Then the aged leader of men looked forth again and answered:
“Such a one have I known, indeed; so she was wont to sing, and hers was such a shape of beauty, and such a Star shone ever on her breast. Helen of Ilios—Argive Helen it was who wore it—Helen, because of whose loveliness the world grew dark with death; but long is Helen dead.”
Now the Wanderer glanced from his chariot and saw the crests of the Achæans and the devices on the shields of men with whose fathers he had fought beneath the walls of Ilios. He saw and his heart was stirred within him, so that he wept there in the chariot.
“Alas! for the fate that is on me,” he cried, “that I must make my last battle in the service of a stranger against my own people and the children of my own dear friends.”
“Weep not, Odysseus,” said Helen, “for Fate drives thee on—Fate that is cruel and changeless, and heeds not the loves or hates of men. Weep not, Odysseus, but go on up against the Achæans, for from among them thy death comes.”
So the Wanderer went on, sick at heart, shooting no shafts and striking no blow, and after him came the remnant of the host of Pharaoh. Then he halted the host, and at his bidding Rei drove slowly down the wall seeking a place to storm it, and as he drove they shot at the chariot from the wall with spears and slings and arrows. But not yet was the Wanderer doomed. He took no hurt, nor did any hurt come to Rei nor to the horses that drew the chariot, and as for Helen, the shafts of Death knew her and turned aside. Now while they drove thus Rei told the Wanderer of the death of Pharaoh, of the burning of the Temple of Hathor, and of the flight of Helen. The Wanderer hearkened and said but one thing, for in all this he saw the hand of Fate.
“It is time to make an end, Rei, for soon will Meriamun be seeking us, and methinks that I have left a trail that she can follow,” and he nodded at the piled-up dead that stretched further than the eye could reach.
Now they were come over against that spot in the wall where stood the aged Captain of the Achæans, who had likened the armour of the Wanderer to the armour of Paris, and the beauty of her at his side to the beauty of Argive Helen.
The Captain loosed his bow at the chariot, and leaning forward watched the flight of the shaft. It rushed straight at Helen’s breast, then of a sudden turned aside, harming her not. And as he marvelled she lifted her face and looked towards him. Then he saw and knew her for that Helen whom he had seen while he served with Cretan Idomeneus in the Argive ships, when the leaguer was done and the smoke went up from burning Ilios.
Again he looked, and lo! on the Wanderer’s golden shield he saw the White Bull, the device of Paris, son of Priam, as ofttimes he had seen it glitter on the walls of Troy. Then great fear took him, and he lifted up his hands and cried aloud: