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 thither
went many of the barbarians who watched the gate, that they might drive
them back.
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