“For Aristeides.”
“Zeus smite you, fellow, can’t you speak Greek? What have you got for our general?”
“For Aristeides.”
The stranger was hoarse as a crow. He was pushing aside the spear and forcing a packet into Hippon’s hands. The latter, sorely puzzled, whistled through his fingers. A moment more the locharch of the scouting division and three comrades appeared.
“Why the alarm? Where’s the enemy?”
“No enemy, but a madman. Find what he wants.”
The locharch in earlier days had kept an oil booth in the Athens Agora and knew the local celebrities as well as Phormio.
“Now, friend,” he spoke, “your business, and shortly; we’ve no time for chaffering.”
“For Aristeides.”
“The fourth time he’s said it,—sheep!” cried Hippon, but as he spoke the newcomer fell forward heavily, groaned once, and lay on the roadway silent as the dead. The locharch drew forth the horn lantern he had masked under his chalmys and leaned over the stranger. The light fell on the seal of the packet gripped in the rigid fingers.