They drifted many moments in silence.
“The sun sinks lower,” spoke Democrates, at length; “so back again to the havens.”
On the return Themistocles once more vowed he caught a glimpse of the skiff of the unknown foreigners, but Democrates called it mere phantasy. Hermione met them at the Peiræus, and the party wandered back through the gathering dusk to the city, where each little group went its way. Themistocles went to his own house, where he said he expected Sicinnus; Cimon and Democrates sought a tavern for an evening cup; Glaucon and Hermione hastened to their house in the Colonus suburb near the trickling Cephissus, where in the starlit night the tettix[4] in the black old olives by the stream made its monotonous music, where great fireflies gleamed, where Philomela the nightingale called, and the tall plane trees whispered softly to the pines. When Hermione fell asleep, she had forgotten about the coming of the Persian, and dreamed that Glaucon was Eros, she was Psyche, and that Zeus was giving her the wings of a butterfly and a crown of stars.
Democrates went home later. After the heady Pramnian at the tavern, he roved away with Cimon and others to serenade beneath the lattice of a lady—none too prudish—in the Ceramicus quarter. But the fair one was cruel that night, and her slaves repelled the minstrels with pails of hot water from an upper window. Democrates thereupon quitted the party. His head was very befogged, but he could not expel one idea from it—that Themistocles had revealed that day a priceless secret, that the statesman and Glaucon and he himself were the only men who shared it, and that it was believed that Glaucon had visited the Babylonish carpet-seller. Joined to this was an overpowering consciousness that Helen of Troy was not so lovely as Hermione of Eleusis. When he came to his lodgings, however, his wits cleared in a twinkling after he had read two letters. The first was short.
“Themistocles to Democrates:—This evening I begin to discover something. Sicinnus, who has been searching in Athens, is certain there is a Persian agent in the city. Seize him.—Chaire.”
The second was shorter. It came from Corinth.
“Socias the merchant to Democrates:—Tyrrhenian pirates have taken the ship. Lading and crew are utterly lost.—Chaire.”
The orator never closed his eyes that night.