A Victor of Salamis 11Book I · Democrates Resolves
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Literature · Adventure
A Victor of Salamis 11
Book I · Democrates Resolves
DavisEnglish
Democrates surpassed himself when arraigning the knavish contractor. “Nestor and Odysseus both speak to us,” shouted Polus in glee, flinging his black bean in the urn. “What eloquence, what righteous fury when he painted the man’s infamy to pillage the city in a crisis like this!”
So the criminal was sent to death and Democrates was showered with congratulations. Only one person seemed hardly satisfied with all the young orator did,—Themistocles. The latter told his lieutenant candidly he feared all was not being done to apprehend the Persian emissary. Themistocles even took it upon himself to send Sicinnus to run down several suspects, and just on the morning of the day preceding the Panathenæa—the great summer festival—Democrates received a hint which sent him home very thoughtful. He had met his chief in the Agora as he was leaving the Government-House, and Themistocles had again asked if he had smelt aught of the Persian agent. He had not.
“Then you would well devote more time to finding his scent, and less to convicting a pitiful embezzler. You know the Alopece suburb?”
“Certainly.”
“And the house of Phormio the fishmonger?” to which Democrates nodded.
“Well, Sicinnus has been watching the quarter. A Babylonish carpet-seller has rooms opposite Phormio. The man is suspicious, does no trading, and Phormio’s wife told Sicinnus an odd tale.”
“What tale?” Democrates glanced at a passing chariot, avoiding Themistocles’s gaze.
“Why, twice the Barbarian, she swears, has had an evening visitor—and he our dear Glaucon.”
“Impossible.”
“Of course. The good woman is mistaken. Still, question her. Pry into this Babylonian’s doings. He may be selling more things than carpets. If he has corrupted any here in Athens,—by Pluto the Implacable, I will make them tell out the price!”
“I’ll inquire at once.”
“Do so. The matter grows serious.”
Themistocles caught sight of one of the archons and hastened across the Agora to have a word with him. Democrates passed his hand across his forehead, beaded with sudden sweat-drops. He knew—though Themistocles had said not a word—that his superior was beginning to distrust his efforts, and that Sicinnus was working independently. Democrates had great respect for the acuteness of that Asiatic. He was coming perilously near the truth already. If the Cyprian and Hiram were arrested, the latter at least would surely try to save his life by betraying their nocturnal visitor. To get the spy safely out of Athens would be the first step,—but not all. Sicinnus once upon the scent would not readily drop it until he had discovered the emissary’s confederate. And of the fate of that confederate Themistocles had just given a grim hint. There was one other solution possible. If Democrates could discover the confederate himself, Sicinnus would regard the matter as cleared up and drop all interest therein. All these possibilities raced through the orator’s head, as does the past through one drowning. A sudden greeting startled him.
“A fair morning, Democrates.” It was Glaucon. He walked arm-in-arm with Cimon.
“A fair morning, indeed. Where are you going?”
“To the Peiræus to inspect the new tackling of the Nausicaä. You will join us?”
“Unfortunately I argue a case before the King Archon.”
“Be as eloquent as in your last speech. Do you know, Cimon declares I am disloyal too, and that you will soon be prosecuting me?”
“Avert it, gods! What do you mean?”
“Why, he is sending a letter to Argos,” asserted Cimon. “Now I say Argos has Medized, therefore no good Hellene should correspond with a traitorous Argive.”
“Be jury on my treachery,” commanded Glaucon. “Ageladas the master-sculptor sends me a bronze Perseus in honour of my victory. Shall I churlishly send him no thanks because he lives in Argos?”
“ ‘Not guilty’ votes the jury; the white beans prevail. So the letter goes to-day?”
“To-morrow afternoon. You know Seuthes of Corinth—the bow-legged fellow with a big belly. He goes home to-morrow afternoon after seeing the procession and the sacrifice.”
“He goes by sea?” asked Democrates, casually.
“By land; no ship went to his liking. He will lie overnight at Eleusis.”
The friends went their ways. Democrates hardly saw or heard anything until he was in his own chambers. Three things were graven on his mind: Sicinnus was watching, the Babylonian was suspected, Glaucon was implicated and was sending a letter to Argos.
