“You have gained the prize,” he said in a tone of the deepest earnestness, “nor did you fail to deserve it. Prize it the more because it is manifest that the gods favor you. Youth and strength pass away, but piety you can cherish always, and cherishing piety, you have also the favor of the gods.”

CHAPTER XXV.
BUSINESS AND PLEASURE.

Its religious obligations discharged, for the games, as has been already said, were regarded as a service of thanksgiving for deliverance, the army turned its attention to secular affairs. One indispensable duty, one curiously characteristic, by the way, of the Greek soldier’s temper of mind, was to call the generals to account. For a Greek soldier, even when he was selling his sword to the highest bidder, never forgot that he was a citizen, and that as a citizen he had the right of satisfying himself that his superiors had done their duty with due care and with integrity. The Ten Thousand accordingly put aside for the time their military character, and resolved themselves into a civil assembly. Their generals were no longer the commanding officers to whom they owed an unhesitating obedience, but the magistrates who had just completed their term of office, and had now to render their accounts[76] to those who had elected them.

The meeting of the army, perhaps I should rather say the assembly, was held on the same ground which had served for a race course. One by one the officers were called to answer for themselves. With many, indeed, the proceeding was purely formal. The name was called, and the man stepped forward on a platform which had been erected where it could be best seen by the whole meeting. If no one appeared to make a complaint or to ask a question, the soldiers gave him a round of applause, if I may use the word of the noise made by clashing their spears against their shields; this was a verdict of acquittal and the officer retired with a bow. And this was what commonly happened. After all, the leaders had, on the whole, done their duty sufficiently well; there was proof of that in the simple fact that such a meeting was being held. But all did not escape so easily. If, indeed, only a few voices of dissatisfaction were heard, the matter was not pushed any further. When the second appeal was made by the malcontents, they, seeing that they were not supported by their comrades, preferred to keep silence. The man would, in all probability, be their officer again and he would not be likely to think pleasantly of any one who had accused him. But where, on the other hand, there was anything like an agreement of dissatisfied voices, the complainants took courage to come forward, and the examination was proceeded with in earnest. One officer had had charge of some of the property of the army; there was a deficiency in his accounts and he was fined twenty himal[77] to make it good. Another was accused of carelessness in his duties as leader, and had to pay half this sum. Then came the cause celebre, as it may be called, of the day, the trial of Xenophon himself. Xenophon was generally popular with the army, as, indeed, he could scarcely fail to be, considering all that he had done for it; but he had enemies. The mere fact of his being an Athenian made him an object of dislike to some; others, as will be seen, he had been compelled to offend in the discharge of his duty.

“Xenophon, the son of Gryllus,” shouted the herald at the top of his voice.

The Athenian stepped on to the platform.

An Arcadian soldier, Nicharchus by name, came forward and said, “I accuse Xenophon the Athenian of violence and outrage.”

A few voices of assent were heard throughout the meeting; and some half dozen men came forward to support the the prosecutor. Accuser and accused were now confronted.

“Of what do you accuse me?” asked Xenophon.

“Of wantonly striking me,” replied the man.

“When and where did you suffer these blows?”

“After we had crossed the Euphrates, when there was a heavy fall of snow.”

“I remember. You are right. The weather was terrible; our provisions had run out; the wine could not so much as be smelt; many men were dropping down, half dead with fatigue; the enemy were close upon our heels. Were not these things so?”

“It is true. Things were as bad as you say, or even worse.”

“You hear,” said Xenophon, turning to the assembly, “how we were situated, and indeed, seeing that you suffered these things yourself, you are not likely to forget them. Verily; if in such a condition of things, I struck this man wantonly and without cause, you might fairly count me more brutal than an ass. But say—” he went on, addressing himself again to his accuser, “was there not a cause for my beating you?”

“Yes, there was a cause,” the fellow sullenly admitted.

“Did I ask you for something, and strike you because you refused to give it?”

“No.”

“Did I demand payment for a debt, and lose my temper because the money was not forthcoming?”

“No.”

“Was I drunken?”

“No.”

“Tell me now; are you a heavy-armed soldier?”

“No; I am not.”

“Are you a light-armed then?”

“No; nor yet a light-armed.”

“What were you doing then?”

“I was driving a mule.”

“Being a slave?”

“Not so; I am free; but my commander compelled me to drive it.”

A light broke in upon Xenophon. He had had a general recollection of the occasion, but could not remember the particular incident. Now it all came back to him.

“Ah,” he cried, “I remember; it was you who were carrying the sick man?”

“Yes,” the man confessed, “I did so, by your compulsion; and a pretty mess was made of the kit that I had upon the mule’s back.”

“Nay, not so; the men carried the things themselves, and nothing was lost. But hear the rest of the story,” he went on, turning to the assembly, “and, indeed it is worth hearing. I found a poor fellow lying upon the ground, who could not move a step further. I knew the man, and knew him as one who had done good service. And I compelled you, sir,” addressing Nicharchus, “to carry him. For if I mistake not, the enemy were close behind us.”

The Arcadian nodded assent.

“Well then; I sent you forward with your burden, and after a while, overtook you again, when I came up with the rear-guard. You were digging a trench in which to bury the man. I thought it a pious act, and praised you for it. But, lo! while I was speaking, the dead man, as I thought he was, twitched his leg. ‘Why he’s alive,’ the bystanders cried out. ‘Alive or dead, as he pleases,’ you said, ‘but I am not going to carry him any further.’ Then I struck you. I acknowledge it. It seemed to me that you were going to bury the poor fellow alive.”

“Well,” said the Arcadian, “you won’t deny, I suppose, that the man died after all.”

“Yes,” replied Xenophon, “he died, I acknowledge. We must all die some day; but, meanwhile, there is no reason why we should be buried alive.”

The man hung his head and said nothing.

“What say you, comrades?” cried Xenophon.

One of the oldest men in the ranks got up and said, “If Xenophon had given the scoundrel a few more blows he had done well.”

A deafening clash of swords and spears followed, and the verdict was accepted.

The other complainants were now called to state the particulars of their grievances. Dismayed by the reception which their spokesman had met with, they remained silent, one and all. Xenophon then entered upon a general defence of his conduct.

