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May Zeus never send storms to darken it! For to bear disaster his soul seems never made.” At the tent Manes, the athlete’s body-servant, came running to his master, with a small box firmly bound. “A strange dark man brought this only a moment since. It is for Master Glaucon.” On opening there was revealed a bracelet of Egyptian turquoise; the price thereof Simonides wisely set at two minæ.
A heavy ballast stone grazed the athlete’s shoulder, but the intruder fell back with a gurgling in his throat, his hands clutching the empty air. Glaucon had sent a heavy spear clean through him. More ballast stones, but the Titanic Alcmæonid had torn a mattress from a bunk, and held it as effective shield.
One moment the desperate fury of his attack carried Glaucon backward. The two fought—sword against axe—in doubtful combat. “Follow! follow!” called Hasdrubal, dashing Phormio aside with the flat of his blade. “I have him at last!” But just as Hiram was leading down a dozen more, the athlete’s axe swept past the sword, and fell like a millstone on the master’s skull.
He swung his free hands in the air. “Athens!” he shouted, whilst the crew stood spellbound. “Hermione! Glaucon is still Glaucon!” Hib had grasped the axe, but he never knew what smote him once behind the ear and sent him rolling lifeless against the bulwark. In an instant his bright weapon was swinging high above the athlete’s head. Glaucon stood terrible as Achilles before the cowering Trojans.
The younger rubber grunted under breath at his athlete’s vacant eye, but Pytheas, the older of the pair, whispered confidently that “when he had known Master Glaucon longer, he would know that victories came his way, just by reaching out his hands.”
“I am looking,” but as he spoke paleness followed the angry flush on the athlete’s forehead. He needed no omen to tell him something fearful was about to ensue. “The seal is yours?” “The very same, two dancing mænads and over them a winged Eros. But how came this letter here? I did not—”
The face of Paris, the strength of Achilles, the wit of Periander, all met in one body;” but seeing the athlete’s confusion more profound than ever, the Cean cut short. “Heracles! if my tongue wounds you, lo! it’s clapped back in its sheath; I’ll be revenged in an ode of fifty iambs on your victory. For that you will conquer, neither I nor any sane man in Hellas has the least doubt.
“Poetry doesn’t win the pentathlon,” retorted the king; then suddenly he seized the athlete’s right arm near the shoulder. The muscles cracked. Glaucon did not wince. The king dropped the arm with a “Euge!” then extended his own hand, the fingers half closed, and ordered, “Open.”
“Save the public disgrace, the hooting jury, the hemlock, the corpse flung into the Barathrum. Strike this into your breast and end the shame.” No further. Glaucon smote him so that he reeled. The athlete’s tone was terrible. “Villain! You shall not tempt me.” Then he turned to the rest, and stood in his white agony, yet beautiful as ever, holding out his arms.
This is the saddest hour in my life.” He was silent, but Democrates sprang to the athlete’s side. “Have I not prayed each god to spare me this task?” he spoke. “Can I forget our friendship? Do not brave it to the end. Pity at least your friends, your wife—” He threw back his cloak, pointing to a sword. “Ai,” cried the accused, shrinking. “What would you have me do?”
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