A Victor of Salamis. William Stearns Davis

orator, feeling his forehead grow hot.

      “It is pleasant to know a great deal,” smiled back the Prince, carelessly, while Hiram entered with a tray and silver goblets brimming with violet-flavoured sherbet; “I have innumerable ‘Eyes-and-ears.’ You have heard the name? One of the chief officers of his Majesty is ‘The Royal Eye.’ You Athenians are a valiant and in many things a wise people, yet you could grow in wisdom by looking well to the East.”

      “I am confident,” exclaimed Democrates, thrusting back the goblet, “if your Excellency requires a noble game of wits, you can have one. I need only step to the window, and cry ‘Spies!’—after which your Excellency can exercise your wisdom and eloquence defending your life before one of our Attic juries.”

      “Which is a polite and patriotic manner of saying, dearest Athenian, you are not prepared to push matters to such unfortunate extremity. I omit what his Majesty might do in the way of taking vengeance; sufficient that if aught unfor[pg 80]tunate befalls me, or Hiram, or this my slave Smerdis, while we are in Athens, a letter comes to your noble chief Themistocles from the banker Pittacus of Argos.”

      Democrates, who had risen to his feet, had been flushed before. He became pale now. The hand that clutched the purple tapestry was trembling. The words rose to his lips, the lips refused to utter them. The Prince, who had delivered his threat most quietly, went on, “In short, good Democrates, I was aware before I came to Athens of our necessities, and I came because I was certain I could relieve them.”

      “Never!” The orator shot the word out desperately.

      “You are a Hellene.”

      “Am I ashamed of it?”

      “Do not, however, affect to be more virtuous than your race. Persians make their boast of truth-telling and fidelity. You Hellenes, I hear, have even a god—Hermes Dolios—who teaches you lying and thieving. The customs of nations differ. Mazda the Almighty alone knoweth which is best. Follow then the customs of Hellenes.”

      “You speak in riddles.”

      “Plainer, then. You know the master I serve. You guess who I am, though you shall not name me. For what sum will you serve Xerxes the Great King?”

      The orator’s breath came deep. His hands clasped and unclasped, then were pressed behind his head.

      “I told Lycon, and I tell you, I am no traitor to Hellas.”

      “Which means, of course, you demand a fair price. I am not angry. You will find a Persian pays like the lord he is, and that his darics always ring true metal.”

      “I’ll hear no more. I was a fool to meet Lycon at Corinth, doubly a fool to meet you to-night. Farewell.”

      Democrates seized the latch. The door was locked. He [pg 81]turned furiously on the Barbarian. “Do you keep me by force? Have a care. I can be terrible if driven to bay. The window is open. One shout—”

      The Cyprian had risen, and quietly, but with a grip like iron on Democrates’s wrist, led the orator back to the divan.

      “You can go free in a twinkling, but hear you shall. Before you boast of your power, you shall know all of mine. I will recite your condition. Contradict if I say anything amiss. Your father Myscelus was of the noble house of Codrus, a great name in Athens, but he left you no large estate. You were ambitious to shine as an orator and leader of the Athenians. To win popularity you have given great feasts. At the last festival of the Theseia you fed the poor of Athens on sixty oxen washed down with good Rhodian wine. All that made havoc in your patrimony.”

      “By Zeus, you speak as if you lived all your life in Athens!”

      “I have said ‘I have many eyes.’ But to continue. You gave the price of the tackling for six of the triremes with which Themistocles pretends to believe he can beat back my master. Worse still, you have squandered many minæ on flute girls, dice, cock-fights, and other gentle pleasures. In short your patrimony is not merely exhausted but overspent. That, however, is not the most wonderful part of my recital.”

      “How dare you pry into my secrets?”

      “Be appeased, dear Athenian; it is much more interesting to know you deny nothing of all I say. It is now five months since you were appointed by your sagacious Athenian assembly as commissioner to administer the silver taken from the mines at Laurium and devoted to your navy. You fulfilled the people’s confidence by diverting much of this money to the payment of your own great debts to the banker Pittacus of Argos. At present you are ‘watching the moon,’ [pg 82]as you say here in Athens—I mean, that at the end of this month you must account to the people for all the money you have handled, and at this hour are at your wits’ ends to know whence the repayment will come.”

      “That is all you know of me?”

      “All.”

      Democrates sighed with relief. “Then you have yet to complete the story, my dear Barbarian. I have adventured on half the cargo of a large merchantman bringing timber and tin from Massalia; I look every day for a messenger from Corinth with news of her safe arrival. Upon her coming I can make good all I owe and still be a passing rich man.”

      If the Cyprian was discomposed at this announcement, he did not betray it.

      “The sea is frightfully uncertain, good Democrates. Upon it, as many fortunes are lost as are made.”

      “I have offered due prayers to Poseidon, and vowed a gold tripod on the ship’s arrival.”

      “So even your gods in Hellas have their price,” was the retort, with an ill-concealed sneer. “Do not trust them. Take ten talents from me and to-night sleep sweetly.”

      “Your price?” the words slipped forth involuntarily.

      “Themistocles’s private memoranda for the battle-order of your new fleet.”

      “Avert it, gods! The ship will reach Corinth, I warn you—” Democrates’s gestures became menacing, as again he rose, “I will set you in Themistocles’s hand as soon—”

      “But not to-night.” The Prince rose, smiled, held out his hand. “Unbar the door for his Excellency, Hiram. And you, noble sir, think well of all I said at Corinth on the certain victory of my master; think also—” the voice fell—“how Democrates the Codrid could be sovereign of Athens under the protection of Persia.”

      [pg 83]

      “I tyrant of Athens?” the orator clapped his hand behind his back; “you say enough. Good evening.”

      He was on the threshold, when the slave-boy touched his master’s hand in silent signal.

      “And if there be any fair woman you desire,”—how gliding the Cyprian’s voice!—“shall not the power of Xerxes the great give her unto you?”

      Why did Democrates feel his forehead turn to flame? Why—almost against will—did he stretch forth his hand to the Cyprian? He went down the stair scarce feeling the steps beneath him. At the bottom voices greeted him from across the darkened street.

      “A fair evening, Master Glaucon.”

      “A fair evening,” his mechanical answer; then to himself; as he walked away, “Wherefore call me Glaucon? I have somewhat his height, though not his shoulder. Ah—I know it, I have chanced to borrow his carved walking-stick. Impudent creatures to read the name!”

      He had not far to go. Athens was compactly built, all quarters close together. Yet before he reached home and bed, he was fighting back an ill-defined but terrible thought. “Glaucon! They think I am Glaucon. If I chose to betray the Cyprian—” Further than that he would not suffer the thought to go. He lay sleepless, fighting against it. The dark was full of the harpies of uncanny suggestion. He arose unrefreshed, to proffer every god the same prayer: “Deliver me from evil imaginings. Speed the ship to Corinth.”

      [pg 84]