re fault with Socrates than ever
because he had not given them the satisfaction of fleeing to Thessaly;
they were annoyed with his pupils because in the last days they had
walked about in sombre mourning attire, a living reproach to the
Athenians; they were vexed with the judges because they had not had
the sense and the courage to resist the blind rage of the excited
people; they bore even the gods resentment.

"To you, ye gods, have we brought this sacrifice," spoke many.
"Rejoice, ye unsatiable!"

"I know not which of us chooses the better lot!"

Those words of Socrates came back to their memory, those his last
words to the judges and to the people gathered in the court. Now he
lay in the prison quiet and motionless under his cloak, while over the
city hovered mourning, horror, and shame.

Again he became the tormentor of the city, he who was himself no
longer accessible to torment. The gadfly had been killed, but it stung
the people more sharply than ever--sleep not, sleep not this night, O
men of Athens! Sleep not! You have committed an injustice, a cruel
injustice, which can never be erased!

II

During those sad days Xenophon, the general, a pupil of Socrates, was
marching with his Ten Thousand in a distant land, amid dangers,
seeking a way of return to his beloved fatherland.

AEschines, Crito, Critobulus, Phaedo, and Apollodorus were now occupied
with the preparations for the modest funeral.

Plato was burning his lamp and bending over a parchment; the best
disciple of the philosopher was busy inscribing the deeds, words, and
teachings that marked the end of the sage's life. A thought is never
lost, and the truth discovered by a great intellect illumines the way
for future generations like a torch in the dark.

There was one other disciple of Socrates. Not long before, the
impetuous Ctesippus had been one of the most frivolous and
pleasure-seeking of the Athenian youths. He had set up beauty as his
sole god, and had bowed before Clinias as its highest exemplar. But
since he had become acquainted with Socrates, all desire for pleasure
and all light-mindedness had gone from him. He looked on indifferently
while others took his place with Clinias. The grace of thought and the
harmony of spirit that he found in Socrates seemed a hundred times
more attractive than the graceful form and the harmonious features of
Clinias. With all the intensity of his stormy temperament he hung on
the man who had di