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the drug. It seemed to her the sweetest thing that ever she had tasted, and she took more and more,
and then closed the phial and laid it down, and went along murmuring her hymn.
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But soon a great drowsiness came over her, and she sat down on the step of the altar, and fell sound
asleep, and the torch sunk in her hand, and went out, and all was dark. Then Ulysses put the phial
in his wallet, and crept very cautiously to the altar, in the dark, and stole the Luck of Troy. It was
only a small black mass of what is now called meteoric iron, which sometimes comes down with
meteorites from the sky, but it was shaped like a shield, and the people thought it an image of the
warlike shielded Goddess, fallen from Heaven. Such sacred shields, made of glass and ivory, are
found deep in the earth in the ruined cities of Ulysses' time. Swiftly Ulysses hid the Luck in his
rags and left in its place on the altar a copy of the Luck, which he had made of blackened clay.
Then he stole back to the place where he had lain, and remained there till dawn appeared, and the
sleepers who sought for dreams awoke, and the temple gates were opened, and Ulysses walked out
with the rest of them.
He stole down a lane, where as yet no people were stirring, and crept along, leaning on his staff, till
he came to the eastern gate, at the back of the city, which the Greeks never attacked, for they had
never drawn their army in a circle round the town. There Ulysses explained to the sentinels that he
had gathered food enough to last for a long journey to some other town, and opened his bag, which
seemed full of bread and broken meat. The soldiers said he was a lucky beggar, and let him out. He
walked slowly along the waggon road by which wood was brought into Troy from the forests on
Mount Ida, and when he found that nobody was within sight he slipped into the forest, and stole
into a dark thicket, hiding beneath the tangled boughs. Here he lay and slept till evening, and then
took the new clothes which Helen had given him out of his wallet, and put them on, and threw the
belt of the sword over his shoulder, and hid the Luck of Troy in his bosom. He washed himself
clean in a mountain brook, and now all who saw him must have known that he was no beggar, but
Ulysses of Ithaca, Laertes' son.
So he walked cautiously down the side of the brook which ran between high banks deep in trees,
and followed it till it reached the river Xanthus, on the left of the Greek lines. Here he found Greek
sentinels set to guard the camp, who cried aloud in joy and surprise, for his ship had not yet
returned from Delos, and they could not guess how Ulysses had come back alone across the sea. So
two of the sentinels guarded Ulysses to the hut of Agamemnon, where he and Achilles and all the
chiefs were sitting at a feast. They all leaped up, but when Ulysses took the Luck of Troy from
within his mantle, they cried that this was the bravest deed that had been done in the war, and they
sacrificed ten oxen to Zeus.
"So you were the old beggar," said young Thrasymedes.
"Yes," said Ulysses, "and when next you beat a beggar, Thrasymedes, do not strike so hard and so
long."
That night all the Greeks were full of hope, for now they had the Luck of Troy, but the Trojans
were in despair, and guessed that the beggar was the thief, and that Ulysses had been the beggar.
The priestess, Theano, could tell them nothing; they found her, with the extinguished torch
drooping in her hand, asleep, as she sat on the step of the altar, and she never woke again.
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THE BATTLES WITH THE AMAZONS AND MEMNON THE
DEATH OF ACHILLES
Ulysses thought much and often of Helen, without whose kindness he could not have saved the
Greeks by stealing the Luck of Troy. He saw that, though she remained as beautiful as when the
princes all sought her hand, she was most unhappy, knowing herself to be the cause of so much
misery, and fearing what the future might bring. Ulysses told nobody about the secret which she
had let fall, the coming of the Amazons.
The Amazons were a race of warlike maids, who lived far away on the banks of the river
Thermodon. They had fought against Troy in former times, and one of the great hill-graves on the
plain of Troy covered the ashes of an Amazon, swift-footed Myrine. People believed that they were
the daughters of the God of War, and they were reckoned equal in battle to the bravest men. Their
young Queen, Penthesilea, had two reasons for coming to fight at Troy: one was her ambition to
win renown, and the other her sleepless sorrow for having accidentally killed her sister, Hippolyte,
when hunting. The spear which she threw at a stag struck Hippolyte and slew her, and Penthesilea
cared no longer for her own life, and desired to fall gloriously in battle. So Penthesilea and her
bodyguard of twelve Amazons set forth from the wide streams of Thermodon, and rode into Troy.
The story says that they did not drive in chariots, like all the Greek and Trojan chiefs, but rode
horses, which must have been the manner of their country.
Penthesilea was the tallest and most beautiful of the Amazons, and shone among her twelve
maidens like the moon among the stars, or the bright Dawn among the Hours which follow her
chariot wheels. The Trojans rejoiced when they beheld her, for she looked both terrible and
beautiful, with a frown on her brow, and fair shining eyes, and a blush on her cheeks. To the
Trojans she came like Iris, the Rainbow, after a storm, and they gathered round her cheering, and
throwing flowers and kissing her stirrup, as the people of Orleans welcomed Joan of Arc when she
came to deliver them. Even Priam was glad, as is a man long blind, when he has been healed, and
again looks upon the light of the sun. Priam held a great feast, and gave to Penthesilea many
beautiful gifts: cups of gold, and embroideries, and a sword with a hilt of silver, and she vowed that
she would slay Achilles. But when Andromache, the wife of Hector, heard her she said within
herself, "Ah, unhappy girl, what is this boast of thine! Thou hast not the strength to fight the
unconquerable son of Peleus, for if Hector could not slay him, what chance hast thou? But the
piled-up earth covers Hector!"
In the morning Penthesilea sprang up from sleep and put on her glorious armour, with spear in
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