Almost at the same moment Amphinomus rushed forward to the attack, but Telemachus drove his brazen spear through the breast of the fierce foe, who fell crashing to the stones.
"Arm! great father, arm!" cried Telemachus. "In haste I run for other arms and missiles, for helmet and shield. Let the two servants stand faithfully by your side till I return."
"Haste!" replied Ulysses, "lest the host come upon us all at once, and we be driven from our post."
Telemachus flew to the room where the royal armor lay, and brought with him four brazen helmets, eight shining spears, and four broad shields. Still among the coward princes the arrows of Ulysses were flying, each carrying death to an enemy. Each placed a helmet upon his head, and buckled on an armor, and thus clothed, the four stood shoulder to shoulder, awaiting the onset, for by this time the surviving princes had remembered the strength that lay in their numbers, and prepared to charge together upon the king and his attendants.
Now Minerva, the wise goddess and friend of Ulysses, appeared again before him as the aged Mentor, and advised him how to fight. Then with change of form, she suddenly perched like a swallow on a rafter high, where, unperceived, she could watch the struggle.
The conflict that followed was a sight worthy of the gods, for again and again the traitor princes charged upon the doughty four, each time losing some of their number; for rarely did it fail that the king and each of his faithful adherents took at least one life from the multitude. Again and again clouds of darts threatened the life of the king and his son, but every time Minerva blew them aside, and they fell harmless upon the floor, or buried themselves in the woodwork behind the struggling heroes. At last but three of the attacking party remained alive. First of these was Leiodes, the priest, who had first tried the bow of Ulysses.
"O gracious king, hear my supplication! I have never dishonored your house by word or deed, and often I tried to check the injustice of the rest, but they never listened to my words. Do not make yourself guilty of insult to my consecrated head."
"Priest you are," returned Ulysses, "but your vows have been made against me, and against me have your daily prayers been said. Moreover, you aspired to the hand of my wife, and as you joined in the common crime against me, you deserve the common fate."
Even as he spoke, he seized a sword from the hand of one of the dead princes, and swung it flashing through the air, and that moment the priest's head rolled muttering on the floor. There remained only Phemius, the reverend minstrel, whose poems had pleased the king in earlier days, and Medon, the faithful friend and servant of Telemachus.
Neither had taken part in the struggle, and both were spared.