CHAPTER X.
THE DEATH OF HECTOR.
Hector remains alone outside the Scæan gate, awaiting his great enemy. In vain his aged father and mother from the walls entreat him to take shelter within, like the rest of his countrymen. He will not meet the just reproach of Polydamas, whose prudent counsel he rejected. The deaths of his friends who have fallen in this terrible battle, which he had insisted upon their risking, hang heavy on his soul. He, at least, will do what he may for Troy. Yet he has no confidence in the result of the encounter. If he were only sure that Achilles would listen, he would even now offer to restore Helen, and so end this disastrous war. But he feels it is too late; vengeance alone will now content Achilles.
"Not this the time, nor he the man with whom
By forest oak or rock, like youth and maid,
To hold light talk as youth and maid might hold.
Better to dare the fight, and know at once
For whom the vict'ry is decreed by Heaven."
Achilles draws near. The courage which has never failed Hector before, wholly deserts him now; he turns and flies, "like a dove from the falcon." Judged by
