第22章

There was a feeling of deadly depression abroad, so that, for all its awkwardness, I would really have preferred the former Caerlaverock dinner.The Prime Minister was whispering to his host.I heard him say something about there being "the devil of a lot of explaining" before him.

Vennard and Cargill came last to the library, arm-in-arm as before.

"I should count it a greater honour," Vennard was saying, "to sweeten the lot of one toiler in England than to add a million miles to our territory.While one English household falls below the minimum scale of civic wellbeing, all talk of Empire is sin and folly." "Excellent!" said Mr.Cargill.Then I knew for certain that at last peace had descended upon the vexed tents of Israel.

THE SHORTER CATECHISM

(Revised Version)

When I was young and herdit sheep I read auld tales o' Wallace wight;My held was fou o' sangs and threip O' folk that feared nae mortal might.

But noo I'm auld, and weel I ken We're made alike o' gowd and mire;There's saft bits in the stievest men, The bairnliest's got a spunk o' fire.

Sae hearken to me, lads, It's truth that I tell:

There's nae man a' courage--

I ken by mysel'.

I've been an elder forty year:

I've tried to keep the narrow way:

I've walked afore the Lord in fear:

I've never missed the kirk a day.

I've read the Bible in and oot, (I ken the feck o't clean by hert).

But, still and on, I sair misdoot I'm better noo than at the stert.

Sae hearken to me, lads, It's truth I maintain:

Man's works are but rags, for I ken by my ain.

I hae a name for decent trade:

I'll wager a' the countryside Wad sweer nae trustier man was made, The ford to soom, the bent to bide.

But when it comes to coupin' horse, I'm just like a' that e'er was born;I fling my heels and tak' my course;

I'd sell the minister the morn.

Sae hearken to me, lads, It's truth that I tell:

There's nae man deid honest--

I ken by mysel'.

III

THE LEMNIAN

He pushed the matted locks from his brow as he peered into the mist.His hair was thick with salt, and his eyes smarted from the greenwood fire on the poop.The four slaves who crouched beside the thwarts-Carians with thin birdlike faces-were in a pitiable case, their hands blue with oar-weals and the lash marks on their shoulders beginning to gape from sun and sea.The Lemnian himself bore marks of ill usage.His cloak was still sopping, his eyes heavy with watching, and his lips black and cracked with thirst.Two days before the storm had caught him and swept his little craft into mid-Aegean.He was a sailor, come of sailor stock, and he had fought the gale manfully and well.But the sea had burst his waterjars, and the torments of drought had been added to his toil.He had been driven south almost to Scyros, but had found no harbour.Then a weary day with the oars had brought him close to the Euboean shore, when a freshet of storm drove him seaward again.Now at last in this northerly creek of Sciathos he had found shelter and a spring.

But it was a perilous place, for there were robbers in the bushy hills-mainland men who loved above all things to rob an islander:

and out at sea, as he looked towards Pelion, there seemed something adoing which boded little good.There was deep water beneath a ledge of cliff, half covered by a tangle of wildwood.

So Atta lay in the bows, looking through the trails of vine at the racing tides now reddening in the dawn.

The storm had hit others besides him it seemed.The channel was full of ships, aimless ships that tossed between tide and wind.

Looking closer, he saw that they were all wreckage.There had been tremendous doings in the north, and a navy of some sort had come to grief.Atta was a prudent man, and knew that a broken fleet might be dangerous.There might be men lurking in the maimed galleys who would make short work of the owner of a battered but navigable craft.At first he thought that the ships were those of the Hellenes.The troublesome fellows were everywhere in the islands, stirring up strife and robbing the old lords.But the tides running strongly from the east were bringing some of the wreckage in an eddy into the bay.He lay closer and watched the spars and splintered poops as they neared him.These were no galleys of the Hellenes.Then came a drowned man, swollen and horrible: then another-swarthy, hooknosed fellows, all yellow with the sea.Atta was puzzled.They must be the men from the East about whom he had been hearing.Long ere he left Lemnos there had been news about the Persians.They were coming like locusts out of the dawn, swarming over Ionia and Thrace, men and ships numerous beyond telling.They meant no ill to honest islanders: a little earth and water were enough to win their friendship.But they meant death to the hubris of the Hellenes.Atta was on the side of the invaders; he wished them well in their war with his ancient foes.They would eat them up, Athenians, Lacedaemonians, Corinthians, Aeginetans, men of Argos and Elis, and none would be left to trouble him.But in the meantime something had gone wrong.Clearly there had been no battle.As the bodies butted against the side of the galley he hooked up one or two and found no trace of a wound.Poseidon had grown cranky, and had claimed victims.The god would be appeased by this time, and all would go well.

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