Page:Half a hundred hero tales of Ulysses and the men of old.djvu/40

 26 you. Why should you flee as the trembling doe from the lion, the lamb from the hungry wolf, the dove from the pursuing falcon? It is a god who loves and follows. It is a god you flee from, a god who loves, and will not be denied."

Still she fled and still he followed; he the loving, she the loath, he pleading and she deaf to his prayers. As a hare doubles to elude the greyhound that is gaining on her, the flying maid turned back and sought thus to elude her pursuer. In vain she strove against a god. Terror winged her feet, but there is no escape from Love. He gained ground upon her, and now she felt his hot breath on her hair; his arm was just outstretched to clasp her.

The nymph grew pale with mortal terror. Spent with her long, hard race for freedom, she cast a despairing look around her. No help was to be seen, but near by ran the waters of a little brook. "Oh, help!" she cried, "if water gods are deities indeed. Earth, I adjure you, gape and entomb this unhappy wretch; or change my form, the cause of all my fear!"

The kind earth heard her frenzied prayer. The frightened nymph found her feet benumbed with cold and rooted to the ground. As Apollo's arms were flung about her a filmy rind grew over her body, her outflung arms were changed to leafy boughs, her hair, her fingers, all were turned to shuddering leaves; only the smoothness of her skin remained.

"Gods and men, we are all deluded thus!" For a maiden he clasped a laurel tree, and his hot lips were pressed upon the cold and senseless bark.

Yet Apollo is a gracious god, and presently, when his passion had cooled, he repented him of his mad pursuit