`` Tush ! we shall fare better here , '' said another . `` But how innocently those women are babbling together , without guessing that we overhear them ! And mark that richest voice of all , so pleasant and so familiar , but which yet seems to have the authority of a mistress among them . Let us show ourselves at once . What harm can the lady of the palace and her maidens do to mariners and warriors like us ? '' `` Remember , '' said Eurylochus , `` that it was a young maiden who beguiled three of our friends into the palace of the king of the Laestrygons , who ate up one of them in the twinkling of an eye . '' No warning or persuasion , however , had any effect on his companions . They went up to a pair of folding doors at the farther end of the hall , and throwing them wide open , passed into the next room . Eurylochus , meanwhile , had stepped behind a pillar . In the short moment while the folding doors opened and closed again , he caught a glimpse of a very beautiful woman rising from the loom , and coming to meet the poor weather-beaten wanderers , with a hospitable smile , and her hand stretched out in welcome . There were four other young women , who joined their hands and danced merrily forward , making gestures of obeisance to the strangers . They were only less beautiful than the lady who seemed to be their mistress . Yet Eurylochus fancied that one of them had sea-green hair , and that the close-fitting bodice of a second looked like the bark of a tree , and that both the others had something odd in their aspect , although he could not quite determine what it was , in the little while that he had to examine them . The folding doors swung quickly back , and left him standing behind the pillar , in the solitude of the outer hall . There Eurylochus waited until he was quite weary , and listened eagerly to every sound , but without hearing anything that could help him to guess what had become of his friends . Footsteps , it is true , seemed to be passing and repassing , in other parts of the palace . Then there was a clatter of silver dishes , or golden ones , which made him imagine a rich feast in a splendid banqueting hall . But by and by he heard a tremendous grunting and squealing , and then a sudden scampering , like that of small , hard hoofs over a marble floor , while the voices of the mistress and her four handmaidens were screaming all together , in tones of anger and derision . Eurylochus could not conceive what had happened , unless a drove of swine had broken into the palace , attracted by the smell of the feast .
Chancing to cast his eyes at the fountain , he saw that it did not shift its shape , as formerly , nor looked either XXXXX a long-robed man , or a lion , a tiger , a wolf , or an ass .
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