“Comrades,” he said, “I confess that I have many times struck men for want of discipline. These were men who, leaving others to provide for their safety, thought only of their own gain. While we were fighting they would leave their place in the ranks to plunder, and so enriched themselves at our expense. Some also I have struck, when I found them playing the coward and ready to give themselves helplessly up to the enemy. Then I forced them to march on, and so saved their lives. For I know, having once myself sat down in a sharp frost, while I was waiting for my comrades, how loath one is to rise again. Therefore, for their sake, I raised them even with blows, as I should myself wish, were I so found, to be raised. Others also have I struck whom I found straggling behind that they might rest. I struck them for your sake, for they were hindering both you that were in front, and us that were behind, and I struck them for their own sake. For verily it was a lighter thing to have a blow with the fist from me than a spear’s thrust from the enemy. Of a truth, if they are able to stand up now to accuse me, it is because I saved them thus. Had they fallen into the enemy’s hand, what satisfaction would they be able to get, even if their wrongs were ten times worse than that Nicharchus complains of? No,” he went on, “my friends, I have done nothing more to any one than what a wise father does to his child, or a good physician does to his patient. You see how I behave myself now. I am in better case; I fare better; I have food and wine in plenty. Yet I strike no one. Why? Because there is no need; because we have weathered the storm, and are in smooth water. I need no more defence; you have, I see, acquitted me. Yet I cannot forbear to say that I take it ill that this accusation has been made. You remember the times when I had for your good to incur your dislike; but the times when I eased the burden of storm or winter for any of you, when I beat off an enemy, when I ministered to you in sickness or in want, these no one remembers—” and here the speaker’s voice half broke, partly with real emotion, partly at the suggestion of the orator’s art. A thrill of sympathy ran through the audience. “And you forget,” he went on, “that I never failed to praise the doer of any noble deed, or to do such honor as I could, to the brave, living or dead. Yet, surely it were more noble, more just, more after the mind of the gods, a sweeter and kindlier act, to treasure the memory of the good than to cherish these hateful thoughts.”

When the speaker sat down, there was nothing that he might not have obtained from his comrades.

That night there was a great banquet. This served a double purpose. Quarrels were made up, and some other difficult relations of the army to its neighbors were satisfactorily adjusted. The fact was, that the Greeks, partly from their want, and partly in the hope of filling their pockets after a long and profitless campaign, had been plundering right and left. The natives, on the other hand, had not been slow to retaliate. Plundering cannot be done satisfactorily in company; but any who ventured to do a little business on his own account ran a great chance of being cut off. Under these circumstances both parties thought it might be possible to come to an agreement. If the Greeks would not plunder, the natives would leave them unmolested and even furnish them with supplies. The chief of the country, accordingly, sent an embassy, with a handsome present of horses and robes of native manufacture. The generals entertained them at a banquet, to which, at the same time, they invited the most influential men of the army. The chief’s proposals would be informally discussed, and proposed in regular form at a general meeting the next day.

The generals did their best to impress their guests. Meat, bread and wine were in plenty; and the eparch of Trapezus sent one of the magnificent turbots for which the waters of the Black Sea were famous. All the plate that was in the camp was put into requisition to make as brave a show as possible; and, at the instance of Callias, some handsome vessels of gold and silver were lent by the town authorities.

But, in the eyes of the guests, the most impressive part of the entertainment was in the performances which followed it. The libation having been made and the hymn, which supplied the part of grace after meat, having been sung, some of the Thracian soldiers came upon the platform which had been prepared for the performers. They wore the usual armor of their country, a helmet, greaves, light cuirass, and sword, and danced a national dance to the sound of a flute, leaping into the air with extraordinary nimbleness, and brandishing their swords. One pair of dancers were conspicuous for their agility. Faster and faster grew their movements, and with gestures of defiance they alternately retreated and advanced. At last, one of them, carried, it seemed, out of himself by his rage, thrust at his fellow with his sword. The man fell.

“He is killed!” screamed out the guests, and rose from their seats.

Indeed, the man had fallen so artistically and lay so still that any one would have thought that he had received a fatal blow. The Greeks, however, looked on unmoved, and the strangers, not knowing whether this wonderful people might not be wont to kill each other for the entertainment of their guests, resumed their seats. The dancer who had dealt the blow stripped the other of his arms, and hurried off, singing the Thracian national song:

“All praise to Sitalces,
Invisible Lord,
The spear point that errs not,
The death-dealing sword,
The chariot that scatters
The close ranks of war,
Red Ruin behind it,
Blind Panic before!”

When he had left the stage a party of Thracians appeared and carried off the fallen man, who had remained without giving the slightest sign of life.

Another dance in armor succeeded, performed this time by Æolian tribesmen from the Menalian coast. A man came on the stage, and, laying aside his arms, made believe to drive a yoke of oxen, and to sow as he drove. Every now and then he looked round, with an admirable imitation of expecting some unpleasant interruption. This came in the shape of another armed man, who was supposed to represent a cattle-lifter. The ploughman caught up his arms, and ran to encounter him. The two fought in front of the team, keeping time as they struck and parried to the sound of the flute. At last the robber appeared to vanquish his adversary, to bind him, strip him of his arms, and drive off the team.

The next performer was a Mysian, who danced, again in armor, what we should call a pas seul. He had a light shield in each hand, and seemed to be fighting with two adversaries at once; his action was extraordinarily life-like and his agility almost more than human. In curious contrast with his performance was the stately movement of some Arcadians heavy-armed, who, with all the weight of their armor and accoutrements upon them, moved to the tune of the warriors’ march with as much ease as if they had been perfectly unencumbered.

“Good Heavens!” cried one of the envoys to his next neighbor, “what men these are! Their armor seems not one whit heavier to them than a shirt, and they carry their swords and their spears as if they were twigs of osier.”

One of the Mysians, whose dialect was not very different from that of the speaker, overheard the remark. “Ah!” he said to himself, “we will astonish these gentlemen still more.”

He drew one of the Arcadians who had just performed, aside. “Send Cleone on the stage,” he said.

Cleone was a dancing-girl, famous for her agility.

By good luck she was at hand, having indeed expected to perform for the amusement of the company. The Arcadian made her put on a light cuirass of silvered steel, which she wore over a scarlet tunic. She had a short gilded helmet, buskins of purple, and sandals tied with crimson strings. In her left hand she carried a small shield, and in her right, a light spear. Thus accoutred, she came on the stage and danced the Pyrrhic dance with tremendous applause from all the spectators.

The astonishment of the native guests was beyond all expression.

“What!” cried their chief, “do your women fight?”

