“O Glaucon, Glaucon,—whom I have trusted? Was ever trust so betrayed! May Apollo smite me blind, if so I could forget what I read here! It is all written—the secret ordering of the fleet—”
For a terrible moment there was silence in the little room, a silence broken by a wild, shrill cry,—Hermione’s, as she cast her arms about her husband.
“A lie! A snare! A wicked plot! Some jealous god has devised this guile, seeing we were too happy!”
She shook with sobs, and Glaucon, roused to manhood by her grief, uprose and faced the stern face of Democrates, the blenching faces of the rest.
“I am the victim of a conspiracy of all the fiends in Tartarus,”—he strove hard to speak steadily; “I did not write that second letter. It is a forgery.”
“But who, then,” groaned Themistocles, hopelessly, “can claim this handiwork? Democrates or I?—for no other has seen the memorandum,—that I swear. It has not yet gone to Leonidas. It has been guarded as the apple of my eye. We three alone knew thereof. And it is in this narrow room the betrayer of Hellas must stand.”
“I cannot explain.” Glaucon staggered back to his seat. His wife’s head sank upon his lap. The two sat in misery.
“Confess, by the remnants of our friendship I implore, confess,” ordered Democrates, “and then Themistocles and I will strive to lighten if possible your inevitable doom.”
The accused man sat dumb, but Hermione struck back as some wild creature driven to bay. She lifted her head.
“Has Glaucon here no friend but me, his wife?” She sent beseeching eyes about the room. “Do you all cry ‘guilty, guilty’? Then is your friendship false, for when is friendship proved, save in the hour of need?”