ADVENTURE XX.
BECALMED AT AULIS.
A pleasant wind from the west sprang up, and drove the great fleet out into the sea. Not a single one of the thousand ships was lost or left behind; and after a quick and happy voyage, they came in sight of a fruitful land and a great city with high towers and pleasant dwellings.
"The gods have favored us, even beyond what we asked!" cried the Hellenes.
Achilles and his Myrmidons landed first, and without waiting for the other ships to come up, they rushed across the plain, and began an assault upon the town. Like a swarm of locusts lighting down upon a field of grain, and consuming every thing before them, so came the destroying Hellenes. The gates were broken down; the astonished people fled in dismay, and sought safety among the hills and in the forest on the other side of the town. Not until many houses had been burned, and many people slain, did Odysseus and Menelaus, whose ships had been delayed, reach the place.
"Men of Hellas!" they cried, hastening into the midst of the carnage. "What is this you are doing? This is not Troy. It is the peaceful city of Teuthrania in Mysia. Cease your slaughter, and return at once to your vessels, lest the wrath of the gods fall upon you."
The word was carried from mouth to mouth; and the hasty heroes, crestfallen and ashamed, stopped their bloody work, and turned their faces back towards the shore where their ships lay beached. None too soon did they retreat; for the king of Mysia, one Telephus a son of Heracles, having quickly called his warriors together, fell upon their rear, and slew great numbers of them, following them even to the sloping beach. As the last ship was pushing out, an arrow from the bow of King Telephus struck Patroclus, wounding him sorely. Then Achilles, poising his long spear, threw it with deadly aim among the Mysians; it struck King Telephus, and laid him senseless though not slain upon the sandy plain.
No sooner had the fleet set sail again upon the sea, than Poseidon stirred up the waves in anger, and loosed the winds upon them. Great was the terror, and great indeed was the destruction. Some of the ships were sunk in mid-sea, and some were driven upon the rocks and wrecked. But the greater number of them, after days and weeks of buffeting with the waves, made their way back to Aulis.
When the heroes stood again on the shores of the Euripus, they began to think that doubtless there was some truth in the omen of the snake and the birds; and the most hopeful among them ceased to dream of taking Troy in a day. While waiting for stragglers to come in, and for the shattered vessels to be repaired, they found enough to do to keep the time from dragging heavily; and when not engaged in some kind of labor they amused themselves with various games, and great sport had they with quoits and javelins, with bows and arrows, and in wrestling and running. And now and then they went out into the woods of Eubœa, and hunted the wild deer which roamed there in abundance.
One day it chanced that Agamemnon, while hunting, started a fine stag, and gave it a long chase among the hills and through the wooded dells, until it sought safety in a grove sacred to Artemis the huntress queen. The proud king knew that this was a holy place where beasts and birds might rest secure from harm; yet he cared naught for what Artemis had ordained, and with his swift arrows he slew the panting deer. Then was the huntress queen moved with anger, and she declared that the ships of the Hellenes should not sail from Aulis until the king had atoned for his crime. And a great calm rested upon the sea, and not a breath of air stirred the sails at the mast-heads of the ships. Day after day and week after week went by, and not a speck of cloud was seen in the sky above, and not a ripple on the glassy face of the deep. All the ships had been put in order, new vessels had been built, the warriors had burnished their armor and overhauled their arms a thousand times; and yet no breeze arose to waft them across the sea. And they began to murmur, and to talk bitterly against Agamemnon and the chiefs.