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“Look out for the rope!” Phormio’s customers scattered. Scythian constables were stretching cords dusted with red chalk across all exits from the Agora, save that to the south. Soon the band began contracting its nets and driving a swarm of citizens toward the remaining exit, for a red chalk-mark on a mantle meant a fine. Traffic ceased instantly.
Once more the Alcmæonid was leaving Athens, but with very different thoughts than on that other night when he had fled at Phormio’s side. They quitted the desolate city and the sleeping camp. The last bars of day had long since dimmed in the west when before them loomed the hill of Munychia clustered also with tents, and beyond it the violet-black vista of the sea.
As their feet sounded on the ladder in the companionway, Themistocles turned on the outlaw, it seemed, fiercely. “Tell your story.” Glaucon told it: the encounter on the hillside at Trœzene, the seizure in Phormio’s house, the coming of Democrates and his boasts over the captives, the voyage and the pursuing.
The Carthaginians had not misinterpreted Glaucon’s silence, however. They knew well they had a Titan in custody, and did not even unlash his hands. His feet and Phormio’s were tied between two beams in lieu of stocks.
When the two approached him, he tried to stagger to his feet, then reeled, and Phormio’s strong arms seized him. The man resisted feebly, and seemed never to hear the fishmonger’s friendly questions. “I am innocent. Do not arrest me. Help me to the temple of Hephæstos, where there’s asylum for fugitives. Ah! Hermione, that I should bring you this!”
Ask Phormio’s wife, Lampaxo; ask—” Once more he broke off to lay a finger on his lips. “This will be a notable day for Athens!” “Our good friend surely thinks so!” rejoined the potter, dryly; “but since he won’t trust us with his precious secret, I think it much more interesting to watch the people crossing the square. The procession must be gathering outside the Dipylon Gate.
“Until you again have need,” said the Prince, not seeking to wring from the other any promise. Democrates muttered a sullen farewell and went down the dark stairs. The light in Phormio’s house was out. No one seemed to be watching.
For your Athenian, when he had no supper invitation, went to bed early and rose early, loving the sunlight far better than the flicker of his uncertain lamps. “And did the jury vote ‘guilty’?” was Phormio’s first question of his brother-in-law. “We were patriotically united. There were barely any white beans for acquittal in the urn.
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.”
There’s a gay hour coming before Zeus claps the lid over you in Tartarus.” “Peace,” commanded the navarch, who betwixt Phormio’s shouts, Lampaxo’s howls, and Hiram’s moans was at his wit’s end. “Has no one on this ship kept aboard his senses?” “If you will be so good, sir captain,” the third Hellene at last broke his silence, “you will hearken to me.” “Who are you?”
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