, and farther off,
looming dimly in the darkness, the gigantic shade of Ajax. Achilles
was the first to speak. "Son of Laertes," he said, "thou man of
daring, hast thou reached the limit of thy rashness, or wilt thou go
yet further? Are there no perils left for thee in the land of the
living that thou must invade the very realm of Hades, the sunless
haunts of the dead?"

"I came to inquire of Teiresias," answered Odysseus, "concerning my
return to Ithaca. All my life I am a bondslave to toil and woe; but
thou, Achilles, wast happy in thy life, honoured as a god by all the
sons of Hellas; and now thou art happy, even in death, for honour
waits on thy footsteps still."

"Tell me not of comfort in death," replied Achilles. "Rather would I
breathe the air of heaven, yea, though I were thrall to a man of
little substance, than reign as king over all the shades of the dead.
But give me some news of my son, Neoptolemus. Came he to fight with
the Trojans after I was gone, and did he acquit him well? And knowest
thou aught of my father, Peleus? Lives he still in honour and comfort
among my people, or has he been driven into beggary by violent men,
now that he is old and I am not near to aid him? Oh, for an hour of
life, with such might as was mine when I fought in the van for Greece?
Then should they pay a bitter reckoning, whosoever they be that wrong
him and keep him from his own."

"Of Peleus," answered Odysseus, "I have heard nothing, but of thy son,
Neoptolemus, I can tell thee much, for I myself brought him from
Scyros to fight in Helen's cause, and thereafter my eye was ever upon
him, to mark how he bore himself. In council none could vie with him,
save only Nestor and myself; ne'er saw I so rare a wit in so young a
head. And when the Greeks were arrayed in battle against the Trojans
he was never seen to hang back, but fought ever in the van among the
foremost champions, like a mighty man of war. Nor was it only in the
clamour and heat of war that he proved his mettle; for in that
perilous hour when we lay ambushed in the wooden horse, when the
stoutest hearts among us quailed, he never changed colour, but sat
fingering his spear and sword, waiting for the signal to go forth to
the assault. And after we had sacked the lofty towers of Troy he
received a goodly portion of the spoil, and a special prize of honour,
and so departed, untouched by point or blade, to his father's house."

When he heard these brave tidings of