n waiting on a sick boy's whim--held back by the doctor's orders.
They watched him moving across the garden--his quick, supple gestures,
his live face--the boy was well enough! They smoked innumerable cigars
and strolled out through the grounds and sat by the river, and threw
stones into its sluggish current, waiting while hours went by. Since the
ultimatum--a hundred thousand for three months--not a line had reached
them, no message over the whispering wires--the child might be in
the city, hidden in some safe corner; she might be in Europe, or in
Timbuctoo. There had been time enough to smuggle her away. Every port
had been watched, but there was the Canadian line stretching to the
north, and the men who were "on the deal" would stop at nothing. They
had been approached, tentatively, in the beginning, for a share of
profits; but they had scorned the overture. "Catch me--if you can!" the
voice laughed and rang off. The police were hot against them. Just one
clue--the merest clue--and they would run it to earth--like bloodhounds.
They chewed the ends of their cigars and waited... and in the garden
the boy and his father watched the clouds go by and talked of Athens and
gods and temples and sunny streets. Back through the past, carefree they
went--and at every turn the boy's memory rang true. "Do you remember,
Alcie--the little house below the Temple of the Winds--" Achilles's
eyes were on his face--and the boy's face laughed--"Yes--father.
That house--" quick running words that tripped themselves--"where I
stole--figs--three little figs. You whipped me then!" The boy laughed
and turned on his side and watched the clouds and the talk ran on...
coming closer at last, across the great Sea, through New York and the
long hurrying train, into the grimy city--on the shore of the lake--the
boy's eyes grew wistful. "I go home--with you--father--?" he said.
It was a quick question and his eyes flashed from the garden to his
father's face.

"Do you what to go home, Alcie?" The face smiled at him. "Don't you like
it here?" A gesture touched the garden.

"I like--yes. I go home--with you," he said simply.

"You must stay till you are strong," said the father, watching him. "You
were hurt, you know. It takes time to get strong.... You remember that
you were hurt?"

The words dropped slowly, one by one, and the day drowsed. The sun--warm
as Athens--shone down, waiting, while the boy turned slowly on his
side... his eyes had grown