CHAPTER XXX

THEMISTOCLES GIVES A PROMISE

After the _Nausicaä_ had returned that night to Salamis, after the old men

and the women had laughed and wept over the living,—they were too proud to

weep over the dead,—after the prudent admirals had set the fleet again in

order, for Xerxes might tempt fate again in the morning with his remaining

ships, Themistocles found himself once more in his cabin. With him was

only Glaucon the Alcmæonid. The admiral’s words were few and pointed.

“Son of Conon, last night you gave me the thought whereby I could save

Hellas. To-day your javelin saved me from death. I owe you much. I will

repay in true coin. To-morrow I can give you back to your wife and all

your friends if you will but suffer me.”

The younger man flushed a little, but his eyes did not brighten. He felt

Themistocles’s reservation.

“On what terms?”

“You shall be presented to the Athenians as one who, yielding for a moment

to overmastering temptation, has atoned for one error by rendering

infinite service.”

“Then I am to be ‘Glaucon the Traitor’ still, even if ‘Glaucon the

Repentant Traitor’?”

“Your words are hard, son of Conon; what may I say? Have you any new

explanation for the letter to Argos?”

“The old one—I did not write it.”

“Let us not bandy useless arguments. Do you not see I shall be doing all

that is possible?”

“Let me think a little.”

The younger Athenian held down his head, and Themistocles saw his brows

knitting.

“Son of Neocles,” said Glaucon, at length, “I thank you. You are a just

man. Whatever of sorrow has or will be mine, you have no part therein, but

I cannot return—not to Hermione and my child—on any terms you name.”

“Your purpose, then?”

“To-day the gods show mercy to Hellas, later they may show justice to me.

The war is far from ended. Can you not let me serve on some ship of the

allies where none can recognize me? Thus let me wait a year, and trust

that in that year the sphinx will find her riddle answered.”

“To wait thus long is hard,” spoke the other, kindly.

“I have done many hard things, Themistocles.”

“And your wife?”

“Hera pity her! She bade me return when Athens knew me innocent. Better

that she wait a little longer, though in sorrow, when I can return to her

even as she bade me. Nevertheless, promise one thing.”

“Name it.”

“That if her parents are about to give her to Democrates or any other, you

will prevent.”

Themistocles’s face lightened. He laid a friendly hand on the young man’s

shoulder.

“I do not know how to answer your cry of innocency, _philotate_, but this

I know, in all Hellas I think none is fairer in body or soul than you.

Have no fear for Hermione, and in the year to come may Revealer Apollo

make all of your dark things bright.”

Glaucon bowed his head. Themistocles had given everything the outlaw could

ask, and the latter went out of the cabin.

BOOK III

THE PASSING OF THE PERSIAN

CHAPTER XXXI

DEMOCRATES SURRENDERS

Hellas was saved. But whether forever or only for a year the gods kept

hid. Panic-stricken, the “Lord of the World” had fled to Asia after the

great disaster. The eunuchs, the harem women, the soft-handed pages, had

escaped with their master to luxurious Sardis, the remnant of the fleet

fled back across the Ægean. But the brain and right arm of the Persians,

Mardonius the Valiant, remained in Hellas. With him were still the Median

infantry, the Tartar horse-archers, the matchless Persian lancers,—the

backbone of the undefeated army. Hellas was not yet safe.

Democrates had prospered. He had been reëlected strategus. If Themistocles

no longer trusted him quite so freely as once, Aristeides, restored now to

much of his former power, gave him full confidence. Democrates found

constant and honourable employment through the winter in the endless

negotiations at Sparta, at Corinth, and elsewhere, while the jealous Greek

states wrangled and intrigued, more to humiliate some rival than to

advance the safety of Hellas. But amongst all the patriot chiefs none

seemed more devoted to the common weal of Hellas than the Athenian orator.

Hermippus at least was convinced of this. The Eleusinian had settled at

Trœzene on the Argive coast, a hospitable city that received many an

outcast Athenian. He found his daughter’s resistance to another marriage

increasingly unreasonable. Was not Glaucon dead for more than a year?

Ought not any woman to bless Hera who gave her so noble, so eloquent, a

husband as Democrates—pious, rich, trusted by the greatest, and with the

best of worldly prospects?

“If you truly desire any other worthy man, _makaira_,” said Hermippus,

once, “you shall not find me obstinate. Can a loving father say more? But

if you are simply resolved never to marry, I will give you to him despite

your will. A senseless whim must not blast your highest happiness.”

“He ruined Glaucon,” said Hermione, tearfully.

“At least,” returned Lysistra, who like many good women could say

exceeding cruel things, “_he_ has never been a traitor to his country.”

Hermione’s answer was to fly to her chamber, and to weep—as many a time

before—over Phœnix in the cradle. Here old Cleopis found her, took her in

her arms, and sang her the old song about Alphæus chasing Arethusa—a song

more fit for Phœnix than his mother, but most comforting. So the contest

for the moment passed, but after a conference with Hermippus, Democrates

went away on public business to Corinth unusually well pleased with the

world and himself.

It was a tedious, jangling conference held at the Isthmus city. Mardonius

had tempted the Athenians sorely. In the spring had come his envoys

proffering reparation for all injuries in the wars, enlarged territory,

and not slavery, but free alliance with the Great King, if they would but

join against their fellow-Hellenes. The Athenians had met the tempter as

became Athenians. Aristeides had given the envoys the answer of the whole

people.

“We know your power. Yet tell it to Mardonius, that so long as Helios

moves in the heavens we will not make alliance with Xerxes, but rather

trust to the gods whose temples he has burned.”

Bravely said, but when the Athenians looked to Sparta for the great army

to hasten north and give Mardonius his death-stroke, it was the old

wearisome tale of excuses and delay. At the conference in Corinth

Aristeides and Democrates had passed from arguments to all but threats,

even such as Themistocles had used at Salamis. It was after one of these

fruitless debates that Democrates passed out of the gathering at the

Corinthian prytaneum, with his colleagues all breathing forth their wrath

against Dorian stupidity and evasiveness.

Democrates himself crossed the city Agora, seeking the house of the

friendly merchant where he was to sup. He walked briskly, his thoughts

more perhaps on the waiting betrothal feast at Trœzene, than on the

discussion behind him. The Agora scene had little to interest, the same

buyers, booths, and babel as in Athens, only the citadel above was the

mount of Acro-Corinthus, not the tawny rock of Athena. And in late months

he had begun to find his old fears and terrors flee away. Every day he was

growing more certain that his former “missteps”—that was his own name for

certain occurrences—could have no malign influence. “After all,” he was

reflecting, “Nemesis is a very capricious goddess. Often she forgets for a

lifetime, and after death—who knows what is beyond the Styx?”

He was on such noble terms with all about him that he could even give ear

to the whine of a beggar. The man was sitting on the steps between the

pillars of a colonnade, with a tame crow perched upon his fist, and as

Democrates passed he began his doggerel prayer:—

“Good master, a handful of barley bestow

On the child of Apollo, the sage, sable crow.”

The Athenian began to fumble in his belt for an obol, when he was rudely

distracted by a twitch upon his chiton. Turning, he was little pleased to

come face to face with no less a giant than Lycon.

“There was an hour, _philotate_,” spoke the Spartan, with ill-concealed

sneer, “when you did not have so much silver to scatter out to beggars.”

Time had not mended Lycon’s aspect, nor taken from his eye that sinister

twinkle which was so marked a foil to his brutishness.

“I did not invite you, dear fellow,” rejoined the Athenian, “to remind me

of the fact.”

“Yet you should have gratitude, and you have lacked that virtue of late.

It was a sorry plight Mardonius’s money saved you from two years since,

and nobly have you remembered his good service.”

“Worthy Lacedæmonian,” said Democrates, with what patience he could

command, “if you desire to go over all that little business which

concerned us then, at least I would suggest not in the open Agora.” He

started to walk swiftly away. The Spartan’s ponderous strides easily kept

beside him. Democrates looked vainly for an associate whom he could

approach and on some pretext could accompany. None in sight. Lycon kept

fast hold of his cloak. For practical purposes Democrates was prisoner.

“Why in Corinth?” he threw out sullenly.

“For three reasons, _philotate_,” Lycon grinned over his shoulder, “first,

the women at the Grove of Aphrodite here are handsome; second, I am weary

of Sparta and its black broth and iron money; third, and here is the rose

for my garland, I had need to confer with your noble self.”

“Would not Hiram be your dutiful messenger again?” queried the other,

vainly watching for escape.

“Hiram is worth twenty talents as a helper;”—Lycon gave a hound-like

chuckle,—“still he is not Apollo, and there are too many strings on this

lyre for him to play them all. Besides, he failed at Salamis.”

“He did! Zeus blast his importunity and yours likewise. Where are you

taking me? I warn you in advance, you are ‘shearing an ass,’—attempting

the impossible,—if you deceive yourself as to my power. I can do nothing

more to prevent the war from being pressed against Mardonius. It is only

your Laconian ephors that are hindering.”

“We shall see, _philotate_, we shall see,” grunted the Spartan,

exasperatingly cool. “Here is Poseidon’s Temple. Let us sit in the shaded

portico.”

Democrates resigned himself to be led to a stone seat against the wall.

The gray old “dog-watcher” by the gate glanced up to see that no dogs were

straying into the holy house, noted only two gentlemen come for a chat,

and resumed his siesta. Lycon took a long time in opening his business.

“The world has used you well of late, dear fellow.”

“Passing well, by Athena’s favour.”

“You should say by Hermes’s favour, but I would trust you Athenians to

grow fat on successful villany and then bless the righteous gods.”

“I hope you haven’t left Sparta just to revile me!” cried Democrates,

leaping up, to be thrust back by Lycon’s giant paw.

“_Ai!_ mix a little honey with your speech, it costs nothing. Well, the

length and breadth of my errand is this, Mardonius must fight soon, and

must be victorious.”

“That is for your brave ephors to say,” darted Democrates. “According to

their valiant proposals they desire this war to imitate that with Troy,—to

last ten years.”

“Indeed—but I always held my people surpassed in procrastination, as yours

in deceiving. However, their minds will change.”

“Aristeides and Themistocles will bless you for that.”

Lycon shrugged his great shoulders.

“Then I’ll surpass the gods, who can seldom please all men. Still it is

quite true.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Dear Democrates, you know what’s befallen in Sparta. Since Leonidas died,

his rivals from my own side of the royal house have gathered a great deal

more of power. My uncle Nicander is at present head of the board of

ephors, and gladly takes my advice.”

“Ha!” Democrates began to divine the drift.

“It seemed best to me after the affair at Salamis to give the lie to my

calumniators, who hinted that I desired to ‘Medize,’ and that it was by my

intriguing that the late king took so small a force to Thermopylæ.”

“All Hellas knows _your_ patriotism!” cried Democrates, satirically.

“Even so. I have silenced my fiercest abusers. If I have not yet urged in

our assembly that we should fight Mardonius, it is merely because—it is

not yet prudent.”

“Excellent scoundrel,” declared the other, writhing on his seat, “you are

no Spartan, but long-winded as a Sicilian.”

“Patience, _philotate_, a Spartan must either speak in apothegms or take

all day. I have not advised a battle yet because I was not certain of your

aid.”

“Ay, by Zeus,” broke out Democrates, “that ointment I sniffed a long way

off. I can give you quick answer. Fly back to Sparta, swift as Boreas;

plot, conspire, earn Tartarus, to your heart’s content—you’ll get no more

help from me.”

“I expected that speech.” Lycon’s coolness drove his victim almost

frantic.

“In the affair of Tempē I bent to you for the last time,” Democrates

charged desperately. “I have counted the cost. Perhaps you can use against

me certain documents, but I am on a surer footing than once. In the last

year I have done such service to Hellas I can even hope to be forgiven,

should these old mistakes be proved. And if you drive me to bay, be sure

of this, I will see to it that all the dealings betwixt the Barbarian and

your noble self are expounded to your admiring countrymen.”

