“No, Bias ran into the street and cried out he would flee to the Temple of Theseus, the slave’s sanctuary, and demand that the archon sell him to a kinder master. Then suddenly Democrates forgave him and gave him five drachmæ to say no more about it.”
“And so Bias at once told you?” Hermione could not for[pg 260]bear a smile, but her gesture was of desperation. “O Father Zeus—only the testimony of a slave to lean on, I a weak woman and Democrates one of the chief men in Athens! O for strength to wring out all the bitter truth!”
“Peace, kyria,” said Phormio, not ungently, “Aletheia, Mistress Truth, is a patient dame, but she says her word at last. And you see that hope is not quite dead.”
“I dare not cherish it. If I were but a man!” repeated Hermione. But she thanked Phormio many times, would not let him refuse her money, and bade him come often again and bring her all the Agora gossip about the war. “For we are friends,” she concluded; “you and I are the only persons who hold Glaucon innocent in all the world. And is that not tie enough?”
So Phormio came frequently, glad perhaps to escape the discipline of his spouse. Now he brought a rumour of Xerxes’s progress, now a bit of Bias’s tattling about his master. The talebearing counted for little, but went to make Hermione’s conviction like adamant. Every night she would speak over Phœnix as she held him whilst he slept.
“Grow fast, makaire, grow strong, for there is work for you to do! Your father cries, ‘Avenge me well,’ even from Hades.”
* * * * * * *
After the departure of the fleet Athens seemed silent as the grave. On the streets one met only slaves and graybeards. In the Agora the hucksters’ booths were silent, but little groups of white-headed men sat in the shaded porticos and watched eagerly for the appearing of the archon before the government house to read the last despatch of the progress of Xerxes. The Pnyx was deserted. The gymnasia were closed. The more superstitious scanned the heavens for a lucky or unlucky flight of hawks. The priest[pg 261]esses sang litanies all day and all night on the Acropolis where the great altar to Athena smoked with victims continually. At last, after the days of uncertainty and wavering rumour, came surer tidings of battles.
“Leonidas is fighting at Thermopylæ. The fleets are fighting at Artemisium, off Eubœa. The first onsets of the Barbarians have failed, but nothing is decided.”
This was the substance, and tantalizingly meagre. And the strong army of Sparta and her allies still tarried at the Isthmus instead of hasting to aid the pitiful handful at Thermopylæ. Therefore the old men wagged their heads, the altars were loaded with victims, and the women wept over their children.