ut it fell back blunted from the glorious shield that
the God had made for the son of Peleus. Then she threw another spear at
Aias, crying, 'I am the daughter of the God of War,' but his armour kept
out the spear, and he and Achilles laughed aloud. Aias paid no more heed
to the Amazon, but rushed against the Trojan men; while Achilles raised
the heavy spear that none but he could throw, and drove it down through
breastplate and breast of Penthesilea, yet still her hand grasped her
sword-hilt. But, ere she could draw her sword, Achilles speared her
horse, and horse and rider fell, and died in their fall.

There lay fair Penthesilea in the dust, like a tall poplar tree that the
wind has overthrown, and her helmet fell, and the Greeks who gathered
round marvelled to see her lie so beautiful in death, like Artemis, the
Goddess of the Woods, when she sleeps alone, weary with hunting on the
hills. Then the heart of Achilles was pierced with pity and sorrow,
thinking how she might have been his wife in his own country, had he
spared her, but he was never to see pleasant Phthia, his native land,
again. So Achilles stood and wept over Penthesilea dead.

Now the Greeks, in pity and sorrow, held their hands, and did not pursue
the Trojans who had fled, nor did they strip the armour from Penthesilea
and her twelve maidens, but laid the bodies on biers, and sent them back
in peace to Priam. Then the Trojans burned Penthesilea in the midst of
her dead maidens, on a great pile of dry wood, and placed their ashes
in a golden casket, and buried them all in the great hill-grave of
Laomedon, an ancient King of Troy, while the Greeks with lamentation
buried them whom the Amazon had slain.

[Illustration: ACHILLES PITIES PENTHESILEA AFTER SLAYING HER.]

The old men of Troy and the chiefs now held a council, and Priam said
that they must not yet despair, for, if they had lost many of their
bravest warriors, many of the Greeks had also fallen. Their best plan
was to fight only with arrows from the walls and towers, till King
Memnon came to their rescue with a great army of Aethiopes. Now Memnon
was the son of the bright Dawn, a beautiful Goddess who had loved and
married a mortal man, Tithonus. She had asked Zeus, the chief of the
Gods, to make her lover immortal, and her prayer was granted. Tithonus
could not die, but he began to grow grey, and then white haired, with a
long white beard, and very weak, till nothing of him seemed to be left