86 PERICLES.

dearly, and the King was so pleased with his courage and graceful
bearing that he gladly permitted his daughter to have her own
way, when she told him she would marry the stranger knight
or die.

Thus Fortune was kind and gracious to Pericles, and he became
the husband of the fair lady for whose sake he had striven with the
knights who came in all their bravery to joust and tourney for
her love.

Meanwhile the wicked King Antiochus had died, and the people in
Tyre, hearing no news of their King; urged Lord Helicanus to ascend
the vacant throne.- But Helicanus was loyal to his sovereign, and for
all their urging they could only get him to promise that he would
become their King, if at the end of a year Pericles did not come
back. Moreover, he sent forth messengers far and wide in search of the
missing Pericles.

Some of these made their way to Pentapolis, and finding their King
there, told him how discontented his people were at his long absence, and
that, Antiochus being dead, there was nothing now to hinder him from
returning to his kingdom. Then Pericles told his wife and father-in-law
who he really was, and they and all the subjects of Simonides greatly
rejoiced to know that the gallant husband of Thaisa was a King in
his own right. So Pericles set sail with his dear wife for his native
land.

But once more the sea was cruel to him, for again a dreadful storm
broke out, and while it was at its height, a servant came to tell him that
a little daughter was born to him. This news would have made his heart
glad indeed, but that the servant went on to add that his wife—his dear,
dear Thaisa—was dead.

While he was praying the gods to be good to his little baby girl, the
sailors came to him, declaring that the dead Queen must be thrown
overboard, for they believed that the storm would never cease so long as
a dead body remained in the vessel.

Pericles, though he despised their superstitious fears, was obliged
to yield to them. So Thaisa was laid in a big chest with spices
and jewels, and a scroll on which the sorrowful King wrote these
lines :—