knees of many, not a little was I put in mind of the
song of the slaying of the wooers at the hands of Odysseus. The fame of
Odysseus has wandered far--ay, even to Khem." And she looked straight at
him.

The Wanderer darkened his face and put the matter by. He had heard
something of that tale, he said, but deemed it a minstrel's feigning.
One man could not fight a hundred, as the story went.

The Queen half rose from the couch where she lay curled up like a
glittering snake. Like a snake she rose and watched him with her
melancholy eyes.

"Strange, indeed--most strange that Odysseus, Laertes' son, Odysseus
of Ithaca, should not know the tale of the slaying of the wooers by
Odysseus' self. Strange, indeed, thou Eperitus, who art Odysseus."

Now the neck of the Wanderer was in the noose, and well he knew it: yet
he kept his counsel, and looked upon her vacantly.

"Men say that this Odysseus wandered years ago into the North, and that
this time he will not come again. I saw him in the wars, and he was a
taller man than I," said the Wanderer.

"I have always heard," said the Queen, "that Odysseus was double-tongued
and crafty as a fox. Look me in the eyes, thou Wanderer, look me in the
eyes, and I will show thee whether or not thou art Odysseus," and she
leaned forward so that her hair well-nigh swept his brow, and gazed deep
into his eyes.

Now the Wanderer was ashamed to drop his eyes before a woman's, and he
could not rise and go; so he must needs gaze, and as he gazed his head
grew strangely light and the blood quivered in his veins, and then
seemed to stop.

"Now turn, thou Wanderer," said the voice of the Queen, and to him it
sounded far away, as if there was a wall between them, "and tell me what
thou seest."

So he turned and looked towards the dark end of the chamber. But
presently through the darkness stole a faint light, like the first grey
light of the dawn, and now he saw a shape, like the shape of a great
horse of wood, and behind the horse were black square towers of huge
stones, and gates, and walls, and houses. Now he saw a door open in the
side of the horse, and the helmeted head of a man look out wearily. As
he looked a great white star slid down the sky so that the light of
it rested on the face of the man, and that face was his own! Then he
remembered how he had looked forth from the belly of the wooden horse as
it stood within the walls of Ilios, and thus the star had seemed to fall
upon t