“Be it so:  I will do this deed, nor count it shame.”

“’Tis well,” said Ulysses, “and now I will despatch this watcher to the ship, whom I will send again in pilot’s disguise if thou desire, and it seems needful.  Also I myself will depart, and may Hermes, the god of craft, and Athene, who ever is with me, cause us to prevail.”

After a while Philoctetes came up the path to the cave very slowly, and with many groans.  And when he saw the strangers (for now some of the ship’s crew were with Prince Neoptolemus) he cried, “Who are ye that are come to this inhospitable land?  Greeks I know you to be by your garb; but tell me more.”

And when the Prince had told his name and lineage, and that he was sailing from Troy, Philoctetes cried, “Sayest thou from Troy?  Yet surely thou didst not sail with us in the beginning.”

“What?” cried the Prince.  “Hadst thou then a share in this matter of Troy?”

And Philoctetes made reply, “Knowest thou not whom thou seest?  Hast thou not heard the story of my sorrows?” And when he heard that the young man knew nothing of these things:  “Surely this is sorrow upon sorrow if no report of my state hath come to the land of Greece, and I lie here alone, and my disease groweth upon me, but my enemies laugh and keep silence!” And then he told his name and fortunes, and how the Greeks had left him on the shore while he slept, and how it was the tenth year of his sojourning in the island.  “For know,” he said, “that it is without haven or anchorage, and no man cometh hither of his free will; and if any come unwilling, as indeed it doth sometimes chance, they speak soft words to me and give me, haply, some meat; but when I make suit to them that they carry me to my home, they will not.  And this wrong the sons of Atreus and Ulysses have worked against me; for which may the Gods who dwell in Olympus make them equal recompense.”

“And I,” said the Prince, “am no lover of these men.  For when Achilles was dead—­”

“How sayest thou?  Is the son of Peleus dead?”

“Yea; but it was the hand of a God and not of a man that slew him.”

“A mighty warrior slain by a mighty foe!  But say on.”

“Ulysses, and Phoenix who was my sire’s foster-father, came in a ship to fetch me; and when I was come to the camp they even greeted me kindly, and sware that it was Achilles’ self they saw, so like was I to my sire.  And, my mourning ended, I sought the sons of Atreus and asked of them the arms of my father, but they made answer that they had given them to Ulysses; and Ulysses, chancing to be there, affirmed that they had done well, seeing that he had saved them from the enemy.  And when I could prevail nothing, I sailed away in great wrath.”

“’Tis even,” Philoctetes made reply, “as I should have judged of them.  But I marvel that the Greater Ajax endured to see such doings.”

“Ah! but he was already dead.”