He saw the depth of the malice of Pythonikos—to get rid of him so that he might work out his machinations without hindrance. He remembered, too, the fickleness of the people—how they had turned on Perikles, after all he had done for them. And religious frenzy! who can stem that when once it rages in its delirious course let loose from rational control?
While here he was, as Kolyphôn had said, master of the situation. The whole of the fleet friendly. Most of the soldiers his own. The Argives and Mantineians cared more for him than for all the rest of the Athenians put together. They had come upon the expedition mainly on his account, while they of Korkyra and the Ionians who had joined the fleet at Korkyra, and made up between them more than half the army, had learnt to look on him as the genius of the enterprise, and knew that the plans they had at heart against Syrakuse could only be carried out under his direction. As for the other generals, they soon had seen that one was a traitor to the cause, the other of no weight, and perfectly incompetent.
These were the thoughts which chased each other through his brain as he paced the Eros, waiting for the news his friends might bring him from the Salaminia.
It was late before they returned. There had been much to hear, and what they heard had startled them. Before they had come back, Alkibiades had made up his mind that any attempt to excite the army or the fleet to rebel against the orders of the Senate was too hazardous, and might lead he knew not where. Other schemes, indistinct as yet, and scarcely entertained, began to shape themselves vaguely in his mind. Rejected, they came again, born of indignant rage, of righteous anger. Might he not have a revenge such as no other man had thought of? He clenched his teeth, his hands, determined to resist the suggestions whispered to his maddened mind. Then he mused again on all his wrongs—the venal, treacherous Senate, the ungrateful, stupid people. He clenched his teeth again, this time in anger. Then the unformed schemes took more decided shape. He let them stay longer in his mind.
He had no further communication that night with his officers when they returned. He retired when he saw them coming, after giving orders to his ship’s master to be ready to set sail the first thing in the morning, and to give him notice when he saw the Salaminia weigh anchor. All night visions of his past, and visions of his future, crowded on him as he lay awake, and became his dreams when at last he slept.
The brilliant dawn of a bright September morning was breaking over the sea and the fairest island in the world when his ship’s master gave him warning that the Salaminia had weighed her anchor, and was apparently about to sail. He ordered his captain to prepare to leave the harbour in the Salaminia’s wake. Before he appeared on deck the Eros was outside the harbour, the Salaminia some five hundred yards ahead.
It was a splendid morning, and the soft, fresh, exhilarating air of Sicily breathed upon them as the two fine ships, with oars bending and sails swelling, swept the Sicilian Sea. Alkibiades joined a group of his friends on deck. He had assumed again his usual careless spirits.
‘And what news from Athens? Has Pythonikos, or Andokides, or my dear brother Kallias—have they accused us before the dikastai, condemned us to death already, and confiscated all our property?’
‘No, Alkibiades,’ answered Kolyphôn; ‘not yet; but if our news be true, they and other enemies you suspect not are likely to do so soon.’
For all his assumed carelessness, a black cloud was seen by all of them upon his face as he called sharply to that other to explain his meaning.