e fatted ox. But Ajax, holding his prize by the horn,
and spitting the filth from his mouth, spake to the Achaians: "O fie upon
it! it was the goddess who betrayed me; she who is ever near to Ulysses,
as a mother to her child." And the Achaians laughed merrily, to see him in
such a sorry plight.

Antilochus, smiling, took the last prize, half a talent of gold; and he
too spake winged words to the Argives: "My friends, ye too will agree with
me that the deathless Gods show favor to the older men. Ajax is a little
older than I; but Ulysses is of a former generation. It were not easy for
any one, except Achilles, fleet of foot, to outrun _him_."

Achilles was pleased at the honor done to his swiftness. "Not unrewarded,"
he said, "shall the praise be which thou hast bestowed on me: I give thee
another half-talent of gold." Antilochus received it gladly. Then the
assembly was dissolved, and the Achaians dispersed, each to his own ship.

THE WOODEN HORSE AND THE FALL OF TROY

By Josephine Preston Peabody

Nine years the Greeks laid siege to Troy, and Troy held out against every
device. On both sides the lives of many heroes were spent, and they were
forced to acknowledge each other enemies of great valor.

Sometimes the chief warriors fought in single combat, while the armies
looked on, and the old men of Troy, with the women, came out to watch afar
off from the city walls. King Priam and Queen Hecuba would come, and
Cassandra, sad with foreknowledge of their doom, and Andromache, the
lovely young wife of Hector, with her little son, whom the people called
the city's king. Sometimes fair Helen came to look across the plain to the
fellow-countrymen whom she had forsaken; and although she was the cause of
all this war, the Trojans half forgave her when she passed by, because her
beauty was like a spell, and warmed hard hearts as the sunshine mellows
apples. So for nine years the Greeks plundered the neighboring towns, but
the city Troy stood fast, and the Grecian ships waited with folded wings.

In the tenth year of the war the Greeks, who could not take the city by
force, pondered how they might take it by craft. At length, with the aid
of Ulysses, they devised a plan.

A portion of the Grecian host broke up camp and set sail as if they were
homeward bound; but, once out of sight, they anchored their ships behind a
neighboring island. The rest of the army then fell to work upon a great
image of a horse. They bui