Telemachus abide with thee; but I will go back to the ship, and
cheer the company, and tell them all. There I will sleep this
night, and to-morrow I go to the Cauconians [Footnote: Cau-co'-ni-
ans.], where there is owing to me a debt neither small nor of
yesterday. But do thou send this man on his way in thy chariot."

Then the goddess departed in the semblance of a sea-eagle, and all
that saw it were amazed.

Then the old man took Telemachus by the hand, and said: "No coward
or weakling art thou like to be, whom the gods attend even now in
thy youth. This is none other than Athene, daughter of Zeus, the
same that stood by thy father in the land of Troy."

After this the old man led the company to his house. Here he mixed
for them a bowl of wine eleven years old; and they prayed to
Athene, and then lay down to sleep. Telemachus slept on a bedstead
beneath the gallery, and Peisistratus slept by him.

The next day, as soon as it was morning, Nestor and his sons
arose. And the old man said: "Let one man go to the plain for a
heifer, and let another go to the ship of Telemachus, and bid all
the company come hither, leaving two only behind. And a third
shall command the goldsmith to gild the horns of the heifer, and
let the handmaids prepare all things for a feast."

They did as the old man commanded; and after they had offered
sacrifice, and had eaten and drunk, old Nester said, "Put now the
horses in the chariot, that Telemachus may go his way."