As she sat there quietly she heard the business of the household pursuing its usual course. Her father was whetting his sacrificial knife, her mother was busying herself with the hand-mill, and the female slave was chopping wood outside. Then her mother began to hum a hymn:
Zeus Ombrius, we pray thee
Gentle, fruitful rain to send,
Bless, refresh our native country,
Bid the torturing drought to end.
How well Byssa knew those notes! Her whole soul yearned for her parents—and now she must cause them so great a sorrow.
She dreaded the moment when her father would enter and see her sitting by the hearth, crime-stained and unclean. How gladly she would have warned him, that the surprise and shame might not kill the old man! But a single word from her lips might bring misfortune.
So she remained sitting silently, hiding her face with both hands. Then she heard a rustling, and a peculiar dry cough told her that her father had entered.
A convulsive shudder ran through her limbs. She dared not raise her eyes.
Ariston had come to put a vessel used to hold offerings in its place in a recess in the wall. He was clad in a grey garment, worn when he was occupied in the house. As he held the dish up to the light to see if it was bright his glance rested upon Byssa.
At the sight of his daughter, sitting humbly beside the hearth, he stared at her as though she were some terrible vision in a dream or a spectre risen from Hades. He could not believe what he beheld—then he perceived the knife thrust into the earth at her feet.
His face blanched almost as white as his snowy beard, the vessel fell from his hand, and he stood for a moment as though turned to stone. Then he pressed both hands on his breast.
“Horrible!” he faltered. “Byssa ... my gentle Byssa ... has shed blood!”