The Golden Hope: A Story of the Time of King Alexander the Great

"To me!" Ariston exclaimed.

"To you," Mena repeated. "Be not alarmed, for what I have to propose will be for our mutual benefit. Phradates has been throwing money right and left since we set out from Tyre. Great sums he spent in Crete and still greater in Corinth. Since his arrival here he has been fleeced without mercy. You will understand that I have tried to protect him, but merely to save him from injury. He might have lost his life only this morning had I not been there to guard him from an attack by two desperate characters with a crowd of slaves, who set upon us while we were returning from the dice. Luckily, I succeeded in beating them off, but the noble Phradates was thrown from his chair and his noble nose was battered. Soon he will be in want of more money. Of the property that remains to him, he has quarries on Lebanon, which employ a thousand slaves, silk mills in Old Tyre, where as many more are kept busy, and a score of ships in the trade with Carthage. He believes the value of the quarries and the mills to be only half what it really is and reports have been made to him that two-thirds of the vessels of his fleet have been lost. All this he will pledge for anything that it will bring when he learns that his money is gone. It is for us to get possession of that pledge. I have a few talents, but not enough. I will take care that the loan is never repaid and our success is certain. What do you say?"

Ariston looked at the statue of Hermes. It was a fancy of his that he could draw either a favorable or an adverse augury from the expression on the face of the God as it showed in the wavering light of the lamp. He could detect no change in the mocking smile that seemed to hover about the marble lips. It left him with no conclusion.

"What you have told me," he said to Mena, "makes it necessary for me to tell you something in return. I am a ruined man."

"Ruined! You!" Mena exclaimed incredulously.

"It is true," Ariston replied. "Of all that I had, nothing remains to me intact except the dye-house in Tyre and a small fleet of corn ships that has but now arrived from the Euxine. The worst is that I have debts that must be met if I am to save other ventures."

"But you have the property of your nephew to draw upon," Mena suggested.

"I had it," the old man said, "but it was turned over to him more than a year ago. Since then all my losses have befallen."

"But you are his heir," the Egyptian replied meaningly. "Is he married?"

"No; but he soon will be," Ariston replied.

The two men exchanged glances, reading each other's thoughts in their eyes. Neither cared to put into words what was in his mind.

"Leave it to me," Ariston said at last. "I think it can be managed. Clearchus knows nothing of my affairs, and if I can once more get control of the property all will be well. I think we may safely assume that he will not marry. For the rest, we must wait and see. Let us talk of this pledge that Phradates is to make for our security."

He produced his tablets and a stylus and the conspirators were soon buried in a mass of calculations. When Mena took his leave, every detail had been arranged.

Hardly had Mena disappeared in the direction of the Agora when a man of unusual stature, with brawny arms and a heavy black beard, turned into the street in which Ariston lived and stood staring doubtfully about him. There was a hint of the sea in his sunburned face and rough garments.

"If you are looking for the Piræus, my friend, you will not find it here," said a fruit dealer who chanced to meet him.

"What do you know of the Piræus, grasshopper?" returned the stranger, halting and looking at the merchant with contempt. "I am searching for the house of Ariston, son of Xenas. Do you know where in this accursed street it is?"

"Tut, tut; fair words, my friend," the merchant replied, carefully keeping his distance. "What do you want with Ariston?"

"That is his affair and mine, but not yours," growled the stranger.

"I'll warrant it is nothing good," the fruit dealer said, "but you will find his house at the end of the street, near the wall."

Without stopping to thank him, the stranger strode on in the direction that he had indicated. The merchant stood for a moment gazing after him, wondering whence he came and what he wanted; but finding no answer to these questions in his own mind, he shook his head like a man who is assured of the existence of something that should not be and continued on his way to his shop in the Agora to relate his suspicions.

Ariston himself came to the door in response to the stranger's knock. He was admitted at once and without a word. Ariston led him in silence to his own room and seated him in the chair that Mena had occupied half an hour before. Instead of summoning a slave, the old man went himself to fetch a flask of wine and a trencher of bread and cheese.

"Can it be done?" he asked in an eager voice, leaning forward in his favorite attitude with his elbows on the table while the other ate and drank.

"It can be done, but it will not be easy," his guest replied.

"Not easy to carry off a woman who has only slaves to guard her?" Ariston exclaimed. "Are your men cowards, then, Syphax?"

"No, my men and I are not cowards, old Skinflint," Syphax said, "but you may as well understand now that we do not intend to risk our lives for nothing."

He delivered this speech with the blustering air of a bully, gazing boldly into the old man's face. Ariston, naturally of small stature, looked more than ever shrunken and withered in contrast with his companion; but at the sound of the other's threatening tone, his face hardened and there came a cold gleam into his eyes.

