“A drunkard? Let him lie then,” commanded Lampaxo; “let the coat-thieves come and filch his chiton.”
“He’s hardly drunken,” observed her husband, peering through the lattice in the door, “but sick rather. Don’t detain me, philotata,”—Lampaxo’s skinny hand had tried to restrain. “I’ll not let even a dog suffer.”
“You’ll be ruined by too much charity,” bewailed the woman, but Bias followed the fishmonger into the night. The moon shone down the narrow street, falling over the stranger who half lay, half squatted by the Hermes. When the two approached him, he tried to stagger to his feet, then reeled, and Phormio’s strong arms seized him. The man resisted feebly, and seemed never to hear the fishmonger’s friendly questions.
“I am innocent. Do not arrest me. Help me to the temple of Hephæstos, where there’s asylum for fugitives. Ah! Hermione, that I should bring you this!”
Bias leaped back as the moonlight glanced over the face of the stranger.
“Master Glaucon, half naked and mad! Ai! woe!”
“Glaucon the Alcmæonid,” echoed Phormio, in amazement, and the other still struggled to escape.
“Do you not hear? I am innocent. I never visited the Persian spy. I never betrayed the fleet. By what god can I swear it, that you may believe?”
Phormio was a man to recover from surprise quickly, and act swiftly and to the purpose. He made haste to lead his unfortunate visitor inside and lay him on his one hard couch. Scarcely was this done, however, when Lampaxo ran up to Glaucon in mingled rage and exultation.
“Phormio doesn’t know what Polus and I told Democrates, or what he told us! So you thought to escape, you white-skinned traitor? But we’ve watched you. We know how you went to the Babylonian. We know your guilt. And now the good gods have stricken you mad and delivered you to justice.” She waved her bony fists in the prostrate man’s face. “Run, Phormio! don’t stand gaping like a magpie. Run, I say—”