A Victor of Salamis Part 30

The day after Phnix was born old Conon, Glaucon's father, died. The old man had never recovered from the blow given by the dishonourable death of the son with whom he had so lately quarrelled. He left a great landed estate at Marathon to his new-born grandson. The exact value thereof Democrates inquired into sharply, and when a distant cousin talked of contesting the will, the orator announced he would defend the infant's rights. The would-be plaintiff withdrew at once, not anxious to cross swords with this favourite of the juries, and everybody said that Democrates was showing a most scrupulous regard for his unfortunate friend's memory.

Indeed, seemingly, Democrates ought to have been the happiest man in Athens. He had been elected "strategus," to serve on the board of generals along with Themistocles. He had plenty of money, and gave great banquets to this or that group of prominent citizens. During the winter he had asked Hermippus for his daughter in marriage. The Eumolpid told him that since Glaucon's fearful end, he was welcome as a son-in-law. Still he could not conceal that Hermione never spoke of him save in hate, and in view of her then delicate condition it was well not to press the matter.

The orator had seemed well content. "Woman's fantasies would wear away in time." But the rumour of this negotiation, outrunning truth, grew into the lying report of an absolute betrothal,-the report which was to drift to Asia and turn Glaucon's heart to stone, gossip having always wrought more harm than malignant lying.

Yet flies were in Democrates's sweet ointment. He knew Themistocles hardly trusted him as frankly as of yore. Little Simonides, a man of wide influence and keen insight, treated him very coldly. Cimon had cooled also. But worse than all was a haunting dread. Democrates knew, if hardly another in h.e.l.las, that the Cyprian-in other words Mardonius-was safe in Asia, and likewise that he had fled on the _Solon_. Mardonius, then, had escaped the storm. What if the same miracle had saved the outlaw? What if the dead should awake? The chimera haunted Democrates night and day.

Still he was beginning to shake off his terrors. He believed he had washed his hands fairly clean of his treason, even if the water had cost his soul. He joined with all his energies in seconding Themistocles. His voice was loudest at the Pnyx, counselling resistance. He went on successful emba.s.sies to Sicyon and aegina to get pledges of alliance. In the summer he did his uttermost to prepare the army which Themistocles and Evaenetus the Spartan led to defend the pa.s.s of Tempe. The expedition sailed amid high hopes for a n.o.ble defence of h.e.l.las. Democrates was proud and sanguine.

Then, like a thunderbolt, there came one night a knock at his door. Bias led to his master no less a visitor than the sleek and smiling Phnician-Hiram.

The orator tried to cover his terrors by windy bl.u.s.ter. He broke in before the Oriental could finish his elaborate salaam.

"Of all the harpies and gorgons you are the least welcome. Were you not warned when you fled Athens for Argos never to show your face in Attica again?"

"Your Excellency said so," was the bland reply.

"Admirably you obey it. It remains for me to reward the obedience. Bias, go to the street; summon two Scythian watchmen."

The Thracian darted out. Hiram simply stood with hands folded.

"It is well, Excellency, the lad is gone. I have many things to say in confidence to your n.o.bility. At Lacedaemon my Lord Lycon was gracious enough to give certain commands for me to transmit to you."

"Commands? To me? Earth and G.o.ds! am I to be commanded by an adder like you? You shall pay for this on the rack."

"Your slave thinks otherwise," observed Hiram, humbly. "If your Lords.h.i.+p will deign to read this letter, it will save your slave many words and your Lords.h.i.+p many cursings."

He knelt again before he offered a papyrus. Democrates would rather have taken fire, but he could not refuse. And thus he read:-

"Lycon of Lacedaemon to Democrates of Athens, greeting:-Can he who Medizes in the summer h.e.l.lenize in the spring? I know your zeal for Themistocles.

Was it for this we plucked you back from exposure and ruin? Do then as Hiram bids you, or repay the money you clutched so eagerly. Fail not, or rest confident all the doc.u.ments you betrayed shall go to Hypsichides the First Archon, your enemy. Use then your eloquence on Attic juries! But you will grow wise; what need of me to threaten? You will hearken to Hiram.

"From Sparta, on the festival of Bellerophon, in the ephors.h.i.+p of Theudas.-_Chaire!_"

Democrates folded the papyrus and stood long, biting his whitened lips in silence. Perhaps he had surmised the intent of the letter the instant Hiram extended it.

"What do you desire?" he said thickly, at last.

"Let my Lord then hearken-" began the Phnician, to be interrupted by the sudden advent of Bias.

"The Scythians are at the door, _kyrie_," he was shouting; "shall I order them in and drag this lizard out by the tail?"

"No, in Zeus's name, no! Bid them keep without. And do you go also. This honest fellow is on private business which only I must hear."

Bias slammed the door. Perhaps he stood listening. Hiram, at least, glided nearer to his victim and spoke in a smooth whisper, taking no chances of an eavesdropper.

"Excellency, the desire of Lycon is this. The army has been sent to Tempe.

At Lacedaemon Lycon used all his power to prevent its despatch, but Leonidas is omnipotent to-day in Sparta, and besides, since Lycon's calamity at the Isthmia, his prestige, and therefore his influence, is not a little abated. Nevertheless, the army must be recalled from Tempe."

"And the means?"