“You show truly excellent courage, dear Democrates,” cried Lycon, in

pseudo-admiration. “That speech was quite worthy of a tragic actor.”

“If we’re in the theatre, let the chorus sing its last strophe and have

done. You disgust me.”

“Peace, peace,” ordered Lycon, his hand still on the Athenian’s shoulder,

“I will make all the haste I can, but obstinacy is disagreeable. I repeat,

you are needed, sorely needed, by Mardonius to enable him to complete the

conquest of Hellas. You shall not call the Persians ungrateful—the tyranny

of Athens under the easy suzerainty of the king, is that no dish to whet

your appetite?”

“I knew of the offer before.”

“A great pity you are not more eager. Hermes seldom sends such chances

twice. I hoped to have you for ‘my royal brother’ when they gave me the

like lordship of Lacedæmon. However, the matter does not end with your

refusal.”

“I have said, ‘Do your worst.’ ”

“And my worst is—Agis.”

For an instant Lycon was dismayed. He thought he had slain his victim with

one word. Democrates dropped from his clutch and upon the pavement as

though stricken through the heart by an arrow. He was pallid as a corpse,

at first he only groaned.

“_Eu! eu!_ good comrade,” cried the Spartan, dragging him up, half

triumphant, half sympathetic, “I did not know I was throwing Zeus’s

thunderbolts.”

The Athenian sat with his head on his hands. In all his dealings with the

Spartan he had believed he had covered the details of the fate of Glaucon.

Lycon could surmise what he liked, but the proof to make the damning

charges good Democrates believed he had safe in his own keeping. Only one

man could have unlocked the casket of infamy—Agis—and the mention of his

name was as a bolt from the blue.

“Where is he? I heard he was killed at Artemisium.” Lycon hardly

understood his victim’s thick whispers.

“Wounded indeed, _philotate_, taken prisoner, and sent to Thebes. There

friends of mine found he had a story to tell—greatly to my advantage. It

is only a little time since he came to Sparta.”

“What lies has he told?”

“Several, dear fellow, although if they are lies, then Aletheia, Lady

Truth, must almost own them for her children. At least they are

interesting lies; as, for example, how you advised the Cyprian to escape

from Athens, how you gave Agis a letter to hide in the boots of Glaucon’s

messenger, of your interviews with Lampaxo and Archias, of the charming

art you possess of imitating handwritings and seals.”

“Base-born swine! who will believe him?”

“Base born, Democrates, but hardly swinish. He can tell a very clear

story. Likewise, Lampaxo and Archias must testify at the trial, also your

slave Bias can tell many interesting things.”

“Only if I consent to produce him.”

“When did a master ever refuse to let his slave testify, if demanded,

unless he wished to blast his own cause with the jury? No, _makaire_, you

will not enjoy the day when Themistocles arrays the testimony against

you.”

Democrates shivered. The late spring sun was warm. He felt no heat. A mere

charge of treason he was almost prepared now to endure. If Mistress

Fortune helped him, he might refute it, but to be branded before Hellas as

the destroyer of his bosom friend, and that by guile the like whereof

Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Ixion conjoined had never wrought—what wonder his

knees smote together? Why had he not foreseen that Agis would fall into

Lycon’s hands? Why had he trusted that lying tale from Artemisium? And

worst of all, worse than the howls of the people who would tear his body

asunder like dogs, not waiting the work of the hemlock, was the thought of

Hermione. She hated him now. How she would love him, though he sat on

Xerxes’s throne, if once her suspicion rose to certainty! He saw himself

ruined in life and in love, and blazoned as infamous forever.

Lycon was wise enough to sit some moments, letting his utterance do its

work. He was confident, and rightly. Democrates looked on him at last. The

workings of the Athenian’s face were terrible.

“I am your slave, Spartan. Had you bought me for ten minæ and held the

bill of sale, I were not yours more utterly. Your wish?”

Lycon chose his words and answered slowly.

“You must serve Persia. Not for a moment, but for all time. You must place

that dreadful gift of yours at our disposal. And in return take what is

promised,—the lordship of Athens.”

“No word of that,” groaned the wretched man, “what will you do?”

“Aristeides is soon going to Sparta to press home his demands that the

Lacedæmonians march in full force against Mardonius. I can see to it that

his mission succeeds. A great battle will be fought in Bœotia. _We_ can

see to it that Mardonius is so victorious that all further resistance

becomes a dream.”

“And my part in this monster’s work?”

The demands and propositions with which Lycon answered this despairing

question will unfold themselves in due place and time. Suffice it here,

that when he let the Athenian go his way Lycon was convinced that

Democrates had bound himself heart and soul to forward his enterprise. The

orator was no merry guest for his Corinthian hosts that night. He returned

to his old manner of drinking unmixed wine. “Thirsty as a Macedonian!”

cried his companions, in vain endeavour to drive him into a laugh. They

did not know that once more the chorus of the Furies was singing about his

ears, and he could not still it by the deepest wine-cup. They did not know

that every time he closed his eyes he was seeing the face of Glaucon. That

morning he had mocked at Nemesis. That night he heard the beating of her

brazen wings.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE STRANGER IN TRŒZENE

Despite exile, life had moved pleasantly for Hermippus’s household that

spring. The Trœzenians had surpassed all duties to Zeus Xenios—the

stranger’s god—in entertaining the outcast Athenians. The fugitives had

received two obols per day to keep them in figs and porridge. Their

children had been suffered to roam and plunder the orchards. But Hermippus

had not needed such generosity. He had placed several talents at interest

in Corinth; likewise bonds of “guest-friendship” with prominent Trœzenians

made his residence very agreeable. He had hired a comfortable house, and

could enjoy even luxury with his wife, daughter, young sons, and score of

slaves.

Little Phœnix grew marvellously day by day, as if obeying his mother’s

command to wax strong and avenge his father. Old Cleopis vowed he was the

healthiest, least tearful babe, as well as the handsomest, she had ever

known,—and she spoke from wide experience. When he was one year old, he

was so active they had to tie him in the cradle. When the golden spring

days came, he would ride forth upon his nurse’s back, surveying the Hellas

he was born to inherit, and seeming to find it exceeding good.

But as spring verged on summer, Hermione demanded so much of Cleopis’s

care that even Phœnix ceased to be the focus of attention. The lordly

Alcmæonid fell into the custody of one Niobe, a dark-haired lass of the

islands, who treated him well, but cared too much for certain young

“serving-gentlemen” to waste on her charge any unreciprocated adoration.

So on one day, just as the dying grass told the full reign of the Sun

King, she went forth with her precious bundle wriggling in her arms, but

her thoughts hardly on Master Phœnix. Procles the steward had been cold of

late, he had even cast sly glances at Jocasta, Lysistra’s tiring-woman.

Mistress Niobe was ready—since fair means of recalling the fickle Apollo

failed—to resort to foul. Instead, therefore, of going to the promenade

over the sea, she went—burden and all—to the Agora, where she was sure old

Dion, who kept a soothsayer’s shop, would give due assistance in return

for half a drachma.

The market was just thinning. Niobe picked her way amongst the vegetable

women, fought off a boy who thrust on her a pair of geese, and found in a

quiet corner by a temple porch the booth of Dion, who grinned with his

toothless gums in way of greeting. He listened with paternal interest to

her story, soothed her when she sniffled at Procles’s name, and made her

show her silver, then began pulling over his bags and vials of strange

powders and liquids.

“Ah, kind Master Dion,” began Niobe, for the sixth time, “if only some

philtre could make Procles loath that abominable Jocasta!”

“_Eu! eu!_” muttered the old sinner, “it’s hard to say what’s best,—powder

of toad’s bone or the mixture of wormwood and adder’s fat. The safest

thing is to consult the god—”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, my holy cock here, hatched at Delphi with Apollo’s blessings on

him.” Dion pointed with his thumb to the small coop at his feet. “The

oracle is simple. You cast before him two piles of corn; if he picks at

the one to right we take toad’s bone, to left the adder’s fat. Heaven will

speak to us.”

“Excellent,” cried Niobe, brightening.

“But, of course, we must use only consecrated corn, that’s two obols

more.”

Niobe’s face fell. “I’ve only this half-drachma.”

“Then, _philotata_,” said Dion, kindly but firmly, “we had better wait a

little longer.”

Niobe wept. “_Ai!_ woe. ‘A little longer’ and Jocasta has Procles. I can’t

ask Hermione again for money. _Ai! ai!_”

Two round tears did not move Dion in the slightest. Niobe was sobbing, at

her small wits’ end, when a voice sounded behind her.

“What’s there wrong, lass? By Zeus, but you carry a handsome child!”

Niobe glanced, and instantly stopped weeping. A young man dressed roughly

as a sailor, and with long black hair and beard, had approached her, but

despite dress and beard she was quite aware he was far handsomer than even

Procles.

“I beg pardon, _kyrie_,”—she said “_kyrie_” by instinct,—“I’m only an

honest maid. Dion is terribly extortionate.” She cast down her eyes,

expecting instant succour from the susceptible seaman, but to her disgust

she saw he was admiring only the babe, not herself.

“Ah! Gods and goddesses, what a beautiful child! A girl?”

“A boy,” answered Niobe, almost sullenly.

“Blessed the house in Trœzene then that can boast of such a son.”

“Oh, he’s not Trœzenian, but one of the exiles from Athens,” volunteered

Dion, who kept all the tittle-tattle of the little city in stock along

with his philtres.

“An Athenian! Praised be Athena Polias, then. I am from Athens myself. And

his father?”

“The brat will never boast of his father,” quoth Dion, rolling his eyes.

“He left the world in a way, I wager five minæ, the mother hopes she can

hide from her darling, but the babe’s of right good stock, an Alcmæonid,

and the grandfather is that Hermippus—”

“Hermippus?” The stranger seemed to catch the word out of Dion’s mouth. A

donkey had broken loose at the upper end of the Agora; he turned and

stared at it and its pursuers intently.

“If you’re Athenian,” went on the soothsayer, “the story’s an old one—of

Glaucon the Traitor.”

The stranger turned back again. For a moment Dion saw he was blinking, but

no doubt it was dust. Then he suddenly began to fumble in his girdle.

“What do you want, girl?” he demanded of Niobe, nigh fiercely.

“Two obols.”

“Take two drachmæ. I was once a friend to that Glaucon, and traitor though

he has been blazed, his child is yet dear to me. Let me take him.”

Without waiting her answer he thrust the coin into her hands, and caught

the child out of them. Phœnix looked up into the strange, bearded face,

and deliberated an instant whether to crow or to weep. Then some friendly

god decided him. He laughed as sweetly, as musically, as ever one can at

his most august age. With both chubby hands he plucked at the black beard

and held tight. The strange sailor answered laugh with laugh, and released

himself right gayly. Then whilst Niobe and Dion watched and wondered they

saw the sailor kiss the child full fifty times, all the time whispering

soft words in his ear, at which Phœnix crowed and laughed yet more.

“An old family servant,” threw out Dion, in a whisper.

“Sheep!” retorted the nurse, “do you call yourself wise? Do you think a

man with that face and those long hands ever felt the stocks or the whip?

He’s gentleman born, by Demeter!”

“War makes many changes,” rejoined Dion. “_Ai!_ is he beside himself or a

kidnapper? He is walking off with the babe.”

The stranger indeed had seemed to forget them all and was going with swift

strides up the Agora, but just before Niobe could begin her outcry he

wheeled, and brought his merry burden back to the nurse’s arms.

“You ought to be exceeding proud, my girl,” he remarked almost severely,

“to have such a precious babe in charge. I trust you are dutiful.”

“So I strive, _kyrie_, but he grows very strong. One cannot keep the

swaddling clothes on him now. They say he will be a mighty athlete like

his father.”

“Ah, yes—his father—” The sailor looked down.

“You knew Master Glaucon well?” pressed Dion, itching for a new bit of

gossip.

