A Victor of Salamis Part 19

"What's this? Your hands seem a-quiver. Whom has that constable tied up behind him?"

"Seuthes!" cried Glaucon, bounding back, "Seuthes, by every G.o.d, and pinioned like a felon."

"Ay!" groaned the prisoner, lashed to a horse, "what have I done to be seized and tried like a bandit? Why should I be set upon by these gentlemen while I was enjoying a quiet pot of wine in the tavern at Daphni, and be haled away as if to crucifixion? _Mu! Mu!_ make them untie me, dear Master Glaucon."

"Put down your prisoner," ordered Democrates, "and all you constables stay without the house. I ask Themistocles, Hermippus, and Glaucon to come to an inner room. I must examine this man. The matter is serious."

"Serious?" echoed the bewildered athlete, "I can vouch for Seuthes-an excellent Corinthian, come to Athens to sell some bales of wool-"

"Answer, Glaucon," Democrates's voice was stern. "Has he no letters from you for Argos?"

"Certainly."

"You admit it?"

"By the dog of Egypt, do you doubt my word?"

"Friends," called Democrates, dramatically, "mark you that Glaucon admits he has employed this Seuthes as his courier."

"Whither leads this mummery?" cried the athlete, growing at last angry.

"If to nothing, I, Democrates, rejoice the most. Now I must bid you to follow me."

Seizing the snivelling Seuthes, the orator led into the house and to a private chamber. The rest followed, in blank wonderment. Cimon had recovered enough to follow-none too steadily. But when Hermione approached, Democrates motioned her back.

"Do not come. A painful scene may be impending."

"What my husband can hear, that can I," was her retort. "Ah! but why do you look thus dreadfully on Glaucon?"

"I have warned you, lady. Do not blame me if you hear the worst," rejoined Democrates, barring the door. A single swinging lamp shed a fitful light on the scene-the whimpering prisoner, the others all amazed, the orator's face, tense and white. Democrates's voice seemed metallic as he continued:-

"Now, Seuthes, we must search you. Produce first the letter from Glaucon."

The fat florid little Corinthian was dressed as a traveller, a gray chalmys to his hips, a brimmed brown hat, and high black boots. His hands were now untied. He tugged from his belt a bit of papyrus which Democrates handed to Themistocles, enjoining "Open."

Glaucon flushed.

"Are you mad, Democrates, to violate my private correspondence thus?"

"The weal of Athens outweighs even the pleasure of Glaucon," returned the orator, harshly, "and you, Themistocles, note that Glaucon does not deny that the seal here is his own."

"I do not deny," cried the angry athlete. "Open, Themistocles, and let this stupid comedy end."

"And may it never change to tragedy!" proclaimed Democrates. "What do you read, Themistocles?"

"A courteous letter of thanks to Ageladas." The senior statesman was frowning. "Glaucon is right. Either you are turned mad, or are victim of some prank,-is it yours, Cimon?"

"I am as innocent as a babe. I'd swear it by the Styx," responded that young man, scratching his muddled head.

"I fear we are not at the end of the examination," observed Democrates, with ominous slowness. "Now, Seuthes, recollect your plight. Have you no other letter about you?"

"None!" groaned the unheroic Corinthian. "Ah! pity, kind sirs; what have I done? Suffer me to go."

"It is possible," remarked his prosecutor, "you are an innocent victim, or at least do not realize the intent of what you bear. I must examine the lining of your chalmys. Nothing. Your girdle. Nothing. Your hat, remove it. Quite empty. Blessed be Athena if my fears prove groundless. But my first duty is to Athens and h.e.l.las. Ah! Your high boots. Remove the right one." The orator felt within, and shook the boot violently. "Nothing again. The left one, empty it seems. _Ei!_ what is this?"

In a tense silence he shook from the boot a papyrus, rolled and sealed. It fell on the floor at the feet of Themistocles, who, watching all his lieutenant did, bent and seized it instantly; then it dropped from his hands as a live coal.

"The seal! The seal! May Zeus smite me blind if I see aright!"

Hermippus, who had been following all the scene in silence, bent, lifted the fateful paper, and he too gave a cry of grief.

"It is the seal of Glaucon. How came it here?"

"Glaucon,"-hard as Democrates's voice had been that night, it rang like cold iron now,-"as the friend of your boyhood, and one who would still do for you all he may, I urge you as you love me to look upon this seal."

"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 maenads and over them a winged Eros. But how came this letter here? I did not-"

"As you love life or death, as you preserve any regard for our friendship, I adjure you,-not to brave it longer, but to confess-"

"Confess what? My head is reeling."

"The treason in which you have dipped your hands, your dealings with the Persian spy, your secret interviews, and last of all this letter,-I fear a gross betrayal of all trust,-to some agent of Xerxes. I shudder when I think of what may be its contents."

"And-this-from-you! Oh,-Democrates,-"

The accused man's hands s.n.a.t.c.hed at the air. He sank upon a chest.

"He does not deny it," threw out the orator, but Glaucon's voice rang shrilly:-

"Ever! Ever will I deny! Though the Twelve G.o.ds all cried out 'guilty!'

The charge is monstrous."

"It is time, Democrates," said Themistocles, who had preserved a grim silence, "that you showed us clearly whither your path is leading. This is a fearful accusation you launch against your best-loved friend."

"Themistocles is right," a.s.sented the orator, moving away from the luckless Seuthes as from a p.a.w.n no longer important in the game of life and death. "The whole of the wretched story I fear I must tell on the Bema to all Athens. I must be brief, but believe me, I can make good all I say.

Since my return from the Isthmia, I have been observed to be sad.

Rightly-for knowing Glaucon as I did, I grew suspicious, and I loved him.

You have thought me not diligent in hunting down the Persian spy. You were wrong. But how could I ruin my friend without full proof? I made use of Agis,-no genteel confederate, to be sure, but honest, patriotic, indefatigable. I soon had my eyes on the suspected Babylonish carpet-seller. I observed Glaucon's movements closely, they gave just ground for suspicion. The Babylonian, I came to feel, was none other than an agent of Xerxes himself. I discovered that Glaucon had been making this emissary nocturnal visits."

"A lie!" groaned the accused, in agony.

"I would to Athena I believed you," was the unflinching answer; "I have direct evidence from eye-witnesses that you went to him. In a moment I can produce it. Yet still I hesitated. Who would blast a friend without d.a.m.ning proof? Then yesterday with your own lips you told me you sent a messenger to disloyal Argos. I suspected two messages, not one, were entrusted to Seuthes, and that you proclaimed the more innocent matter thus boldly simply to blind my eyes. Before Seuthes started forth this morning Agis informed me he had met him in a wine-shop-"

"True," whimpered the unhappy prisoner.