‘Hearken to me!’ he said. ‘This day I thought to destroy the Greeks and all their hosts and return to our own windy Troy, but Night hath come too soon. To Night, then, must we yield, so let us take food, and give fodder to our horses. All night long let us burn fires lest in the darkness the Greeks strive to make for the sea. And let the heralds proclaim that boys and old men must guard the battlements of Troy, and each woman burn a great fire in her house lest the Greeks send an ambush to enter the city while we men are here. At dawn will we fight by the ships, and we shall see whether Diomedes will drive me back from the shore to the walls of Troy, or if with my spear I shall lay him low.’
So spake Hector, and the Trojans shouted aloud.
They unyoked their horses, and gave them fodder, and from the city they brought food for the fires.
All night they sat by the battlefield, high hopes in their hearts, and their watch-fires burning. As when the moon shines clear on a windless night, and all the crags and glens and mountain-tops stand sharply out, and wide and boundless is the sky, and all the stars are seen; even so many were the lights of the watch-fires that gleamed in the plain before Troy. A thousand fires did burn there, and in the red glow of each blazing fire sat fifty men. Beside the chariots stood the horses champing barley and spelt, waiting for the coming of dawn.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MESSAGE TO ACHILLES
While the Trojans sat by their watch-fires, sorely troubled were the hearts of the Greeks and of Agamemnon their overlord.
Hurriedly did Agamemnon send his heralds to call an assembly, bidding each man separately and with no loud shouting.
Sorrowfully did they sit them down; and when Agamemnon rose up to speak, the bitter tears ran down his face as flows the wan water of a mountain stream down the dark gulleys where the sunbeams never play.
‘My friends,’ he said, ‘leaders and captains of the Greeks, hard of heart is Zeus, and ill hath he dealt with me. Victory did he promise, but shame hath he brought. Nothing now is left for us but to flee with our ships to our own land, for never shall Troy be ours.’
So spake he, and long did the Greek warriors sit in silent grief.