did somewhat against his will, though he was no hater of fair women.
But his heart misdoubted the dark-eyed Queen, and he looked upon her
guardedly, for she was strangely fair to see, the fairest of all mortal
women whom he had known, save the Golden Helen.

"Wanderer, we owe thee great thanks, and I would gladly know to whom
we are in debt for the prices of our lives," she said. "Tell me of thy
birth, of thy father's house, and of the lands that thou hast seen and
the wars wherein thou hast fought. Tell me also of the sack of Ilios,
and how thou camest by thy golden mail. The unhappy Paris wore such arms
as these, if the minstrel of the North sang truth."

Now, the Wanderer would gladly have cursed this minstrel of the North
and his songs.

"Minstrels will be lying, Lady," he said, "and they gather old tales
wherever they go. Paris may have worn my arms, or another man. I bought
them from a chapman in Crete, and asked nothing of their first master.
As for Ilios, I fought there in my youth, and served the Cretan
Idomeneus, but I got little booty. To the King the wealth and women, to
us the sword-strokes. Such is the appearance of war."

Meriamun listened to his tale, which he set forth roughly, as if he were
some blunt, grumbling swordsman, and darkly she looked on him while she
hearkened, and darkly she smiled as she looked.

"A strange story, Eperitus, a strange story truly. Now tell me thus. How
camest thou by yonder great bow, the bow of the swallow string? If my
minstrel spoke truly, it was once the Bow of Eurytus of OEchalia."

Now the Wanderer glanced round him like a man taken in ambush, who sees
on every hand the sword of foes shine up into the sunlight.

"The bow, Lady?" he answered readily enough. "I got it strangely. I
was cruising with a cargo of iron on the western coast and landed on an
isle, methinks the pilot called it Ithaca. There we found nothing but
death; a pestilence had been in the land, but in a ruined hall this bow
was lying, and I made prize of it. A good bow!"

"A strange story, truly--a very strange story," quoth Meriamun the
Queen. "By chance thou didst buy the armour of Paris, by chance thou
didst find the bow of Eurytus, that bow, methinks, with which the
god-like Odysseus slew the wooers in his halls. Knowest thou, Eperitus,
that when thou stoodest yonder on the board in the Place of Banquets,
when the great bow twanged and the long shafts hailed down on the hall
and loosened the