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Title: Demophon, a Traveller's Tale
Date of first publication: 1927
Author: Forrest Reid (1875-1947)
Date first posted: Apr. 11, 2020
Date last updated: Apr. 11, 2020
Faded Page eBook #20200417

This eBook was produced by: Al Haines, Chuck Greif
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                  _BY THE SAME WRITER_:


                    THE BRACKNELS
                    FOLLOWING DARKNESS
                    THE GENTLE LOVER
                    AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE
                    THE SPRING SONG
                    W. B. YEATS: A Critical Study
                    A GARDEN BY THE SEA
                    PIRATES OF THE SPRING
                    PENDER AMONG THE RESIDENTS
                    APOSTATE

                     [Illustration: Frontispiece]




                               DEMOPHON

                         _A TRAVELLER’S TALE_

                                  by

                            _FORREST REID_


                     W. COLLINS SONS AND CO. LTD.
                               MCM XXVII

                           Copyright, 1927.


                      _Printed in Great Britain._


                                 _To_
                              _J. S. R._

                     _In Affectionate Token of a_
                           _Long Friendship_

_But of Demophon, the son of Keleos, it is said that when he grew to
boyhood he wandered from his father’s house, and because of something
divine in him met with divine adventures._




CONTENTS


CHAP.                                                               PAGE

    I. _The Coming of the Nurse_                                      13

   II. _The Childhood of Demophon_                                    23

  III. _A Boy on a Farm_                                              40

   IV. _Pholos_                                                       46

    V. _On the Mountains_                                             61

   VI. _Kidnappers_                                                   74

  VII. _The Pirate Ship_                                              83

 VIII. _Glaukos_                                                     101

   IX. _The Wrecker_                                                 114

    X. _The Trainer_                                                 129

   XI. _The Stone Serpent_                                           149

  XII. _Thebes_                                                      165

 XIII. _The Cave of Sophron_                                         180

  XIV. _The Cave of Sophron (continued)_                             202

   XV. _Euphorion_                                                   208

  XVI. _The Magic Valley_                                            228

 XVII. _The House of the Witch_                                      246

XVIII. _Journey’s End_                                               265




CHAPTER I

_The Coming of the Nurse_


Beyond the grove of laurels sacred to Artemis lay a blue, crinkled sea.
It glittered dazzlingly in the hot sunshine; and far out in the bay
where water and sky met, the dark rocks of Salamis rose like a
dream-island, because a God had dropped a haze about them.

High overhead an eagle passed, bearing some small white woolly beast in
his talons; and before he had disappeared there emerged on to the rough
dusty track that wound up from the shore through the hillside fields a
man, a little girl, and two goats. The man climbed slowly and
laboriously, having a heavy wine-skin upon his shoulders; the little
girl carried a basket of figs; the goats, with the perversity of their
kind, strayed to this side or to that.

The man walked without lifting his gaze from the stony path before him.
His name was Keleos. He was on the threshold of old age, his beard was
grizzled, his skin tanned like leather, and the sweat ran in beads from
the roots of his matted hair to his bushy eyebrows. The little girl was
hot too, but she was almost naked, and her slenderness made her cool to
look at. Her body was thin as a boy’s; her limbs were burnt by the sun
to a golden brown. She had a very dirty face, because she had rubbed a
dirty hand across it more than once; nevertheless, she was beautiful.
For the third time, in the shrill monotonous voice of childhood, she
called out, “Daddy, is this a good place?”

Her father had promised to rest when they reached a suitable resting
place, but the suitable resting place seemed always a little farther on;
and he answered now, without raising his head, “The spring is near. Then
we can rest and drink too, and you can cool your hands and face in the
water, Iole.”

Iole was silent. Not because she had no more to say, but because behind
her father’s back she had stuffed her mouth with a fig. As soon as she
had swallowed it she began again: “Daddy, may I give Demophon some
figs?”

The man shook his head.

“Why mayn’t I?” Iole asked. But already her attention had wandered,
following a butterfly that kept hovering a few yards in front of her,
spreading out his gorgeous wings when he alit for a moment on a stone in
the path. She piped on, “Daddy, why mayn’t I?” and the man answered
gravely, “You know he is too sick to care for them, my bird.”

Iole dropped a pace behind and chose another fig. She looked up in the
direction of the house, which was not yet in sight, though she could see
the fields beside it, yellow with the ripened corn. To-morrow the
reapers would be busy, and to-morrow she, too, would be busy, helping to
tie up the sheaves, but more particularly searching for nests of field
mice. Then, as her eyes rested upon them, the colour of the fields
changed. A ripple of wind, it might be, sweeping across them and bending
the heavy ears sideways: but Iole knew that it was the spirit of the
Great Mother herself passing through the corn, and for a moment her
expression became thoughtful.

She knew it was a God who was responsible for her brother’s sickness; or
if not a God, then a bogey, such as the wicked Mormo. Or it might be a
witch, or a vampire, or even a possessor of the evil eye. Demophon, at
any rate, had been hung about with charms and amulets till he resembled
a small idol, though these precautions had been taken too late to make
him any better.

A turn in the path aroused her from meditation. She hastened her steps,
because she wanted to be first at the well. She was not first, however;
somebody was there before her; an old woman, who was sitting on a great
flat stone under the lime tree, and looking down into the water.

Iole stopped abruptly; but the woman did not turn her head. Though she
seemed old, and looked tired and worn and melancholy, she was not, Iole
presently thought, really very old. She was strong, and her body was
erect. It was her hair that was old, old and gray, gray as the stone on
which she sat; and it was drawn down smoothly in two rippling waves on
either side of her broad forehead. Her throat rose like a strong column
from the loose draperies of her dark robe; her feet were slender and
beautiful. Suddenly she lifted her eyes, and they were very deep and
stern.

Nobody spoke--neither Keleos, nor the woman, nor the goats, nor Iole.

At last the child took a step forward. “Mother,” she whispered, holding
out her basket with its fruit. And still the woman made no movement.

Keleos sat down and wiped the sweat from his eyes. He greeted the
stranger, and invited her to come with them to the farm house.

She shook her head. “I am looking for my daughter,” she answered.

Keleos gazed down towards the sea. He did not renew his invitation, and
once or twice he glanced at the woman uneasily. She was not of their
part of the world, he knew. Better to keep silent and wait for an
explanation till she should give it of her own accord.

Such, however, was not Iole’s view. Before Keleos could check her first
question she had asked three. “Are you waiting for her? Is she really
lost? Was she a little girl like me?”

“Be quiet, ill-mannered child,” her father broke in hurriedly.

But the woman did not seem to be offended. “She was older than you,” she
answered. “I think she has been stolen.”

“By pirates?” Iole guessed; and her next thought was that it would be
pleasant to be stolen by pirates--great fierce bearded men with gold
rings in their ears. They might make her their queen. Then she would
live on an island of her own, and send them all over the world in search
of treasures. And she would have black slaves, Ethiopian boys; and tame
panthers from Lydia. And the slaves would swing a great fan of peacock
feathers to keep the room cool, and the panthers----

So absorbing were Iole’s visions that she ceased to pay much attention
to what the stranger was saying. Iole had begun to envy the stolen
daughter. Nothing ever happened at Eleusis. You might go down to the sea
day after day and never catch a glimpse of a pirate. The woman was
talking now to her father, and what she talked about was not very
interesting. It was of her own wanderings, and she seemed to have found
nothing and to have had no adventures.

Still, when at the end of it all Keleos again urged the stranger to come
with them, Iole also whispered, “Come.”

But the woman did not stir till Keleos began to tell her about Demophon.
Then she got up, and they knew that she had yielded; and it was only
now, as she rose and stood in the green flickering shadow of the lime
tree, that they saw how tall she was--taller than Keleos. There was a
majesty about her, a grandeur, something commanding and awe-inspiring,
so that Iole instinctively clasped her father’s hand, half wishing they
had not been so persistent in their invitation.

They resumed their journey, the goats now walking quietly in front, side
by side, demure as boys in the procession of Apollo. After them came
Iole, and behind her Keleos and the stranger, whose name was Deo. And as
she climbed the stony path Deo stooped from time to time to gather the
dark poppies growing beside it.

Presently the farm house came into view--a low oblong building of wood
and unbaked brick. On one side of the gate was a willow in whose hollow
trunk the bees had swarmed; on the other was a rough wooden image of
Priapos, which, with the old dog Tauros, guarded the entrance. Behind
the house was an orchard, its trees covered with pink-and-white blossom.
Some of this blossom had already fallen, and lay among the long green
grass like a light drift of coloured snow. And through the apple boughs
a blue thread of smoke rose from a hidden fire, bearing the sharp bitter
pungency of burning leaves.

Tauros had got up at the sound of familiar footsteps, and he advanced to
meet them, with a bushy wagging tail and a caution bred of rheumatism.
Iole rushed on past him and into the house to tell her mother of the
visitor, so that before Deo and her father reached the door Metanira
herself was there, with the younger girl Rhodea peeping out from behind
her.

Metanira was thin, dry, and sharp-featured. In her small, quickly-moving
eyes there was neither the benevolence nor the candour that shone in the
simple open gaze of her husband. She had an air of suspicion and
peevishness, and the thin, wry smile with which she welcomed the
stranger did not alter this expression.

Nevertheless, her words were kindly enough as she invited Deo into the
house. It was a much larger house than it had appeared to be from the
road. The principal room was wide and lofty, with great smoke-blackened
beams that supported the roof and were half lost in shadow. A fire
smouldered on the open hearth, and on the farther wall were doors, now
closed, leading to the sleeping chambers. The seats had blue woven
coverings; there was a big square table, waxed and polished; and in one
corner, his white face still puckered though his feeble crying had
ceased on their entrance, lay Demophon. His toys were strewn beside him.
Tauros, who had come in last, walked slowly up to him, but the others
hung in the background, for, though nobody could have said why, a
feeling of expectancy seemed to fill the room as the stranger, with the
poppies in her hand, crossed the dark earthen floor and stooped down
over the bed.

They saw her kiss the sick boy on his mouth, and then they saw a
marvellous thing, for at that kiss the paleness left his cheeks and the
flush of health returned to them. They saw him stop crying and his tears
turn first to wonder, and then to a half-sleepy laughter, as the new
nurse lifted him from his bed and held his naked body in her bosom.

A murmur rose from the little group of watchers by the door. Iole
clapped her hands, and Rhodea in imitation clapped hers also. Keleos and
Metanira dropped on their knees, because they believed they had received
a direct answer to their prayers, and that the Gods had chosen this
woman as their intermediary. But already, in the midst of her
thanksgiving, the practical mind of Metanira was planning how they
might keep the stranger with them. They might tell her that she was
likely to find her lost daughter here. After all, she was just as likely
to find her here as anywhere else. So Metanira began immediately to
produce arguments and persuasions. She remembered a dream she had had a
few days ago, in which she had seen a maiden wandering over the fields
at night, with a lighted lantern in her hand; and she had come up the
path to the house, and had put the lantern on the ground and had knocked
at the door. Clearly a God must have sent this dream, and clearly its
meaning was that the lost girl would find her way sooner or later to the
farm.

Keleos listened gravely to his wife’s words. He was a pious old man, but
for some reason the Gods never communicated with him directly, so that
it was always through Metanira that he learned of their purposes and
desires. Deo said nothing at all; nor was it possible to read in her
countenance whether she had been impressed by Metanira’s dream. She was
busy infusing the poppies she had gathered in warm milk, and when the
drink was ready she gave it to the little boy, who, after he had
swallowed it, sank into a quiet sleep.

Metanira, through a running monologue constantly broken by some fresh
inspiration, now set to the preparation of their own evening meal, while
Iole laid the table. All the good things the larder contained were
spread out in a feast--curds and milk, yellow loaves, cheese and onions,
apples and honey, dark purple wine in goat-skin bottles, and water from
the spring.




CHAPTER II

_The Childhood of Demophon_


From that memorable day upon which he passed into the keeping of the new
nurse, Demophon throve and grew apace. Of the nurse herself they learned
nothing beyond the extremely little she had already told them, and they
stood too deeply in awe of her to ask the questions Metanira never tired
of asking when she was not there. They were questions, to be sure, upon
which only Deo could have thrown much light, but Metanira continued to
ask them, supplying the answers also, and if these were more remarkable
for variety than consistency, at least nobody was in a position to
contradict them. Metanira, at the same time, had the good sense to
refrain from interfering between Deo and her little boy, though the
stranger’s methods were in some respects by no means to her liking.

For in this small household Deo and her charge lived very much apart. To
Keleos it mattered nothing; he went his customary ways; but Metanira
found it harder and harder to accept an arrangement which practically
ignored her existence. It was humiliating. Deep down in her heart she
was still grateful to the woman who had saved her child’s life (or at
least had arrived at the mysterious turning point in his illness, for
Metanira was becoming sceptical): nevertheless, she was hurt by Deo’s
attitude of aloofness. If the nurse was fond of one member of the
family, it seemed to Metanira that she ought to be fond of them all. And
if she wasn’t fond of them all--then she might at least try not to show
it quite so plainly.

At first she had thought Deo to be merely reserved, and she had waited
hopefully for this reserve to thaw into a more genial relationship. As
the months passed, however, the futility of such a hope became apparent.
It was not reserve at all: it was an unconscious and complete
indifference. In vain Deo’s attention was drawn to the charms of Iole
and Rhodea: the nurse looked at them, and then, without a word, sank
back into her own thoughts. What _were_ these thoughts, Metanira wanted
to know? And why did she refuse to speak even of her lost daughter? It
was only with Keleos that she now and again entered into conversation,
giving him advice about farming matters, of which she seemed to possess
an exhaustive knowledge. And since her advice invariably led to the
happiest results, Keleos had come to regard her with an absurd
admiration. There was no use in appealing to him. Metanira’s growing
dissatisfaction was in fact expressed chiefly to the pots and pans, and
in sudden unexpected slaps of which Iole and Rhodea bore the brunt. She
admitted all Deo’s good qualities, but because one did this there was no
need to be blind to her faults. Metanira was not blind to them. She
decided that of all human imperfections what she most disliked was
secretiveness. It was not, she assured her husband, that she had the
slightest wish to pry into Deo’s affairs (though one would have thought
that between two women more or less of the same age there might be
_some_ little show of confidence); it was----

Metanira never definitely stated _what_ it was, so Keleos never quite
understood. But if she did not wish to pry into Deo’s secrets--then he
did not see what she had to complain of. He himself did not believe
there _were_ any secrets.

That was because he was a man, Metanira told him. All women had
secrets--including, if he cared to know it, his own wife. This last
remark, however, was lost upon Keleos. He had passed the age when it
might have aroused uneasiness. He merely pointed out how Demophon was
flourishing under the new nurse’s care, and Metanira could not deny it.
The boy was growing in strength and beauty as she had never known a
child to grow before. “Why does she want to sit up at night after
everybody else has gone to bed?” Metanira demanded, choosing a safer
point of attack. “When does _she_ go to bed? Twice I lay awake on
purpose to listen, and I never heard a sound. What does she do? And the
fires she keeps up! They’re not out even in the morning. Why should she
waste so much wood?”

“Surely that is a small matter!” Keleos answered good-humouredly. “What
are a few logs of wood--one way or another?”

Metanira had expected this reply. “You don’t understand,” she said
impatiently. “Nobody grudges her the wood.... If there was any _sense_
in it! But there isn’t; and she might easily fall asleep and the whole
place be set on fire. I’ve peeped through the door, and the room was as
bright as day. We don’t want to be all burned in our beds.”

That night she tried again to lie awake and listen, but it was hard
after the long toil of the day, and very soon she fell asleep.

Her grievance remained alert. It entered into her dreams, and she
dreamed of a long conversation with Deo, in which she boldly asked as
many questions as she wanted to. In the morning this bravery had
vanished.... And so it went on, till at last it seemed to Metanira that
unless she could share _one_ of these mysterious vigils with Deo her
mind would never be at rest again.

On the very next night, summoning up all her courage, she resolved to
do so. She entered with a rather tremulous excuse of sleeplessness, and
sat down by Deo’s side. The nurse took no notice of the excuse, nor
indeed of Metanira’s presence. And very soon poor Metanira wished she
had not come. The hearth, as she had expected it to be, was heaped with
great logs that blazed and crackled, shooting out fierce tongues of
scarlet flame, like angry serpents, and filling the whole room with
light and rapid shadows. The economical Metanira longed to extinguish
the fire, but she dared not say a word. In front of it Deo sat
motionless. She had taken Demophon from his bed, and he sat on her
knees, wide awake and watching the flames, holding out his hands as if
to encourage them. Surely he ought to have been asleep hours ago! To
Metanira, watching him wistfully, he never once turned his head.

She had again that painful, humiliating feeling of supreme unimportance.
And she felt incapable of drawing attention to herself by even the
timidest speech; for alone here, in the great empty hall at night, with
this mysterious nurse, her subconscious uneasiness had risen to the
surface and had turned to fear. It was not that she could associate any
thought of evil with that stern silent figure beside her. It was almost,
indeed, a holy dread, such as might be awakened by the loneliness of
great plains and silent mountains, by the sea or the sky. And it seemed
to Metanira that Demophon, little boy though he was, had somehow passed
out of her reach, had passed from _her_ small busy world into this
other, vaster, more remote world, which was Deo’s--that he was no longer
her son, but the son of the woman who held him in her arms.
Irrepressible tears rose in Metanira’s eyes and flowed one by one down
her thin cheeks. But she uttered no sound, made no complaint.

And presently, try as she would to keep awake, the drowsy coils of sleep
began to steal like a heavy vapour into her brain. Through the gathering
dimness, that grew ever denser and closer, she became aware of a shadowy
form towering above her; then she ceased to struggle, and her soul was
borne down and down, far below the level of consciousness....

When she opened her eyes dawn was breaking, and she was once more in her
own bed in her own room. She would have liked to believe she had never
left it--to believe she had only dreamed of that late visit--of Deo, and
the child, and the fire. But she could not deceive herself; she knew it
had all actually happened.... Keleos was yawning and muttering below his
breath: he was up and dressing, moving about in the semi-darkness of the
gray winter morning....

       *       *       *       *       *

So the days slid by, till winter turned to spring, and the new tender
herbage, like a delicate green mist, crept over the awakened earth, and
over the dark boughs of the trees. The birds were abroad, happily
building their small houses. In the valleys were violets, crocuses, and
hyacinths. Primroses decked the mossy banks of the water meadows, and
the sweet fresh perfume of leaf and blossom mingled pleasantly with the
salt smell of the sea.

Iole and Rhodea gathered baskets full of wild flowers, making the whole
farm house gay with them. Demophon had attained his seventh birthday;
and in face and body and limbs was lovely as a little God. He would sit
in the swing near the oak tree, while Deo pushed it high and higher, and
Tauros watched it till he grew tired of moving his old head from side to
side. But when Iole pushed it, it only went a little way, and when
Rhodea pushed it, it did not go at all.

Nobody could have imagined he had ever been ill. He laughed and shouted
and played from morning till night. Even if he fell and hurt himself he
did not cry. To simple-hearted Keleos it was a joy to watch him: only to
Metanira there seemed something unnatural in that flawless physical
perfection. It would have pleased her better had he, when he tumbled and
cut his knees, come weeping to her for consolation; it would have
pleased her better had she to find an excuse now and again for some
passing fretfulness such as other children showed. How could she feel he
was really hers when she could neither scold him nor comfort him?

And a new anxiety had arisen, for in these golden days of early summer
Deo kept him for long hours out of doors, and they wandered deep into
the woods, only returning when the evening shadows were stretching
across the fields. Had she been able to watch them in their rambles,
Metanira might have been more alarmed still. What kind of nurse was
this, at whose touch a bright, new flower would spring up out of the
ground? Demophon would dance round it, shouting and clapping his hands.
He, too, touched the grassy bank with a small finger in very careful
imitation of Deo; but no flower sprang up, though he stood gazing in
solemn expectancy. Then Deo, whom Metanira knew only as cold and stern
and silent, would laugh and catch him in her arms and hold him close,
breathing a divine sweetness about him, so that the flame of life in him
was strengthened, and through all his body and limbs there glowed the
dawning spirit of a God.

And sometimes in the very heart of the woodland, where a stream ran out
from a rocky ferny cave, and the dark mossy ground was starred with red
anemones, a visitor would come to them. He was a boy of fifteen or
thereabouts. His thick hair was short and curly--so curly that it was
like the little curls of astrakhan, except that it was yellow. The first
faintest golden down had just touched his cheeks, and his bright eyes
were the merriest Demophon had ever seen. He wore nothing but a big
flat-brimmed country hat at the back of his head, and on his feet
sandals with queer little wings attached to them. He carried a rod, and
twining up this rod were two golden snakes. The moment he saw him
Demophon felt happier than he had ever felt before.

This boy must be a boy Deo knew, for she was not a bit surprised to see
him; but it was for Demophon he had come, and in two minutes they were
friends. He was the most wonderful person in the world. He could make
toys out of wood or clay or pomegranate skin; he made a pipe of hemlock
stalks (binding the hollow stems with white wax), and when it was
finished he showed Demophon how to blow out of it musical sounds. He
taught him how to throw a spinning quoit; he taught him how to run and
leap and wrestle and box and swim; he turned the sylvan glade into a
green gymnasium and Demophon himself into the smallest of small
athletes.

They were the jolliest sports imaginable, though with his present
instructor Demophon would have found any sport jolly. He had conceived
for him a kind of worshipping admiration, and trotted after him
whithersoever he led, filled with unbounded trust. He imitated this
glorious leader in all his words and actions, sometimes so
unsuccessfully that his hero would nearly die of laughing. But probably
the leader was less careless than he seemed to be. Deo, at all events,
was willing to trust them together far out of her sight and hearing, nor
did Demophon’s subsequent descriptions of hairbreadth escapes and
reckless adventures bring more than a smile to her lips. Even when he
told her how he had fallen out of the very top of an oak tree, and how
the other boy had just managed to catch him before he reached the
ground, she only made him promise that he would not attempt such feats
when he was by himself. And once he asked her, “Is he my brother?”

She looked at him in surprise, for Demophon was quite old enough to know
that brothers are not picked up in the woods in this haphazard fashion.
He did know it. He himself did not understand why he had asked such a
question; and the only explanation he could give was to repeat
passionately, “I want him always--always.”

Deo took him in her arms. “You queer little boy,” she murmured, looking
into his dark, shining eyes. “You are very human after all.”

“I love him,” Demophon answered. “And I love you....” Then he added, as
if the thought dimly troubled him, “I don’t think I love anybody else.
Ought I to?”

“You love Keleos a little,” Deo said, “and Tauros.”

Next morning the woodboy brought a young ram on his shoulders. He gave
it to Demophon, telling him it was a present for him, if he could keep
it; and he watched him closely as he struggled to do so. Demophon
struggled stoutly, very red in the face, till the ram suddenly butted
him in the stomach. Then he tumbled over in the grass, and the woodboy
laughed; but the ram ran away and was never seen again.

       *       *       *       *       *

Demophon had learned to be nearly as silent concerning his doings as Deo
herself, yet a chance word about this ram, the wooden boats, the
Pan-pipes, and other similar treasures, set the parents asking
questions, and then exchanging conjectures as to who the mysterious
playmate might be. Keleos could think of nobody, but Metanira thought of
Linos, the son of Phaleris, an idle, good-for-nothing boy, much given to
wandering about the countryside, spying after the water nymphs, and the
cause of endless trouble to his good old father and mother, who were
decent hard-working people. In this way she created for herself a
further grievance against Deo, who, characteristically, either could not
or would not tell them anything. Nor was it removed when she discovered
that the new playmate could not have been Linos, because Linos had run
away from home early in the year, following a troop of dancers to
Megara. The fact is, in Metanira’s heart, her first feeling of
gratitude to Deo had long since given place to jealousy. From now on she
began to take wretched counsel with herself, and at last, in the name of
prudence, to shape a secret plan.

Every night, as usual, she retired early with her husband to their
bedchamber; but one night, as soon as she heard from his breathing that
Keleos had dropped asleep, she got up, and wrapping a woollen fleece
about her, sat down to wait. She was very patient, and not till she
believed it to be past the middle of the night did she stealthily open
her door. Then, like a ghost, Metanira glided into that room where the
fire was burning with its great light. Before the hearth sat Deo, and
kneeling on her knees was Demophon. His hands were clasped round Deo’s
neck, and she was anointing his body, though with what mysterious
unguent Metanira could not tell. But as she stood there a sudden
thought, and this time a quite new thought, came to her. It entered her
mind, not as a suspicion, not as a possibility, but fully grown, as if
some one had whispered it in her ear. Tales had reached her, as they had
indeed reached all the world, of the witches of Thessaly, of their
powerful charms which could raise furious storms on a cloudless night,
or draw down the moon into a pail of water. And Metanira was convinced
that she had been harbouring one of these baleful women in her house.
She knew enough of their magic to know what unholy transformation
followed on the anointment of their bodies. She half expected at that
moment to see feathers sprouting on the body of Demophon, to see both
nurse and boy taking flight in the form of screech-owls. It had been by
magic, she now saw, that Demophon had been cured. It had been by magic
that first he had been made sick, thus giving the witch an opportunity
to enter the house, and so to draw him more completely within her power.
And suddenly her blood froze in horror, for she saw Deo bend down with
the boy in her arms, and place him in the red heart of the fire, and
rake the ashes over him. So great was the shock she received that for a
few seconds she could neither move nor speak. Then her wild shrieks rang
through the sleeping house, and she rushed from her hiding-place. But
Deo had already snatched the boy out of the fire and set him on the
floor, where he stood, covered with cinders, clutching her dark robe.

Aroused by the mother’s screams, the others--Keleos, Iole,
Rhodea--appeared in the doorway, trembling, fearful of what they might
find. Metanira, pointing to Deo, continued to scream. She had lost all
self-control, and with her gray disordered hair and white convulsed face
looked herself at that moment much more like a witch than Deo did.

“She is a witch! The stranger is a witch!” Metanira shrieked, tearing
herself free from Keleos, who had put his arms round her and was trying
to restrain her. “Ask her what she has done with our child. I saw her
smear his body with her drugs. I saw her put him in the fire. But it is
she who shall be burned--burned alive----” Her voice broke suddenly and
she dropped to the floor moaning and wailing.

And Deo stood there, terrible at last in her anger. “Fool,” she said
pitilessly. “Poor raving fool. I would have made your son immortal. I,
even I, swear it by the waters of Styx. Eternal youth I would have given
him, and the glory of the deathless Gods. Nightly I anointed him with
ambrosia, and nightly I placed him like a brand in the fire, and nightly
there was burned out of him some portion of the gross and earthy
element. The task was almost accomplished, but now it is undone--undone
by prying and suspicion. Take him back, then; but know that you have
dragged him back to change and old age and death.... Yet because he has
lain on my knees, and breathed my breath, some touch of divinity must
still be his, marking him off from the common race of men. For I am
Demeter, great even among the Immortals, and I came here because that
old man’s simple heart found favour in my eyes. Now I must go again, and
you will never see me more.”

As she spoke, she pushed Demophon to his mother. And suddenly her form
towered up, filling the room with a blinding glory, and her head touched
the roof-beams. The semblance of age dropped from her; her yellow hair
was like the corn at harvest time.

But the wretched Metanira and Keleos fell on their knees at her feet,
begging her forgiveness. Iole and Rhodea too knelt down, weeping, though
they did not know what had happened, except that it was some terrifying
calamity. Only Demophon remained as he was. He wanted his Deo, and he
still clutched her robe. But the Goddess loosened his grasp and pushed
him towards his mother. Then she passed out of the house, and there was
a loud beating of immense wings, and a chariot drawn by two dragons
rushed down through the moon-washed night. The winged dragons stood
there in the moonshine, their great eyes glowing like emerald lamps,
their fierce tails lashing the ground, their green and scarlet scales
shining like precious stones over which a stream of fire flows. The
Goddess stepped into her golden chariot, and the dragons spread their
coloured, gorgeous wings, which were eyed like a peacock’s tail. And
they mounted into the wide air, and rose higher and higher, passing
across the face of the moon, and leaving a trail of crimson stars behind
them as they sped up through the sky to Olympos.

When the last flaming star had burned out; when the chariot had utterly
disappeared, silence flowed back over the earth, like the closing in of
sundered waters. In the dark heavens once more only the moon floated,
shedding peace on the quiet fields. A nightingale began to sing; a cock
crew; the shrill voices of the frogs rose from the water meadows. Then,
kneeling side by side on the holy ground before the door, Keleos and his
wife and children prayed aloud to the offended Goddess.

When they re-entered the house they found Demophon standing in the
middle of the floor, sulky and covered with cinders. Passionately
Metanira clasped him in her arms. Already her alarm had subsided. She
was conscious now only of the love that for so long had found no outlet.
Her thoughts were not the thoughts of Keleos. Secretly she was glad that
the Goddess had gone away; secretly she was glad that she had spied upon
her, and screamed; secretly she was glad that Demophon was not a little
God but a little boy, and that she had him now, once more and for ever,
all to herself. But she felt him struggle in her arms, and as he fought
against her close embrace her tears fell. She spoke little love words to
him, but he frowned and repulsed her, and drew streaks of dirt across
his wet cheeks as he rubbed away his tears. He did not want her, he did
not want Iole, he did not want Rhodea, he did not want Keleos, he
wanted Deo. He lifted his hand and struck at Metanira, who still tried
to clasp him. “You sent her away. You sent her away,” he cried, bursting
anew into angry sobs. “Leave me alone. I hate you.”




CHAPTER III

_A Boy on a Farm_


It would have been natural enough had the abrupt and dramatic departure
of the nurse led to a great deal of discussion; but such was not the
case. For one thing, except Keleos, Metanira, and the children, nobody
knew in what manner she had gone; and Keleos and Metanira did not allude
to the subject. Metanira, though she regretted nothing, had her own
reasons for preserving silence; Keleos, whatever he may have thought,
kept his thoughts to himself; Iole and Rhodea were strictly forbidden to
mention the matter. And as they grew older it was assumed that the
children had forgotten. It was particularly assumed that Demophon had
forgotten, because this was desirable even if improbable, and since that
unfortunate night he had never spoken Deo’s name. In fact, the one
visible consequence that had accrued from this now closed episode was
the careful watch thenceforward kept on all the little boy’s comings and
goings.

Apart from this, his upbringing was normal. Once or twice he had tried
to escape by himself, and on each of these occasions he had run in the
direction of the wood, but had been captured before reaching it. And it
was noticeable that he had allowed himself to be brought back without a
struggle or a murmur. Such a good little boy! After that brief outburst,
when he had so naughtily repulsed his mother, he had become a singularly
docile child. Not quite such a bright little fellow as before, perhaps;
indeed, sometimes dull and apathetic; but his bodily health remained
perfect, and there was no more nonsense about woodboys or other
questionable companions. Metanira, yielding to a nameless superstition,
confiscated all the gifts he had brought home from that now distrusted
wood. One morning, when she was alone, she made a bonfire of the
lot--toys, Pan-pipes, and everything--after which she felt a good deal
easier. She felt too, perhaps, just a tiny pang of compunction when she
saw Demophon silently searching for his treasures, and then, also in
silence, abandoning the search.

       *       *       *       *       *

When he was ten years old he was sent to school at Eleusis. He was
escorted thither by an old and trustworthy slave, who carried his lyre
and his tablets, and never, either going or coming, let him out of sight
for a moment. The school was kept by Pittakos, a poet. Here Demophon was
taught to read and to write and to count. He was also taught music, and
to speak or chant poetry--chiefly the poetry of Pittakos, who
accompanied his pupils on a flute. But these lessons were not so
romantic as they sound: the poetry was of a didactic and improving
character, and Pittakos himself was getting old and crabbed. He would
fly into a temper on the slightest provocation--if his pupils forgot to
wipe their fingers on a piece of bread after eating, if they sat down on
the sandy floor with their legs crossed, or if they omitted, when they
got up, to rub out the marks they had made. When they were walking
through the streets of Eleusis they must never raise their eyes from the
ground; they must never address a stranger; they must never speak to a
person older than themselves, even if they knew him, unless that person
spoke to them first; they must not loiter before the shops, nor go near
the public baths and gymnasiums; they must not laugh loudly, nor play
tricks, nor do anything that could possibly attract attention. And
Demophon obeyed most of these instructions, and was really in all
respects a paragon as compared with several of his schoolmates; in spite
of which he got many a scolding, while Pittakos rolled his eyes and
waved his leather strap and threatened to use it on the first boy he
heard uttering a whisper. He was the crossest old man imaginable.

But naturally a considerable part of the boy’s time was passed at home
on the farm. It was a quite agreeable life, because such tasks as he
performed were only the light and voluntary tasks that sprang out of his
own interest in them. Here, and in all open-air lore, his father was his
teacher. It was his father who taught him the names of the stars, who
taught him the names of the trees, and to what God each belonged--the
oak to Zeus, the fig and the vine to Dionysos, the myrtle to Aphrodite,
the olive to Athena, the laurel to Zeus and Apollo, the pine to
Poseidon. It was his father who taught him never to cross a stream
without first saying a prayer and bathing his hands in the pure water;
who taught him to bow himself to the shining car of Helios, when he went
out of doors at sunrise.

But most of what he learned had to do with the farm. He learned that the
time to reap the corn is at the morning rising of the Pleiades; that the
time for breaking up the ground is when the cranes are flying southward
in October, and the autumnal rains are near; that to get rid of the mice
who may be injuring the crops, you must go out to the fields before dawn
and write this inscription on an unhewn stone: “O King Mouse, dwelling
in this field, neither injure me yourself nor allow another mouse to do
so. I give you all the fields of the next farm, but I swear by the
Mother of the Gods that if I catch you here again I will cut you in
seven pieces.”

Keleos taught him the rules and prayers that ensure the fruitfulness of
cattle and of the earth, taught him how to make the simple sacrifices of
fruit and barley, of pulse and olive-oil and honeycombs--pastoral
customs, pastoral wisdom, which he would one day, in turn, hand on to
his own children.

