g like locusts out of the dawn, swarming
over Ionia and Thrace, men and ships numerous beyond telling. They
meant no ill to honest islanders: a little earth and water were enough
to win their friendship. But they meant death to the hubris of the
Hellenes. Atta was on the side of the invaders; he wished them well in
their war with his ancient foes. They would eat them up, Athenians,
Lacedaemonians, Corinthians, Aeginetans, men of Argos and Elis, and
none would be left to trouble him. But in the meantime something had
gone wrong. Clearly there had been no battle. As the bodies butted
against the side of the galley he hooked up one or two and found no
trace of a wound. Poseidon had grown cranky, and had claimed victims.
The god would be appeased by this time, and all would go well.

Danger being past, he bade the men get ashore and fill the water-skins.
"God's curse on all Hellenes," he said, as he soaked up the cold water
from the spring in the thicket.

About noon he set sail again. The wind sat in the north-east, but the
wall of Pelion turned it into a light stern breeze which carried him
swiftly westward. The four slaves, still leg-weary and arm-weary, lay
like logs beside the thwarts. Two slept; one munched some salty figs;
the fourth, the headman, stared wearily forward, with ever and again a
glance back at his master. But the Lemnian never looked his way. His
head was on his breast, as he steered, and he brooded on the sins of
the Hellenes. He was of the old Pelasgian stock, the first bords of
the land, who had come out of the soil at the call of God. The
pillaging northmen had crushed his folk out of the mainlands and most
of the islands, but in Lemnos they had met their match. It was a
family story how every grown male had been slain, and how the women
long after had slaughtered their conquerors in the night. "Lemnian
deeds," said the Hellenes, when they wished to speak of some shameful
thing: but to Atta the shame was a glory to be cherished for ever. He
and his kind were the ancient people, and the gods loved old things, as
those new folk would find. Very especially he hated the men of Athens.
Had not one of their captains, Militades, beaten the Lemnians and
brought the island under Athenian sway? True, it was a rule only in
name, for any Athenian who came alone to Lemnos would soon be cleaving
the air from the highest cliff-top. But the thought irked his pride,
and he gloated over the Pe