“Of course,” said the General whom he addressed, “of course they fight, and very pretty soldiers they make.”

“Women soldiers!” gasped the man.

“Why,” said his host, “did you not know that it was the women who routed the Great King, and drove him out of our camp?”

CHAPTER XXVI.
INVALIDED.

And now he found the advantage of having followed Xenophon’s advice and taken up his quarters in the town. Had he been reduced to such nursing and attendance as the camp could have supplied, his chances of moving would have been small indeed. At the house of Demochares, on the contrary, he had everything in his favor, an exceptionally good nurse, and an exceptionally skillful physician. In those days neither branch of the healing art, for nursing has certainly as much to do with healing as physicking, was very successfully cultivated. Women nursed the sick, indeed, often with kindness and devotion, for woman’s nature was substantially the same then as it is now, but they did it in a blind and ignorant fashion. As for the practice of medicine it was a mass of curious superstitions and prejudices, leavened here and there with a few grains of experience, and, if the practitioner happened to have that inestimable quality, of good sense. Of systems there was only the beginning. The great physician Hippocrates had indeed acquired a vast reputation, and was beginning to influence the opinion of the faculty throughout Greece; but the medical profession has always been slow to adopt new ideas—what profession, indeed, has not?—the means of communication, too, were very limited, and as yet his teaching had had but little effect.

But Callias happened to be exceedingly fortunate both in his nurse and in his doctor. The house of Demochares was kept by his sister, a widow, who after her husband’s death had returned to her old home, and had devoted herself to a life of kindness and charity. The young Athenian had won her heart, not only by his sunny temper and gracious manners, but by his resemblance to a son of her own whose early death—he had been slain in a skirmish with the barbarian neighbors of Trapezus—had been the second great sorrow of her life. His illness called forth her tenderest sympathies, and nothing could have exceeded the devotion with which she ministered to her patient.

The physician, Demoleon by name, was a very remarkable man. He was a native of the island of Cos, and was at this time between fifty and sixty years of age. He had been one of the first pupils of the famous Hippocrates, who was a native of the same island, and had lived on terms of great intimacy with his teacher whom he assisted in his private practice. When Hippocrates was summoned to the plague-stricken city of Athens, Demoleon accompanied him, and, by a curious coincidence, in the course of his residence there had treated the father of Callias. Whatever the benefit that followed the prescriptions of Hippocrates, it is certain that the fact of his being called in to administer them by the most famous citizen of Greece, largely increased his reputation, and that even beyond the border of Greece. The great physician’s return from Athens was speedily followed by an invitation from Artaxerxes, King of Persia.[78] The plague that had devastated Greece had passed eastward, and was committing destructive ravages throughout the Persian Empire. Artaxerxes implored Hippocrates to give him and his subjects the benefit of his advice. He offered at the same time the magnificent honorarium of two talents of gold yearly.[79] The patriotism or the prudence of Hippocrates led him to refuse this offer, tempting as it was. He would not, he said, and doubtless with sincerity, give the benefit of his advice to the hereditary enemy of his country. At the same time, we may suppose, he reflected to himself that he would be putting himself, without any possibility of appeal, at the mercy of a tyrannical and unscrupulous master. But one of the Persian envoys succeeded in doing a little business of the same kind on his own account. He found the pupil less resolute against the temptations of a great bribe than the master had been. Accordingly he engaged Demoleon to come in the capacity of physician to himself and his household. The King would have the opportunity of availing himself of his advice if he pleased. Artaxerxes was disappointed at the refusal of Hippocrates, but he did not disdain the help of a man who had shared his practice, and was probably acquainted with his system. Demoleon prescribed at Susa and Persepolis the remedies which his master had employed at Athens, the burning of huge fires in the street and squares, and the use of an antidote. The pestilence either yielded to these influences, or, as is more probable, had exhausted its force. At any rate Demoleon got the credit of having vanquished the enemy, and was rewarded by a munificent present from the King and by an enormous practice.

He might have accumulated great wealth but for an unlucky complication for which he can scarcely be considered to have been to blame. Necessity sometimes compelled a departure, in the case of the physician, from the strict rules of seclusion with which the Persian women were surrounded. Demoleon was called in to visit the daughter of a Persian noble. She was a beautiful girl, or rather would have been beautiful but for the fact that she was blind. It was a case of cataract, and the Greek physician, who was as bold as he was skillful, ventured on an operation which at that time had scarcely been attempted, or even thought of. It proved entirely successful. The gratitude of the father was shown by a munificent present of gold and jewels; that of the daughter by the gift of her heart. One of the very first objects on which her eyes rested when the bandage was permitted to be removed was the form of the young physician who had restored to her one of the greatest joys of life. Under any circumstances it was likely to please her; and Demoleon was in the bloom of early manhood, and his fair complexion and golden hair showed in attractive contrast to the swarthy hues of her countrymen. The result was that she fell deeply in love. Demoleon was not without prudence, and would have hesitated to listen to any promptings of his own heart, for he too had been greatly impressed by the beauty and grace as well as by the pathetic patience of the sufferer. Amestris—that was the young lady’s name—guessed readily enough that the physician would not venture to speak, and she took the matter into her own hands. She did not speak herself; for that, passionate as was her affection, would have been impossible; but she got some one to speak for her. Her nurse—the nurse was generally the confidante of antiquity—undertook the task of communicating with the young man. One day she gave him a pomegranate, saying at the same time that he would find the fruit especially sweet. Her words would have seemed ordinary enough to any one that might have happened to hear them; but the young physician, whose feelings made him susceptible, suspected, he could not say why, a particular meaning. Opening the fruit he found a ring engraved with a single Greek word—Be Bold. The next day he thanked the giver of the fruit with emphasis. “It was sweet to the core,” he said.

After that the affair proceeded rapidly. The young man, who, as may be guessed, did not hurry the case of his patient, found an opportunity of declaring his love, and in the following summer the two lovers fled together. All the arrangements had been carefully made. The girl feigned sickness, and the physician prescribed a residence among the hills and a simpler life and plainer diet than the patient was likely to get in her father’s house. Her foster-mother was the wife of a sheep master who rented some extensive pasture on the hills of Southern Armenia, and it was settled that Amestris should pay her a visit. The lady was sent off under a small escort, no one dreaming that the family of an influential noble would be molested on its journey. Yet, curiously enough, a band of brigands was bold enough to enter the caravanserai where the party was lodging on the fourth night after their departure from Susa. Certainly the keeper of the inn, and, possibly, the commander of the escort, had been bribed—Demoleon’s successful practice had put him in the command of as much money as he wanted. For a long time Amestris absolutely disappeared. Her father searched everywhere and offered munificent rewards for information, but he could find and hear nothing. No one knew that a couple of travellers, who might have been two brothers journeying in company and followed by three well armed servants, were in fact Demoleon, Amestris, and the pretended robbers. The party followed much the same route as was afterwards taken by the Ten Thousand, and, after not a few hair-breadth escapes, arrived in safety at the same destination,—the city of Trapezus.