And it was all pleasant enough to a dreamy and imaginative boy.
Pleasant, too, were the scents of summer and of autumn, of the fallen
apples and pears and ripe plums. Pleasant were the sights and sounds of
the fields--the women with corn baskets on their heads, the reapers with
their moon-shaped sickles, cutting and binding the corn, while the old
man moved about superintending the work. The straw was not cut too
close, but was left to be ploughed into the ground for manure. And the
great white oxen, yoked to the plough, or threshing the grain under
their feet, were to Demophon most beautiful of all.

But sometimes another mood would awaken in him, a mood in which he felt
a restless desire to go out and explore the unknown world. In his mind
there still floated memories of Deo and their early days
together--memories, above all, of that beloved playmate, whom he now
guessed to have been Hermes, the divine son of the nymph Maia. Then he
would climb a hill and gaze along the road leading to Athens, twelve
miles away; or along the road to Megara. Somewhere, beyond the reach of
vision, beyond the rolling fields and plains and that blue distant line
of mountains, were those two whom he longed to see again, and one of
whom still visited and spoke to him in dreams that often seemed more
than dreams. He had sought out the green cave in the wood, but the
woodboy had not come to him, and the lonely beauty of the place, because
it reminded him at every turn of his lost friend, had been intolerably
sad. It had made him so sad, indeed, that after a second visit he had
not gone back....

       *       *       *       *       *

On his fourteenth birthday, on a morning of wintry sunshine, Demophon
went down to the little temple by the sea, and kneeling at the altar
stone, dedicated to the Goddess the newly shorn locks of his hair.




CHAPTER IV

_Pholos_


As spring drew near again, Demophon more and more frequently might have
been discovered on his hill-top. He would sit there in the young bright
grass with his back against a hollow stone, his whole body so quiet that
birds would alight at his feet, and King Mouse, who had his nest under
this particular stone, found him a terrible nuisance. His time was
always the late afternoon, and when the sun sinking in his fiery bed had
turned the horizon to a cloud of gold it was easy to believe that that
brightness hung above a dragon-guarded orchard, or even marked the
gateway to Elysium. Out there, at all events, somewhere in that wide
world, was his friend; out there, at this very moment, was the boy with
the golden rod. If only he knew where he was most likely to find him; if
only he knew which path to take! And Demophon would linger till the
light had faded to an ashen grayness, and the moon had floated up the
darkening sky, before at last, and with an ever-increasing reluctance,
he retraced his steps and descended the hill to his own home.

In the farm house they would be sitting waiting for him, the supper
laid, Keleos half asleep, Metanira at her spinning-wheel. But Iole had
found her pirate lover and was lost for ever, and Rhodea was married to
an image carver in Eleusis. The laughter of the old creaking house was
silenced, its light was hidden; the shadow of old age rested upon it.
Metanira was busy as ever, but she had grown rheumatic and was hard to
please. Tauros was dead. Keleos had become so deaf that unless you
shouted in his ear he heard nothing. As for Demophon himself, he still
attended the school of Pittakos, but his days there were numbered: the
farm awaited him, the farmer’s life, though his spirit, his
intelligence, all his instincts, reached out towards something utterly
different.

One evening, having returned later than usual from school, he climbed
the hill and sat hugging his knees, with his back to the farm house and
the fields surrounding it. Behind him the ground dropped steeply to the
ancient homestead, but in the direction in which he gazed the slope was
more gradual, ending in a small coppice whose trees were now
distinguishable only as a blur of deeper darkness on the twilit
landscape. Demophon was not thinking of the coppice, though his eyes
rested upon it, when out of its obscurity a vague white shape for a
moment emerged. It was gone again on the instant, leaving him puzzled,
for it had been considerably larger than a goat, and yet it was
unlikely that one of the oxen could have strayed. It had indeed been
more like a man on horseback than anything else, only horses were rare
in the neighbourhood, and why should a man on horseback be hiding in
that spot? Demophon gazed intently at the point where the mysterious
form had appeared, but though he now and then fancied something was
looking out at him through the fringe of shadowy branches, he knew it to
be fancy, because, at that distance, no face really could be visible. It
would not take him long to run down the slope and explore the little
wood, and he felt he ought to do so. It might be a ghost, for though,
from its size and shape, it could not be the ghost of a man, Demophon
knew that animals had ghosts, having himself seen in dreams the phantom
of the old dog Tauros. To tell the truth, if he had thought it to be a
human ghost he would not have ventured near it; but the ghost of a beast
could do him no harm, since there is no such thing as an evil beast.
Therefore, after some further deliberation, he descended the slope,
keeping a cautious watch on the whole line of trees.

When he had nearly reached the wood’s edge he heard the sound of a
branch snapping, and then a rustling in the tangled brushwood. This was
no ghost; and from the heaviness of the movements he guessed it to be an
ox, after all. He came to a standstill. Whatever was there was straight
in front of him and not fifty yards away, hidden by the matted bushes
and trees.

Again he heard a heavy plunging sound, and this time caught a glimpse of
something pale moving between the branches. Then, all at once, a white
shape broke through the wall of leaves and stood facing him, remaining
at first as still as Demophon himself, but after a little taking a step
forward, and then another, till, seeing that the boy did not run away,
the shy, beautiful creature trotted quietly up to him.

Demophon was far too surprised to think of running away. The monster
before him was as strange as he was splendid. He understood why he had
thought of a rider on horseback; for from the body of this great
milk-white horse there did spring the body of a man--but he was neither
man nor horse; he was a centaur. His long tail switched the tops of the
tall grasses; from time to time one delicate hoof pawed the ground. Then
half proudly, half defiantly, like an impulsive child, he said, “I am
Pholos, and you are the boy on the hill.”

“Yes,” Demophon answered in wonderment.

“I saw you first,” said Pholos quickly. “I saw you long before you saw
me.”

But Demophon did not think of disputing this claim. “I wasn’t hiding,”
he said. “I was on the top of a hill, right out in the open: it would
have been strange if you hadn’t seen me.... Why did you hide?” he went
on, his interest overcoming his first feeling of alarm. “I thought you
must be an ox strayed from the farm.”

“I hid because I was not sure of you,” said Pholos.

Demophon was disappointed. Such a confession, coming from so large and
powerful a creature, was not what he had expected. “Surely you weren’t
frightened!” he said.

“No, not exactly.” Pholos pawed the ground again, with a slight air of
embarrassment. “You see---- Well, once or twice accidents have happened,
and I didn’t want another.”

“Accidents!... Accidents to you, do you mean?”

“No, not to me.... But boys--and even men--are inclined to snatch up
stones when they see any one who is not just the same as themselves.
That is what happened before; and then----”

“You don’t mean that you killed them!” Demophon exclaimed, very much
shocked.

“No, no, I hope not,” Pholos answered quickly. “I expect they recovered.
But they are so easily hurt.”

“I don’t believe they recovered at all,” said Demophon sternly. “And I
don’t know why you should have come here. You must have known that there
are always men and boys where there are farms.”

“Yes,” Pholos admitted. “But I came very early in the morning, and all
day I slept in that thicket.... And to-morrow morning I knew I should be
leagues away--among the mountains of Thessaly, most likely.”

There was a long silence, and then Demophon sighed. “When are you
going?” he asked.

“Now--now--at once.” Pholos seemed suddenly all eagerness to be off. He
shook himself and kicked up his heels. “Jump on my back and I will take
you with me. What is your name?”

“My name is Demophon and I live in the farm house on the other side of
the hill. You can’t see it from here, but it is quite close.” He added
this by way of precaution, just in case Pholos should think he was all
alone.

But Pholos was not listening. “I will take you to Cheiron’s cave. He
lives at the foot of Mount Pelion, and he will make you his pupil.”

“I have a master already,” Demophon replied. “And Mount Pelion is too
far away. I must be going home.”

“Far! What matter how far it is? Cheiron is a great teacher. He has had
lots of pupils--Herakles, Odysseus, Iason, Achilles, Helen’s brothers--I
can’t tell you how many. But they all did very well afterwards.”

“Why should he teach a stranger?” Demophon asked suspiciously. “And why
should you want to take me to him?”

“Because you want to go. Besides, I think you are really a little God,
or else that a God has you under his protection.”

Demophon shook his head. “I’m not,” he answered. “I am only an ordinary
boy. My father is just a farmer, and I am going to be a farmer too.”

“What made you sigh, then, when I spoke of a journey?”

“I didn’t know I had sighed.”

“Well--you did--I heard you,” said Pholos. “Quite a deep sigh, too. I
will take you to Cheiron. He has nobody just now: at least, nobody very
promising.”

Demophon drew back a pace. “Thank you; but I can’t possibly come,” he
answered. “For one thing, I shouldn’t be allowed.”

“But you want to come--I know you want to come,” Pholos said
impatiently. “And that is all that matters. So jump up----”

“It isn’t all that matters. If I had a brother who could take my place,
then perhaps----”

“Was it of this you were thinking while you sat up there on the
hill-top?”

“No.”

“What were you thinking of? I could see even from here that it was
something difficult. Was it a problem? If five crows eat five plums in
five minutes, how many plums will six crows eat in an hour?”

“I don’t call _that_ difficult,” said Demophon. “It’s nothing to what
Pittakos gives us. Seventy-two is the answer.”

“It isn’t,” said Pholos.

“Yes, it is. And at any rate I wasn’t doing problems: I was just
remembering--remembering what happened once--when a stranger came to our
house.”

“What happened?” asked Pholos curiously. At the same time he drew a step
nearer, while Demophon took two steps backward.

“It was when I was a child. The lady Deo was my nurse. She stayed with
us for nearly a year disguised as an old woman. But my mother made her
angry and she went away.”

“It is dangerous to make a Goddess angry.”

“We did not know she was a Goddess.... You are not a God, Pholos, are
you?”

“The Gods are the children of Earth and Sky and Night and the Sea. My
mother was the nymph Philura, and my father was Kronos. He married her
in the shape of a horse--I don’t know why. It was very unfortunate,
really, for mother was ashamed of us because we were monsters. So she
deserted us. And Kronos is shut up in his tower in the Holy Islands.”

“Poor Pholos.... Where are the Holy Islands?”

“I don’t know.”

“If I found them I might find----” But Demophon broke off to sigh once
more. Then he could not help adding, “There was a boy with a golden rod
and winged sandals who used to come to us in the woods. He was my
friend, my playmate.”

Pholos, with his head cocked on one side, looked at him triumphantly.
The white moon threw their shadows on the grass--a big black shadow for
Pholos and a slim little shadow for Demophon. “I _knew_ there was a
‘something’ about you,” Pholos said, “and you told me there wasn’t.”

“Neither there is.”

“Nonsense. Do you imagine ordinary little boys have Gods for their
playmates?”

“But it happened--oh, ever so long ago. And perhaps he wasn’t a God....”

“The road to the right leads to Elysium,” said Pholos. “Further than
that I cannot guide you.”

Demophon turned to the right; but the silvery dusk was all around them,
and he could see only a little way.

“Over hills and valleys and rivers and seas,” Pholos went on in a drowsy
sing-song, “and the sun shines there while it is night here.”

Demophon stood close against the white horse, with his arm round his
shoulder. “Tell me more, dear Pholos,” he coaxed, stroking the smooth
silky coat.

“There are fields of crimson roses, and three times a year the trees
bear fruit. No storms blow there, and there is no snow. But neither is
it too hot. The land is never parched, and the sea wind breathes softly
through the branches. There, by the streams that flow through green
meadows, every one is happy after his own fashion--making music or
poetry, or wrestling, or playing games, or running races, or
dancing--and the lover is with his beloved.”

“There is a magic in the night, isn’t there?” Demophon half whispered.
“It seems to be all round us, and the leaves are glittering.... Suppose
I went with you, but only just a very little way?”

“There is always a magic in the moon,” Pholos answered. “And I have seen
the witches of Thessaly draw her down out of the sky to lie foaming and
sick upon the grass.... Climb up on my back, little Demophon, for I am
swifter than the wind, and yet I will carry you so smoothly that you may
drop asleep and still not fall off. Lean forward and put your two arms
round me.”

It seemed to Demophon that he had not moved, and yet somehow he was on
the centaur’s back.

“Hold tight,” Pholos called out in sudden excitement.

“But I don’t want to go far,” Demophon answered uneasily. “You will
stop, Pholos, when I tell you to stop, won’t you?”

“Yes--yes. Have no fear.”

“Remember, you’ve promised.”

“I’ve promised that no harm will come to you.”

“You’ve promised to stop----”

But the wind was humming in his ears, and the trees slid past him, and
in a minute or two they were out in the open country, and in another few
minutes all the old familiar landmarks were behind them. They rushed
through the moonlight, and the rhythmic beating of the centaur’s hoofs
was like a music that shut out everything but the passionate joy of
speed. The moonshine spread a silver carpet over the wide plain; they
heard the calling of owls, and now and then, when they passed within
earshot of some outlying farm, they set half a dozen dogs a-barking. But
soon the barking sounded faint behind them, and still they flew on and
on. They crossed streams and skirted the rocky walls of mountains, and
Demophon kept crying, “Stop--stop,” and at last Pholos stopped.

Demophon slid dizzily to the grass. “Where are we?” he asked. “You have
brought me too far. How am I to get home again?”

“You will get home quite easily: it is no distance.” Pholos knelt down
and then rolled over on the grass just like an ordinary horse.

“But where are we?” Demophon persisted.

Pholos did not answer at once, but at last he said, “I’m not quite sure
where we are.”

“You’re not sure!” Demophon repeated.

Pholos wrinkled his brows. “I ought to know, of course. But---- You see,
I wanted a run so badly that I didn’t bother much about the direction.
We passed Parnassos on our left....”

“I must go home,” Demophon cried indignantly. “You had no right to bring
me all this distance. Nobody knows where I am. They will think an
accident has happened to me, or that I have run away. How long will it
take me to get back?”

Pholos considered while he scratched his head. “That is a very difficult
question,” he confessed at length. “Because---- Well, it depends so
much, doesn’t it, on how fast you can run and how soon you get out of
breath.... But very likely it will take you longer to get back than it
has taken me to come. You have only two legs, whereas I have four, and
am considered to be an exceptionally fast runner even by my brothers.
Suppose we put it as a problem. If four legs can run four miles in four
minutes, how long will it take two legs to run----”

“It isn’t four miles, and it will take me days and days,” declared
Demophon angrily. “You know it, and I told you to stop ages ago.”

Pholos looked very repentant. “Something seemed to get into my feet,” he
explained apologetically. “There was a magic in the night, and----”

“You are only saying that because I said it,” Demophon interrupted
crossly. “You know perfectly well you could have stopped any time you
wanted to.”

“I will take you to the cave of Cheiron. He is wise and good and you
will be his pupil.”

“I told you before I didn’t want to be his pupil. You keep on repeating
the same things. And now we are lost, and I don’t believe you have the
least idea where we are.”

He looked up at the dark silent mountain which rose high above them. A
stream fell down with a splashing sound between the rocks, and the
ground they rested on was thick with heather. Certainly, at this hour,
it seemed a singularly wild and lonely spot.

“We are not lost,” Pholos said. “Because, though I do not know the name
of this particular place, we can go straight from here to Mount Pelion,
when we have rested for an hour or two.... And over there is the sea.”

“That helps us a lot!” Demophon muttered sulkily.

“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” Pholos agreed. “And if you insist on going
home, all you have to do is to go back by the way we came.”

“I tell you I don’t _know_ the way we came. What’s the use of talking
like that!”

Pholos seemed surprised. “But surely at your age you can find your way
home as easily from one place as from another!”

“Oh, indeed! Well, it so happens that at my age I can do nothing of the
sort.”

Pholos was still incredulous. “But how can you go wrong? You just have
to turn in the right direction, and keep on till----”

“How am I to _know_ it is the right direction?” Demophon cried, raising
his voice a little in increasing exasperation. “Really, Pholos----!”

“You can feel it. It will _be_ the right direction.”

“It will be nothing of the sort,” said Demophon; but he saw it was no
use arguing and relapsed into a moody silence.

Pholos remained puzzled. “Why not?” he presently asked. And “Why not?”
he kept on repeating till in the end Demophon was obliged to answer.

“Because everybody isn’t the same as you. I can’t feel directions. I
hadn’t the slightest notion we were near the sea.”

“It isn’t so very near,” Pholos admitted. “A few miles, perhaps.”

There was a long pause during which the boy yawned twice. The scent of
the heather and the soft springiness of it, and the splashing of the
stream, had begun to make him drowsy. He was still annoyed with Pholos,
but he was becoming more sleepy than angry; and as he nestled up closer
to his companion and began to feel warmer and cosier, he told himself
it was his own fault, for getting on the centaur’s back, and that very
likely in the morning he would be able to persuade Pholos to take him
back to the farm. He had now grown quite accustomed to his monster, who
seemed really much more like a horse than a man. Yes, it would be easy
to get him to go back in the morning. And with this thought Demophon
fell asleep.




CHAPTER V

_On the Mountains_


But alas! when he woke up again, Pholos was gone. Gone without a word.
Demophon did not understand it; but so ended his plan for riding home,
and so ended his trust in centaurs. Here he was, left stranded, miles
away from Eleusis, with not a living creature in sight, not a house, not
so much as a ploughed field, but only a stretch of rocky heather, and
behind him the bare mountain. He felt uncommonly hungry, too. He had had
no supper on the previous night, and, as he surveyed the barren country
all around him, he could see small likelihood of breakfast either.

In the stream he washed himself, and then stood perfectly still, trying,
like Pholos, to “feel” the direction of home. The effort was
unsuccessful. The only thing of which he could be quite sure was that
they had not crossed the mountain, so he set out at a venture, and in an
hour or two struck a rough path, which presently led him to a road with
well-marked wagon ruts. The land was becoming more promising; there were
silvery poplars by the wayside; but as yet he had met nobody and seen no
house nor flocks nor any signs of cultivation. The morning was far
advanced when he reached a spot where his road was bisected by another,
narrower road. Here, at the crossing of the ways, stood a shrine
dedicated to the Triple Hekate. There were some round cakes upon the
altar, left there either for a passing wayfarer like himself, or in
honour of the Goddess; and, though they were far from fresh, he
swallowed them to the last crumb before sitting down in the shade to
consider what he should do next.

High overhead burned the afternoon sun. The entire landscape, and even
the sky, had acquired a hard enamelled brilliance. The two white roads
ran on perfectly straight as far as the eye could reach, but not a speck
was visible on either of them, nor was there any sound to be heard
except the shrill singing of the grasshoppers. Demophon took off his
cloak and rolled it into a pillow. It was pleasant to lie here, even
though it might be wiser to push on--at least till he should have
reached a house where he could get proper directions, food, and perhaps
a lodging for the night....

And then a quite new thought entered his mind. Now that he was at last
come out into this world he had so often longed to visit, would it not
be foolish to turn back? The summer months lay before him, and had he
actually planned to run away he could not have chosen a better time....

Only, he must send word to his parents.... Otherwise he would be no
better than Linos--who had run away, and sent no messages, and never
returned. Demophon did not want to be like that.... But he would be sure
to meet somebody--somebody travelling to Eleusis--who would carry a
message to the old people, tell them all was well. He would keep a sharp
look-out for such a traveller, and for a day or two at least there was
no hurry....

The sunshine was making him a little sleepy.... Still, he must not go to
sleep; for if he did, it might be dark when he awakened, and in the
darkness he would be more lost than he was at present....

He wondered if he _had_ been dozing! Surely the sun was much lower than
it ought to be? At that moment he heard a voice--quite near--and also
the squeaking and rumbling and bumping of a cart. Noisy as the cart was,
it was not so noisy as its driver. Demophon jumped up to look. It was a
mule cart, driven by a young man who was singing at the top of his
voice, but who, on catching sight of Demophon, suddenly broke off his
song and pulled up.

He was a countryman, with an honest, pleasant, good-humoured face. But
he looked flushed, as if he had been drinking, and evidently he was
rejoiced to find a companion with whom he could drink still more, for he
immediately produced a wooden cup, which he waved in the air while he
shouted to Demophon to approach.

The boy obeyed, but drank only a few mouthfuls of the dark wine poured
out for him. Seeing, however, that the cart was laden with provisions,
he mentioned that he was hungry. The driver was perhaps in a generous
mood, or perhaps it was that he had grown hungry himself: at any rate,
he at once began to rummage among his baskets, and very soon had set out
by the roadside enough food for half a dozen people. While Demophon ate,
he himself drank, and listened to an account of the adventure with
Pholos. He appeared to have some difficulty in grasping what actually
had happened, but this did not prevent him from expressing the warmest
approval of Demophon’s conduct, and the sternest condemnation of the
faithless Pholos. As for directions and advice, he overflowed with them.
“Take what food you want; it all belongs to my father, and you will need
it. The first thing you have to do is to cross the mountains. Your way
lies on the other side of them. Then you’ll be a little nearer
home--though not very much.” And he began to troll out in a baritone
voice of wonderful power and melodiousness:--

    “Over the mountains,
      Sacred to Pan,
     There you must journey,
      My little man.”

“Only they’re not sacred to Pan, but to Dionysos,” he added, stopping
abruptly. Then he drank another cup of wine, and asked, “Do you know any
songs?”

“I know some that Pittakos taught me,” Demophon answered.

“Pittakos--Pittakos--who might he be, now?”

“He is a poet of Eleusis. I went to his school.”

“A good poet and a bad schoolmaster; or perhaps a good schoolmaster and
a bad poet. We’ll hear him at any rate--Pittakos of Eleusis--and if he’s
not utterly impossible I’ll drink his health and the health of all poets
and all schoolmasters. Now, pupil, the Muses are gathering round us, and
this wooden cup shall be the prize.”

Demophon thought for a while, his bright dark eyes fixed on the
mule-driver’s face. Then he opened his mouth and began to chant in a
piercing and monotonous sing-song, just as Pittakos had taught him to
do, a poem with this auspicious opening:--

“First honour the Gods, and then thy parents.”

The mule-driver’s jaw dropped. As the poem proceeded his expression
became more and more that of a man suffering from some acute internal
discomfort. He stared at Demophon, and Demophon stared at him--across
the remains of their picnic--but the poem went on. Every single word of
it was a word of wisdom; every line showed Pittakos to be a learned and
virtuous person; it was only this graceless young mule-driver who was
vile. For when he had listened to two hundred of Pittakos’s hexameters
the mule-driver rebelled. Two hundred sufficed, and he put an end to the
performance by the simple means of leaning forward and clapping a large
hand over Demophon’s mouth. After which he took a deeper draught than
any yet.

But he said nothing, though over the top of the swaying cup he eyed
Demophon reproachfully, and it was quite three minutes before his
countenance cleared. Then all at once he recovered his cheerfulness, and
at the same time announced his intention of remaining in this spot till
morning. The companionship of Demophon was dearer to him than aught else
in the world; they would never more be parted; and in pledge of this
they would drink just one further drink together. Pittakos was an old
driveller who deserved mutilation; his pupil’s singing was deplorable;
nevertheless not even this should be allowed to cast a shadow on their
friendship....

Demophon, who after all had only sung because he had been asked to sing,
felt offended by this criticism. In silence he collected what would be
sufficient for a couple of good meals, while the young wagoner regarded
him benevolently. He had reached the stage when a hiccup now and then
interrupted his flow of lively and affectionate conversation; but
nothing else did; and the mule, with the reins hanging loose on its
back, patiently cropped the grass.

Evening was approaching. The boy, having packed up his provisions, stood
by the docile animal, stroking its long soft nose and saying good-bye.
The mule-driver too said good-bye. He said it again and again, but
always found something else to say, of the utmost importance,
immediately afterwards. In the end, seeing that their parting was likely
to be prolonged as the night of Zeus and Alkmena, Demophon walked away.

When he had gone a hundred yards or so, he stopped and looked round. The
young wagoner had clambered back into his cart and the mule had started.
Even as Demophon watched, however, the cart gave a sudden bump and the
driver disappeared from view. He had fallen back among his packages, but
made no attempt to recover his position, and the boy was on the point of
returning to see if all was well when a burst of song reassured him. The
song continued, though all but the singer’s feet remained invisible. The
mule plodded on, apparently needing no guidance, and Demophon turned his
face once more to the mountains.

They were a considerable distance off--at least an hour’s walk, he
thought--but he had had a good long rest, and his journey with Pholos
had given him a taste for nocturnal rambles. The sun was already
setting, and the hills he was approaching seemed very thickly wooded.
But when he reached them he found the ascent was easy, and it would have
been easier still had it not been for the darkness which closed down
upon him the moment he got among the trees. Now indeed he had to proceed
cautiously, because there were many loose fragments of rock lying about;
and as he slowly advanced he became aware of a secret movement all
around him. He could see nothing, he could hear very little, and yet he
knew a great many creatures of various sizes, furred or feathered, were
scurrying past him through the brushwood. It puzzled him, because there
seemed to be no cause for this commotion. Not a breath of wind was
stirring, the only intruder was himself, and the fugitives, if they
_were_ fugitives, were running not away from, but towards him. He
stopped to listen. Yes, there were countless little rustlings and
clawings, though never a squeak nor a call.

Demophon climbed on, being obliged to pick his steps more and more
carefully as the way became rougher; and when the trees at last began to
widen out again, and he knew he had reached the wood’s edge, the stars
and the moon were bright in the sky.

Suddenly he started in fear, for a human face hung there a yard or two
in front of him--hung there in the darkness, without a visible body,
directly in his path. Next moment he recognised the painted mask of
Dionysos, which had been attached to a pine tree; and while he stood
gazing at it he heard the sound of distant music--a far-off tuneless
wood-note, broken ever and again by a faint, shivering crash. It must be
very distant, he thought, for it reached him only fitfully; and a long
time elapsed before he made out that human voices were mixed with it.
But there was not a trace of the singers, and though he had now passed
well beyond the wood’s fringe, a dark bare tract still stretched up
between him and the topmost line of the mountain, from the other side of
which the music must be coming.

The slope had grown almost precipitous--a towering wall of rock to which
he was obliged to cling with his hands. He had the moon’s light,
however, and the ground was firm, not slaty, so that he seldom made a
false step. The music did not seem to get any louder till he had nearly
reached the top, and it was only then that he could distinguish clearly
its component elements--the rounded fluting of wind instruments, mingled
with the strident clashing of tambourines and cymbals.... Demophon knew
it to be the music of the God, and once more, placed at the very summit,
he came upon his image--a wooden post without arms, but covered with
leafy boughs, and with a mask daubed in bright vermilion to represent
the head.

He scrambled over the last ridge and gazed down into the depths below.
He could see the red flames of torches darting hither and thither, but
they might have been gigantic fireflies, for nothing except these moving
flames was visible.

Nevertheless, he knew that the worshippers were there, gathered in that
spot to evoke their dark ambiguous God and the fructifying powers of
Earth. He could hear their cries distinctly--Evoé! Evoé! Io! Iacchos!
Iacchos!--and he paused in doubt, for it might be wiser to make a detour
before beginning the descent.

Prudence fought against curiosity. The mysterious noises he had heard in
the wood were accounted for. A spirit of fear was in the air, and if the
wild creatures had quitted their haunts and sought safety far down on
the other side of the mountain, it behoved him, too, to be careful. For
he knew how this God filled his worshippers with a mystic passion, which
turned sometimes to madness; he knew of deeds of hideous cruelty
performed in his name--of victims torn limb from limb, of the drinking
of blood. Tales more unpleasant still were told. If the victim was
sometimes a goat, it was also whispered that he was sometimes a boy; and
Demophon had an idea that the death of that boy would be no easy one.
He would undergo at least such sufferings as the Boy-God himself had
undergone at the hands of the Titans. Yet there could not be much danger
in drawing just a little closer, since he could always run away, and he
had great confidence in his fleetness of foot.

He took every precaution as he descended. He avoided the light of the
bonfires, keeping in the shadow of rocks and trees, and at last, when he
was quite near, creeping on all fours along the ground. He peered
through the brushwood into an open glade which was lit by torches and by
three or four blazing fires. The clamour was now deafening; it made him
want to put his fingers in his ears; and at the same time a peculiar
influence began to reach him, so that he had to fight against a desire
to leap out from his hiding-place and join in the winding, rhythmic
dance. It was a half-hypnotic fascination. The delirious clashing of
cymbals, the shrilling of flutes, and that whirling and beating of
tambourines rose madly into the night. If there were men present, he did
not see any; he saw only women. In the red flare of the torches they
moved in a dizzy yet ordered pattern. Their hair was unbound and
streamed behind them, their faces were uplifted, their lips were apart,
their eyes shone with a dangerous ecstasy, their feet were white on the
bruised and trampled grass. They were clothed in dappled fawn skins, in
black goat skins, and many carried the ivy-twisted thyrsos that was the
emblem of their master. The dance itself was passionate, was curiously
like a dance of witches: it had filled their faces with thirst; a cloud
of sorcery seemed to trail from tree to tree, creating in the air an
unnatural heat, as from the breath of an open furnace.

Through the quivering atmosphere, through the winding pattern of the
dance, Demophon presently became aware of a figure coming and going,
which he had not seen at first. In the beginning it was shadowy and
diaphanous, but as he watched it it grew ever more definite, till at
last it was solid flesh beneath whose feet the grass was crushed and
bent as beneath the feet of the other dancers. It was the figure of a
youth--lithe, delicate, and beautiful with an equivocal beauty. In his
hand he held a rod tipped with a pine-cone, and into his long hair a
spray of convolvulus was twisted. His face and body were pale, his mouth
red, and he moved with a kind of caressing and feline grace.

For a while he moved in the dance and then drew apart under the trees,
and Demophon suddenly knew that to the worshippers he had never been
visible. But they had felt his nearness, and the music grew wilder and
the dance more and more vertiginous, till at last, one by one,
exhausted, they dropped out and lay upon the grass where they had
fallen, with swimming eyes and panting limbs. And gradually, while they
lay there, a cloud seemed to be lifted, the whole atmosphere changed,
the night air once more grew cool, a soft breeze awakened, and the dew
descended.

The God had disappeared; the dew dropped presently on sleeping figures;
and Demophon crept out from his hiding-place. For a minute or two he
stood looking down at the scattered slumberers, who lay as if dead. The
abandon of their attitudes, the heavy unconsciousness into which they
had sunk, suggested something deeper than normal sleep. A feeling of
aversion arose in him, and he turned his eyes away as from a sight
shameful and degrading. This disgust had awakened suddenly and
pitilessly; it was the disgust that follows gratified curiosity; he felt
that he hated these women with an almost cruel hatred, as he turned his
back on them, and hastened on down to the valley below.




CHAPTER VI

_Kidnappers_


He awoke with the screaming of sea-birds in his ears, but perhaps it was
only the echo of a dream....

Yet surely there was something familiar in this sharp salt taste of the
air, in the aspect of this sandy plain with its smooth rounded hillocks,
in this sparse coarse grass. It certainly _looked_ as if he were
approaching the sea.... If so, he must have lost his bearings
completely, for he had thought last night he was journeying away from
it. And those dancers--they must have come from some town! Where was it,
then? After he had finished breakfast he climbed the nearest mound to
get a better view.

The sea was there, and a dark line of coast, but, so far as he could
discover, that was all. There was not even a fisherman’s hut, let alone
a town. Demophon hesitated. Thanks to the young wagoner, he had
sufficient food to last him for a day’s tramping, and if he followed the
coast it must in the end bring him to a village. He decided to risk it,
and half an hour later reached the shore. It was rough and craggy,
broken into numerous creeks, in one of which a long narrow black ship,
hidden by high walls of rock, lay at anchor. He stood gazing down upon
her. No fishing boat this: and not a soul aboard, so far as he could
discover. Nevertheless, she gave him an impression of a hound straining
on a leash, of being all ready and eager to start. In a trice, he felt
sure, those sails could be unfurled, those oars run out, and the ship
herself skimming over the waves. So very much alive and alert did she
appear that Demophon approached no nearer, but after standing staring
for a while, walked on.

He kept as close to the sea’s edge as the rugged nature of the coast
permitted. It was full tide, and in the sunshine the water sparkled and
danced as if inviting him to enter it. Presently he reached a spot where
a pyramid of broad flat rocks shelved down to within a foot or two of
the surface, and here he determined to bathe. Beyond the fringe of
seaweed was a white sandy bottom; the rocks themselves were pleasantly
warm, and Demophon threw off his cloak and sandals.

He tried the temperature with one foot; it was cool but not cold. With
the sound of his own splash in his ears he turned on his back and
floated. The low ground swell lifted and dipped his body like a piece of
drifting wood. There was a salt sting in his mouth and nostrils; he did
not actually swim, but the palms of his hands pressed now and then
against the water, guiding his movements. His eyes, wide open, looked up
into a deep blue sky, and he had a feeling of floating somewhere above
the water, as if in an immense and gently rocking cradle, poised between
sky and earth. It seemed to him that this was exactly how the moon must
feel. The moon was hollow like a shell, or a boat--thin and fragile--so
light that it did not fall down....

He slid round on to his breast and swam for perhaps two hundred yards
out to sea. Then once more he floated. The harsh voracious squawking of
a flock of gulls abruptly broke the spell of solitude and silence, and
he turned to see them wheeling and diving in pursuit of a shoal of small
fishes that had come in between him and the shore. They were catching
them like flies; the little silvery shapes glittered in the sunshine as
they were snapped up: at the same time he saw on the rock where he had
left his clothes a young boy standing watching him.

Demophon swam lazily back, wondering who the watcher could be. He
thought of the vessel in the creek, and of course there might be houses
nearer than he imagined. But as he clambered out on to the rocks he knew
that this was no ship’s boy, nor one who had lived even so rough a life
as himself. His whole appearance indicated a delicate nurture; his skin
was not tanned as Demophon’s was; he was slender, with dark hair that
twisted and waved low down on his neck, like the tendrils of a climbing
plant; he had narrow, amber-coloured, glinting eyes, and every time
Demophon glanced at him he smiled.

