One touch from that potent hand, one word from those immortal lips, sufficed to banish all the effects of the fearful blow which had left Hector as weak as a child. Bounding to his feet, he cried: "Lead on, mighty god! I fear no perils with thee at my side," and like a gallant war horse, that smelleth the battle afar off, he ran at full speed to rejoin the Trojans, who were now flying tumultuously from the camp. And as when a troop of hunters with their hounds have started a royal stag, and chased him with wild halloo to the thick covert of a tangled wood; then suddenly they shrink back with cries of dismay, for they see a lion standing in the path: so panic fell upon the Greeks in the midst of their triumph, when they saw Hector returning to battle, full of vigour and courage, though they had already counted him among the dead. On poured the Trojans, Hector and Apollo leading the van, and the Greeks gave ground before them, scared by the dread ægis, which Apollo shook in their faces, crying his terrible cry. At first they yielded slowly, keeping their ranks, and attempting some defence; but soon the retreat became a rout, and the moat was filled with a struggling multitude, seeking the shelter of the wall and the ships. "Kill, kill!" cried Hector fiercely. "Pause not to strip the dead, but slay the men, and burn their ships. Let me but see anyone skulking behind for plunder and he dies by my hand." With that he lashed his horses, and drove straight across the moat, the Trojans following him in dense column. In front strode Apollo, trampling down the sides of the moat as he went, and making a path broad as the farthest cast of a spear. Then he hurled himself on the wall, and overthrew it, as easily as a child destroys with his feet a castle of sand which he has raised in sport on the margin of the sea. Like a towering billow, which topples down upon a ship, crushing her bulwarks and flooding her with brine, so rushed the Trojans in a torrent over the wall, and fell upon the hindmost row of ships; and the Greeks on their side mounted the decks, and thrust at their assailants with long boarding-pikes, which lay ready to hand. Foremost among the defenders was seen the giant form of Telamonian Ajax; and by his side fought Teucer, whose bow had already done such good service to the Greeks. But just as Teucer was aiming an arrow at Hector his bowstring snapped, and the arrow dropped harmless to the ground. "Fate is against us to-day," he cried; "it was a new string, the stoutest and the best I had, which I fitted to my bow this very morning." "Go quickly," answered Ajax. "And arm thyself with shield and spear; there is no room here for thine archery to-day." And Teucer went and armed himself, and returned with all speed to his mighty brother's side.