Three years of happiness followed. Then the beautiful Persian died. She never repented of having given her heart to the young physician, who was the best and most affectionate of husbands. But she missed her family and all the associations of her early life, and pined away under the loss. Return was impossible; she could not go back without her husband, and to return with him would have been to expose him, if not herself, to the certainty of death. The hopelessness of the situation broke her heart; and all her husband’s skill, even the more potent influence of her husband’s love, failed to work a cure.

The widower could not prevail upon himself to leave the place where he had enjoyed his short-lived happiness. He might have gained wealth and fame in larger cities, but he preferred to spend the rest of his days at Trapezus. There, indeed, he was almost worshipped. He had a singularly light and skillful hand; his experience, though, of course, not so large as he might have collected elsewhere, was always ready for use; and he had the rare, the incommunicable gift of felicitous guessing—guessing we call it, but it is really the power of forming rapid conclusions from a number of trifling, often half discerned indications. Anyhow he achieved some very marvellous cures; performed with success operations which others did not venture to attempt; diagnosed diseases with remarkable skill, and was extraordinarily fertile in his expedients. It was specially characteristic of him that while he was never satisfied till he had thoroughly enquired into the causes of disease, he was unwearied in his efforts to relieve the inconvenience and painfulness of a patient’s symptoms.

So alarming did the condition of Callias become after his return from the banquet, that Demoleon was called in without loss of time. All that he could do at the moment was to give a sleeping draught, intending to make a thorough examination of the case next morning.

Shortly after sunrise he was by the bedside. Callias was conscious enough to be able to describe his feelings; what he said indicated plainly enough that his illness had been developing for some days past, and had been postponed by sheer courage and determination. It was in fact something like what we call gastric fever; and the experienced physician saw enough to convince him that he should have a hard battle to fight. The patient was young, vigorous, apparently sound of constitution, and, as far as he could learn, of temperate habits. All this was in favor of recovery; but it was not more than was needed to give a glimpse of hope.

Demochares, who had a strong regard for the young man, as indeed every one had that had been brought into contact with him, intercepted the physician as he was leaving the house after a prolonged examination of the patient.

“How do you find him?” he asked.

Demoleon shook his head. The gesture was not exactly despairing, but it indicated plainly enough that the situation was serious.

“You will put him all right before long?” returned the merchant, alarmed at the gravity of the physician’s manner.

“All these things lie on the knees of the gods,” said Demoleon, quoting from his favorite Homer. (It was a maxim of his that a man who did not know his Homer was little better than a fool.) It may be said that the physician was more than a little brusque in manner and speech. Twenty years of solitary life had made him so, for since his wife’s death he had held aloof from all the social life of the place.

“What ails him?” enquired the merchant.

“A fever,” was the brief reply.

“Does it run high?”

“Very high indeed.”

“You have bled him, of course.”

The physician’s answers to enquiries were generally as short as the rules of politeness permitted; occasionally, some of his questioners were disposed to think, even shorter; but there were remarks that always made him fluent of speech, though the fluency was not always agreeable to his audience.

“Bleed him, sir,” he cried, “why don’t you say at once stab him, poison him? No, sir, I have not bled him, and do not intend to.”

“I thought that it was usual in such cases,” said the merchant timidly.

“Very likely you did,” answered Demoleon, “and there are persons, I do not doubt, who would have done it, persons, too, who ought to know better.” This was levelled at a rival practitioner in the town for whom he entertained a most thorough contempt. “Do you know, sir,” he went on, “where men learnt the practice of bleeding?”

“No, I do not,” said Demochares.

“It was from the hippopotamus. That animal has been observed to bleed himself. Doubtless the operation does him good. But it does not follow that what is good for an animal as big as a cottage is good also for a man. Doubtless there are men for whom it is good. When I have to deal with a mountain of a man, one of your city dignitaries bloated by rich feeding, by chines of beef and pork and flagons of rich wine, I don’t hesitate to bleed him. His thick skin, his rolls of fat flesh, seem to require it. In fact he is a human hippopotamus. But to bleed a spare young fellow, who has been going through months of labor and hard living would be to kill him. I wonder that you can suggest such a thing.”

“I am sure I am very sorry,” said the merchant humbly.

“Happily no harm is done,” replied the physician, cooling down a little. “And, after all, this is not your business, and you may be excused for your ignorance, but there are others,” he went off muttering in a low voice, “who ought to know better, and ought to be punished for such folly. It is sheer murder.”

I do not intend to describe the course of the long illness of which this was the beginning. There were times when even the hopefulness of the physician—and his hopefulness was one of his strongest and most helpful qualities—failed him. Relapse after relapse, coming with disheartening frequency, just when he had seemed to have gathered a little strength, brought him close to the gates of death.

“I have done all that I can,” said Demoleon one evening to Epicharis the nurse. “If any one is to save him, it must be you. If you want me, send for me, of course. Otherwise I shall not come. It breaks my heart to see this fine young fellow dying, when there are hundreds of worthless brutes whom the earth would be better without.”

Epicharis never lost heart; for a nurse to lose heart is more fatal than the physician’s despair. For nearly a week she scarcely slept. Not a single opportunity of administering some strengthening food did she lose—for now the fever had passed, and the danger lay in the excessive exhaustion. At last her patience was rewarded. The sick man turned the corner, and Demoleon, summoned at last, to alleviate, he feared, the last agony, found, to his inexpressible delight, that the cure was really begun.

“You are the physician,” he cried, as he seized the nurse’s hand and kissed it; “I am only a fool.”

