III
The Trojan army was now split into two divisions, one of which was flying across the plain towards the city, while Achilles drove the other before him towards the banks of Scamander. Into the stream they flocked, without pausing in their flight, like a cloud of locusts driven by a fire to seek refuge in the nearest water; and Scamander's bed was choked by a huddled multitude of horses and men.
Leaning his spear against a plane-tree, Achilles leapt into the river, sword in hand, and struck right and left, until the waters were crimsoned with blood. And as a shoal of fish flies before the onset of a dolphin, seeking the shallow waters near the shore, so shrank the Trojans from the sword of Achilles, and hid themselves under the arching banks. Then he remembered his promise to Patroclus, and, choosing twelve comely youths from that panic-stricken throng, he drove them before him, and gave them, bound, to his men to be brought alive to the ships. This done, he went back to continue the work of slaughter; and as he reached the river's brink he saw a Trojan, who had just left the water, and was preparing to fly towards the city. "Aha! are we met again?" cried Achilles, recognising in the fugitive a certain Lycaon, one of the numerous family of Priam, whom once before he had taken prisoner, having caught him during a night foray, when the luckless youth was busy cutting the young shoots of the olive, to make a rim for a chariot. On that occasion he had spared his life, and sold him into captivity to the King of Lemnos, from whom he had been ransomed by a friend of Priam, and so found his way back to Troy. For eleven days since his return from Lemnos he had taken his pleasure among his friends, and on the twelfth his fate threw him into the hands of Achilles for the second and last time.
Lycaon had flung away shield and helmet and spear, that he might be lightened in the race for his life. But Achilles was upon him before he was aware, threatening him with uplifted spear. "So thou hast returned from Lemnos?" he said mockingly. "We will now send thee on a longer journey, and we will see if thou come back again this time." The wretched youth flung himself down, and avoiding the spear-point crawled on his knees to Achilles, and clinging to him said: "Have pity on me, great warrior, and have respect for the sacred tie between host and guest; for I was thy guest, illustrious chieftain, and have broken bread under thy roof, on the day when thou madest me captive. Thou hast no cause to hate me, for I was not born of the same mother as Hector, who slew thy friend."
But there was no sign of relenting in the stern face which was bent over him, and he received a foretaste of the pangs of death as he heard the answer of Achilles. "Talk not to me," said he, "of ransom or redemption. As long as Patroclus was alive I was well pleased to make prisoners and release them for a price, but now not one shall escape of all those who fall into my hands, and least of all the sons of Priam. Thou must die, my friend! Why seems it to thee so hard? Patroclus met his fate with the rest, and he was a far better man than thou art. Look upon me; am I not a tall and proper man? Yet the shadow of death is creeping nearer and ever nearer to me, and soon the hour of my doom shall strike, whether at morn, or at noon, or at eventide."
At these words Lycaon's heart froze within him, and leaving hold of the spear he sank down on his knees, stretching out both his hands in mute entreaty. Then Achilles lifted up his sword, and clove him to the waist, and seizing his body by the foot flung it into the river. "Lie there among the fishes!" cried that ruthless man: "They will tend thy wounds, until Scamander bears thee to the deep, where thou shalt find fit burial in some sea monster's maw. Death, death to all your accursed race! Naught shall avail you your silver-eddying stream, to whose deity ye offer sacrifice of bulls and horses, but ye shall pay threefold and fourfold the debt of blood which ye owe me for the lives of the Greeks whom ye have slain."
The river-god heard him, and, waxing exceeding wroth, began to consider how he should stop the murderous career of Achilles. And while he was still debating within himself Achilles was confronted by Asteropæus, a brave Thracian chieftain, and the son of the presiding deity of Axius, a broad and noble stream. This man now barred the way of Achilles, brandishing a spear in each hand. "Whence and what art thou?" cried Achilles, amazed that anyone should dare to oppose him; for he knew not that Scamander had steeled the heart of Asteropæus to do this deed. "Art thou weary of thy life?" he asked again, as the Thracian still came on. "I will tell thee what I am," answered Asteropæus boldly: "I am the son of a deity, even as thou art, and my father was Axius, the fairest river on earth. Now let us fight, great son of Thetis."
With that he flung both spears at once, for he was equally skilled with both hands; and one of the spears struck against the shield of Achilles, but could not penetrate it, while the other grazed his right arm, and drew blood. Then Achilles hurled his spear, which missed Asteropæus, and buried itself to half its length in the river bank. Asteropæus grasped the shaft, and strove with all his might to tear the weapon from the ground. Failing in this, he next tried to break it in the middle, to use as a club; but by this time Achilles was upon him, and with one stroke of his sword clove him almost in twain. "Thou hast found thy match, thou river's brood!" he cried, stripping off the bloodstained armour. "Fool, that comparest thyself with me, whose fathers sprang in a direct line from Jove! He, methinks, is mightier than any river, yea, mightier than Oceanus, the great father of floods, who trembles before the red lightning, and the voice of the thunder, when it crashes through the skies."
So saying he lightly plucked out the embedded spear, and went in pursuit of the men of Asteropæus, who were crouching in terror along the river's banks. Seven of them he slew, and was about to continue the work of carnage when he received a check. From the depths of the stream a mysterious voice arose, in tones of protest and complaint: "Achilles, thine arm is exceeding mighty, and thy prowess more than mortal; for the gods are ever near to aid thee. If Zeus hath given thee leave to slaughter all the Trojans, at least drive them away from my bed and butcher them on the plain. My waters are choked with corpses, and I cannot roll my current any longer towards the holy sea, because my channel is straitened by the multitude of thy miserable victims. Give place, great chieftain, and cumber me no more."
