“You speak in riddles.”
“Plainer, then. You know the master I serve. You guess who I am, though you shall not name me. For what sum will you serve Xerxes the Great King?”
The orator’s breath came deep. His hands clasped and unclasped, then were pressed behind his head.
“I told Lycon, and I tell you, I am no traitor to Hellas.”
“Which means, of course, you demand a fair price. I am not angry. You will find a Persian pays like the lord he is, and that his darics always ring true metal.”
“I’ll hear no more. I was a fool to meet Lycon at Corinth, doubly a fool to meet you to-night. Farewell.”
Democrates seized the latch. The door was locked. He [pg 81]turned furiously on the Barbarian. “Do you keep me by force? Have a care. I can be terrible if driven to bay. The window is open. One shout—”
The Cyprian had risen, and quietly, but with a grip like iron on Democrates’s wrist, led the orator back to the divan.
“You can go free in a twinkling, but hear you shall. Before you boast of your power, you shall know all of mine. I will recite your condition. Contradict if I say anything amiss. Your father Myscelus was of the noble house of Codrus, a great name in Athens, but he left you no large estate. You were ambitious to shine as an orator and leader of the Athenians. To win popularity you have given great feasts. At the last festival of the Theseia you fed the poor of Athens on sixty oxen washed down with good Rhodian wine. All that made havoc in your patrimony.”
“By Zeus, you speak as if you lived all your life in Athens!”