ardly regular, but expressive and tinged with an extreme
subtilty. When he laughed, in a strange, silent way, it was to reveal fine
teeth, while his musical tongue ran on, never waiting for answer.

His comrade, however, answered little. He barely rose to the other's
shoulder, but he had the chest and sinews of an ox. Graces there were
none. His face was a scarred ravine, half covered by scanty stubble. The
forehead was low. The eyes, gray and wise, twinkled from tufted eyebrows.
The long gray hair was tied about his forehead in a braid and held by a
golden circlet. The "chlamys" around his hips was purple but dirty. To his
companion's glib Attic he returned only Doric monosyllables.

"Thus I have explained: if my plans prosper; if Corcyra and Syracuse send
aid; if Xerxes has trouble in provisioning his army, not merely can we
resist Persia, but conquer with ease. Am I too sanguine, Leonidas?"

"We shall see."

"No doubt Xerxes will find his fleet untrustworthy. The Egyptian sailors
hate the Phoenicians. Therefore we can risk a sea fight."

"No rashness, Themistocles."

"Yes--it is dicing against the Fates, and the stake is the freedom of
Hellas. Still a battle must be risked. If we quit ourselves bravely, our
names shall be remembered as long as Agamemnon's."

"Or Priam's?--his Troy was sacked."

"And you, my dear king of Sparta, will of course move heaven and earth to
have your Ephors and Council somewhat more forward than of late in
preparing for war? We all count on you."

"I will try."

"Who can ask more? But now make an end to statecraft. We were speaking
about the pentathlon and the chances of--"

Here the same brawling voices that had arrested Simonides broke upon
Themistocles and Leonidas also. The cry "A fight!" was producing its
inevitable result. Scores of men, and those not the most aristocratic,
were running pell-mell whither so many had thronged already. In the
confusion scant reverence was paid the king of Sparta and the first
statesman of Athens, who were thrust unceremoniously aside and were barely
witnesses of what followed.

The outcry was begun, after-report had it, by a Sicyonian bronze-dealer
finding a small but valuable lamp missing from the table whereon he showed
his wares. Among the dozen odd persons pressing about the booth his eye
singled out a slight, handsome boy in Oriental dress; and since Syrian
serving-lads were proverbially light-fingered, the Sicyonian jumped
quickly at