He said nothing, but neither did he go away when Demophon sat down in
the sun to dry. And presently a question about the boat lying in the
creek set him talking. He knew nothing of her, had not seen her, but he
had often sailed in ships. He had been in far countries--in Egypt and in
India. Demophon decided that his father must be a great traveller--and
his mother perhaps belonged to a distant land, which would account for a
strangeness in him.

He spoke of his own adventure last night in the mountains, and the other
boy, lying prone on the smooth rock, listened, with his cupped hands
supporting his chin, and his unblinking, shadowless eyes gazing out to
sea. Suddenly, in the midst of what Demophon was telling him, he darted
his hand into a cleft between the rocks, and drew out a lizard. In a
moment he had crushed it and flung its broken, writhing body into the
water.

There was something so wantonly destructive in this deed that Demophon’s
primary impulse was to throw the slayer after the slain. The impulse
passed, however, for he realised that the action must have been largely
unconscious. It had not been done for pleasure, because the expression
of the boy’s face had not altered; it had meant no more to him than the
plucking of a blade of grass. Yet to Demophon this second discovery was
almost as disconcerting as the act itself had been, and he stammered and
broke off in the middle of his story.

At the same time he heard a slight noise behind him--the noise of some
one breathing--and turning, saw a swarthy evil face within a few feet of
his own, peering at them over the rocks. Before he could utter a
warning, he had been flung on his back, and a heavy knee was squeezing
the breath out of his body. He squirmed and kicked and wriggled, but
four more rascals came running up, and one of them deftly passed a rope
round him, fastening his arms to his sides. The lizard-slayer they bound
more leisurely, for he had neither attempted to escape, nor offered the
slightest resistance.

They were a villainous-looking crew, with scarred dirty faces, and
matted hair and beards. They had knives in their belts, their hairy
bodies were half naked, and their breaths stank abominably of stale wine
and garlic. Demophon began to call for help, but at the first cry he
felt the point of a knife pressed against his throat.

“Are you going to stop that row, or do you want your gullet slit?” asked
the kneeling sailor in a thick low voice.

With his wicked little pig’s eyes inflamed and savage, he seemed
perfectly prepared to put his threat into action, but one of his mates
caught him by the arm. “Don’t be a fool. What use will he be with a cut
throat? Let him shout his bellyful: there’s nobody to hear him.”

The kneeling man looked up. “He’s mine, isn’t he?” he sneered. “Or
perhaps you think it was you that caught him?” He thrust his face closer
to Demophon’s. “I’ll slit your throat if I feel like it, or if you let
so much as another squeal out of you.”

This speech provoked a general outburst. “He’s not yours, so don’t you
be making any mistake about it. You’re getting a deal too handy with
that knife.”

“Perhaps he thinks it’s the only knife,” said a fat, oily-looking
sailor, who had been the last to arrive, and who stood now contemplating
the scene with a placid smile. “Is that what you think, Medon? I
remember you once threatened poor old Abas just as you are threatening
that boy. And then something unexpected happened--didn’t it, Medon?--and
you’ve never threatened him since.”

Medon gave poor old Abas a singularly venomous look, but he did not
reply. “You step out quickly,” he spat at Demophon, “unless you want
hurt. There’s places where a prod won’t do no harm.”

“Let me go,” cried Demophon. “What do you want with me?”

“We want you to come to the ship, laddie,” explained the fat sailor
kindly. “And if you come quietly you’ll be well treated. You’ve never
been to sea, I dare say; so you’ll be glad to have a nice voyage, along
with a lot of nice sailor-men for company.”

A laugh arose from two of the sailor-men in question; but Medon did not
laugh, nor a small, cadaverous, scared-faced man, who with remarkable
presence of mind had already folded Demophon’s cloak and sandals into a
bundle, and who, as he hovered furtively in the background, had more the
air of a pickpocket than a pirate.

“Give me my clothes,” Demophon demanded curtly.

“When you’re safely on board and out at sea, my boy,” Abas replied.
“Till then you’ll do very well as you are. The Captain won’t be shocked,
because he’s a travelled man, and broad-minded.” He glanced round at the
small furtive sailor, and started in dismay. “Well, if that aren’t too
bad, now! There’s somebody’s got your clothes already. It’s that
Boukolos, too, and he’s a terror when he’s roused. We wouldn’t none of
us dare to take them from him.”

This sally was greeted with a still louder laugh, and the flush deepened
on Demophon’s face. The fat sailor continued imperturbably: “See how
nice your friend’s behaving. He knows it’s no good, so he don’t bawl,
and don’t kick, and--don’t get treated rough.”

At these words, and with extraordinary composure, the other boy spoke.
“It would be wiser to unbind us,” he said.

Even in his present plight Demophon could not help looking at him with
curiosity. He must know that once on board ship they would be completely
in the power of these ruffians; yet his tranquillity was unassumed,
seemed even to be mingled with a shade of amusement. Nor was Demophon
the only one to notice it. The timid Boukolos, who had just begun to
sneak quietly away, paused, and glanced round uneasily at the
lizard-slayer. Boukolos still held Demophon’s clothing tucked under his
arm, but he began to talk rapidly in a strange dialect.

Abas shrugged his shoulders. “What does it matter?” he answered, without
troubling to disguise his words. “The richer their fathers, the better
price they’ll pay. And if they don’t, the Persian will.... Who _are_
you?” he asked, giving the rope that bound Demophon a sudden vicious
twist, so that he could not suppress a cry. The pain brought tears to
his eyes, but he forced them back, and answered sturdily enough.

“I am Demophon, the son of Keleos of Eleusis.”

“And who are you?” asked Abas, turning to the other boy.

“I am Dion. We are brothers. Our father, Keleos, sent us on a visit to
our uncle, whose house is not an hour’s journey from here.”

Abas fixed a prolonged and scrutinising gaze upon him. “Well--that may
be a lie or it mayn’t,” he remarked, after a lengthy and suggestive
pause. “It’s a wise child that knows its own father, and it’s sometimes
a wiser child that doesn’t. The Captain’ll be the best judge, though
he’s not what you’d call a terribly believing man. So now we’ll be
stepping out to the ship.”

Demophon would have struggled still, but he knew it to be useless; for
these rascals would never have had the impudence to attack them in broad
daylight unless the spot were quite deserted. Their design evidently was
to offer them for ransom, or, if it seemed more profitable, to sell them
as slaves. He suspected that with the exceptions of Medon and Abas they
were a cowardly lot, who would take to their heels at the first serious
alarm, but it was quite plain that they were utterly unscrupulous. And
it would be foolish to expect mercy from any of them so long as they
felt secure, which was just what they would feel when they had reached
their boat and set sail for the high seas.




CHAPTER VII

_The Pirate Ship_


The blackest forebodings flocked about Demophon’s soul, like bedraggled
rooks about a rainy rookery. He sat forlorn and lonely in the stern of
the ship, watching the foam that followed in their wake. Three days ago
the coast line had faded out; unknown islands had detached themselves
from the horizon, had grown larger, and sunk again into the distance.
Now the sun was disappearing in a blood-red sky, and the moon had risen.

He was no longer bound, he was free to move about from wall to wall of
this ship that was his cage. Dion lay sleeping in the shadow under the
gunwale; and the brown sail bellied in a fair wind, as the boat sped on
her rapid course towards a problematic destination....

Night drew on and the sky darkened to a purple-black. Two or three of
the pirates were playing knuckle-bones by the light of a lantern; most
of the others, having ceased to ply the oars, sprawled amid heaps of
tumbled skins, and like Dion were asleep. But at the prow stood a
watchman, and in the stern, not far from Demophon, stood the steersman,
gaunt and motionless, his eyes fixed on the course they were
following....

It had been a calamitous voyage from the start. Wind and weather had
favoured them; yet one disaster had succeeded another, till the crew had
begun to murmur openly, and to look askance upon their two captives, as
though they had brought the ill-luck with them. First a fire had broken
out--nobody knew how. It had been checked in time; but a little later
the sailor on the look-out had suddenly thrown his arms above his head,
and with a cry had plunged into the sea. It had been done in the sight
of all; a rope had been thrown to him; but he had never risen to the
surface; it was as if something had been waiting for him and had drawn
him under. After this, a superstitious dread began to see signs and
omens in all things: mysterious tales were passed from mouth to mouth,
and whispered in every corner of the ship. In the general demoralisation
there arose quarrels and stabbings--causeless, springing from a mere
word: and men would awaken from evil dreams screaming with fear, yet
unable to remember what they had dreamed. Some shadowy terror was
pursuing them: the steersman declared that at night he had seen eyes,
that were like the eyes of an enormous cat, glaring at him through the
darkness.

Demophon had noticed this growing uneasiness, and at first had hoped
that he and Dion might profit by it. But now he knew it only increased
their danger. Two thrusts from a stealthy knife, and the ship would be
rid of them for ever; while for the murderer there would be small risk
of detection. He had spoken of this danger to Dion, but Dion would not
listen to him. Indeed, he slept most of the time--slept for hours on
end, like an animal--and when he was not sleeping he would lie watching
the water or the clouds--indolently, dreamily--his thoughts far away.
Demophon had once asked him why he had pretended to be his brother, why
he had not told his father’s real name, but he had only answered that he
did not know why.

“Don’t you want me for a brother?” he had asked, and somehow Demophon
could not be angry.

Yet he knew it was no time for playfulness, and said so. “They don’t
believe you; and because they don’t believe you, they don’t believe me.
So they have not tried to get a ransom, and nobody will know where we
are or what has happened. Yet it would be better for us to be bought
back by our fathers than to be the slaves of this Persian.”

“There will be no Persian, Demophon, and you will not be a slave. Why
not trust me? If you did you would find it pleasant enough lying here
in the sun, watching those fools sweating and blistering their hands.”

“But what can you do, Dion?” Then he added with a sigh, “You are very
brave: you don’t seem to care what happens. Are you the son of a king?”

Dion laughed merrily. “You forget I am your brother.”

“It is you who don’t trust _me_,” said Demophon.

“Yes, I trust you.... Dion really is my name. And I promise to tell you
whose son I am before we leave this ship.”

       *       *       *       *       *

All that had passed between them only a few hours ago, and now Dion lay
sleeping as calmly as a child....

The stars twinkled, and strange phosphorescent lights gleamed on the
water. But with the coming of night the wind had begun to blow more
fitfully; the sails flapped and drooped, till at last, in a dead calm,
the boat no more than drifted on an oily sea.

Demophon thought sadly of his father and mother and of the farm. He did
not know when he should see his home again--perhaps never. He did not
know whither the ship was bound, nor what fate lay before him, except
that he was to be sold for a slave. This he did know, because the
steersman, who seemed in a rough way not unkindly, had told him so,
adding, for his consolation, that all things happen at the will of the
Gods....

He lay waiting for sleep, but he could not sleep; not even in the
darkness. Yet in the end he must have dropped off, and slept soundly
too, for when he opened his eyes it was morning. He felt cold and stiff.
The sun was hidden, and a thick white mist enveloped everything. The
ship was drenched with it; great beads of moisture dripped from the
ropes as if after heavy rain, and he could see nothing--nothing but this
milky shroud which closed them in on all sides and sent a chill into his
bones.

He heard Dion’s voice; Dion was clamouring for food, and, to Demophon’s
surprise, food was at once brought. They sat eating it together, and
presently Dion said, “I am going to answer your question to-day. So you
see I have not kept you long.”

“What question--I have asked you so many questions?” Demophon returned
apathetically.

“I am going to tell you who I am.”

Demophon waited, with his hand halfway to his mouth.

“Not just now; not till later,” Dion laughed. “But I think it has gone
on long enough--this voyage. I am tired of the Captain and I am tired of
the crew. To-day you and I will take command.”

Demophon said nothing: he also was tired of the Captain and the crew;
but Dion’s words were foolish. He looked at him, and as he looked a
sudden light dawned in his mind. This must be the true explanation! And
indeed it accounted for everything--the insensibility to danger--even
the killing of the lizard. All those stories about India and Egypt,
too--illusions only--fairy-tales of a disordered imagination. He put his
hand on Dion’s shoulder. “Whatever happens,” he said, “so long as we are
together I will take care of you.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The fog had begun to lift, yielding at last to the sunlight, and growing
ever more transparent; till in the end it divided and floated away in
scattered wisps, like wreaths of smoke, revealing at no great distance
the curving outline of an island shore.

Simultaneously an excited cry arose among the crew. “Chios!--Chios!” And
all rushed to the side of the vessel.

The Captain, a huge black-bearded man, was in a passion. “How can it be
Chios?” he bawled. “What course were you keeping? There has been some
trickery at work.” He turned upon the unfortunate steersman, who seemed
to have relapsed into a state of coma. “I myself all day kept her headed
for Krete. She was heading straight for Krete when I gave you the helm.
Is Chios on the way to Krete? Is it on the way to Africa?”

“We must have drifted in the fog,” the steersman muttered helplessly.
“We must have struck a secret current.”

“Secret damnation!” yelled the Captain. “I know every secret current in
these seas, because there are none. And I know when somebody is trying
to fool me. How could we drift all this distance in a few hours?”

A confused murmur arose among the sailors. The word “Magic!” was
repeated again and again as they stared now at the island and now into
one another’s faces. The wave of superstition passing over them made
them deaf to the Captain’s oaths. “Did you not notice the moon last
night--how close she had dropped? And there were sounds--I heard
them--like a distant music, the flute of Silenos....”

The steersman awoke out of his trance. “I was against bringing them,” he
cried. “I said from the first no good would come of it. You would not
listen, you would not even consent to hold them at a ransom, because you
said the Persian would pay an enormous price.”

All eyes were turned on Demophon and his companion, and again a
muttering of “Magic!” arose.

But the Captain was furious. “Magic! I’ll show you what kind of magic it
is!” He took a step towards the steersman, his fist clenched as if he
were about to strike him to the deck. “I saw you talking to that
one--after I gave you the helm--listening to his bribes.”

He drew his knife, but at this moment Dion sprang forward, and flinging
himself at his feet, clasped him round the knees. “O kindest, noblest of
men,” he implored tearfully, “if that is indeed Chios, land us there
where we have friends. We have done you no harm, and the immortal Gods
will bless you and bring you safely home to your wife and children.”

But the Captain was a bachelor, and the softness of this speech, so far
from turning away wrath, merely earned for the suppliant a cuff on the
ear that sent him sprawling. Then the Captain saw Abas. “What are you
grinning at,” he shouted, “standing there like a fat ape?”

Dion continued to pour out his prayers. Again he twined his arms round
the Captain’s knees, nearly bringing him to the ground as he invoked
blessings upon his head.

“Think of our parents,” he wailed. “They are growing old and have no
other children. Remember the days when you yourself were a boy, innocent
and gentle, your father’s pride, the darling of your mother.”

At this touching picture an irrepressible and hoarse chuckle arose from
Abas. “He’s got you to a T, Captain, he has. Might a’ bin sailin’ these
seas with you all his life.” But the Captain, whose face had grown
purple, seemed on the verge of apoplexy.

“Bind that boy,” he spluttered, struggling to disengage his legs from
the clinging Dion, who was now weeping copiously.

Nobody moved, and the Captain, at last freeing himself by a vicious
kick, turned a baleful glare round his crew. He selected Medon, as at
once the most stupid and the most brutal; he selected Boukolos, as too
cowardly to disobey him. “You two,” he shouted. “Get ropes and bind this
boy.”

“You can’t--you mustn’t,” cried Demophon, rushing to the rescue. “He--he
doesn’t know what he’s saying. Can’t you see he’s not quite--like other
people.”

“I’ll soon make him like other people,” said the Captain, and with a
single thrust he knocked Demophon reeling back against the bulkhead. At
the same time he seized Dion and held him--one hand twisted in his hair,
and the other gripping him by the scruff of the neck.

Dion instantly set up a howl; the tears streamed down his cheeks; he
even kicked the Captain’s shins, but his bare feet could do no great
damage. And meanwhile ropes were quickly found: in fact they were
literally heaped upon Boukolos by his obliging shipmates. He stood
festooned with them, his head nodding and his legs quaking, while Medon
watched him with savage contempt.

“Bind him to the mast,” the Captain ordered. “And when I’ve done with
him he’ll be more striped than the hydra of Lerna.” But he had a second
thought. “Bind them both to the mast, and fetch me the whip. We’ll see
what their magic will do for them then!”

Medon advanced with alacrity, for it was the kind of task he enjoyed;
Boukolos followed trembling, as if galvanised into temporary activity
only by the Captain’s steady glare. But the two boys offered no
resistance as they were led to the centre of the ship.

“Tie their hands above their heads,” the Captain roared. “Tie their
ankles. The young one first.”

The young one appeared to be Dion, who, shaking off the feeble Boukolos,
now of his own accord took up a position--with the mast behind him. Once
more he spoke, and this time not to the Captain, nor to Medon and
Boukolos, but to the gaping crew. “Take the ship into Chios,” he said,
“and let us go free. What are you afraid of? Is it of that man--your
Captain? You can easily overpower him. He is armed, but all of you are
armed, and he is only one against many. Decide quickly, for as soon as
these ugly fools get busy it will be too late.”

He no longer wept: his face was lit up with a mischievous laughter, and
his eyes danced with the glee of a child. He looked exactly like some
young scapegrace carrying out the merriest of pranks; but Demophon, who
had been watching the Captain, knew that from now on any chance they
might once have had of finding mercy was gone.

Yet there was a pause, and in the midst of it Boukolos suddenly dropped
his ropes and fled. Not so quickly, however, but that the Captain was
quicker. Boukolos ran on a few steps, turned completely round, gave a
queer little apologetic cough, and collapsed in a heap, with the handle
of a knife sticking out from his back. Medon chuckled; but in the
strange, tense, spellbound stillness this was the only sound. Then very
slowly and deliberately Medon put a running noose on the rope he held.
He took a step forward and passed the loop over Dion’s head and
shoulders, drawing the long end round the mast.

It snapped in his hand, and he drew back with an oath, for the moment it
had come in contact with the boy’s body the rope had turned into a green
convolvulus, and at the same time Dion stretched out his right arm and
drew Demophon closer. They stood now, side by side, in the face of the
Captain and his crew, and many things began to happen simultaneously. A
thin, far-off music, like the music Demophon had heard upon the
mountain, sounded overhead. The mast trembled, broke into bud and
branch, and ivy sprang up and twined about it. The rigging turned into
twisting vines with countless leaves and tendrils that spread in all
directions; and all the wood of which the ship was built came alive,
broke into branch and bud, and from the helm and the thole-pins and the
oars leaves burst forth. The deck grew green, and a stream of dark wine
flowed down the middle of the boat from bow to stern. Thicker and
thicker grew the leafy bower, gleaming with heavy clusters of purple
grapes, while the pirates, huddled in a mass, retreated as far from
their two prisoners as possible. Dion laughed gleefully, but nobody else
laughed; and presently through the green leaves were thrust two sleek
dark heads, with yellow shining eyes, and jaws that dripped moisture.
Slowly and softly they came out into the open--two spotted panthers,
their tails lashing their flanks, a deep rumbling in their throats. Down
on their bellies they crouched, their bodies quivering as, padded step
by step, they drew nearer. Then a cloud of madness or of panic descended
on the crew. Screams rang through the ship, and the pirates leaped into
the sea. But the panthers were among them, and those who had hesitated
were mauled and mangled before their torn and bleeding bodies found a
refuge in the water.

It was all over in a few minutes. Again sounded that distant burst of
music, and with it the fruit and leaves and the two great spotted beasts
faded slowly out, and the boat assumed its former aspect, only now Dion
and Demophon were alone on its blood-spattered deck. Here and there, on
the rippling glancing water stained with sinister red streaks and
patches, the head of a swimmer bobbed up and down, but most of those who
had plunged overboard had sunk like stones.

In silence Demophon watched the survivors striking out for the shore. He
leaned over the side of the boat with Dion behind him; but it had all
come and gone so quickly that he felt dazed, and as if one half of his
mind were still in a dream while the other half were awake.

One by one the bobbing heads disappeared, till only three or four
remained.... Then Demophon heard a voice--the voice of Dion. “Why are
you so gloomy, when your enemies are all either drowned or soon to be
drowned, for none will reach the island alive?”

Still Demophon gave no answer.

“What is the matter?” Dion asked. “Why won’t you look at me?”

At this he did turn, half expectant of some further transformation, but
he saw only the delicate boy who had watched him from the rocks, who
without a struggle had allowed himself to be captured, who had knelt
weeping at the Captain’s feet.

“Who are you?” The words were involuntary, for he knew already who he
was, and desired no reply.

“I am only a little boy lost on the high seas,” Dion whined pitifully.
“Why won’t you be kind to me?”

Demophon looked into his face. “You are not a little boy,” he said.

There was a silence. His eyes were fixed on Dion’s, and at last he
whispered: “I know you, but when I saw you on the mountain you were
different.”

He tried to look away, but he could not; he seemed to be gazing into two
fathomless golden pools that were drawing his spirit down into their
depths. And the boy he had talked with on the rocks was gone, though he
could still see him--like a shadow, a phantom--flickering behind and
through this other darker form.

It was the Other who replied--slowly, gravely, even gently--though the
sound of the words beat upon Demophon’s consciousness like the thunder
of waves on a winter shore.

“I am Eleuthereus; I am Sabazios; I am Bromios. I am Iacchos; I am
Zagreus; I am Dionysos.”

A slight shudder passed through Demophon’s body, not of pain nor of
fear, but the shudder a wild animal gives before it yields to the
unknown hand that is caressing it.

“I am the God of life and of death. In Attika I am the Flower God, and
the Athenians sacrifice to me that their crops may be good. I am the God
of wine and of fire, of water and of gold. I am the God of trees. I am
the Hunter, I am the Man-Slayer, and Eater of Raw Flesh. Yet I am the
God of poetry and dancing, and it was I who discovered the vine, the
apple, the fig, and all fruit trees; and who first yoked the ox to the
plough. I am the God of madness and possession; I am the Twice-Born--the
Slayer and the Slain. I am divine and I am human; I have gone down into
hell and have risen again from the dead. I am the God of flowing milk
and honey; I am the Worshipper and the Worshipped. I bring in my train
the Oreads and Dryads, the Satyrs and Sileni; I bring the incense of the
East and the burning sun of Asia. Woe to him who rejects me or makes
mock of me, for the mother will seize upon her own son and tear him limb
from limb. I am the youngest of the Gods, the son of Zeus and Semele. My
mother bound her lover by an oath that he would show himself to her in
his true form, and her wish was granted. But her body was consumed in
the divine fire, because she might not look upon that glory and survive.
Me he plucked living into safety, sewing me up within his own thigh. And
for the same reason--because he feared the jealousy of Hera--when I was
for the second time born, he hid me in a cave on Mount Nysa. A stream of
water glides through the hollow cave, and the floor is soft with ferns;
and this was my nursery, and here I passed my childhood, sleeping in a
winnowing fan, watched over by the Nymphs. Yet even here my enemies
found me, and to escape them I fled into the sea. Then I determined to
seek out in the Kingdom of the Dead the mother I had never known. The
way lies through the bottomless Alkyonian Lake in the dismal region of
Lerna. I came to it from Argos, between Mount Pontinos and the sea, and
crossed the flat swampy ground to the lonely pool. Its stagnant glassy
surface was like a black mirror surrounded by shivering reeds and
grasses; a tall poplar had grown up by the shore. The wind rustled
through the thin reeds and shook the poplar leaves; the last light was
in the sky, as I, solitary and naked, stood on the gloomy bank.
Something moved below the surface of the water: something raised a flat
monstrous head, with white sightless eyes, before sinking back again
into the unknown depths. I was afraid, yet I plunged into the pool,
letting it swallow me as I dropped down through it like a stone. In the
country of the dead, in the dim twilight, the dry bloodless souls
flocked round me, twittering like bats, but I beat them off with my
staff and called my mother’s name. I saw her ghost approaching, but
Hades would not give her back to me--not till I had promised to send him
in return what I loved best on earth. I promised, and took my mother’s
hand, and led her from that desolate place, and found a home for her in
heaven. And to Hades I sent in fulfilment of my word a myrtle tree,
which alone, of all earthly trees or plants, grows now within his
kingdom.”

The voice ceased, and Demophon once more awakened to his surroundings.
He was standing beside Dion--the Dion he knew--the boy of the
rocks--whose hand rested lightly on his shoulder with the careless
familiar touch of boyish friendliness. The wind was in his ears, and the
brown square sails were filled. He heard a faint far singing that might
have been the voices of the sirens swimming in their violet caves. A
troop of dolphins escorted them.

And the ship flew onward, breaking the blue water into two snowy lines
of foam, but keeping always on an even keel.

“Where are we going?” Demophon asked.

“To Euboea. There I shall leave you, for I am going to Naxos.”

Demophon suddenly felt that the speed of the ship had increased
enormously, and that its smooth level flight was more like the flight of
a swallow than of a boat. Rapidly the land drew nearer, but when they
were within a mile perhaps of the coast, where the waves were breaking
on a narrow stony beach, the boat slowed down and finally stood still.

“We are near enough,” said Dion, in a voice Demophon hardly heard, for
all at once he had grown strangely drowsy. “I will lower you into the
water; the dolphins will carry you ashore.”

It was as if he had lost all power of movement and were indeed dreaming.
For somehow the boat was no longer there, nor Dion, and yet he was
still floating across the water. The splashing of the waves grew closer
and closer, and he knew if he could but open his eyes that he must be
very near the land. The floating ceased, the waves were pounding all
about him, and he found himself on his hands and knees in quite shallow
water, through which he crawled out on to a bank of sand above the
high-tide mark. Trying to stand up, he found himself reeling like a
drunken man, so he lay down where he was, in the purple shadow cast by a
clump of bushes.




CHAPTER VIII

_Glaukos_


As Demophon sat up and rubbed his eyes he had a feeling that a long time
must have elapsed since he had lain down under these straggling myrtle
bushes.

He stared about him. So this was Euboea! And he had no clothes. Not that
it mattered much: even the loss of his sandals did not trouble him, for
he was well used to running about barefoot. The only thing he might
really need was a hat.

The bank on which he sat making these reflections was perhaps a stone’s
throw from the water’s edge, and when he got up his feet sank ankle deep
in the warm powdery sand. He stretched himself and turned round to look
at the country inland. Just here, at all events, it was a barren marshy
country, thickly grown with sedge-grass, reeds, and osiers, amid which a
solitary goat was feeding. But the goat was a sign of human proximity,
even if she had strayed, as seemed likely, from her proper pastures.

Demophon approached her with coaxing words that concealed the purpose
in his heart. He gathered a handful of fresh young willow leaves and
held them out as a peace offering. The goat eyed her wooer with a coldly
suspicious glance; but the spot she had found was such an oasis of
tender greenery that she could not bear to leave it--not even when
Demophon slid down beneath her and proceeded to take a good deal more
than he had given. The milk, after all, was nothing to her, and the
crisp sweet willow shoots were much, so a perfect harmony reigned while
the double meal was in progress.

Demophon arose feeling more comfortable. He attempted to stroke the
goat’s shaggy neck, but received a sharp rap on the knuckles for his
pains. So he left the fickle creature there and ran on down to the beach
to hunt for shell-fish.

When he could eat no more he considered what he should do next. He had
wandered across the shingle as far as one of the horns of the bay’s
crescent, where the rocks formed a causeway which jutted far out into
the water, like the backbone of some fantastic monster whose skeleton
had been uncovered by the tide. One would have thought that for the
present he might have had enough of the sea, yet he clambered along
these slippery rocks with their glistening weedy pools, and to the
extreme end of them, where the water was deep and green. Here he stood,
his feet planted firmly on a dark slab, against which the swell washed
with a sucking, reluctant sound. His body had the tint of sun-warmed
ivory. Motionless he stood, watching a boat he thought must be a fishing
boat. It appeared to be skirting the island shore, and he wondered if it
were making for the mainland, for that was where he too must go: though
whether to turn north, south, east, or west, he had no idea....

He had ceased to watch the fishing boat; he was looking down into the
water. Or at least he had been a moment ago, for now he was looking
straight into two large round blue eyes which were rising slowly, slowly
towards him. With a start he awoke out of his daydream.... And that was
not seaweed at all, that green oozy tangle; it was hair. Hastily he
stepped back on to the higher rocks: in fact, only just in time, if this
monster had purposed to seize him.

But was it a monster? Was it not a man? Now the entire head had emerged
above the surface, and, to Demophon’s alarm, was being followed by huge
bluish arms and shoulders. He was on the point of taking to his heels
when a swirling commotion in the water showed him there was no danger.
This extraordinary person could not run after him. His upper parts might
be those of a man--an enormous, unwieldy man--but lower down he was
certainly a fish. And at any rate he possessed the most innocent face
imaginable: the expression in his round blue eyes was exactly that of a
surprised kitten.

Still, there was no denying he was very ugly; his hair and beard being
dark green, his skin blue, his nose broad and flat, his mouth spreading
from ear to ear, while on his forehead, just peeping through the thick
green trailing hair, were two budding horns.

He looked at Demophon, and Demophon looked at him. It was a long look,
conveying on the boy’s side a somewhat distrustful curiosity, and on the
monster’s an extreme friendliness and simplicity. The sea-man shook the
water from his hair, and at the same time a few shells and a small
silver fish, which had managed to get itself entangled, but which now
darted away. He opened his large mouth and there issued from it a voice
deep and rumbling, but not harsh, because it had something of the broken
wave-music in it; and perhaps he was making it soft on purpose. “Are you
a human boy?” he asked.

There was a note of anxiety in the question which sounded strange to
Demophon; but he answered “Yes,” and added, “Haven’t you seen one
before?”

The blue eyes suddenly cleared and it was evident that the monster was
relieved. “Yes, oh yes; it isn’t that; please don’t be offended. It is
only---- Well, one never knows; and it makes it so much easier and
pleasanter when one does know--easier to talk, I mean.”

Demophon considered this and found it reasonable enough. “But what did
you think I was?” he said. “I mean at first. What did you think I might
be, if I wasn’t a boy?”

“If you weren’t a boy?... What did I think?... Well, you see, I am now a
kind of God myself; and sometimes the real Gods come here--and--it is
all rather new to me: I haven’t had much experience. But I am glad you
are what you say you are.”

“I am a real boy--Demophon.”

“Yes, yes; I don’t doubt you--not for a moment.... I ought to have known
without asking.... Only, as I say, how _is_ one to know? You might have
been Eros, or you might have been Hermes. They both go about like young
boys--and Dionysos too, now and then. I was a boy once myself, though
you would hardly believe it. I mean a real boy--like you. Mother used to
say I was the stupidest that was ever born, but I don’t see how she
could tell that. Still, she said it--often and often. And she said there
was a kind of animal that was stupider. I forget what its name was, but
it was so stupid that it ate its own feet. When I say feet, I mean that
it ate some part of itself; perhaps it was its tail. At any rate, it was
stupider than me. Of course, I don’t call that a proper proof; for it
might only have been absent-minded, like a philosopher when he falls
down a well--a thing that is constantly happening.”

“But you said you were a God,” Demophon interrupted. “If that is so, I
don’t see how you can ever have been a boy.... And, you know, you don’t
_look_ as if you had.”

“I was--really--a boy. I was Glaukos. You’d be surprised. Aren’t you
surprised?”

“I am, a little,” Demophon confessed.

“I knew you would be. I was a fisherboy, too--nothing very grand--and
when I grew older I became a fisher-_man_. I lived with mother in a hut
on the shore.”

Glaukos waited, as if for Demophon to make a remark; but when none was
forthcoming he broke the pause himself. “Why don’t you ask me _where_ we
lived?” he said, with suppressed eagerness.

“Because you’ve just told me,” Demophon replied. “You said you lived in
a hut on the sea shore.”

“Yes, but you don’t know what shore. You ought to ask about that. You
ought to ask where the hut was. It might have been in lots of places.”

“Where was it?” asked Demophon wonderingly.

“It was in Euboea, where you be a’now.” And Glaukos broke into a
prolonged chuckle which presently became a roar of laughter that might
have been heard half a mile away.

“It was a joke,” he explained. “I don’t think perhaps you saw it. When
you said, ‘Where was it?’ I said----”

“Yes, yes,” Demophon interposed hurriedly, for Glaukos looked as if he
might be going to laugh again. “It was a very good joke: I saw it quite
plainly.”

Glaukos climbed half out on to the rocks, though he still kept his tail
in the water. “Shall I tell you my story?” he asked.

“I should like to hear it very much,” Demophon returned politely.

Glaukos scratched his ears, smiled, and then sighed. “It is an
interesting story. I have told it often. In fact I used to tell it to
Scylla every summer evening. There was a pool where she used to come to
sit.... But now she avoids it,” he added with sudden indignation. “And
she runs away the moment she catches sight of me.”

“Perhaps you told her the story too often,” Demophon could not help
suggesting.

“I didn’t. I liked telling it.”

“Yes, but----” He did not finish what he had been going to say, however.
Instead, he went on soothingly, “Tell it to me, Glaukos. I won’t avoid
you.”

“You _are_ avoiding me,” Glaukos answered, only half mollified. “You’ve
moved over to the other side of the rocks--as far away as you can
possibly get.”

Demophon had indeed retreated a few steps when the enormous bulk of
Glaukos had come slithering across the edge; but on this he drew a
little nearer. “You look so wet,” he explained in apology.

“I must keep wet,” Glaukos replied. “I can’t help it. As soon as the sun
begins to dry me _now_ I shall have to get back into the water. But I’ll
take you with me. There’s a wreck quite near, and skeletons--just the
kind of thing you’d love.”

“You promised to tell me your story,” Demophon reminded him.

