Then they lay down to sleep under coverings of skins. Two men went to the great steering oar, three men watched amidship by the braces, and Ulysses himself wrapped a woollen cloak round him and went once more into the bows.
Alone there with the wind his thoughts once more went back to his far distant home. He thought with longing of his old father Laertes, of the child Telemachus playing in the marble courtyard of the sunny palace on the hill. A deep sigh shuddered out from his lips as his thoughts fell upon the lonely Queen Penelope. “Wife of mine,” he thought, “shall I ever lie beside you more? Is there silver in your bright hair now? Are your thoughts to mewards as mine to you? Perchance another rules in my palace and sits at my seat. Are your lips another’s now? The great tears are blinding me. Courage!”
Bending his head upon his breast, Ulysses prayed long and earnestly to his awful patroness, the Goddess Athene, that she would still keep ward over his fortunes and guide him safely home.
The night wore on and became very silent. The ship seemed to be moving swiftly and surely, though the wind had dropped and the voice of the waves was hushed. It seemed to the watcher in the bows that the ship was moving in the path of some strong current.
A curious white mist suddenly rolled over the still surface of the sea, thick and ghostly. The mast and sail, which was now drooping and lifeless, swayed through it like giant spectres. Ulysses could see none of his companions, but when he hailed the watch the voice of Phocion came back to him through the ghostly curtain, curiously thick and muffled.
“The mist thickens, my captain,” said the sailor. “Can you see aught ahead?”
“I can see nothing, Phocion,” shouted Ulysses; “the mist is like wool. But I think it is a land mist come out to meet us. There should be land ahead.”
“I hear no surf or the rolling of waves,” said Phocion. “May Zeus guide the boat, for mortal men are of no avail to-night.”
The ship moved on swiftly as if guided by invisible hands towards some goal, and still the expectant mariners heard no sound.
Quite suddenly, and without the slightest warning, a vivid copper-coloured flash of lightning illuminated the ship. For an instant in the hard lurid light Ulysses saw the whole of the vessel in a distinct picture.