“The Scythians are at the door, kyrie,” he was shouting; “shall I order them in and drag this lizard out by the tail?”
“No, in Zeus’s name, no! Bid them keep without. And do you go also. This honest fellow is on private business which only I must hear.”
Bias slammed the door. Perhaps he stood listening. Hiram, at least, glided nearer to his victim and spoke in a smooth whisper, taking no chances of an eavesdropper.
“Excellency, the desire of Lycon is this. The army has been sent to Tempē. At Lacedæmon Lycon used all his power to prevent its despatch, but Leonidas is omnipotent to-day in Sparta, and besides, since Lycon’s calamity at the Isthmia, his prestige, and therefore his influence, is not a little abated. Nevertheless, the army must be recalled from Tempē.”
“And the means?”
“Yourself, Excellency. It is within your power to find a thousand good reasons why Themistocles and Evænetus should retreat. And you will do so at once, Excellency.”
“Do not think you and your accursed masters can drive me from infamy to infamy. I can be terrible if pushed to bay.”
“Your Nobility has read Lycon’s letter,” observed the Phœnician, with folded arms.
There was a sword lying on the tripod by which Democrates stood; he regretted for all the rest of his life that he had not seized it and ended the snakelike Oriental then and there. The impulse came, and went. The opportunity never returned. The orator’s head dropped down upon his breast.
“Go back to Sparta, go back instantly,” he spoke in a hoarse whisper. “Tell that Polyphemus you call your master there that I will do his will. And tell him, too, that if ever the day comes for vengeance on him, on the Cyprian, on you,—my vengeance will be terrible.”