RUNNING THE BLOCKADE.
Hippocles, who was a ship builder as well as a merchant, put all
available hands to work on the alterations which he proposed to make in
the _Skylark_. To disguise her effectually was a more difficult thing
than Hermione had imagined when she had suggested this idea. To disguise
her beyond all risk of discovery was probably impossible, a landsman
might be deceived by different colored paint, and a nautical observer,
if he did not give more than a casual glance, by an altered rigging. But
the lines of the ship would remain. These Hippocles endeavored to
conceal by a false and much broader bow which was ingeniously fitted on
to the true hull, and which made her look anything but the fast sailer
that she really was. Heavy bulwarks were substituted for the light ones
that had been a familiar feature of the _Skylark_. Altogether she was
metamorphosed in a fairly satisfactory way from a smart yacht into a
clumsy merchantman. As the venturous owner intended to time his arrival
for the night, and to do his errand before day-break, he hoped that the
disguise would save her as long as it should be wanted.
So much energy did the workmen, stimulated by their master’s presence
and by his liberal promises of renumeration, throw into their work, that
by the evening of the seventh day the _Skylark_ was ready for sea in
her new dress, disguised beyond recognition, except by very skilful eyes
indeed. The dockyard had been strictly closed against all visitors while
the work was in progress, and the men had been lodged within its walls,
so that no hint of what was going on might leak out. Hippocles had paid
a daily visit to his home, and did not conceal from his daughter that he
was busy in carrying out her suggestions. So frank, indeed, was he, and
so cheerful in manner, that the girl was fairly thrown off her guard.
Not a suspicion crossed her mind, that her father was meditating a
desperate enterprise in which the chances were certainly rather against
his life than otherwise, nor did she realize the extraordinary haste
with which the work was being pressed on, though she was generally aware
that a good deal of expedition was being used. Hence she was taken by
surprise, when on the eighth day instead of her father’s usual visit,
timed so that he might share her noon-day meal, a written message was
delivered to her, to the effect that her father was suddenly called away
from Athens on business of importance, and that he could not be certain
of the day of his return. The surprise almost overwhelmed her, chiefly
because she felt that this unusual hurry on the part of her father was
significant of the perilous nature of the enterprise. It was only her
unusual fortitude, backed by the feeling that she herself must not
deviate from doing her duty, that enabled her to bear up at all.
Meanwhile Hippocles was on his way to the scene of action. The _Skylark_
crossed the Ægean without meeting with any misadventure. She was
overhauled, indeed, when about half her journey was accomplished by an
Athenian cruiser, and her owner had the satisfaction of finding that so
far his disguise was successful. The Athenian captain was an
acquaintance of his own (indeed there were few prominent people in the
city to whom he was not known) and had actually been on board the
_Skylark_ more than once; but he did not recognize either Hippocles or
his vessel. In fact he was about to carry her off as a prize when
Hippocles, still without discovering himself, produced the pass with
which he had been provided under the seal of the Athenian authorities.
His arrival at Mitylene was happily timed in more ways than one. By a
stroke of that good fortune which is proverbially said to help the bold
it so happened that there was a violent north-east wind blowing. This
was a wind from which the harbor of Mitylene afforded little or no
shelter. In fact, when it was blowing, most sailors preferred to be out
on the open sea. Hippocles accordingly found everything in commotion.
The blockading ships, which moored as they were across the mouth of the
harbor, felt the full force of the wind, were anxious about their
moorings, and had little attention to give to any strange ship. The
_Skylark_ was in fact hardly noticed in the darkness and confusion, and
actually got beyond the line of the blockading galleys, and as far as
the admiral’s ship, without being challenged. For a few moments he
thought of boldly pushing on to the inner part of the harbor, where, as
has been said, the remainder of the Athenian fleet was lying hauled up
under the walls; but when he was hailed by a voice from a Spartan ship,
one of two that lay almost directly in his way, he abandoned the idea.
“Anaxilaus, merchant of Cos, to see the admiral, on business of
importance,” was his reply to the challenge. At the last moment he
dropped his anchor. A few minutes afterward, he came on board the
admiral’s galley and reported himself to that officer.
