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If I was brave enough, I would kill myself, and go to sleep and forget it all. But I am weak and cowardly, and so here I am." Pisander only groaned and went away to his room to turn over his Aristotle, and wonder why nothing in the "Nicomachean Ethics" or any other learned treatise contained the least word that made him contented over the fate of Agias or his own unhappy situation.
"You did, indeed, serve me an awkward trick some time since; but who can blame you for wanting to save your own skin. Pisander and Arsinoë and Semiramis have kept the secret that I'm alive very well, for in some ways it shouldn't come to Valeria's ears. My story later. Where's her most noble ladyship?"
Agias had to let him ramble through all the details, although he knew very well that Pisander would never have taken so much trouble to come if he had not had information of the first importance to impart. "And now, my dear Pisander," ventured the young Greek, at length, "I will ask Dromo to set something to drink before us; and I hope you will tell me why you have come."
It runs thus, "'My tongue an oath took, but my mind's unsworn. Not an inelegant sentiment, as you must see." We left the excellent man of learning, Pisander, in no happy frame of mind, after Agias had been dragged away, presumably to speedy doom. And indeed for many days the shadow of Valeria's crime, for it was nothing else, plunged him in deep melancholy.
"The domina," replied Iasus, with a sniff, "has just gone out on a visit to a friend who has a country-house near Fidenæ, up the Tiber." "Praise the gods! Far enough to be abroad for the day, and perhaps over night! This suits my purpose wonderfully. Is Pisander at home, and Arsinoë?" "I will fetch them," replied Iasus; and in a minute the philosopher and the waiting-maid were in the garden.
Pisander and his colleagues on their voyage alongshore abolished, as had been determined, the democracies in the cities, and also took some heavy infantry from certain places as their allies, and so came to Athens. Here they found most of the work already done by their associates.
The chief promoters of the revolution were Pisander, Antiphon, and Theramenes, all of them men of good birth and with high reputations for ability and judgement.
To Agias this great event brought a considerable gain in peace of mind, and some little loss. Valeria had taken with her her two maids, Agias's good friends, and also Iasus. Pisander ignominiously had been left behind.
The average chatter of Pratinas and Valeria had been gall and wormwood to him, and he had been glad enough to evade it; but here was Pratinas with a secret which he clearly did not wish Pisander to know. And Pisander, prompted by most unphilosophical motives, resolved within himself to play the eavesdropper.
They accordingly voted that Pisander should sail with ten others and make the best arrangement that they could with Tissaphernes and Alcibiades. At the same time the people, upon a false accusation of Pisander, dismissed Phrynichus from his post together with his colleague Scironides, sending Diomedon and Leon to replace them in the command of the fleet.
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