Bias the Thracian was discovered that afternoon by his master lurking in a corner of the chamber. Democrates seized a heavy dog-whip, lashed the boy unmercifully, then cast him out, threatening that eavesdropping would be rewarded by “cutting into shoe soles.” Then the master resumed his feverish pacings and the nervous twisting of his fingers. Unfortunately, Bias felt certain the threat would never have been uttered unless the weightiest of matters had been on foot. As in all Greek dwellings, Democrates’s rooms were divided not by doors but by hanging curtains, and Bias, letting curiosity master fear, ensconced himself again behind one of these and saw all his master’s doings. What Democrates said and did, however, puzzled his good servant quite sufficiently.
Democrates had opened the privy cupboard, taken out one of the caskets and scattered its contents upon the table, then selected a papyrus, and seemed copying the writing thereon with extreme care. Next one of the clay seals came into play. Democrates was testing it upon wax. Then the orator rose, dashed the wax upon the floor, put his sandal thereon, tore the papyrus on which he wrote to bits. Again he paced restlessly, his hands clutching his hair, his forehead frowns and blackness, while Bias thought he heard him muttering as he walked:—
“O Zeus! O Apollo! O Athena! I cannot do this thing! Deliver me! Deliver!”
Then back to the table again, once more to pick up the mysterious clay, again to copy, to stamp on the wax, to fling down, mutilate, and destroy. The pantomime was gone through three times. Bias could make nothing of it. Since the day his parents—following the barbarous Thracian custom—had sold him into slavery and he had passed into Democrates’s service, the lad had never seen his master acting thus.
“Clearly the kyrios is mad,” was his own explanation, and growing frightened at following the strange movements of his lord, he crept from his retreat and tried to banish uncanny fears at a safe distance, by tying a thread to the leg of a gold-chafer(5) and watching its vain efforts at flight. Yet had he continued his eavesdropping he might have found—if not the key to all Democrates’s doings—at least a partial explanation. For the fourth time the papyrus had been written, for the fourth time the orator had torn it up. Then his eyes went down to the lump of clay before him on the table.
“Curses upon the miserable stuff!” he swore almost loudly; “it is this which has set the evil thoughts to racing. Destroy that, and the deed is beyond my power.”
He held up the clay and eyed it as a miser might his gold.
“What a little lump! Not very hard. I can dash it on the floor and it dissolves in dust. And yet, and yet—all Elysium, all Tartarus, are pent up for me in just this bit of clay.”
He picked at it with his finger and broke a small piece from the edge.
“A little more, the stamp is ruined. I could not use it. Better if it were ruined. And yet,—and yet,—”
He laid the clay upon the table and sat watching it wistfully.
“O Father Zeus!” he broke out after silence, “if I were not compelled by fear! Sicinnus is so sharp, Themistocles so unmerciful! It would be a terrible death to die,—and every man is justified in shunning death.”
He looked at the inanimate lump as if he expected it to answer him.
“Ah, I am all alone. No one to counsel me. In every other trouble when has it been as this? Glaucon? Cimon? Themistocles?—What would they advise?”—he ended with a laugh more bitter than a sob. “And I must save myself, but at such a price!”
He pressed his hands over his eyes.
“Curses on the hour I met Lycon! Curses on the Cyprian and his gold! It would have been better to have told Glaucon and let him save me now and hate me forever after. But I have sold myself to the Cyprian. The deed cannot be taken back.”
But as he said it, he arose, took the charmed bit of clay, replaced in the box, and locked the coffer. His hand trembled as he did it.
“I cannot do this thing. I have been foolish, wicked,—but I must not be driven mad by fear. The Cyprian must quit Athens to-morrow. I can throw Sicinnus off the scent. I shall never be the worse.”
He walked with the box toward the cupboard, but stopped halfway.
“It is a dreadful death to die;”—his thoughts raced and were half uttered,—“hemlock!—men grow cold limb by limb and keep all their faculties to the end. And the crows in the Barathrum, and the infamy upon my father’s name! When was a son of the house of Codrus branded ‘A Traitor to Athens’? Is it wickedness to save one’s own life?”
Instead of going to the cupboard he approached the window. The sun beat hotly, but as he leaned forth into the street he shivered as on a winter’s morn. In blank wretchedness he watched the throng beneath the window, pannier-laden asses, venders of hot sausage with their charcoal stoves and trays, youths going to and from the gymnasium, slaves returning from market. How long he stood thus, wretched, helpless, he did not know. At last he stirred himself.