It would be unjust to Callicratidas--for this was the admiral’s name--to
describe him as a model Spartan. He was rather a model Greek. The
Spartans had great virtues which however, it is curious to observe,
seldom survived transplantation from their native soil.[17] They were
frugal, temperate, and just; but they were narrow in their habits of
thought and their conceptions of duty. A good soldier whose efficiency
was not diminished by any vice was their ideal man. They could not enter
into any large and liberal views of life. And their views of
statesmanship whether as regarded their own city or the whole race in
general were as narrow as were their notions of private virtue. They
sometimes showed a great amount of diplomatic skill, a strange contrast
with the bluntness which was their traditional characteristic, but of
wide and general views they seem to have been incapable. Yet
Callicratidas seems to have been an exception. We know comparatively
little about him. He emerges from absolute obscurity at the beginning of
the year with which my story opens, and it is only for a few months that
he plays a conspicuous part in history, but from now up to the hour
when we see him for the last time, all his words and acts are marked
with a rare nobility.
It was not difficult for Hippocles to invent a story which should
account for his presence at Mitylene. The domestic politics of almost
every Greek state were mixed up with the great struggle that was going
on between Athens and Sparta. Everywhere the democratic party looked to
Athens as its champion, the aristocratic to Sparta. This was especially
true of the states which were called the allies but were really the
subjects or tributaries of Athens. A turn of the political wheels that
brought the aristocrats to the top was commonly followed by a revolt
from the sovereign state; when, as was usually the case, they remained
underneath, they busied themselves in plotting for a change, and their
first step was to open communications with the Spartan general or
admiral in command.
In Cos the popular or pro-Athenian party was in the ascendant, and their
opponents were weak. The fact was that the Spartans were not in good
repute there. Six years before their admiral Astyochus had plundered the
island laying hands impartially on the property of friends and of foes.
Still there was a party which remained faithful to Sparta, and Hippocles
preferred to speak as their representative. His wide-spread connections
as a merchant--and Cos had a large trade with its famous vintages and
equally famous woven stuffs--gave him a knowledge of details and persons
that would have deceived a far more acute and suspicious person than
Callicratidas.
The merchant began the conversation by offering the admiral a present of
wine, and one of those almost transparent robes of silk that were a
specialty of the island.
“I will not be so churlish as to refuse what you have the good will to
offer me,” said Callicratidas, “but you must understand that I do not
accept these things for myself. I accept no personal gifts; it is a
dangerous practice, and has given rise to much scandal. I shall send
them to Sparta, and the magistrates will dispose of them as they think
fit. What is this?” he went on, taking up the robe and holding it
between his eyes and the lamp. “What do you use it for? for straining
the wine?”
Hippocles explained that it was a material for garments.
“Garments!” exclaimed the Spartan, “why, we might as well wear a
spider’s web. It is not clothing at all. It neither warms nor covers. Is
it possible that there are people so foolish as to spend their money on
it? It is costly, I suppose?”
“As you ask me,” replied Hippocles, “I may say that it costs about two
minas a yard.”
“Two minas a yard!” cried Callicratidas, whose Spartan frugality was
scandalized at such a price. “Why,” he added after a short calculation,
“it is very nearly a seaman’s pay for a year,[18] are there many who buy
such costly stuff?”
“A dress of this material is the top of the fashion for ladies in Athens
and Corinth.”
“What?” said the Spartan, “do women wear such things? It is incredible.
I have always thought that things had changed for the worse at home, but
we have not got as far as that. And now for your business.”
Hippocles explained that there was a dissatisfied party in Cos which was
very anxious to get rid of Athenian rule. “We are not strong enough,” he
went on, “to do it of ourselves, but send on a force and we will open
the gates to you. Cos is a strong place now, since the Athenians
fortified it, and, I should think, quite worth having.”
“And if we put you in power,” said the admiral, “you would begin, I
suppose, by putting all your opponents to death.”
Callicratidas was quite a different person from what Hippocles, with his
former experience of Spartans in command, had expected to find. His
disinterestedness, simplicity and directness were embarrassing, and made
him not a little ashamed of the part that he was playing. He would have
dearly liked to speak out of his own heart to a man who was
transparently honest and well-meaning, but in his position it was
impossible.
“We have, as you may suppose, sir,” he said in answer to this last
suggestion, “a great many injuries to avenge, but we should not wish to
do anything that does not meet with your approval.”
