When he heard that, Mentor was wroth, and rebuked Odysseus as slow of hand and cold of heart.  “Why standest thou idle?” he cried.  “Get thee to thy weapons, and finish the work which thou hast to do, if thou art verily that Odysseus who wrought such havoc among the Trojans in the nine years’ war.”

With these words the supposed Mentor vanished as mysteriously as he had appeared, and a little swallow was seen darting hither and thither among the smoke-blackened beams of the roof.

The wooers understood not in whose presence they had been, and, thinking that Mentor had fled before their threats, they took courage again, and prepared to make a fresh assault.  Agelaus now took the lead, and at his command six of them advanced and hurled their spears.  But they were all dazed with drink, and weakened by long habits of loose indulgence, and not one of their weapons took effect.

“Now hurl ye your spears!” shouted Odysseus, and the four lances flew, and four wooers bit the dust.  At the next discharge from the wooers Telemachus received a slight wound on the wrist, and Eumaeus was similarly injured on the shoulder by the spear of the brutal Ctesippus.  A moment after Ctesippus himself was struck down by the lance of Philoetius, who mocked him as he fell saying:  “There is for the ox-foot which thou didst lately bestow on Odysseus, thou noisy railer!”

And so the great fight went on, and at every cast of the spear Odysseus and his men added another to the list of the slain.  Seeing their numbers dwindling fast, the wretched remnant of the wooers lost heart altogether and huddled together like sheep at the end of the hall.  To complete their discomfiture a terrible voice was suddenly heard in the air, and a gleam as from a bright shield was seen high up among the rafters.  “Tis Athene herself come to our aid!” cried Odysseus; “advance, and make an end of them.  Athene is on our side!” Forthwith they all sprang down from the platform and charged the wooers, of whom some dozen still remained alive.  What followed was not a battle, but a massacre.  Like a drove of kine plunging frantically over a field, tortured by the sting of the hovering gadfly—­like a flock of small birds scattered by the sudden swoop of a falcon—­the panic-stricken wooers fled hither and thither through the hall, seeking shelter behind pillars and under tables from the blows which rained upon them.  But vain was their flight.  In a very short time the last of that guilty band was sent to his account, and the great act of vengeance was completed.

II