“O ye sisters, terrible yet gracious, give ear. If by my [pg 207]offerings I have found favour, lift from my heart this crushing load. Deliver me from the fear of the blood guilty. Are ye not divine? Do not the immortals know all things? Ye know, then, how I was tempted, how sore was the compulsion, and how life and love were sweet. Then spare me. Give me back unhaunted slumber. Deliver me from Lycon. Give my soul peace,—and in reward, I swear it by the Styx, by Zeus’s own oath, I will build in your honour a temple by your sacred field at Colonus, where men shall gather to reverence you forever.”
But here he ceased. In the darkness moved something white. Again a flapping. He was sure the white thing was Glaucon’s face. Glaucon had perished at sea. He had never been buried, so his ghost was wandering over the world, seeking vainly for rest. It all came to Democrates in an instant. His knees smote together; his teeth chattered. He sprang back upon the door and forced it open, but never saw the dove that fluttered forth with him.
“A hideous place!” he cried to his waiting friends. “A man must have a stronger heart than mine to love to tarry after his prayer is finished.”
Only a few days later Hellas was startled to hear that Tempē had been evacuated without a blow, and the pass left open to Xerxes. It was said Democrates, in his ever commendable activity, had discovered at the last moment the mountain wall was not as defensible as hoped, and any resistance would have been disastrous. Therefore, whilst the retreat was bewailed, everybody praised the foresight of the orator. Everybody—one should say, except two, Bias and Phormio. They had many conferences together, especially after the coming and going of Hiram.
“There is a larger tunny in the sea than yet has entered [pg 208]the meshes,” confessed the fishmonger, sorely puzzled, after much vain talk.
But Hermione was caring for none of these things. Her hands were busy with the swaddling clothes. Her thoughts only for that wicker cradle which swung betwixt the pillars, where Hermippus’s house looked toward Salamis.