After this fervent appeal he made all haste, and ran along the fighting line, looking about him with a piercing glance, like an eagle soaring high in the heaven, who spies out a hare as she crouches in the shadow of a thicket. So did the keen eye of Menelaus soon discern where Antilochus was fighting, on the extreme left of the field. "Dire is the news I bring," said Menelaus, halting by his side: "Patroclus is slain, Hector has his armour, and thou art chosen to tell Achilles of his loss, that if it be possible he may yet save the body." With parted lips, and eyes staring with horror, Antilochus stood gazing at the bringer of the message of woe. Then dashing the tears from his eyes, and drawing a deep sobbing breath, he flung down his shield and sped away on his mournful errand. "I have sent him," said Menelaus, when he had returned with all speed to the defenders of the fallen Patroclus. "I know not what Achilles will do--he cannot fight without armour. But to our task." "The Trojans have drawn off a little," answered Ajax. "Now is the time: do thou and Meriones take the corpse on your shoulders, while I and my brother-in-arms hold the foe in play." Without a moment's delay Menelaus and Meriones hoisted the body on their shoulders and began to carry it towards the camp: which when the Trojans saw, they raised a great shout, and rushed after, like hounds attacking a wounded wild boar; but as the hounds are scattered when the great brute wheels to the charge, so fled the Trojans before the determined stand of Ajax and his comrade. But only for a moment: on they came again, fierce as a mighty conflagration, which sweeps through the streets of a town, driven before the gale, while the houses melt away like wax in the flames: with like furious uproar came horse and foot hard at their heels, as they bore the body from the field. But stoutly and stubbornly they plodded on with their burden, panting and sweating like a pair of mules which drag a heavy beam down a rugged mountain path: and behind them those two doughty champions opposed an impassable barrier to the Trojans, like a long wooded mountain spur, which hurls back the fierce assault of a swollen stream, and cannot be broken. Yet even now the issue seemed doubtful; for just as the bearers reached the barriers of the camp Hector and Æneas led a vigorous charge, scattering the Greeks as a hawk scatters a noisy mob of starlings or daws. The News is brought to Achilles I