38 HISTORICAL TALES.

of wine, he had a dream in which the god bade him
to desert Ariadne and sail away. This the faithless
swain did, leaving the weeping maiden deserted on
the island. Legend goes on to tell us that the de-
spair of the lamenting maiden ended in the sleep of
exhaustion, and that while sleeping Dionysus found
her, and made her his wife. As for the dream of
Theseus, it was one of those convenient excuses
which traitors to love never lack.

Meanwhile, Theseus and his companions sailed on
over the summer sea. Reaching the isle of Delos,
he offered a sacrifice to Apollo in gratitude for his
escape, and there he, and the merry youths and
maidens with him, danced a dance called the Geranus,
whose mazy twists and turns imitated those of the
Labyrinth.

But the faithless swain was not to escape punish-
ment for his base desertion of Ariadne. He had
arranged with his father Aigeus that if he escaped
the Minotaur he would hoist white sails in the ship
on his return. If he failed, the ship would still
wear the black canvas with which she had set out
on her errand of woe.

The aged king awaited the returning ship on a
high rock that overlooked the sea. At length it hove
in sight, the sails appeared, but—they were black.
With broken heart the father cast himself from
the rock into the sea,—which ever since has been
called, from his name, the Aigean Sea. Theseus,
absorbed perhaps in thoughts of the abandoned
Ariadne, perhaps of new adventures, had forgotten
to make the promised change, And thus was the