d there be gods!" Glaucon was greatly doubting that at
last; "if ye have any power, if justice, truth, and honour weigh against
iniquity, put that power forth, or never claim the prayers and sacrifice
of men again."

Glaucon was past dreading for himself. He prayed that Hermione might be
spared a long life of tears, and that Artemis might slay her quickly by
her silent arrows. To follow his thoughts in all their dark mazes were
profitless. Suffice it that the night which had brooded over his soul from
the hour he fled from Colonus was never so dark as now. He was too
despairing even to curse.

The last hope fled when they heard the rattling of the cables weighing
anchor. Soon the soft slap of the water around the bow and the regular
heaving motion told that the _Bozra_ was under way. The sea-mouse creaked
and groaned through all her timbers and her lading. The foul bilge-water
made the hold stifling as a charnel-house. Lampaxo, Hib being absent,
began to howl and moan.

"O Queen Hera! O Queen Hera, I die for a breath of air--I, the most
patriotic woman in Athens!"

"Silence, goodwife," muttered Phormio, twisting desperately on the filthy
straw under him. "Have I not enough to fret about without the addition of
your pipings?" And he muttered underbreath the old saw of Hesiod:--

"He who doth a woman trust,
Doth trust a den of thieves."

"Silence below there, you squealing sow," ordered Hib, from the hatchway.
"Must I tan your hide again?"

Lampaxo subsided. Phormio tugged vainly at his feet in the stocks. Glaucon
said nothing. A terrible hope had come to him. If he could not speedily
die, at least he would soon go mad, and that would rescue him from his
most terrible enemy--himself.

* * * * * * *

The _Bozra_, it has been said, headed not south but eastward. Hasdrubal's
commission was to fetch Samos, where the still formidable fleet of the
Barbarian lay, and to put the precious packet from Democrates in the hands
of Tigranes, Xerxes's commander-in-chief on the coast of Asia Minor. But
although speed had been enjoined, the voyage did not go prosperously. Off
Belbina the wind deserted them altogether, and Hasdrubal had been
compelled to force his craft along by sweeps,--ponderous oars, worked by
three men,--but his progress at best was slow. Off Cythnos the breeze had
again arisen, but it was the Eurus from the southeast, worse than useless;
the _Bozra_ had been obliged to ride