Page:Tanglewood tales (Dulac).djvu/127

 'Follow the cow!' it said. 'Follow the cow! Follow the cow!'

And when these words had been repeated until Cadmus was tired of hearing them (especially as he could not imagine what cow it was, or why he was to follow her), the gusty hole gave vent to another sentence.

'Where the stray cow lies down, there is your home.'

These words were pronounced but a single time, and died away into a whisper before Cadmus was fully satisfied that he had caught the meaning. He put other questions, but received no answer; only the gust of wind sighed continually out of the cavity, and blew the withered leaves rustling along the ground before it.

'Did there really come any words out of the hole?' thought Cadmus; 'or have I been dreaming all this while?'

He turned away from the oracle, and thought himself no wiser than when he came thither. Caring little what might happen to him, he took the first path that offered itself, and went along at a sluggish pace; for, having no object in view, nor any reason to go one way more than another, it would certainly have been foolish to make haste. Whenever he met anybody, the old question was at his tongue's end:—

'Have you seen a beautiful maiden, dressed like a king's daughter, and mounted on a snow-white bull, that gallops as swiftly as the wind?'

But, remembering what the oracle had said, he only half uttered the words, and then mumbled the rest in- 97