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Round the islands of the Blest." Was the pledge for Menelaus only? The boats came, the boats went, on the blue bay. But as the spring grew warm, Hermione thought less of them, less almost of the last dread vision of Glaucon. * * * * * * * The cloud of the Persian hung ever darkening over Athens. Continual rumours made Xerxes's power terrible even beyond fact. It was hard to go on eating, drinking, frequenting the jury or the gymnasium, when men knew to a certainty the coming summer would bring Athens face to face with slavery or destruction. Wise men grew silent. Fools took to carousing to banish care. But one word not the frailest uttered--"submission." Worldly prudence forbade that. The women would have stabbed the craven to death with their bodkins. For the women were braver than the men. They knew the fate of conquered Ionia: for the men only merciful death, for the women the living death of the Persian harems and indignities words may not utter. Whether Hellas forsook her or aided, Athens had chosen her fate. Xerxes might annihilate her. Conquer her he could not. Yet the early spring came back sweetly as ever. The warm breeze blew from Egypt. Philomela sang in the olive groves. The snows on Pentelicus faded. Around the city ran bands of children singing the "swallow's song," and beseeching the spring donation of honey cakes:-- "She is here, she is here, the swallow; Fair seasons bringing,--fair seasons to follow." And many a housewife, as she rewarded the singers, dropped a silent tear, wondering whether another spring would see the innocents anywhere save in a Persian slave-pen, or, better fate, in Orchus. Yet to one woman that spring there came consolation. On Hermippus's door hung a glad olive wreath. Hermione had borne a son. "The fairest babe she had ever seen," cried the midwife. "Phoenix," the mother called him, "for in him shall Glaucon the Beautiful live again." Democrates sent a runner every day to Eleusis to inquire for Hermione until all danger was passed. On the "name-day," ten days after the birth, he was absent from the gathering of friends and kinsmen, but sent a valuable statuette to Hermione, who left it, however, to her father to thank him. The day after Phoenix was born old Conon, Glaucon's father, died. The old man had never recovered from the blow given by the dishonourable death of the son with whom he had so lately quarrelled. He left a g
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