“Yes--yes--so I did.” And Glaukos brightened up. “I don’t think I had
even begun it, had I? Well, when I was a fisherman, one evening I had
taken in my nets and was getting ready to go home. I had had a good
catch, too, and I spread all the fishes, big and little, out on the
grass to count them. I’m not very good at counting--not so good at it as
you are, I expect--and when I was beginning for the third or fourth
time, and had got as far as nine---- When I say nine, I mean ten or
eleven, or some high number, for of course I can’t be quite sure after
all these years what it was.”

“Of course not,” Demophon agreed.

“Well then, when I had got as far as nine (let us say) for the third or
fourth time, I noticed that the fish were nibbling the grass as hard as
they could, and were growing uncommonly lively too, though they had been
all out of breath and gasping and trembling when I had tumbled them from
the net. I was so astonished at the way they were behaving that I could
do nothing to stop them when they began to wriggle back to the sea;
and--will you believe it--every one of those fishes escaped! Yes, every
single one of them. With a flip and flap of their tails, off they went,
plop, plop, plop, down into the water, one after the other, under my
very nose! ‘What will mother say about this?’ I thought; and for a good
half-hour I stood there staring after them. But staring didn’t bring
them back again, and here would poor mother be without a fish for her
supper, and nothing to comfort her except to tell me about the animal
that ate its own feet. Was it magic? Was it the work of a witch who
wanted to play me a trick? Or were these particular fishes the pets of
some Sea-God? I thought of all those possibilities before I remembered
the grass, how they had nibbled it, a thing I had never seen a fish to
do before. ‘Aha!’ I chuckled, ‘that explains the mystery. There is
something mighty queer about this grass.’ And I gaped at it for a good
while, though I must confess it looked very ordinary. Just to try it, I
plucked a blade and swallowed it. Immediately afterwards, I knew I had
done a foolish thing. But the grass was down my gullet beyond recall,
and already I had begun to feel a terrible longing for the sea.
Actually, I wanted to follow those fishes right into the water. ‘No,
no,’ I said. ‘This will never do. Mother will be coming to look for you.
You get along home, Glaukos, and tell her just what has happened.’ But
there was no use talking, for by the time I had reached the word ‘home’
I was up to my neck in the water. And I will say this, the Sea-Gods were
most kind. They did their best; especially Tethys, who had often watched
me when I was out in my boat, and had taken quite a fancy to me. She
swam round and round me, singing a magic song. Nine times she repeated
it, and then she bathed my body in the waters of a hundred streams. I
can remember as much as that, but I can’t remember any more. I think I
must have fainted, for when I came to myself I was as I am now. Perhaps
you wouldn’t call it coming to myself; for my hair and beard were green,
my flesh was blue, all my features were different, and my legs were
gone. And I had grown so big, too. The first time Scylla saw me she
screamed, and though afterwards she got used to me, mother never did.
Mother wouldn’t believe a word I told her; she wouldn’t believe I was
Glaukos at all; and she accused me of having drowned her boy, and very
likely eaten him into the bargain.”

“That was unfortunate,” Demophon sympathised, while Glaukos wiped away a
tear or two. “Still, you know, it must have been a rather hard story to
believe.... And as for Scylla, if she was just an ordinary girl, I don’t
quite see how she _could_ have married you. Where would you have lived?”

“In the water,” Glaukos answered sulkily. “She was the daughter of a
nymph herself, if it comes to that.... And I have a splendid house. It
is covered with shells and oyster-pearls and crystals and seaweeds, and
the strangest creatures come swimming up to look in at the windows.
Scylla would have liked it. Everything would have been so new to her,
and she was always one to like what was new.”

“I expect she thought she might turn blue and green, perhaps, or maybe
get a fish’s tail.”

“But they are nice colours, don’t you think?” Glaukos asked a little
doubtfully.

“Very nice. When I saw your hair first, I thought it was a lovely bit of
seaweed.”

Glaukos smiled. “Yes, it is rather lovely,” he said. “So is my tail. You
should see the spray I can make with it!”

“Where does this magic grass grow?” asked Demophon.

“Just there, at the end of the rocks: you must have walked over it....
But, my goodness, how the time does fly! I’m afraid I’ll have to be
getting back home. Did you hear a shell blowing by any chance?”

“No: and you’re not half dry yet.”

“I am--a great deal too dry. And this sun is very bad for me.” Glaukos
seemed all at once to have developed an unexpected fussiness. “You don’t
understand, but I really must take a dip for a minute, and I’m sure I
heard the lunch shell.” He slid back into the water with a heavy splash,
and it was several minutes before his green head reappeared.

“I feel much better now. Come in. Come in,” he cried, holding out his
arms.

Demophon shook his head.

“Why won’t you? It’s quite warm, and you can ride on my back.”

“I don’t want to, thank you.”

But at these words the vast form began to float slowly away, and he knew
that the sensitive Glaukos was offended.

“Glaukos! Glaukos!” he called.

“What is it? You are an unkind, naughty boy. You don’t know how lonely I
am, with nobody but dolphins to play with.”

“But I can’t come. I am looking for some one. Tell me, Glaukos, where I
shall find Hermes? You say you have seen him.”

“I said nothing of the sort--and it is better not to look for people.
When you do find them, they don’t want you. Scylla is lost because I
loved her; and you, though you pretend to be friends, are really only
thinking of how you can get away. It is always like that.”

“But can’t you help me even a little, Glaukos?”

“Why should I help you? You don’t like me. Why don’t you ask some wise
man who knows everything?”

“I do like you, Glaukos. I like you very much. Tell me where I shall
find such a man. Dear Glaukos, don’t be cross with me. I would come and
see your house, and the wrecked ship, and the skeletons, if I had time.
Glaukos, Glaukos, listen....”

But Glaukos had vanished under the waves, and though Demophon called his
name again and again, he did not return.




CHAPTER IX

_The Wrecker_


He loitered about for a while, gathering a further supply of shell-fish,
though he was obliged to eat them raw and they made him very thirsty.
The goat, too, was gone, so there would be no more milk.

It was past noon. The rocks and mountains glittered in the hot sunshine
with an unnatural lustre, and this island of fantasy might well, he
thought, be the home of magic. It had a beauty, but that beauty bore no
resemblance to the deep leafy beauty he loved best: the colours had the
hard polished sheen of precious gems and metals--turquoise and amethyst,
emerald and gold. Here must be the pool where Scylla used to come, while
her uncouth lover lurked under the shadow of the rocks. And this green
patch was the enchanted grass. Before leaving he plaited a rope out of
its coarse stringy blades and tied it round his neck.

From this spot, zigzagging inland across the marsh towards distant
hills, was a cattle track. It led very likely to a farmstead of some
kind, yet Demophon thought it wiser to keep by the sea. And he walked
on, mile after mile, through the glowing afternoon, meeting nobody but a
solitary shepherd with whom he rested for a few minutes, and who gave
him half a loaf of barley bread out of his scrip.

For some time past the ground had been gradually ascending, and now he
was considerably above the sea level, on the top of a long line of
cliffs, which stretched on and on, like a high ruined wall of rough gray
stones, as far as his sight could reach. These cliffs were not
precipitous; at any point he could have clambered down to the narrow
strip of lace-like foam where the waves broke almost at their base; and
the sound of the waves kept him company, weaving a delicate music
through his thoughts, which were pleasant thoughts, such as hover on the
verge of dreamland, and occasionally wing their way across the border.

His dreamland, like that of most boys who dream at all, was a happy and
lovely place. Its lights and shadows, its clouds and pools, were
reflected in Demophon’s countenance as he walked. He had a feeling that
an invisible companion was keeping pace beside him, whispering in his
ear, asking him questions. Suppose this whole world of sea and rocks and
heather were only a reflection of another, more perfect world? It might
be that the great blue dome arching above him was a kind of lake, and
that he was walking at the bottom of the lake, amid the coloured images
mirrored in its depths. Suppose that it was out of the world above the
lake, the real world, not this world of images, that Dion had come, and
Deo, and Hermes, and that when he had lost them it was only because they
had passed back into it again, leaving him still a prisoner among
shadows? What _was_ reality? What were its floating boundaries, and out
of what world had Dion’s panthers appeared? How had they come and gone,
leaving no trace behind them? What happened to the whiteness of the
snowflake drifting down from the gray winter clouds and disappearing in
mid-air? Demophon stamped upon the ground, and it was solid; but at the
same time he knew he had only to sleep and dream, and straightway those
solid rocks would dissolve into other shapes, another country. It was in
this other country that he still met his woodboy. Perhaps, had he never
visited it, he would by now have forgotten the past. At least, he would
have thought of it all differently, for had it not been for these later
meetings his first childish love could have grown no deeper. And it
_had_ grown deeper: his woodboy had not abandoned him: he was very close
to him now. Demophon wanted him to be closer still--he wanted to see him
face to face.... Towards evening he reached a solitary house, which
stood, bare and dark, in the midst of a small garden.

Now this house surprised him, because it was built in a spot where one
would have expected nobody but a hermit to choose to dwell. There was
nothing here but the rocks and the sea--broken, jagged rocks, and a
restless, foaming sea--and the soil was so poor, so sandy and stony,
that only the hardiest plants could grow in it. He looked at it, and
looked at it again. He was tired, and ready for food and sleep; but also
he was becoming more cautious, so he sat down where he was hidden by a
hedge of gray spiky bushes, and waited. He had a mind to learn something
of the inmates of this black wooden house before he approached any
nearer, yet he waited for a long time and still nobody appeared. The
last light faded; the white moon rose; he would have taken the cabin to
be empty and abandoned were it not that he had seen a thread of smoke
issuing from it. Somebody, therefore, must live there. And in fact,
hardly had he set foot on the rough path, preparatory to making a closer
inspection, when the door opened and an old man advanced, peering into
the moonlight, his figure framed by the darkness behind him. He was a
queer old man--queer as the house he lived in--tall and thin, with a
pale straggling beard and long loose white hair. He spied his visitor at
once, and called out in a high shrill reedy voice, “Come in. Come in.”

Demophon drew nearer, but slowly, and with several pauses, for this old
man was not entirely reassuring. Though so old, he seemed vigorous and
active. He stooped a little, but he had a quick, darting glance that
rested nowhere; and his eyes were bright as a bird’s under their white
bushy brows.

Inside the house all was obscure. The fire on the hearth had sunk low,
and Demophon could distinguish nothing till the old man lit a lamp, and
then through the smoky atmosphere he perceived that the entire structure
consisted of this one large room, whose roof and whose walls were lost
in shadow. The old man evidently lived alone here, without even a dog
for company.... And he must have been sitting in the dark....

This last thought was disquieting. Demophon could not have said why, but
as he watched the replenishing of the fire he wished that he had not
entered this hut, wished that he was far away from it--supperless,
tired, a wanderer in the night. “You are hungry; you must be hungry,”
the old man kept repeating in his shrill and windy voice. He moved
quickly here and there, darting about the room with an uncanny agility,
stretching out swift and incredibly long arms. His unnatural thinness,
his bright eyes, and the rapidity of his movements, made Demophon think
of a spider who has not been visited for some time by flies.

Another unhappy thought!... Without turning his head, the old man went
on unctuously, ingratiatingly, “I am Laomedon. You knew that, I dare
say. You knew about old Laomedon, or you would not have come in search
of him. He has another name--but he will tell you that later.... Little
stranger, won’t you tell me your own name and to what country you
belong, and why you have come to me, for I think I was expecting you.”

Yet he hardly listened when Demophon gave him a brief account of his
story, and he made no comment on what he heard, nor asked any questions.
After he had finished preparing supper they sat down opposite each other
and ate in silence, except when the old man, whose thoughts seemed busy,
muttered unintelligible words to himself. But presently he said, “So you
have come to live with me, little naked boy. When I first saw you in the
moonlight I looked for your bow and arrows; and I said to myself, ‘What
can he want with Laomedon? He has made a mistake: he has come to the
wrong house.’ But then I saw you had no bow and no quiver.... Well, we
shall have fine times together.”

Demophon looked at him, and the uneasiness that had gathered in his mind
deepened. “I must go in the morning,” he answered. “I am on my way to
Chalkis. A shepherd I met told me to go to Chalkis, and that from there
I could cross to the mainland.”

The old man paid no heed to these words, but rose to clear away the
food; and when all was tidy he sat down again by the hearth, facing his
guest.

He smiled at him with a crafty smile, but Demophon could never catch his
eyes, for they flitted past him, darting here and there and everywhere,
only coming to rest when they were fixed on some remote and dusky
corner.

“I will teach you how to light the beacon that brings in the ships....
We will light it on stormy nights when the moon is hidden and the clouds
thick overhead. We will light it on dark nights, when the winds are
shrieking, when the foam is flying, when the sea is hungry--hungry and
cruel and desperate as a famished beast. That is the night when the
sailor longs for harbour, that is the night he makes for shelter--any
shelter--the shelter our beacon points to. And just when he believes he
has reached it, just when he thinks his prayers have been answered, he
sees what is really there--the sharp rocks, the jagged treacherous
rocks, piercing up through the black pounding waves and the churning
foam, like greedy fangs. He screams: I tell you he screams, and he is so
close that we shall hear him scream. He forces the helm round madly, but
it is too late, his ship comes crashing on. It shivers, and splinters,
and the black water boils, and the wind howls.” A peal of wild laughter
suddenly rang through the echoing room, and Demophon started to his
feet.

The old man waved him back. “Sit down--sit down. We will talk of
something else. What shall we talk about?... We shall hear them; the
storm will carry their cries to where we stand laughing far above the
black water, safe in a cave I will show you.” He leaned forward and
stretching out long bony fingers touched the boy’s knees. “Do you know
who I am, now?” he whispered. “Can you not guess?... I am the priest of
Death.”

Demophon shrank away from him, and his stool grated on the hard earth.
But the old man, as if reading his thoughts, suddenly skipped across the
room and fastened the door. Then he returned to his seat by the hearth
and there was a silence, which was presently broken by a long low
chuckle that seemed to stop the beating of the boy’s heart, so soulless
and inhuman it sounded.

Fear kept him dumb. Oh, what had tempted him to enter this house! And
there was no way out except through that heavily-barred door. He glanced
round like a trapped animal. There must be an opening near the roof to
let out the smoke, but he could never reach it, and even if he could, it
would be too narrow for his body to pass through.

All at once the fire fell in, and an arrow of light darted upward,
revealing an object before invisible, but now glittering on the wall
above the old man’s head. Demophon’s gaze remained glued to that object.
He tried to look away, but his eyes immediately returned to it. It was a
knife, with a long, pointed blade--very sharp, very bright, and with a
double edge that tapered gradually. Suddenly he became aware that
Laomedon was watching him.

He pushed back his stool as if he found the fire too hot, but the old
man took no notice. “What do you say? Won’t we have fine times?” he
asked.

“Yes,” Demophon quavered. “Will you please show me the cave now?”

“Not to-night--not to-night,” Laomedon answered softly. “It is getting
late, and you are tired. You must go to bed soon and have a long sleep.
That will do you good.... But on the night we light the beacon I will
show it to you.... And in the morning we will go down to the edge of the
sea and find them lying there--so still and so white. And we shall find
other things--all lying there waiting for us. Some of them we will hide,
but not all--not the dead men: those we will carry up to our cave, one
by one--and lay them out in a stiff white row.”

He bent forward over the fire, which shone on his silver hair and on his
long restless hands; but his eyes kept glancing furtively at Demophon,
and Demophon had only one clear thought--that he must do his best to
conciliate this wicked old man, and keep him in good humour. Gladly now
would he have been back on board the pirate ship, for he would a
thousand times rather be shut up with the worst of the pirates
than in this room with Laomedon. A mysterious horror--dark,
unintelligible--seemed to float in the air, like a clammy web that one
might break again and again, but that still clung, with its soft threads
perpetually renewed as they were spun out of that disordered brain. He
had been tired and longing for sleep, but now not for the world would he
have lain down or closed his eyes. And again, as if he had read his
thoughts, Laomedon rose.

“I must get your bed ready.... over here by the hearth ... it will not
take me long.”

Demophon turned his head this way and that, following every movement the
old man made as he began to walk swiftly to and fro upon the floor, and
when Laomedon passed for a moment behind him he jumped to his feet.

He stood with his back to the hearth. He would have seized the knife,
but it was out of reach, and he feared to arouse Laomedon’s anger, who
perhaps, after all, meant him no harm. Only, why was he so anxious for
him to go to bed? Why did he not go to bed himself? Laomedon was now
over in a corner of the room: he had his back turned, and was stooping
above a chest, whose lid he had just raised. To reach the knife
Demophon would have to mount upon the stool, and he began stealthily to
move it closer to the wall. There was a slight noise, but the old man
seemed too absorbed to notice it, and Demophon put one foot on the
stool.... Yet he hardly knew what he should do with the knife when it
was in his possession.... Laomedon was drawing something out of the
chest; he had not once looked round. Demophon sprang on to the stool,
but in his haste and nervousness he overbalanced it, and stool and boy
came together with a crash to the ground.

Before he could recover himself a large net had descended upon him. He
screamed; he wriggled and struggled and fought with tooth and nail, but
the meshes of the net enveloped him, were twisted round and round him,
were drawn ever tighter, till he could move neither hand nor foot. He
lay there panting, looking up into the long thin smiling face of his
host. The old man moved the lamp so that it shone upon his captive: then
he sat down once more by the fire. But from time to time he bent his
white head and peered closer, and from time to time he stretched forth a
long prying finger and poked at Demophon through the net. Whenever he
did so the boy shuddered away from his touch, as if it had been that of
the knife: but there was no anger in Laomedon’s face; he was still
smiling, and he began again to mutter into his thin floating beard, and
though his eyes were wild his voice had the softness of a caress.

“A beautiful silver fish,” he crooned, “a beautiful little Sea-God is
caught in the old fisherman’s net.”

“You horrible old man,” cried Demophon, “let me go.”

“Perfect little body; swift feet and cunning hands; face lovely as the
open sky--you have come to the old fisherman through the cool shining
ways of the sea, and now you are his.... Little Poseidon, little Nereus,
little watery God of Love.... You told me your name, but I have
forgotten it.... And to-morrow, facing the great glorious sun and the
open sea and the trackless air, you will lie upon the altar.” He bent
lower. “Be still: be still! I can see your heart fluttering in your
breast. You have nothing to fear. In my hands the knife is so swift that
you will not even feel it; and there is nothing to fear afterwards. If
you are indeed a God death cannot touch you; and if you are a mortal you
will become straightway part of the God; your spirit will be his spirit,
your eyes his eyes, your breath his breath.”

But these comforting words brought no comfort to Demophon, who watched
this now half-dreaming old man with an expression of intense dislike.

Laomedon put fresh fuel on the fire, stirred it, and drew closer to it,
rubbing his big-knuckled hands together, nodding his white head on his
breast, and sometimes shutting his eyes for several minutes. But always
he opened them again, and each time his countenance would light up as if
he had discovered his silver fish anew; and a strange glee would float
across his face, and he would begin again to chant his unholy
benedicites.

So the night wore on, till Demophon began to think the old man was never
going to bed at all. At last, however, he got up, and dragging a bundle
of rags from a corner, lay down on them. Almost immediately he began to
snore. But his snoring was so sudden and so loud that Demophon feared he
might be shamming, and for a long time made no movement. All at once he
opened his eyes with a start and knew that he too must have dropped
asleep. It could only have been the briefest of slumbers, because there
was still a red glow half hidden in the gray ashes. The old man now lay
silent as if dead.

Very cautiously Demophon rolled himself over on the hard earthen floor.
Fortunately the fire had sunk so low that he was able to lie close to
it, and to scatter the embers. He held the rope that was drawn round the
net and round his arms over one red fragment after another, till his
skin was scorched and tiny red sparks ran along the blackened cords.
Gradually the strength was charred out of them, and at last he was able
to free his hands. After this it was easy enough to loosen the
remaining cords and to wriggle himself out of the net.

He had accomplished it all with but little noise, but the task of
getting out of the hut was still before him. He crept in the direction
of the door. The firelight was too feeble to penetrate the thick
darkness and he could see nothing. He thought of the knife: he might be
able to stab the old man in his sleep. Only that would be horrible, and
certainly he would not attempt it till everything else had failed.

He found the door and began to pull at one of the bars that held it, but
it was very stiff, and he feared to use his full strength lest he should
awaken Laomedon. And suddenly he heard a movement behind him--the old
man was on his feet. Demophon, with an irrepressible cry, sprang back
across the room. Laomedon, however, seemed not to know he was there.
With two great tugs he pulled out the bolts and the door swung wide:
then, leaving it open behind him, he strode out into the twilight of
dawn. In a second Demophon was after him, but the old man seemed to have
forgotten his existence, and as he walked with huge strides down the
path towards the cliffs, he never once turned his head. Demophon watched
his gaunt figure till it was out of sight: then he took the opposite
direction and ran till his breath was gone, and that wicked hut far, far
behind him. Not a sound reached him now, for he had been running away
from the sea also, and it was as if the whole earth were empty. He was
too weary to seek for any better resting-place, nor did the wide bare
plain on which he found himself give promise of such, so he dropped down
just where he was and slept.




CHAPTER X

_The Trainer_


Without knowing it he had lain down not far from a road, and the first
sound to awaken him was a gay tinkling of bells, accompanied by the
clop, clop, clop of iron hooves beating in unison. A car was passing,
drawn by two powerful black and white horses, but the driver pulled up
on catching sight of Demophon. He was a middle-aged man, thick-set and
ruddy, with a broad, good-humoured, rather coarsely handsome face. He
beckoned with his whip, while his horses sniffed the morning air and
tossed their heads and rang their bells, making a fine show with their
long tails that nearly swept the ground, their glossy coats and dark
lustrous eyes. The driver beckoned again, and Demophon ran up to see
what he wanted.

Apparently he wanted to satisfy his curiosity, but he seemed a genial,
kind-hearted person, and when Demophon had answered his questions,
offered to take him in the car. His name, he said, was Talos, and these
horses he had bred and trained himself. This latter piece of information
was the result of Demophon’s frank praise of them, which pleased Talos,
who smiled with a wide smile that included both horses and boy. “I think
they cannot help but win at Thebes,” he said, “though I am going to let
my son drive them, and it will be his first race.”

Demophon was stroking the proud yet gentle creatures, and Talos watched
him closely. “What do you want me to do about this Laomedon?” he asked.
“There is no road, you say, and his hut is a couple of miles off. We’d
better tell the people in the first town or village we reach, and leave
the matter to them.... Do you see that stone over there--the flat one
near the little bush?”

Demophon followed the direction of the pointing whip. “Yes,” he
answered.

“Well--just run there and back, like a good boy, will you?”

Demophon hesitated. He looked uncertainly into the trainer’s face, for
he was not quite sure whether to take his words seriously.

“I mean it,” Talos laughed. “I have a reason. I want to see how you do
it.”

Demophon darted off, circled the stone, and ran back again.

“And now jump up beside me,” Talos said, “and you can tell me the rest
of your adventures.”

But instead of listening, as soon as the car started he began to ask
more questions. “Tell me,” he said, “have you ever entered for the boys’
foot-race?”

Demophon shook his head.

“I don’t mean at Thebes; but anywhere?”

“Sometimes we ran races at school.”

“But you have never competed in any proper race--any big race, any
public race?”

“No.”

Talos nodded, and seemed pleased. He shook the reins, but he made no
further remark until it occurred to him that Demophon must be hungry.
With his foot he pushed a basket out from under the seat and told the
boy to take what he wanted.

Demophon lost no time in obeying, for he was very hungry indeed. And as
they drove along he munched his breakfast, and between the mouthfuls
described his journey from the time he had left home down to his
encounter with Glaukos. Here he stopped abruptly.

“What’s the matter?” Talos asked, who had been listening with an
indulgent grin on his bold, good-tempered face.

Demophon’s own countenance had suddenly clouded. “It’s my magic grass,”
he answered dolefully. “I must have lost it. The string must have broken
when I was rolled up in the net.”

“Magic grass! Is that all?” Talos, with a flick of his long whip, picked
a fly from the left-hand horse’s shoulder. “You’ll soon find plenty
more.”

“No; but this was really magic,” Demophon persisted. “And I had plaited
it into a string and tied it round my neck to keep it safe.”

“A talisman?”

“It was the grass that turned Glaukos into a fish.”

Talos chuckled. “Well, I don’t suppose you wanted to eat it, did you,
and become a fish?”

“No, but----”

“Perhaps you thought of trying experiments on other people? You’d have
given me a bit--is that it?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then I don’t think you’ve lost much. However----” He began to fumble in
his breast, and produced a small box fastened to a cord. “You can have
this,” he said. “It’s better than magic grass--never been known to
fail.”

Demophon took the box. It was made of brown polished wood, and was about
the size of a pigeon’s egg. It was composed of two identical pieces
which screwed together, and when he had unscrewed them he found inside
what looked like a small dry black bulb.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Moly. I thought you would have recognised it at once! You can wear it
round your neck; and from what you’ve been telling me, I don’t doubt but
it will be more useful to you than it ever was to me.”

Demophon examined it with great seriousness. “Is it a charm?” he asked.

“Not exactly. At least, I don’t think that is its chief property. It is
used more as an antidote against enchantments. If your friend Glaukos
had swallowed a bit of it after eating that grass, for instance, it
would have made him all right again in no time.”

The friend of Glaukos screwed up the box and hung it round his neck,
while Talos watched him with a twinkle in his blue eyes. But presently
scruples of conscience seemed to assail Demophon. “Are you sure you want
to give it to me?” he said. “It is very kind of you, but I don’t think I
ought to take it.” And he would have unfastened the box again had not
the trainer put out his hand and prevented him.

“Keep it--keep it. You are sure to meet with a magician or a witch
before long, and at my age I run less risk.”

“But why?... I don’t see what difference your age can make.”

“Don’t you?... Well--it does.... I suppose it is because the things that
happen to us are usually like ourselves, so that when we begin to get
old and dull only dull things happen. To tell you the truth, I don’t
believe that if Pholos were to gallop across our path now I should see
him. You would see him, and the horses might, but I don’t think I
should. And if I went down to sit on the rocks, and Glaukos swam up to
have a look at me, when I came to tell you about it afterwards, my story
wouldn’t sound a bit like yours. I should tell you that what with the
warmth of the sun and the noise of the waves I had begun to feel drowsy,
and that in the end I had had an odd kind of dream in which I had talked
with a sea-monster who came up out of the water, and the foam was his
beard and the seaweed his hair.”

“Then, I suppose, you think _I_ only dreamed it,” Demophon answered, a
little hurt.

“I think very likely you dream everything,” said Talos amiably. “In
fact, you may be dreaming now. Shall I pinch you and see what happens?”

Demophon did not answer at once, but after a long silence he said, “You
must have believed in the moly, or you wouldn’t have kept it for so
long.”

“That,” said Talos, “_is_ rather wonderful, for I can’t imagine why I
did keep it. Certainly it wasn’t because I had much faith in the person
who gave it to me. I think I must have kept it as a memento of him. His
name was Polyidos, and he gave it to me when I was about your age and he
was about mine. He had gathered it himself on Mount Kyllene, or said he
had, for I shouldn’t be surprised if he had really dug it up in our own
garden. He wasn’t one to part willingly with anything he thought very
precious.”

“But you say he was old, and gave it to you just the way you have given
it to me,” Demophon replied. “Of course, I don’t mean that you are
really old,” he added hurriedly--“not nearly so old as my father.... Was
Polyidos your uncle?”

“My uncle? Polyidos?” Talos burst into a roar of laughter. “What on
earth put that into your head?”

“I don’t know. I just thought he might have been. Everybody is
somebody’s uncle, I suppose.”

Talos looked at him, and continued to laugh. “Well, I refuse to have
Polyidos as mine.... Though,” he added, a moment or two later, “I don’t
see why I should be so eager to disown him either; for I rather liked
the old rascal.... No, he was just my master, my tutor--whatever you
care to call it--and even that not for very long.”

“Like Pittakos,” Demophon said. “I have a master called Pittakos. He is
a poet.”

“Polyidos was not a poet. He was a diviner. My father was not interested
in poets, but he was the most superstitious man in all Hellas, and the
important thing for Polyidos was to get a footing in our house as
quickly as possible.... He must have found it easier than he ever could
have hoped. Prophets, wizards, dabblers in the mysteries--all such were
sure of a welcome from my father. He would tell them his dreams, and
they would supply suitable interpretations. Everything that concerned
us--everything that concerned me in particular--was discussed and
provided for in this light, so that there were times when my whole
future, as you might say, hung on an indigestion.... If I hadn’t been
pretty wide awake, and able to look after myself, and if my mother
hadn’t happened to detest all soothsayers, however venerable, goodness
knows what would have become of me.”

“And what _did_ happen?” Demophon asked, as Talos became absorbed in
these reawakened memories.

The trainer had pushed back his hat from a flushed and sunburned face.
He looked at Demophon half comically. “You want to hear about my
adventures with Polyidos? I don’t know that I ought to tell you. You’ll
probably think there wasn’t much to choose between master and pupil, and
I’ve already told you my opinion of the master.... However----”

“You say he gave you this moly.”

“Yes, but not just then. The moly was a parting gift. If you really want
the whole business we must go back to the beginning.”

Demophon settled himself to listen. He was feeling just now very
contented, and a little sleepy after the hazards of his agitating night.
The car rolled along leisurely through the morning sunshine. And more
and more the robust and comfortable body of his companion became a
cushion against which he leaned, as he listened drowsily to the queer
tale of Polyidos.

“Well, as I say,” the trainer began, “it was a chance for this
Polyidos--the chance of a lifetime. My father being the way he was, I
mean. And Polyidos, if not all that he professed to be, had at least
quick wits. In fact, he lived by them. I don’t believe that man had ever
done an honest day’s work in his life....”

Talos paused. There were many breaks in his story, and each represented
something which brought a slow smile to his face--something which he
perhaps kept to himself, for Demophon allowed him to take his own time
and his own way, being too lazy to interrupt him.

“Polyidos happened to arrive with us at a time when I had fallen sick.
My father was anxious. Because I was his only child he always got
anxious when there was the slightest thing the matter with me, and when
he was anxious the Gods usually sent him a dream. They did so now. My
sickness had come on at bedtime, and was not at all an uncommon one. For
me, at least, it presented no mystery--but then I knew all about the
unripe plums with which I had gorged myself that afternoon. In spite of
this, I made as much fuss as if my last hour were come, and of course
never breathed a word about the plums.... So that night my father
dreamed, and his dream told him I should die unless the one man able to
cure me could be found. How he was to be found the dream did not make
clear, though my father declared he himself would be able to recognise
him by the description he would give of a certain favourite cow--a cow
named Nossis....

“My bed had been brought out and made up by the hearth, and I was lying
there, feeling a great deal better than I pretended to be, when next
morning he told all this to Polyidos, who had arrived a few minutes
earlier, a complete stranger, and in appearance the sort of person who
begs his way from house to house, except that he looked better nourished
than an ordinary tramp and that his face wore an expression of a kind of
jovial and debased distinction. He had come in, seeking what hospitality
he might find and what opportunities the Gods might send him. I could
see him pricking up his ears at once, and just then my father was called
from the room.

“Instantly Polyidos fixed his eyes upon me. My own eyes were staring
straight at him, and I don’t know how it was exactly, but without a word
spoken, without so much as a nod or a wink, our future relations were
established. ‘The cow?’ he said simply, and I had just time to tell him
that this brilliant creature was of three colours--white, red, and
black--before my father returned, bringing my mother with him. I
pretended to be asleep, and Polyidos had fallen into a trance....

“It was this remarkable sight that met my parents’ gaze as they crossed
the threshold, and stood looking at us in uncertainty. Me they did not
attempt to awaken; they were unable to arouse Polyidos. My mother spoke,
but he did not hear her; my father plucked him by his rather uncleanly
garment, but he did not open his eyes. As I watched the whole scene
through the narrowest slits between my own eyelids, I was secretly
shaking with laughter--but I managed to control myself, and my father,
more and more impressed by the extraordinary state of affairs, stood
awe-struck and silent, hardly venturing to draw his breath.... Then
Polyidos, still without opening his eyes, spoke in a strange, far-off
voice, as if from another world. ‘She is a mulberry,’ he muttered
uneasily. ‘I see a mulberry--unripe, ripening, and ripe--a mulberry
which while it ripens changes colour, turns from white to red, and from
red to black. White, red, and black.’ He sighed profoundly and awoke,
gazing about him with a bewildered, lost expression, as if not knowing
where he was....

“Such a bare-faced mummery, you might think, could hardly have imposed
upon a child of six; and indeed it only got a most unflattering sniff
from my mother; but it was more than sufficient to satisfy my father. He
was amazed, and at the same time overjoyed. After this nobody would be
able to deny the prophetic virtue of his dreams. Polyidos ceased to be
an object of charity--the kind of wandering guest who is warmed and fed
and tolerated for a few hours, and then sent about his business: he
became my honoured physician; and since, wisely, he did not attempt to
doctor me, but employed only mysterious rites and incantations, I
speedily recovered....

“Of course, I was amused and delighted with my own share in this dubious
performance. That I had helped to make a fool of my father did not
trouble me in the least. I was far more to blame, really, than Polyidos,
who even now strikes me as having, to some extent at any rate, deserved
his success. He had not been ten minutes in my presence; I had not once
opened my lips to him; he had merely looked at me and I had looked back;
and yet that had been enough--enough for him to run the risk which he
certainly had taken. For, naturally, if I had betrayed him, he would
have been flung out of doors there and then, neck and crop; and would
very likely have been beaten into the bargain. Yet he had trusted to his
insight, to his sense of character, to his amazing penetration. It was
the finest performance as a diviner he was destined to give while in my
company....”

Talos smiled. He had slackened the reins, and the horses took the
opportunity to drop into a walk.

