CHAPTER IX
THE CYPRIAN TRIUMPHS
Democrates fronted ruin. What profit later details from Socias of the capture of the merchantman? Unless three days before the coming festival of the Panathenæa the orator could find a large sum, he was forever undone. His sequestering of the ship-money would become public property. He would be tried for his life. Themistocles would turn against him. The jury would hardly wait for the evidence. He would drink the poisonous hemlock and his corpse be picked by the crows in the Barathrum,—an open pit, sole burial place for Athenian criminals.
One thing was possible: to go to Glaucon, confess all, and beg the money. Glaucon was rich. He could have the amount from Conon and Hermippus for the asking. But Democrates knew Glaucon well enough to perceive that while the athlete might find the money, he would be horrified at the foul disclosure. He would save his old comrade from death, but their friendship would be ended. He would feel in duty bound to tell Themistocles enough to ruin Democrates’s political prospects for all time. An appeal to Glaucon was therefore dismissed, and the politician looked for more desperate remedies.
Democrates enjoyed apartments on the street of the Tripods east of the Acropolis, a fashionable promenade of [pg 96]Athens. He was regarded as a confirmed bachelor. If, therefore, two or three dark-eyed flute girls in Phaleron had helped him to part with a good many minæ, no one scolded too loudly; the thing had been done genteelly and without scandal. Democrates affected to be a collector of fine arms and armour. The ceiling of his living room was hung with white-plumed helmets, on the walls glittered brass greaves, handsomely embossed shields, inlaid Chalcidian scimitars, and bows tipped with gold. Under foot were expensive rugs. The orator’s artistic tastes were excellent. Even as he sat in the deeply pillowed arm-chair his eye lighted on a Nike,—a statuette of the precious Corinthian bronze, a treasure for which the dealer’s unpaid account lay still, alas! in the orator’s coffer.
But Democrates was not thinking so much of the unpaid bronze-smith as of divers weightier debts. On the evening in question he had ordered Bias, the sly Thracian, out of the room; with his own hands had barred the door and closed the lattice; then with stealthy step thrust back the scarlet wall tapestry to disclose a small door let into the plaster. A key made the door open into a cupboard, out of which Democrates drew a brass-bound box of no great size, which he carried gingerly to a table and opened with a complex key.
The contents of the box were curious, to a stranger enigmatic. Not money, nor jewels, but rolls of closely written papyri, and things which the orator studied more intently,—a number of hard bits of clay bearing the impressions of seals. As Democrates fingered these, his face might have betrayed a mingling of keen fear and keener satisfaction.
“There is no such collection in all Hellas,—no, not in the world,” ran his commentary; “here is the signet of the Tagos of Thessaly, here of the Bœotarch of Thebes, here of the King of Argos. I was able to secure the seal of Leonidas while in [pg 97]Corinth. This, of course, is Themistocles’s,—how easily I took it! And this—of less value perhaps to a man of the world—is of my beloved Glaucon. And here are twenty more. Then the papyri,”—he unrolled them lovingly, one after another,—“precious specimens, are they not? Ah, by Zeus, I must be a very merciful and pious man, or I’d have used that dreadful power heaven has given me and never have drifted into these straits.”
What that “power” was with which Democrates felt himself endued he did not even whisper to himself. His mood changed suddenly. He closed the box with a snap and locked it hurriedly.
“Cursed casket!—I think I would be happier if Phorcys, the old man of the deep, could drown it all! I would be better for it and kept from foul thoughts.”