“Cychreans!” he continued, “the Pelasgians whom ye have enslaved must be set free and, in compensation for your crime of murder, we demand that you deliver up to us Lyrcus, who has provoked war and pillaged peaceful dwellers in the land. These demands we will enforce by arms. We no longer come with entreaties, but with commands.”
Again a terrible din arose, but Lyrcus ordered silence and springing upon a rock, from which he could be seen and heard far and near, shouted:
“Pelasgians! The land where we have built was desolate and uninhabited; it belonged to us as much as to you. When you demand slaves and wish me to be delivered over to you, the answer is: Come and take us. But mark this: it is you, not we, who begin the war; we only defend ourselves against assault. This answer is deserved, and approved by our people.”
Loud exulting shouts from the Cychreans hailed his words.
Lyrcus gazed confidently around him; for, reckless as he was of his own safety, he was cautious where the people’s welfare was concerned. At the first sign of war he had put the cliff in a posture of defence.
At all the wider approaches he had piled heaps of huge stones to be rolled down on the foe, and where men could climb up singly he had stationed sentinels. The rear of the height was inaccessible; here stretched for more than four hundred ells the Golf of Barathron, bordered along its almost perpendicular sides by cliffs from ninety to a hundred yards high. This dark, wild chasm was afterwards used for a place of execution; and it was here that malefactors whom the law sentenced “to be hurled into the abyss” ended their days. Towards the north, the windward side, the cliff had no covering of earth and here at its foot, half concealed among some huge boulders, was the entrance to a cave which led obliquely upward to some subterranean tombs, whence a steep passage extended to one of the lower terraces. In this passage Lyrcus had had steps hewn in order to secure a secret descent to the plain, and for farther concealment he had ordered bushes to be planted outside of the cave.
Though the Cychreans on the whole were in good spirits, they found themselves in a serious mood as the decisive hour approached. Lyrcus, at his first leisure moment, had assured Byssa that the Pelasgians would be received in such a way that not a single man could set foot on the open space before the houses. The young wife silently embraced him; her eyes were full of tears and she could not speak. She trusted her husband implicitly, but nevertheless was deeply moved.
“Before the sun goes down,” she thought, “many an eye will be closed. And what will be Lyrcus’ fate?”
VII.
The greater portion of the night passed quietly. They saw the Pelasgians light fires in a semi-circle around the cliff and noticed the smell of roasted meat. Songs and laughter were heard, and with the fires a thicket of spears seemed to have grown out of the earth.