Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 28, 2025
I am sure to be arrested at dawn if not before. I will go to the ‘City-House,’ the public prison, and give myself up. The ignominy will soon end. Then welcome the Styx, Hades, the never ending night—better than this shame!” He started forth, but Phormio’s hand restrained him. “Not so fast, lad! Thank Olympus, I’m not Lampaxo. You’re too young a turbot for Charon’s fish-net. Let me think a moment.”
“Compassion, your Lordship, compassion,”—Hiram seemed washing his hands in oil, they waved so soothingly—“if your Benignity will grant it, I have a very worthy woman here who, I think, can tell a story that will be interesting.” “In with her, then.” The person Hiram escorted into the room proved to be no more nor less than Lampaxo.
Phormio was a man to recover from surprise quickly, and act swiftly and to the purpose. He made haste to lead his unfortunate visitor inside and lay him on his one hard couch. Scarcely was this done, however, when Lampaxo ran up to Glaucon in mingled rage and exultation. “Phormio doesn’t know what Polus and I told Democrates, or what he told us! So you thought to escape, you white-skinned traitor?
“Your Lordship surely intended this woman to be taken also,” suggested Hiram, sweetly. “It cannot be he will leave such a dangerous witness at large.” “Of course not. Off with her!” “Kyrie! kyrie!” was her shriek, but quickly ended, for Hasdrubal knitted his fingers around her throat. “A gag,” he ordered, and with a few more struggles Lampaxo stood helpless and silent.
A little later the band was threading its stealthy way down the black streets. Four of the Carthaginians carried Glaucon, slung hands and feet over a pole. They dared not trust him on his feet. Phormio and Lampaxo walked, closely pinioned and pricked on by the captain’s dagger. They were soon at the deserted strand, and their ship’s pinnace lay upon the beach.
“Ah!” Democrates leaned forward and battled against his impatience,—“and what is the matter wherein I can be of service to so deserving a citizen as your husband?” “I fear me,”—Lampaxo put her apron dutifully to her face and began to sniff,—“your Excellency won’t call him ‘deserving’ any more. Hellas knows your Excellency is patriotism itself. The fact is Phormio has ‘Medized.’ ”
As for Bias, he had just now gone on a message to Megara, but Democrates would surely castigate his own slave. “Still,” wound up Lampaxo, “the traitor seemed drowned, and his treason locked up in Phorcys’s strong box, and so I said nothing about him. More’s the pity.” “The more reason for concealing nothing now.” “Zeus strike me if I keep back anything. It’s now about ten days since he returned.”
“Good evening, sweet sister and Phormio!” The salutation came from Polus, who with Clearchus had approached unheralded. Lampaxo smoothed her ruffled feathers. Phormio stifled his sorrows. Dromo, the half-starved slave-boy, brought a pot of thin wine to his betters. The short southern twilight was swiftly passing into night.
Phormio never reviled his wife as the author of their calamity, and Lampaxo, with nigh childish earnestness, would protest that surely Democrates knew not what the sailors did when they bound her. “So noble a patriot! An evil god bewitched him into letting these harpies take us. Woe! woe! What misfortune!” To which plaint the others only smiled horribly and ground their teeth.
But a violent screech came from Lampaxo, who had just comprehended the fate awaiting. “Ai! ai! save me, fellow-Hellenes!” she bawled toward the penteconter, “a citizeness of Athens, the most patriotic woman in the city, slaughtered by Barbarians—” “Silence the squealing sow!” roared Hasdrubal. “They’ll hear her on the war-ship. Aft with her and overboard at once.”
Word Of The Day
Others Looking