ardonius suffered him to go with two faithful
eunuchs and rove through the deserted city. The Persians were mostly
encamped without the walls, and plundering was forbidden. Only Hydarnes
with the Immortals pitched on Areopagus, and the king had taken his abode
by the Agora. It was like walking through the country of the dead.
Everything familiar, everything changed. The eunuchs carried torches. They
wandered down one street after another, where the house doors stood open,
where the aulas were strewn with the debris of household stuff which the
fleeing citizens had abandoned. A deserter had already told Glaucon of his
father's death; he was not amazed therefore to find the house of his birth
empty and desolate. But everywhere else, also, it was to call back
memories of glad days never to return. Here was the school where crusty
Pollicharmes had driven the "reading, writing, and music" into Democrates
and himself between the blows. Here was the corner Hermes, before which he
had sacrificed the day he won his first wreath in the public games. Here
was the house of Cimon, in whose dining room he had enjoyed many a bright
symposium. He trod the Agora and walked under the porticos where he had
lounged in the golden evenings after the brisk stroll from the wrestling
ground at Cynosarges, and had chatted and chaffered with light-hearted
friends about "the war" and "the king," in the days when the Persian
seemed very far away. Last of all an instinct--he could not call it
desire--drove him to seek the house of Hermippus.

They had to force the door open with a stone. The first red torch-light
that glimmered around the aula told that the Eumolpid had awaited the
enemy in Athens, not in Eleusis. The court was littered with all manner of
stuff,--crockery, blankets, tables, stools,--which the late inhabitants had
been forced to forsake. A tame quail hopped from the tripod by the now
cold hearth. Glaucon held out his hand, the bird came quickly, expecting
the bit of grain. Had not Hermione possessed such a quail? The outlaw's
blood ran quicker. He felt the heat glowing in his forehead.

A chest of clothes stood open by the entrance. He dragged forth the
contents--women's dresses and uppermost a white airy gauze of Amorgos that
clung to his hands as if he were lifting clouds. Out of its folds fell a
pair of white shoes with clasps of gold. Then he recognized this dress
Hermione had worn in the Panathenaea and on the night of his ruin.