"It isn't so very far to drop," whispered Dion. "I've dropped from the balustrade into the court lots of times at home."
"All right," said Daphne, "You drop first, and I'll follow."
Dion turned, stuck his head out as far as possible, and looked in every direction. Then he let himself down from the sill, hung to it for a moment by his hands, and dropped like a cat to the ground. He flattened himself against the wall of the temple, and in another moment Daphne was safe beside him.
"Now," whispered Dion, "we'll run like everything around behind the temple to the statue of Athena."
Hand in hand through the moonlight they sped, and were soon in the shadow of the great bronze statue.
"Let's wait here a minute and look around," whispered Dion.
They crouched down in the shadow and looked back. Their hearts almost stopped beating when they saw two cloaked figures emerge from the temple, and they recognized Lampon and the priest of the Erechthcum. The two men passed so near the statue that the children could plainly hear their voices, though they spoke in low tones.
"We will wait at the head of the street of the Amphorae," they heard Lampon say. "He is sure to pass that way. It will relieve my tongue to tell him some things in the guise of a common ruffian which I could not say as a priest."
"You did well to recognize those brats," said the priest of the Erechtheum. "They might have upset all our plans if we had not kept them safe."
The two brats behind the statue shook their fists at the retreating figures. They waited until the sound of footsteps had died away, and then they made a quick dash from the shadow and flew down the incline up which the procession had come in the morning. In a moment they were at the bottom. They could just see the dark figures of the priests disappearing toward the north. The children shrank back again into the shadow.