Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/291

Rh He only remained long enough to listen to the fictitious story which Dionyza told him of her death, and then immediately took to his ships.

Scarcely caring whither he went, he allowed the ship to sail without question, until, by some wonderful fortune, they anchored in Mitylene, where Marina now dwelt. As soon as they were in harbor, Lysimachus, the Governor, who was a young and gallant gentleman, came on board the ship of Pericles to see the stranger who had thus unexpectedly arrived at their city. Pericles lay in his cabin, prone upon his face. His hair and beard, which had been uncut for fourteen years, streamed about his person, and made him look like a wild beast in his lair. Lysimachus approached him and endeavored to talk with him, to find out the motives for his visit to Mitylene, but he would not open his lips. After spending some time in vain endeavor to draw him from his apathy, Lysimachus remembered the wonderful voice of Marina, and the charm which it had to draw the wretched from the contemplation of their miseries, and he asked Helicanus, who now informed him of the name and rank of his master, if the maid might not be sent to try her skill upon the King.

Marina was sitting in a shady grove near the city, surrounded by a group of young girls, to some of whom she was teaching music, and