Troy from the forests on Mount Ida, and when he found that nobody was
within sight he slipped into the forest, and stole into a dark thicket,
hiding beneath the tangled boughs. Here he lay and slept till evening,
and then took the new clothes which Helen had given him out of his
wallet, and put them on, and threw the belt of the sword over his
shoulder, and hid the Luck of Troy in his bosom. He washed himself clean
in a mountain brook, and now all who saw him must have known that he was
no beggar, but Ulysses of Ithaca, Laertes' son.

So he walked cautiously down the side of the brook which ran between high
banks deep in trees, and followed it till it reached the river Xanthus,
on the left of the Greek lines. Here he found Greek sentinels set to
guard the camp, who cried aloud in joy and surprise, for his ship had not
yet returned from Delos, and they could not guess how Ulysses had come
back alone across the sea. So two of the sentinels guarded Ulysses to
the hut of Agamemnon, where he and Achilles and all the chiefs were
sitting at a feast. They all leaped up, but when Ulysses took the Luck
of Troy from within his mantle, they cried that this was the bravest deed
that had been done in the war, and they sacrificed ten oxen to Zeus.

"So you were the old beggar," said young Thrasymedes.

"Yes," said Ulysses, "and when next you beat a beggar, Thrasymedes, do
not strike so hard and so long."

That night all the Greeks were full of hope, for now they had the Luck of
Troy, but the Trojans were in despair, and guessed that the beggar was
the thief, and that Ulysses had been the beggar. The priestess, Theano,
could tell them nothing; they found her, with the extinguished torch
drooping in her hand, asleep, as she sat on the step of the altar, and