No one knew what it could be.  Fearful at first, they gathered around it, as children gather around a live horse; they marveled at its wondrous height and girth, and were for moving it into the city as a trophy of war.

At this, one man interposed,—­Laocooen, a priest of Neptune.  “Take heed, citizens,” said he.  “Beware of all that comes from the Greeks.  Have you fought them for ten years without learning their devices?  This is some piece of treachery.”

But there was another outcry in the crowd, and at that moment certain of the Trojans dragged forward a wretched man who wore the garments of a Greek.  He seemed the sole remnant of the Grecian army, and as such they consented to spare his life, if he would tell them the truth.

Sinon, for this was the spy’s name, said that he had been left behind by the malice of Ulysses, and he told them that the Greeks had built the Wooden Horse as an offering to Athene, and that they had made it so huge in order to keep it from being moved out of the camp, since it was destined to bring triumph to its possessors.

At this the joy of the Trojans was redoubled, and they set their wits to find out how they might soonest drag the great horse across the plain and into the city to insure victory.  While they stood talking, two immense serpents rose out of the sea and made towards the camp.  Some of the people took flight, others were transfixed with terror; but all, near and far, watched this new omen.  Rearing their crests, the sea-serpents crossed the shore, swift, shining, terrible as a risen water-flood that descends upon a helpless little town.  Straight through the crowd they swept, and seized the priest Laocooen where he stood, with his two sons, and wrapped them all round and round in fearful coils.  There was no chance of escape.  Father and sons perished together; and when the monsters had devoured the three men, into the sea they slipped again, leaving no trace of the horror.

The terrified Trojans saw an omen in this.  To their minds punishment had come upon Laocooen for his words against the Wooden Horse.  Surely, it was sacred to the Gods; he had spoken blasphemy, and had perished before their eyes.  They flung his warning to the winds.  They wreathed the horse with garlands, amid great acclaim; and then, all lending a hand, they dragged it, little by little, out of the camp and into the city of Troy.  With the close of that victorious day, they gave up every memory of danger and made merry after ten years of privation.

That very night Sinon the spy opened the hidden door of the Wooden Horse, and in the darkness, Ulysses, Menelaus, and the other chiefs who had lain hidden there crept out and gave the signal to the Grecian army.  For, under cover of night, those ships that had been moored behind the island had sailed back again, and the Greeks were come upon Troy.

Not a Trojan was on guard.  The whole city was at feast when the enemy rose in its midst, and the warning of Laocooen was fulfilled.