“The whole thing does not meet with my approval,” said the Spartan, “I
hate these perpetual plots; I hate to see every city divided against
itself, and see the big persons in Greece hounding them on to bloody
deeds, and making our own gain out of them. I wish to all the gods that
I could do something to bring this wretched war to an end. Why should
not Athens and Sparta be friends as they were in the old days? Surely
that would be better than our going on flying at each others’ throats as
we have been doing for now nearly twenty years past, while the Persian
stands by, and laughs to see us play his game. Where should we be--you
seem an honest man, by your face, though I cannot say that I
particularly like the errand on which you have come--where should we be,
I ask, if we had shown this accursed folly twenty-odd years ago, when
Xerxes brought up all Asia against us? As it was we stood shoulder to
shoulder, and Greece was saved. And now we have to go cap in hand, and
beg of the very Persians who are only biding their time to make slaves
of us. I tell you, sir, I feel hot with shame at the thought of what I
have had myself to put up with in this way. When I came here I found the
pay-chest empty; I don’t want to complain of anybody, so I won’t say how
this came about; but that was the fact, it was empty; the men had had no
wages for some time, and they would very soon have had no food. I asked
my officers for advice. ‘You must go to Cyrus,’ they said, ‘Cyrus is
paymaster.’[19] It was a bitter draught to swallow, but I managed to get
it down. I went to his palace at Sardis. ‘Tell your master,’ I said to
the slave who came to the door, a gorgeous creature whose dress I am
sure I could not afford to buy, ‘tell your master that Callicratidas,
admiral of the Spartan fleet, is here, and wishes to speak with him.’
The fellow left me standing outside, and went to deliver his message.
After I had waited till my patience was almost exhausted, the man came
back, and said ‘Cyrus is not at leisure to see you. He is drinking.’
Well, I put up with that. ‘Very good,’ I said, ‘I will wait till he has
done drinking.’ I thought that I would go earlier the next day, though
even then it was scarcely an hour after noon. So I went at a time when I
thought that he could not possibly have taken to his cups, and asked
again to see him. This time they had not the grace even to make an
excuse. ‘Cyrus is not at leisure to see you,’ was the answer, and
nothing more. That was more than I could stand, and I went away. I vowed
that day, and believe me it was not only because I had myself been
insulted, that if I lived to go home, I would do my very best to bring
Sparta and Athens together again. And now, sir, as to your business. I
will send home a report of what you say. If the authorities direct me to
take any action in the matter, I shall do my best to take it with
effect, but I tell you frankly that this idea does not commend itself to
me, and let me give you a bit of advice: do your best to make peace in
your city, as I shall do my best to make peace in Greece. Depend upon
it, that if we don’t, we shall have some one coming down upon us from
outside. It may be the Persian, though he does not seem to me to have
improved as a soldier; it may be the Macedonian, who is a sturdy fellow,
and helps us already to fight our battles. Whoever it is he will find us
helpless with an endless quarrel and will make short work with us. And
now good night.”
Hippocles left the Spartan admiral full of admiration for his manly and
patriotic temper, and not at all pleased that he had been obliged to
play a false part with a man so transparently honest.
About an hour after midnight the harbor was alarmed by the cry that the
ship from Cos had parted from her moorings. Hippocles had taken
advantage of a temporary increase in the force of the wind to cut his
cables, and to drift toward the Athenian part of the harbor. Nobody was
able to answer the cry for help, even if it had not been purposely
raised too late. The _Skylark_ had run the blockade, and Conon knew that
he was to be relieved.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] The instances in which a Spartan general sent to fill some office
abroad seemed to lose all self-restraint and all sense of shame are
deplorably numerous. Pausanias, the Spartan who commanded at Platæa, and
was afterwards banished for treacherous dealings with the Persians, was
the first conspicuous example of this national failing, as it may be
called; but it was an example often followed. The Spartan governors in
allied or conquered cities were almost proverbial for profligacy,
tyranny and corruption.
[18] A seaman was paid four obols a day, the rate having been increased
by the liberality of Cyrus from three to four. Five obols went to the
drachma, and a hundred drachmas to the mina.
[19] This was the prince commonly called the younger Cyrus, the second
of the two sons of Darius Nothus, King of Persia, by his Queen
Parysatis. He had come down about a year and a half before the time of
which I am writing to take the government of a large portion of Asia
Minor, viz: Lydia, Phrygia, and Cappadocia. He was strongly pro-Spartan
in his views, and as has been explained in a previous note, had
increased the rate furnished by the Persian treasury to the Spartan
fleet. But Lysander, in his anger at being suspended in the command,
had, with the selfishness, characteristic of Spartan officers, paid back
to Cyrus all the money that had been furnished for the pay of the
sailors.