Winter had passed into spring, and spring into summer, before Callias could be pronounced out of danger. Even then his recovery was slow. Some months were spent in a mountain village where the bracing air worked wonders in giving him back his strength. As the cold weather came on he returned to his comfortable home in Trapezus. Though scarcely an invalid, he was still a little short of perfect recovery. Besides it was not the time for travelling. Anyhow it was the spring of the following year, and now more than twelve months from the time of his first illness, when he was pronounced fit to travel. Even then it was only something like flat rebellion on the part of his patient that induced Demoleon to give way. The young man was wearying for home and friends. He had heard nothing of them for several months, for communication was always stopped during the winter between Athens and the ports of the Euxine, while the eastward bound ships that always started after the dangerous season of the equinox had passed, had not yet arrived.

CHAPTER XXVII.
BACK TO ATHENS.

Hippocles happened to have just returned from his business at the shipyard, when the young Athenian presented himself at the gate. Nothing could be warmer than the welcome he gave his visitor.

“Now Zeus and Athene be thanked for this,” he cried as he wrung the young man’s hand. “That you had come back safely from the country of the Great King I heard. Your friend Xenophon told me so much in a letter that I had from him about a year ago. Then I heard from him that you were dangerously ill. After that all was a blank, and I feared the worst. But why not a word all this time?”

“Pardon me, my dear friend, I think I may say that it was not my fault. For months I was simply too ill to write. When I came back to Trapezus, the winter had begun, and there were no more ships sailing westward. I should have written when communications were opened again, but I was always in hopes of being allowed by the physician to start, and I had a fancy for bringing my own news. And how are you?”

“I am well enough,” replied Hippocles, “but we have been passing through times bad enough to shorten any man’s life. I don’t speak of trade. There have been troubles there, but when one has ventures all over the world, it does not matter very much as far as profits are concerned, if things do not go right at one place or another. It has been the state of home affairs that has been the heaviest burden to bear. I thought we had touched the bottom when the city had to surrender to Lysander. But it was not so, and I might have known better. The Spartans, of course, upset the democracy.”

“Well,” interrupted Callias, “I should have thought that that would not have been by any means an altogether unmixed evil.”

“Yes,” said Hippocles, “and there have been times when I have been ready to think the same. But wait till you see an oligarchy in power, really in power, I mean, not with a possible appeal to the people, and so a chance of having to answer for themselves before them, but with a strong foreign garrison behind them. We had that state of things in Athens for more than half a year. One might almost say that it was like a city taken by storm. No man’s life was safe unless he was willing to do the bidding of the Tyrants—the ‘Thirty Tyrants’ was the nickname of the men that were in power in those days. Who would have thought that Theramenes would ever have been regretted by honest men? Yet it was so. He thought his colleagues were going too far, and opposed them. He was carrying the Senate with him, for many besides him were beginning to feel uncomfortable; so they murdered him. The Thirty had, you must know, a sort of sham general assembly—three thousand citizens picked out of the whole number as holding strong oligarchical opinions. Amongst the laws that they had made one was that none of these Three Thousand were to be condemned without a vote of the Senate. The name of Theramenes was, of course, on the list, and, as he had a majority of the Senate with him, he seemed safe. Well what did Critias, who was the leader of the violent party, do? He filled the outer circle of the Senate house with armed men, the Senate, you must understand, sitting in the middle surrounded by them. Then he got up and said, ‘A good president, when he sees the body over which he presides about to be duped, does not suffer them to follow their own counsel. Theramenes has duped you, and I and these men here will not suffer one who is the enemy of his country to do so any longer. I have therefore struck his name off the list of the Three Thousand. This leaves me and my colleagues free to deal with him without your assent.’ The Senate murmured, but dared do nothing more. The officers came and dragged the man from the altar to which he was clinging. An hour afterwards he had drunk the hemlock. The gods below be propitious to him, for great as were his misdeeds he died in a good cause and as a brave man should die.[80] Things have not been so bad since the ‘Thirty’ were upset, but there is a sad story to tell you.”

Callias paused awhile. At last he screwed up his courage to put a question which he had both longed and feared to put ever since he had set foot in the house.

“And your daughter, is she well?”

“Yes, she is well.”

“And still with you?”

“Yes, she is at home,” briefly answered the father.

Hermione had in fact, refused several offers which every one else had thought highly eligible. Hippocles, though by no means anxious to lose a daughter who was not only a companion but a counsellor, was growing anxious at what appeared her manifest determination to remain single. He would have dearly liked to have a son-in-law who would be able to take up in time the burden of his huge business, a burden which he began to feel already somewhat heavy for his strength. Callias would have been entirely to his heart, but he had accepted, though not without great reluctance, his daughter’s views on this subject. That she should deny the young Athenian’s suit, and yet for his sake dismiss all other suitors—and this he began to suspect to be the fact—seemed to his practical mind a quite unreasonable course of action. When a distant kinsman from Italy, a handsome youth of gracious manners and of unexceptionable character, with even a tincture of culture, was emphatically refused, Hippocles ventured a remonstrance. Its reception was such that he resolved never under any circumstances to repeat it. Hermione had been always the most obedient of daughters, but this roused her to open rebellion. “Father,” she said, “in this matter I am and must be a freeborn Italian. A Greek father can arrange a marriage for his daughter, but you must not think of it. I shall give myself as my mother gave herself before me—if I could find one as worthy as she did,” and she caught her father’s hand and kissed it, breaking at the same time into a passion of tears. “Forgive me,” she went on in a broken voice, “for setting up myself against you; but if you love me, never speak on this subject again.” And her father resolved that he never would.

The young Athenian felt a glow of renewed hope pass through him at the father’s reply, studiously brief and cold as it was. Anyhow Hermione was not married. What could ever occur to change her purpose he did not care to speculate. Nevertheless, as long as she did not belong to another, he need not despair.

“You will dine with me of course,” said Hippocles to his visitor, “by good luck I have invited Xenophon. Doubtless that is he,” he went on, as a kick was heard at the door.[81]

A few moments afterwards a slave introduced Xenophon; and before the two friends had finished their greetings it was announced that dinner had been served.

Hermione was not present at the meal, nor did her father make any excuse for her absence. The presence of any guest not belonging to the regular family circle, was sufficient to account for it; and Callias, though he hoped against hope to see her, could not but acknowledge to himself that a meeting would have been highly embarrassing.

Conversation did not flag during the meal. When it was finished, the host excused himself on the score of having some business matters on hand which did not brook delay; and Xenophon and Callias were left to talk over each other’s adventures.

When Callias had told the story with which my readers are already acquainted, Xenophon proceeded to give him a brief outline of his fortunes since they had parted.