“But it did not deceive my mother, though she remained ignorant of my
share in the matter. To all her suspicions and questions I returned a
point-blank denial. Still, she was not convinced. For her I was by no
means the innocent little cherub my father believed me. She had a very
shrewd idea of the true origin of my illness, and after my rapid
recovery at once suggested that we need detain Polyidos no longer. So
accomplished a person must be in very great demand, and it would be
unfair for us to take advantage of his good nature. Thus she put it, but
with an extraordinary bitterness, for the truth is she had taken a
violent dislike to Polyidos, not only because she suspected he had
tricked us, but also because of the slovenliness of his habits, and of
his freedom of speech. She was not, however, to get rid of him so
easily. Polyidos was more than a match for her. He might be gross in his
appetites, but he was not gross in his intellects. While treating her
with all outward deference, and even with an obsequious politeness, he
at the same time did not budge an inch. On the contrary, in a long
private conversation he persuaded my father that he could teach me the
art of divination, and my father jumped at the chance. I, I regret to
say, jumped at it also. Not that I believed any more than my mother did
in Polyidos, and I had better reasons for my doubts. For that matter,
anybody with eyes could have seen he was simply a lazy unscrupulous old
rip--dirty in his dress and person, fond of talking, and still fonder
of eating and drinking. In fact, it was for these very weaknesses I
welcomed him. I knew he would not bother me so long as I left him in
peace; I knew he had taken a liking to me and would be proportionately
indulgent; I knew, for I had already had more than one sample of it,
that his conversation could be extremely amusing when it ceased to be
edifying; which happened, I may add, the instant we were left alone
together. We had nothing to hide from each other: I know Polyidos and
Polyidos knew me. To do him justice, if I had possessed a desire for
learning I dare say he would have gratified it, for he was really
learned, and though his practice was simply the pursuit of enjoyment
wherever enjoyment was to be found, he had never lost his taste for
intellectual pleasures. The other pleasures, unfortunately, were more
easily within my comprehension, and it was not in his nature to enforce
the distasteful. From time to time he would remember that his job was to
make a little wizard of me, and then he would give me a lesson. But
whether he really was versed in these occult arts, or whether, as I
strongly suspect, he invented what he taught me out of his own
imagination and on the spur of the moment, I cannot now be sure. Nor did
it matter much, since I paid scant attention to him. I was not
interested in divination; I was only interested in horses and sports
and games. If Polyidos could have told me who was going to win such and
such a race I should have been an enthusiastic pupil; but this kind of
verifiable prophecy was beneath him, and I could make nothing myself of
either entrails or the flight of birds. I treated Polyidos not as a
master but as a comrade. Almost at once I saw that it did not matter
what I said to him, and consequently many of our conversations were of a
nature to do little honour to his reputation either as a wise man or a
pious. They were, in the end, the means of his downfall, for one day my
mother overheard him describing to me with great gusto an adventure of
his youth. She was furious, and of course, though most unjustly, laid
the entire blame on him. The scene that followed was terrible. I fled at
the beginning of it, but its echoes pursued me, and at the end of it
Polyidos left. Yet, strangely enough, it was only now, in this hour of
his disgrace, that I discovered a genuine liking for the old man. My
affection was not mingled with respect; I believed Polyidos to be a
thoroughgoing old scamp; but at the same time I could not help knowing
that I was a thoroughgoing young one.... And he _was_ amusing. I would
have saved him if I could; but, since that was impossible, I did the
only other thing I could think of, which was to steal a skin of wine and
such provisions as I could lay hands on, and with these to follow him.
He embraced me tenderly (not without first casting a cautious glance
all round to see that we were unobserved); he even shed a tear as he
accepted my gifts; but the offer of my continued companionship he
refused discreetly yet firmly. Immediately afterwards he remembered the
wrongs he had suffered, and his indignation led to the strangest request
I had ever heard. Opening his mouth wide, he asked me to spit into it. I
drew back; I was even shocked. As I have said, my feeling for my master
was not one of veneration; but still, there are limits---- Polyidos,
however, insisted. He clasped his arms about me, and in the end I had to
obey--I spat into his mouth. ‘And now,’ he sighed, ‘the art you have
learned from me is lost: you will forget all I have taught you.’

“I burst out laughing; I could not help it. The arts he had really
taught me I was most unlikely to forget, and those he referred to I had
never known. But Polyidos regarded me with reproach. ‘Tell your father,
when you go home, what you have done,’ he said, ‘and how a shrewish
woman’s vile temper has robbed you of a sacred gift.’ Nor would he let
me go till I had solemnly pledged myself to repeat those very words;
which I did, when I reached home, with the result that my father was as
angry with me as if I had deliberately thrown away a priceless treasure.
He still had implicit faith in the mysterious pretensions of Polyidos,
and he would not believe me when I assured him that I knew as much
about divination now as I had ever known. He questioned me, and because
I could remember only odds and ends of the absurd rigmarole I had been
taught, and had even these odds and ends all jumbled up, he took this as
proving the truth of Polyidos’s words. My mother pointed out that it
proved nothing but his brazen-faced effrontery--the reference to a
shrewish woman had annoyed her intensely--but her interference merely
called down fresh wrath on my unlucky head. ‘You shouldn’t have spat.
You should have refused to spit,’ my father kept on repeating. ‘How was
I to know?’ I screamed in self defence. ‘He didn’t tell me till
afterwards.’ The whole scene was grotesque, and one which would have
appealed irresistibly to Polyidos. But all I got out of it was a
beating, after which I was sent supperless to bed. My mother, as I say,
took my part. ‘It’s your own fault,’ she told my father. ‘You needn’t
punish the innocent child for your own foolishness.’ And more I think
because she was angry with him than because she sympathised with me, she
brought me, in secret, a much better supper than usual. But I vowed I
would have nothing more to do with prophets, and I have kept my word.”

Talos chuckled over his own story. He shook the reins and glanced
sidelong at Demophon. “Now, what would you think of giving up your
wanderings and coming to my house?” he suddenly proposed. “I can train a
horse, and I can train a boy, when either is worth it. You have a chance
of the greatest glory of all--the glory of the successful athlete. When
I saw you I knew it, and in such matters at least I do not need to
consult oracles. I could tell it from the way you ran to meet the car,
though you were not putting out your full speed. You ran straight from
your hips, with the easy, natural lope of a wolf, which means not only
speed but endurance. That is why I made you run again. How would you
like to be a champion--first among the boys, and then among the youths?
Your name would be blazoned across Greece. You would have poems written
to you; you would be remembered for ever. And I, too, should have my
small share of fame for having trained you. You see, I am speaking quite
frankly. I do not want to dazzle you with false hopes, but my whole life
has been devoted to these things, and I can say truthfully I never yet
saw material that looked to me at first sight so promising.”

Demophon flushed. The praise of Talos was very pleasant, and the thought
of winning glory in the great games was very pleasant too. But another
thought haunted him more closely, and the bright picture painted by
Talos carried his memory back to earlier races run in the deep summer
woodland, and to his first trainer. “I cannot come now, Talos,” he
answered. “I want to visit Sophron.”

“What! Sophron of Thebes? The philosopher?” Such a reply was the last
Talos had expected, and his voice expressed a half incredulous disgust.

“Yes. A shepherd told me he was a wise man; and Glaukos told me only a
wise man could help me.”

“But he has turned hermit. He has left the city and lives somewhere in a
cave in the mountains. Whatever fame he may once have had is already
half forgotten. If it had been Euphorion now, I could have
understood--but Sophron!”

“Even so, I must find him.”

“And if he persuades you to become his pupil? He will certainly try to
do so.... But you are not serious--you cannot be serious?

“I am serious, Talos; and why should he persuade me? I am only going to
ask him a question. I shall not stay long.”

“Will you promise, then, to come to me after you have talked with
Sophron?”

Demophon hung his head. It seemed very ungrateful still to refuse. But
it would not be more grateful to say yes and then, perhaps, be unable to
keep his word. “I cannot promise that,” he answered in a low voice. “I
can only promise that I will not forget.”

“Well, we shall have plenty of time to talk it over between this and
our journey’s end,” said Talos more cheerfully. “And if you change your
mind you can tell me.”

“Are you going to take me all the way, then?”

“I thought that was what you wanted--to go to the mainland.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Well then, I am going there too, though not directly to Thebes. I shall
have to leave you on the road to Aulis, for there our ways part--unless
you think better of it and come with me to my son’s house.”

Demophon said nothing, but Talos, as they rolled along, began to tell
him stories of the great sports. His stories were chiefly about the
footraces, for they were designed to fire Demophon’s imagination and
ambition. The trainer’s own imagination was of a sufficiently homely
quality, yet because he genuinely believed the life he was describing to
be the finest in the world, and because he genuinely believed that in
this boy he had discovered a treasure beyond estimation, his words had
the glow and the enthusiasm of conviction.




CHAPTER XI

_The Stone Serpent_


None the less, when, two or three days later, they parted company on the
road to Aulis, Demophon still had not changed his mind.

To Talos such obduracy was inexplicable. Each evening, on their journey,
he had gathered together the boys of the village where they intended to
put up for the night, and had improvised a gymnasium and racing ground.
It had not been difficult to do, for everywhere he was well known, and
the boys were eager to compete. Not one of them but would have given all
he possessed for the chance which Demophon set aside so lightly. Under
the grave eyes of their fathers they did their utmost to win the
approval of the trainer. Talos put them through their paces; now and
then he pointed out a fault, now and then he dropped a word of
encouragement or praise, but the result of these competitions only
confirmed his faith in his own boy. It was a genuine discovery, there
could be no doubt of it, and as he watched Demophon--half angrily, but
wholly in admiration--Talos racked his brains to find some means of
keeping him. It went to his heart merely to think of such material
being wasted, and he called on all the Gods to implant wisdom in that
shapely black head, which just now seemed so woefully crowded with
phantasies.

Demophon’s assertion that he thought his first trainer had been Hermes,
was received in indulgent silence. It was on a par with all the rest.
The boy, no doubt, was odd--a little touched mentally--but that did not
prevent him from being singularly pleasant in his speech and manners,
and above all it would not prevent him from becoming a glorious athlete,
a kind of younger Achilles; and Talos, when he had reached this point,
would call down maledictions on the unconscious and unoffending Sophron.
So intent was he on winning Demophon, and so uncertain was he of
success, that he lost much of his interest in his horses. That
admiration of physical perfection, common to all his countrymen, in
Talos amounted to a religion. He was willing to make any promise
Demophon might demand; he was willing to adopt him as his own son; but
promises and prayers were equally unavailing, and on the road to Aulis
they parted.

Talos embraced him almost with tears. In his disappointment he told
himself that the boy must be naturally hard-hearted. Had he not
abandoned his home and his poor old father and mother without a qualm?
It was the first time the trainer had given a thought to these worthy
folk, but now he was ready to regard them as shockingly badly treated.

Demophon returned his kiss warmly enough, but his eyes were untroubled
and his lips smiling. “He doesn’t care,” Talos repeated to himself.
“He’s willing to pass his whole life without once going near a
racecourse; he’d rather listen to the talk of some old wind-bag like
Sophron. I practically rescued him from the clutches of a murderer; I
brought him all this way in my car; the very clothes he is wearing I
gave him; that basket of food he is carrying I gave him; and in the end
he leaves me like this!” He held the reins gathered up in his hands, but
his head was turned to watch the retreating figure. “He’ll never come
back.... Sophron will fill his mind with all sorts of notions about the
dignity of philosophy and the vulgarity of athletics. He will teach him
to feed on shadows. They are all the same--all these sophists.... But
perhaps he will come back.” The trainer sighed and gave the reins a
slight jerk, which was enough for the impatient horses. When Demophon
looked round to wave his hand the car was gone.

       *       *       *       *       *

He walked on in the direction Talos had told him to follow. He really
felt quite as light-hearted as the trainer believed him to be. The
horses had been splendid, Talos had been a kind and amusing companion,
the suppers at the inns, the wrestling and jumping and racing with the
other boys--all had been very jolly; yet somehow he was glad to be afoot
again, a solitary rover. It was not that he did not like company; but he
liked above all things freedom;--and there was much more in the world
than racing and wrestling, though Talos did not appear to think so.

Demophon would have sung had the road been a lonely one, but there were
carts on it, drawn by mules or oxen, and he returned the greetings the
drivers gave him, though refusing all offers of a lift. In the fields he
saw shepherds guarding their flocks, but he did not turn aside to speak
with any one; and it was only when the sun was at its height, marking
the hour of noon, that he entered a wood to eat his dinner and to rest.
He followed a path through the trees, which presently led him to an open
glade, sunlit and lawn-like, with a small temple standing in the midst.
The temple was no more than a square of slender fluted columns
surrounding an altar and itself surrounded by a motionless sea of
leaves. A lizard was basking on the white marble steps; ring-doves cooed
softly through the air; a spring of clear water formed a space of
brighter green where it oozed over its grassy brink. And hard by the
spring, at the roots of a plane-tree, was a great serpent carved out of
marble, yet so perfectly that every scale showed, and the thing seemed
asleep.

Demophon gazed at it in admiration and astonishment. The carver of this
image must be a very skilful artist indeed. Yet he wondered at the same
time why it should be just where it was. Had it been within the temple
it might have represented the tutelary spirit of this quiet spot--a
spirit of the underworld, passing between the living and the
dead--symbol of the renewal of life, symbol of fertility--or possibly
connected with the healing art of Asklepios, or even the image of the
God himself, for he knew that it was in the form of a great gray snake
that Asklepios appeared to those who sought his aid.

He passed his hand over the flattened head and the smooth coils, so cold
and rigid; then in the shadow of the plane-tree he sat down to eat his
dinner. When he had finished he scattered his crumbs for the birds and
quenched his thirst at the spring. But the serpent fascinated him and he
returned to it. Once more he sat down beside it and gazed into the
sunlight through the thin half-transparent leaves. How golden green they
were against the dark blue sky, and how smooth and golden his own limbs
looked as he stretched himself on his back among the long crimson
sorrels and grasses. A very small frog, shining like polished bronze,
jumped on to his body, and then another and another. At the moment of
contact they felt icy cold against his hot skin, but afterwards he did
not feel them, for they sat quite still. The leaves barely quivered; the
ring-doves had ceased to call; the profound stillness was broken only by
that low undertone of hidden life which in summer is never silent, and
which is like the breathing of Earth.

Demophon lay almost as quiet as the stone serpent. The deep colours that
floated before his eyes, blue and green and gold, seemed to swim and mix
into each other like water mixing into water. At times he closed his
eyes for a little, and again he opened them; and he was still awake, and
yet somehow he heard a small voice that was very close to him and that
kept on repeating, “Help me. Help me.”

Who was it? Who wanted to be helped? What voice could it be, for it was
not a human voice? He tried to sit up, to turn his head, to look round,
but the earth spell bound him, and the voice went on calling, now
louder, now fainter, now no more than a whisper in his ear.
“Demophon--Demophon.... Help me, dear little Demophon.”

“Where are you?” Demophon asked, but he had to think this question, for
when he tried to speak no sound came. Yet the voice answered at once, “I
am here, close beside you. I am so tired of lying still, and I do not
know what has become of my wife and children. You will help me, won’t
you? and then I will love you for ever.”

“But how can I help you?” Demophon thought; and this time the voice
answered quite loudly, “The moly that is in your box--give me some of
that.”

He sat up with a start, and the tiny frogs, who now numbered more than a
dozen, simultaneously jumped off his body and legs in all directions,
like bathers from a diving-stage. He rubbed his eyes; he had been
dreaming; but surely something had aroused him, and quite abruptly too.
The woods were wrapped in the same drowsy peace as before; not a leaf
was stirring; not a rustle in the grass; nothing had come or gone. There
was only the memory of a voice, of two or three words; and he had lost
the connection that might have given them a meaning. All he could
remember was “Help me; help me!” and then--something about moly, the
moly in his box.

He turned, and as he did so his eyes fell on the stone serpent. Demophon
looked at the frozen coils that wound through the grass; he looked with
a closer and closer attention. For the strangest thoughts were moving
behind his dark narrowed eyes. Could it be that? Could it possibly----
So many odd things had happened! At least it would do no harm to try:
and he began to unscrew the small ivy-wood box. The moly was there; he
shook it out into the palm of his hand, and to his fancy the dry little
black root, though shrivelled and withered, looked mysteriously alive
and powerful. He broke off a piece, which he placed on the serpent’s
tongue, pushing it farther and farther back, for to his surprise he
found there was actually a cavity in the throat, and he wondered by what
means it could have been hollowed out and how far it reached. He
withdrew his hand and watched the serpent with curious eyes.

Nothing happened. To be sure, there was no particular reason why
anything _should_ happen, except that Demophon was learning to expect
the marvellous. Even Polyidos had said the moly was only an antidote
against enchantment, while Talos had practically denied that it was moly
at all. He sat back on his haunches with a slight start, for something
_was_ happening. The pale, creamy colour of the marble was changing,
darkening. The darkness was spreading rapidly, like the stain of a
breath on polished steel. And at the same time it was breaking up, other
colours were coming out through it--a bright, wondrous, mottled pattern
that grew ever softer and more luminous. There was a faint tremor as of
a long indrawn breath, a sudden swelling rippling movement from throat
to tail, and then the snake lifted its head. It lifted it higher and
higher, till it was on a level with Demophon’s own head, and the long
body waved this way and that, as if trying its cramped and stiffened
muscles. The lidless eyes shone like jewels, the forked tongue spat in
and out, and suddenly Demophon was held fast in coils which wound about
him so closely that he could not move. He shut his eyes; he did not even
utter a cry, for he knew that in another moment the coils would contract
and crush out his life.

But the minutes passed, and still he felt no pain. He ventured to open
his eyes; he ventured to take breath again, for the coils that wound
about him had been drawn no tighter. He felt something cold in contact
with his cheek, and an almost unbearable tickling, first in one ear and
then in the other. It was produced by the tongue of the serpent, who was
licking the inside of his ears, and no sooner was the task accomplished
than the whole weight of the twining body slid from him and he felt
himself free.

Demophon drew a long sigh and looked at the serpent, who was looking at
him with bright unblinking eyes. “Sss--sss,” it hissed softly. “You are
a good boy, and I hope I didn’t frighten you.”

“No--at least yes--just for a minute,” Demophon replied a little
unsteadily.

“There was no other way,” the serpent said. “You wouldn’t have stood
still if I hadn’t held you, and I had to wash your ears before you could
understand me. Now, for a day or two at any rate, you will be able to
understand what every animal or bird says--not only in your dreams but
when you are awake. Of course, there are some animals who don’t talk,
and others who won’t talk, and others again who are too lazy or stupid
to talk about anything interesting--cows, for instance; to listen to a
cow you would think there was nothing in the world but grass and
milking-time and the beauty of their children.”

“I like cows,” said Demophon. “I am sure they are good and--kind.”

“Oh, they’re kind enough,” the serpent admitted, “but, personally, I
prefer intelligence. And let me tell you, laziness and stupidity are by
no means always signs of good-nature. Nobody could have been lazier and
stupider than the Minotaur, and he was as spiteful as a centipede. You,
on the other hand, look to me quite a bright child, yet I know you are a
kind one.”

“You seem to be very clever yourself,” Demophon replied, which was the
most he could truthfully say, for there was a peevish tone in the
serpent’s voice that made him not at all sure about its temper.

“Yes, I am,” the serpent agreed, “and it was just because I was so
clever that the Gods kept me lying there like a stone image all these
years. You can’t imagine how dull it was. I don’t feel too bright even
now--when I think how everybody I once knew must be dead and gone long
ago.”

“But you aren’t a real serpent, are you?” Demophon asked in surprise.

The serpent’s voice took a sharper note. “What is the child talking
about? Of course I’m real. What else could I be?”

“I thought you were a statue, and that the moly----”

“Moly, fiddlesticks! You don’t seem to be such a smart little boy after
all. What could moly do except bring me back to my proper self?”

“But how did you become the--the way you were?” Demophon was almost
frightened to ask the question, the serpent seemed so easily offended.

And now it reared itself up quite suddenly to its full height and gave
an angry hiss. “It was most unjust! I shall maintain that till my last
breath--no matter who hears me.” Its voice had risen to a scream of
rage, and Demophon hastily drew back. “If anybody was to be punished it
should have been that Kalchas. How was I to know he would guess what I
meant?”

“But I don’t understand,” Demophon stammered, for the serpent was
looking at him as if it expected him to say something. “Please don’t be
cross, but you see I don’t know what it was you did do.”

“Don’t know!” the serpent repeated passionately, while its whole body
trembled with agitation. “Don’t even know!... I foretold how long the
siege of Troy would last--but of course a little thing like that is too
unimportant to be remembered.”

“I am sure it is remembered,” Demophon hastened to say. “Only, nobody
happened to tell me about it.... And I think you were treated very
unfairly,” he added.

The serpent looked slightly mollified. “I foretold it,” it went on more
calmly, “in such a way that no ordinary person would have understood
what I meant. How was I to guess there was a soothsayer among them--this
wretched Kalchas? All the Achaians were here, or at any rate most of
those who afterwards became famous--for their ships were gathered in
Aulis harbour. Agamemnon was Field-marshal, and Achilles, who was then
fifteen years old, was Admiral of the Fleet.”

Demophon gasped. “You don’t mean to say----! Why, I’m nearly fifteen
myself!”

“Yes, but you are rather childish for your age,” said the serpent a
little unkindly. “Achilles was a great deal more advanced. He even had a
son--Neoptolemos--though he had not yet seen him, because the child was
born after he had set out for Troy. That, however, has no bearing on the
matter we are discussing. As I say, the Achaians were here, sacrificing
to the Gods, when I slipped out from beneath the altar and climbed a
tree which had a sparrow’s nest in it. There were eight young birds in
the nest, and the mother made nine. So I swallowed them all, one after
the other, and this Kalchas immediately screamed out that the siege
would last for nine years, but that in the tenth Troy would come
toppling down. Can you imagine such a busybody! It was he who told the
secret; it was he who ought to have been punished; but he wasn’t--it was
I. No sooner had the words passed his lips than I felt a numbness grip
my whole body. It was a dreadful feeling--not exactly painful, but in a
way almost worse. I tried to cling on to the tree, but it was no use, I
fell to the ground, and had barely strength to drag myself a yard or two
across the grass before I became as you found me.... There I have lain
for I don’t know how many years.” Two large round tears, whether of
sorrow or of anger, dropped from the serpent’s shining eyes. They lay
there sparkling on the grass, and presently Demophon picked them up, for
they had grown solid, as if frozen.

“Yes, you may keep them,” said the serpent. “They are worth quite a
lot--diamonds.... I lay there so long that I began to mark the passing
of time not by the rising and setting of the sun but by the changing
colours of the leaves. Autumn after autumn the dead leaves came
fluttering down over me till I was buried in them, and spring after
spring they were brushed away like rustling ghosts, and I saw the world
grown green again.”

“Perhaps it wasn’t quite so long as you think,” Demophon suggested
consolingly. “Of course, it must have _seemed_ very long----”

“I tell you it _was_,” cried the serpent angrily. “It was longer--much
longer.”

“But your children may still be alive.”

“Alive!” the serpent almost shrieked. “When do you think it all
happened? I never heard such nonsense. I don’t expect even my great
grandchildren are alive.”

Demophon saw that he was only making matters worse, so he kept silent,
and presently the serpent went on more quietly, “I’m sorry for getting
excited, but really, you know, your remarks would try most people’s
patience. They’re well meant, no doubt, but when one has been patient as
long as I have, it’s a relief even to be able to lose one’s temper. We
serpents have always been treated badly. One would think that the earth
wasn’t as much ours as yours. And we have been wickedly slandered into
the bargain. There was my own nephew Sosipolis, who went to help the
Eleans when they were at war with Arkadia. He went in the likeness of a
young boy like you, and they placed him at the head of their army. Then
he changed himself back into a snake, and the Arkadians took to their
heels, simply tumbling over each other in their eagerness to run
away.... But what is the use of talking of these things; everybody knows
we’ve met with nothing but ingratitude. Why, I dare say, if you hadn’t
been a most exceptional little boy, you never would have tried to bring
me back to life.... But we’ve gossiped long enough: I must take some
exercise and find out what is going on in the world.”

And with these words it glided away into the undergrowth before Demophon
had time to open his mouth. A moment later, however, the broad flattened
head flashed out once more into the sunshine, and swayed to and fro,
poised above the low bushes.

“Sleep on the ground,” it hissed, and this time quite gently. “Sleep
always with your ear to the ground, that the wisdom of Earth may pass
into your dreams. She is the mother of us all, and will tell you all you
need to know.... And remember that when you are in trouble you can count
on the whole tribe of serpents--if they can help you. I will pass the
word. You will be as one of ourselves. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” said Demophon, but he did not know whether the serpent heard
him, it was gone so quickly. And the minute it was gone he of course
thought of the questions he might have asked it. He wished these
creatures were less abrupt and unexpected in their actions and words.
They gave him no time to collect his ideas. Pholos, Glaukos, and now the
serpent--they had all abandoned him just when he had wanted them to
stay. He hoped Sophron would prove less elusive; but Sophron, though a
philosopher, was after all only a man, and he very much doubted now if a
man, even the wisest man, would be able to give him the kind of help he
needed.




CHAPTER XII

_Thebes_


As he drew near the city he kept a sharp look-out for Talos, though he
did not know when nor by what route the trainer would arrive. The road
wound through cultivated fields and a flat, well-watered land. The air
was thick with the dust of traffic, and behind him, and in front and on
each side of him, was a noisy cheerful throng of holiday-makers.
Already, beyond the wide plain with its two rivers, he could see the
walls and towers of the town--the town of seven gates--the oldest town
in Greece--built by King Ogyges before the great flood; already they
were approaching the tombs, which stood with their stone carvings on
either side of the road. And the crowd--laughing, grumbling, pushing,
jesting--carried him along; children darting under the mules’ heads,
women chattering, drivers cursing, beggars raising their whine, blind
men tapping with their sticks, now and then the yelping of a dog.

“Those be makers of magic,” whispered a countryman in Demophon’s ear. He
was pacing beside a small donkey and he pointed to a troupe of four
persons, a man, a youth, and two boys of nine or ten, all very
dark-skinned, the man clothed in a long saffron-coloured robe, the
children naked. “Africans,” he went on. “We shall see them later
swallowing fire and juggling with knives, and the boys, perhaps, telling
a fortune to the foolish.”

“Then they are not really magicians?” said Demophon, dropping into step.

“Would a true magician pass round the begging-bowl? But see! here comes
one who has no need to beg.”

The crowd had parted to make way for a man who rode slowly forward on a
rough-haired pony of the sturdy mountain breed. He was not alone, but
the half-dozen youths who accompanied him kept a few paces behind--like
a bodyguard, except that they were talking gaily. The Master neither
smiled nor spoke, nor looked to right nor left. He was tall, and the
pony on which he sat made him look taller than he actually was. But it
did not make him look ridiculous, as it might well have done had his
appearance been less impressive. He had reached but not passed
middle-age; and his features, somewhat Asiatic in type, were of an
ascetic refinement. He wore a cloak white as snow and fastened at the
shoulder with a splendid jewelled clasp; his hair and beard were
perfumed; and he rode on through the crowd as if lost in meditation.

“It is Euphorion,” said the donkey-driver, in a reverential undertone.
“And those others are his disciples.”

Demophon looked after them. “What Euphorion?” he asked. “Euphorion of
Ephesos?”

“The same: the greatest of all philosophers. His wisdom was acquired
from the Gods themselves, with whom he has often spoken.”

“Or says he has,” growled a harsh voice behind them. “What is to prevent
me or anybody else from making a similar claim?”

Demophon turned and gazed into the small close-set eyes of a sour-faced
person, whose hair was matted with dust and sweat, who carried a thick
staff, and who walked with a limp.

“What might prevent you, my friend,” answered the donkey-driver, “is
your appearance.”

There was a laugh from those within earshot, but the lame man was not
silenced. “The wise do not come with visions of other worlds,” he
answered, scowling at the circle of grinning faces. “Nor with tales of
past lives that none can verify, nor oracular sayings that may be
twisted to mean anything. They leave such stuff to the poets.”

“It is not Euphorion but Sophron whom I seek,” said Demophon to the
donkey-driver. “Will he, too, be in Thebes?”

“Sophron? No. He despises the city; he despises the games; he despises
everything other men venerate. Here you have an example of the teaching
of Sophron--in our friend here, who sneers at poetry, and speaks
contemptuously of oracles and of the Gods.” And the donkey-driver
shrugged a shoulder to indicate the decrier of Euphorion, who was
pressing so closely on their heels that Demophon could feel his warm
breath blowing on his cheek.

“I did not speak contemptuously of the Gods,” the harsh voice ground out
once more. “I spoke of a person who is as much a man as you or I, but
yet would like us to believe him different. The boy, if he would learn
philosophy, is right to choose Sophron, who at least is honest.”

“No doubt he would be wiser still to turn to one even now treading in
his shadow,” jeered the donkey-driver. “Tell him when you last spoke
with Euphorion--or with Sophron either.”

“I have spoken with Sophron more than once,” the lame man replied.

“Well, he will not find Sophron in Thebes. He is late by some thirty
years.”

“Nor will he find Euphorion, unless he is the son of a rich man, which I
doubt, or he would not be alone and afoot among all this rabble.”

“Rabble yourself!” cried a woman, whom in his eagerness he had elbowed
out of the way. “Who are you, to insult decent people and push them
about--with your crooked leg and your filthy tunic and your face that
would send a child screaming to his nurse?”

The lame man spat on the ground. “I am free, at any rate,” he retorted
bitterly; “not a slave such as half of those I see around me. And if
there is dust on my tunic, the tunic itself is not one I stole from my
master when he was drunk. I am a citizen of Tanagra, a potter, and if
this boy likes to come with me I will teach him my trade when I return.”

“Return whither?” asked the donkey-driver scornfully.

“To Tanagra. Have you anything to say against the town or the plan?”

“Much: but it shall be in the boy’s ears, not yours.”

“Yet possibly I may have something for _your_ ears,” the lame man
threatened, drawing now level with them, in spite of the screams of the
woman whom he had again thrust to one side.

He grasped his stick menacingly, but the donkey-driver looked him up and
down unmoved, while Demophon took the opportunity to slip away. Passing
nimbly through the crowd, he soon left these quarrelsome persons behind
him, though their voices followed him, and the sound of a scuffle, in
which the woman’s shrill cries were mingled. It was strange, he
reflected, how everybody he spoke to seemed immediately to want to take
possession of him, quite regardless of any plans he might have of his
own.

He entered Thebes by the Proitidian Gate, and followed the stream of
traffic towards the heart of the town. Here the streets were narrow, and
where there was an open space every available inch was occupied by tents
pitched for the accommodation of the visitors, who were flocking in from
all quarters, so that the market-place resembled a gigantic fair.
Demophon mingled with the motley gathering--flute-players and priests,
mountebanks and respectable citizens, vendors of sweetmeats, Persians in
their tall caps and long sleeves, serpent-charmers and healers of the
sick, children naked or in the scantiest of clothing, and women muffled
up to the eyes and wearing purple shoes. He stared at the scented
transparent silks and finery; he read the verses hung up on the doors of
courtesans by love-sick youths; and everywhere about him was the droning
and chatter of strange tongues.

An old woman with a face dry and brown and wrinkled as a withered
pomegranate, who had watched him moving idly from spot to spot, standing
before the shops, or peeping through the circles gathered around quacks
and jugglers, suddenly approached him and touched him on the shoulder.
He drew back quickly, but her fleshless fingers, curved like the claws
of a bird, closed round his wrist, and drew him apart from the crowd,
while she began a rapid tale of how his fortune might be made. She
herself would make it if only he would trust her. There was no one like
her in all Greece for that. The boys and girls whom she taught to dance
were let out to the rich for feasts and received marvellous gifts. And
the life was so easy and gay and pleasant. She treated them all as if
they were her own children, not one had ever tried to leave her.

Demophon shook her off, but as she continued to dog his footsteps, he
ran down a side street to avoid her. It led him farther and farther from
the market-place, till gradually the noise and tumult behind him sank to
a faint murmur, and at last completely died away.

Turning a corner, he found himself among the gardens on the outskirts of
the town. He kept close to the walls, sometimes peeping outside them,
and everywhere he came upon signs of the city’s ancient glory, monuments
to a history that was not only human, but divine. For it was here that
Alkmena had given birth to Herakles, and Semele to Dionysos. He saw the
dragon’s well, and the field where Kadmos sowed the teeth that had
sprung up as armed men. He saw the sacred hill and the temple of
Ismenian Apollo, with its laurel-crowned, white-robed boy priest. He saw
the Fountain of Dirke and the hill whereon the Sphinx had crouched
brooding over the doomed town. He entered a temple of Herakles, and
gazed on a figure of the God carved in wood by Daidalos, and fastened by
a chain lest it should be tempted to wander from that place.

Hard by was a gymnasium, with an open court, and baths, and a
running-ground. Demophon peeped into the covered halls which were used
in wet weather, and explored the adjoining pleasure grounds, where
friends met to converse and philosophers walked with their pupils. All
along the paths were marble benches, but only two or three of these were
now occupied, for it was an hour when the place was more or less
deserted. He half expected to be asked his business or ordered away, but
nobody interfered with him, and nobody spoke to him, though one or two
gave him a kindly glance as he passed.

The central avenue was shaded by two rows of dark pines, and on the last
seat of all he sat down. It was so quiet that it was difficult to
believe a few minutes’ walk would bring him back into the noise and
tumult of the city. The line of pine trees against the deep sky looked
quaintly stiff and formal. At the end of the path a peacock appeared,
spreading his gorgeous tail and moving towards him with delicate mincing
steps. Demophon, glancing round first to see that he was unobserved,
unpacked his midday meal, which this beautiful glittering creature
deigned to share with him.

When he had finished he rested for a while, but people were beginning to
arrive--men and boys--and presently his curiosity led him back towards
the gymnasium. On his way he met a young man who carried in his hand a
roll of parchment, and who smiled at him and half paused. Demophon half
paused too, because it occurred to him that here, if anywhere, was the
place to make inquiries about Sophron, to find out where he really
lived, and what kind of reception he might hope to receive from him.

