nd more, and then
closed the phial and laid it down, and went along murmuring her hymn.

But soon a great drowsiness came over her, and she sat down on the step
of the altar, and fell sound asleep, and the torch sunk in her hand, and
went out, and all was dark. Then Ulysses put the phial in his wallet,
and crept very cautiously to the altar, in the dark, and stole the Luck
of Troy. It was only a small black mass of what is now called meteoric
iron, which sometimes comes down with meteorites from the sky, but it was
shaped like a shield, and the people thought it an image of the warlike
shielded Goddess, fallen from Heaven. Such sacred shields, made of glass
and ivory, are found deep in the earth in the ruined cities of Ulysses'
time. Swiftly Ulysses hid the Luck in his rags and left in its place on
the altar a copy of the Luck, which he had made of blackened clay. Then
he stole back to the place where he had lain, and remained there till
dawn appeared, and the sleepers who sought for dreams awoke, and the
temple gates were opened, and Ulysses walked out with the rest of them.

He stole down a lane, where as yet no people were stirring, and crept
along, leaning on his staff, till he came to the eastern gate, at the
back of the city, which the Greeks never attacked, for they had never
drawn their army in a circle round the town. There Ulysses explained to
the sentinels that he had gathered food enough to last for a long journey
to some other town, and opened his bag, which seemed full of bread and
broken meat. The soldiers said he was a lucky beggar, and let him out.
He walked slowly along the waggon road by which wood was brought into
Troy from the forests on Mount Ida, and when he found that nobody was
within sight he slipped into the forest, and stole into a dark thicket,
hiding beneath the tangled boughs. Here he lay and slept till evening,
and then took the new clothes which Helen had given him out of his
wallet, and put them on, and threw the belt of the sword over his
shoulder, and hid the Luck of Troy in his bosom. He washed himself clean
in a mountain brook, and now all who saw him must have known that he was
no beggar, but Ulysses of Ithaca, Laertes' son.

So he walked cautiously down the side of the brook which ran between high
banks deep in trees, and followed it till it reached the river Xanthus,
on the left of the Greek lines. Here he found Greek sentinels set to
guard the camp, who cried aloud in