So they parted, and Ulysses went out, and when it was day he was with the
beggars in the streets, but by night he commonly slept near the fire of a
smithy forge, as is the way of beggars. So for some days he begged,
saying that he was gathering food to eat while he walked to some town far
away that was at peace, where he might find work to do. He was not
impudent now, and did not go to rich men's houses or tell evil tales, or
laugh, but he was much in the temples, praying to the Gods, and above all
in the temple of Pallas Athene. The Trojans thought that he was a pious
man for a beggar.

Now there was a custom in these times that men and women who were sick or
in distress, should sleep at night on the floors of the temples. They
did this hoping that the God would send them a dream to show them how
their diseases might be cured, or how they might find what they had lost,
or might escape from their distresses.

Ulysses slept in more than one temple, and once in that of Pallas Athene,
and the priests and priestesses were kind to him, and gave him food in
the morning when the gates of the temple were opened.

In the temple of Pallas Athene, where the Luck of Troy lay always on her
altar, the custom was that priestesses kept watch, each for two hours,
all through the night, and soldiers kept guard within call. So one night
Ulysses slept there, on the floor, with other distressed people, seeking
for dreams from the Gods. He lay still all through the night till the
turn of the last priestess came to watch. The priestess used to walk up
and down with bare feet among the dreaming people, having a torch in her
hand, and muttering hymns to the Goddess. Then Ulysses, when her back
was turned, slipped the gold phial out of his rags, and let it lie on the