Then out of the darkness swam a boat, and in the boat were a steersman and four men at the oars, and the men were singing a hymn to Zeus, the Father of all and the King of all. To Lieutenant Douka nothing now seemed strange. To his shaken mind it seemed good to hear them, good to see them, good to find them loosing the straps which held him to the wrecked machine, and lifting him, in silence, into their boat.
Half an hour they rowed, when Douka caught across the level sea a hot breath of wind and the odour breathed from rye-fields in midsummer. “Land! It is land!” he exclaimed. “It is land—the White Island,” they answered gently. Both he and they had spoken in the classic Greek, the Greek of the old heroic days—not the bastard modern speech, larded with cruel words from the Turks and the rough idioms of northern barbarians. His tired eyes strained forward. Like night mist advancing upon them came the land, white like foam and very fair; and he heard cicadas chanting in the olive trees, and the warm breath of the night brought murmurs of song and the sibilant lapping of waves along a sandy shore.
All the island was white. A crescent moon stole out of cloudbanks and stared down on white sands, white balustrades, the white walls of palaces, white hills swelling against the darkness, silvery white olive groves, and slowly moving figures, clad all in white, pacing along the stairs.
A white crane beside the landing-place awoke, flapped his wings, and flew slowly off. Stately men and beautiful women thronged the quay and looked down curiously as the boat grated against the beach. “We have brought another from the wars,” the steersman called to them. “Welcome, friend,” those on the quay called gently; and “Thanks, friends,” Douka answered.
His tortured muscles knotted and failed as he tried to climb from the boat, and he fell back helplessly. Two of the oarsmen bent to him, lifted him like a child, and bore him between them up the long flights of steps. He had fainted.
When he awoke, his nude body lay on a warm marble slab, and two male attendants of the bath were kneading his aching flesh with perfumed hands. Their touch was like ice and like fire, and life seemed poured back into his body as into a wineskin as they worked. The hands stole over him, gradually more and more softly, exploring, soothing, stupefying. He slept.... He awoke once more, to find that they had placed him in what seemed to be a bed of live coals, in a white furnace which burned and leaped with light, but the crackling heat did not harm him, and again he slept.... He awoke in a high-roofed hall, and all around him was light and laughter, jets of fountains and music of slow streams; and the two attendants plunged him again and again into pools which received him as into a bed and covered him with warm floods.
Then he was rubbed with oils, and a garland was placed on his head. Two girls came, bringing him clothing—a blue-bordered peplos, a white mantle for his shoulders, and white sandals for his feet. “Drink,” they said, and they gave him a cup of barley crushed in water flavoured with mint.
“Now it is time for the feast,” they cried gayly. “Come to the feast.” And they led him through alleys bordered with white violets, hyacinths, roses, crocuses, and ghostly narcissi. In the cleft hills the olive groves gleamed like pools of moonlight; a waking dove gurgled drowsily, and the cicadas sang; and to left and right he heard faint snatches of old Greek hymns and saw white figures moving slowly along the sandy paths.