“I cannot stand gaping like a fool forever. An omen, by every god an omen! Ah! what am I to do?” He glanced toward the sky in vain hope of a lucky raven or eagle winging out of the east, but saw only blue and brightness. Then his eye went down the street, and at the glance the warm blood tingled from his forehead to his heels.
She was passing,—Hermione, child of Hermippus. She walked before, two comely maids went after with her stool and parasol; but they were the peonies beside the rose. She had thrown her blue veil back. The sun played over the sheen of her hair. As she moved, her floating saffron dress of the rare muslin of Amorgos now revealed her delicate form, now clothed her in an enchanting cloud. She held her head high, as if proud of her own grace and of the beauty and fair name of her husband. She never looked upward, nor beheld how Democrates’s eyes grew like bright coals as he gazed on her. He saw her clear high forehead, he heard—or thought he heard despite the jar of the street—the rustle of the muslin robe. Hermione passed, nor ever knew how, by taking this way from the house of a friend, she coloured the skein of life for three mortals—for herself, her husband, and Democrates.
Democrates followed her with his eyes until she vanished around the fountain at the street corner; then sprang back from the window. The workings of his face were terrible. It was an instant when men grasp the godlike or sink to the demon, when they do deeds never to be recalled.
“The omen!” he almost cried, “the omen! Not Zeus but Hermes the Guileful sent it. He will be with me. She is Glaucon’s wife. But if not his, whose then but mine? I will do the deed to the uttermost. The god is with me.”
He flung the casket upon the table and spread its fateful contents again before him. His hand flew over the papyrus with marvellous speed and skill. He knew that all his faculties were at his full command and unwontedly acute.
Bias was surprised at his sport by a sudden clapping of his master’s hands.
“What is it, kyrie?”
“Go to Agis. He keeps the gaming-house in the Ceramicus. You know where. Tell him to come hither instantly. He shall not lack reward. Make your feet fly. Here is something to speed them.”
He flung at the boy a coin. Bias opened eyes and mouth in wonder. It was not silver, but a golden daric.
“Don’t blink at it, sheep, but run. Bring Agis,” ordered the master,—and Bias’s legs never went faster than on that afternoon.
Agis came. Democrates knew his man and had no difficulty in finding his price. They remained talking together till it was dark, yet in so guarded a tone that Bias, though he listened closely, was unable to make out anything. When Agis went away, he carried two letters. One of these he guarded as if holding the crown jewels of the Great King; the second he despatched by a discreet myrmidon to the rooms of the Cyprian in Alopece. Its contents were pertinent and ran thus:—
“Democrates to the stranger calling himself a prince of Cyprus, greeting:—Know that Themistocles is aware of your presence in Athens, and grows suspicious of your identity. Leave Athens to-morrow or all is lost. The confusion accompanying the festival will then make escape easy. The man to whom I entrust this letter will devise with Hiram the means for your flight by ship from the havens. May our paths never cross again!—Chaire.”
After Agis was gone the old trembling came again to Democrates. He had Bias light all the lamps. The room seemed full of lurking goblins,—harpies, gorgons, the Hydra, the Minotaur, every other foul and noxious shape was waiting to spring forth. And, most maddening of all, the chorus of Æschylus, that Song of the Furies Democrates had heard recited at the Isthmus, rang in the miserable man’s ears:—
“With scourge and with ban
We prostrate the man,
Who with smooth-woven wile,
And a fair-facèd 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.”
Democrates approached the bust of Hermes standing in one corner. The brazen face seemed to wear a smile of malignant gladness at the fulfilment of his will.
“Hermes,” prayed the orator, “Hermes Dolios, god of craft and lies, thieves’ god, helper of evil,—be with me now. To Zeus, to Athena the pure, I dare not pray. Prosper me in the deed to which I set my hand,”—he hesitated, he dared not bribe the shrewd god with too mean a gift, “and I vow to set in thy temple at Tanagra three tall tripods of pure gold. So be with me on the morrow, and I will not forget thy favour.”
The brazen face still smiled on; the room was very still. Yet Democrates took comfort. Hermes was a great god and would help him. When the song of the Furies grew too loud, Democrates silenced it by summoning back Hermione’s face and asking one triumphant question:—
“She is Glaucon’s wife. But if not his, whose then but mine?”