The young Theban was regarding him with an inquisitive and yet friendly
look. “You want to speak to me? Tell me how I can help you. But
first--let us choose a seat in the shade--there is one just over there.
Kleanthes has his eyes on it, but he is fat and we shall forestall him.”

The seat was only a few paces off, down a side alley, and when they had
reached it the young Theban spoke again. “You are a stranger, I think?
Perhaps you have come to run in the boys’ race to-morrow?” He laid his
roll of parchment on the stone bench beside him. “And that,” he added,
“is a poem. Don’t let me leave it behind me, though I’m hardly likely to
do so.”

Demophon felt all at once very bashful. He was conscious that he was
dusty and travel-stained, a most incongruous intruder among this company
and in these quiet and certainly private groves. The old woman in the
market-place, he fancied, had taken him for a runaway slave; the
potter, too, very likely. He kept silent, feeling all the time that this
Theban must secretly be rather puzzled about him, though he was too
polite to ask questions and continued to talk in the same friendly tone.

“I don’t suppose you are interested in poetry: I know I wasn’t at your
age. And now I am ready to sacrifice half a night’s sleep over a single
line. It is strange--difficult to account for--something like falling in
love.” He laughed, and his laugh was as pleasant as his voice and his
face.

“This afternoon my poem will be criticised, and when that is over I
shall be in a bad temper; so now is your time if there is anything I can
do for you.”

“I only want to ask a question,” said Demophon shyly. “Can you tell me
where I shall find Sophron?”

“I can tell you where you won’t find him, and that is in Thebes.”

“Oh,” Demophon murmured, and seeing his disappointment the poet added,
“Perhaps I can tell you a little more.”

“You don’t know where he lives?”

“Yes, I do. He lives in a cave beneath Mount Helikon--though it is not
because he worships the Muses. You must take the road to Thespiae, and
from there it is only four or five miles: anybody in the town will
direct you.”

“Thank you,” said Demophon, getting up.

“But you aren’t going, surely, straight off, just like that!” his
companion exclaimed, half in surprise and half in amusement.

The boy hesitated. “No. I don’t think I shall go till to-morrow morning.
It would be too late now, by the time I arrived; and the cave may not be
easy to find.”

“To-morrow will be the first day of the games. Don’t you want to see
them?”

“I should like to see them--but I cannot wait.”

“Is there so great a hurry? Sophron, you know, will still be there--next
week, next year; and you are young.” He smiled, hesitated in his turn,
and Demophon, guessing his thoughts, said,--

“You would like to ask me who I am and where I come from?”

“I think you are a little brother of Hermes and that you have come out
of the woods or from the stars. If you tell me that is true you will
have answered all my questions.”

“It is not true. I am the son of a farmer, and I come from Eleusis.”

“In search of Sophron?” The young Theban laughed now quite frankly.
“After all, in a way, that is just as wonderful as if you _had_ flown
down from a star.”

“Why? Why is it wonderful?” Demophon asked.

“Well--there are several reasons. One, I think, must be that your father
can’t possibly have allowed it--which means that you have run away.
Another is that Sophron himself is so--so unromantic. The only
fascinating thing he ever did was to hide himself in the wilderness. He
is not popular. He holds the crankiest opinions--that slaves are as good
as free men, that slavery itself should be abolished, that women should
be given the education and freedom of men, that to expose a child is to
commit murder, that most of our stories about the Gods are either
intellectually or morally revolting and consequently untrue. Of course I
know he is a great man, but I should have thought that just at present
the pursuit of pure reason--which is all Sophron will offer you--would
be hardly so attractive as, say, pirates.”

“There is nothing less attractive than pirates,” answered Demophon, in
the accents of complete disillusionment.

“I only used ‘pirates’ as a symbol--the symbol of adventure. Of course
it is a tremendous adventure looking for Sophron,” he added, “but isn’t
there a chance of disappointment when you find him?”

“I am not _really_ looking for Sophron. Not--that is--in the way you
mean. I only want him to help me to find somebody else.” Demophon
suddenly coloured, and his hands plucked at his tunic. “Glaukos told me
that a wise man might be able to help me--a man who possessed all
knowledge--even knowledge of the Gods.”

“Glaukos? I do not think I know Glaukos. Is he, too, a sophist? At any
rate, I’m afraid he exaggerated. You see, I once visited Sophron
myself--not so many years ago. No man has all knowledge. If he had,
there would be nothing left for him to live for.... And if it is about
the Gods you are curious, there is one who arrived in Thebes to-day who
has often spoken with them--which is more than Sophron, to do him
justice, would ever claim.”

“You mean Euphorion? I saw him.”

“Riding on the little gray stallion, and wrapped in divine
contemplation, I suppose? Choosing also the busiest hour of the day and
the most public road.”

“You think he is pretending, then?” said Demophon gravely.

“My dear little Hermes, I think he is a poet without the art of poetry:
a poet among philosophers and a philosopher among poets.... All of
which, you must remember, may mean no more than that I am vain and
envious--and a proof of the vanity lies rolled up before you.”

“I do not think you are vain, and why should you envy a philosopher? You
would be more likely to envy a _real_ poet.”

“That sounds as if it ought to be true. On the other hand, I have
envied the most improbable people--dancers and boxers and even
politicians.... But now I must go and read my poem, so before I leave
you, tell me whose guest you will be in Thebes.”

“I shall find a place to sleep--somewhere; and I have food.”

“Which means, I suppose, that you know no one and have nowhere to go.”

“I know Talos, the trainer--if he has arrived. And if not, I am used to
sleeping in the open.”

“Now listen to me, Hermes,” said the Theban, placing a hand on
Demophon’s shoulder. “You are not going to sleep in the open. The town
is full of rogues and rascals of all sorts who would cut your throat as
soon as look at you. When you are tired of staring at the sights, ask
anybody to direct you to the house of Kylon.” He waited a moment and
then said, “Is it a promise?”

“Yes--if----”

“There must be no ‘ifs.’ I shall be going home in an hour or two, so why
not come with me now and listen to my poem? It will really be best; for
the town, as I say, is crowded with disreputable persons. Later we will
go out amongst them if you like. There will be torchlight processions,
and a great deal of noise and many varieties of bad manners. But such
things are interesting--provided, always, one can escape from them.
Supposing you stay with me, it is very likely that you will see and hear
Euphorion, and after all the most famous sophist in Greece is at least
as well worth seeing as an Ethiopian serpent-charmer or a few drunken
horse-dealers. Come, or we shall be late for our lecture.”




CHAPTER XIII

_The Cave of Sophron_


Early next morning, in spite of all persuasions to stay for at least one
day of the games, Demophon left Thebes. At the gate of the city he met
the last stragglers coming in, but he had not travelled above a mile
before he reached solitude. Kylon had put him on the straight road, so
that he had nothing to do but follow it; and towards noon the little
town of Thespiae came into sight. Except for a few women and children,
and two or three very old men, it appeared deserted. Demophon made
inquiries, and the old men shook their beards. All knew of Sophron, but
none had ever been to see him; and none could give him the exact
directions he required. In the end a small boy spoke up, pointing to a
clump of trees, which stood out upon the plain about a mile distant.
“That is the way,” he piped shrilly, “past that grove and on to the
hills.” The old men continued to shake their heads. The child didn’t
know anything about it: he was merely trying to make himself important:
and they looked at him reproachfully through faded, mournful eyes.

The boy ran after Demophon. “I do know,” he cried. “When you reach the
trees, keep just a _very_ little to the left; and the cave is not on the
hillside, but under it. You will see the garden; it is quite easy to
find: you will not see the cave itself because it is hidden by
rowan-trees. And proceed cautiously, for there are many wild
beasts--lions and tigers and bears.”

This final warning somewhat weakened Demophon’s confidence in what had
gone before. It was extremely improbable that there were lions and
tigers and bears, unless Sophron kept a menagerie; but, since he had no
better plan of his own, he decided to follow his small guide’s
directions.

He struck out across the fields towards the spot pointed out. The
open-air life of the past weeks had hardened his muscles, so that in
spite of the sun-scorched miles he had already covered he felt no
fatigue. He reached the grove, and found there a pool deep enough to
tempt him to bathe. He had stripped, and was standing among the tufted
reeds and grasses on the brink when he had a sudden premonition of
danger.

Demophon knew that a God had warned him. He stood still for a minute or
two, and then knelt down and gazed through the clear water, half
expecting to see some silvery daughter of Nereus lurking below--waiting
for him, ready to fling her white arms round him and drag him to her
grot. But he saw in that tranquil glass only the trees and the rushes
and the sky, and his own face bending above the surface. How dark he had
grown! His skin was burned to a deep brown, and his tumbled hair fell
over his forehead like the black wing of a raven.

Very cool the water appeared, and pleasant--but Demophon was too pious a
boy to think of disregarding the sign he had received; and he knew now
that for all its pleasantness the pool must be haunted. Its very quiet,
in fact, seemed ominous; not a fish stirred, not a bubble rose. So he
made his prayer to whatever deity had watched over his safety, and
resumed his journey. Yet the incident had somehow altered the train of
his thoughts. It had turned his mind to a grave and reverent musing. He
would have liked more than anything to have met that kind God face to
face, so that he might have spoken his gratitude. Was it his own dear
God, or was it Pan?--for the spot was indeed such a spot as Pan chose at
noon for his concerts. Yet there had been no sound, not a whisper....

The afternoon sunshine flooded the wide plain, and as he walked through
it he seemed to be walking through a kind of sea that was dancing with
millions and millions of little golden sparks of light. The grasshoppers
shrilled like birds: all the soft din that filled his ears came from
insects: it was as if the world had been abandoned by everything else.
Sometimes, where there was a flat stone or a bare patch of sandy soil, a
lizard or a snake glittered in ecstatic trance. They never moved, even
when he passed close by them. And Demophon suddenly knew that he and the
snakes and the lizards and the grasshoppers and the coloured butterflies
and even the earth over which he walked, were one. And he knew at the
same time that what united them was just this spirit which had guarded
him by the pool. It was in this they all drew their breath and had their
common life. It was the spirit of love--but hatred and fear were death.
It was not a very clear thought doubtless; perhaps it was not even a
thought at all; and yet it lit up his mind, and something else that was
not his mind. His very body was lost in its happiness, so that he passed
swiftly across the rough ground, as he had seen birds sliding down the
air on motionless wide wings.

What was it--this something that was not his mind, that was even closer
to him than his mind? It dwelt in him: it was the sadness which rose and
mingled with the beauty that flowed in through his eyes from the summer
fields, and through his ears from the wind and the sea: it was his
longing for his lost playmate, his love for those spotted snakes, his
friendship with this tiny flying beetle that had settled on his hand.
It dwelt in him; but might it not be truer to say that it _was_
Demophon? His home really was, then, in those far-off islands in the
West; and he was not setting out on a journey, but going back, going
home. A sudden mist gathered in his eyes, and he shook his head half
angrily. How foolish he was getting, and how babyish! And looking up he
saw that the dark, wooded slopes of Helikon were close at hand.

On his left was a tract of cultivated soil, and above this spot was a
cluster of feathery rowan-trees. Demophon’s mood instantly changed, for
it looked very much as if his guide had been right, after all. At the
same moment a loud barking broke upon his ears, and then a human voice,
at the sound of which the barking ceased. Entering the enclosure, he
came face to face with a man whose foot still rested on the spade with
which he had been digging. He was a man well past middle-age, not tall,
but very powerfully built; and his hairy arms and chest were bare. His
gray hair was rough; he had a short rough beard, a thick nose, a
wrinkled and overhanging forehead, and deep-set gray eyes. An old
weathered oak growing near a young willow shoot would not have made a
greater contrast than this man made with the visitor who had come to see
him.

The boy stood still while three large shaggy dogs sniffed at his legs,
at first impartially, then with a slow wagging of heavy tails to
announce that in their opinion all was well. The inspection over, they
returned to their master, who was much slower to arrive at a conclusion.
Under his steady gaze Demophon resolved that he should neither be the
first to speak nor the first to look away. Such resolves are easy to
make, they are much less easy to keep, and presently he felt the blood
mounting to his cheeks. It was now an agony to continue to gaze into
Sophron’s eyes, and in the end he lowered his head, abashed.

Immediately afterwards he heard a voice, deep and not unlike the growl
of an approaching storm. “Food and a bath for the unknown guest. These
things come first. Then may follow questions as to his name, his
country, and the object of his journey.”

But Demophon answered all the questions in a single breath. It was as if
he feared to be turned away before he had time to finish. When he looked
up Sophron was smiling, and a heavy hand descended on his shoulder,
remaining there till they had reached the house.

It was not really a house--a house built by hands: it was just a large
cave under the hill, which Sophron shared with several birds and quite a
number of beasts. There were two owls, a hedgehog, a gander and his
family, a seagull, the three dogs, two goats, a donkey, and a
catamountain. To this company he was introduced and for a minute or two
his welcome seemed uncertain. But in the end the seagull perched on his
head, the donkey leaned over his shoulder, while the leopard purred and
rubbed against his legs. And because they did not know of Demophon’s
encounter with the serpent they all spoke quite freely before him.

“It is a man,” said the seagull.

“Not quite a man,” the dogs corrected, “a boy. A boy is a young man.”

“It is the same thing,” argued the seagull.

“No, it isn’t,” brayed the donkey.

“Not at all the same,” purred the leopard, “very much nearer to us.”

“Much nearer in some ways, but still less to be trusted,” hooted the
owls. “Particularly amongst eggs.”

“This one is all right,” said the leopard. “Not that I should be afraid
of him even if he wasn’t, for I could tear his delicate body to pieces
before he had time to cry out.”

“Such a thing to say!” the three dogs cried in indignant chorus, but the
leopard only smiled and went on rubbing himself against Demophon.

“He has no feathers,” hissed the young geese, and were instantly
suppressed by their mother.

“No fur,” said the leopard, “and his claws and teeth couldn’t harm a
rabbit.”

“No horns,” bleated the goats.

“No beak,” yelled the seagull.

“No quills,” squeaked the hedgehog in a little voice that could scarcely
be heard above the general din, though he almost burst himself in the
attempt.

For the time being, in fact, conversation between Sophron and his guest
was rather superfluous, since not one word of it was audible; but when
the first clamour had quieted down they were able to exchange a remark
or two. And when Demophon had bathed and eaten they went out before the
mouth of the cave, and sat down to take the air and talk in the evening
sun. All the animals except the owls accompanied them: the leopard
stretched his beautiful body at the boy’s feet, but the donkey and the
dogs and the other creatures remained faithful to Sophron.

“And now tell me how you found your way here?” Sophron asked.

“Kylon directed me, and a little boy in Thespiae. I left Thebes early
this morning. It was the first day of the games.”

“Yet they allowed you to come! It is surprising that you found anybody
willing to direct you.”

“You are not forgotten,” Demophon answered. “Neither in Thebes nor
elsewhere.”

Sophron smiled somewhat bleakly. “No, I am not forgotten; but to be
remembered is not always to be loved. For thirty years my thoughts have
been tossed restlessly up and down Greece, but the average Theban would
rather claim kinship with some broken-nosed boxer of the second rank
than with me.”

“Still, you are famous, and immortal fame is the crown of life.”
Demophon was quoting, parrot-like, a favourite phrase of his master,
Pittakos. For himself it had not much meaning, and upon Sophron it
produced no effect whatever.

“Words, child, words. You have been listening to Euphorion or some other
gifted person. Nothing is immortal--neither this earth nor the sun that
warms it: still less the pitiful race of beings who creep about between
the two, and who will disappear the day after that warmth is withdrawn.”

The boy’s limpid and still childish eyes were fixed upon Sophron’s face.
“Then you do not want to be remembered by those who will come after, and
their children and their grandchildren and their great grandchildren?”
he asked gravely.

The corners of Sophron’s mouth twitched with the beginning of a smile.
It was as if he had recollected the age of his present auditor, for the
hint of bitterness his manner had betrayed was gone when he next spoke.
“How can it matter, Demophon, whether I am remembered or not? If my name
chances to survive for a few years after my death, the person
associated with it will quite certainly bear no resemblance to me as I
really was. And why should I expect the opinion of posterity to be worth
more than that of my contemporaries? I should first have to believe that
the men and women of the future will be better and more intelligent than
those who are living now.”

“And don’t you believe that, Sophron? What is the use of philosophy if
everything is to remain the same?”

“It _is_ of very little use, child, except to a few in each generation.
The average man will always believe just what he wishes to believe. I
myself, in Thebes, in the old days, made a reputation by announcing my
guesses as eternal laws; and if I had continued to do so I should still
have pupils and disciples. But when I lost this glibness, and the
appearance of infallibility ceased to charm me, I lost my disciples too.
They were dissatisfied, and it was natural that they should be, for I
had gradually come to be certain of only one thing, which was that in
philosophy nothing can be certain. Our life is too brief, our means of
acquiring knowledge too scanty. Even if we chanced on the truth we could
never really know that it was true.”

“But surely, Sophron, there are _some_ things we can know: I mean the
things we see with our own eyes.”

Sophron had been stroking the dogs, but at Demophon’s words he glanced
up with an expression on his face not unlike that of a chess-player who
has long been deprived of his favourite game, and who now sees the
board, with all its familiar pieces, set out once more before him. “It
is our eyes, then, that give us this knowledge, you think?” he
questioned encouragingly.

“Yes. When I look at that tree there I know it is a tree.”

“But suppose a madman were to look at it, might he not say it was a
giant, and run into the cave for a sword?”

“That is so,” Demophon admitted, and his thoughts slid uneasily to
Laomedon.

But Sophron called them back, and it was exactly as if he had pushed a
pawn on to another square. “And he would not deliberately be telling a
lie,” he suggested, “he would say it because he really believed it?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Demophon answered.

“Then, in this case at least, his eyes would declare the tree to be one
thing, while your eyes would declare it to be another and quite
different thing.”

“Of course I really meant, when I said our eyes, our reason,” Demophon
hastened to explain. “It is only because the madman’s mind is sick that
he believes he is looking at a giant.”

Sophron accepted the amendment. “Then it is our mind that is all
important, not our eyes,” he asked, “and it is upon our mind that we
must depend for knowledge of the truth? Or we might put it in this way
perhaps: that the mind is master, and the bodily senses are its slaves?”

“Yes, that was my meaning.”

“And I think you must be right. Only, tell me, Demophon, if, instead of
coming to visit me, you had remained in Thebes, and had run in a
foot-race against one who ran twice as swiftly as you, would he have
beaten you?”

“I should think it very probable,” answered Demophon, laughing.

“But suppose the race had been set for a hundred yards, and he had given
you four yards start, would he still have beaten you?”

“Yes, of course. If he ran twice as quickly as I did he would beat me
even if the race were only for nine yards.”

“And here again, it is your mind, your reason, that shows you the
truth?”

“It is.”

“But to win the race he must first pass you, and before passing you he
must first come level with you--is not that so?”

“Yes.”

“And we must remember that he gave you four yards’ start.”

Demophon nodded.

“So that--since he runs twice as fast as you do--while he is running
those four yards you will run two?”

“Yes.”

“And while he is running those two, you will run one?”

“Yes.”

“And while he is running that one, you will run half a yard. All that is
quite plain, is it not?”

“Quite.”

“In fact, we might go on dividing and dividing the distance to infinity,
but still you will always be just half that distance in front of him?”

Demophon paused; he began to see whither the argument was leading. “I
suppose so,” he admitted reluctantly.

“Therefore, even in infinity, he can never overtake you.”

“No.”

“But the spectators, cheering and shouting, would, in their excitement,
imagine they saw him overtaking you, and perhaps even passing you and
reaching the goal first?”

“They certainly _would_ see it,” said Demophon stoutly, “there would be
no imagination about it.”

“Then, at the races, it is not on our reason but on our eyes that we
ought to depend for knowledge of the truth?”

“I suppose so.”

“And similarly, if some one were to shoot an arrow at you, if you
trusted your reason you would not be at all afraid?”

“I should be very much afraid, if he shot straight.”

“But before the arrow could reach you, it would have to go half way,
would it not?”

“It would.”

“And before it had gone half way, it would have to go the half of that?”

“Yes.”

“And so, again, we can carry on our division to infinity, but always
there is, no matter how minute the distance, half of it still to be
traversed, till we find that perpetual motion is after all perpetual
rest.”

Demophon was silent. He was sure Sophron’s argument must have a flaw in
it somewhere, but he could not discover the flaw. He thought and thought
till his head began to swim, but still he could find no answer.

And Sophron watched him; they all watched him--the dogs, the goats, the
seagull, the leopard--as he sat with knitted brows, battling with an
enigma that ever eluded him.

“Then what am I to depend on,” he asked at last, “if I am not to depend
on what I see and hear and feel, and not on what my mind tells me about
these things?”

“We must indeed depend on our faculties, Demophon, since they are all we
possess; but we must not believe that the opinions they may lead us to
form are necessarily true opinions, or that they have brought us any
nearer to reality. What _is_ reality? When you are asleep your
dream-world seems to be real, yet when you wake up it is your
waking-world that seems so.”

Demophon’s face was lit up by a sudden smile. “It is strange that you
should say this, Sophron, because, when I was walking by the sea in
Euboea, I thought of this very thing. It seemed to me that there might
be a world above this world, out of which things appeared, and into
which they disappeared again. But there is no reason why there should
be. And even if there was---- I mean--the world I see when I am awake
_must_ be the real world, otherwise I shouldn’t _be_ awake.”

Sophron smiled. “And how do you know you are? How do you know that you
will not awake out of this waking-world one day, and find yourself in
still another?”

“I know it, I suppose, because this is always here, and goes on just the
same whether I am asleep or awake, whereas the other----”

“It too goes on, for another dreamer.”

“Yes, but still---- One remains the same, and the other changes.”

“Both change. Everything changes. The world before you at this moment is
changing while you watch it. You cannot step twice into the same river.
You no sooner say a thing is, than it is not. Antissa and Pharos and
Tyre were once surrounded by the sea, but now they form parts of the
mainland. Helike and Buris were once cities of Achaia: now the sea
washes over them, and the fisherman, on a clear day, dropping down his
lines, can sometimes catch a glimpse of their ruins far below the keel
of his boat. Near Troizen there is a hill that was once a plain, and we
find shells on the tops of the highest mountains, to prove they were
once on a level with the ocean bed. Nothing remains; all things are
passing into something else. The body you have to-day is not quite the
body you had yesterday, and in a few years it will be completely
different. That which was once a plant becomes an animal, that which was
an animal becomes a plant. There was a time when that sinking sun was
not yet lit, and there will be a time when its flame will flicker in and
out like the flame of a dying lamp. Who is the measurer of such time,
and who is to say whether it is short or long, whether it is or is not?
To these midges flying about us their lives may seem as long as ours do
to us. All is obscure: we know nothing, and age sweeps away
everything--even understanding, even desire, even memory. Often we see
the good coming to an evil end, and the wicked flourishing. And it is
the same with our own actions: we cannot tell what will spring from
them--sometimes good comes where we looked for harm, sometimes harm
where we expected good. So it may be that to the Gods there is neither
good nor evil:--upward or downward, for all we know, the way may be the
same.”

“Then we can be sure of nothing,” said Demophon sadly, “nothing at all?”

“Nothing at all.... The Thracians, it is said, mourn at the birth of a
child, and rejoice at death. But we cannot be sure that death is the
end, or that the grave brings rest.”

Demophon was silent. He stroked the head of the leopard, who looked up
at him drowsily with half-closed golden eyes. “Yet I was very happy on
my way here,” he said at last softly, “when I was coming to you,
Sophron, through the fields. And I think I could be happy living as you
live.”

“What I said was not meant to discourage you,” Sophron answered.
“Indeed, if that were all, then your finding me would have been a
misfortune. But it is not all, for I too believe a man may gain
happiness, if he can be persuaded to look for it where it really is.”

“And where is that, Sophron?”

“Within himself. That is why I left the city. In the city I was
dependent upon others. Nominally I was free, in reality I was bound. My
mind had grown so warped that the praise even of the ignorant and
foolish was precious to me, their blame disturbing. I desired things,
not for their intrinsic worth, but merely because others were eager to
possess them. I pursued pleasure, and was swayed this way and that by
vagrant passions. My life had lost its innocence. Out here, alone, in
the shadow of the woods and the mountains, it seemed to me I might
regain what I had lost.”

“And have you, Sophron? Have you found what you sought?”

“I have found something that is at least better than what I left. It is
not perfect, because there is no perfection on this earth, no complete
fulfilment of the soul’s desire.... And often I feel lonely.”

Demophon had slid from his stool to the ground, and he lay now with his
head pillowed on the leopard’s velvet flank, which he could feel softly
rising and falling under his cheek. And presently, through the
apple-scented dusk that had crept over the earth, he again heard
Sophron’s voice.

“Sometimes, at an hour such as this, and when I am sitting here after
the day’s work, I have a vision. Whether it is indeed the truth, I do
not know, or whether I am merely looking into the glass of my own
imagination. Let us call it a vision of the age of innocence, and assume
that it lies behind us, for it is easier to see it there than in the
years to come. Long ago, then, Demophon, a single community embraced
heaven and earth, and Gods and men and animals were united in
friendship, and order and temperance and righteousness prevailed. All
the wild creatures were tame and friendly to man, because he, on his
part, was kind and just to them, recognising that in each animal there
is something beautiful. To have shed their blood would have seemed to
him as dreadful a crime as the murder of a brother. The sacrifice of
flesh was unknown. The altars of the Gods were kept pure with offerings
of myrrh and grain and fruits and flowers, and libations of yellow honey
poured upon the ground. And man in that age did not build great cities,
but cultivated the land, and lived simply amid his children and his
fields and flocks, and there were no kings, no hunters, no soldiers, no
wars. If a man were skilled in the arts, if he had wisdom or were a
maker of songs and music, he did not travel over all Hellas seeking ever
new audiences in his greediness of fame and wealth, but was content to
gladden his own friends with whatsoever gift he possessed. This was the
golden age, and in this age men were happy. They fed on fruits and on
milk, and it was not until they had abandoned this custom that the world
was changed. It is said that the first animals to be sacrificed were the
sow and the goat, because the sow rooted among the newly-sown crops, and
the goat ate the tender vine shoots. Thus evil sprang from greed, from
man’s desire to preserve all things for himself. And soon the blood of
innocent and helpful creatures like the ox and the sheep began to be
spilled on many altars, for a mad belief had arisen that the Gods were
pleased by such crimes. And now the strange sight might be seen of men
who purified themselves by defiling themselves. To-day that sight is
common: the earth reeks of blood, and in the frenzy it arouses the fool
believes he hears a divine voice. In the temple of Apollo at Argos the
priestess drinks the blood of a lamb before she prophesies. At Aegira
she drinks the blood of a bull. The Kretans tear a live bull in pieces
in honour of Dionysos. Everywhere it is blood, the smell of blood and
the taste of blood, that is supposed to draw down the God and to bring
man into communion with him. We grow uneasy at the thought of human
sacrifice, but we may be sure that in the sight of Earth the murder of
any of her children is odious.”

The owls had flown out from the dark mouth of the cave, and circled
noiselessly over their heads before disappearing into the night. The
moon had risen, and gray moths hovered like small ghosts about the
folded and sleeping flowers. The leopard yawned, and rising to his feet,
hollowed his back. “I came over the mountains from Armenia,” he said,
“and I crossed the sea in the ship of Bromios. One night I was standing
by a stream when the wind brought me a fragrance which I followed. It
was the odour of the gum of the storax-tree. To-day I thought of seeking
the forest again, and of seeking a mate; but now this boy has arrived I
shall put off my journey. In the morning I will play with him, and
to-night I will sleep near him, within reach of his hand. Then he will
scratch me behind my ears and on my throat.”

To this speech there was no reply. The dogs affected not to hear it, and
drew closer to Sophron, looking up into his face. And when he laid his
hand on their heads, or even met their glances for a moment, they
thumped on the ground with their tails.

Demophon, too, got up, and walked a little way into the darkness. He
stood under an apple-tree, and his hand grasped the rough cool bark. He
wondered why Sophron had not asked him any questions, as everybody else
had done. But there would be plenty of time to tell his story, because
he had decided to stay here for a while. After all, if leopards and owls
and hedgehogs could come and go as they pleased, surely a boy might do
as much. Sophron, he supposed, would deny that he had any more rights
than a hedgehog, but at least he had equal rights. Only he knew now that
Sophron could not help him.... It was strange how distant the Gods
seemed to be from all his new-found friends--from Talos, and Kylon, and
now Sophron. It was the one point they had in common. Sophron spoke of
them as if either they did not exist or else took no interest in human
affairs. It had not been so much his words as his manner. It did not
seem to matter to Sophron whether the Gods were there or not. Nothing
mattered but the earth creatures. The beasts who shared his cave--these,
Demophon felt, were dearer to Sophron than all the Gods of Olympos.




CHAPTER XIV

_The Cave of Sophron--(continued)_


So it was that the old philosopher found himself once more with a pupil,
and though he said not one word upon the subject, Demophon knew that he
was pleased.

Sophron’s mind was too different in type to gain a permanent influence
over that of his young disciple; nevertheless, at this particular stage
it was perhaps the best influence he could have encountered. For Sophron
made him use his intellect. He grounded him in the rules of logic, and
insisted on his submitting everything to the examination of reason. It
was essentially a scientific training, a training in intellectual
honesty. He was instructed in mathematics and in natural philosophy. He
learned about the heavenly bodies and their movements. The moon Sophron
believed to be inhabited, but was careful to add that this opinion was
based entirely on its appearance. Of the mysterious influence it
exercised over earthly plants and animals he was more assured, because
it was susceptible of proof. Observation had established beyond doubt
that the growth of all plants corresponds with the waxing of the moon.
The onion, which for some unaccountable reason sprouts when the moon is
waning, being the single exception....

Sophron taught him about bees, and the laws of their house--of the
walling of the combs and the shaping of the cells; how the old bees have
the town in charge, while the young ones go abroad to collect honey; how
they protect their king in battle, and of the courage with which they
seek a glorious death. He gave examples, gleaned from his own
experiments, of their wonderful intelligence: how, on a stormy day, they
will carry a small pebble as ballast, so that the wind will have less
power to blow them about. And whether it is the result of this
intelligence, or whether their wisdom itself springs from the absence of
passion, they alone, of all living creatures, take no delight in love,
but gather their children straight from the fresh flowers and scented
shrubs. Many other curious facts of natural history he set before his
pupil--how the chameleon takes the colour of whatever thing it rests
upon; how the hyena changes its sex and becomes now male and now female;
how coral, which is a soft plant under water, hardens into stone at the
first touch of air. “But these transformations are no stranger,
Demophon, than others you must have observed for yourself: tiny-footed
worms, creepers among green leaves, changing into gay butterflies;
frogs growing out of little fishes. And there are those,” he added,
“who even believe that the earth itself is alive, and breathes through
its deep hollow mountains.”

“I have felt it breathing,” Demophon answered. “And I think I have felt
its thoughts--for sometimes they are loving, and sometimes cold and
indifferent.” He was already slipping away into his own world, but
Sophron, who knew and was trying to wean him from this fanciful
predisposition, hastened to turn the conversation into more sober
channels.

So they would talk, master and pupil, as they sat each evening within
the circle of listening beasts; but Demophon rarely spoke of his own
adventures, and the more wonderful among them he did not so much as
mention, feeling instinctively that Sophron would dismiss them as mere
dream-stuff--the phantasies and delusions of an uncontrolled
imagination. He was tired of being called a dreamer. Even Kylon, who was
a poet, had not taken him seriously, while Talos, he more than
suspected, had thought him a little mad. They regarded him as for a
brief period he himself had regarded Dion. The very object of his
journey--his secret, sacred quest--the very thing about which he had
come to ask Sophron’s advice--upon this he kept the most guarded silence
of all.

Day by day they worked in their fields and gardens, and the life, though
uneventful as the farm life at Eleusis, was very pleasant to the boy.
At night, too, it was pleasant to lie in the cave, which was cool and
dry and roomy. His bed was made of olive leaves and vine cuttings, and
the leopard lay at his feet. But sometimes, if it grew chilly towards
dawn, a word would bring the great spotted beast to his side. Then they
would lie close together, and Demophon, with his arms round the leopard,
would drop comfortably asleep again, warmed by the warmth of its body.

For the nights were beginning to grow cooler; summer was giving place to
autumn, and the apples lay strewn upon the ground. The vintage was at
hand, and they had made ready their wine-press. Then, when all was in
order, he and Sophron cut the grapes, and gathering them in baskets,
threw them into the press and trod them to a dark purple pool, which a
few days later they strained and poured into the vessels prepared to
receive it....

       *       *       *       *       *

Yet, though the nights were chilly, the days were still hot, and it was
on one such day that Demophon, having wandered several miles from the
cave, found himself at last on the edge of a cliff. Below him he saw a
wailing company of women carrying the image of Adonis across the barren
stony beach. He knew of the custom but had never watched the actual
rites performed, for it was all more or less an innovation, the God
himself an alien, the mortal son of Myrrha, owing his divinity to the
love of Persephone and Aphrodite. Lying in the sun-parched grass,
inhaling the scent of wild thyme and the salt sleepy air, Demophon
watched the band of mourners--with loosened hair and bared
breasts--committing their dead God to the sea. They sang the song of his
life and slaying, they sang of his burial and return in the spring; and
through the languor of the afternoon the dirge-like chant arose, exotic
and voluptuous, expressing the strange dual existence of Adonis, and
that ambiguous Eastern cult, which was in part a cult of physical
desire, and in part a dreamy cult of death.

