"Lady," said Antenor, an elder of high rank. "herein thou hast spoken the very truth. I entertained him of whom thou speakest as my guest when he came hither on an embassy with Menelaus, and I heard them both speaking before the assembly of the Trojans. When they stood up together Menelaus was by far the taller; but when they were seated there was greater dignity in Odysseus. Then as to eloquence, Odysseus bore away the palm from all--though Menelaus spoke both fluently and to the purpose. At first, when Odysseus rose to speak, we wondered to see how ungracefully he stood, leaning heavily on his sceptre, with eyes fixed upon the ground. He seemed a very churl, unskilled in all courtesy and the arts of civil life. But when he lifted up his mighty voice, and his words floated about us like the snowflakes of winter, we knew that we were listening to a divinely gifted man." At Priam's request Helen named the other chieftains of the Greeks, Ajax and Idomeneus, and the rest; and when the recital was ended she remained gazing wistfully at the dense masses of fighting men who sat waiting on the plain. "I cannot see them," she murmured sadly: "they are not there." "Of whom speakest thou?" asked Priam. "Of Castor and Polydeuces," she answered, "the bold rider, and the stout boxer, my own brothers, born of the same mother with me. Perchance they sailed not in the fleet to Troy, or perchance they have remained behind in the camp, in sorrow for their sister's shame." [Illustration: Helen on the Walls of Troy. Lord Leighton. By permission of Henry Graves & Co., Ltd.] Ah! Helen, thy brothers are lying where shame and sorrow can reach them no more, sleeping in their quiet graves, in Lacedæmon, their native land. III