"Such was the end of Priam, such his fate, To see in death his house all desolate, And Troy, whom erst a hundred states obeyed, A heap of blackened stones in ruin laid. A headless corpse washed by the salt sea tide, Not e'en a stone to show where Priam died." THE DEATH OF AJAX BY F. STORR Of all the Greek knights who fought against Troy the boldest and most chivalrous was Ajax, son of Telamon. But his fiery temper oft proved his bane, and in the end it led him to ruin and death. When Achilles died he left his arms to be awarded by the captains of the host to him whom they should pronounce the bravest of the Greeks, and the prize fell to Ulysses. Ajax took this award in high dudgeon, and, knowing himself the better man, affirmed that this judgment could have been procured only by fraud and corruption, and swore that he would be avenged of his crafty rival. He challenged his enemy to single combat, but Ulysses was too wary to risk his life against such a swordsman, and the chiefs who heard of the quarrel interfered, saying that Greek must not take the blood of Greek. Thus balked, Ajax raged more furiously, and swore that if Ulysses would not fight he would slay him in his tent. So Ulysses went about in fear of his life, and he appealed to his patron goddess to defend him. Minerva heard his prayer, and promised her favorite warrior that he should suffer no harm. She kept her word by sending on Ajax a strong delusion, whereby in his frenzy he mistook beasts for men. The Greeks found the herds and flocks that had been taken in raids, and were kept in pound as a common stock to feed the army, hacked and hewn in the night, as though a mountain lion had been ravaging them; and they suspected Ajax, whose strange behavior none could fail to notice, as the offender, but they had no certain proof, and Ulysses, the man of many wiles, was by common consent deputed to search into the matter. So the next night he stole forth from the camp alone, and in the early light of dawn he espied a solitary figure hurrying over the plain, and he followed the trail like a bloodhound till it led him to the tent of Ajax. He paused uncertain, for he dared not venture farther, and was about to return and report to the commanders what he had seen, when he heard a voice saying, "Ulysses, what dost thou here?" and he knew it could be none other than the voice of his own goddess Minerva.