Hermione screamed at last shrilly and turned to fly. Instantly Democrates was upon her. In that fluttering white dress escape was hopeless.
“Apollo pursuing Daphne!”—his crazed shout as his arms closed around her,—“but Daphne becomes no laurel this time. Her race is lost. She shall pay the forfeit.”
She felt him seize her girdle. He swung her face to face. She saw his wide eyes, his mad smile. His hot breath smote her cheek. Cleopis at last was screaming.
“Mine,” he triumphed, while he forced her resisting head to his own, “there is none to hinder!”
But even while the woman’s flesh crept back at his impure kiss, a giant power came rending the twain apart. A man had sundered them, sprung from the ground or from heaven belike, or from behind a boulder? He tore Democrates’s hands away as a lion tears a lamb. He dashed the mad orator prone upon the sod, and kicked him twice, as of mingled hatred and contempt. All this Hermione only knew in half, while her senses swam. Then she came to herself enough to see that the stranger was a young man in a sailor’s loose dress, his features almost hidden under the dishevelled hair and beard. All this time he uttered no word, but having smitten [pg 358]Democrates down, leaped back, rubbing his hands upon his thigh, as if despising to touch so foul an object. The orator groaned, staggered upward. He wore a sword. It flew from its scabbard as he leaped on the sailor. The stranger put forth his hand, snatched his opponent’s wrist, and with lightning dexterity sent the blade spinning back upon the grass. Then he threw Democrates a second time, and the latter did not rise again hastily, but lay cursing. The fall had not been gentle.
But all this while Cleopis was screaming. People were hastening up the hill,—fishermen from a skiff upon the beach, slaves who had been carrying bales to the haven. In a moment they would be surrounded by a dozen. The strange sailor turned as if to fly. He had not spoken one word. Hermione herself at last called to him.
“My preserver! Your name! Blessed be you forever!”
The fisherfolk were very close. Cleopis was still screaming. The sailor looked once into the lady’s eyes.
“I am nameless! You owe me nothing!” And with that he was gone up the hill slopes, springing with long bounds that would have mocked pursuing, had any attempted. But Cleopis quenched her outcry instantly; her screams had been drowned by a louder scream from Hermione, who fell upon the greensward, no marble whiter than her face. The nurse ran to her mistress. Democrates staggered to his feet. Whatever else the chastisement had given him, it had restored his balance of mind. He told the fisherfolk a glib story that a sailor wandering along the strand had accosted Hermione, that he himself had chased the villain off, but had tripped whilst trying to follow. If the tale was not of perfect workmanship at all points, there was no one with interest to gainsay it. A few ran up the hill slope, but the sailor was nowhere in sight. Hermione was still speechless. [pg 359]They made a litter of oars and sail-cloth and carried her to her mother. Democrates oiled Cleopis’s palm well, that she should tell nothing amiss to Lysistra. It was a long time before Hermione opened her eyes in her chamber. Her first words were:—
“Glaucon! I have seen Glaucon!”