A noise below the cliff made him look up; the boat that had come from Abydos in the morning was starting back again. He watched it with a smile. It seemed to him a lifetime since he stepped from its deck upon the quay. Straight across to the other shore of this narrow arm of the sea was but a mile, but the slanting course to Abydos was full three miles' distance. Leander watched the boat as she left the quay with all his friends on board; then he could wait no longer; he looked up at Hero's tower; and there, in the top of the turret, flamed the signal light.
Small pause made Leander when once he had seen that.
Meanwhile, from her casement, Hero too had seen the boat putting out for Abydos, and believing Leander to be on board, gone from Sestos perhaps forever, the maiden sank down beside her open door, and covering her face with her hands she wept sore.
"Alas," she murmured, "he is gone, gone, gone! The boat has sailed away."
Leander, as he mounted the rocky stairs that led to the turret, overheard the maiden's cry, and, rushing forward, he flung himself on his knees beside her and softly kissed her fingers. Then, looking up with a start, the maiden would fain have seemed wroth at the sight of him, but it was too late. She had yielded at a touch, and Love was lord of all.
But on the morrow Leander must return to his home at Abydos. So he took ship early in the morning, finding a vessel that was sailing thither, and came to his own home again. His father noticed at once that the youth was wearing a sprig of myrtle and a scarf embroidered with the doves of Venus, and he chid him sharply.
"There are plenty of fair maids here, in thy own land," said he; "choose one of them and be happy with her, but woo not the priestess of Venus, or harm will come of it."
Leander made no answer to his father's admonition, but in his heart he knew that no other maiden could ever after content him, and that he must see Hero again, though he died for it.
After his father's admonition he dared not be seen crossing the strait by day, but when night fell he wandered by the sea, looking longingly across the dark water; then, far and faint, like a star through the clear night, he caught the glimmer of Hero's lamp.
"Alas!" cried Leander, "there lies the haven. Ah, would that I might steer safely home."