That night a door, cunningly set and concealed in the side of the wooden horse, was opened by Sinon, the spy. Out of the door came the hero Ulysses, King Menelaus, and a band of picked Greek generals, for the Greeks had made the wooden horse hollow so that a hundred men might be hidden inside for a long time with their arms and provisions and come to no harm. These men opened the gates of Troy, a city sunk in darkness and sleep, and through the gates went the Grecian army which had returned in the ships and crossed the plain silently in the cover of the night. So the prophecy of Laocoon and of the sad Cassandra was proved true, for there was not a Trojan on guard. King Priam and his noblest warriors were killed, Cassandra was taken captive, and the city was set on fire with torches and burned to the ground. Then the Greeks set sail for their own country which they had not seen for so many years, and they took the beautiful Helen with them, awakened at last from the spell which Venus had cast upon her, and sorrowing for all the suffering she had caused. But the glory of the old Trojan days was gone forever. Men search to-day the ruins of ancient Troy that lie hidden like bright jewels in the depths of the ancient mountains. There is little left but the memory of the apple of Discord that caused the destruction of the city and the heroes and the citadel of Troy's old power. [3]THE CYCLOPS. The hero Ulysses was about to sail home to Greece, after the great city of Troy had been taken, having wandered farthest and suffered most of all in the long Trojan war. He was well-nigh the last to sail, for he had tarried many days to do homage to Agamemnon, lord of all the Greeks. Twelve ships he had with him, twelve that he had brought to Troy, and in each there were some fifty men, being scarce half of those that had sailed with them in the old days, so many valiant heroes slept the last sleep on the plain and on the seashore, slain in battle or by the shafts of Apollo. So first Ulysses sailed to the Thracian coast where he and his men filled their ships with foodstuffs and oxen and jars of fragrant juices of the grape. Scarcely had he set out again when the wind began to blow fiercely, and seeing a smooth sandy beach, they drove the ships to shore, dragged them out of reach of the waves, and waited there until the storm should abate. And the third morning, being fair, they sailed again, and journeyed prosperously. On the tenth day they came to the land where the lotus grows, a wonderful fruit which whoever eats cares not to see country, home, or children again.