A brave king was Menelaus, and happily he lived in his kingdom with Helen, his queen, fairest of all women. One child they had, a little maid, Hermione. When to Sparta there came Paris, with eyes blue as the sea, and hair that gleamed like gold on his purple robe, gallant and brave, and more beautiful than any mortal man, glad was the welcome that he had from Menelaus. And when Paris gazed on Helen’s face, he knew that in all the world there was no woman half so fair as the wife of Menelaus. Then did Aphrodite cast her magic upon Helen. No longer did she love her husband, nor did she remember little Hermione, her own dear child. When Paris spoke to her words of love, and begged her to flee with him, and to be his wife, she knew only that she loved Paris more than all else. Gladly she went with him, and in his red-prowed ship together they sailed across the green waves to Troyland, where Mount Ida showed her snowy crown high above the forests. An angry man was Menelaus when he found that Paris had stolen from him the fair wife who was to him as his own heart. To his elder brother Agamemnon, overlord of all the Greeks, he went and told his grievous tale. And from far and wide did the Greek hosts gather, until a hundred thousand men and eleven hundred fourscore and six ships were ready to cross the seas to Troyland. [Illustration: Many were the heroes who sailed away from Greece (page 5)] Many were the heroes who sailed away from Greece to punish Paris and his kin, and to bring back fair Helen to her own land. Few there were who came home, for ten long years of woe and of spilling of blood came to the men of Greece and of Troy from the fatal beauty of Helen the queen. CHAPTER I HOW ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON FELL OUT Before the walls of Troy the Greeks set their camp, and day by day and night by night did they besiege it. One day would the Greeks win the fight, and the next day the Trojans would be victors in the battle. And so passed nine long years away. To the city of Chryse one day went part of the Greek host, sacked it, and brought back to their camp rich spoils and many prisoners. Among the prisoners was a beautiful maiden, Chryseïs, daughter of the old priest of the Temple of Apollo. Her did Agamemnon choose as his part of the spoil, to be his slave. From Chryse, seeking his daughter, came the old priest. With him he brought a rich ransom to buy the freedom of Chryseïs, and in his hands he bore a golden staff wrapped round with the garland worn by Apollo, to show that the god whose priest he was, was with him in craving a boon from Agamemnon, overlord of the Greeks. ‘Take this ransom, I pray you, and set ye my dear child free,’ pled Chryses, ‘and the gods will grant you to lay waste the city of Troy, and to fare happily homeward.’ Then the Greeks gladly agreed that Chryseïs should go home with her father, and that the goodly ransom should be theirs. But Agamemnon, in great wrath, drove the old man away.