“Well,” answered the sailor, standing gazing on the child as though

something held him fascinated, then shot another question. “And does the

babe’s lady-mother prosper?”

“She is passing well in body, _kyrie_, but grievously ill in mind. Hera

give her a release from all her sorrow!”

“Sorrow?” The man’s eyes were opening wider, wider. “What mean you?”

“Why, all Trœzene knows it, I’m sure.”

“I’m not from Trœzene. My ship made port from Naxos this morning. Speak,

girl!”

He seized Niobe’s wrist in a grip which she thought would crush the bone.

“_Ai!_ Let go, sir, you hurt. Don’t stare so. I’m frightened. I’ll tell as

fast as I can. Master Democrates has come back from Corinth. Hermippus is

resolved to make the _kyria_ wed him, however bitterly she resists. It’s

taken a long time for her father to determine to break her will, but now

his mind’s made up. The betrothal is in three days, the wedding ten days

thereafter.”

The sailor had dropped her hand. She shrank at the pallor of his face. He

seemed struggling for words; when they came she made nothing of them.

“Themistocles, Themistocles—your promise!”

Then by some giant exercise of will he steadied. His speech grew more

coherent.

“Give me the child,” he commanded, and Niobe mutely obeyed. He kissed

Phœnix on both cheeks, mouth, forehead. They saw that tears were running

down his bronzed face. He handed back the babe and again held out money,—a

coin for both the slave girl and the soothsayer,—gold half-darics, that

they gaped at wonderingly.

“Say nothing!” ordered the sailor, “nothing of what I have said or done,

or as Helios shines this noon, I will kill you both.”

Not waiting reply, he went down the Agora at a run, and never looked back.

It took some moments for Dion and Niobe to recover their equanimity; they

would have believed it all a dream, but lo! in their hands gleamed the

money.

“There are times,” remarked the soothsayer, dubiously at last, “when I

begin to think the gods again walk the earth and work wonders. This is a

very high matter. Even I with my art dare not meddle with it. It is best

to heed the injunction to silence. Wagging tongues always have troubles as

their children. Now let us proceed with my sacred cock and his

divination.”

Niobe got her philtre,—though whether it reconquered Procles is not

contained in this history. Likewise, she heeded Dion’s injunction. There

was something uncanny about the strange sailor; she hid away the

half-daric, and related nothing of her adventure even to her confidant

Cleopis.

* * * * * * *

Three days later Democrates was not drinking wine at his betrothal feast,

but sending this cipher letter by a swift and trusty “distance-runner” to

Sparta.

“Democrates to Lycon, greeting:—At Corinth I cursed you. Rejoice

therefore; you are my only hope. I am with you whether your path leads to

Olympus or to Hades. Tartarus is opened at my feet. You must save me. My

words are confused, do you think? Then hear this, and ask if I have not

cause for turning mad.

“Yesterday, even as Hermippus hung garlands on his house, and summoned the

guests to witness the betrothal contract, Themistocles returned suddenly

from Eubœa. He called Hermippus and myself aside. ‘_Glaucon lives_,’ he

said, ‘and with the god’s help we’ll prove his innocence.’ Hermippus at

once broke off the betrothal. No one else knows aught thereof, not even

Hermione. Themistocles refuses all further details. ‘Glaucon lives,’—I can

think of nothing else. Where is he? What does he? How soon will the awful

truth go flying through Hellas? I trembled when I heard he was dead. But

name my terrors now I know he is alive! Send Hiram. He, if any snake

living, can find me my enemy before it is too late. And speed the victory

of Mardonius! _Chaire._”

“Glaucon lives.” Democrates had only written one least part of his

terrors. Two words—but enough to make the orator the most miserable man in

Hellas, the most supple of Xerxes’s hundred million slaves.

CHAPTER XXXIII

WHAT BEFELL ON THE HILLSIDE

Once more the Persians pressed into Attica, once more the Athenians,—or

such few of them as had ventured home in the winter,—fled with their

movables to Salamis or Peloponnesus, and an embassy, headed by Aristeides,

hastened to Sparta to demand for the last time that the tardy ephors make

good their promise in sending forth their infantry to hurl back the

invader. If not, Aristeides spoke plainly, his people must perforce close

alliance with Mardonius.

Almost to the amazement of the Athenian chiefs, so accustomed were they to

Dorian doltishness and immobility, after a ten days’ delay and excuses

that “they must celebrate their festival the Hyacinthia,” the ephors

called forth their whole levy. Ten thousand heavy infantrymen with a host

of lightly armed “helots”(11) were started northward under the able lead

of Pausanias, the regent for Leonidas’s young son. Likewise all the allies

of Lacedæmon—Corinthians, Sicyonians, Elians, Arcadians—began to hurry

toward the Isthmus. Therefore men who had loved Hellas and had almost

despaired for her took courage. “At last we will have a great land battle,

and an end to the Barbarian.”

All was excitement in the Athenian colony at Trœzene. The board of

strategi met and voted that now was the time for a crowning effort. Five

thousand men-at-arms should march under Aristeides to join against

Mardonius in Bœotia. By sea Themistocles should go with every available

ship to Delos, meet the allied squadrons there, and use his infallible art

in persuading the sluggish Spartan high admiral to conduct a raid across

the Ægean at Xerxes’s own doors. Of the ten strategi Democrates had called

loudest for instant action, so loudly indeed that Themistocles had

cautioned him against rashness. Hermippus was old, but experienced men

trusted him, therefore he was appointed to command the contingent of his

tribe. Democrates was to accompany Aristeides as general adjutant; his

diplomatic training would be invaluable in ending the frictions sure to

arise amongst the allies. Cimon would go with Themistocles, and so every

other man was sent to his place. In the general preparation private

problems seemed forgotten. Hermippus and Democrates both announced that

the betrothal of Hermione had been postponed, pending the public crisis.

The old Eleusinian had not told his daughter, or even his wife, why he had

seemed to relax his announced purpose of forcing Hermione to an unwelcome

marriage. The young widow knew she had respite—for how long nothing told

her, but for every day her agony was postponed she blessed kind Hera. Then

came the morning when her father must go forth with his men. She still

loved him, despite the grief he was giving her. She did him justice to

believe he acted in affection. The gay ribbons that laced his cuirass, the

red and blue embroidery that edged his “taxiarch’s” cloak, were from the

needle of his daughter. Hermione kissed him as she stood with her mother

in the aula. He coughed gruffly when he answered their “farewell.” The

house door closed behind him, and Hermione and Lysistra ran into one

another’s arms. They had given to Hellas their best, and now must look to

Athena.

Hermippus and Aristeides were gone, Democrates remained in Trœzene. His

business, he said, was more diplomatic than military, and he was expecting

advices from the islands which he must take to Pausanias in person. He had

a number of interviews with Themistocles, when it was observed that every

time he came away with clouded brow and gruff answers to all who accosted.

It began to be hinted that all was not as well as formerly between the

admiral and the orator, that Democrates had chosen to tie too closely to

Aristeides for the son of Neocles’s liking, and that as soon as the

campaign was decided, a bitter feud would break out betwixt them. But this

was merest gossip. Outwardly Democrates and Themistocles continued

friends, dined together, exchanged civilities. On the day when

Themistocles was to sail for Delos he walked arm in arm with Democrates to

the quay. The hundreds of onlookers saw him embrace the young strategus in

a manner belying any rumour of estrangement, whilst Democrates stood on

the sand waving his good wishes until the admiral climbed the ladder of

the _Nausicaä_.

It was another day and landscape which the stranger in Hellas would have

remembered long. The haven of Trœzene, noblest in Peloponnesus, girt by

its two mountain promontories, Methana and the holy hill Calauria, opened

its bright blue into the deeper blue of the Saronic bay. Under the eye of

the beholder Ægina and the coasts of Attica stood forth, a fit frame to

the far horizon. Sun, sea, hills, and shore wrought together to make one

glorious harmony, endless variety, yet ordered and fashioned into a divine

whole. “Euopis,” “The Fair-Faced,” the beauty-loving dwellers of the

country called it, and they named aright.

Something of the beauty touched even Hermione as she stood on the hill

slope, gazing across the sea. Only Cleopis was with her. The young widow

had less trembling when she looked on the _Nausicaä_ than when one year

before the stately trireme had sailed for Artemisium. If ill news must

come, it would be from the plains of Bœotia. Most of Themistocles’s fleet

was already at Delos. He led only a dozen sail. When his squadron glided

on into the blue deep, the haven seemed deserted save for the Carthaginian

trader that swung at her cables close upon the land. As Hermione looked

and saw the climbing sun change the tintings of the waters, here spreading

a line of green gold amidst the blue, here flashing the waves with dark

violet, something of the peace and majesty of the scene entered into her

own breast. The waves at the foot of the slope beat in monotonous music.

She did not wonder that Thetis, Galatea, and all the hundred Nereids loved

their home. Somewhere, far off on that shimmering plain, Glaucon the

Beautiful had fallen asleep; whether he waked in the land of Rhadamanthus,

whether he had been stolen away by Leucothea and the other nymphs to be

their playfellow, she did not know. She was not sad, even to think of him

crowned with green seaweed, and sitting under the sea-floor with

fish-tailed Tritons at their tables of pearl, while the finny shoals like

birds flitted above their heads. Thales the Sage made all life proceed out

of the sea. Perchance all life should return to it. Then she would find

her husband again, not beyond, but within the realms of great Oceanus.

With such beauty spreading out before her eyes the phantasy was almost

welcome.

The people had wandered homeward. Cleopis set the parasol on the dry grass

where it would shade her mistress and betook herself to the shelter of a

rock. If Hermione was pleased to meditate so long, she would not deny her

slave a siesta. So the Athenian sat and mused, now sadly, now with a gleam

of brightness, for she was too young to have her sun clouded always.

A speaker near by her called her out of her reverie.

“You sit long, _kyria_, and gaze forth as if you were Zeus in Olympus and

could look on all the world.”

Hermione had not exchanged a word with Democrates since that day she cast

scorn on him on that other hill slope at Munychia, but this did not make

his intrusion more welcome. With mortification she realized that she had

forgotten herself. That she lay on the sunny bank with her feet

outstretched and her hair shaken loose on her shoulders. Her feet she

instantly covered with her long himation. Her hands flew instantly to her

hair. Then she uprose, flushing haughtily.

“It has pleased my father, sir,” she spoke with frigid dignity, “to tell

me that you are some day perchance to be my husband. The fulfilment lies

with the gods. But to-day the strategus Democrates knows our customs too

well to thrust himself upon an Attic gentlewoman who finds herself alone

save for one servant.”

“Ah, _kyria_; pardon the word, it’s overcold; _makaira_, I’d say more

gladly,” Democrates was marvellously at his ease despite her frowns, “your

noble father will take nothing amiss if I ask you to sit again that we may

talk together.”

“I do not think so.” Hermione drew herself up at full height. But

Democrates deliberately placed himself in the path up the hillside. To

have run toward the water seemed folly. She could expect no help from

Cleopis, who would hardly oppose a man soon probably to be her master. As

the less of evils, Hermione did not indeed sit as desired, but stood

facing her unloved lover and hearkening.

“How long I’ve desired this instant!” Democrates looked as if he might

seize her hands to kiss them, but she thrust them behind her. “I know you

hate me bitterly because, touching your late husband, I did my duty.”

“Your duty?” Nestor’s eloquence was in her incredulous echo.

“If I have pained you beyond telling, do you think my act was a pleasant

one for me? A bosom friend to ruin, the most sacred bonds to sever, last

and not least, to give infinite sorrow to her I love?”

“I hardly understand.”

Democrates drew a step nearer.

