The whole city went wild with joy. Like one who has been a prisoner for
many years, it flung off all restraint, and the people rose as a single
man to test the truth of new liberty. The gates were thrown wide, and
the Trojans--men, women, and children--thronged over the plain and
into the empty camp of the enemy. There stood the Wooden Horse.

No one knew what it could be. Fearful at first, they gathered around
it, as children gather around a live horse; they marvelled at its
wondrous height and girth, and were for moving it into the city as a
trophy of war.

At this, one man interposed,--Laocooen, a priest of Poseidon. "Take
heed, citizens," said he. "Beware of all that comes from the Greeks.
Have you fought them for ten years without learning their devices? This
is some piece of treachery."

But there was another outcry in the crowd, and at that moment certain
of the Trojans dragged forward a wretched man who wore the garments of
a Greek. He seemed the sole remnant of the Grecian army, and as such
they consented to spare his life, if he would tell them the truth.

Sinon, for this was the spy's name, said that he had been left behind
by the malice of Odysseus, and he told them that the Greeks had built
the Wooden Horse as an offering to Athena, and that they had made it so
huge in order to keep it from being moved out of the camp, since it was
destined to bring triumph to its possessors.

At this, the joy of the Trojans was redoubled, and they set their wits
to find out how they might soonest drag the great horse across the