“I’m not from Trœzene. My ship made port from Naxos this morning. Speak, girl!”
He seized Niobe’s wrist in a grip which she thought would crush the bone.
“Ai! Let go, sir, you hurt. Don’t stare so. I’m frightened. I’ll tell as fast as I can. Master Democrates has come back from Corinth. Hermippus is resolved to make the kyria wed him, however bitterly she resists. It’s taken a long time for her father to determine to break her will, but now his mind’s made up. The betrothal is in three days, the wedding ten days thereafter.”
The sailor had dropped her hand. She shrank at the pallor of his face. He seemed struggling for words; when they came she made nothing of them.
“Themistocles, Themistocles—your promise!”
Then by some giant exercise of will he steadied. His speech grew more coherent.
“Give me the child,” he commanded, and Niobe mutely obeyed. He kissed Phœnix on both cheeks, mouth, forehead. They saw that tears were running down his bronzed face. He handed back the babe and again held out money,—a coin for both the slave girl and the soothsayer,—gold half-darics, that they gaped at wonderingly.
“Say nothing!” ordered the sailor, “nothing of what I have said or done, or as Helios shines this noon, I will kill you both.”
Not waiting reply, he went down the Agora at a run, and never looked back. It took some moments for Dion and Niobe to recover their equanimity; they would have believed it all a dream, but lo! in their hands gleamed the money.
“There are times,” remarked the soothsayer, dubiously at last, “when I begin to think the gods again walk the earth and work wonders. This is a very high matter. Even I [pg 349]with my art dare not meddle with it. It is best to heed the injunction to silence. Wagging tongues always have troubles as their children. Now let us proceed with my sacred cock and his divination.”