seashore, he began to plow the beach with a horse and an _ox_ yoked
together, and to scatter salt upon the sand instead of seed.

[Illustration: ULYSSES FEIGNING MADNESS.

_Heywood Hardy._]

Palamedes, however, was more than a match in artifice for the Ithacan
king. Taking Telemachus from the arms of his nurse, he placed the
infant on the sand in front of the plowing team. Ulysses quickly turned
the animals aside to avoid injuring his child, thus proving that he was
not mad but in full possession of his senses. The king of Ithaca was
therefore obliged to join the expedition to Troy. With twelve ships well
manned he sailed from his rugged island, which he did not again see for
twenty years. Ten years he spent at the siege, and ten on his homeward
voyage, during which he met with the wonderful adventures that Homer
describes in the Odyssey.

Ulysses had his revenge upon Palamedes in a manner very unworthy of a
brave man. In the camp before Troy, during the siege, he bribed one of
the servants of Palamedes to conceal a sum of money in his master's
tent. He then forged a letter, which he read before a council of the
Greek generals, saying that Palamedes had taken it from a Trojan
prisoner. This letter was written as if by King Priam to Palamedes,
thanking him for the information he had given regarding the plans of the
Greeks, and mentioning money as having been sent him in reward for his
services. The Greek generals at once ordered a search to be made in the
tent of Palamedes, and the money being found where it had been hidden by
direction of Ulysses, the unfortunate Palamedes was immediately put to
death as a traitor.