When the gray dawn peeped into his chamber, and awakened him, the king arose, and looked out towards the harbor. Not one of the black-hulled ships could he see. They had silently cast their moorings, and had stolen away through the darkness. While the king looked and wondered, an old shepherd with frightened face and gestures of alarm came running in breathless haste to the palace. In a few words he told what strange things had happened. By the light of the waning moon, the sea rovers from Messene had sailed around to a little cove where the pastures slope down to the water's edge. There they had landed, and without much ado had driven a whole flock of sheep aboard their ships,--three hundred long-wooled ewes and bleating lambs, the choicest of the fields. And they had carried away not only these, but the six sleepy shepherds whose duty it had been to guard them.
An alarm was quickly sounded, and the news was passed from mouth to mouth until it was known to all. The bravest men of Ithaca hastened to the shore, where stood Odysseus and his father, ready to direct them. Their fleetest vessels, lying high upon the beach, were cleared ready to be launched. Five ships with vermilion prows were pushed into the waves; and each was manned by a score of lusty rowers, and headed towards the open sea. The long oars dipped into the water, as if all were moved by a single hand; and the vessels sped out upon their errand, like dogs of the chase intent upon a fleeing victim.
The sky was clear. The waves danced merrily in the sunlight. The wind blew gently from the shore. The crews of the Ithacan ships bent to the oars like practised seamen; but when they rounded the headlands at the foot of the bay, and came out upon the open sea, they saw no trace of the pirate fleet, nor even a single sail upon the laughing face of the deep. Whether the men of Messene had pushed straight homeward with their plunder, or whether they had put into some other cove or inlet farther down the coast, no one could guess. All that their pursuers could do was to sail close along the shore, southward towards Cephallenia, peering behind every jutting headland, and into every sheltered nook, in hopes of coming upon them.