And Achilles answered, "Be it so: I will stay the war for so long."
But while Priam slept there came to him Hermes, the messenger of Zeus, and said: "Sleepest thou, Priam, among thy foes? Achilles has taken ransom for thy Hector; but thy sons that are left would pay thrice as much for thee should Agamemnon hear that thou wert among the ships."
The old man heard and trembled, and roused the herald, and the two yoked the horses and the mules. So they passed through the army, and no man knew. And when they came to the river, Hermes departed to Olympus, and the morning shone over all the earth. Wailing and weeping, they carried the body to the city.
It was Cassandra who first espied them as they came. Her father she saw, and the herald, and then the dead body on the litter, and she cried, "Sons and daughters of Troy, go to meet Hector, if ever ye have met him with joy as he came back from the battle."
And straightway there was not man or woman left in the city. They met the wagon when it
