“With all except you,” assented the Prince, fingering the scarlet tassel of the cushion whereon he sat. “I reckoned confidently that you would come to visit me when I sent Hiram to you. Yes—I have heard the story that is on your tongue: one of Themistocles’s busybodies has brought a rumour that a certain great man of the Persian court is missing from the side of his master, and you have been requested to greet that nobleman heartily if he should come to Athens.”
“You know a great deal!” cried the orator, feeling his forehead grow hot.
“It is pleasant to know a great deal,” smiled back the Prince, carelessly, while Hiram entered with a tray and silver goblets brimming with violet-flavoured sherbet; “I have innumerable ‘Eyes-and-ears.’ You have heard the name? One of the chief officers of his Majesty is ‘The Royal Eye.’ You Athenians are a valiant and in many things a wise people, yet you could grow in wisdom by looking well to the East.”
“I am confident,” exclaimed Democrates, thrusting back the goblet, “if your Excellency requires a noble game of wits, you can have one. I need only step to the window, and cry ‘Spies!’—after which your Excellency can exercise your wisdom and eloquence defending your life before one of our Attic juries.”
“Which is a polite and patriotic manner of saying, dearest Athenian, you are not prepared to push matters to such unfortunate extremity. I omit what his Majesty might do in the way of taking vengeance; sufficient that if aught unfor[pg 80]tunate befalls me, or Hiram, or this my slave Smerdis, while we are in Athens, a letter comes to your noble chief Themistocles from the banker Pittacus of Argos.”
Democrates, who had risen to his feet, had been flushed before. He became pale now. The hand that clutched the purple tapestry was trembling. The words rose to his lips, the lips refused to utter them. The Prince, who had delivered his threat most quietly, went on, “In short, good Democrates, I was aware before I came to Athens of our necessities, and I came because I was certain I could relieve them.”
“Never!” The orator shot the word out desperately.
“You are a Hellene.”
“Am I ashamed of it?”
“Do not, however, affect to be more virtuous than your race. Persians make their boast of truth-telling and fidelity. You Hellenes, I hear, have even a god—Hermes Dolios,—who teaches you lying and thieving. The customs of nations differ. Mazda the Almighty alone knoweth which is best. Follow then the customs of Hellenes.”