“Ah! Hera, Artemis, Aphrodite the Golden—by what name shall I call my

goddess?” Hermione drew back a step. There was danger in his eyes. “I have

loved you, loved you long. Before Glaucon took you in marriage I loved

you. But Eros and Hymen hearkened to his prayers, not mine. You became his

bride. I wore a bright face at your wedding. You remember I was Glaucon’s

groomsman, and rode beside you in the bridal car. You loved him, he seemed

worthy of you. Therefore I trod my own grief down into my heart, and

rejoiced with my friends. But to cease loving you I could not. Truly they

say Eros is the strongest god, and pitiless—do not the poets say bloody

Ares begat him—”

“Spare me mythologies,” interposed Hermione, with another step back.

“As you will, but you shall hearken. I have desired this moment for two

years. Not as the weak girl given by her father, but as the fair goddess

who comes to me gladly, I do desire you. And I know you will smile on me

when you have heard me through.”

“Keep back your eloquence. You have destroyed Glaucon. That is enough.”

“Hear me.” Democrates cried desperately now. Hermione feared even to

retreat farther, lest he pass to violence. She summoned courage and looked

him in the eye.

“Say on, then. But remember I am a woman and alone save for Cleopis. If

you profess to love me, you will not forget that.”

But Democrates was passing almost beyond the limits of coherent speech.

“Oh, when you come to me, you will not know what a price I have paid for

you. In Homer’s day men wooed their wives with costly gifts, but I—have I

not paid for you with my soul? My soul, I say—honour, friendship, country,

what has weighed against Himeros, ‘Master Desire,’—the desire ever for

you!”

She hardly understood him, his speech flowed so thick. She knew he was on

the edge of reason, and feared to answer lest she drive beyond it.

“Do you hear the price I have paid? Do you still look on in cold hate,

lady? Ah, by Zeus, even in your coldest, most forbidding mood you are fair

as the Paphian when she sprang above the sea! And I will win you, lady, I

will win your heart, for they shall do you homage, even all Athens, and I

will make you a queen. Yes! the house of Athena on the Acropolis shall be

your palace if you will, and they will cry in the Agora, ‘Way, way for

Hermione, glorious consort of Democrates our king!’ ”

“Sir,” spoke Hermione, while her hands grew chill, for now she was sure he

raved, “I have not the joy to comprehend. There is no king in Athens,

please Athena, there never will be. Treason and blasphemy you speak all in

one.” She sought vainly with her eyes for refuge. None in sight. The hill

slope seemed empty save for the scattered brown boulders. Far away a goat

was wandering. She motioned to Cleopis. The old woman was staring now, and

doubtless thought Democrates was carrying his familiarities too far, but

she was a weak creature, and at best could only scream.

“Treason and blasphemy,” cried Democrates, dropping on his knees, his

frame shaking with dishonest passion, “yes! call them so now. They will be

blessed truth for me in a month, for me, for you. Hermes the Trickster is

a mighty god. He has befriended Eros. I shall possess Athens and possess

you. I shall be the most fortunate mortal upon earth as now I am most

miserable. Ah! but I have waited so long.” He sprang to his feet. “Tarry,

_makaira_, tarry! A kiss!”

Hermione screamed at last shrilly and turned to fly. Instantly Democrates

was upon her. In that fluttering white dress escape was hopeless.

“Apollo pursuing Daphne!”—his crazed shout as his arms closed around

her,—“but Daphne becomes no laurel this time. Her race is lost. She shall

pay the forfeit.”

She felt him seize her girdle. He swung her face to face. She saw his wide

eyes, his mad smile. His hot breath smote her cheek. Cleopis at last was

screaming.

“Mine,” he triumphed, while he forced her resisting head to his own,

“there is none to hinder!”

But even while the woman’s flesh crept back at his impure kiss, a giant

power came rending the twain apart. A man had sundered them, sprung from

the ground or from heaven belike, or from behind a boulder? He tore

Democrates’s hands away as a lion tears a lamb. He dashed the mad orator

prone upon the sod, and kicked him twice, as of mingled hatred and

contempt. All this Hermione only knew in half, while her senses swam. Then

she came to herself enough to see that the stranger was a young man in a

sailor’s loose dress, his features almost hidden under the dishevelled

hair and beard. All this time he uttered no word, but having smitten

Democrates down, leaped back, rubbing his hands upon his thigh, as if

despising to touch so foul an object. The orator groaned, staggered

upward. He wore a sword. It flew from its scabbard as he leaped on the

sailor. The stranger put forth his hand, snatched his opponent’s wrist,

and with lightning dexterity sent the blade spinning back upon the grass.

Then he threw Democrates a second time, and the latter did not rise again

hastily, but lay cursing. The fall had not been gentle.

But all this while Cleopis was screaming. People were hastening up the

hill,—fishermen from a skiff upon the beach, slaves who had been carrying

bales to the haven. In a moment they would be surrounded by a dozen. The

strange sailor turned as if to fly. He had not spoken one word. Hermione

herself at last called to him.

“My preserver! Your name! Blessed be you forever!”

The fisherfolk were very close. Cleopis was still screaming. The sailor

looked once into the lady’s eyes.

“I am nameless! You owe me nothing!” And with that he was gone up the hill

slopes, springing with long bounds that would have mocked pursuing, had

any attempted. But Cleopis quenched her outcry instantly; her screams had

been drowned by a louder scream from Hermione, who fell upon the

greensward, no marble whiter than her face. The nurse ran to her mistress.

Democrates staggered to his feet. Whatever else the chastisement had given

him, it had restored his balance of mind. He told the fisherfolk a glib

story that a sailor wandering along the strand had accosted Hermione, that

he himself had chased the villain off, but had tripped whilst trying to

follow. If the tale was not of perfect workmanship at all points, there

was no one with interest to gainsay it. A few ran up the hill slope, but

the sailor was nowhere in sight. Hermione was still speechless. They made

a litter of oars and sail-cloth and carried her to her mother. Democrates

oiled Cleopis’s palm well, that she should tell nothing amiss to Lysistra.

It was a long time before Hermione opened her eyes in her chamber. Her

first words were:—

“Glaucon! I have seen Glaucon!”

“You have had a strange dream, _philotata_,” soothed Lysistra, shifting

the pillows, “lie still and rest.”

But Hermione shook her shining brown head and repeated, many times:—

“No dream! No dream! I have seen Glaucon face to face. In that instant he

spoke and looked on me I knew him. He lives. He saved me. Ah! why does he

stay away?”

Lysistra, whose husband had not deemed it prudent to inform her of

Themistocles’s revelations, was infinitely distressed. She sent for the

best physicians of the city, and despatched a slave to the temple of

Asclepius at Epidaurus—not distant—to sacrifice two cocks for her

daughter’s recovery. The doctors looked wise and recommended heavy doses

of spiced wine, and if those did not suffice, said that the patient might

spend a night in the temple of the Healer, who would no doubt explain the

true remedy in a dream. A “wise woman” who had great following among the

slaves advised that a young puppy be tied upon Hermione’s temples to

absorb the disaffection of her brain. Lysistra was barely persuaded not to

follow her admonitions. After a few days the patient grew better,

recovered strength, took an interest in her child. Yet ever and anon she

would repeat over Phœnix’s cradle:—

“Your father lives! I have seen him! I have seen him!”

What, however, puzzled Lysistra most, was the fact that Cleopis did not

contradict her young mistress in the least, but maintained a mysterious

silence about the whole adventure.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE LOYALTY OF LAMPAXO

The night after his adventure on the hill slope Democrates received in his

chambers no less an individual than Hiram. That industrious Phœnician had

been several days in Trœzene, occupied in a manner he and his superior

discreetly kept to themselves. The orator had a bandage above one eye,

where a heavy sandal had kicked him. He was exceedingly pale, and sat in

the arm-chair propped with pillows. That he had awaited Hiram eagerly,

betrayed itself by the promptness with which he cut short the inevitable

salaam.

“Well, my dear rascal, have you found him?”

“May it please your Excellency to hearken to even the least of your

slaves?”

“Do you hear, fox?—have you found him?”

“My Lord shall judge for himself.”

“Cerberus eat you, fellow,—though you’d be a poisonous mouthful,—tell your

story in as few words as possible. I _know_ that he is lurking about

Trœzene.”

“Compassion, your Lordship, compassion,”—Hiram seemed washing his hands in

oil, they waved so soothingly—“if your Benignity will grant it, I have a

very worthy woman here who, I think, can tell a story that will be

interesting.”

“In with her, then.”

The person Hiram escorted into the room proved to be no more nor less than

Lampaxo. Two years had not removed the wrinkles from her cheek, the

sharpness from her nose, the rasping from her tongue. At sight of her

Democrates half rose from his seat and held out his hand affably, the

demagogue’s instinct uppermost.

“Ah! my good dame, whom do I recognize? Are you not the wife of our

excellent fishmonger, Phormio? A truly sterling man, and how, pray, is

your good husband?”

“Poorly, poorly, _kyrie_.” Lampaxo looked down and fumbled her dirty

chiton. Such condescension on the part of a magnate barely less than

Themistocles or Aristeides was overpowering.

“Poorly? I grieve to learn it. I was informed that he was comfortably

settled here until it was safe to return to Attica, and had even opened a

prosperous stall in the market-place.”

“Of course, _kyrie_; and the trade, considering the times, is not so

bad—Athena be praised—and he’s not sick in body. It’s worse, far worse. I

was even on the point of going to your Lordship to state my misgivings,

when your good friend, the Phœnician, fell into my company, and I found he

was searching for the very thing I wanted to reveal.”

“Ah!” Democrates leaned forward and battled against his impatience,—“and

what is the matter wherein I can be of service to so deserving a citizen

as your husband?”

“I fear me,”—Lampaxo put her apron dutifully to her face and began to

sniff,—“your Excellency won’t call him ‘deserving’ any more. Hellas knows

your Excellency is patriotism itself. The fact is Phormio has ‘Medized.’ ”

“Medized!” The orator started as became an actor. “Gods and goddesses!

what trust is in men if Phormio the Athenian has Medized?”

“Hear my story, _mu! mu!_” groaned Lampaxo. “It’s a terrible thing to

accuse one’s own husband, but duty to Hellas is duty. Your Excellency is a

merciful man, if he could only warn Phormio in private.”

“Woman,”—Democrates pulled his most consequential frown,—“Medizing is

treason. On your duty as a daughter of Athens I charge you tell

everything, then rely on my wisdom.”

“Certainly, _kyrie_, certainly,” gasped Lampaxo, and so she began a

recital mingled with many moans and protestations, which Democrates dared

not bid her hasten.

The good woman commenced by reminding the strategus how he had visited her

and her brother Polus to question them as to the doings of the Babylonish

carpet merchant, and how it had seemed plain to them that Glaucon was

nothing less than a traitor. Next she proceeded to relate how her husband

had enabled the criminal to fly by sea, and her own part therein—for she

loudly accused herself of treason in possessing a guilty knowledge of the

outlaw’s manner of escape. As for Bias, he had just now gone on a message

to Megara, but Democrates would surely castigate his own slave. “Still,”

wound up Lampaxo, “the traitor seemed drowned, and his treason locked up

in Phorcys’s strong box, and so I said nothing about him. More’s the

pity.”

“The more reason for concealing nothing now.”

“Zeus strike me if I keep back anything. It’s now about ten days since

_he_ returned.”

“ ‘He?’ Whom do you mean?”

“It’s not overeasy to tell, _kyrie_. He calls himself Critias, and wears a

long black beard and tangled hair. Phormio brought him home one

evening—said he was the _prōreus_ of a Melian trireme caulking at

Epidaurus, but was once in the fish trade at Peiræus and an old friend. I

told Phormio we had enough these days to fill our own bellies, but my

husband would be hospitable. I had to bring out my best honey cakes. Your

Lordship knows I take just pride in my honey cakes.”

“Beyond doubt,”—Democrates’s hand twitched with impatience,—“but tell of

the stranger.”

“At once, _kyrie_; well, we all sat down to sup. Phormio kept pressing

wine on the fellow as if we had not only one little jar of yellow Rhodian

in the cellar. All the time the sailor barely spoke a few words of island

Doric, but my heart misgave. He seemed so refined, so handsome. And near

the roots of his hair it was not so dark—as if dyed and needing renewal.

