“Very well. When he comes, the men must hide until he is half-way between them. Then let him be surrounded. I will make the man rich who brings me Lyrcus alive or dead. Tell the warriors so.”
Periphas then entered the cave and lay down on the couch of skins flung behind the boulder projecting at the entrance. It was a still, star-lit evening, yet spite of the peace and silence without, a strange restlessness seized upon him. Sometimes he felt a presentiment of impending misfortune, at others he exulted in the thought of having Byssa in his power. Thanks to the green leaf he had held in his mouth when he carried her away, none of the Cychreans had recognized him. But so long as Lyrcus knew not where to turn he would not summon the warriors. He would pursue his quest alone and fall into the ambush. At the thought Periphas rubbed his hands and became absorbed in planning how he should best humiliate his captive.
The night was far advanced ere the Pelasgian leader fell asleep. A strange dream visited him. It seemed as if he were with Byssa—when he felt a hand on his shoulder. The soothsayer whom he had murdered stood before him, pale and rigid, with a dark blood-stain on his white robes. Periphas stretched out his hand to keep him off, touched his own body, felt with horror an icy, corpse-like chill, opened his eyes, and was broad awake.
As he rose he accidentally laid his hand on the boulder at the entrance. It was dank with the night-dew, and he again felt a chill.
“It was only the rock,” he muttered, with inexpressible relief.
The clear dawn brooded over the land like a soft grey gleam. The mountains were wrapped in clouds and vapor and the swallows were twittering. Periphas breathed the fresh morning air and felt strengthened and inspirited. His first thought was that in the cave, only a few paces from him, he had the fairest woman in the Cychrean city, the woman whom he had once wooed, and who had been given to another.
Doubtless she, like himself, had at last fallen asleep from weariness. He must go to her, see her.
With a slight shiver, caused by emotion more than by the chill air of the morning, he bound a goat-skin around his loins, buckled a belt about his waist, thrust his knife into it and with bare feet stole noiselessly into the cave.
XIII.
At every step Periphas took the darkness increased, and the lamplight in the inner room was but a feeble substitute for the dawning day. Yet he instantly distinguished the light figure which lay extended on the black skin.