“And will you go to him?”
“Certainly, if it would not seem too presumptuous.”
“You can give your authority; he will understand why I did not come myself; and he is too sensible not to listen to good advice from whomsoever it may come.”
Conon was on board his ship in which he was practicing some maneuvers about half a mile from the shore. The young Athenian was rowed out to see him, and returned in about an hour. The report which he brought back was this:
“Conon was very reserved, but courteous. He wished me to thank you for your message, and to say he was sure you wished well to Athens. He would do what he could, but he was only one out of many, and he might be out-voted. Anyhow, he would keep his own men from straggling.”
“Then,” said Alcibiades, “we have shot our last bolt, let us go back.”
For some days the two companions waited for news in a suspense that they often felt to be almost beyond bearing. One night—it was the night of the fifteenth of September—they had watched through the hours of darkness till the day began to show itself in the eastern sky. Both had felt the presentiment that their waiting was about to end, though neither had acknowledged it to the other.
“Is it never coming?” said the elder man, as he rose from his seat, and looked from the window across the sea, just beginning to glitter with the morning light. In a moment his attitude of weariness changed to one of eager attention.
“Look!” he cried to Callias. “What is that?” and he pointed to a boat that had just rounded the nearest point to the westward. It was a fishing boat, manned, apparently, by seven or eight men, and making all the speed it could with both oars and sails. The two men hurried down to the castle pier, and awaited the arrival of what they were sure was the long expected message.
The boat was still about two hundred yards away when Alcibiades recognized the steersman.