Trust a woman’s eyes for that. When supper was over Phormio orders me, ‘Up

the ladder and to bed. I’ll come shortly, but leave a blanket and pillow

for our friend who sleeps on the hearth.’ Your Excellency knows we hired a

little house on the ‘Carpenter’s Street,’ very reasonably you will

grant—only half a minæ for the winter. I gave the stranger a fine pillow

and a blanket embroidered by Stephanium, she was my great-aunt, and left

it to me by will, and the beautiful red wool was from Byzantium—”

“But you spoke of Critias?” Democrates could scarce keep upon his seat.

“Yes, _kyrie_. Well, I warned Phormio not to give him any more wine. Then

I went up the ladder. O Mother Demeter, how sharply I listened, but the

rascals spoke too low together for me to catch anything, save that Critias

had dropped his Doric and spoke good Attic now. At last Phormio came up to

me, and I pretended to snore. In the morning, lo! the scoundrelly stranger

had slipped away. In the evening he returns late. Phormio harbours him

again. So for several nights, coming late, going early. Then to-night he

comes a bit before his wont. He and Phormio drank more than common. After

Phormio sent me away, they talked a long time and in louder voice.”

“You overheard?” Democrates gripped his arm-chair.

“Yes, _kyrie_, blessed be Athena! The stranger spoke pure Attic such as

your Excellency might use. Many times I heard Hermione named, and yourself

once—”

“And how?”

“The stranger said: ‘So she will not wed Democrates. She loathes him.

Aphrodite shed joy on her forever.’ Then Phormio answered him, ‘Therefore,

dear Glaucon, you should trust the gods a little longer.’ ”

“ ‘Glaucon,’ said he?” Democrates leaped from the chair.

“ ‘Glaucon,’ on my oath by the Styx. Then I covered my head and wept. I

knew my husband harboured the arch-traitor. Heaven can tell how he escaped

the sea. As soon as Phormio was sleeping snug beside me, I went down the

ladder, intending to call the watch. In the street I met a man, this good

Phœnician here,—he explained he was suspecting this ‘Critias’ himself, and

lurked about in hopes of tracing him in the morning. I told my story. He

said it was best to come straight to you. And now I have accused my own

husband, Excellency. _Ai!_ was wife ever harder beset? Phormio is a kindly

and commonly obedient man, even if he doesn’t know the value of an obol.

You will be merciful—”

“Peace,” commanded Democrates, with portentous gravity, “justice first,

mercy later. Do you solemnly swear you heard Phormio call this stranger

‘Glaucon’?”

“Yes, _kyrie_. Woe! woe!”

“And you say he is now asleep in your house?”

“Yes, the wine has made them both very heavy.”

“You have done well.” Democrates extended his hand again. “You are a

worthy daughter of Athens. In years to come they will name you with King

Codrus who sacrificed his life for the freedom of Attica, for have you not

sacrificed what should be dearer than life,—the fair name of your husband?

But courage. Your patriotism may extenuate his crime. Only the traitor

must be taken.”

“Yes, he was breathing hard when I went out. Ah! seize him quickly.”

“Retire,” commanded Democrates, with a flourish; “leave me to concert with

this excellent Hiram the means of thwarting I know not what gross

villany.”

The door had hardly closed behind Lampaxo, when Democrates fell as a heap

into the cushions. He was ashen and palsied.

“Courage, master,”—Hiram was drawing a suggestive finger across his

throat,—“the woman’s tale is true metal. Critias shall sleep snug and

sweetly to-night, if perchance too soundly.”

“What will you do?” shrieked the wretched man.

“The thing is marvellously simple, master. The night is not yet old.

Hasdrubal and his crew of Carthaginians are here and by the grace of Baal

can serve you. This cackling hen will guide us to the house. Heaven has

put your enemy off his guard. He and Phormio will never wake to feel their

throats cut. Then a good stone on each foot takes the corpses down in the

harbour.”

But Democrates dashed his hand in negation.

“No, by the infernal gods, not so! No murder. I cannot bear the curse of

the Furies. Seize him, carry him to the ends of the earth, to hardest

slavery. Let him never cross my path again. But no bloodshed—”

Hiram almost lost his never failing smile, so much he marvelled.

“But, your Lordship, the man is a giant, mighty as Melkarth.(12) Seizing

will be hard. Sheol is the safest prison.”

“No.” Democrates was still shaking. “His ghost came to me a thousand

times, though yet he lived. It would hound me mad if I murdered him.”

“_You_ would not murder him. Your slave is not afflicted by dreams.”

Hiram’s smile was extremely insinuating.

“Don’t quibble with words. It would be I who slew him, though I never

struck the blow. You can seize him. Is he not asleep? Call Hasdrubal—bind

Glaucon, gag him, drag him to the ship. But he must not die.”

“Very good, Excellency.” Hiram seldom quarrelled to no purpose with his

betters. “Let your Lordship deign to leave this small matter to his slave.

By Baal’s favour Hasdrubal and six of his crew sleep on shore to-night.

Let us pray they be not deep in wine. Wait for me one hour, perhaps two,

and your heart and liver shall be comforted.”

“Go, go! I will wait and pray to Hermes Dolios.”

Hiram even now did not forget his punctilious salaam before departing.

Never had he seemed more the beautiful serpent with the shining scales

than the instant he bent gracefully at Democrates’s feet, the red light

falling on his gleaming ear and nose rings, his smooth brown skin and

beady eyes. The door turned on its pivots—closed. Democrates heard the

retiring footsteps. No doubt the Phœnician was taking Lampaxo with him.

The Athenian staggered across the room to his bed and flung himself on it,

laughing hysterically. How absolutely his enemy was delivered into his

hands! How the Moræ in sending that Carthaginian ship, to do Lycon’s

business and his, had provided the means of ridding him of the haunting

terror! How everything conspired to aid him! He need not even kill

Glaucon. He would have no blood guiltiness, he need not dread Alecto and

her sister Furies. He could trust Hiram and Hasdrubal to see to it that

Glaucon never returned to plague him. And Hermione? Democrates laughed

again. He was almost frightened at his own glee.

“A month, my nymph, a month, and you and your dear father, yes,

Themistocles himself, will be in no state to answer me ‘nay,’—though

Glaucon come to claim you.”

Thus he lay a long time, while the drip, drip from the water-clock in the

corner told how the night was passing. The lamp flickered and burned

lower. He never knew the hours to creep so slowly.

* * * * * * *

At last, a knock; Scodrus, the yawning valet, ushering in a black and

bearded sailor, who crouched eastern fashion at the feet of the strategus.

“You have seized him?”

“Blessed be Moloch, Baal, and Melkarth! They have poured sleep upon my

Lord’s enemy.” The sailor’s Greek was harsh and execrable. “Your servants

did even as commanded. The woman let us in. The young man my Lord hates

was bound and gagged almost ere he could waken, likewise the fishmonger

was seized.”

“Bravely done. I never forget good service. And the woman?”

“She is retained likewise. I have hastened hither to learn the further

will of my Lord.”

Democrates arose hastily.

“My himation, staff, and shoes, boy!” he ordered. “I will go forth myself.

The prisoners are still at the fishmonger’s house?”

“Even so, Excellency.”

“I go back with you. I must see this stranger with my own eyes. There must

be no mistake.”

Scodrus stared widely when he saw his master go out into the dark, for his

only escort a black Carthaginian sailor with a dirk a cubit long.

Democrates did not even ask for a lantern. None of the servants could

fathom their master’s doings of late. He gave strappings when they asked

questions, and Bias was away.

The streets of Trœzene were utterly deserted when Democrates threaded

them. There was no moon, neither he nor his companion were overcertain of

the way. Once they missed the right turn, wandered down a blind alley, and

plunged into a pile of offal awaiting the scavenger dogs. But finally the

seaman stopped at a low door in a narrow street, and a triple rap made it

open. The scene was squalid. A rush-candle was burning on a table. Around

it squatted seven men who rose and bowed as the strategus entered. In the

dim flicker he could just recognize the burly shipmaster Hasdrubal and

gigantic Hib, the Libyan “governor,” whose ebon face betrayed itself even

there.

“We have expected you, _kyrie_,” said Hiram, who was one of the group.

“Thanks be to Hermes and to you all. I have told my guide already I will

be grateful. Where is he?”

“In the kitchen behind, your Lordship. We were singularly favoured. Hib

had the cord around his arms before he wakened. He could scarcely struggle

despite his power. The fishmonger awoke before Hasdrubal could nip him.

For a moment we feared his outcries would rouse the street. But again the

gods blessed us. No one stirred, and we soon throttled him.”

“Take the light,” ordered Democrates. “Come.”

Accompanied by Hiram, the orator entered the kitchen, a small square room.

The white-washed ceiling was blacked around the smoke-hole, a few pots and

pans lay in the corners, a few dying embers gleamed on the hearth. But

Democrates had eyes only for two objects,—human figures tightly bound

lying rigid as faggots in the further corner.

“Which is he?” asked Democrates again, stepping softly as though going to

danger.

“The further one is Phormio, the nearer is my Lord’s enemy. Your

Excellency need not fear to draw close. He is quite secure.”

“Give me the candle.”

Democrates held the light high and trod gently over to the prostrate men.

Hiram spoke rightly that his victim was secure. They had lashed him hand

and foot, using small chains in lieu of cords. A bit of wood had been

thrust into his mouth and tied with twine under the ears. Democrates stood

an instant looking down, then very deliberately knelt beside the prisoner

and moved the candle closer. He could see now the face hidden half by the

tangled black hair and beard and the gag—but who could doubt it?—the deep

blue eye, the chiselled profile, the small, fine lips, yes, and the

godlike form visible in its comeliness despite the bands. He was gazing

upon the man who two years ago had called him “bosom-friend.”

The prisoner looked straight upward. The only thing he could move was his

eyes, and these followed Democrates’s least motion. The orator pressed the

candle closer yet. He even put out his hand, and touched the face to brush

away the hair. A long look—and he was satisfied. No mistake was possible.

Democrates arose and stood over the prisoner, then spoke aloud.

“Glaucon, I have played at dice with Fortune. I have conquered. I did not

ruin you willingly. There was no other way. A man must first be a friend

to himself, and then friendly to others. I have cast in my lot with the

Persians. It was I who wrote that letter which blasted you at Colonus.

Very soon there will be a great battle fought in Bœotia. Lycon and I will

make it certain that Mardonius conquers. I am to be tyrant of Athens.

Hermione shall be my wife.” The workings of the prisoner’s face made

Democrates wince; from Glaucon’s throat came rattlings, his eyes were

terrible. But the other drove recklessly forward. “As for you, you pass

this night out of my life. How you escaped the sea I know not and care

less. Hasdrubal will take you to Carthage, and sell you into the interior

of Libya. I wish you no misery, only you go where you shall never see

Hellas again. I am merciful. Your life is in my hands. But I restore it. I

am without blood guiltiness. What I have done you would have done, had you

loved as I—had you been under necessity as I. Eros is a great god, but

Anangkë, Dame Necessity, is yet mightier. So to-night we part—farewell.”

A strong spasm passed through the prisoner’s frame. For a moment

Democrates thought the bonds would snap. Too strong. The orator swung on

his heel and returned to the outer room.

“The night wanes, _kyrie_,” remarked Hasdrubal; “if these good people are

to be taken to the ship, it must be soon.”

“As you will. I do nothing more concerning them.”

“Fetch down the woman,” ordered Hasdrubal; in the mongrel Greek current

amongst Mediterranean sea-folk. Two of his seamen ascended the ladder and

returned with Lampaxo, who smirked and simpered at sight of Democrates and

bobbed him a courtesy.

“The traitor is seized, your Excellency. I hope your Excellency will see

that he drinks hemlock. You will be merciful to my poor husband, even if

he must be arrested for the night. Gods and goddesses! what are these men

doing to me?”

A stalwart Carthaginian was in the act of knotting a cord around the good

woman’s arms preparatory to pinioning them.

