the mountain. At
sight of Glaucon they feebly made to fly, but he held out his hand,
showing he was unarmed, and they halted also.

"Whence and whither, good father?"

Whereat the old man began to shake all over and tell a mumbling story, how
they had been set upon by the Scythian troopers in their little farm near
OEnophytae, how he had seen the farmhouse burn, his two daughters swung
shrieking upon the steeds of the wild Barbarians, and as for himself and
his wife and son, Athena knew what saved them! They had lost all but life,
and fearful for that were seeking a cave on Mt. Parnes. Would not the
young man come with them, a thousand dangers lurked upon the way? But
Glaucon did not wait to hear the story out. On he sped up the rocky road.

"Ah, Mardonius! ah, Artazostra!" he was speaking in his heart, "noble and
brave you are to your peers, but this is your rare handiwork,--and though
you once called me friend, Zeus and Dike still rule, there is a price for
this and you shall tell it out."

Yet he bethought himself of the old man's warning, and left the beaten
way. At the long steady trot learned in the stadium, he went onward under
the greenwood behind the gleaming river, where the vines and branches
whipped on his face; and now and again he crossed a half-dried brook,
where he swept up a little water in his hands, and said a quick prayer to
the friendly nymphs of the stream. Once or twice he sped through fig
orchards, and snatched at the ripe fruit as he ran, eating without
slackening his course. Presently the river began to bend away to westward.
He knew if he followed it, he came soon to Tanagra, but whether that town
were held by the Persians or burned by them, who could tell? He quitted
the Asopus and its friendly foliage. The bare wide plain of Boeotia was
opening. Concealment was impossible, unless indeed he turned far eastward
toward Attica and took refuge on the foothills of the mountains. But speed
was more precious than safety. He passed Scolus, and found the village
desolate, burned. No human being greeted him, only one or two starving
dogs rushed forth to snap, bristle, and be chased away by a well-sent
stone. Here and yonder in the fields were still the clusters of crows
picking at carrion,--more tokens that Mardonius's Tartar raiders had done
their work too well. Then at last, an hour or more before the sunset, just
as the spurs of Cithaeron, the long mountain over against Attica, began to
thrust t