The Spartan Twins Part 8

It was late afternoon before the feasting was over, and, meanwhile, the entire hill-top of the Acropolis was covered with moving crowds. As a part of the festival, there were all sorts of games and side shows. Dion and Daphne were so busy watching sword-swallowers, and tumblers, and men performing all sorts of strange and wonderful tricks, they almost forgot entirely the Gorgon's head with the snaky locks, which the Stranger had told them about, and which Dion so much wished to see. Daphne was the first to remember it.

"I'm going to see the new temple that Pericles is building over there.

Don't you want to see it, too?" said Melas to the Twins. "Where?" said Dion. Melas pointed to a great heap of marble blocks toward the southern side of the Acropolis. It was then that Daphne thought about the statue.

"Dion wants to see the Gorgon's head," she said.

"Well, then," answered Melas, "hurry up about it, for it is getting late and we must soon be starting for your uncle's house."

The two children trotted away toward the great bronze statue near the entrance without another word, and it was not until they were quite out of sight that Melas remembered he had not told them where to meet him.

"I shall find them by the statue anyway," he said to himself, and went on examining the foundations of the Parthenon.

Meanwhile the children ran round to the front of the statue and gazed up at the breastplate of the G.o.ddess, upon which Phidias had carved the Gorgon's head. There it was with its staring eyes and twisting locks, looking right down at them.

"Ugh! I don't like it a bit better than I thought I should," said Daphne, covering her eyes. "It's worse than eels."

"I'd rather see the man swallowing swords any day," answered Dion. "Let's go and see if we can't find him again," and off they went toward a crowd of people gathered about a little booth beyond the Erechtheum.

It was not until they had seen him swallow swords twice and eat fire once, and the conjurer had begun to pack his things to go away that the Twins thought at all about time. When at last they woke up to the fact that the sun was setting behind the purple hills, and looked about them, there were very few people left on the Acropolis, and their Father was nowhere to be seen. The two children ran as fast as they could go to the place where the Parthenon was building, but there was no one there. Even the workmen had gone. Then they ran back and looked down the long incline up which the procession had come in the morning, but Melas was not to be seen. The Twins returned to the statue of Athena, but no one awaited them there. The Gorgon's head looked down at them with its dreadful staring eyes, and Daphne thought she saw one of the snaky locks move.

"Oh, let's run," she cried.

"Where?" asked Dion.

"I don't know," said Daphne. "Anywhere away from here! Let's go back to the Erechtheum. Perhaps Father will be there looking for us."

They went all round the old temple, which was partly in ruins, and when they found no trace of their Father, sat down miserably upon the steps of the great porch of the Maidens on the southern side. It was called the Porch of the Maidens because, instead of columns of marble, statues of beautiful maidens supported the roof. Daphne looked up at them.

"They look strong, like Mother," she said. "It doesn't seem quite so lonesome here with them. Maybe we shall have to stay here all night."

"Don't you think we could find Uncle Phaon's house by ourselves?" asked Dion.

"Oh," cried Daphne, shuddering, "never! We couldn't even by daylight, and now it is almost dark."

"Anyway," said Dion, "we're safer being lost here than anywhere else in Athens. It's where the G.o.ds live. Maybe they'll take care of us."

"We might sacrifice something on an altar," said Daphne, "and pray, the way Father does."

"We haven't a thing to sacrifice," answered Dion. "We haven't anything to eat even for ourselves."

They were so tired and hungry and discouraged by this time that they didn't say another word. They just sat still in the gathering darkness, and wished with all their hearts that they had never come to Athens at all.

They were startled by hearing footsteps above them on the porch. The stone bal.u.s.trade was so high, and the children were crouched so far below it near the ground, that they could not be seen by people above unless they should lean over the bal.u.s.trade and look down. The twins snuggled closer together in the darkness and kept very still. Suddenly they heard voices above them; there were two men on the porch talking together in low tones. One was the voice of Lampon the priest; the children both recognized it at once.

"Look over there," it was saying. "Pericles is building new temples in Athens, to the dishonor and neglect of the oldest and most sacred of all.

Pericles does not fear the G.o.ds, even though they have raised him to his proud position. He is a traitor to our holy office, and I hate him."

"You speak strongly," said the other voice.

"It isn't only that he neglects the old temples and refuses to restore them, but he actually builds a new one before our eyes on this holy hill," went on the voice of Lampon. "It is not only an impiety in itself, but an affront to you and your holy office. I myself saw his scorn and indifference this very day. I was called to his house by his pious wife to see a prodigy. A ram was brought from his country estate that had but one horn,--a marvel, truly!"

"How did you read the portent?" asked the other voice.

"As favorable to him, of course," answered Lampon. "What else could I do with Pericles himself watching me, and with that old fox of an Anaxagoras by his side?"

"The G.o.ds punish people who do not believe in them," said the other voice, "and we are the priests of the G.o.ds. Should we not do all we can to bring such wicked men to justice?"

"Yes, but," said Lampon, "the people adore Pericles. They would not believe evil of him. We must act carefully, lest we ourselves receive the blow that we aim at him."

"I have found out that he went to the boat-race at the Piraeus this afternoon," answered the voice of the other priest, "and after that he goes to a banquet at the house of the rich Hipponicus, and will return late to his home. If we could waylay him and make him angry, he might say something blasphemous to us, not knowing we were priests. He might even offer us violence! Disrespect to a priest is disrespect to the G.o.ds, and no man in Athens, not even Pericles, can insult the representatives of the G.o.ds and live."

"A good idea, truly, and worthy of the priest of Erechtheus," said the voice of Lampon.

"We will doff our priestly robes and appear as men of the people.

Pericles must not suspect who we are, or of course he will be too clever to allow himself to speak the insults we know only too well he would like to offer us as priests. We can each be witness for the other; and he cannot deny our report."

If Daphne had not sneezed just at this moment, everything that happened after that would almost surely have been quite different. But she did sneeze! The air was damp and chill, she was sitting on a cold stone step, and a loud "kerchoo" suddenly startled the two plotters on the porch. The children were so frightened they could not move, but they rolled up their eyes, and over the edge of the bal.u.s.trade they saw two shadowy heads looking down at them.

"Who's there?" said the voice of Lampon.

The children were too frightened to answer.

"Bring a torch," cried the voice of the other priest, and soon the two heads were again hanging over the bal.u.s.trade and a torch in the hand of Lampon threw light on the upturned faces of the Twins.

"Who are you?" said the priest of the Erechtheum, "and what are you doing here at this hour, you miserable little spies?"

"Oh, please, we aren't spies at all," cried Dion. He didn't know what a spy was, but he thought it safe to say he wasn't one. "We are lost."

"Come up here at once." It was Lampon who spoke.

The children, half dead with terror, went round to the other side of the porch, climbed the steps to the entrance, and stood trembling before the priests. Lampon lifted his torch and looked at them carefully.

"Didn't I see you this morning at the house of Pericles?" he asked sternly. The Twins nodded.

"Who sent you here?" he asked.

"n.o.body sent us. We're lost," cried poor Daphne.

"Humph!" said the other priest. "That's a likely story."

"Did you hear what we were talking about?" asked Lampon. He took Dion by the shoulder, and as he did not answer at once, shook him.

"Come, yes or no," he said.

"Ye-e-es," stammered Dion.

The two priests looked at each other, and Lampon said: "They are the children of the farmer who brought the lamb to Pericles. They live on his farm."

"It will be a long time before they see the farm again," answered the other shortly. "They say they are lost. Very well, we will see to it that those words are made true. What do you say to s.h.i.+pping them to Africa?