“_Kyrie! kyrie!_” she screamed, “they are binding me, too! Me—the most

loyal woman in Attica.”

Democrates scowled and turned his back on her.

“Your Lordship surely intended this woman to be taken also,” suggested

Hiram, sweetly. “It cannot be he will leave such a dangerous witness at

large.”

“Of course not. Off with her!”

“_Kyrie! kyrie!_” was her shriek, but quickly ended, for Hasdrubal knitted

his fingers around her throat.

“A gag,” he ordered, and with a few more struggles Lampaxo stood helpless

and silent.

A little later the band was threading its stealthy way down the black

streets. Four of the Carthaginians carried Glaucon, slung hands and feet

over a pole. They dared not trust him on his feet. Phormio and Lampaxo

walked, closely pinioned and pricked on by the captain’s dagger. They were

soon at the deserted strand, and their ship’s pinnace lay upon the beach.

Democrates accompanied them as far as the dark marge, and watched while

the boat glided out into the gloom of the haven. The orator paced homeward

alone. Everything had favoured him. He had even cleared himself of the

curse of the Furies and the pursuit of Nemesis. He had, he congratulated

himself, shown marvellous qualities of mercy. Glaucon lived? Yes—but the

parching sand-plains of Libya would be as fast a prison as the grave, and

the life of a slave in Africa was a short one. Glaucon had passed from his

horizon forever.

CHAPTER XXXV

MOLOCH BETRAYS THE PHŒNICIAN

Even whilst the boat pulled out to the trader, Hiram suggested that since

his superior’s “unfortunate scruples” forbade them to shed blood, at least

they could disable the most dangerous captive by putting out his eyes. But

Hasdrubal, thrifty Semite, would not hearken.

“Is not the fellow worth five hundred shekels in the Carthage market?—but

who will give two for a blind dog?”

And once at the ship the prisoners were stowed in the hold so securely

that even Hiram ceased to concern himself. In the morning some of the

neighbours indeed wondered at Phormio’s closed door and the silence of the

jangling voice of Lampaxo; but the fishmonger was after all an exile, and

might have returned suddenly to Attica, now the Persians had retreated

again to Bœotia, and before these surmises could change to misdoubting,

the _Bozra_ was bearing forth into the Ægean.

The business of Hasdrubal with the _Bozra_ at Trœzene appeared simple. The

war had disturbed the Greek harvests. He had come accordingly with a cargo

of African corn, and was taking a light return lading of olive oil and

salt fish. But those who walked along the harbour front remarked that the

_Bozra_ was hardly a common merchantman. She was a “sea-mouse,” long,

shallow, and very fast under sail; she also carried again an unwontedly

heavy crew. When Hasdrubal’s cargo seemed completed, he lingered a couple

of days, alleging he was repairing a cable; then the third morning after

his nocturnal adventure a cipher letter to Democrates sent the

Carthaginian to sea. The letter went thus:—

“Lycon, in the camp of the Greeks in Bœotia, to Democrates in Trœzene,

greeting:—The armies have now faced many days. The soothsayers declare

that the aggressor is sure to be defeated, still there has been some

skirmishing in which your Athenians slew Masistes, Mardonius’s chief of

cavalry. This, however, is no great loss to us. Your presence with

Aristeides is now urgently needed. Send Hasdrubal and Hiram at once to

Asia with the papers we arranged in Corinth. Come yourself with speed to

the army. Ten days and this merry dice-throwing is ended. _Chaire!_”

Democrates immediately after this gave Hiram a small packet of papyrus

sheets rolled very tight, with the ominous injunction to “conceal

carefully, weight it with lead, and fling it overboard if there is danger

of capture.” At which Hiram bowed more elegantly than usual and answered,

“Fear not; it shall be guarded as the priests guard the ark of Moloch, and

when next your slave comes, it is to salute my Lord as the sovran of

Athens.”

Hiram smiled fulsomely and departed. An hour later the _Bozra_ ran out on

the light wind around the point of Calauria and into the sparkling sea to

eastward. Democrates stood gazing after her until she was a dark speck on

the horizon.

The speck at last vanished. The strategus walked homeward. Glaucon was

gone. The fateful packet binding Democrates irrevocably to the Persian

cause was gone. He could not turn back. At the gray of morning with a few

servants he quitted Trœzene, and hastened to join Aristeides and Pausanias

in Bœotia.

* * * * * * *

In the hold of the _Bozra_, where Hasdrubal had stowed his unwilling

passengers, there crept just enough sunlight to make darkness visible. The

gags had been removed from the prisoners, suffering them to eat, whereupon

Lampaxo had raised a truly prodigious outcry which must needs be silenced

by a vigorous anointing with Hasdrubal’s whip of bullock’s hide. Her

husband and Glaucon disdained to join a clamour which could never escape

the dreary cavern of the hold, and which only drew the hoots of their

unmagnanimous guardians. The Carthaginians had not misinterpreted

Glaucon’s silence, however. They knew well they had a Titan in custody,

and did not even unlash his hands. His feet and Phormio’s were tied

between two beams in lieu of stocks. The giant Hib took it upon himself to

feed them bean porridge with a wooden spoon, making the dainty sweeter

with tales of the parching heats of Africa and the life of a slave under

Libyan task-masters.

So one day, another, and another, while the _Bozra_ rocked at anchor, and

the prisoners knew that liberty lay two short cable lengths away, yet

might have been in Atlantis for all it profited them. Phormio never

reviled his wife as the author of their calamity, and Lampaxo, with nigh

childish earnestness, would protest that surely Democrates knew not what

the sailors did when they bound her.

“So noble a patriot! An evil god bewitched him into letting these harpies

take us. Woe! woe! What misfortune!”

To which plaint the others only smiled horribly and ground their teeth.

Phormio as well as Glaucon had heard the avowal of Democrates on the night

of the seizure. There was no longer any doubt of the answer to the great

riddle. But disheartening, benumbing beyond all personal anguish was the

dread for Hellas. The sacrifice at Thermopylæ vain. The glory of Salamis

vain. Hellas and Athens enslaved. The will of Xerxes and Mardonius

accomplished not because of their valour, but because of their enemies’

infamy.

“O gods, if indeed there be gods!” Glaucon was greatly doubting that at

last; “if ye have any power, if justice, truth, and honour weigh against

iniquity, put that power forth, or never claim the prayers and sacrifice

of men again.”

Glaucon was past dreading for himself. He prayed that Hermione might be

spared a long life of tears, and that Artemis might slay her quickly by

her silent arrows. To follow his thoughts in all their dark mazes were

profitless. Suffice it that the night which had brooded over his soul from

the hour he fled from Colonus was never so dark as now. He was too

despairing even to curse.

The last hope fled when they heard the rattling of the cables weighing

anchor. Soon the soft slap of the water around the bow and the regular

heaving motion told that the _Bozra_ was under way. The sea-mouse creaked

and groaned through all her timbers and her lading. The foul bilge-water

made the hold stifling as a charnel-house. Lampaxo, Hib being absent,

began to howl and moan.

“O Queen Hera! O Queen Hera, I die for a breath of air—I, the most

patriotic woman in Athens!”

“Silence, goodwife,” muttered Phormio, twisting desperately on the filthy

straw under him. “Have I not enough to fret about without the addition of

your pipings?” And he muttered underbreath the old saw of Hesiod:—

“He who doth a woman trust,

Doth trust a den of thieves.”

“Silence below there, you squealing sow,” ordered Hib, from the hatchway.

“Must I tan your hide again?”

Lampaxo subsided. Phormio tugged vainly at his feet in the stocks. Glaucon

said nothing. A terrible hope had come to him. If he could not speedily

die, at least he would soon go mad, and that would rescue him from his

most terrible enemy—himself.

* * * * * * *

The _Bozra_, it has been said, headed not south but eastward. Hasdrubal’s

commission was to fetch Samos, where the still formidable fleet of the

Barbarian lay, and to put the precious packet from Democrates in the hands

of Tigranes, Xerxes’s commander-in-chief on the coast of Asia Minor. But

although speed had been enjoined, the voyage did not go prosperously. Off

Belbina the wind deserted them altogether, and Hasdrubal had been

compelled to force his craft along by sweeps,—ponderous oars, worked by

three men,—but his progress at best was slow. Off Cythnos the breeze had

again arisen, but it was the Eurus from the southeast, worse than useless;

the _Bozra_ had been obliged to ride at anchor off the island for two

days. Then another calm; and at last, “because,” said Hasdrubal piously,

“he had vowed two black lambs to the Wind God,” the breeze came clear and

cool from the north, which, if not wholly favourable, enabled the

merchantman to plough onward. It was the fifth day, finally, after

quitting Trœzene, that the headlands of Naxos came in sight at dawn, and

the master began to take comfort. The fleet of the Greeks—a fisherboat had

told him—was swinging inactive at Delos well to the north and westward,

and he could fairly consider himself in waters dominated by the king.

“A fortunate voyage,” the master was boasting to Hiram, as he sat at

breakfast in the stern-cabin above a platter of boiled dolphin; “two

talents from the Persians for acting as their messenger; a thousand

drachmæ profit on the corn; a hundred from Master Democrates in return for

our little service, not to mention the profit on the return cargo, and

last but not least the three slaves.”

“Yes, the three slaves. I had almost forgotten about them.”

“You see, my dear Hiram,” quoth the master, betwixt two unwontedly huge

mouthfuls, “you see what folly it was of you to suggest putting out that

handsome fellow’s eyes. I am strongly thinking of selling him not to

Carthage, but to Babylon. I know a trader at Ephesus who makes a specialty

of handsome youths. The satrap Artabozares has commissioned him to find as

many good-looking out-runners as possible. Also for his harem—if this

Glaucon were only a eunuch—”

Hiram, breaking a large disk of bread, was smiling very suggestively

before making reply, when a sailor shouted at the hatch:—

“Ships, master! Ships with oars!”

“In what quarter?” Hasdrubal sprang up, letting the dishes clatter.

“From Myconus. They come up fast. Hib at the masthead counts eleven

triremes.”

“Baal preserve us!” The master at once clambered on deck. “The Greek fleet

may be quitting Delos. We must pray for wind.”

It was a gray, hazy day after a dozen bright ones. The northerly breeze

seemed falling. The water spread out a sombre lead colour. The heights of

Naxos were in sight to starboard, but none too clearly. Much more

interesting to Hasdrubal was the line of dots spreading on the horizon to

northwest. Despite the distance his keen eyes could catch the rise and

fall of the oar banks—war-ships, not traders. Hib was right, and

Hasdrubal’s face grew longer. No triremes save the Greeks could be bearing

thither, and a merchantman, even from nominally neutral Carthage, caught

headed for the king’s coasts in those days of blazing war was nothing if

not fair prize. The master’s decision was prompt.

“They are far off. Put the ship before the wind.”

The sea-mouse was fleet indeed for a trader, but unlike a trireme must

count on her canvas for her speed. With a piping breeze she could mock

pursuit. In a calm she was fearfully handicapped. However, for a moment

Hasdrubal congratulated himself he could slip away unnoticed. The distance

was very great. Then his dark lips cursed.

“Moloch consume me! If I see aright, we are chased.”

Two vessels, in fact, seemed turning away from the rest. They were heading

straight after the _Bozra_. A long race it would be, but with the gale so

light the chances were against the sea-mouse. Hasdrubal had no need to

urge his crew to rig out the oars and tug furiously, if they wished to

escape a Greek prison and a slave market.

The whole crew, forty black-visaged, black-eyed creatures, were soon busy

over the dozen great sweeps in a frantic attempt to force the _Bozra_

beyond danger. Panting, yelling, blaspheming, for a while they seemed

holding their own, but the master watched with sinking heart the waning

breeze. At the end of an hour their pursuers could be distinguished,—a

tall trireme behind, but closer, pulling more rapidly, a penteconter, a

slim scouting galley working fifty oars in a single bank.

