Page:Half a hundred hero tales of Ulysses and the men of old.djvu/185

 Rh Troy; and it was not till the tenth year after his setting forth that tidings came that King Agamemnon was on his way home. All through those years his wife had nourished the hope of vengeance in her heart, both for the death of Iphigenia and for the falsehood that had made her send the maiden to the camp. So the king came home only to his grave. His wife received him with gracious words and with every sign of rejoicing; but ere night fell Agamemnon lay slain in his bath, where the dagger of Clytemnestra had smitten him down.

Next the Avenger of Blood put into the heart of Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, a great hatred for the mother who had slain his father. He was far from home when the cruel deed was done, and it was long ere he returned; but when at last he came he smote his own mother and slew her.

After this deed of awe and terror the Avenger of Blood pursued Orestes, and drove him, a branded outlaw, from land to land. At length he fled to the sanctuary of the great goddess Minerva, and was at last permitted to expiate his guilt.

He had to seek a piece of land that was not made when he killed his mother, so he went to the mouth of a river where fresh soil was being formed by the sand that was brought down by the rushing flood. And here he was allowed to purify himself, and the Avenger of Blood left him, at last, at peace.