CHAPTER XXXIV

[pg 360]CHAPTER XXXIVTHE LOYALTY OF LAMPAXOThe 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. Iknowthat 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[pg 361]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[pg 362]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 sincehereturned.”“‘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 theprōreusof 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[pg 363]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.”[pg 364]“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[pg 365]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.12Seizing will be hard. Sheol is the safest prison.”[pg 366]“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.”“Youwould 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 re[pg 367]turned 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[pg 368]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 asfaggotsin the further corner.[pg 369]“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[pg 370]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[pg 371]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.[pg 372]CHAPTER XXXVMOLOCH BETRAYS THE PHŒNICIANEven 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, theBozrawas bearing forth into the Ægean.The business of Hasdrubal with theBozraat 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 theBozrawas 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[pg 373]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 theBozraran 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 theBozra, where Hasdrubal had stowed his[pg 374]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 theBozrarocked 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[pg 375]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 theBozrawas 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[pg 376]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.* * * * * * *TheBozra, 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; theBozrahad 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.”[pg 377]“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[pg 378]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 theBozra. 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 theBozrabeyond 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.[pg 379]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[pg 380]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 theBozrawould 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[pg 381]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.[pg 382]“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 Cartha[pg 383]ginian’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[pg 384]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.[pg 385]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—theNausicaä. 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.[pg 386]“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 theBozrasounded 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 theBozra. 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 theprōreus, in hearty Attic, calling,“Secure the prisoners and rummage the prize!”[pg 387]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.

[pg 360]CHAPTER XXXIVTHE LOYALTY OF LAMPAXOThe 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. Iknowthat 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[pg 361]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[pg 362]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 sincehereturned.”“‘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 theprōreusof 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[pg 363]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.”[pg 364]“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[pg 365]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.12Seizing will be hard. Sheol is the safest prison.”[pg 366]“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.”“Youwould 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 re[pg 367]turned 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[pg 368]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 asfaggotsin the further corner.[pg 369]“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[pg 370]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[pg 371]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.[pg 372]CHAPTER XXXVMOLOCH BETRAYS THE PHŒNICIANEven 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, theBozrawas bearing forth into the Ægean.The business of Hasdrubal with theBozraat 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 theBozrawas 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[pg 373]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 theBozraran 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 theBozra, where Hasdrubal had stowed his[pg 374]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 theBozrarocked 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[pg 375]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 theBozrawas 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[pg 376]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.* * * * * * *TheBozra, 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; theBozrahad 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.”[pg 377]“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[pg 378]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 theBozra. 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 theBozrabeyond 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.[pg 379]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[pg 380]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 theBozrawould 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[pg 381]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.[pg 382]“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 Cartha[pg 383]ginian’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[pg 384]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.[pg 385]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—theNausicaä. 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.[pg 386]“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 theBozrasounded 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 theBozra. 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 theprōreus, in hearty Attic, calling,“Secure the prisoners and rummage the prize!”[pg 387]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.

[pg 360]CHAPTER XXXIVTHE LOYALTY OF LAMPAXOThe 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. Iknowthat 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[pg 361]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[pg 362]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 sincehereturned.”“‘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 theprōreusof 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[pg 363]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.”[pg 364]“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[pg 365]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.12Seizing will be hard. Sheol is the safest prison.”[pg 366]“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.”“Youwould 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 re[pg 367]turned 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[pg 368]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 asfaggotsin the further corner.[pg 369]“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[pg 370]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[pg 371]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.[pg 372]CHAPTER XXXVMOLOCH BETRAYS THE PHŒNICIANEven 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, theBozrawas bearing forth into the Ægean.The business of Hasdrubal with theBozraat 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 theBozrawas 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[pg 373]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 theBozraran 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 theBozra, where Hasdrubal had stowed his[pg 374]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 theBozrarocked 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[pg 375]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 theBozrawas 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[pg 376]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.* * * * * * *TheBozra, 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; theBozrahad 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.”[pg 377]“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[pg 378]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 theBozra. 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 theBozrabeyond 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.[pg 379]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[pg 380]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 theBozrawould 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[pg 381]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.[pg 382]“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 Cartha[pg 383]ginian’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[pg 384]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.[pg 385]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—theNausicaä. 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.[pg 386]“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 theBozrasounded 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 theBozra. 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 theprōreus, in hearty Attic, calling,“Secure the prisoners and rummage the prize!”[pg 387]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.

[pg 360]CHAPTER XXXIVTHE LOYALTY OF LAMPAXOThe 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. Iknowthat 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[pg 361]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[pg 362]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 sincehereturned.”“‘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 theprōreusof 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[pg 363]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.”[pg 364]“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[pg 365]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.12Seizing will be hard. Sheol is the safest prison.”[pg 366]“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.”“Youwould 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 re[pg 367]turned 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[pg 368]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 asfaggotsin the further corner.[pg 369]“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[pg 370]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[pg 371]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.

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. Iknowthat 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[pg 361]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[pg 362]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 sincehereturned.”

“‘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 theprōreusof 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[pg 363]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[pg 365]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.12Seizing 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.”

“Youwould 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 re[pg 367]turned 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[pg 368]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 asfaggotsin 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[pg 370]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[pg 371]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.

[pg 372]CHAPTER XXXVMOLOCH BETRAYS THE PHŒNICIANEven 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, theBozrawas bearing forth into the Ægean.The business of Hasdrubal with theBozraat 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 theBozrawas 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[pg 373]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 theBozraran 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 theBozra, where Hasdrubal had stowed his[pg 374]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 theBozrarocked 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[pg 375]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 theBozrawas 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[pg 376]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.* * * * * * *TheBozra, 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; theBozrahad 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.”[pg 377]“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[pg 378]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 theBozra. 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 theBozrabeyond 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.[pg 379]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[pg 380]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 theBozrawould 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[pg 381]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.[pg 382]“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 Cartha[pg 383]ginian’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[pg 384]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.[pg 385]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—theNausicaä. 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.[pg 386]“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 theBozrasounded 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 theBozra. 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 theprōreus, in hearty Attic, calling,“Secure the prisoners and rummage the prize!”[pg 387]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.

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, theBozrawas bearing forth into the Ægean.

The business of Hasdrubal with theBozraat 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 theBozrawas 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[pg 373]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 theBozraran 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 theBozra, where Hasdrubal had stowed his[pg 374]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 theBozrarocked 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[pg 375]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 theBozrawas 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.”

“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[pg 376]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.

* * * * * * *

TheBozra, 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; theBozrahad 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[pg 378]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 theBozra. 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 theBozrabeyond 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[pg 380]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 theBozrawould 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[pg 381]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 Cartha[pg 383]ginian’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[pg 384]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—theNausicaä. 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 theBozrasounded 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 theBozra. 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 theprōreus, 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.

Back to IndexNext