a man of blood, and unfaithful, and that he
had suffered a just punishment together with his paramour. And when they
made lamentation over the King that he had been treacherously slain, she
said, "Think not that I am this dead man's wife, as indeed I seem to be;
rather am I the avenger that executeth judgment for the ancient evils of
this house."

And when they cried, "O my King, who shall do thee due honour at thy
burial, and speak thy praise, and weep for thee?" she made reply,
"Trouble not yourselves with these things. As I slew him so will I bury
him. And though many tears follow him not from his house, yet doubtless
when he cometh to the dwellings of the dead, Iphigenia, his daughter,
whom he loved, will meet him, and throw her arms about him, and kiss
him, so dear a father he was to her."

[Illustration: THE MURDER OF AGAMEMNON.]

And while they talked thus with each other, there came forward the
Prince AEgisthus, with his guard about him, boasting that now the wrongs
of his father Thyestes were avenged. Then again the strife of words grew
fierce, for the counsellors reproached the Prince that he was
treacherous, having bound himself with a false woman against his lord
the King; and cowardly also and base, in that he had not dared to do
this deed himself, but had left it to the hands of another; also they
prophesied that Orestes should come and execute the just judgment of the
Gods on them that had slain his father. And the Prince endured not to
hear such words, but threatened bonds and imprisonment. So had strife
nearly begun, for AEgisthus called to his guards, and the counsellors
would fain have roused the citizens, but the Queen, for indeed she would
that the shedding of blood should have an end, spake and soothed the
anger of the Prince, saying, "Heed not what these babblers say. Thou and
I are rulers in this place, aye, and will order all things aright."

So the two lived together for a while in great pride and joy. But the
blood cried against them from the ground, and the Gods forgat them not.

THE STORY OF ELECTRA, OR THE RETURN OF ORESTES.

When King Agamemnon was slain by his wicked wife Clytaemnestra, the boy
Orestes his son had perished also by the hands of his mother, but that
his sister Electra took him and delivered him out of the hands of them
that would have slain him. And having saved him, she sent him to the
house of Strophius the Phocian, who was a friend to the house of the
King,