VI.
On the cliff above there was great joy among the Cychreans over the splendid game. But when the animal was flayed and its flesh cut into pieces all, not merely the hunters themselves but their friends and relatives, wanted a share of the prize. From words they came to blows, and Lyrcus needed all his authority to restrain the infuriated men.
Meantime the sun had set behind the mountains of Corydallus. The olive-trees on the plain cast no shadows, the whole of the level ground was veiled in darkness. Everything was silent and peaceful, ever and anon a low twittering rose from the thickets.
The Cychreans lingered gossipping together after the labor of the day. Some of them asked Lyrcus and his companions whether anything had happened during the hunt. Lyrcus replied that small parties of Pelasgians had been seen passing in the distance, but he seemed to attach no importance to the matter, and many of the Cychreans were preparing to go to rest—when a child’s clear voice cried in amazement:
“Look, look! The hills are moving!”
Every eye followed the direction of the child’s finger.
Far away over some low hills, whose crests stood forth in clear relief against the evening sky, a strange rippling motion was going on. It looked as though some liquid body was flowing down, for one dark rank succeeded another, as wave follows wave.
There was something in the sight which turned the blood in the Cychreans’ veins to ice. Nothing was visible on the plain itself; everything there was shrouded in the dusk of evening.
All listened in breathless suspense. Then a rushing sound echoed through the increasing darkness—a noise like a great body of men in motion, the hum of many voices, distant shouts, songs, and the clash of weapons. The din seemed to increase and draw nearer. Then flames glimmered, as though instantly covered by dark figures. It was like a living stream, that grew and widened till it surrounded the whole cliff.
Then a torch was lighted and a small party of ten or twelve men approached within a bow-shot. Two of them put long horns of spiral form to their mouths, and wild echoing notes resounded from cliff to cliff. A man clad in a white linen robe stepped forward, raising aloft a laurel staff. Deep silence followed, and his shrill voice was now heard, saying:
“Cychreans! Ye have greatly wronged us. Ye have built houses on land that was not yours; ye have made the men of our nation serve you and, when the youth Tydeus refused, ye basely murdered him.
“For the surrender of the land and in token of subjection ye must pay us, the original inhabitants of the country, an annual tribute of seven hundred spears and as many swords and shields.”
Here a loud clamor arose among the Cychreans. They understood that it was the Pelasgians’ intention to disarm them, and their wrath found vent in fierce invectives.
“Listen to the dogs!” they shouted. “Ere the battle has begun, they talk like conquerors. Do the bragging fools suppose they can blow the cliff over with their snail horns?”
But the herald did not allow himself to be interrupted.
“Cychreans!” he continued, “the Pelasgians whom ye have enslaved must be set free and, in compensation for your crime of murder, we demand that you deliver up to us Lyrcus, who has provoked war and pillaged peaceful dwellers in the land. These demands we will enforce by arms. We no longer come with entreaties, but with commands.”
Again a terrible din arose, but Lyrcus ordered silence and springing upon a rock, from which he could be seen and heard far and near, shouted:
“Pelasgians! The land where we have built was desolate and uninhabited; it belonged to us as much as to you. When you demand slaves and wish me to be delivered over to you, the answer is: Come and take us. But mark this: it is you, not we, who begin the war; we only defend ourselves against assault. This answer is deserved, and approved by our people.”
Loud exulting shouts from the Cychreans hailed his words.
Lyrcus gazed confidently around him; for, reckless as he was of his own safety, he was cautious where the people’s welfare was concerned. At the first sign of war he had put the cliff in a posture of defence.
At all the wider approaches he had piled heaps of huge stones to be rolled down on the foe, and where men could climb up singly he had stationed sentinels. The rear of the height was inaccessible; here stretched for more than four hundred ells the Golf of Barathron, bordered along its almost perpendicular sides by cliffs from ninety to a hundred yards high. This dark, wild chasm was afterwards used for a place of execution; and it was here that malefactors whom the law sentenced “to be hurled into the abyss” ended their days. Towards the north, the windward side, the cliff had no covering of earth and here at its foot, half concealed among some huge boulders, was the entrance to a cave which led obliquely upward to some subterranean tombs, whence a steep passage extended to one of the lower terraces. In this passage Lyrcus had had steps hewn in order to secure a secret descent to the plain, and for farther concealment he had ordered bushes to be planted outside of the cave.
Though the Cychreans on the whole were in good spirits, they found themselves in a serious mood as the decisive hour approached. Lyrcus, at his first leisure moment, had assured Byssa that the Pelasgians would be received in such a way that not a single man could set foot on the open space before the houses. The young wife silently embraced him; her eyes were full of tears and she could not speak. She trusted her husband implicitly, but nevertheless was deeply moved.
“Before the sun goes down,” she thought, “many an eye will be closed. And what will be Lyrcus’ fate?”