XVI.
At noon Lyrcus came back to Kranaai for his wife. He found her reconciled to gods and men, gay and happy in the reverent admiration of her parents. Ariston was proud of his daughter’s having received a sign from Zeus, and Strybele tenderly smoothed her dark hair as though she were still a child.
The meeting between Lyrcus and Byssa was as touching as if there had been a long separation.
On their return to the Cychrean city they found the place of assembly filled with an anxious throng. Several boys, while returning from bird-snaring, had seen in the distance parties of Pelasgians moving towards the cliff.
Lyrcus carried Byssa into the house and then, hurrying to the edge of the bluff, gazed out over the plain.
He had not waited long ere dark groups appeared from between the low hills. There were more than one chieftain’s men.
Lyrcus was already in the act of calling his people to arms, when his eye fell on several Pelasgians marching in front of the others and among them Nomion. The young chief held in his left hand an olive branch and, instead of resting his lance on his shoulder he carried it under his arm, with its point turned towards the earth.
At this sign of peace Lyrcus felt great relief, and the feeling was much strengthened when Nomion and his companions left their men behind a bow-shot from the cliff.
Shortly after the young Pelasgian, accompanied by three or four other leaders, stood before Lyrcus. When he had heard their errand he sounded the horn five times as a signal for the assembling of the oldest and most respected men in the tribe.
After all had met and formed a large semi-circle in the place of assemblage, Lyrcus stepped forward with Nomion by his side.
“Cychreans!” he shouted, “listen in silence to what this stranger has to say.”
Then he asked Nomion to step on a block of stone, where he could be seen and heard by all.
The young Pelasgian chief had laid aside helmet, armor, spear, and shield. A gold circlet confined his waving black hair, and a white cloak with a broad yellow border fell in graceful folds a little below his knees. All eyes rested with pleasure on the handsome youth.
“Cychreans!” he said in a clear, loud voice, “we Pelasgians have come—if you agree—to conclude peace and form an alliance with you.”
A murmur of approval greeted the words; for though the Cychreans had recently conquered, the horrors of war were too freshly remembered for them not to prefer peace.
“As you know,” Nomion continued, “we live in friendship with the Cranai. We now desire that there shall also be a good understanding between us and you. One of our chiefs, who was your bitterest foe, is no more. He was a rich and distinguished man, and his funeral will be so magnificent that it will be talked about far and wide. A huge pyre shall be erected for him and tall urns, filled with oil and honey, shall be placed at the corners of the bier; sheep and oxen, dogs and horses shall be slain and burned upon the pyre. But one thing we will not do—we do not mean to avenge his death. He is responsible for his own deeds, and it is a just punishment that he fell by a woman’s hand. Since he had taken her for a hostage, she ought to have been sacred to him.”
“Yes, yes, the youth speaks the truth!” murmured the Elders, and some applauded him.
After Nomion had explained his wishes more definitely and some of the Elders of the Cychrean nation had spoken, both parties agreed to conclude peace and form an alliance for twenty years.
Lyrcus, with an impatient gesture, said:
“Then I can close my forge and break my weapons.”
Nomion smiled.
“You don’t mean that, Lyrcus,” he replied, “for what man is mad enough to prefer war to peace? Is not war like a tempest or an earthquake? It turns everything upside down. In peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war fathers bury their sons.”
To strengthen the compact a lamb was offered to Zeus, to the sun, and to the earth—to Zeus and the sun a white wether for the glittering masculine divinity, but to the earth a black ewe-lamb as if to a female deity that acted in secret. During the offerings prayers were addressed not only to the three gods, but to the rivers and to the deities of the nether world who avenge perjury.
Finally there was a foaming mixture prepared from Cychrean and Pelasgian wine, and during the libation an invocation was solemnly repeated.
“Oh, Zeus! oh, Sun, oh Earth!... If any one dares to violate this compact, let his brains and his children’s brains be poured out on the ground like this wine.”
Thus they sought to secure peace.
After the sacrifices were finished, several voices shouted:
“Hail to Lyrcus! The honor is his—he trained us in the use of arms.”
“Hail to Byssa!” cried another.
“Honor to Byssa, Byssa the strong and brave. She has received a sign from Zeus.”
“She killed the man who brought war upon us.”
“Hail to Byssa! We want to see Byssa.”
Lyrcus smiled, yet his brows contracted in a frown. He felt half proud, half jealous.
But the shouts became so loud and persistent that he was forced to yield and hurried into his house.
When he came out again, leading Byssa by the hand, every eye was fixed upon the pretty native of Kranaai.
She wore an ample snow-white over-garment and on her head a blue Sidonian veil, which encircled her black hair like a wreath.
Hundreds of voices greeted her with the shout:
“Hail, Byssa! Avenger of thyself and of thy people.”
Byssa stood motionless, pale with emotion. Lyrcus made a sign that he wished to speak; but the people cried: “No, no, let thy wife speak.”
Byssa blushed and lowered her eyes, but she did not lose her presence of mind.
A death-like silence reigned over the whole place and, though Byssa did not speak loudly, every word uttered by her clear, resonant voice reached the farthest ranks of soldiers.
“Cychreans!” she said, “women, it seems to me, should be silent among men; for only a man is fit to answer men. Yet, since you give me liberty to speak, know that I have only fulfilled a higher command. So raise your voices with me and say: Praised be the supreme god, Zeus Hypsistos.”
Then a deafening shout was raised by hundreds of voices. Even the cliffs repeated:
“Zeus Hypsistos.”
From that day Lyrcus never asked Byssa to accompany the other women to Melite’s sanctuary. And when some talked of the miracles performed by the goddess of the place he smiled like one who knows better and said:
“Yet Zeus is the mightiest.”
THE SYCOPHANT.
SECOND YEAR OF THE 89TH OLYMPIAD (423 B.C.)