"It shall be as thou sayest, thou god revered," answered Achilles. "But suffer me yet a little while until my task is done." And without further parley he sprang down again into the river bed. Then the god was wroth, and prepared to expel that daring intruder from his domain. He gathered all his waters, which rose up in surging billows, and washed the corpses ashore; and to the living he gave shelter, hiding them away in great hollow eddies. Then, collecting himself in one towering wave, he rushed upon Achilles, buffeting his shield, and eating away the ground under his feet. Achilles grasped an elm, a tall and stately tree, and clung to it for support; but the torrent had undermined its roots, and the next moment it fell, tearing a huge gap in the bank, and damming back the waters with its leafy boughs. Then he leaped from the yellow, swirling torrent, and darted across the plain in head-long flight; for he was sore afraid. But Scamander followed hard at his heels, roaring and arching his crest. In vain Achilles ran and doubled, and doubled and ran; the river pursued him everywhere, until his strength began to fail him; and if he stood still for a moment the waves rose instantly as high as his shoulders, threatening to swallow him up. Then he gave himself up for lost, and with a groan he gazed upward to the broad heaven, and uttered this despairing cry for help: "O all ye gods, is this then to be my end? Am I to perish thus, drowned like some nameless churl, who is swept away while crossing a ford in winter?"
Some friendly power heard his wild appeal, and lent him new strength and courage to continue the struggle. So on he panted across the plain, which by this time was covered with floating corpses, helmets, and shields. But Scamander raged the more furiously when he saw his prey still eluding his clutch, and he called aloud to Simocis, his brother stream, to join in the pursuit. And Simocis answered to his call, and mustered all his waters from every fountainhead and every tributary stream. Then the twin rivers roared together in unison, and came down upon him, battering him with uprooted trees and rolling rocks, which they swept along in their course, "We will quell thee," they shouted, "thou godless man, for all thy beauty and thy strength, and thou and thy gleaming panoply shall be wrapped in a thick shroud of mud, at the bottom of our blackest and deepest pool. Thy dirge shall be sung by our rolling waters, and thy monument none shall behold."
Achilles was now in extremity, and would surely have ended as ignobly as the river-god had said, if another power had not come to his aid. "Where art thou, my son, Hephæstus?" cried Hera, seeing that Achilles could hold out no longer. "Thou art he who should save our champion in this strait, for thou and Scamander are natural enemies. Haste thee to the rescue, armed with thy proper element; and I will summon the blasts of the West and the South to fan thy flames. Let fire fight with water, and spare not, nor cease thy fury until I give thee the signal to desist."
Hephæstus made haste to obey his mother, and forthwith he caused a sheet of fire to sweep across the plain, burning the corpses, and drying up the flood. Then he turned his flames upon the river himself, and all the trees which fringed his banks—elms, and willows, and plane-trees—were soon ablaze. Speedily the fire spread to the rushes and water plants, and at last the very waters began to grow hot, so that the fishes leapt into the air in their agony, and Scamander himself was in dire distress.
"It is enough," he cried, yielding to a superior power. "Torment me no more, Hephæstus! Let Achilles destroy the whole nation of Trojans, if he will—I will not seek to prevent him."
By this time the waters were beginning to boil and bubble, and clouds of steam rose into the air. Seeing that the river was thoroughly quelled, Hera gave the signal, and Hephæstus drew off his forces, and left Scamander in peace.
IV
After his escape from the river, Achilles went in pursuit of the other Trojans, who had fallen back towards the town. Then began a second rout, and a second slaughter, and Priam, who was watching the field from his citadel, soon beheld the whole remnant of the Trojan army flying before Achilles towards the city. With a cry of alarm he hastened down to the gates, and gave directions to the warders to draw bolt and bar, and admit the flying multitude. "But stand ready," he said, "to make all fast, as soon as the people are safe within, for fear lest this terrible man should enter the town."
The warders did as they were bidden, and held the gates ready; and before long the first of the fugitives came panting in, their lips parched with thirst, and their armour powdered with dust.
Still unsated with slaughter, Achilles came on in hot pursuit, and Priam's fears might have been realised if Agenor, a young Trojan noble, had not been inspired by Apollo with sudden courage, which prompted him to cross the destroyer's path. "I will face this man," he said, halting from his flight. "He too is of mortal flesh, and has but one life to lose. I will face him, though Zeus fight on his side."
As a leopard comes forth from his thick covert to meet the hunter, when he hears the baying of the hounds, and, even though sorely wounded, fights on till he is slain, so stood Agenor to meet Achilles, with shield on breast, and spear poised for the throw. "Thou thoughtest to have taken Troy this day," he cried. "Thou fool! This deed is not for thee; thou shall not read to the end the story of her woes, but here, on this spot, I will end thy life of blood."
With that he cast his spear, which struck him on the greave above the knee, but rebounded from the tempered metal; but before Achilles could return the attack Apollo removed Agenor from his reach, and putting on the likeness of Agenor fled away towards the river, luring Achilles after him. The Trojans were thus given time to make good their escape, and the city was soon filled with a frightened and disordered host, thankful to have escaped with bare life. All along the battlements were seen groups of exhausted men, who wiped the sweat from their brows, and drank deep draughts of wine to quench their burning thirst. Only one was left outside: This was Hector, who remained of his own free will, resolved to decide the issue in single combat with Achilles.