When he returned he told Sophron of what he had heard and seen. It had
caught his imagination, appealing to an as yet subconscious impulse in
his mind and body. And something of his mood passed into his words,
giving them a colour which was familiar enough to the old philosopher,
who first looked at him and then sighed. He did not utter, however, the
thought that was in his mind; instead he spoke with a half scornful
disapproval of the new religion with its Asiatic softness. Its God was
an effeminate youth whose beauty awakened love-sickness in hysterical
women. “If he is a God, why do they weep over him?” Sophron asked
unsympathetically. “And if he is really to be pitied, then he is not a
God.” But a little later he added, “Nothing that comes out of the East
is good. Religion should be a preparation for life, not a preparation
for death; and a religion that finds its votaries chiefly among women is
not a profitable subject for the thoughts of a man. Forget what you have
seen. Take the dogs and climb the mountain-side to-night, and let the
cold wind blow all memory of it from you, as it would the fumes of
wine.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Next morning the weather had changed: it was really cold. A gray mist
hung half-way down the mountain, completely hiding its summit. A flock
of gulls came flying in from the sea, the swallows skimmed low over the
ground, the frogs were croaking in the pond beyond the garden, and all
these signs, as Demophon knew, betokened the approach of rain. Rain and
winter were at hand: but his plans were settled; he had made up his mind
to spend the winter with Sophron.... And that afternoon they had a
visitor.




CHAPTER XV

_Euphorion_


Demophon saw him first. He would have recognised that shaggy pony
anywhere: and the man in white riding on his back--nobody who had once
seen _him_ could ever forget him. He ran back to the cave, where Sophron
was busy at the wash-tub. “Euphorion is coming,” he cried. “He is
coming--all alone--on the gray stallion.”

“But why so much excitement, child?” Sophron answered placidly, as he
wrung out the clothes and tilted up the tub, letting the dirty steaming
water splash upon the ground.

“You don’t understand!” cried Demophon, watching his master’s deliberate
movements with repressed impatience. “He will be here in a minute or
two, and he must be coming to see US!--COMING ON PURPOSE!”

“That is always a possibility,” Sophron admitted, while he hung up
various articles on the clothes-line to dry, “but even if it were a
certainty, life would continue much as before.”

Demophon shrugged his shoulders. If Sophron chose to ignore so
distinguished a visitor, it was not his place to pass remarks; though he
thought such behaviour strange. In fact, as Euphorion rode up, Sophron
did no more than place his two hands on the boy’s shoulders, and,
standing thus a little behind him, assume an attitude of watchful
neutrality not unlike that he had adopted on Demophon’s own arrival.
Suddenly, however, he pushed the boy forward. “Go and take his pony from
him. We will sit in the open air.”

Euphorion had dismounted, and Demophon, eager to obey, ran to receive
the reins from his hands. But he was careful to miss as little as
possible of the greeting that passed between the two sophists.

It was, on Sophron’s side, far from effusive. “Welcome, Euphorion,” he
said, in a tone of chilly politeness. “It was good of you to ride out
all this distance to view our retreat--if we can indeed flatter
ourselves that such was the object of your journey.”

“My object was to see you, Sophron, not your farm.” Euphorion’s voice
and manner were gracious and deferential, contrasting most favourably,
Demophon thought, with his master’s. “I shall be leaving for Athens in a
day or two, and I was determined not to miss this opportunity of paying
you a visit.”

“Ah, they told you, then, where I had hidden myself. I have been here
some thirty years.”

“And I should have come long ago, only, as you know, I am a wanderer,
and make but a brief stay in any one place.”

Demophon had brought out the seats, and Euphorion now sat down. “Your
disciple,” he added, “I saw one afternoon in Thebes.”

“Yes,” Sophron answered. “He, also, saw you.”

The disciple had pricked up his ears. That Euphorion should have noticed
him was as pleasant as it was surprising, for he had not expected to be
noticed. Squatted on his heels in Sophron’s shadow, he listened with all
his might, intensely interested in this encounter. Above all, he found
his master’s attitude puzzling. He divined in it a latent hostility; yet
surely, since this was their first meeting, Sophron ought at least to
receive their guest with an open mind. That was what he, Demophon, was
prepared to do; and he gazed earnestly at Euphorion and thought he had
never seen a countenance so dignified and serene. It made him think of
the silent snow-wrapped peaks of lofty mountains; it was utterly
different from the broad rugged race of Sophron, upon which every human
passion seemed to have left its track. Sophron, he knew very well, had
drunk and revelled and loved and hated like other men--perhaps even more
than most--though the power of his intellect had carried him through,
and eventually beyond, the storm. But Euphorion was like a man who had
lived his whole life in an impregnable spiritual fastness. To Demophon
he appeared wonderful--wonderful, like--like, again, those cold,
mysterious mountain tops. And to think he had actually, among his many
listeners that afternoon in Thebes, taken note of _him_! He must even
have made inquiries about him!--probably from Kylon, or from one of
Kylon’s friends....

“And so you are going to Athens, Euphorion,” Sophron was saying. “I have
not been there since I was a youth--and that is long ago. Even Athens, I
suppose, will only be a stage in your journey, for you seem to be
tireless and never to need rest.”

“That is true. No city, no country, has held me long.”

“And you are, moreover, a direct disproof of the children’s proverb
about rolling stones, for you have acquired both great wealth and great
honour.”

This was better, Demophon thought, though even now there was an
ambiguous note in Sophron’s voice not entirely reassuring. Euphorion
replied with perfect courteousness.

“Yes, Sophron, I am rich.... And therefore, I think, you are inclined to
despise me. It is strange, because I have heard that you consider riches
unimportant. Why, then, should their presence or absence count in one
particular instance? I believe all things to be sent by the Gods;
consequently I see no more reason for refusing this gift than I do for
refusing any other.”

“But you must not defend yourself, Euphorion, nor imagine that I despise
you. Your argument is irrefutable, though worldly possessions may
sometimes strike those of us who lack them as the gifts of men rather
than of the Gods. In our envy, I’m afraid, we are apt to seize upon any
kind of consolation.”

“Then you hold, Sophron, that men can act contrarily to the will of the
Gods?”

“I see you wish to drive me into a corner, but it is my own fault and I
must abide the consequences. And even you, Euphorion, will hardly
maintain that such crimes as the violation of sanctuaries, and the
desecration of altars, are accomplished by the will of the Gods. I
should go further, and say that every wicked or foolish act must be
contrary to their will. Otherwise we should have to believe that they
take a pleasure in evil and in folly, which is impossible.”

“Are you not assuming that our intelligence is equal to the divine
intelligence? To a child, certain of his father’s acts may appear
tyrannous and cruel, though these very acts have been devised for his
safety. I believe men and Gods to be of one kindred, but I also believe
that in understanding they are as far apart as they are in power.”

“Yet such words themselves, if they are more than a mere assertion of
personal opinion, must spring from an intelligence that has grasped at
least something of the nature of divinity.”

“That is true; and the souls of the wise do, in fact--though very
slowly--draw closer to the Gods. In their upward progress such souls
eventually become incarnate as seers, poets, philosophers--nor does the
progress end there.”

“You mean that a man actually may become like a God?”

“I mean that, Sophron.”

There was a pause, during which Sophron gazed straight before him, with
a countenance bleak and impassive as stone.

“Your words would appear stranger to me,” he said at last, quietly, “had
I not been told that you held this very belief. But will you also say
that such a man may attain to this God-state while he still lives on
earth--among other men, and apparently as one of themselves?”

“I do say so, Sophron. The last stage, though it be long delayed, must
in the end be reached.”

Demophon had turned eagerly from one to the other of the two speakers.
He could not think why Sophron should once more relapse into silence,
just when they seemed on the point of a revelation. He gave him a little
nudge to continue the argument, but it had no effect except that Sophron
began to stroke his disciple’s hair gently and absently, just as he
might have fondled one of the dogs. Demophon did not object to being
petted; he rather liked it indeed; but at present he was much more
interested in what Euphorion might have to tell them, and he would tell
them nothing if nobody asked any questions.

It was not a question which eventually came from Sophron’s lips, while
he twisted one of the boy’s dark locks round and round his finger. “Your
views, Euphorion, are hard for a plain man to comprehend. But they have
brought to my mind certain rumours which may be true or may be false,
for I have no means of judging them.”

“What are these rumours, Sophron? I suspect from your manner that they
concern me. Were they offered to you as facts, or merely as doubtful
tales?”

“They were offered to me as facts; but then, so many things are offered
to me as facts. And my informant grew impatient the moment I began to
question them. He said that when you were walking by a certain river the
waters had whispered your name; he said you had been seen, had even
lectured, in two places at the same time; he said that in the temple of
Athene at Argos you had recognised, hanging on the wall, the armour you
yourself had worn long ago at the taking of Troy.”

Euphorion remained unmoved. He neither denied nor admitted the truth of
these statements. It seemed as if the conversation were at an end; but
presently his glance met the wondering gaze of Demophon fixed intently
upon him, and then he spoke.

“When the eyes of the soul are opened, it can look back far along the
path it has travelled. Memory begins to stir, at first uneasily, as if
still half drowned in sleep; but gradually it awakens, the clouds
dissolve, and at last all things become clear. In this way I, too, have
looked back through time, and the knowledge I had lost I have recovered.
It is as if one were to gaze down the dizzy path by which one has
climbed a mountain, noting the clefts and crevices, the little tufts of
grass, the footholds and stepping-stones, that mark the track.... So I
have looked, and so I remember.... For I have been a fish, a tortoise, a
lynx, an eagle, a girl, a boy....”

“And now you have reached your final incarnation?”

Again Euphorion was silent, and Sophron sighed faintly--though not so
faintly but that Demophon heard him. He himself believed every word
Euphorion had said. And he tried, as he sat there, to recall his own
past lives, to remember at least _one_ of them. But he found he could
not remember even the beginning of his present life--could not remember
being born, could not remember the time when he was still unable to
talk--which was discouraging.

Euphorion had begun once more to speak. His head was thrown slightly
back, his calm passionless face never altered; only in the eyes, whose
pupils dilated and contracted like those of the leopard crouched at
Demophon’s feet, did the expression now and then change. And his voice
was like the sound of music. It trailed melodiously on certain words,
giving them a new meaning, drawing at least one of his listeners ever
closer to him, so that soon there was nothing else in the world but that
golden voice calling up out of the empty air vision after vision. And
Demophon had the impression that the voice was speaking to _him_, that
it was in some inexplicable way passing Sophron by, excluding Sophron,
even at the very time that it was drawing delicate silken threads about
his own soul.

“At my birth,” Euphorion began simply, “there was implanted in me a
thirst for knowledge, as there is implanted in others a thirst for
glory, or for love or for battle. When I was still a boy I resolved to
learn all the teachings of all the philosophers both of the past and of
the present. I studied so insatiably that my father became afraid for my
health, and tried by persuasions and punishments to induce me to be more
moderate; but neither his words nor his punishments could turn me from
my course. When I found that my masters at home could teach me nothing
further, I left my own country, and went out into the world....

“Well aware that my father would be opposed to my going, I departed
secretly, in the night, saying good-bye to no one, and leaving no
message to tell whither I had gone. I found a ship which carried me to
Krete, and from Krete I crossed to Achaia. I wandered hither and thither
seeking new masters, questioning them so importunately that they
revealed to me much they withheld even from their avowed disciples. With
some I remained many months, with others no longer than a day; but with
none did I remain after I had learned all his thoughts, and to none did
I speak of my own thoughts. I was ripening, but I was not yet ripe, and
I knew I should not be till I had experienced all experiences, and
tasted of all wisdoms. I passed through Greece--north, south, east, and
west. I was initiated into the mysteries, and through the mouth of the
unconscious priest I listened to the voice of the God. At the sacrifice
to Zeus on Mount Lukeios I stood within the sacred precinct where
neither man nor beast casts a shadow. And when the sacrifice was
completed, I watched what had been a man descend the mountain side with
burning eyes, and gray bristling hide, and jaws from which the moisture
dropped in foam....

“At Lebadea I sought out the priest of Trophonios. I begged him to allow
me to go down to the oracle, but he refused, because I refused to shed
the sacrificial blood.... That night he came to me pale and trembling,
and besought me to forget his words. He led me to the river Herkuna,
and there I was bathed by the two boy servants of the temple, and he
himself anointed my body with oil. At the fountain of the river I drank,
and all memory of the past faded from my mind. I was clothed in white
linen, with fillets of wool, and white woollen slippers were bound upon
my feet. Through the doors of brass I descended into the cave by means
of a ladder which immediately afterwards was drawn up. There is a
smaller cave in the side of the larger, and as I sat at the bottom of
the chasm a hidden force, like the current of a river, drew me through
its narrow entrance. Three days later I ascended again through the
brazen doors. The priests, who had believed me dead, spoke to me
fearfully. They set me on a throne in the temple and asked me to tell
them what I had seen and heard, but when I remained silent they withdrew
backwards, nor was any one near when presently I arose and went out from
that place....

“I journeyed north to Thrace, through the country of the Kikones, where
there is a river that if a man drink of its waters his vitals are turned
to stone. From Thrace I passed into Asia, keeping close to the shores of
the Euxine Sea. On the road from Herakleia I reached at nightfall an
abyss that is the home of the Erinyes. By its brink I waited till the
moon had risen. Then, speaking the mystic words, I smote with my rod
three times upon the ground, and the avenging ghosts issued forth, white
and terrible. They rushed upon me, striving furiously to pass the
barrier I had drawn around me in the air. The light had grown sickly and
evil through the contamination of their presence; the air was foul as if
blown from a newly-opened grave; their shrieks tore my ears, yet I
remained unmoved. One question I was permitted to ask, and when they had
answered it I dismissed them, and they sank back into the earth like a
writhing smoke. But I, wrapping my mantle about my head, stood pondering
still in that spot, for the words they had uttered were obscure. And as
I stood there a band of robbers surrounded me, and their eyes under
their long hair glittered in the moonlight. They cried out on me to
follow them, but their voices sounded in my ears like the foolish
buzzing of flies, and the stream of my thoughts flowed on uninterrupted.
Then their leader approached, and drawing his knife, made to plunge it
into my throat. His hand grasped my mantle, and, as he tore it away, for
the first time he looked into my face. A trembling seized him, the knife
fell from his grasp, and the sweat broke out on his forehead, but I
neither spoke nor moved as they fled back into the darkness.... On the
next night, at the same hour, the meaning that had eluded me became
clear, and I pursued my journey. I went north as far as Mount Kaukasos,
where I saw, still hanging there, the chains which had bound
Prometheus. And so great was his bulk that the chains which had fastened
his hands were two hundred yards apart....

“In Palestine I came to the Dead Sea, in which nothing can be drowned,
for it will receive no living thing. Gloomy and sullen it looked, as I
stood upon the shore in the starlight, under the dark twisted
apple-trees. I cast an unlit lantern upon the water and it sank
instantly to the bottom, but a lantern that I had lighted floated, by
which I knew that life is in the nature of a flame....

“In Arabia I talked with the magicians, and they offered to teach me
their spells, and the language of birds, which they acquire by feeding
on the heart and liver of serpents. I stayed with them for two days, and
by that time saw they could teach me nothing. They tried to keep me;
they cursed me because I would not join them, nor reveal to them the
secret of my mission. And one stretched out his hand to bind me with a
charm. But when I rose above the ground and floated in the air before
them, they grovelled on their faces in the sand....

“On the Red Sea I took ship. At the prow and at the stern hung brazen
bells to frighten away the sea-monsters which swarmed about us. I passed
through the lakes of Ethiopia and southward as far as the Mountains of
the Moon. In that immense stillness, unbroken by the presence of man or
bird or beast, I listened to the music of the spheres, till the divine
order was revealed to me, and stamped itself upon my soul, so that its
echo whispers there for evermore....

“I returned through Egypt, and one night I stood before the Sphinx. I
called on the spirit that lives in the stone, and summoned it with all
my power. For twelve hours I struggled with it, but the crouching beast
did not reply, nor did its eyelids once quiver. By this defeat I knew
that my probation was still unaccomplished, though already strange tales
were whispered about me, and when I entered a city the men and women and
children flocked after me, seeking charms and oracles. They approached
me as one might approach a God, begging me to cure their sick, to bind
the winds, to call down the rain, to banish pestilence, even to
resurrect the dead....

“In Egypt I saw the statue of Memnon, King of the Ethiopians, who was
slain by Achilles. The image still has a kind of life in it, and when
the first beams of the rising sun touch it, it gives one great cry of
joy that floats out over land and sea.... Beyond Egyptian Thebes there
lived a dragon which preyed upon the city, so that all went in fear of
their lives. With my own eyes I saw it carrying off a child and his
mother. It dropped down out of the clouds with a noise like the clashing
of brass, and when it had seized its victims it rose into the air again,
holding them screaming in its talons. I followed it to its lair. The
ground still trembled where it had gone to earth, and by this I knew it
was not far below the surface. So I laid at the entrance of the burrow a
scarlet cloak embroidered with runes. Then the dragon put out his head,
and his crest was a fiery crimson, and his green eyes blazed with a
great light. But as he stretched his head over the golden runes sleep
fell upon him; and even now he lies there dreaming, and will do so till
the cloth has mouldered into dust. And I did this, and did not slay the
dragon, but left him only bound in this fashion, because I had made a
vow never to take the life of any creature--either bird, or beast, or
fish, or insect.”

“Once I saw two dragons,” Demophon interrupted, forgetting his manners
in the wonder of this story. “It was when I was a little boy. They came
in the night to our house, and I was not frightened, though everybody
else was.”

“Then, dear, you have seen twice as many as Euphorion,” Sophron answered
gently. “Your fearlessness, also, we may take as quite auspicious.”

Demophon blushed and wished he had not spoken. Euphorion, he was glad to
see, took no notice.

“At the springs of the Nile,” Euphorion went on, “towards evening, I saw
the Phœnix sitting on his nest. In size and appearance he was like an
eagle, but his body shone with a golden fire. His nest was built of
clay covered over with cassia-bark and cinnamon, and the gum of
frankincense, and slender stalks of nard, amid whose precious odours he
sat waiting for death. The sky behind him was a lake of pale green
light, and through his opened beak he sang his funeral hymn. Once in
five hundred years he builds his nest in this spot, and from the body of
the father the young Phœnix rises; and when he has grown strong, and his
wings have gained power, he uproots the nest and flies with it to the
sacred City of the Sun, and lays it down before the doors of the temple.
But I did not linger there; and on the coast of Tripolis, near the
country of the Lotos Eaters, I once more entered a ship, and sailed for
Italy. We passed along the Sicilian coast, between Charybdis and Scylla,
and the ship seemed to be winged, so swift was our passage. We struck
anchor near Baiae, but I pushed northward through the dismal swamps of
Cumae, seeking the grotto of the Sibyl. On the road, she met me, for she
had already seen my coming in her magic glass. She was old and withered
and dry, fragile and brown as a winter leaf, no taller than a child of
six, but wrinkled with innumerable years. Her voice was thin and husky
as the whispering of barley ears when the wind sweeps over the field,
and it seemed impossible that so frail a body could hold the fierce soul
struggling to be free. Yet she told me she had already lived for seven
hundred years, and pointed to a tiny heap of sand. In her girlhood, when
Apollo had loved her, she had begged him for as many years of life as
that heap contained of grains. Her foolish prayer had been
granted--foolish because she had forgotten to ask for perpetual youth,
and old age had come upon her at the same time as it comes to all. There
were a thousand grains of sand in the heap, and three hundred years of
life still remained to be lived. The tears glistened on her withered
cheeks, and when I said, ‘What boon would you ask now, Sibyl?’ she
answered, ‘I would die.’”

With the last word Euphorion’s head had sunk forward on his breast, and
he became lost in reverie. Nobody spoke, for though Demophon had many
questions in his mind, he did not like to break the silence. The history
of Euphorion’s journey had impressed him profoundly; it had awakened in
him the old restlessness which life with Sophron had temporarily
banished. He looked up at his master and was shocked to see upon his
countenance an expression of complete indifference.

It was Sophron who spoke first. “Then, I suppose, Euphorion, you teach
your followers to abstain from bloodshed? I had heard that it was one of
your doctrines, and on this point at least our views are the same.”

Euphorion turned to him, but again Demophon had the impression that it
was not to Sophron his words were primarily addressed. “The sin of the
blood-shedder is indeed the greatest of all sins,” he answered, “and his
punishment the most terrible. For he is condemned to be thrust back
among the lower forms of life. Air drives him into the sea, and Sea
spews him forth on the earth, and Earth casts him into the fire of the
sun, and Sun back into the currents of Air. All must receive him, but
all hate him, and all seek to get rid of him; so that he becomes a
fugitive and a wanderer, and must be born again and again through
countless ages before he can wash out that stain and find absolution.”

“And it is the Gods and man’s relation to the Gods that is usually the
subject of your lectures?”

“It must be so, Sophron, because it is only through a right
understanding of such things, and of his true destiny, that man can hope
to pass from the lower to the higher. The proof of this lies in the very
nature of the soul itself, which remains restless and perpetually
dissatisfied while it is bound to earth.”

“And a right understanding of the Gods leads, I suppose, to a rejection
of all the popular stories about them--such stories, for instance, as
those that attribute to them every kind of human folly and passion. You,
Euphorion, probably teach that God is one and indivisible--day and
night, winter and summer, light and darkness, mind and matter--and that
when we give him a form or a name, or limit him in any way, we are only
saying that he is not God.”

“You know very well, Sophron, that such is not my view. It is much more
like your own teaching, by which you at one time led your pupils to
scoff at religion.”

“It would be kinder, Euphorion, and I think even truer, to say that I
led them to scoff at superstition. For I value freedom above all things,
and there can be no freedom while the mind is haunted by ghostly fears,
so that it trembles at a shadow, and is swayed this way and that by
belief in lucky days and unlucky days, by omens and signs and oracles.”

“Is there anything to be gained, Sophron, by discussing these matters?
We are both too old to change, and it is likely that we shall only grow
embittered, each seeking to triumph over the other, not in the hope of
converting him, but merely for the sake of getting the better of the
argument.”

“You are right. Let me even whisper in your ear, Euphorion, since I know
it will go no further, that the destiny you have painted as a crowning
glory fills me with misgiving rather than envy. I have no desire to
become a God. To me it seems that the best gift philosophy can bestow is
to free our minds from both hopes and fears concerning a very doubtful
future. Such a philosophy brings with it its own particular duties,
which are of a kind you have not mentioned. When we cease to believe
that for either man or beast any divine compensation awaits him, it
becomes doubly imperative that we should try to make the earthly lives
of all creatures as pleasant as possible. In my own case, since my
friends are not human, this happens to be easy----”

“I am human,” Demophon interposed.

“Yes, and I have not made you very happy. Not happy enough to want to
stay with us.”

Demophon frowned slightly. “That is different,” he said. “But I shall
always want to come back.”

Their guest had risen, and he hastened to attend to him. For a moment,
in silence, Euphorion laid his two hands upon the boy’s head, and seemed
to be pronouncing a benediction or a prayer. Then, having bidden
farewell to Sophron, he rode slowly away into the dusk, while master and
pupil stood side by side watching him till he had disappeared.




CHAPTER XVI

_The Magic Valley_


All that winter, which was unusually long and severe, Demophon remained
with Sophron and the beasts. In the early days of spring he began to
think of resuming his travels, but first, since he was not more than two
days’ journey from home, he would pay the old people a visit. They would
find him altered, he supposed, for he had been away a year, and in the
last few months especially he had grown a great deal. Work on the farm,
running naked in the sun and wind, wrestling and romping with the
leopard, bathing in the cold mountain streams and breathing the pure
mountain air--all this had done much to develop his body, had deepened
his chest and hardened his muscles; he was no longer a child, he was
nearly as tall as Sophron, and sometimes he was astonished at his own
strength.

There were two ways he could take--one, the high road from Thebes to
Eleusis; and the other, not a road at all. It was this latter he chose.
The chain of mountains dividing Boiotia from his own country of Attika
would be his guide, and after bidding good-bye to Sophron and the
animals, and promising to return soon--certainly before the end of
summer--he set out.

He reached the hills he had marked down as the first stage of his
journey towards evening. Here he selected a camping ground, and next set
about gathering sticks and brushwood to build up his fire. The fire was
for company, because somehow, now that he had reached it, this spot did
not awaken confidence. Under the empty sky the mountains towered, dark
and forbidding; and it was here, Demophon remembered, that the child
Oidipous had been exposed, fastened by his foot to a tree, and abandoned
to any prowling beast that might pass by. It was here that Aktaion had
been devoured by his dogs, and Pentheus torn to pieces by his mother. It
was here that Apollo had shot down one by one all the boy children of
Niobe.... That night, as it happened, he was actually startled out of
his sleep by an ugly scream. He sat up. His fire was nearly dead, and
all around him was a thick curtain of darkness. He did not think the
scream had been human, and yet it certainly was not the cry of any
animal he could name. Demophon piled the last remaining sticks on the
red embers, and wrapping himself up again in his cloak, tried to believe
he had been dreaming.

In the morning sunshine he was quite sure he had, for all his gloomy
impressions were vanished. He skirted the roots of the mountains, and
found them honeycombed by half-concealed fissures and crevices. But at
the end of an hour’s scrambling over broken rocks he reached the
entrance to a narrow gorge, which looked as if it might serve his
purpose. It broadened rapidly as he followed its windings, till at last
it became a grassy sunlit valley, completely sheltered from the winds,
and with a stream that issued from a cave in the hollow mountain. The
soft green carpet--half moss, half grass--was strewn with fallen
boulders; the slope on either side was woodland; and sometimes between
the dark or silvery tree-trunks he saw the white flash of a rabbit or
the gleam of a bird’s wing....

It was growing hot now, for the sun hung directly overhead, and when he
reached a wide enough pool, though the water did not take him much above
his knees, Demophon bathed in it. He was glad he had not gone by the
road, he was glad he had not missed this valley, which was curiously
attractive. It was like a place that had never been visited by any human
being till he himself had chanced upon it. And indeed this might easily
be the truth, for the rough narrow entrance gave no promise of what lay
beyond. Yet at the very moment these thoughts were passing through his
mind, Demophon might, had he turned his head, have seen between the
bushes on the slope behind him a face peering out.

He rose from his bath and sat down beside a bed of scarlet anemones to
put on his sandals. Then he slung his clothing over his shoulder and
walked on, leaving the sun to dry his body.

He could see that at no great distance the valley again closed to a
narrow gorge, and beyond this, he supposed, lay the open fields within
fourteen or fifteen miles of Eleusis. Now that he was so near home he
began to draw a picture of his arrival, and to plan how he could make it
more dramatic. He wondered if it would be possible for him to disguise
himself, like Odysseus, and to come in with news of the lost wanderer,
describing how he had met him far away. Then there would be eager
questions from his mother, slower questions from Keleos, his own veiled
replies, the suspense, the sudden revelation when he jumped up and they
recognised him....

These lively images were abruptly dispersed by a sharp noise, like the
snapping of a dry branch under somebody’s foot. Demophon turned quickly.
He gazed up the leafy hillside through the flickering shafts of sunlight
and shadow, but at first saw nobody; and he was about to continue his
journey, thinking the sound must have been made by some wild creature he
had disturbed, when a girl stepped out from her hiding-place and came
lightly down the slope to meet him. She was young--not many years older,
it seemed to Demophon, than he was himself--and in her right hand she
grasped a long, sharp spear. Her dress was white, embroidered with small
delicate green leaves and sprigs of lilac flowers, and her shoes were
green. Her hair when she passed into the shadow was red, but when the
sun shone on it, it became gold. Her face had a creamy pallor, and her
narrow eyes were set just the slightest shade aslant. As he watched her
the first impression of strangeness gave place to beauty, though it
still remained a beauty unlike any he had ever beheld. It was partly the
shape of the face that gave it this unusual character (for it was broad
at the top and tapered to a feline pointed chin), it was partly the
peculiar expression of the eyes. He found himself gazing fixedly into
those eyes, and it was as if for a moment or two something heavy and
dark were pressing down upon his brain. Then, through a kind of
dizziness, he became aware that she was smiling at him, and that a faint
flush had swept up under her delicate skin, and subsided again, leaving
her white as before.

She stood, leaning upon her spear, and looking at him in a way that made
him feel self-conscious and shy.

“O loveliest of boys,” she said simply, “what are you doing here alone
and unarmed? Do you not know there are wild beasts in these
mountains--savage boars who would tear your body with their tusks, and
trample you to death? Now, above all, they are dangerous, for not long
ago some hunters came with their dogs, and they are eager for revenge.”

Demophon did not respond to her smiles. “I have seen nothing more
dangerous than a rabbit,” he answered, “and surely if it is safe for
you, who are a woman, it is safe for me.”

She laughed softly. “Are you so mighty a warrior, then, whose cheeks are
smoother than my own? Besides, I have this spear, and I do not carry it
for show. My father taught me how to use it, and taught me woodcraft,
and to shoot with a bow. And I am not far from our house, as you would
see if it were not for those trees.”

There was a brief silence, and Demophon made to pass on his way. But she
took a step that brought her directly into his path, and stretched out
her arms so that he could not pass.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Demophon.”

“I am Xanthis. Come with me to my father’s house. He is not at home, but
you can rest there for a while, and afterwards continue on your
journey.”

“You are very kind, Xanthis, but I am in a hurry. It is better that I
should go straight on.”

“Surely you can spare an hour or two. If my father had been here he
would have welcomed you, but he has gone to visit a very old friend,
Sophron, the philosopher.”

“Sophron!”

“Yes. He lives at the foot of Mount Helikon, with a crowd of animals,
and a disciple of singular beauty, who came to him nobody knows whence,
but whom some believe to be a messenger of the Gods.”

Demophon looked down. If her father was a friend of Sophron perhaps he
ought not to refuse. It made it, at any rate, more difficult.

“Why must you hurry?” Xanthis asked. “How long have you been on your
journey?”

“For about a--year,” Demophon was obliged to admit.

“You have waited a year, and now you cannot even wait an hour!”

“It is just because I have waited so long,” he began, but knew it
sounded foolish, and stopped, shamefacedly.

“Come,” Xanthis coaxed him. “Why are you afraid? I have no mother, no
brothers nor sisters; there is nobody in the house but our slaves. Even
when my father is there it is lonely, for he is silent and old....
Besides, I love you.”

“How can you possibly love me, Xanthis, when you have only known me two
or three minutes?”

“It is more than that: I followed you from the pool. But I do not want
you to love _me_. I only want to be with you for a little, for even if
you go now and I never see you again I shall never forget you.”

“O yes, you will,” answered Demophon ungraciously, “because there is
nothing to remember.”

“Why are you angry with me?” said Xanthis.

“I am not angry; but I think you are rather silly, and I am sure your
father would be _very_ angry with you.”

“I shall not tell him.”

But this so simple way out of the difficulty did not commend itself to
the boy. “One of the slaves would tell him,” he answered.

“What matter? Why should he not know? Why shouldn’t you come?” And
indeed there did not appear to be any reason except that he did not want
to.

“Won’t you forgive me?” Xanthis went on softly.

Demophon frowned. “There is nothing to forgive.... And I don’t see why
you are making such a fuss.”

“I will not make a fuss. It is not my fault: it is some God who has made
me love you.” She flung down her spear, and catching his hand held it
against her breast. “You can feel how my heart is beating, which shows I
am telling you the truth. Now do you believe me?”

“I feel nothing,” answered Demophon sulkily, snatching his hand away.
“And at any rate, if your heart didn’t beat you would die.”

The corners of Xanthis’s mouth began to droop. “Why are you so unkind to
me? Have you no sisters?”

“I have two sisters, but they don’t behave in this way.”

“In what way, Demophon?”

“Talking all this nonsense about--love. You ought to be ashamed, at your
age.”

“Have you never loved any one?”

“Yes, I have; but it didn’t make me want to annoy them, or ask them to
feel my heart beating.”

Xanthis sighed, and after a brief pause she said meekly, “Are your
sisters beautiful? I think they must be.”

“Well, they’re not; they’re perfectly ordinary.... And I don’t like
being called beautiful, either.”

“Am _I_ beautiful, Demophon? Look at me and tell me the truth.”

Demophon stared obstinately at the ground.

“Tell me--tell me,” Xanthis persisted, laughing.

“Oh--you’re all right, I dare say,” he answered grudgingly.

But Xanthis had joined her two hands behind his neck and had forced him
to raise his head. And now his face was so close to her own that she
bent forward and kissed him on the mouth. He struggled, and broke away
at last, half choked for breath.

“Good-bye,” he said.

Xanthis again threw her arms round him, and it was impossible, without
actual roughness, to loosen her embrace. “Come with me,” she whispered,
“and I will show you wonderful things.... I will show you a pool, and
when you look into it you will be able to see whatever you desire. You
will see your own home just as it really is at that moment; and all who
are there, and what they are doing. I will give you presents to take
with you, for the house is full of curious things, and all are mine to
do what I like with, to keep or to give away. I have slaves who will
dance for you and play music. I have wines such as you have never
tasted. I will give you delicious fruits and sweetmeats. I will show you
a book in which are pictures of the world as it was a thousand years
ago, and as it will be a thousand years from now. I will teach you how
to find hidden watersprings, and how to find buried gold. If you like, I
can put you to sleep, and send your soul out into the air or down into
the ocean, to the moon or among the stars; and when you awaken you will
remember all you have seen.”

Demophon hesitated. Xanthis was exaggerating, he knew, for these were
the promises of an enchantress; but even if only a small portion of what
she said were true, it seemed a pity not to go to the house. He need not
stay long, and since she was so fond of him there could be no danger.
He felt her hot dry hand clasping his tightly, and he allowed her to
lead him through the trees and up the woody hillside.

And suddenly a garden was before them--green and shady, dark and mossy
and damp--a garden of herbs and ferns and grasses, of shrubs and
trailing plants, with the water dropping from the lichened rocks, with a
fountain rising from a wide-lipped marble basin in which floated flat
dark water-lily leaves. The garden was entirely green--dark
green--except where, at the end of an avenue of yew-trees, there was a
mound of red earth, which seemed to have been heaped up recently, for
nothing grew upon it. And this mound was somehow unsightly, unpleasant,
he could not have told why; but a few paces farther on it was hidden by
the trees.

