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“Wounded indeed, philotate, taken prisoner, and sent to Thebes. There friends of mine found he had a story to tell—greatly to my advantage. It is only a little time since he came to Sparta.” “What lies has he told?” “Several, dear fellow, although if they are lies, then Aletheia, Lady Truth, must almost own them for her children.
“Patience, philotate, a Spartan must either speak in apothegms or take all day. I have not advised a battle yet because I was not certain of your aid.” “Ay, by Zeus,” broke out Democrates, “that ointment I sniffed a long way off. I can give you quick answer. Fly back to Sparta, swift as Boreas; plot, conspire, earn Tartarus, to your heart’s content—you’ll get no more help from me.”
“I did not ask you to thank me, philotate,” was the easy answer. “It is, however, urgent to consider whether you wish to be taken unresisting in the morning.” The Corinthian shook his fist across the table. “Liar, as a last device to ruin us, you invent this folly.” “It is easy to see if I lie,” rejoined Themistocles; “send out a pinnace and note where the Persians anchor. It will not take long.”
Turning, he was little pleased to come face to face with no less a giant than Lycon. “There was an hour, philotate,” spoke the Spartan, with ill-concealed sneer, “when you did not have so much silver to scatter out to beggars.” Time had not mended Lycon’s aspect, nor taken from his eye that sinister twinkle which was so marked a foil to his brutishness.
His bare arms were grotesquely tattooed, clear sign that he was a Thracian. His eyes twinkled keenly, uneasily, as in token of an almost sinister intelligence. What he whispered to Democrates escaped the rest, but the latter began girding up his cloak. “You leave us, philotate?” cried Glaucon. “Would I not have all my friends with me to-night, to fill me with fair thoughts for the morrow?
You see I have dyed my hair and beard black and pass for a Babylonish merchant.” “With all except me, philotate,—‘dearest friend,’ as we say in Athens.” Democrates’s smile was not wholly agreeable. “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.
Nevertheless, promise one thing.” “Name it.” “That if her parents are about to give her to Democrates or any other, you will prevent.” Themistocles’s face lightened. He laid a friendly hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I do not know how to answer your cry of innocency, philotate, but this I know, in all Hellas I think none is fairer in body or soul than you.
I warn you in advance, you are ‘shearing an ass,’—attempting the impossible,—if you deceive yourself as to my power. I can do nothing more to prevent the war from being pressed against Mardonius. It is only your Laconian ephors that are hindering.” “We shall see, philotate, we shall see,” grunted the Spartan, exasperatingly cool. “Here is Poseidon’s Temple. Let us sit in the shaded portico.”
“Why in Corinth?” he threw out sullenly. “For three reasons, philotate,” Lycon grinned over his shoulder, “first, the women at the Grove of Aphrodite here are handsome; second, I am weary of Sparta and its black broth and iron money; third, and here is the rose for my garland, I had need to confer with your noble self.”
“Noble tidings,” whispered the giant, as the two stood an instant, before each went to his own men. “Behold how Hermes helps us—a great deity.” “Sometimes I think Nemesis is greater,” said Democrates, once again refusing Lycon’s proffered hand. “By noon you’ll laugh at Nemesis, philotate, when we both drink Helbon wine in Xerxes’s tent!” and away went Lycon into the dark.
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