No sooner had the fleet set sail again upon the sea, than Poseidon stirred up the waves in anger, and loosed the winds upon them. Great was the terror, and great indeed was the destruction. Some of the ships were sunk in mid-sea, and some were driven upon the rocks and wrecked. But the greater number of them, after days and weeks of buffeting with the waves, made their way back to Aulis.
When the heroes stood again on the shores of the Euripus, they began to think that doubtless there was some truth in the omen of the snake and the birds; and the most hopeful among them ceased to dream of taking Troy in a day. While waiting for stragglers to come in, and for the shattered vessels to be repaired, they found enough to do to keep the time from dragging heavily; and when not engaged in some kind of labor they amused themselves with various games, and great sport had they with quoits and javelins, with bows and arrows, and in wrestling and running. And now and then they went out into the woods of Euboea, and hunted the wild deer which roamed there in abundance.
One day it chanced that Agamemnon, while hunting, started a fine stag, and gave it a long chase among the hills and through the wooded dells, until it sought safety in a grove sacred to Artemis the huntress queen. The proud king knew that this was a holy place where beasts and birds might rest secure from harm; yet he cared naught for what Artemis had ordained, and with his swift arrows he slew the panting deer. Then was the huntress queen moved with anger, and she declared that the ships of the Hellenes should not sail from Aulis until the king had atoned for his crime. And a great calm rested upon the sea, and not a breath of air stirred the sails at the mast-heads of the ships. Day after day and week after week went by, and not a speck of cloud was seen in the sky above, and not a ripple on the glassy face of the deep. All the ships had been put in order, new vessels had been built, the warriors had burnished their armor and overhauled their arms a thousand times; and yet no breeze arose to waft them across the sea. And they began to murmur, and to talk bitterly against Agamemnon and the chiefs.
In the mean while, a small vessel driven by rowers came up the Euripus, and stopped among the ships at Aulis. On board of it was King Telephus of Mysia, sorely suffering from the wound which Achilles had given him on the Teuthranian beach. He had come to seek the hero who had wounded him, for an oracle had told him that he only could heal the grievous hurt. Achilles carried the sufferer to his tent, and skilfully dressed the wound, and bound it up with healing herbs; for in his boyhood he had learned from wise old Cheiron how to treat such ailments, and now that knowledge was of great use to him. And soon the king was whole and strong again; and he vowed that he would not leave Achilles, but would stay with the Hellenes, and pilot them across the sea to Troy. Yet the wrath of Artemis continued, and not the slightest breeze arose to cool the air, or fill the waiting sails of the ships.