The house was built of marble, the roof supported by tall slender
columns, and the steps leading down to the green and flowerless garden
were of marble also. Within, the light was coloured by curtains of
transparent silk. The floor was strewn with rugs and cushions, after the
fashion of the East, and an Indian child, with a grave face and solemn
eyes, sat in a corner strumming on a lute. Upon his head a pigeon was
perched, its coral-coloured claws tightly twisted in the thick black
hair. No one else was visible, but Xanthis clapped her hands, and three
girl slaves entered. Like the boy, these girls were dark-skinned,
foreign, belonging to a race and speaking a tongue unknown to Demophon.
They led him to the bath chamber, and poured warm perfumed water over
him, and anointed him with oil.

When Xanthis brought him back to the larger room, the child with the
pigeon and the lute was still there, squatted in his corner, exactly in
the same position. His grave eyes never left Demophon, but their
expression remained detached and indifferent. Xanthis again clapped her
hands, and this time food was carried in. It was as strange as
everything else--either the food itself, or more probably the cooking
which disguised it--but Demophon was hungry, and at least the fruits,
the sweetmeats and the wine, were all that she had promised.

Lolling on his cushions in a somewhat lordly fashion, he thought that
this must be how great kings and princes lived. The flatteries of
Xanthis, mingled with the wine he had drunk, had begun already to give
him a foolish idea of his importance. Next moment it suffered instant
eclipse, as he encountered the regard of the boy with the lute. Demophon
flushed. There was a quality in that dispassionate gaze which had the
effect of making him very angry. And he knew that Xanthis must have read
his thoughts, for she made a sign, and the child in the corner withdrew.

“Who is he?” Demophon asked, with a half sullen note in his voice which
would have astonished Sophron or any other of his friends.

“His name is Mârouf, and his country is Nubia. Would you like him to be
whipped? He shall be tied up and whipped with rods here before you, till
you say it is enough.”

This proposal, and still more the tone in which it was uttered, brought
him to his senses. “Would you really do such a thing?” he asked, hardly
able to believe his ears.

“It was your own wish, wasn’t it?” answered Xanthis carelessly. “But
since it is gone, it does not matter.”

He was about to deny indignantly that such a wish had ever entered his
mind, but something stopped him; he was not quite sure; perhaps, just
for an instant----

And he began to feel uneasy. Who and what was Xanthis? He did not like
this reading of thoughts, this haste to gratify momentary impulses one
was ashamed of next minute, and which really were not wishes at all. He
looked round the walls of the room, and the paintings on them were
disquieting too. He had hardly noticed them before; all their details
had been hidden in shadow; but now they seemed to have acquired an
unnatural brilliance, to flame and glow as if a light were shining
through them from behind. They were beautiful, and they were at the same
time ugly, because of what was happening in them. Surely such things did
not, could not, take place in real life. They were the inventions of a
diseased, or a depraved imagination. He had a sudden desire to escape
from this house. He would go at once. Mechanically he raised the cup
Xanthis had given him to his lips, and when he put it down half emptied,
his determination had already flickered out. Again he looked at the
pictures, and though they were the same as before they created now a
different impression, and he examined them with curiosity but without
repulsion.

“Let us go out,” Xanthis said at last.

She led the way, and he followed her through a door and up a flight of
stone stairs. It was like climbing up a well, and when they reached the
top they were on the flat roof of the house, and to his surprise it was
night, and the moon had risen above the trees. At the same moment a
noise of music broke out from somewhere below them. Facing the rising
moon, with her hands stretched out to it and her red hair shining in its
light, Xanthis began to sing. Her pale face was slightly lifted, her
lips parted, and in her half-shut eyes there swam an ecstasy that was
poured out in the rich and passionate music of her voice. She was
singing to the moon, and he had a strange illusion that she was crowned
with oak-leaves and tiny serpents, and that she held a spear of
moonlight in her hand. But she was singing now of him, Demophon, and in
that melody there was the same mingling of voluptuousness and sadness
which he had heard in the hymn to Adonis, but which was here infinitely
intensified, because it had become personal and immediate. He felt
himself trembling as he was caught up in its exultation; he felt the
notes sounding and thrilling within his own body at the same time as he
heard them swelling out, rising, curving, sinking, under the starry dome
of night. They filled the velvet moon-washed air; they mixed with the
scents that rose from the mysterious garden; every nerve in his body
responded to their rapture and thirst.

Yet when she had ended, and slowly turned to kiss him, the spell
snapped. He drew back: he did not want to be kissed. As imagination
threatened to become reality, he suddenly grew cold. This real
love-making bored him. A single touch was sufficient to denude the whole
scene of its enchantment....

       *       *       *       *       *

Evening after evening he listened to Xanthis singing, and in the end it
was always the same. Pitifully, humbly, she would ask him if he loved
her; and he would answer “No.”

He hated her to ask him; it spoiled all that had gone before; and though
sometimes, not to be too ungracious, he would say that he liked her, he
was not sure that he did even that. And presently she saw that the music
was losing its first fascination. He was growing restless, he accused
her of not having shown him any of the wonders she had promised, he
talked of going home and said he had already stayed too long.

Then Xanthis saw that if she was to keep him she must employ other arts.
He was too young to be bound by the enchantments she had used; she must
wait a little, but in the meantime she must keep him. And she could only
keep him by first whetting and then gratifying his curiosity. Each day
she had to find something fresh. It was against her will that she
adopted this plan, for she knew the risk she was running. Fortunately,
he seemed completely ignorant of the art of sorcery. She had easily
found out the extent of his knowledge, and he apparently regarded it as
a kind of harmless though difficult game.

And most of all he liked to gaze at the pictures she called up in her
magic pool. He would hang over it for hours, gazing down at its inky
surface, which in the beginning would appear opaque, reflecting nothing
but his own face as he stooped above it. Then there would begin a
strange, gyrating movement below; and when this passed the picture would
leap out, bright in all its colours.

He saw the deep forest glade; he saw the dance of Silenos. He saw the
Satyrs, Fauns, and Nymphs, gathered in a watching circle, while Silenos
himself, in his eagerness to win the prize, twirled ever more rapidly.
Round and round he twirled, faster and faster, till, like a spinning
top, he seemed to be at rest. For his movements had become invisible,
and at last his very body dissolved, and all at once, losing its shape,
it became a river rushing headlong to the sea. His back became the river
bed, his hair and beard were the reeds swaying in the stream, even his
pipes resumed their original form, and were only the reeds growing in
the shallows....

The vision faded out, and Demophon saw only his own face gazing back at
him, with dark expectant eyes and parted lips. “More! More!” he
insisted, and Xanthis was obliged to humour him. Again the pool was
troubled, and this time, when its agitation subsided, he saw a hollow
mountain through which a stream flowed over a gravelly bed. It was the
drowsy river of Lethe, on whose banks bloomed dark purple and crimson
poppies. Through the soundless twilight he could see into a cavern,
where on a great throne of ebony, strewn with black feathers, Hypnos lay
asleep. His pale limbs were relaxed, and on each side of him were empty
dream shapes; but behind the throne, and deep within the gloom of the
cavern, stood his thousand sons. One of these now glided out through the
entrance of the cave, and spreading his broad wings floated over the
dark earth. He flew on till he reached a lonely cabin by the wild sea
shore, and there he dropped noiselessly down. Immediately his form was
changed and became like that of a sailor, but with water dripping from
his clothes and oozing from his hair and running down his white face.
Out of the darkness and rain and wind, he entered the cabin and stood
beside a bed on which a woman lay sleeping. Then the woman’s sleep
became troubled, and in a little while she awoke crying and wailing, and
calling to her terrified children that their father was drowned. She had
seen his drowned body in a dream; he was lost, the boat was lost.... Her
children started up and gathered round her, and the hut was filled with
weeping and lamentation....

Thus Xanthis held him with her day after day. He could not tear himself
from the fascination of the pool: for the pool was like a theatre
wherein all the drama of life and death was enacted for his pleasure.




CHAPTER XVII

_The House of the Witch_


They were only harmless magics Xanthis showed him, but as he watched her
bruising the herbs she gathered in her green damp garden, and distilling
their powerful juices into crystal phials, while she sang over them the
charm of Hekate, he was certain that he had not seen all. His curiosity
had awakened suspicion: he no longer believed the story about her
father--that he was the friend of Sophron; she had invented this to lure
him to the house, and very likely there was no father at all....

What had happened to the child with the lute? Demophon had never seen
him again. But indeed there was something strange about all these
slaves. When they had accomplished their tasks they disappeared; he
never saw them either in the house or outside; he never heard a sound;
yet when Xanthis clapped her hands, there they were, ready to bring in
the food, to make music or to dance--in short, to do her bidding
whatsoever it might be. And once, between the curtains at dusk, he had
caught a glimpse of a dark face watching him; and its eyes had glowed
like red brands. With a bound he had crossed the room--but there was
nobody there. Nor was there a door in the empty space behind the
curtain--nothing but the bare marble wall--either he had seen a demon or
the whole thing had been an illusion....

What took place at night while he was sleeping? There had been nights
when sleep had come upon him so overpoweringly, and had lasted so far
into the next day, that he could not believe it to be natural. This had
occurred three times--at intervals of perhaps a fortnight--and there
must be _something_ to account for it, though when he had questioned
Xanthis she had only laughed....

He was standing in a corner of the garden, beside a weeping ash-tree,
while these thoughts and doubts flickered to and fro in his mind. It was
not a corner he had ever visited before, because it was close to that
mound to which he had taken an instinctive dislike. But it was out of
sight of the house, and just now he wished to be alone. He would indeed
have gone down into the valley had he not promised Xanthis to wait for
her; so he waited, but waited where she would not at first think of
looking for him. And while he pondered, more and more dubiously, the
wind set the leaves of the ash-tree quivering, and their whisper reached
the fringes of his consciousness, but no more, for his mind was
troubled.

He stood there--and the trembling leaves continued to make a low murmur,
which gradually forced itself upon his attention, as the noise of a
persistent knocking will in the end break through the dreams of the
heaviest sleeper. The knocking in this case was the sound of a single
word repeated over and over again: and suddenly Demophon awoke. It _was_
a word. “Fly--fly--fly,” the tree was saying. “Fly--fly--fly--fly.”

The wind dropped, and the voice ceased, but Demophon’s wits were by this
time startled into alertness. He divided the branches, and stepping
inside their green hollow circle, waited for the wind to return. He
leaned against the trunk, hidden by the long drooping branches, quiet as
a mouse so that he might not miss the faintest sigh, and presently again
he heard the voice.

“I am not a tree--not an ordinary tree,” it said quite plainly, but very
softly--so softly that it was as if the leaves were whispering within
his mind. “Flee out of this valley, which is enchanted, which is the
home of the witch Xanthis. Once, long ago, I came here to gather wild
garlic, but Xanthis crept upon me while I was filling my basket, and
sprinkled me with her magic drugs. I had brought my little boy to keep
me company, and I knew he was playing not far away, though out of sight.
I tried to call to him, to warn him. I tried to run to him, but my feet
clung to the ground. One cry I did give, but I felt the cold stiff bark
spreading up my limbs, already my hair was turning into leaves. And
when my little boy appeared--for he had heard me--it was too late; I
could not speak, I could not tell him. He flung his arms round me and
clung to me and I tried to protect him with my branches, while Xanthis
laughed. She seized him in her cruel hands; she tore him from me and I
heard him screaming in terror as she dragged him to the house. Then the
screams stopped suddenly, and I never heard nor saw him again.... All
that was long, long ago.... For Xanthis is old--old and hideous--though
she can assume a form that is young and beautiful. But I have seen her
as she really is: I have seen her at night. I have seen her flitting
over those trees on great gray sluggish wings, leathery and heavy like a
bat’s. I have seen her at her loathsome feast: I have seen what lives
there, buried in that mound.... But first I must tell you how you
may----”

The wind died, and the whispering leafy voice died with it, and instead
of the voice of the tree Demophon heard the voice of Xanthis calling his
name. He crept through the bushes on his hands and knees, not coming out
into the open till he was as far from the ash-tree as possible. He did
not want her to know he had found it: she might suspect something, even
though she had never heard it talk.

Xanthis did not scold him for hiding: she was sweeter to him than ever.
All that evening she fawned on him and flattered him, while he, on his
side, tried to be just the same as before. But it was difficult.
Moreover he had a feeling, through all her blandishments, that secretly
she was growing impatient....

One thing he must find out as soon as possible, and that was what the
tree had been on the point of telling him. He had an idea that it was
something most urgent--something on which even his life, perhaps,
depended. And next morning, by rare good fortune, an opportunity
occurred, for Xanthis retired to her closet of medicines, leaving the
field unexpectedly free.

Demophon was rejoiced at his luck. He hurried to the ash-tree. There was
a light wind blowing, and in a very few minutes, he felt, the secret
would be in his grasp. Then he could bid defiance to Xanthis and all her
wicked arts. But when he reached the spot where the ash-tree had been,
he found only the bare trunk lying on the ground, charred and blackened,
as if blasted by lightning.

He was startled. It was a proof of the power of Xanthis, and it was a
proof, also, of her cunning. For he saw now that the whole scene must
have been arranged by her--that she had left him alone, not by chance,
but on purpose, knowing what he knew, knowing that he would come to the
tree, and knowing what he would find. It was a warning--a warning of
what he might expect for himself should Xanthis become his enemy. The
hour on which she began to tire of him would be the hour of his doom:
and already he had noticed her impatience....

Demophon stood looking down over the valley. He would have taken to
flight there and then, had he not been convinced that this was what she
expected him to do. It might be that every stick and stone in that
valley was enchanted. At any rate, Xanthis must be watching him, must
have laid a snare into which he would fall at the first attempt to
escape. If she had left the door of his cage open, it could only be
because she had woven an invisible net all round it--a net into which he
would blunder just when he believed himself to be safe.

He slipped through the thicket, and at the edge of the valley stretched
himself flat upon the ground. He suspected Xanthis was not far away, but
he could not help that: he must take a risk.

And he began to call softly, very softly, again and again, till at last
a flat smooth little head peeped out above the long grass, which barely
stirred as a small serpent glided up to him. Demophon spoke rapidly in a
low voice, and when he had finished the serpent began to hiss. But,
alas! his hearing had lost its fineness, and he could not make out a
single word. He begged the serpent to cleanse his ears, and it was just
about to do so, when they heard a sweet voice singing close at hand. It
was Xanthis once more. She must have followed him, she must be keeping
a close guard over him, playing with him like a cat with a mouse, though
she carried her big osier basket, and pretended to be busy and quite
unconscious of his nearness as she stooped over the moist green beds,
gathering herbs.... The snake darted into hiding, and Demophon went back
to the house....

He flung himself down on a heap of cushions. How he hated this house
now--and all it contained! But it was not in his nature to cease from
struggling or to abandon hope. He even at this moment saw, for the first
time, a slender, slender ray of light gleaming remotely in the darkness.
It was a mere possibility--a possibility suggested by certain words
spoken by the ash-tree.... The ash-tree had seen Xanthis like that....
Then, perhaps, on those nights when he was lying unconscious--she was
far away. It _must_ be so, for why else should she put him to sleep? and
he was convinced now that in some mysterious fashion she did put him to
sleep. It must be because she had a secret and absorbing business to
transact--a business which prevented her from keeping guard. If only he
could remain awake, then, when he was supposed to be asleep, he might,
for an hour or two at least, find himself at liberty. And even as he
reached this conclusion there floated before his mind a definite
image....

It was that of a stone flask, with a squat body and a very long neck.
Its colour was greenish, and the stone resembled some kind of
chalcedony. He remembered it, he thought, partly because of its queer
shape, but more especially because it had been produced on only two or
three occasions. He knew where Xanthis kept it. It was not brought in by
her slaves: she kept it herself. He went now to the little closet where
she stored her magic potions, and to his surprise the key was in the
lock, and the flask was there.

Demophon shook it. It was nearly full. Then, returning to the large
room, he clapped his hands and waited for what might happen.

He was not at all sure that anything would happen: he had never tried to
summon a slave before, and these particular slaves were so odd:
moreover, they might have received orders from Xanthis not to attend to
him. One came, nevertheless--dark and lithe and soundless--and Demophon
told him to bring some wine. The slave bowed low and vanished, but in
the twinkling of an eye he was back again. Demophon waited till he had
once more withdrawn, and then he acted rapidly.

First he made sure he was not being spied on; then he ran to the closet,
and taking out the flask, poured its contents into the magic pool. From
the wine the slave had brought him he refilled the flask, being careful
to put in as nearly the right quantity as he could guess without exact
measurement. All this occupied only a few minutes, and now he clapped
his hands for the second time, and when his orders had been carried out,
lay back on the cushions, his hands clasped behind his head, for the
next move was with Xanthis.

It had become, indeed, a rather absorbing game, though of course he
_might_ be all wrong, the contents of the flask might not have been
drugged, in which case he would have gained no advantage. Only why, if
his guess were wrong, should she keep this one particular flask in her
cupboard, producing it only now and then, though to all appearance the
wine it contained was no different from what he was accustomed to drink.
Surely she must keep it for a special purpose--all ready for use when
the occasion arose.

And that very night Xanthis brought out the green flask. Watching her
closely, yet without seeming to watch her, he read far more clearly,
because he was actually looking for them, those signs of restlessness
and preoccupation which he was now persuaded had accompanied each of its
previous appearances. Xanthis was suffering. She did her best to conceal
it; she was particularly animated, particularly eager to please him; she
invented tales to amuse him, she kissed his hands: but her lips seemed
to scorch his skin, and he had a strange impression that all her body
was consumed by a burning flame, so that it contained not one drop of
moisture. He even fancied that this time she had put off too long doing
whatever it was she was accustomed to do, and that it was only by a
painful effort she prevented him from detecting in her a physical
change. Once at least, when he pretended to be looking elsewhere, he
caught in her eyes a red gleam that reminded him of those other eyes
which had watched him from behind the curtains. Then he saw her bite on
her lips till surely the blood would have come if there had been any
blood there.

And he felt now, more and more strongly with every touch she gave him, a
profound physical repulsion. She poured the bubbling golden wine out of
the flask into a flat crystal cup, which she held out to him. He took it
in both hands and drank.

“Do you think your father will soon return?” he asked deliberately, as
he set down the empty cup.

Xanthis looked at him. An alteration, ever so slight, yet still
perceptible, _had_ begun to take place in her. There was a change, too,
in her voice, which had grown a little hoarse.

“We will talk of that to-morrow,” she answered. “And of other things--of
ash-trees and serpents.... What have you done with your little box?” And
suddenly she laughed.

Demophon put his hand inside his tunic: the box which had contained the
moly was gone. Nevertheless, he had faith--faith in his luck, in his
star, in his divine guardian, in himself.

“How did you know?” he asked, with pretended indifference.

“I can see the broken end of the string,” Xanthis replied.

There was a short pause, after which she began again to speak, and this
time she spoke slowly, as if to allow the veiled menace each word
contained to sink deep into his mind. “I think I have been mistaken in
you; I think I have treated you too much as if you were a child.”

“And now you know I’m not.” But his voice lacked the assurance he tried
to put into it, and Xanthis continued quietly.

“Yes, I know more now--much more.... I know, for instance, that you
don’t like me. But there are ways, Demophon, of overcoming dislike.”

“I suppose so.... Not very satisfactory ways, perhaps.”

“No, not very satisfactory. That is why I have been so patient.”

Demophon looked at her. “Are you threatening me?” he asked--with an
immense effort, for this kind of battle of wills was more trying than
any struggle in the open would have been.

And then, all at once, to his surprise, Xanthis seemed to capitulate.
She smiled, though her smile had become a grimace. “If I wanted to harm
you,” she said, “surely it would be foolish to begin by putting you on
your guard!”

“Yes, unless you were quite, quite sure. Then it might be just a part of
the amusement.”

Xanthis smiled again, but she did not answer, for outside the musicians
had begun to play.

He could not be quite sure how long the drug took to act, but he knew
the effect was not immediate, and he allowed another half-hour to elapse
before he began to show signs of sleepiness. His yawns grew more
frequent, his eyes would half close and then drowsily open again; and he
noticed that she was watching him with an at first stealthy but soon
more and more open intentness. At last he got up, and with all the
heaviness he could assume, wished her goodnight. He crossed the room and
drew aside the curtain behind which his bed was prepared.

Five minutes later he was breathing slowly and deeply, as if in profound
slumber. Yet, though the music outside had ceased almost on the instant,
a long time passed before he heard a movement within the room. He did
not open his eyes nor alter his breathing. But he could feel a light
shining down on his face, and knew she must be holding the lamp very
near to him. This feeling was not pleasant; he fancied that his heart
had begun to thump audibly. Then the light was withdrawn and he hoped
his trial was over. But she had only set the lamp on the floor, and next
moment he felt his hand grasped. He allowed his arm to remain perfectly
flaccid while she lifted it, and the instant she relaxed her hold he let
it fall dead on the coverlet.

What precautions she was taking, he thought! He had laid himself down on
his right side, so that he faced the room, but now he felt himself being
lifted and turned completely round. Even if he opened his eyes, he would
be able to see nothing in this position, unless she happened also to
draw the curtain, when he might risk turning back and peeping through.
She did not draw the curtain, she left it wide open, and blew out the
three lamps one after the other, plunging both room and alcove into
profound darkness.

It began to look as if his suspicions after all were groundless. It
might easily be that she came every night to gaze at him when he was
asleep. It would be quite like her to do so. But then he remembered the
lifting and dropping of his arm, which could only have been a test.

He raised his head slightly, for he could hear faint rustlings from the
adjoining room. He listened, but suddenly she was back again, bending
over him. Then a door opened, letting in a rush of cool night air. The
door closed, and he somehow knew he was alone.

Without hesitation Demophon jumped up and padded across the floor. He
crept out by the way Xanthis must have taken, crouching in the shadows
and moving with the utmost precaution. But it was unnecessary. The whole
garden was flooded with moonlight, and it was quite easy to see her as
she hastened over the dewy grass, nor did she once look behind her--not
even when she reached the avenue of yew-trees, into whose blackness next
moment she disappeared.

Demophon followed more slowly. He knew where that avenue ended, and he
did not enter it, but crept along the outer edge of the trees, and
before he had reached the clearing stopped. Flat on his stomach now,
though the cold dew-drenched earth made him shiver, he crawled through a
clump of laurels. Before him, as he carefully parted the branches, he
saw an open space, in the middle of which was the low circular mound. If
he had not liked this spot in daylight, he liked it still less now; but
the movements of Xanthis were interesting. She had divested herself of
every stitch of clothing, and with a spade had begun to dig a shallow
trench all round that sinister hump of earth, whose very nakedness
carried with it an ugly suggestion.

Xanthis worked with feverish energy, and before many minutes her task
was completed. Instantly she dropped her spade, and turning round three
times, stretched her arms towards the full moon, and began to chant a
litany in words Demophon did not understand. But he could see her face,
and though it was still recognisable, it was horridly changed.

A sharp bleat broke through the incantation. It seemed to bring it to a
close, for Xanthis sprang to the thicket, and by main force dragged a
black goat, which must have been tethered to one of the trees, towards
the mound. With astonishing strength, for the terrified beast struggled
desperately, she forced it to the trench, and drove a knife up to the
hilt in its throat. The goat staggered, then dropped to its knees, while
the dark blood gushed out on the ground.

Again Xanthis began to chant her spells, but her voice had become
indescribably harsh and grating--not even like a human voice--and the
blood that was spilled on the ground was drawn up into the moon. The
moon’s whiteness turned to crimson; the face of Xanthis was the livid
face of a corpse; and horrible crawling things appeared upon her body,
as if they had issued out of her flesh. She raised above her head an
iron pot and flung its contents--a white frothing liquid--over the
mound. It sank into the earth, which began at once to heave and boil and
bubble. There was something alive below the earth--something large,
which was struggling and working its way to the surface....

Demophon did not wait to see any more. He sprang to his feet and fled
across the grass and across the garden. He had almost reached the house
when it flashed upon him that this was the last place where he wanted
to be. He must get down through the woods, down to the valley, and
beyond that to freedom.

He turned. The garden was empty. Absorbed in her task, Xanthis either
had not heard him, or had not troubled to pursue him. He skirted the
extreme edge of the garden, keeping as far from the yew-tree avenue as
possible; then, scrambling through the brushwood, he gained the
outskirts of the wood. But beneath the trees it was pitch dark, and
again and again he tripped as he slid and tumbled down the slope. With a
last sliding rush that brought an avalanche of loose earth and stones
behind him, he plunged out into the moonlit valley. And suddenly he gave
a cry--half of fear, half of loathing--for standing there in front of
him, straight in his path, was Xanthis.

Xanthis, not as she had appeared by the mound, but in all her radiant
youth and beauty. Barely a moment he hesitated, then swerved to one
side, trusting to his speed. But she did not try to stop him--only, as
he passed, he saw her lift her arm, and felt the cold drops of some
liquid sprinkling his body. He did not care; he ran on. But he had not
taken twenty steps before, like the stab of a knife, an icy wave struck
through him, paralysing his nerves, turning his limbs to lead.

He made an immense effort, but it was useless; he could not move one
foot before the other. He heard the low laugh of Xanthis. Heavy as a
statue he stood, while she walked up to him. Her hands passed over him,
but he did not feel her touch till all at once his strength returned,
the blood moved again in his veins, and he bounded on. Bounded indeed,
for something had happened to him. He had dropped on all fours, he could
_feel_ himself changed. A thick coat of hair rippled over him, he opened
his mouth to cry aloud, and a long-drawn howl, dismal and despairing,
issued from his throat.

But it was not the howl of a dog: it was the howl of a wolf, and the
next time it came it was the howl of an angry wolf. As a boy, Demophon’s
actions were wont to follow swiftly on his thoughts, and this
characteristic remained with him now. The white form of Xanthis was
still visible when he suddenly checked in his headlong course and
wheeled round.

Perhaps, at that instant, Xanthis herself realised she had made a
mistake. It would have been just as easy, and certainly wiser, to have
turned him into a smaller and less dangerous creature. When she saw that
he had stopped, and instead of skulking into hiding among the bushes was
standing in the open moonlight watching her--his eyes blazing, his gray
mane bristling, his fangs bared--she began to scramble up the slope as
hastily as possible. She was agile, and she had a long start, and the
wolf still hesitated; nevertheless, before she had reached the top
Xanthis began to scream. She fled on; she reached the path; but her
speed availed her nothing. With a last agonised effort she stumbled out
into the open garden, and at the same moment a dark body rose into the
air behind her. One scream more, and Xanthis lay still, for her neck was
broken as by the jaws of a steel trap.

The wolf stood looking down at her, but almost immediately he raised his
head, sniffing. Something was happening--he did not know what--but he
heard a wailing sound coming from the direction of the house. It was
followed by a rushing in the air overhead, and by a rumbling from the
earth. The ground had begun to tremble, the white marble house was
rocking to and fro on its foundations, and suddenly it collapsed with an
appalling crash, while a dense cloud of dust floated up through the
moonlight. When it had subsided, there was nothing left but a heap of
broken stones and columns lying in the midst of a ruined garden.

Gazing on this scene of desolation stood no longer a wolf, but a very
tired boy. He glanced down at Xanthis, and instantly drew back in
disgust. For Xanthis was not there: there was nothing there but a
moving, quivering heap--alive, but not with the life of Xanthis.
Demophon plunged down into the valley.

He ran on, though he was ready to drop. He still ran, though the
mountain gorge grew ever narrower and more rocky. The grass and the
stream were left behind, and it was through a crevice not much wider
than his own body that he eventually emerged into the open country. He
was in the fields and plains of Attika, his native land. A faint light
in the east announced the breaking of dawn, and presently the light
flushed to a soft rose colour, and he knew morning was at hand.

He pushed on across the fields, keeping a straight track, till he
chanced on a wooden image of Hermes, which had been set up to mark a
division in the land. It seemed to him a good omen, so in this place,
amid the first drowsy twittering of the birds, he lay down.




CHAPTER XVIII

_Journey’s End_


He was awakened by the sun shining on his face. A cool breeze was
blowing, and his mind and body felt refreshed, as if they had been newly
cleansed. He had a sense of recovered sanity; he felt that he had
recovered actually from a spiritual sickness, some poison or
enchantment, so that his very memory of it, of all that fevered
unnatural life with Xanthis, its exotic luxuries, its enervation and
excitement, was grown faint and unreal. He remembered everything clearly
up till the beginning of his journey through the valley, but after that
all was confused, bewildering, inexplicable....

Demophon sprang to his feet, and then stood motionless. Before him, and
on and on to where the sky seemed to rest upon it like a soft blue veil,
stretched an immense unbroken plain. But it was not grown with grass, it
was composed of fields of wheat and barley, which in the distance showed
flat and still as a wash of colour, but closer at hand trembled under
the light wandering winds that shook the nearly ripened ears. Where the
growth was more scanty there were gleams of pure blue--the blue of corn
flowers--gleams of white and red--the white and red of daisies and
pimpernels. And the very openness of the landscape lent it a cool and
delicate beauty--a beauty responsive to every change of cloud and
sunshine--a beauty perpetually changing in expression as the cloud
shadows swept across it.

Here and there, like small islands, rose clumps of hawthorn and bramble,
thickets of dog rose and honeysuckle, crowning the bank of some hollow,
and sparkling with dew. The air was filled with the golden wine of
sunshine, with scents so mingled as to be hardly distinguishable, the
dark scents of earth, the green scents of growing things. It was filled,
too, with a low murmurous noise, the fanning of tiny transparent wings,
the stirring of minute particles of soil--the stirring of pollen, of
swelling bud and dropping seed, the rustling of leaf against leaf, blade
against blade--sounds so low that the distant voice of a bird was
sufficient to drown them utterly. And now and then a hardly perceptible
motion in the corn showed that some larger creature--furred or scaled or
feathered--was moving through it. A beetle droned close by Demophon’s
cheek, a yellow moth hovered just above him, a bumble bee crawled over
his foot....

       *       *       *       *       *

This place was sacred. The wooden image of the God, when the wind
touched it, made a faint humming sound. He had slept under the shadow of
that image, and its benign influence had passed into him....

Perhaps in his sleep he had received a direct message, for he had a
feeling of happiness, a profound assurance of safety. It was indeed not
unlike the feeling which had come to him that afternoon when, after
leaving Glaukos, he had wandered along the cliffs of Euboea. Or when he
had knelt by the haunted pool. Now, as then, he was conscious of a
watchful, guarding spirit--an angel, a God, a protector, a lover--one
who had been with him, perhaps, from the beginning, ready in the moment
of danger to intervene--sending forgetfulness to Laomedon, giving a
voice to the ash-tree, clouding the mind of the witch so that he had
been able to escape out of her snares.

For how else could he have come through all those perils unharmed?
Demophon had a sudden sense of a great brightness in the sky, of an
approaching glory. And he was not alone in this recognition: the music
of bird and insect had died away; into the very air had come a new
quality--a quality of expectancy, of hushed excitement....

And still--silence.... But the silence was not oppressive, was not even
dreamy; behind it he was aware of an intensely wakeful, vigilant life.
Something--some person--some revelation or fulfilment--was drawing
near--and the whole world of nature _knew_.

Demophon broke off a branch of honeysuckle. He laid it at the foot of
the image and knelt down before it. Then he bowed his head and prayed.

“O God of the wide-spreading fields, Hermes, for you I gathered this
honeysuckle I found growing by the wayside. Grant that my mind and heart
may be fresh and clean as these flowers, and accept this gift which is
the gift of fidelity and love.”

His eyes remained closed, and his hands folded. He knelt on. He knelt on
because an indescribable gladness had entered into and filled his body
and spirit. He knelt on till close beside him a voice spoke his name. He
knew that voice; he knew who stood there, and he raised his head. Though
he was older, and somehow graver than Demophon remembered him; though he
was a youth, a young shepherd, he was still the boy who had come to him
in the woods, his lost playmate, his hero, his friend. Demophon knew
those tight golden curls, that open brow, those clear gray eyes and
parted lips.

“Where have you been? Where have you been?” he cried, hiding his face in
the warm fleecy cloak.

A full and passionate joy swept through him as he clung in that close
embrace. “I have been looking for you so long,” he said, still keeping
his countenance hidden. “Why did you leave me? I looked for you in the
wood.... I called your name. I waited and waited. I did not think you
had forgotten me, but I did not understand....”

The voice of Hermes was pleasant and loving--with the woodboy’s laughter
in it, the laughter of his old playfellow. “I could not be with you
always; but never for long was I far away. And sometimes you did see
me--in a dream.”

“And now you will never go away again?”

“I must, Demophon. And I think you know that. One day you will be with
me; but it cannot be yet. See, I will give you a token, and for the rest
you must trust me. You have trusted me in the past--that is why I am
here now.”

He plucked one of the golden hairs from his own head and placed it among
Demophon’s black ones. “And now you are indisputably mine,” he said;
“marked with my mark. Not all the kings of the earth could remove it. I
will tell you further, that I myself, even if I desired to, could not
remove it, for our laws are not like your laws, and what we have once
decreed remains unalterable.”

Demophon put his hand up to his hair, touching it very carefully, as if
he hoped to feel among all that dark mop this one particular golden
thread. “Is it there?” he whispered.

“It is there,” Hermes answered, “and it is there for ever. I have done,
though in a different way, something of what Deo tried to do. Just
exactly what she had planned can never now be done: that golden hair
will not prevent you from growing old. But it is a promise that at the
appointed time I shall come again for you; and that in the end all will
be well.... And now we had better be starting on our journey. I am going
to see you safely home, and though at your father’s gate I must say
good-bye, the whole long day is before us.”

So they set out together, hand in hand, through the waving barley
fields.

_September, 1925._
_November, 1926._


             LONDON AND GLASGOW: COLLINS’ CLEAR-TYPE PRESS


[The end of _Demophon, a Traveller's Tale_ by Forrest Reid]