“I am looking,” but as he spoke paleness followed the angry flush on the athlete’s forehead. He needed no omen to tell him something fearful was about to ensue.
“The seal is yours?”
“The very same, two dancing mænads and over them a winged Eros. But how came this letter here? I did not—”
“As you love life or death, as you preserve any regard for our friendship, I adjure you,—not to brave it longer, but to confess—”
“Confess what? My head is reeling.”
“The treason in which you have dipped your hands, your dealings with the Persian spy, your secret interviews, and last of all this letter,—I fear a gross betrayal of all trust,—to some agent of Xerxes. I shudder when I think of what may be its contents.”
“And—this—from—you! Oh,—Democrates,—”
The accused man’s hands snatched at the air. He sank upon a chest.
“He does not deny it,” threw out the orator, but Glaucon’s voice rang shrilly:—
“Ever! Ever will I deny! Though the Twelve Gods all cried out ‘guilty!’ The charge is monstrous.”