ur is fashioned like the armour of Paris, Priam's son--Paris of
Ilios; but Paris hath long been dead."

"And who is she," cried the Captain, "she on whose breast a Red Star
burns, who rides in the chariot of him with the golden armour, whose
shape is the shape of Beauty, and who sings aloud while men go down to
death?"

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
Achaeans 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, Odysseys, but go on up against the Achaeans, 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 Achaeans, who had likened the armour of the Wanderer
to the armour of