True to her lord, if ever yet was wife, she had followed him to the Shades; yet alas! in death they were not reunited. The gods are just, and Laodamia had not yet learnt the lesson of Protesilaus, that there is a higher and nobler thing even than human love--self-sacrifice and duty. Therefore she is doomed for a set time to wander in the Mourning Fields apart from happy ghosts, till her spirit raised and solemnized by suffering is worthy to meet her lord who walks with the heroes of old in the dwellings of the blest. THE DEATH OF HECTOR BY V. C. TURNBULL Of all the Trojan warriors none could be compared with their leader, Hector, the son of Priam. Terrible was he in battle, as the Greeks had known to their cost; but within the walls of Troy none was more loved than he; for towards all he was gracious and kindly. To Priam and Hecuba a dutiful son; aye, even to Paris and Helen, the guilty cause of unnumbered woes, he showed a brother's spirit. But none knew the depth of his love and gentleness as did his wife, Andromache, and their little son, Astyanax. These, in the pauses of the strife around the walls of Troy, he would seek out, comforting his wife with tender words and dandling the young child in his strong hands. Such was Hector, greatest of the Trojans. Of the Greeks, the greatest in strength and terrible might of battle was Achilles, son of Peleus and the divine Thetis. A mightier warrior was he even than Hector himself, and no man unaided of the gods might fight against him and live. And when Troy had been besieged for nine long years, and countless brave warriors had fallen on either side, these two champions of the Greek and Trojan hosts met face to face. And this is how they came to fight and how they fared. Achilles, in high dudgeon with King Agamemnon over what he deemed an unfair division of spoil, had suddenly withdrawn to his tent and left the rest to fight on without his aid. But his young comrade in arms and dearest friend, Patroclus, the son of Menoetius, he at length permitted to return to the fight, arming him with his own armor. But him Hector slew, stripping off from his body the armor of Achilles and donning it himself. Now, when Achilles heard that Patroclus was dead, his grief was so terrible that he could scarce be held from laying hands on himself. But his wrath was stronger than his grief, and he swore to slay the slayer of his friend. Therefore, forgetting his old quarrel, he hastened to make peace with Agamemnon. And since his own armor had been taken by Hector, his mother, Thetis, prevailed upon Vulcan, the god-smith, to fashion him a corslet, a helmet, and a mighty shield wrought all round with strange devices. Armed in this panoply of the god and towering over the heads of all the Greeks, he strode shouting into the fray.