“Well, my dear Callias,” he said, “you did not lose much by not being with us. While we were in danger, we stuck fairly together, though there were always cowardly and selfish fellows who thought, not of the general welfare, but only of their own skins or their own pockets. But when we were safe at the coast and among friends, then there arose endless division. And, indeed, I must allow that the situation of the army was very trying. Here were thousands of men who lived by their pay, and there was no paymaster. I had a scheme of my own which would really have kept us together. If it could have been carried out, the gathering of the Ten Thousand, even though it had failed of its first object, would not have been altogether in vain. I wanted to found a new Greek colony. We might have taken Pharis or some other city of the barbarians; and if only half of my comrades had been willing to stay, we might have made a rich and powerful place of it before long. But it was not to be. Perhaps I was not worthy of being the founder of such a colony; anyhow the scheme came to nothing. I will tell you how it was. You remember Silanus, the soothsayer. I never trusted the man. He was quite capable of garbling signs to suit his own advantage. However I could not help going to him on this occasion, as he was the chief of his craft. So I said, ‘Offer sacrifices and determine the omens concerning this scheme of a new colony.’ Now Silanus was about the only man who had any money in his pocket. Cyrus had given him three thousand darics[82] for a prophecy that had come true, and he wanted to get home with the spoil. So he was altogether against the idea of a colony. When he had sacrificed he could not say that the omens were altogether against the scheme; for I knew nearly as much about the matter as he did. What he did say was that there were indications of a conspiracy against me. And he took good care to make them true, for he spread about reports of what I was going to do that turned the army against me. So the scheme came to nothing.

“This did one good thing, however, for it helped us on our way home. Trapezus and the other colonies in the east of the Euxine did not relish the idea of a new Greek city which might turn out to be a formidable rival. So they offered to transport the army to the Hellespont and to furnish pay from the first new moon after the departure. This seemed a good offer, and I recommended the soldiers to close with it, and said that I gave up my scheme. ‘Only,’ I said, ‘let us all keep together and let any one who leaves us be counted a malefactor.’ For I did not choose that my friend the soothsayer should get the better of it.

“Well, we set sail; our first halt was at Sinope, which is roughly speaking, about halfway between Trapezus and Byzantium. Then the army wanted to make me commander-in-chief. Happily the omen was against it, and I was able to decline. We started again, and got to Heraclea. The people were very hospitable; but some scoundrels in the army wanted to lay a contribution upon the city. Chirisophus, the Spartan—I should have told you that on my refusal the army gave him the chief command—refused to have anything to do with such an abominable business, and I backed him up. Of course the city shut its gates against us, and we got nothing at all. After this the army broke up into three. One of the divisions, made up of Arcadians and Achaeans, the most unscrupulous and greedy of the whole number, got into serious trouble when they were trying to plunder the country, and I had to rescue them, for two thousand men had stuck to me when the army was thus broken up. Then the other division under Chirisophus were nearly as badly off, and I had to get them out of a scrape. After this they came together again, and it was made a matter of death for anyone to propose a separation.

“It was well we did, for everyone seemed bent on treating us as villanously as possible. Would you believe that the Spartan governor of Byzantium actually sold as slaves four hundred soldiers who had found their way into the city? It is true that they were stragglers and had no business there; but it was an abominable act. At last, one Seuthes, who had been chief of the Odrysians, and deposed by a usurper, offered to take the whole army into his pay, if we would help him to recover his dominions. Every man was to receive a stater[83] per month, the captains twice, and the generals four times as much. Also he offered lands, oxen to plough it with, and a city with walls. In fact the colony scheme seemed likely to be carried out after all. To me he was very munificent in his promises. I was to have one of his daughters to wife and a city of my own.”

“What did you say to that?” said Callias.

“Well, the only one of these things that Seuthes really had in his possession was the daughter. I saw the young lady, handsome I will allow, and tall; but, oh, such a savage! As for the money, and the land, and the oxen, and the towns, walled and unwalled, we had to get them for him and then have our portion back. However, it seemed to me the best thing for the army to do, and I advised the men to that effect, and they agreed, only it was provided that we were never to march more than seven days’ journey from the seacoast. We had all had enough of marches up the country. Then Seuthes gave us a feast by way of striking the bargain.

“It was a wonderful scene, and some day I must tell you all about it. But I must own that for a time I felt as uncomfortable as ever I did in my life. After dinner when the bowl had passed round two or three times, in came a Thracian leading a white horse. He took the bowl from the cup-bearer, and said, ‘Here is a health to thee, King Seuthes. Let me give you this horse. Mounted on him thou shalt take whom thou wilt, and when thou retirest from the battle thou shalt dread no pursuer.’ Then another gave a slave, and another some robes for the Queen, and a fourth a silver saucer and a finely embroidered carpet. All the while I was sitting in an agony, for I was in the place of honor, and had nothing to offer. However ‘our lady of Athens,’ who is the inspirer of clever devices, and, it may be Father Bacchus also, for I had drained two or three cups, helped me out of my difficulty. When the cup-bearer handed me the goblet, I rose and said, ‘King Seuthes, I present you with myself and these my trusty comrades. With their help you will recover the lands that were your forefathers’ and gain many new lands with them. Nor shall you win lands only, but horses many, and men many, and fair women also.’ Up got the King, at this, and we drained the cup together.

“Seuthes was not going to let the grass grow under his feet. When we left the banqueting tent—this was at sunset because we wanted to set the guards about our camp—the King, who, for all his potations, was as sober as a water-drinker, sent for the generals and said, ‘My neighbors have not yet heard of this alliance of ours. Let us go and take them by surprise.’ And so we did. We went that night and brought back booty enough to pay for our day’s pay, I warrant you.

“Well, we went on fighting for Seuthes for two months till we had conquered the whole countryside for him. Then the conquered tribes flocked to him—give a Thracian plenty to eat and drink and good pay and he will fight in any quarrel—till he did not want any more. That perhaps was not to be wondered at, but, like the mean hound that he was, he tried to get out of paying us.

“Just at this moment when I thought that we should have to settle with the sword for judge, Sparta declared war against the Persians and wanted all the men she could get. So Thuisbron, their commander-in-chief, came over and engaged the men at the same rate of pay that Seuthes was giving or rather promising. We never got anything but a wretched fragment from the King.

“By this time I had had about enough of campaigning of this fashion. Not a drachma had I made. In fact I was poorer than when I set out. I had even to sell my favorite horse, but Thuisbron bought it back for me.

