The Adventures of Ulysses Read Online Free PDF Page B

what is in that bag.”
    “Wait, I’ll help you. But you must give me half.”
    “Come then.…”
    Swiftly and silently the two barefooted sailors padded to the mast, slashed the rope that bound the bag to the spar, and bore it away.
    “Hurry—open it!”
    “I can’t. This wire’s twisted in a strange knot. Perhaps a magic knot. It won’t come out.”
    “Then we’ll do it this way!” cried the sailor with the knife, and struck at the leather bag, slashing it open. He was immediately lifted off his feet and blown like a leaf off the deck and into the sea as the winds rushed howling out of the bag and began to chase each other around the ship. The winds screamed and jeered and laughed, growing, leaping, reveling in their freedom, roaring and squabbling, screeching around and around the ship. They fell on their gentle brother, the west wind, and cuffed him mercilessly until he fled; then they chased each other around the ship again, spinning it like a cork in a whirlpool.
    Then, as they heard the far, summoning whistle of the keeper of the winds—far, far to the west on the Aeolian Island—they snarled with rage and roared boisterously homeward, snatching the ships along with them, ripping their sails to shreds, snapping their masts like twigs, and hurling the splintered hulls westward over the boiling sea.
    Ulysses awoke from his sleep to find the blue sky black with clouds and his home island dropping far astern, out of sight. He saw his crew flung about the deck like dolls, and the tattered sails and the broken spars, and he did not know whether he was awake or asleep—whether this was some nightmare of loss, or whether he was awake now and had slept before, dreaming a fair dream of home. Whichever it was, he began to understand that he was being made the plaything of great powers.
    With the unleashed winds screaming behind him at gale force, the trip back to where they had started took them only two days. And once again the black ships were hurled onto the island of the winds. Ulysses left his crew on the beach and went to the castle. He found Aeolus in his throne room and stood before him, bruised, bloody, clothes torn, eyes like ashes.
    “What happened?” cried Aeolus. “Why have you come back?”
    I was betrayed,” said Ulysses. “Betrayed by sleep—the most cruel sleep of my life—and then by a wicked, foolish, greedy crew who released the winds from the sack and let us be snatched back from happiness even as we saw the smoke rising from our own chimneys.”
    “I warned you,” said Aeolus. “I warned you not to let anyone touch that bag.”
    “And you were right, a thousand times right!” cried Ulysses. “Be generous once again. You can heal my woes, you alone. Renew your gift. Lend me the west wind to bear me home again, and I swear to you that this time I shall do everything you bid.”
    “I can’t help you,” said Aeolus. “No one can help he whom the gods detest. And they detest you, man—they hate you. What you call bad luck is their hatred, turning gifts into punishment, fair hopes into nightmares. And bad luck is very catching. So please go. Get on your ship and sail away from this island and never return.”
    “Farewell,” said Ulysses, and he strode away.
    He gathered his weary men and made them board the ships again. The winds were pent in their mountain. The sea was sluggish. A heavy calm lay over the harbor. They had to row on their broken stumps of oars, crawling like beetles over the gray water. They rowed away from the island, through the bronze gate, and out upon the sullen sea.
    And Ulysses, heartbroken, almost dead of grief, tried to hide his feelings from the men; he stood on deck, barking orders, making them mend sail, patch hull, rig new spars, and keep rowing. He took the helm himself and swung the tiller, pointing the bow westward toward home, which, once again, lay at the other end of the sea.

Cannibal Beach
    U LYSSES WISHED TO PUT as much open water as possible