"I am glad you are not afraid, Syphax," he said in a voice so soft that it sounded almost caressing. "Have you forgotten Medon? Your eyes saw his death. He was a brave man, too, your old chief. I think I can hear him yet as he called upon the Gods in his torture. They could not help him. Poor Medon!"

The face of Syphax paled under its tan at the recollection that Ariston had conjured up and an involuntary shudder ran through him. His bold eyes wavered before the persistent stare of the little old man, whom he could have crushed in one of his hands.

"What are you willing to pay?" he asked hoarsely, pushing away his food half finished.

"You would do it for nothing, if I asked you, Syphax," the old man replied, still in the same soft voice, "but I have no wish to be hard with you. This is a matter in which I have a deep interest and I am willing to pay well for it. When you have taken her safely on board, you will sail to Halicarnassus, where you will search out Iphicrates, son of Conon, and give him this letter. If he finds you have done your work well, he will pay you a talent in silver. But if the girl has been harmed in any way, not a drachma will you get and worse will befall you than befell Medon."

"The work is worth five times as much," Syphax grumbled with downcast eyes, "but I suppose I have no choice."

"None, my dear Syphax, and I am a poor man," said Ariston. "Let us regard the matter as settled. Now, how do you intend to proceed?"

Syphax roused himself like a man whose professional skill has been called upon.

"The house stands thus," he said, indicating its position on the table with a huge finger. "On this side is the grove where I and a dozen of my men will lie hidden with the litter. One of my fellows will scale the roof and let himself down inside. He will open the door to us and the thing will be over in a moment."

"Where will you embark?" the old man asked, nodding approval.

"My ship will be lying off-shore with a boat in waiting. We will carry her in the litter to this spot, about two stadia beyond the Piræus, which we shall have to pass. We shall make the attack soon after the middle watch of the night when the moon will be low."

"You should have been a general, Syphax," the old man said. "You have a better head for strategy than most of those the Athenians employ. Go to your work and forget nothing. I must attend the Assembly, where Demosthenes is to stir up the citizens against Alexander, son of Philip. They say the boy is dead."

"Alexander dead!" Syphax exclaimed.

"The story is that he was killed by the Illyrians, and Demosthenes has a man who saw him die," Ariston replied indifferently. "I think the man is lying and that Demosthenes knows it. But these affairs have nothing to do with you. Be off to your business."

When the adventurer had gone, Ariston returned to his room and prepared to write. From his expression of content, it was evident that he was satisfied with what had been done.

"To Iphicrates, son of Conon," his letter ran. "I am sending to you Syphax, a freebooter from Rhodes, who will deliver to you a young woman. You will take her into your house and guard her with care until you hear from me again. Syphax will present to you an order for a talent of silver. Defer the payment until you have the girl, and then do with him as you will. As a pirate and a robber, he has richly merited death. May the Gods protect you."

As Ariston was carefully sealing this letter, a gaunt, sour-visaged woman entered the room. She was his wife and the one person on earth in whom he had confidence. Like most secretive men with whom duplicity is a daily study, he sometimes felt the need of telling the truth, if only to note the effect of his schemes upon another's mind. But even to his wife, whose covetousness was equal to his own, he never revealed all that was in his brain. Her lonely life was spent in a constant endeavor to piece out from what he imparted to her the full extent of his plans. She admired his intellect, but deep in her heart she feared him, and, womanlike, she was tormented by the suspicion that somewhere she had a rival to whom he told what he concealed from her. The consciousness of her own deficiency of charms made her manner all the more harsh and forbidding. As soon as she entered the room she noted that he was in an easy mood, and she made haste to take advantage of it.

"Who were these men?" she asked. "What are you about now?"

"Affairs of state, Xanthe, that are not for women to know," he said mockingly.

"All that concerns you concerns me," she replied. "Am I to do the work of a slave here like a mole in the dark? Who are these women you were talking of with that evil-looking man?"

"So you were listening!" Ariston said with a frown.

"Yes, I was, if you must know it," Xanthe said defiantly. "Do you think I am to know nothing? If you had consulted more freely with me before, we would not now be the paupers that we are, and many times I have told you this, but you will not listen to me because I am a woman."

There was something in this remonstrance that made an impression upon Ariston's mind, smarting as he was over the loss of his fortune. It might have been better, after all, if he had told her more.

"We were talking of only one woman," he said, with an impulse of frankness. "She is Artemisia."

"Artemisia!" Xanthe exclaimed. "Don't try to deceive me. Why should you wish Artemisia to be carried off? Is not Clearchus to make her his wife?"