"Who is it that rides unchallenged toward our door?" asked Swift.
"Methinks," answered Old-Gold, "that it is old King Priam of Troy, coming in his sorrow to beg the body of his son Hector, which lies uncared for in our courtyard. I see in front a smooth-running wagon drawn by the two strong mules which the Mysians gave to the king in his happier days. All the world knows those mules, for they have never been matched in strength and endurance. On the wagon I see chests of gold and much fine bronze, which I suppose the old man is bringing to offer as a ransom for his dead son. And yoked to the king's light car that follows behind are two sad steeds with drooping ears and lifeless gait. If I am not mistaken, the dull-coated creatures are Æthon and Galathe, the once proud creatures that drew Prince Hector into the battle."
Soon the wagon and the chariot drew up before the door, and the king and his groom dismounted. With them was also a herald, whose armor shone brightly amid the gloom, and whom neither Swift nor Old-Gold had ever seen before. The great door was barred with a huge bolt made of a log of pine, so heavy that three stout Greeks could barely move it, although Achilles alone could thrust it home. But the bright herald easily pushed it aside and opened the door without making any noise; and then, having bidden the king good-by, he as silently disappeared in the darkness.
"I do believe that he is Hermes, the kind messenger of the gods," said Old-Gold.
King Priam left the groom to mind the horses and the mules, and went boldly across the courtyard into the room where his great enemy sat; nor was Achilles aware of his coming till he saw him standing silently before him. As the warrior leaped astonished to his feet, the old king clasped his knees and entreated his pity, and reminded him of his own dear father Peleus in his lonely palace in far-off Phthia. And the heart of Achilles was strangely stirred within him as he remembered his boyhood and his native land and his sorrowing parents, to whom he should never return; and he gave kind heed to Priam's petition, and the two lifted up their voices together and wept.
"This," said Achilles, "is the thread of fate which the gods have spun for miserable men, that they should live in sorrow. For although they gave to Peleus splendid gifts, and favored him above all other men, yet they meted out to him great grief because no princely sons were born in his halls save only myself, who am doomed to an untimely death."
Then Priam besought him that, for the sake of his own father (so soon to be bereaved), he would deliver to him the body of Hector and accept therefor the rich ransom that he had brought. Without saying a word in reply, Achilles, followed by his squire, hastened across the courtyard and leaped through the great door. Then, loosing the horses and the mules, they began to unload the countless treasures. And when they had carried all into the house, they took up the body of Hector from the place where it lay, and, having covered it over with a doublet and a princely robe and laid it upon a bier, they lifted it into the polished wagon.
Long before the dawn of day, Swift and Old-Gold, still looking out into the darkness, saw the chariot of King Priam and the wagon drawn by the team of mules issue noiselessly from the courtyard. And in the chariot stood the king and his groom; but upon the wagon, driving the sturdy mules, sat the bright herald whom Old-Gold to be none other than Hermes, the helper of men, come down to aid the old man in his dire extremity. And upon the bier behind, covered with heavy robes, was all that remained of the mighty Hector.
"They go thus early for fear of the Greeks, who are crafty above all other men," said Old-Gold. Then the steeds returned to their manger of sweet clover.
And at sunrise, at a little distance outside of the city gates, all the people of Troy met Priam bringing home his dead.
the doom of Achilles, which the soothsayer had foretold at his birth, came sure and soon. One day, while hard fighting was going on beneath the walls of Troy, he drove his chariot close up to the famous gate, called the Scæan, and stopped to taunt the unhappy Trojans who stood upon the battlements. Vainly did the faithful steed, Old-Gold, champ upon his foaming bit and rear in his traces and strain hard upon the reins; for he knew the fate that threatened his master and would fain have carried him away from But Achilles, standing high in the chariot, boasted of his great deeds: how from the sea he had laid waste twelve cities, and from the land eleven; how he had vanquished the queen of the Amazons, and had slain Hector, the hope of the Trojans; how he had taken great spoils and countless treasures from many lands; and how, in all the world, there was no name so terrible as his, no, not even the name of the sun-bright Apollo.But scarcely had the last rash boast passed his lips when a gleaming spear circled down upon him from above, nor could the armor which Vulcan had forged for him ward off the swift death which it brought. Some say that the fatal weapon was hurled from the battlements by Paris, the perfidious prince who had caused all that sad war; and others assert that it came from the hands of no mortal man, but was cast from the sky by great Apollo himself, offended beyond measure at the hero's boasting. I do not know whether either of these stories is true, nor does it matter now. All I need to say is that the destroyer of three and twenty cities fell headlong and helpless in the dust, as many another boaster has done since his day, and the great world went on as before. And his wonderful war steeds, no longer restrained by his voice and hand, sprang wildly away and galloped with the speed of the wind across the plain.
And old King Peleus, rich and wretched, the favorite of the gods, sat mourning in his desolate halls at Phthia. But his hero son never returned to him, and no man brought him any word concerning the fate of the rare gifts which Poseidon had given him on his wedding day—the immortal creatures, Swift and Old-Gold.