XXIX
A RAID
Between the conflict of his own thoughts and Glaucon's outbursts of rage at the indignity cast upon his house, the day passed drearily for Captain Dion. But the night brought new excitement.
The narrowness of the streets made them dark almost as soon as the glints of the setting sun had climbed above the parapets and vanished into the upper air. No lamps were now burning, as in peaceful times, at the doorways of the houses. Upon the city walls and at the great gates loomed the outlines of the sentinels, the click of whose sarissas, brought to the ground at each turn on their beats, alone broke the stillness. The streets were deserted, except as here and there a light blinked through the opening door of some low resort, out of which revellers stumbled into the night; or as some thief, with bare and noiseless feet, evaded a house guard who was sleeping before the gate of an official or protected inhabitant.
It was about the sixth hour when three shadows, like so many condensations of the night itself, moved up the Street of David from the direction of the Temple. In a moment as many more followed. Others came stealthily out of the alleys, and appeared suddenly in the main street, as if they were exhalations from the pools of water between the great stones of the pavement. If one had owl's eyes one might have detected more of these moving patches of darkness, some taking covert behind the projecting lattice-work of the bazaar windows, or within the screening lintels of the doorways. At first they seemed like common night waifs seeking places to sleep; but as sticks in a whirlpool make each its own gyrations, then float out through a common channel, so all these men drifted toward the house of Glaucon.
The sentinel stationed there observed one such shadow near him, and challenged it. While engaged in attempting to unravel what he thought were the comer's drunken accents into intelligible words, a grip from behind was upon his throat, and before he could utter an outcry a short sword had entered his body.
A rap on the door brought the challenge, to which the Greek watch-word "Avenge Bethhoron" was given. The cross-bar had scarcely lifted when in poured a score of men. The door-keeper fell, and in a few moments all the Greek guard were silent in their blood, except Captain Dion who, standing at vantage upon the platform of the room leading from the court, by splendid sword-play held off his assailants. The leader of the attacking party, after watching for a moment the uneven fight, laid his sword across the swords of the men.
"Back, men! I will deal with this fellow."