Hasdrubal began to shout desperately: “Wind, Baal, wind! Fill the sails,

and seven he-goats await thy altar in Carthage!”

Either the god found the bribe too small or lacked the power to accept it.

The breeze did not stiffen. The sailors strove like demons at the sweeps,

but almost imperceptibly the gap betwixt them and the war-ships was

narrowing.

Hiram, who had been rowing, now left his post to approach the master.

“What of the captives? Crucifixion waits us all if they are found on the

ship and tell their story. Kill them at once and fling the bodies

overboard.”

Hasdrubal shook his head.

“Not yet. Still a good chance. I’ll not cast five hundred bright shekels

to the fish till harder pressed. The breeze may strengthen.” Then he

redoubled his shout. “Wind, Baal, wind!”

But a little later the gap betwixt the sea-mouse and the penteconter had

so dwindled that even the master’s inborn thrift began to yield to

prudence.

“Hark you, Hib,” he cried from the helm. “Take Adherbal and Lars the

Etruscan. It’s a good ten furlongs to that cursed galley still, but we

must have those prisoners ready on deck. Over they go if the chase gets a

bit closer.”

The giant Libyan hastened to comply, while all the crew joined in the

captain’s howl, “Wind, Baal, wind!” and cried reckless vows, while they

scanned the fateful stretch of gray-green water behind the stern, whereon

liberty if not life depended.

The trireme, pulling only one of her banks, was dropping behind, her

navarch leaving the tiring chase to the penteconter, but the latter hung

on doggedly.

“Curse those war-ships with their long oars and heavy crews,” growled Hib,

reappearing above the hatch with the prisoners. “The penteconter’s only

nine furlongs off.”

He had been obliged to release the captives from the stocks, but Hib had

taken the precaution to place on the formidable athlete a pair of leg

irons joined by a shackle. Not merely were Glaucon’s arms pinioned by a

stout cord, but the great Libyan was gripping them tightly. Lars and

Adherbal conducted the other prisoners, whose feet, however, were not

bound. For a moment the three captives stood blinking at the unfamiliar

light, unconscious of the situation and their extremity, whilst Hasdrubal

for the fortieth time measured the distance. The wind had strengthened a

little. Let it strengthen a trifle more and the _Bozra_ would hold her

own. Still her people were nearly spent with their toiling, and the keen

beak and large complement of the man-of-war made resistance madness if she

once came alongside.

“Have ready sand-bags,” ordered Hasdrubal, “to tie to these wretches’

feet. Set them by the boat mast, so the sail can hide our pretty deed from

the penteconter. Have ready an axe. We’ll bide a little longer, though,

before we say ‘farewell’ to our passengers. The gods may help yet.”

Hib and his fellows were marching the prisoners to the poop, when the

sight of the war-ship told Phormio all the story. No gag now hindered his

tongue.

“Oh, dragons from Carthage, are you going to murder us?” he began in tones

more indignant than terrified.

“No, save as Heaven enjoins it!” quoth the master, clapping his hands to

urge on the rowing stroke. “Pray, then, your Æolus, Hellene, to stiffen

the breeze.”

“Pray, then, to Pluto, whelps,” bawled the undaunted fishmonger, “to give

you a snug berth in Orcus. Ha! but it’s a merry thought of you and all

your pretty lads stretched on crosses and waiting for the crows.”

But a violent screech came from Lampaxo, who had just comprehended the

fate awaiting.

“_Ai! ai!_ save me, fellow-Hellenes!” she bawled toward the penteconter,

“a citizeness of Athens, the most patriotic woman in the city, slaughtered

by Barbarians—”

“Silence the squealing sow!” roared Hasdrubal. “They’ll hear her on the

war-ship. Aft with her and overboard at once.”

But as they dragged Lampaxo on the poop, her outcry rose to a tempest till

Lars the Etruscan clapped his hand upon her mouth. Her screaming stilled,

but his own outcry more than replaced it. In a twinkling the virago’s hard

teeth closed over his fingers. Two ran from the oars to him. But the

woman, conscious that she fought for life or death, held fast. Curses,

blows, even a dagger pried betwixt her lips—all bootless. She seemed as a

thing possessed. And all the time the Etruscan howled in mortal agony.

The thin dagger, bent too hard, snapped betwixt her teeth. Lars’s clamour

could surely be heard on the penteconter. Again the breeze was falling.

They seized the fury’s throat, and pressed it till she turned black, but

the grip of her jaw only tightened.

“_Attatai! attatai!_” groaned the victim, “forbear. Don’t throttle her.

Her teeth are iron. They are biting through the bone. If you strangle her,

they will never relax. _Attatai! attatai!_”

“Nip him tight, little wife,” called Phormio, for once regarding his

spouse with supreme satisfaction. “It’s a dainty morsel you have in your

mouth. Chew it well!”

Lampaxo’s attackers paused an instant, uncertain how to release the

Etruscan. To their threats of torture the woman was deaf as the mainmast,

and still the Etruscan screamed.

Glaucon had stood perfectly passive during all this grim by-play. Once

Phormio saw his fellow-captive’s face twist into a smile, but in the

excitement of the moment the fishmonger as well as the Carthaginians

almost forgot the Isthmionices, and Hib relaxed his grip and guard. Lars’s

finger was streaming red, when Hasdrubal threw away the steering-paddle in

a rage.

“Silence her forever! The axe, Hib. Split her skull open!”

The axe lay at the Libyan’s feet. One instant, only one, betook his hands

from the athlete’s wrists to seize the weapon, but in that instant the

yell from all the crew drowned even the howls of Lars. Had any watched,

they might have seen all the muscles in the Alcmæonid’s glorious body

contract, might have seen the fire spring from his eyes as he put forth a

godlike might. Heracles and Athena Polias had been with him when he threw

his strength upon the bands that held his arms. The crushing of Lycon down

had been no feat like this. In a twinkling the cords about his wrists were

snapped. He swung his free hands in the air.

“Athens!” he shouted, whilst the crew stood spellbound. “Hermione! Glaucon

is still Glaucon!”

Hib had grasped the axe, but he never knew what smote him once behind the

ear and sent him rolling lifeless against the bulwark. In an instant his

bright weapon was swinging high above the athlete’s head. Glaucon stood

terrible as Achilles before the cowering Trojans.

“Woe! woe! he is Melkarth. We are lost men!” groaned the crew.

“At him, fools!” bawled Hasdrubal, first to recover wits, “his feet are

still shackled.”

But whilst the master called to them, the axe dashed down upon the

fetters, and one great stroke smote the coupling-link in twain. The

Athenian stood a moment looking right and left, the axe dancing as a toy

in his grasp, and a smile on his face inviting, “Prove me.”

A javelin singing from the hand of Adherbal flew at him. An imperceptible

bending of the body, a red streak on Glaucon’s naked side, and it dug into

the deck. Yet whilst it quivered, was out again and hurled through the

Carthaginian’s breast and shoulders. He fell in a heap beside the Libyan.

Another howl from the sailors.

“Not Melkarth, but Baal the Dragon-Slayer. We are lost. Who can contend

with him?”

“Cowards!” thundered Hasdrubal, whipping the sword from his thigh, “do you

not know these three sniff our true business? If they live when the

penteconter comes, it’s not prison but Sheol that’s waiting. Their lives

or ours. One rush and we have this madman down!”

But their terrible adversary gave the master no time to gather his

myrmidons. One stroke of the axe had already released Phormio, who

clutched the arms of his wife.

“The cabin!” the ready-witted fishmonger commanded, and Lampaxo, scarce

knowing what she did, released her ungentle hold on Lars and suffered her

husband to drag her down the ladder. Glaucon went last; no man loving

death enough to come within reach of the axe. Hasdrubal saw his victims

escaping under his eyes and groaned.

“There is only one hatchway. We must force it. Darts, belaying-pins,

ballast stones—fling anything down. It’s for life or death!”

“The penteconter is four furlongs away!” shrieked a sailor, growing gray

under his dark skin.

“And Democrates’s despatches are hid in the cabin,” added Hiram,

chattering. “If they do not go overboard, our deaths will be terrible.”

“Hear, King Moloch!” called Hasdrubal, lifting his swarthy arms to heaven,

then striking them with his sword till the blood gushed down, “suffer us

to escape this calamity and I vow thee even my daughter Tibaït,—a child in

her tenth year,—she shall die in thy holy furnace a sacrifice.”

“Hear, Baal! Hear, Moloch!” chorussed the crew; and gathering courage from

necessity seized boat-hooks, oars, dirks, and all other handy weapons for

their attack.

But below the released prisoners had not been idle. Never—Glaucon knew

it—had his brain been clearer, his invention more fertile than now, and

Phormio was not too old to cease to be a valiant helper. The cabin was

small. A few spears and swords stood in the rack about the mast. The

athlete bolted the sliding hatch-cover, and tore down the weapons.

“Release your wife,” he ordered Phormio; “yonder sea chest is strong. Drag

it over to bar the hatch-ladder. Work as Titans if you hope for another

sun.”

“_Ai, ai, ai!_” screeched Lampaxo, who had released Lars’s fingers only to

resume her din, “we all perish. They are hewing the hatch-cover with their

axes. Hera preserve us! The wood splinters. We die.”

“We have no time to die,” called the athlete, “but only to save Hellas.”

A dozen blows beat the frail hatch-cover to splinters. A dark face with

grinning teeth showed itself. A heavy ballast stone grazed the athlete’s

shoulder, but the intruder fell back with a gurgling in his throat, his

hands clutching the empty air. Glaucon had sent a heavy spear clean

through him.

More ballast stones, but the Titanic Alcmæonid had torn a mattress from a

bunk, and held it as effective shield. By main force the others dragged

the chest across to the hatchway, making the entrance doubly narrow.

Vainly Hasdrubal stormed at his men to rush down boldly. They barely dared

to fling stones and darts, so fast their adversary sped them back, and to

the mark.

“A god! a god! We fight against Heaven!” bleated the seamen.

Their groans were answered by the screechings of Lampaxo through the

port-hole and the taunts of Phormio.

“Sing, sing, pretty Pisinoë, sweetest of the sirens,” tossed the

fishmonger, playing his part at Glaucon’s side; “lure that dear

penteconter a little nearer. And you, brave, gentle sirs, don’t try ‘to

flay a skinned dog’ by thrusting down here. Your hands are just itching

for the nails, I warrant!”

Hasdrubal redoubled his vows to Moloch. In place of his daughter he

substituted his son, though the lad was fourteen years old and the darling

of his parents. But the god was not tempted even now. The attack on the

cabin had called the sailors from the oars. The penteconter consequently

had gained fast upon them. The trireme behind was manning her other banks

and drawing down apace. Hiram cast a hopeless glance toward her.

“I know those ‘eyes’—those red hawse-holes—the _Nausicaä_. Come what may,

Themistocles must not read the packet in the cabin. There is one chance.”

He approached the splintered hatchway and outstretched his

hands—weaponless.

“Ah, good and gracious Master Glaucon, and your honest friends, your gods

of Hellas are very great and have delivered us, your poor slaves, into

your hands. Your friends approach. We will resist no longer. Come on deck;

and when the ship is taken, entreat the navarch to be merciful and

generous.”

“Bah!” spat Phormio, “you write your promises in water, or better in oil,

black-scaled viper. We know what time of day it is with us, and what for

you.”

Hiram saw Glaucon’s hand rise with a javelin, and shrank shivering.

“They won’t hearken. All’s lost,” he whimpered, his smile becoming

ghastly.

“Another rush, men!” pleaded Hasdrubal.

“Lead the charge yourself, master!” retorted the seamen, sullenly.

The captain, swinging a cutlass, leaped down the bloodstained hatch. One

moment the desperate fury of his attack carried Glaucon backward. The two

fought—sword against axe—in doubtful combat.

“Follow! follow!” called Hasdrubal, dashing Phormio aside with the flat of

his blade. “I have him at last!” But just as Hiram was leading down a

dozen more, the athlete’s axe swept past the sword, and fell like a

millstone on the master’s skull. He never screamed as he crashed upon the

planks.

