. This
honest fellow is on private business which only I must hear."

Bias slammed the door. Perhaps he stood listening. Hiram, at least, glided
nearer to his victim and spoke in a smooth whisper, taking no chances of
an eavesdropper.

"Excellency, the desire of Lycon is this. The army has been sent to Tempe.
At Lacedaemon Lycon used all his power to prevent its despatch, but
Leonidas is omnipotent to-day in Sparta, and besides, since Lycon's
calamity at the Isthmia, his prestige, and therefore his influence, is not
a little abated. Nevertheless, the army must be recalled from Tempe."

"And the means?"

"Yourself, Excellency. It is within your power to find a thousand good
reasons why Themistocles and Evaenetus should retreat. And you will do so
at once, Excellency."

"Do not think you and your accursed masters can drive me from infamy to
infamy. I can be terrible if pushed to bay."

"Your Nobility has read Lycon's letter," observed the Phoenician, with
folded arms.

There was a sword lying on the tripod by which Democrates stood; he
regretted for all the rest of his life that he had not seized it and ended
the snakelike Oriental then and there. The impulse came, and went. The
opportunity never returned. The orator's head dropped down upon his
breast.

"Go back to Sparta, go back instantly," he spoke in a hoarse whisper.
"Tell that Polyphemus you call your master there that I will do his will.
And tell him, too, that if ever the day comes for vengeance on him, on the
Cyprian, on you,--my vengeance will be terrible."

"Your slave's ears hear the first part of your message with joy,"--Hiram's
smile never grew broader,--"the second part, which my Lord speaks in
anger,--I will forget."

"Go! go!" ordered the orator, furiously. He clapped his hands. Bias
reentered.

"Tell the constables I don't need them. Here is an obol apiece for their
trouble. Conduct this man out. If he comes hither again, do you and the
other slaves beat him till there is not a whole spot left on his body."

Hiram's genuflexion was worthy of Xerxes's court.

"My Lord, as always," was his parting compliment, "has shown himself
exceeding wise."

Thus the Oriental went. In what a mood Democrates passed the remaining day
needs only scant wits to guess. Clearer, clearer in his ears was ringing
AEschylus's song of the Furies. He could not silence it.

"With scourge and with ban
We prostrate the man
Who with smooth-woven wile