Glaucon passed his fingers before his face, beckoning back the past.
“It is all far away and strange: the flight, the storm, the wreck, the tossing spar, the battling through the surges. My head is weak. I cannot picture it all.”
“Do not try. Lie still. Grow strong and glad, and suffer us to teach you,” commanded Artazostra.
“Where do I lie? We are not upon the rocky islet still?”
The ladies laughed, not mockingly but so sweetly he wished that they would never cease.
“This is Sardis,” spoke Roxana, bending over him; “you lie in the palace of the satrap.”
“And Athens—” he said, wandering.
“Is far away,” said Artazostra, “with all its griefs and false friends and foul remembrances. The friends about you here will never fail. Therefore lie still and have peace.”
“You know my story,” cried he, now truly in amaze.
“Mardonius knows all that passes in Athens, in Sparta, in every city of Hellas. Do not try to tell more. We weary you already. See—Amenhat comes to bid us begone.”