A Victor of Salamis
“Ay, by Zeus,” broke out Democrates, “that ointment I sniffed a long way
off. I can give you quick answer. Fly back to Sparta, swift as Boreas;
plot, conspire, earn Tartarus, to your heart’s content—you’ll get no more
help from me.”
“I expected that speech.” Lycon’s coolness drove his victim almost
frantic.
“In the affair of Tempē I bent to you for the last time,” Democrates
charged desperately. “I have counted the cost. Perhaps you can use against
me certain documents, but I am on a surer footing than once. In the last
year I have done such service to Hellas I can even hope to be forgiven,
should these old mistakes be proved. And if you drive me to bay, be sure
of this, I will see to it that all the dealings betwixt the Barbarian and
your noble self are expounded to your admiring countrymen.”
“You show truly excellent courage, dear Democrates,” cried Lycon, in
pseudo-admiration. “That speech was quite worthy of a tragic actor.”
“If we’re in the theatre, let the chorus sing its last strophe and have
done. You disgust me.”
“Peace, peace,” ordered Lycon, his hand still on the Athenian’s shoulder,
“I will make all the haste I can, but obstinacy is disagreeable. I repeat,
you are needed, sorely needed, by Mardonius to enable him to complete the
conquest of Hellas. You shall not call the Persians ungrateful—the tyranny
of Athens under the easy suzerainty of the king, is that no dish to whet
your appetite?”
“I knew of the offer before.”
“A great pity you are not more eager. Hermes seldom sends such chances
twice. I hoped to have you for ‘my royal brother’ when they gave me the
like lordship of Lacedæmon. However, the matter does not end with your
refusal.”
“I have said, ‘Do your worst.’ ”
“And my worst is—Agis.”
For an instant Lycon was dismayed. He thought he had slain his victim with
one word. Democrates dropped from his clutch and upon the pavement as
though stricken through the heart by an arrow. He was pallid as a corpse,
at first he only groaned.
“_Eu! eu!_ good comrade,” cried the Spartan, dragging him up, half
triumphant, half sympathetic, “I did not know I was throwing Zeus’s
thunderbolts.”
The Athenian sat with his head on his hands. In all his dealings with the
Spartan he had believed he had covered the details of the fate of Glaucon.
Lycon could surmise what he liked, but the proof to make the damning
charges good Democrates believed he had safe in his own keeping. Only one
man could have unlocked the casket of infamy—Agis—and the mention of his
name was as a bolt from the blue.
“Where is he? I heard he was killed at Artemisium.” Lycon hardly
understood his victim’s thick whispers.
“Wounded indeed, _philotate_, taken prisoner, and sent to Thebes. There
friends of mine found he had a story to tell—greatly to my advantage. It
is only a little time since he came to Sparta.”
“What lies has he told?”
“Several, dear fellow, although if they are lies, then Aletheia, Lady
Truth, must almost own them for her children. At least they are
interesting lies; as, for example, how you advised the Cyprian to escape
from Athens, how you gave Agis a letter to hide in the boots of Glaucon’s
messenger, of your interviews with Lampaxo and Archias, of the charming
art you possess of imitating handwritings and seals.”
“Base-born swine! who will believe him?”
“Base born, Democrates, but hardly swinish. He can tell a very clear
story. Likewise, Lampaxo and Archias must testify at the trial, also your
slave Bias can tell many interesting things.”
“Only if I consent to produce him.”
“When did a master ever refuse to let his slave testify, if demanded,
unless he wished to blast his own cause with the jury? No, _makaire_, you
will not enjoy the day when Themistocles arrays the testimony against
you.”
Democrates shivered. The late spring sun was warm. He felt no heat. A mere
charge of treason he was almost prepared now to endure. If Mistress
Fortune helped him, he might refute it, but to be branded before Hellas as
the destroyer of his bosom friend, and that by guile the like whereof
Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Ixion conjoined had never wrought—what wonder his
knees smote together? Why had he not foreseen that Agis would fall into
Lycon’s hands? Why had he trusted that lying tale from Artemisium? And
worst of all, worse than the howls of the people who would tear his body
asunder like dogs, not waiting the work of the hemlock, was the thought of
Hermione. She hated him now. How she would love him, though he sat on
Xerxes’s throne, if once her suspicion rose to certainty! He saw himself
ruined in life and in love, and blazoned as infamous forever.
Lycon was wise enough to sit some moments, letting his utterance do its
work. He was confident, and rightly. Democrates looked on him at last. The
workings of the Athenian’s face were terrible.
“I am your slave, Spartan. Had you bought me for ten minæ and held the
bill of sale, I were not yours more utterly. Your wish?”
Lycon chose his words and answered slowly.
“You must serve Persia. Not for a moment, but for all time. You must place
that dreadful gift of yours at our disposal. And in return take what is
promised,—the lordship of Athens.”
“No word of that,” groaned the wretched man, “what will you do?”
“Aristeides is soon going to Sparta to press home his demands that the
Lacedæmonians march in full force against Mardonius. I can see to it that
his mission succeeds. A great battle will be fought in Bœotia. _We_ can
see to it that Mardonius is so victorious that all further resistance
becomes a dream.”
“And my part in this monster’s work?”
