“One of the most dangerous informers.”
“It’s all over with us!” murmured Lysiteles rising.
Drops of perspiration stood on Acestor’s brow; nevertheless he strove to appear calm, and proposed that the meeting should break up and each person go to his own home.
Thuphrastos took a different view of the matter. He wanted to judge for himself, and therefore asked one question after another. Had the market echoed with shouts and cries or was the time for buying and selling over? How far from the statue were the speakers standing? He put these and several more questions, then when he had learned what he wished to know he shrugged his shoulders saying:
“No one can judge with certainty whether the spy heard anything or not, but an empty fear ought not to put men to flight. Let us go on as though nothing had happened.”
There was such perfect calmness in Thuphrastos’ manner that it communicated itself to the others. Only Acestor and Lysiteles seemed undecided for a moment; but, when the others remained, they were ashamed to go and stayed also.
It was easy to see that Acestor had had some great plan in view. He was clad in all the splendor with which he appeared in the popular assemblies; his long, carefully arranged hair was perfumed, he had donned a dazzlingly white chiton, adorned around the neck and at the bottom with an embroidered blue border, and on the fore-finger of his right hand he wore a large seal ring.
XXI.
Acestor did not instantly commence what he had to say. Calmness must first be restored to the minds of the assembly so, glancing with a smile around the circle, he began in a tone intended to command attention.
“Is it not true, oh! my friends, that you would be greatly amazed if I said: ‘You have never seen Athens.’”