"Taunting you?" said Philippides; "I am

amazed."

"Your comrades made their escape," said Archidamus; " and though an enemy I must say that it was admirably contrived. One only fell into our hands his body shall be given to you as you ask."

:

And the two hundred and ten safely reached Athens; and, in gratitude for their faithfulness, were enrolled among its free citizens.

It was a calm moonlight night in Spring. The crags and peaks of Mount Citharon sometimes stood gloriously forth in the splendour of the full moon: sometimes hid themselves in the dark shadow of oak, laurel-grove, or cork-tree. There was not a sound to be heard save the distant rushing of the mountain torrent; and the occasional hooting of the owl from the darker recesses of the ravines. The dew lay thick on the tender grass that skirted the mountain path: cactus and foxglove and wild rose were clad in its thick white vest. It was three hours past midnight, and in more northern climes day would long ago have broken; but here all was still perfectly dark, and

there was not one streak of silver in the eastern sky.

On the mountain path that leads from Attica to Thebes, some half-mile on the southern side before the road attains the summit of the pass, two men on horseback might have been seen slowly and cautiously ascending, one behind the other. They wore the appearance of hunters, and were followed by three or four dogs yet, on a second glance you would have noticed that they were much more completely armed than there ever could be occasion for hunters to be; that their horses, animals of great strength, though now wearied and jaded out, were much better qualified for the field of battle than for the chase, and that the faces of the riders wore an expression of stern fixed resolution, not unmixed with something very much like despair, as far as possible removed from the frank and jovial countenance of the hunter, at the daybreak of a long day of sport. They pursued the mountain path, which wound along the edge of the precipice, for some little way, till it passed a little piece of table land, in which, from under the shadow of a high rock, a clear streamlet sprang forth, and where the tall rank grass amply testified the richness of the soil.

"Excellent Pelopidas," said the hindermost

rider, "if I do not give my horse some rest, he will never see Thebes to-day. He has tasted nothing since we left Eleusis, and I fear me he cannot hold out without food half-an-hour longer. Pray you let us rest here awhile: it will be none the worse for your steed, too, though he holds out better than mine."

"Be it as you wish, worthy Mellon," said Pelopidas, reining in his horse and alighting. "Take off their bits, and let them make a good meal. And we ourselves may as well share the flask of Lesbian that Theopompus gave us at Athens. These night dews strike cold."

"They do," returned Mellon; "it is cold work without, and cold within, too. Never did exiles devise a more desperate scheme than ours ; and never, I fear, was any plan carried into execution with less hope of success."

"I say not that," replied Pelopidas. "You know not how strong is the popular feeling at Thebes against Sparta, because you were not in the city when Phoebidas so treacherously seized our citadel. Never was there so flagrant a violation of all rights of nations, of all law and justice, of all fear of an avenging Erinnys, as when he, a Lacedæmonian officer, the general of a nation professedly at peace with us, seized our Cadmea

without pretence of reason, and from allies converted us into slaves. Why, even at Sparta itself the very dread of shame obliged them to disclaim that action. They punished the officer for the crime; but the gain of the crime they retained, and retain it still."

"Even so," said Mellon, "and they have ruled with an iron rod ever since. What hope is there that we, exiles at Athens for so long, can, by our return, bring any solid advantage to this conspiracy of the popular party ?"

"Things are not so quiet," answered Pelopidas, as you deem. I am told that the popular feeling is strongly in favour of some attempt; that the Boeotian Polemarchs in the Prytaneum, and the Lacedæmonian Harmosts in the citadel, are alike hateful; and that there needs but the leaders, and the troops will speedily be found."

"How comes it to pass, then," inquired Mellon, "that your great and good friend Epaminondas will not be of us?"

"I cannot tell," answered the other; "but from no motive of fear, of that be certain. I am in hopes that I shall prevail upon him to join us, when I see him: words of mouth are wont to be much more persuasive than letters."

"Hark!" cried Mellon : "heard you nothing

from the north?"