CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRD.

"Gods and men forbid that you should make so base an ending of your lives," cried Eumolpus. "No! It will be better to do as I direct. As you may gather, from his razor, my servant is a barber: let him shave your heads and eyebrows, too, and quickly at that! I will follow after him, and I will mark my inscription so cleverly upon your foreheads that you will be mistaken for slaves who have been branded! The same letters will serve both to quiet the suspicions of the curious and to conceal, under semblance of punishment, your real features!" We did not delay the execution of this scheme but, sneaking stealthily to the ship's side, we submitted our heads and eyebrows to the barber, that he might shave them clean. Eumolpus covered our foreheads completely, with large letters and, with a liberal hand, spread the universally known mark of the fugitive over the face of each of us. As luck would have it, one of the passengers, who was terribly seasick, was hanging over the ship's side easing his stomach. He saw the barber busy at his unseasonable task by the light of the moon and, cursing the omen which resembled the last offering of a crew before shipwreck, he threw himself into his bunk. Pretending not to hear his puking curses, we reverted to our melancholy train of thought and, settling ourselves down in silence, we passed the remaining hours of the night in fitful slumber. (On the following morning Eumolpus entered Lycas' cabin as soon as he knew that Tryphaena was out of bed and, after some conversation upon the happy voyage of which the fine weather gave promise, Lycas turned to Tryphaena and remarked:)