"Yourself, Excellency. It is within your power to find a thousand good reasons why Themistocles and Evaenetus should retreat. And you will do so at once, Excellency."

"Do not think you and your accursed masters can drive me from infamy to infamy. I can be terrible if pushed to bay."

"Your n.o.bility has read Lycon's letter," observed the Phnician, with folded arms.

There was a sword lying on the tripod by which Democrates stood; he regretted for all the rest of his life that he had not seized it and ended the snakelike Oriental then and there. The impulse came, and went. The opportunity never returned. The orator's head dropped down upon his breast.

"Go back to Sparta, go back instantly," he spoke in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"Tell that Polyphemus you call your master there that I will do his will.

And tell him, too, that if ever the day comes for vengeance on him, on the Cyprian, on you,-my vengeance will be terrible."

"Your slave's ears hear the first part of your message with joy,"-Hiram's smile never grew broader,-"the second part, which my Lord speaks in anger,-I will forget."

"Go! go!" ordered the orator, furiously. He clapped his hands. Bias reentered.

"Tell the constables I don't need them. Here is an obol apiece for their trouble. Conduct this man out. If he comes. .h.i.ther again, do you and the other slaves beat him till there is not a whole spot left on his body."

Hiram's genuflexion was worthy of Xerxes's court.

"My Lord, as always," was his parting compliment, "has shown himself exceeding wise."

Thus the Oriental went. In what a mood Democrates pa.s.sed the remaining day needs only scant wits to guess. Clearer, clearer in his ears was ringing aeschylus's song of the Furies. He could not silence it.

"With scourge and with ban We prostrate the man Who with smooth-woven wile And a fair-faced smile Hath planted a snare for his friend!

Though fleet, we shall find him; Though strong, we shall bind him, Who planted a snare for his friend!"

He had intended to be loyal to h.e.l.las,-to strive valiantly for her freedom,-and now! Was the Nemesis coming upon him, not in one great clap, but stealthily, finger by finger, cubit by cubit, until his soul's price was to be utterly paid? Was this the beginning of the recompense for the night scene at Colonus?

The next morning he made a formal visit to the shrine of the Furies in the hill of Areopagus. "An old vow, too long deferred in payment, taken when he joined in his first contest on the Bema," he explained to friends, when he visited this uncanny spot.

Few were the Athenians who would pa.s.s that cleft in the Areopagus where the "Avengers" had their grim sanctuary without a quick motion of the hands to avert the evil eye. Thieves and others of evil conscience would make a wide circuit rather than pa.s.s this abode of Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, pitiless pursuers of the guilty. The terrible sisters hounded a man through life, and after death to the judgment bar of Minos. With reason, therefore, the guilty dreaded them.

Democrates had brought the proper sacrifices-two black rams, which were duly slaughtered upon the little altar before the shrine and sprinkled with sweetened water. The priestess, a gray hag herself, asked her visitor if he would enter the cavern and proffer his pet.i.tion to the mighty G.o.ddesses. Leaving his friends outside, the orator pa.s.sed through the door which the priestess seemed to open in the side of the cave. He saw only a jagged, unhewn cranny, barely tall enough for a man to stand upright and reaching far into the sculptured rock. No image: only a few rough votive tablets set up by a grateful suppliant for some mercy from the awful G.o.ddesses.

"If you would pray here, _kyrie_," said the hag, "it is needful that I go forth and close the door. The holy Furies love the dark, for is not their home in Tartarus?"

She went forth. As the light vanished, Democrates seemed buried in the rock. Out of the blackness spectres were springing against him. From a cleft he heard a flapping, a bat, an imprisoned bird, or Alecto's direful wings. He held his hands downward, for he had to address infernal G.o.ddesses, and prayed in haste.

"O ye sisters, terrible yet gracious, give ear. If by my offerings I have found favour, lift from my heart this crus.h.i.+ng load. Deliver me from the fear of the blood guilty. Are ye not divine? Do not the immortals know all things? Ye know, then, how I was tempted, how sore was the compulsion, and how life and love were sweet. Then spare me. Give me back unhaunted slumber. Deliver me from Lycon. Give my soul peace,-and in reward, I swear it by the Styx, by Zeus's own oath, I will build in your honour a temple by your sacred field at Colonus, where men shall gather to reverence you forever."

But here he ceased. In the darkness moved something white. Again a flapping. He was sure the white thing was Glaucon's face. Glaucon had perished at sea. He had never been buried, so his ghost was wandering over the world, seeking vainly for rest. It all came to Democrates in an instant. His knees smote together; his teeth chattered. He sprang back upon the door and forced it open, but never saw the dove that fluttered forth with him.

"A hideous place!" he cried to his waiting friends. "A man must have a stronger heart than mine to love to tarry after his prayer is finished."

Only a few days later h.e.l.las was startled to hear that Tempe had been evacuated without a blow, and the pa.s.s left open to Xerxes. It was said Democrates, in his ever commendable activity, had discovered at the last moment the mountain wall was not as defensible as hoped, and any resistance would have been disastrous. Therefore, whilst the retreat was bewailed, everybody praised the foresight of the orator. Everybody-one should say, except two, Bias and Phormio. They had many conferences together, especially after the coming and going of Hiram.

"There is a larger tunny in the sea than yet has entered the meshes,"

confessed the fishmonger, sorely puzzled, after much vain talk.