The Golden Hope: A Story of the Time of King Alexander the Great. Fuller Robert Higginson

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      The steward paused before he answered, gazing at Ariston with eyes half closed and a faint smile upon his lips.

      "Phradates is here," he said at last. "I know of what you are thinking. We have been friends too long to have secrets from each other. You need have no fear. Cepheus is dead and I have too many causes to despise Phradates to take his part."

      He paused again and suddenly his face became convulsed with a spasm of hatred.

      "I could strangle him!" he cried, clenching his hands as though he felt his master's throat beneath his fingers.

      Ariston breathed more freely. At any rate, his property in Tyre was safe.

      "Why don't you do it, then?" he asked coolly.

      "Because the time has not yet come!" Mena replied fiercely. "For every insult that he has given me and for every blow that he has made me feel, he shall suffer tenfold! His fortune is dwindling, and in the end it will be mine. Then let him ask Mena for aid!"

      "I did not know that you had so much courage," Ariston remarked.

      "I have not watched you in vain," Mena replied, "and it is to you that I now come for assistance."

      "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 СКАЧАТЬ