The demands and propositions with which Lycon answered this despairing
question will unfold themselves in due place and time. Suffice it here,
that when he let the Athenian go his way Lycon was convinced that
Democrates had bound himself heart and soul to forward his enterprise. The
orator was no merry guest for his Corinthian hosts that night. He returned
to his old manner of drinking unmixed wine. “Thirsty as a Macedonian!”
cried his companions, in vain endeavour to drive him into a laugh. They
did not know that once more the chorus of the Furies was singing about his
ears, and he could not still it by the deepest wine-cup. They did not know
that every time he closed his eyes he was seeing the face of Glaucon. That
morning he had mocked at Nemesis. That night he heard the beating of her
brazen wings.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE STRANGER IN TRŒZENE
Despite exile, life had moved pleasantly for Hermippus’s household that
spring. The Trœzenians had surpassed all duties to Zeus Xenios—the
stranger’s god—in entertaining the outcast Athenians. The fugitives had
received two obols per day to keep them in figs and porridge. Their
children had been suffered to roam and plunder the orchards. But Hermippus
had not needed such generosity. He had placed several talents at interest
in Corinth; likewise bonds of “guest-friendship” with prominent Trœzenians
made his residence very agreeable. He had hired a comfortable house, and
could enjoy even luxury with his wife, daughter, young sons, and score of
slaves.
Little Phœnix grew marvellously day by day, as if obeying his mother’s
command to wax strong and avenge his father. Old Cleopis vowed he was the
healthiest, least tearful babe, as well as the handsomest, she had ever
known,—and she spoke from wide experience. When he was one year old, he
was so active they had to tie him in the cradle. When the golden spring
days came, he would ride forth upon his nurse’s back, surveying the Hellas
he was born to inherit, and seeming to find it exceeding good.
But as spring verged on summer, Hermione demanded so much of Cleopis’s
care that even Phœnix ceased to be the focus of attention. The lordly
Alcmæonid fell into the custody of one Niobe, a dark-haired lass of the
islands, who treated him well, but cared too much for certain young
“serving-gentlemen” to waste on her charge any unreciprocated adoration.
So on one day, just as the dying grass told the full reign of the Sun
King, she went forth with her precious bundle wriggling in her arms, but
her thoughts hardly on Master Phœnix. Procles the steward had been cold of
late, he had even cast sly glances at Jocasta, Lysistra’s tiring-woman.
Mistress Niobe was ready—since fair means of recalling the fickle Apollo
failed—to resort to foul. Instead, therefore, of going to the promenade
over the sea, she went—burden and all—to the Agora, where she was sure old
Dion, who kept a soothsayer’s shop, would give due assistance in return
for half a drachma.
The market was just thinning. Niobe picked her way amongst the vegetable
women, fought off a boy who thrust on her a pair of geese, and found in a
quiet corner by a temple porch the booth of Dion, who grinned with his
toothless gums in way of greeting. He listened with paternal interest to
her story, soothed her when she sniffled at Procles’s name, and made her
show her silver, then began pulling over his bags and vials of strange
powders and liquids.
“Ah, kind Master Dion,” began Niobe, for the sixth time, “if only some
philtre could make Procles loath that abominable Jocasta!”
“_Eu! eu!_” muttered the old sinner, “it’s hard to say what’s best,—powder
of toad’s bone or the mixture of wormwood and adder’s fat. The safest
thing is to consult the god—”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, my holy cock here, hatched at Delphi with Apollo’s blessings on
him.” Dion pointed with his thumb to the small coop at his feet. “The
oracle is simple. You cast before him two piles of corn; if he picks at
the one to right we take toad’s bone, to left the adder’s fat. Heaven will
speak to us.”
“Excellent,” cried Niobe, brightening.
“But, of course, we must use only consecrated corn, that’s two obols
more.”
Niobe’s face fell. “I’ve only this half-drachma.”
“Then, _philotata_,” said Dion, kindly but firmly, “we had better wait a
little longer.”
Niobe wept. “_Ai!_ woe. ‘A little longer’ and Jocasta has Procles. I can’t
ask Hermione again for money. _Ai! ai!_”
Two round tears did not move Dion in the slightest. Niobe was sobbing, at
her small wits’ end, when a voice sounded behind her.
“What’s there wrong, lass? By Zeus, but you carry a handsome child!”
Niobe glanced, and instantly stopped weeping. A young man dressed roughly
as a sailor, and with long black hair and beard, had approached her, but
despite dress and beard she was quite aware he was far handsomer than even
Procles.
“I beg pardon, _kyrie_,”—she said “_kyrie_” by instinct,—“I’m only an
honest maid. Dion is terribly extortionate.” She cast down her eyes,
expecting instant succour from the susceptible seaman, but to her disgust
she saw he was admiring only the babe, not herself.
“Ah! Gods and goddesses, what a beautiful child! A girl?”
“A boy,” answered Niobe, almost sullenly.
“Blessed the house in Trœzene then that can boast of such a son.”
“Oh, he’s not Trœzenian, but one of the exiles from Athens,” volunteered
Dion, who kept all the tittle-tattle of the little city in stock along
with his philtres.
“An Athenian! Praised be Athena Polias, then. I am from Athens myself. And
his father?”
“The brat will never boast of his father,” quoth Dion, rolling his eyes.
“He left the world in a way, I wager five minæ, the mother hopes she can
hide from her darling, but the babe’s of right good stock, an Alcmæonid,
and the grandfather is that Hermippus—”
“Hermippus?” The stranger seemed to catch the word out of Dion’s mouth. A
donkey had broken loose at the upper end of the Agora; he turned and
stared at it and its pursuers intently.
“If you’re Athenian,” went on the soothsayer, “the story’s an old one—of
Glaucon the Traitor.”