This was enough. The seamen were at the end of their valour. If they must

die, they must die. What use resisting destiny?

Slowly, slowly the moments crept for the three in the cabin. Even Lampaxo

grew still. They heard Hiram pleading frantically, vainly, for another

attempt, and raving strange things about Democrates, Lycon, and the

Persian. Then behind the _Bozra_ sounded the rushing of foam around a ram,

the bumping of fifty oars plying on the thole-pins. Into their sight shot

the penteconter, the brass glistening on her prow, the white blades

leaping in rhythm. Marines in armour stood on the forecastle. A few arrows

pattered on the plankings of the _Bozra_. Her abject crew obeyed the

demand to surrender. Their helmsman pushed over the steering-paddle, and

flung himself upon the deck. The sea-mouse went up into the wind. The

grappling-irons rattled over the bulwark. Glaucon heard the Phœnicians

whining, “Mercy! mercy!” as they embraced the boarders’ feet, then the

_prōreus_, in hearty Attic, calling, “Secure the prisoners and rummage the

prize!”

Glaucon had suffered many things of late. He had faced intolerable

captivity, immediate death. Now around his eyes swam hot mist. He fell

upon a sea chest, and for a little cared not for anything around, whilst

down his cheeks would flow the tears.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE READING OF THE RIDDLE

A hard chase. The rowers of the penteconter were well winded before they

caught the _Bozra_. A merchantman making for Asia was, however, undoubted

prize; the luckless crew could be sold in the Agora, the cargo of oil,

fish, and pottery was likewise of value. Cimon was standing on his poop,

listening to the report of his _prōreus_.

“We’re all a mina richer for the race, captain, and they’ve some jars of

their good Numidian wine in the forecastle.”

But here a seaman interrupted, staring blankly.

“_Kyrie_, here’s a strange prize. Five men lie dead on the deck. The

planks are bloody. In the cabin are two men and a woman. All three seem

mad. They are Greeks. They keep us out, and bawl, ‘The navarch! show us

the navarch, or Hellas is lost.’ And one of them—as true as that I sucked

my mother’s milk—is Phormio—”

“Phormio the fishmonger,”—Cimon dropped his steering oar,—“on a

Carthaginian ship? You’re mad yourself, man.”

“See with your own eyes, captain. They’ll yield to none save you. The

prisoners are howling that one of these men is a giant.”

For the active son of Miltiades to leap from bulwark to bulwark took an

instant. Only when he showed himself did the three in the cabin scramble

up the ladder, covered with blood, the red lines of the fetters marked

into wrist and ankle. Lampaxo had thrown her dress over her head and was

screaming still, despite assurances. The third Hellene’s face was hid

under a tangle of hair. But Cimon knew the fishmonger. Many a morning had

he haggled with him merrily for a fine mackerel or tunny, and the navarch

recoiled in horror at his fellow-citizen’s plight.

“Infernal gods! You a prisoner here? Where is this cursed vessel from?”

“From Trœzene,” gasped the refugee; “if you love Athens and Hellas—”

He turned just in time to fling an arm about Hiram, who—carelessly

guarded—was gliding down the hatchway.

“Seize that viper, bind, torture; he knows all. Make him tell or Hellas is

lost!”

“Control yourself, friend,” adjured Cimon, sorely perplexed, while Hiram

struggled and began tugging out a crooked knife, before two brawny seamen

nipped him fast and disarmed.

“Ah! you carrion meat,” shouted Phormio, shaking his fists under the

helpless creature’s nose. “Honest men have their day at last. There’s a

gay hour coming before Zeus claps the lid over you in Tartarus.”

“Peace,” commanded the navarch, who betwixt Phormio’s shouts, Lampaxo’s

howls, and Hiram’s moans was at his wit’s end. “Has no one on this ship

kept aboard his senses?”

“If you will be so good, sir captain,” the third Hellene at last broke his

silence, “you will hearken to me.”

“Who are you?”

“The _prōreus_ of the _Alcyone_ of Melos. More of myself hereafter. But if

you love the weal of Hellas, demand of this Hiram where he concealed the

treasonable despatches he received at Trœzene and now has aboard.”

“Hiram? O Lord Apollo, I recognize the snake! The one that was always

gliding around Lycon at the Isthmus. If despatches he has, I know the way

to get them. Now, black-hearted Cyclops,”—Cimon’s tone was not

gentle,—“where are your papers?”

Hiram had turned gray as a corpse, but his white teeth came together.

“Phormio is mistaken. Your slave has none.”

“Bah!” threw out Cimon, “I can smell your lies like garlic. Silent still?

Good, see how I am better than Asclepius. I make the dumb talk by a

miracle. A cord and belaying-pin, Naon.”

The seaman addressed passed a cord about the Phœnician’s forehead with a

fearful dexterity, and put the iron pin at the back of the skull.

“Twist!” commanded Cimon. Two mariners gripped the victim’s arms. Naon

pressed the cord tighter, tighter. A beastlike groan came through the lips

of the Phœnician. His beady eyes started from his head, but he did not

speak.

“Again,” thundered the navarch, and as the cord stretched a howl of mortal

agony escaped the prisoner.

“Pity! Mercy! My head bursts. I will tell!”

“Tell quick, or we’ll squeeze your brains out. Relax a little, Naon.”

“In the boat mast.” Hiram spit the words out one by one. “In the cabin.

There is a peg. Pull it out. The mast is hollowed. You will find the

papers. Woe! woe! cursed the day I was born. Cursed my mother for bearing

me.”

The miserable creature fell to the deck, pressing his hands to his temples

and moaning in agony. No one heeded him now. Cimon himself ran below to

the mast, and wrenched the peg from its socket. Papyrus sheets were there,

rolled compactly, covered with writing and sealed. The navarch turned over

the packet curiously, then to the amazement of the sailors seemed to

stagger against the mast. He was as pale as Hiram. He thrust the packet

into the hands of his _prōreus_, who stood near.

“What make you of this seal? As you fear Athena, tell the truth.”

“You need not adjure me so, captain. The device is simple: Theseus slaying

the Minotaur.”

“And who, in Zeus’s name, do you know in Athens who uses a seal like

that?”

Silence for a moment, then the _prōreus_ himself was pale.

“Your Excellency does not mean—”

“Democrates!” cried the trembling navarch.

“And why not Democrates?” The words came from the released prisoner, who

had been so silent, but who had glided down and stood at Cimon’s elbow. He

spoke in a changed voice now; again the navarch was startled.

“Is Themistocles on the _Nausicaä_?” asked the stranger, whilst Cimon

gazed on him spellbound, asking if he himself were growing mad.

“Yes—but your voice, your face, your manner—my head is dizzy.”

The stranger touched him gently on the hand.

“Have I so changed, you quite forget me, Cimon?”

The son of Miltiades was a strong man. He had looked on Hiram’s tortures

with a laugh. To his own death he would have gone with no eyelash

trembling. But now the rest saw him blench; then with a cry, at once of

wonder and inexpressible joy, his arms closed round the tattered outlaw’s

neck. Treason or no treason—what matter! He forgot all save that before

him was his long-time comrade.

“My friend! My boyhood’s friend!” and so for many times they kissed.

The _Nausicaä_ had followed the chase at easy distance, ready with aid in

case the _Bozra_ resisted. Themistocles was in his cabin with Simonides,

when Cimon and Glaucon came to him. The admiral heard his young navarch’s

report, then took the unopened packet and requested Cimon and the poet to

withdraw. As their feet sounded on the ladder in the companionway,

Themistocles turned on the outlaw, it seemed, fiercely.

“Tell your story.”

Glaucon told it: the encounter on the hillside at Trœzene, the seizure in

Phormio’s house, the coming of Democrates and his boasts over the

captives, the voyage and the pursuing. The son of Neocles never hastened

the recital, though once or twice he widened it by an incisive question.

At the end he demanded:—

“And does Phormio confirm all this?”

“All. Question him.”

“Humph! He’s a truthful man in everything save the price of fish. Now let

us open the packet.”

Themistocles was exceeding deliberate. He drew his dagger and pried the

wrapper open without breaking the seals or tearing the papyrus. He turned

the strips of paper carefully one by one, opened a casket, and drew thence

a written sheet which he compared painfully with those before him.

“The same hand,” his remark in undertone.

He was so calm that a stranger would have thought him engaged with routine

business. Many of the sheets he simply lifted, glanced at, laid down

again. They did not seem to interest. So through half the roll, but the

outlaw, watching patiently, at last saw he eyebrows of the son of Neocles

pressing ever closer,—sign that the inscrutable brain was at its fateful

work.

At last he uttered one word, “Cipher.”

A sheet lay before him covered with broken words and phrases—seemingly

without meaning—but the admiral knew the secret of the Spartan _scytalē_,

the “cipher wood.” Forth from his casket came a number of rounded sticks

of varying lengths. On one after another he wound the sheet spirally until

at the fifth trial the scattered words came together. He read with ease.

Then Themistocles’s brows grew closer than before. He muttered softly in

his beard. But still he said nothing aloud. He read the cipher sheet

through once, twice; it seemed thrice. Other sheets he fingered

delicately, as though he feared the touch of venom. All without haste, but

at the end, when Themistocles arose from his seat, the outlaw trembled.

Many things he had seen, but never a face so changed. The admiral was

neither flushed nor pale. But ten years seemed added to those lines above

his eyes. His cheeks were hollowed. Was it fancy that put the gray into

his beard and hair? Slowly he rose; slowly he ordered the marine on guard

outside the cabin to summon Simonides, Cimon, and all the officers of the

flag-ship. They trooped hither and filled the narrow cabin—fifteen or more

hale, handsome Athenians, intent on the orders of the admiral. Were they

to dash at once for Samos and surprise the Persian? Or what other

adventure waited? The breeze had died. The gray breast of the Ægean rocked

the _Nausicaä_ softly. The thranites of the upper oar bank were alone on

the benches, and stroking the great trireme along to a singsong chant

about Amphitrite and the Tritons. On the poop above two sailors were

grumbling lest the penteconter’s people get all the booty of the _Bozra_.

Glaucon heard their grunts and complainings whilst he looked on

Themistocles’s awful face.

The officers ranged themselves and saluted stiffly. Themistocles stood

before them, his hands closed over the packet. The first time he started

to speak his lips closed desperately. The silence grew awkward. Then the

admiral gave his head a toss, and drew his form together as a runner

before a race.

“Democrates is a traitor. Unless Athena shows us mercy, Hellas is lost.”

“Democrates is a traitor!”

The cry from the startled men rang through the ship. The rowers ceased

their chant and their stroking. Themistocles beckoned angrily for silence.

“I did not call you down to wail and groan.” He never raised his voice;

his calmness made him terrible. But now the questions broke loose as a

flood.

“When? How? Declare.”

“Peace, men of Athens; you conquered the Persian at Salamis, conquer now

yourselves. Harken to this cipher. Then to our task and prove our comrades

did not die in vain.”

Yet despite him men wept on one another’s shoulders as became true

Hellenes, whilst Themistocles, whose inexorable face never relaxed,

rewound the papyrus on the cipher stick and read in hard voice the words

of doom.

“This is the letter secreted on the Carthaginian. The hand is

Democrates’s, the seals are his. Give ear.

“Democrates the Athenian to Tigranes, commander of the hosts of Xerxes on

the coasts of Asia, greeting:—Understand, dear Persian, that Lycon and I

as well as the other friends of the king among the Hellenes are prepared

to bring all things to pass in a way right pleasing to your master. Even

now I depart from Trœzene to join the army of the allied Hellenes in

Bœotia, and, the gods helping, we cannot fail. Lycon and I will contrive

to separate the Athenians and Spartans from their other allies, to force

them to give battle, and at the crisis cause the divisions under our

personal commands to retire, breaking the phalanx and making Mardonius’s

victory certain.