Trojan captains with prayers and blessings. The enterprise might have succeeded, had not the two friends been tempted, by the helpless state in which they found the Rutulian camp, to slaughter their sleeping enemies as they passed. Rhamnes and Remus--names to be borne hereafter by more historic actors in the history of Rome--with a crowd of victims of lesser note, fall by the swords of Nisus and his companion. Euryalus even stops, with a young man’s vanity, to put on the glittering belt which he has stripped from one of his victims, and the helmet of the sleeping Messapus. Thus precious time is lost, and the moonlight streams upon them as they clear the Rutulian lines, and take the path, which Nisus knows, for Pallanteum. A detachment of the enemy’s cavalry is on the march to join Turnus. The glimmer of the moonlight on Euryalus’s helmet--his new prize--betrays the friends as they try to steal by, and they are challenged at once by Volscens, the commander. They fly to the neighbouring wood; but the horsemen surround it, and though Nisus escapes them, it is only to find that his friend has fallen into their hands. He rushes back, and in the wild hope of effecting a rescue, hides himself in the thicket, whence he launches two spears with fatal effect upon the party who are dragging along their prisoner. Enraged at the sudden attack, and seeing no enemy in the darkness, Volscens lays hold upon Euryalus, and vows revenge. Nisus rushes from his cover, and implores them to turn their swords on him, and to spare a youth whose only crime has been his friendship. “In vain he spoke: the sword, fierce driven, That alabaster breast had riven. Down falls Euryalus, and lies In death’s enthralling agonies: Blood trickles o’er his limbs of snow; His head sinks gradually low: Thus, severed by the ruthless plough, Dim fades a purple flower: Their weary necks so poppies bow, O’erladen by the shower. But Nisus on the midmost flies, With Volscens, Volscens in his eyes: In clouds the warriors round him rise, Thick hailing blow on blow: Yet on he bears, no stint, no stay; Like thunderbolt his falchion’s sway: Till as for aid the Rutule shrieks Plunged in his throat the weapon reeks: The dying hand has reft away The lifeblood of its foe. Then, pierced to death, asleep he fell On the dead breast he loved so well.”