“Just at the last I had a stroke of luck. That is another story I must tell you some day. But fortunately we took prisoners a Persian noble with his wife and children, his horses and cattle and all that he had. The next day I left the army, but before I went they gave me the pick of the beasts of all kinds. It was a handsome present, I can tell you.”

“So, on the whole,” said Callias, “you came pretty well out of the business. You returned at least not poorer than you went, you have won for yourself a name which those who come after us will not, I take it, forget, and you helped, at least, to save the lives of many Greeks from perishing shamefully by the hands of the barbarians. Are you not content?”

“Yes,” replied Xenophon, “all the more content on account of one thing you have not mentioned. For this indeed pleases me in the matter that we Greeks have now found a way by which we may both go to the capital of the Persians and return therefrom. Verily, I sometimes wish we had not been so eager to retreat, but had stopped and made ourselves masters of the country of our enemies. Perhaps we were not strong enough; but, if I can see so far into the future, some one will do this hereafter, and Greece will be avenged of all that she has suffered at the hands of the barbarians.”

“The Master will be glad,” Callias went on after a pause.

The “Master” of course was Socrates. Xenophon looked at the young man with some surprise.

“You seem very confident on this point. He indeed was always somewhat doubtful, and certainly there are great difficulties when you come to look into it a little more closely.”

“I really do not know what you mean,” answered Callias; “you have seen him I suppose, for you have been in Athens several days and know what he thinks.”

For a few moments Xenophon stared at the speaker in utter perplexity. Then a light broke in upon him. “What,” he cried, “you do not know? You have not heard?”

“Know what? Have heard what? You speak in riddles.”

“That he is dead.”

The young man covered his face with his hands. After a few minutes he recovered calmness enough to speak. “No, indeed, I did not know it. I never thought of such a thing. He seemed so full of life and vigor. Yet he must have been an old man, not far from seventy I suppose, for he was more than forty at Delium.[84] Tell me of what did he die?”

“They killed him.”

“Killed him! Who killed him?”

“The people of Athens.”

CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE STORY OF THE TRIAL.

It is not too much to say that the young man was prostrated by the news which he had just heard, for the blow fell upon him with a suddenness that seemed to increase the pain tenfold. He had not been indeed on the same intimate terms of friendship with the great philosopher as the older disciples, Crito, Simmias, Cebes, Phaedo and others had been. But he had regarded him with an affection and admiration that was nothing less than enthusiastic; and he had looked forward to getting his advice about the future conduct of his life with a hopeful eagerness that made disappointment very bitter. To find himself in Athens after all the vicissitudes of fortune through which he had passed, and to learn that the man without whom Athens scarcely seemed itself, was lost to him forever, was a terrible shock. Xenophon’s sorrow had not been less keen, but he had been prepared for his loss by at least a few days’ previous knowledge. The news had reached him while he was on his way, and the first shock was over when he landed. But there had been nothing to break the news to Callias. He felt as a son might feel who returns home after a long absence in full expectation of a father’s greeting, and finds himself an orphan.

So overpowered was the young man that he felt solitude to be absolutely necessary for a time.

“Let me talk to you about it another day,” he said to Xenophon, “at present I am not master of myself.”

Xenophon clasped his friend’s hand with a warm and sympathetic pressure. “I understand,” he said. “Yet, I think it will comfort you when you hear how he bore himself at the last and what he said. Come to me to-morrow; Hippocles will tell you where I live.”

Early the next morning, Callias presented himself at Xenophon’s house, a modest little dwelling, not far from the garden of Academus. He found him in the company of some friends, most of whom were more or less known to the young man as having been members of the circle which had been accustomed to listen to the teaching of the great master. Crito, Menexenus and Æschines, and the two Thebans, Cebes and Simmias, were among the number; and there were others whom he did not recognize. He was greeted with kindness and even distinction. His host had evidently been giving a favorable account of him to the company.

“I thought it best,” Xenophon went on to explain, “to ask some of those who were actually present when these things happened, to meet you. I myself, as you know, was not here; and it is well that you should hear a story so important from eye-witnesses, men who saw his demeanor with their own eyes, and heard his words with their own ears.”

“I thank you,” said Callias. “But tell me first how it was that such things came to pass. It seems incredible to me. I have heard that here and there a man has been found so monstrously wicked that he could kill his own father, though Solon thought it so impossible a crime that he would impose no penalty on it. But that a whole people should be stricken with such madness of wickedness seems to pass all imagination or belief.”

“Ah! you do not understand,” said Simmias; “I am a foreigner you know; and those who look at things from outside often see more of them than they who are within. I had long thought that Socrates was making many enemies in Athens. And verily if he had said such things in my own city, as he said here, I doubt whether he had been suffered to live so long.”

“But he always spoke true things,” said the young man, “and things that were to the real profit of his hearers.”

“Just so,” replied Simmias, “but that they were true and profitable did not make them pleasant, or the speaker of them welcome. What think you would happen to a school-master if his pupils whom he daily corrects and disciplines, sometimes with hard tasks and sometimes with blows, were permitted to judge him, or to a physician if the children whom he seeks to cure of their ailments with nauseous drugs, or, it may be, with the knife or cautery, had him in their power?”

“Truly, it might fare ill with him,” Callias confessed, thinking to himself of certain angry thoughts that in his own boyhood he had cherished against his own teacher and doctor.

“Yes,” said Crito, “Simmias is right, nor did this matter escape the notice of us Athenians, though we did not perceive it so plainly. You, I know, have been much absent from Athens since you grew to manhood, yet you must have seen something of this. You were here, for example, when the admirals were condemned after the battle at Arginusæ. Is it not so?”

“I was here,” said Callias.

“And you know how Socrates set himself against the will of the people, refusing to put to the vote a proposal which he believed to be unconstitutional. Well, he suffered nothing at that time, because their will prevailed in spite of him. Yet we saw that there were many who remembered this against him, and only waited for the opportunity of avenging themselves upon him. Nor was he less constant in opposing the few, when he believed them to be acting wrongfully, than in opposing the many. Listen now, to what he did and said in the days of the Thirty. Were you in Athens at that time?”

“No,” replied Callias, “I left the city, or rather was carried away from it—” at this there was a general laugh, most of the company having heard of the curious story of his abduction—“after the murder of the Generals, and did not set foot in it till the other day.”

