CHAPTER XXVII.
BACK TO ATHENS.
Callias started about the middle of April, according to our reckoning. His journey to the Bosphorus was much retarded by contrary winds. For some days no progress could be made, and it was well into May before he reached Byzantium. There he was fortunate enough to get a passage in a Spartan despatch boat, which took him as far as the port of Corinth, thus carrying him, of course, beyond his destination, but to a point from which it was easy for him to find his way to Athens. It was about the beginning of June when he landed at the Piraeus. He did not doubt for a moment about the place where his first visit was due. The fact was that he had no near relations. The kinsman who was his legal guardian had always given up the business of looking after his ward’s property to Hippocles; and now that Callias was his own master, there was little more than a friendly acquaintance between the two cousins. The alien’s house was, he felt, his real home, nor had he given up the hope that in spite of Hermione’s strongly expressed determination, he might some day become a member of his family.
THE ACROPOLIS AT THE PRESENT DAY.
Hippocles happened to have just returned from his business at the shipyard, when the young Athenian presented himself at the gate. Nothing could be warmer than the welcome he gave his visitor.
“Now Zeus and Athene be thanked for this,” he cried as he wrung the young man’s hand. “That you had come back safely from the country of the Great King I heard. Your friend Xenophon told me so much in a letter that I had from him about a year ago. Then I heard from him that you were dangerously ill. After that all was a blank, and I feared the worst. But why not a word all this time?”
“Pardon me, my dear friend, I think I may say that it was not my fault. For months I was simply too ill to write. When I came back to Trapezus, the winter had begun, and there were no more ships sailing westward. I should have written when communications were opened again, but I was always in hopes of being allowed by the physician to start, and I had a fancy for bringing my own news. And how are you?”
“I am well enough,” replied Hippocles, “but we have been passing through times bad enough to shorten any man’s life. I don’t speak of trade. There have been troubles there, but when one has ventures all over the world, it does not matter very much as far as profits are concerned, if things do not go right at one place or another. It has been the state of home affairs that has been the heaviest burden to bear. I thought we had touched the bottom when the city had to surrender to Lysander. But it was not so, and I might have known better. The Spartans, of course, upset the democracy.”