Worse griefs have we known undaunted,
Worse fates have fled;
When the Isle that our long love haunted
Lay waste and dead!

So he was chanting when he descried, faint and far off, a red glow cast
up along the darkness like sunset on the sky of the Under-world. For
this light he steered, and soon he saw two tall pillars of flame blazing
beside each other, with a narrow space of night between them. He helmed
the ship towards these, and when he came near them they were like two
mighty mountains of wood burning far into heaven, and each was lofty
as the pyre that blazes over men slain in some red war, and each pile
roared and flared above a steep crag of smooth black basalt, and between
the burning mounds of fire lay the flame-flecked water of a haven.

The ship neared the haven and the Wanderer saw, moving like fireflies
through the night, the lanterns in the prows of boats, and from one
of the boats a sailor hailed him in the speech of the people of Egypt,
asking him if he desired a pilot.

"Yea," he shouted. The boat drew near, and the pilot came aboard, a
torch in his hand; but when his eyes fell on the dead men in the ship,
and the horror hanging from the yard, and the captain bound to the
iron bar, and above all, on the golden armour of the hero, and on the
spear-point fast in his helm, and on his terrible face, he shrank
back in dread, as if the God Osiris himself, in the Ship of Death, had
reached the harbour. But the Wanderer bade him have no fear, telling him
that he came with much wealth and with a great gift for the Pharaoh. The
pilot, therefore, plucked up heart, and took the helm, and between the
two great hills of blazing fire the vessel glided into the smooth waters