What did it mean? Had the plot been divulged? Had the timid Hipposthenidas betrayed them? At any rate, there was but one thing to do; Charon must go at once. But he, faithful soul, was most in dread that his friends should suspect him of treachery. He therefore brought his son, a highly promising youth of fifteen, and put him in the hands of Pelopidas as a hostage for his fidelity.
"This is folly!" cried they all. "No one doubts you. Take the boy away. It is enough for us to face the danger; do not seek to bring the boy into the same peril."
Charon would not listen to their remonstrances, but insisted on leaving the youth in their hands, and hastened away to the house of the polemarchs. He found them at the feast, already half intoxicated. Word had been sent them from Athens that some plot, they knew not what, was afloat. He was known to be a friend of the exiles. He must tell them what he knew about it.
Fortunately, the pair were too nearly drunk to be acute. Their suspicions were very vague. Charon, aided by Phyllidas, had little trouble in satisfying them that the report was false. Eager to get back to their wine they dismissed him, very glad indeed to get away. Hardly had he gone before a fresh message, and a far more dangerous one, was brought to Archias, sent by a namesake of his at Athens. This gave a full account of the scheme and the names of those who were to carry it out. "It relates to a very serious matter," said the messenger who bore it.
"Serious matters for to-morrow," cried Archias, with a drunken laugh, as he put the unopened despatch under the pillow of his couch and took up the wine-cup again.
"Those whom the gods mean to destroy they first make mad," says an apposite Grecian proverb. These men were foredoomed.
"A truce to all this disturbance," cried the two polemarchs to Phyllidas. "Where are the women whom you promised us? Let us see these famous high-born beauties."
Phyllidas at once retired, and quickly returned with the seven conspirators, clothed in female attire. Leaving them in an adjoining chamber, he entered the banquet-room, and told the feasters that the women refused to come in unless all the domestics were first dismissed.
"Let it be so," said Archias, and at the command of Phyllidas the domestics sought the house of one of their number, where the astute secretary had well supplied them with wine.
The two polemarchs, with one or two friends, alone remained, all half intoxicated, and the only armed one being Cabeirichus, the archon, who was obliged by law to keep always with him the consecrated spear of office.