Serpent of Athens, and many another knightly bearing of
old friends and kindred dear. And now they were the blazons of foemen,
and the Wanderer warred for a strange king, and for his own hand,
beneath the wings of the Hawk of the Legion of Ra.

The Wanderer sent heralds forward, calling to those barbarians who
swarmed behind the wall to surrender to the host of Pharaoh, but this,
being entrenched by the river Sihor, they would in nowise do. For they
were mad because of their slaughtered thousands, and moreover they knew
that it is better to die than to live as slaves. This they saw also,
that their host was still as strong as the host of Pharaoh, which was
without the wall, and weary with the heat and stress of battle and the
toil of marching through the desert sands. Now the Captains of the host
of Pharaoh came to the Wanderer, praying him that he would do no more
battle on that day, because the men were weary, and the horses neighed
for food and water.

But he answered them: "I swore to Pharaoh that I would utterly smite the
people of the Nine-bows and drive them down to death, so that the coasts
of Khem may be free of them. Here I may not camp the host, without food
or pasture for the horses, and if I go back, the foe will gather heart
and come on, and with them the fleet of the Achaeans, and no more shall
we lure them into ambush, for therein they have learned a lesson. Nay,
get you to your companies. I will go up against the camp."

Then they bowed and went, for having seen his deeds and his skill and
craft in war, they held him the first of Captains, and dared not say him
nay.

So the Wanderer divided his host into three parts, set it in order of
battle, and moved up against the camp. But he himself went with the
centre part against the gate of the camp, for here there was an earthen
way for chariots, if but the great gates might be passed. And at a word
the threefold host rushed on to the charge. But those within the walls
shot them with spears and arrows, so that many were slain, and they were
rolled back from the wall as a wave is rolled from the cliff. Again the
Wanderer bade them charge on the right and left, bearing the dead before
them as shields, and hurling corpses into the ditch to fill it. But he
himself hung back awhile with the middle army, watching how the battle
went, and waiting till the foe at the gate should be drawn away.

Now the mercenaries of Pharaoh forced a passage on the right and thi