“But you know what manner of men these Thirty were.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Well, among other vile things that they did was this, that they put to death many excellent men whom they conceived to be enemies to themselves. Then Socrates, in that free way of his, said, ‘If a herdsman were so to manage his herd that the cattle became fewer and not more, men would consider him a bad herdsman. Still more would they consider him to be a bad ruler of a city who should so manage it that the citizens became not more but less numerous.’ This being reported to Critias, who was a chief among the Thirty, he sent for Socrates, and said to him, ‘There is a law that no man shall teach or use the art of words.’ Socrates said, ‘Mean you by this, the art of words rightly spoken or the art of words wrongly spoken?’ On this, one Charicles, who was a colleague of Critias, and was standing by him, broke in violently: ‘Since, Socrates, you find it so hard to understand an altogether easy thing, take this as a plain rule, that you are not to talk with young men at all.’ ‘Truly I desire to obey the law,’ said Socrates; ‘tell me then what you mean by young men. How young? Up to what age?’ Charicles said, ‘Up to thirty, at which age men are able to take part in affairs of the State.’ ‘But,’ said Socrates, ‘if I desire to buy a thing of a man who is under thirty, is it permitted me to ask what it costs?’ ‘Yes,’ said Charicles, ‘you may say so much.’ ‘And if a man under thirty asks me where Critias lives or Charicles lives, may I answer him?’ ‘Yes, you may answer such questions,’ said Charicles. Then Critias broke in, ‘But you must not talk about blacksmiths and coppersmiths and tanners; and indeed you have worn these themes pretty well threadbare by this time.’ ‘Nor about righteousness and wickedness and such things, I suppose,’ said Socrates. ‘No, indeed, nor about herdsmen. If you speak of herdsmen and of the herd being diminished, take care that it be not diminished by one more, even by you.’”

Callias listened with delight. “Oh, how like him!” he cried.

“Yes,” replied Crito, “like him indeed, and truly admirable. But such things do not please those to whom they are spoken, especially do not please men in power. Then consider the number of empty-headed, ignorant fellows whose vanity and conceit he exposed every day by his pitiless questioning. There was not a pretentious fool in Athens whom he had not at some time or other held up to ridicule.”

“And they deserved it richly,” said Callias.

“Yes,” replied the other, “but I have never found that a man liked punishment more because he knew that he deserved it. So you see that the city was full of his enemies. And there were some honest men who really believed that he did harm by his teaching. What with knaves whom he opposed with all his might, and fools whom he exposed, and right-minded, wrong-headed men whom he could not help offending, there was a very formidable host arrayed against him.”

“I see,” said Callias. “But they must have had some pretext, they could not put any of the things you have been speaking about into a formal charge. Tell me, what did they accuse him of?”

“Oh, it was the old story, treason and blasphemy. Men who would have sold their country for a quarter of a talent, men who believe in no other gods than their own lusts, were loud in proclaiming that Socrates had ruined the State, and was teaching the young not to worship the gods.”

“Good heavens!” cried Callias, “how dared they utter such lies? A better patriot, a truer worshipper of the gods never lived.”

“You are right; yet, these were the charges against him, these and other things equally absurd, as that he taught the young to despise their fathers and to think meanly of all their relatives and friends, as if he himself were the only friend that was worth having; that he perverted words from Homer and the old poets to a bad sense, making them mean that no work was disgraceful so that it brought in gain, and that it was lawful for kings and nobles to beat the common people[85]—these were the charges that they brought against him. And then they added the accusation that Critias and Alcibiades who had done great harm to Athens had both been disciples of his.”

“But tell me,” said Callias, “how did these liars and villains proceed? And first, who were they? Who took the lead?”

“One Meletus was the chief.”

“What! The foolish poet whom every one laughs at?”

“Yes, the very same. He represented the poets. There was one Lycon, of whom, I suppose, you never heard, who represented the public speakers, and Anytus, one of those who came back with Thrasybulus. He had been badly treated, it is true, banished without any good reason, but only a madman could have supposed that Socrates had had anything to do with it. These three brought the indictment. It was in these words:—

“‘Socrates is guilty of a crime. He does not acknowledge the gods whom the State acknowledges, and he introduces other and new gods. He is also guilty of corrupting the youth. The penalty—death.’”

“But such charges hardly needed a defence. Is it possible that a number of Athenian judges found a verdict of guilty?”

“It was so indeed,” said Crito, “and I am not sure that you will be altogether surprised when you hear what the accused said in his own defence. I am an old man now, and have watched the courts now for many years; and I have seen not a few men who might have escaped but for what they said in their own behalf. Now I can’t tell you all that Socrates said, or even the greater part of it. Our friend Plato is going to set it forth regularly in a book that he is writing. But I can tell you enough to make you see what I mean.

“After he had dealt with various other matters—those calumnies for instance, that Aristophanes set afloat about him now more than thirty years ago—he went on: ‘Some years ago, men of Athens, a certain Chaerephon—you know him; some of you went into exile along with him—having been my companion from my youth up, ventured to go to Delphi, and to propose this question to the god: “Is there any man wiser than Socrates?” The Pythia[86] made reply, “There is none wiser than he.” When I heard this I said to myself, what can the god mean? He cannot tell a lie, yet I am not conscious to myself of possessing any kind of wisdom. So at last I devised this plan. I went to one of the men who are reckoned wise, thinking thus to test the oracle, so that I might say, here at least is one that is wiser than I. Now when I came to examine this man—he was one of our statesmen, men of Athens,—I found that though he was accounted wise by many and especially by himself, he was not wise in reality. But in vain I tried to convince him, and I even became odious to him and to many others who were present and admired him. Then I thought to myself, I am at least wiser than this man, for he not knowing, thinks that he knows, while I at least know that I do not know. After this, I went to the poets, tragic, lyrical, and others, and taking to them poems which they had written, asked of them what they meant thereby. And I found that almost always those that had not written these things knew better what they meant than the authors. So I concluded that these also were not wise. And at last I went to the artisans, knowing that they were acquainted with many things of which I knew nothing. And this, indeed, I found to be the case. But I also found that, because they had mastered their own art, each thought himself very wise in other things, things, too, of the greatest importance, and that this self-conceit spoilt their wisdom. These also seemed to be less wise than myself. But all the time that I was doing this I knew that I was making myself hateful to many, yet, because I was bound to obey the god as best I could, I did not desist.