ment? Had I the tongue of Nestor
and the wisdom of Thales, would those doltish Dorians listen?"

Again the knock, still again Simonides. The dapper poet's face was a cubit
long.

"Oh, grief to report it! Cimon sends a boat from his ship the _Perseus_.
He says the _Dike_, the Sicyonian ship beside him, is not stripping for
battle, but rigging sail on her spars as if to flee away."

"Is that all?" asked Themistocles, calmly.

"And there is also a message that Adeimantus and many other admirals who
are minded like him have gone again to Eurybiades to urge him not to
fight."

"I expected it."

"Will the Spartan yield?" The little poet was whitening.

"Very likely. Eurybiades would be a coward if he were not too much of a
fool."

"And you are not going to him instantly, to confound the faint hearts and
urge them to quit themselves like Hellenes?"

"Not yet."

"By the dog of Egypt, man," cried Simonides, seizing his friend's arm,
"don't you know that if nothing's done, we'll all walk the asphodel
to-morrow?"

"Of course. I am doing all I can."

"All? You stand with folded hands!"

"All--for I am thinking."

"Thinking--oh, make actions of your thoughts!"

"I will."

"When?"

"When the god opens the way. Just now the way is fast closed."

"_Ai!_ woe--and it is already far into the evening, and Hellas is lost."

Themistocles laughed almost lightly.

"No, my friend. Hellas will not be lost until to-morrow morning, and much
can happen in a night. Now go, and let me think yet more."

Simonides lingered. He was not sure Themistocles was master of himself.
But the admiral beckoned peremptorily, the poet's hand was on the cabin
door, when a loud knock sounded on the other side. The _proreus_,
commander of the fore-deck and Ameinas's chief lieutenant, entered and
saluted swiftly.

"Your business?" questioned the admiral, sharply.

"May it please your Excellency, a deserter."

"A deserter, and how and why here?"

"He came to the _Nausicaae_ in a skiff. He swears he has just come from the
Barbarians at Phaleron. He demands to see the admiral."

"He is a Barbarian?"

"No, a Greek. He affects to speak a kind of Doric dialect."

Themistocles laughed again, and even more lightly.

"A deserter, you say. Then why, by Athena's owls, has he left 'the Land of
Roast Hare' among the Persians, whither so many are betaking themselves?
We've not so many deserters to our cause that to-night we can ignore one.
Fet