Lycon laid the bundles down.
“Tell me,” Simonides continued, “what did you think about your position in the city?”
“Nothing—by Zeus!” said Lycon, as though amused by his own freedom from anxiety. “I had so much to do in becoming acquainted with people and things in Athens, that I forgot both past and future and, when I heard Phorion speak of your illness and your servants’ laziness and negligence, I was so busy in selling my house and slaves to hasten to your assistance that not until during the journey here did I find an opportunity to think of scourges, fetters, and branding-irons—in short of all that might await me.”
“Did it not occur to you to run away during the night?”
“Certainly,” replied Lycon; “but I said to myself: ‘Then it would have been better not to come at all.’ So I stayed.”
“Were you not afraid of being enslaved again?”
“No,” said Lycon quietly; “you would not do that. You know that a man who has lived for years as a free citizen cannot become a bondsman.”
“Well, by Hera!” exclaimed Simonides laughing, “you are a strange mortal. Yesterday you were all humility, and to-day you dictate what I am to do. Yet I like Lycon better to-day than yesterday! Take one of my slaves with you, look about the city and return at dinner time; by that time I shall have considered what will serve you best.”
VIII.
Accompanied by the gigantic Conops, who had volunteered his services, Lycon went to the market. It was a little open square, one side occupied by the council-hall, a pretty new pillared building, another by an ancient temple of Poseidon, one of the noteworthy objects in the city, a third by an arcade used for a shelter in rainy weather, and the fourth by the houses of the citizens.