vour, lift from my heart this crushing load. Deliver me from the
fear of the blood guilty. Are ye not divine? Do not the immortals know all
things? Ye know, then, how I was tempted, how sore was the compulsion, and
how life and love were sweet. Then spare me. Give me back unhaunted
slumber. Deliver me from Lycon. Give my soul peace,--and in reward, I swear
it by the Styx, by Zeus's own oath, I will build in your honour a temple
by your sacred field at Colonus, where men shall gather to reverence you
forever."

But here he ceased. In the darkness moved something white. Again a
flapping. He was sure the white thing was Glaucon's face. Glaucon had
perished at sea. He had never been buried, so his ghost was wandering over
the world, seeking vainly for rest. It all came to Democrates in an
instant. His knees smote together; his teeth chattered. He sprang back
upon the door and forced it open, but never saw the dove that fluttered
forth with him.

"A hideous place!" he cried to his waiting friends. "A man must have a
stronger heart than mine to love to tarry after his prayer is finished."

Only a few days later Hellas was startled to hear that Tempe had been
evacuated without a blow, and the pass left open to Xerxes. It was said
Democrates, in his ever commendable activity, had discovered at the last
moment the mountain wall was not as defensible as hoped, and any
resistance would have been disastrous. Therefore, whilst the retreat was
bewailed, everybody praised the foresight of the orator. Everybody--one
should say, except two, Bias and Phormio. They had many conferences
together, especially after the coming and going of Hiram.

"There is a larger tunny in the sea than yet has entered the meshes,"
confessed the fishmonger, sorely puzzled, after much vain talk.

But Hermione was caring for none of these things. Her hands were busy with
the swaddling clothes. Her thoughts only for that wicker cradle which
swung betwixt the pillars, where Hermippus's house looked toward Salamis.

CHAPTER XIX

THE COMMANDMENT OF XERXES

It is easy to praise the blessings of peace. Still easier to paint the
horrors of war,--and yet war will remain for all time the greatest game at
which human wits can play. For in it every form of courage, physical and
moral, and every talent are called into being. If war at once develops the
bestial, it also develops as promptly the heroic.